It is, I think, necessary to offer some explanation of the part I have taken in the selection and arrangement of the following Letters for the press.
It was in compliance with the earnest desire and repeated solicitations of Mrs. Sydney Smith, that I undertook to edit the letters of her lamented husband, and to write a short Memoir, the materials for which she was to furnish. Flattered as I could not but be by her request, I was too sensible of my own incompetence to such a work to engage in it willingly; and it was not till I found that no more competent editor (or none whom she esteemed so) was willing and able to undertake the task, that I yielded to the affecting importunities of my revered friend.
Not long after I received the materials for the projected work, a dangerous
illness left me in so shattered a state of health, that every exertion of mind or body was
forbidden, and indeed impossible, to me; and I begged Mrs.
Smith to receive back the papers she had
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I entirely concur with Lady Holland
in the opinion, that the conditions which alone can justify the publication of private
letters are, “that they shall neither hurt the living, injure the dead, nor impair
the reputation of the writer.” Almost every contributor to this selection
will therefore find that I have largely used my power (or rather fulfilled my duty) as
Editor, and have omitted whatever I thought at variance with any
| PREFACE. | vii |
Not only is the tacit compact which used to protect the intercourses of society now continually violated by the unauthorized publication of conversations and letters, but there are not wanting pretended champions of truth, who assert the claims of the public to be put in possession of all the transient impressions, the secret thoughts, the personal concerns, which an eminent man may have imparted to his intimate friends. Such claims are too preposterous to be discussed. They deserve only to be met by a peremptory rejection. Without the most absolute power of suppressing whatever I thought it inexpedient to publish, I could not have meddled with anything so sacred as private letters. I am persuaded that no person of honour or delicacy will regret the amusement which might perhaps have been purchased by treachery to the dead, or indifference to the feelings of the living.
In insisting, however, on the canons which ought to govern all editors of
letters, let me, by no means, be understood to apply them specially to the letters of
Sydney Smith. Few editors to whom so large a
mass of private papers have been submitted, can say, as I can, with the strictest truth,
that I have found nothing for which those who loved and honoured the writer need to blush.
My opinion of Sydney Smith’s great and noble qualities—his
courage and magnanimity, his large humanity, his scorn of all meanness
| viii | PREFACE. |
So many sketches of Mr. Sydney Smith’s character have been written, and its more intimate parts are so vividly portrayed in his daughter’s Memoir, that it would be worse than superfluous for me to attempt to add to them. I cannot however close a work which has long and anxiously engaged my attention, without adverting to a few of the points which have struck me during its progress.
If the interest of a life were proportioned to the traces it leaves behind, few would afford richer materials to the biographer than that of Sydney Smith. But the field on which the champions of truth have to do battle is often obscure, the conflict doubtful, the victory unperceived till long after the combatants have ceased to exist. The story of their lives is marked by none of the striking incidents which mark the career of men of action.
To understand the full significance of such a life as Sydney Smith’s, we must ask ourselves what he
| PREFACE. | ix |
This was his own view of his vocation. In order to estimate his success in
it, to trace the operation of his mind on the public mind (and hence on the public affairs)
of England, we ought to present a complete and accurate view of its state at the beginning
of his career. Such a retrospect is out of the question here. But we may confidently affirm
that every day more clearly shows the depth of stolid prejudices, stupid
| x | PREFACE. |
Many of the giants Sydney Smith combated are not only slain, but almost forgotten; and thus the very completeness of his success tends to efface from the minds of the present generation the extent of their obligations to him. But it ought never to be forgotten that, at the time he buckled on his armour, all these had nearly undisputed possession of the field. To combat them was then a service of real danger. The men who now float on the easy and rapid current of reform are apt, in the intoxication of their own facile triumphs, to forget the difficulties and the perils which their predecessors had to encounter. Those who now represent the most conservative opinions would then have passed for rash and dangerous innovators; reforms long since accomplished would then have been regarded as visionary or dangerous. The French Revolution—the fruitful parent of evils, of which no eye can yet discern the termination—had then utterly disordered the minds of men; agitated by the wildest expectations of good, or terrors of evil, to result from that explosion of undisciplined popular will. It was in the midst of this universal frenzy and panic, that Sydney Smith’s clear and sound understanding, neither dazzled by visions of impracticable good, nor alarmed by shadows of imaginary evil, seized upon those principles of which he was through life the dauntless and inflexible advocate.
| PREFACE. | xi |
Much has been said of the extraordinary faculties which he brought to this undertaking; yet the power which he exercised over the public mind, when his own powers were roused, has hardly been sufficiently insisted on. What other private gentleman of our day, unconnected with Parliament, without office, rank, or fortune, has been able, by a few pages from his pen, to electrify the country as he did by the publication of ‘Peter Plymley’s Letters’? Or to excite the feelings of two nations, as he did, by his letters to the Americans? Or to fight, single-handed, against the combined power of the Ministry and of the dignitaries of the Church, a battle in which he carried public opinion along with him? If such were the effects produced by one in so obscure a situation, what might he not have effected if placed in a position to exercise a more direct influence on the councils and affairs of the country?
He was a giant when roused, and the goad which roused him was Injustice.
He was clear from envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness, and incapable of any littleness.
He was ever ready to defend the weak. He showed as much zeal in saving a poor village boy,
as in aiding a Minister of State. His hatred of every form of cant and affectation was only
equalled by his prompt and unerring detection of it. Without admitting that the vice of
hypocrisy is peculiarly English, we must confess that some of the forms which simulated
virtue assumes in this country are not only,
| xii | PREFACE. |
It must also be constantly borne in mind that Mr. Sydney Smith did not regard Christianity as an ascetic religion, but as a religion of peace, and joy, and comfort. We say this, not in justification of the view, which it would be wholly out of place to discuss here, but of the consistency of him who held it. It was in perfect conformity with this belief, that he encouraged every social pleasure and every taste for innocent enjoyment. These things he regarded not as lamentable concessions to the demands of a sinful nature, but as praiseworthy endeavours to mitigate the evils and sufferings of humanity, and hence in perfect harmony with the character and designs of a benevolent Creator.
It is needless to insist on the generous audacity with which he formed and held his opinions, or the gallantry with which he threw himself into the breach to assert an unpopular truth, which others were “too timid to express for themselves.”* All this is familiar. But we see also that the boldness and vigour with
* See letter to Mr. Bedford, of Bristol, January 13, 1829. |
| PREFACE. | xiii |
When we consider the tremendous weapons with which he came armed into the world,—what powers he possessed of inflicting pain, and of adorning falsehood or immorality with the dazzling gems of his wit, we cannot withhold from him a feeling of gratitude for the generous and indulgent temper which led him to spare the weak, and for the high principle and taste which kept the precious talent entrusted to him pure, bright, and untainted. Never was wit so little addressed to the malignant, base, or impure passions of mankind. To this his Letters, poured forth out of the abundance of his fearless heart and high spirits, bear ample evidence.
Lastly, I have been much struck with the perfect arrangement and symmetry
of his life. He is never the sport of circumstances; but throughout the battle of life we
find him determined to do his duty in whatever circumstances it shall please God to place
him. This determination he carried into the most
| xiv | PREFACE. |
This is no place for a dissertation on his literary merits. Yet I can hardly omit to remark how entirely they bore the stamp of his character. Never was the saying, “le style c’est l’homme,” more applicable. Prompt, fearless, natural and easy, going straightforward to the object, there is no laborious research or timorous hesitation as to the words in which falsehood shall be exposed, or truth uttered. He was little indebted to books. His vigorous mind and fertile imagination supplied him with all he wanted; and the manliness of his character gave force and freedom to all he wrote.
The following remarks on Mr. Sydney
Smith’s style, by Sir Henry
Holland, which were given to me by Mrs. Sydney
Smith, are so just and discriminating, that I have begged permission to
print them. They were called forth by these words, which I had quoted from the letter of a
friend:—“If Mr. Sydney Smith had not been the greatest
and most brilliant of wits, he would have been the most remarkable man of his time for
a sound and vigorous understanding and great reasoning powers; and if he had not been
dis-
| PREFACE. | xv |
“Mrs. Austin’s friend,” says Sir Henry Holland, “has admirably denoted the three eminent peculiarities of Mr. Sydney Smith’s writings—his vigorous sense, his wit, and the pure and masculine English of his style. The latter quality has scarcely been sufficiently noticed in comments on his works. Those higher qualities of reason and of humour have tended, it may be, to keep it out of sight.
“I should be inclined to note two other peculiarities of his writings, which have not been enough dwelt upon. One of these is, the suddenness with which he enters on his subject. No distant approaches by preface or dissertation. He plunges at once into his argument, and never loiters or lingers in it when he has compassed his conclusion. In no case does he drain a subject to the dregs, but always leaves his readers lamenting that he has come to an end.
“The other peculiarity (akin to the former, and often exceedingly happy in its effect) is what may be termed the unexpectedness of his manner of writing. He does not bind himself down to any servile rules of composition, or formal methods of argument. You always feel him to be a free and unshackled inquirer. He passes abruptly from one part of his subject to another, and, as suddenly, from exquisite wit to the gravest and most profound reason.
“He was in truth equally fearless in the manner
| xvi | PREFACE. |
High as Mr. Sydney Smith’s reputation stood during his life, it has unquestionably risen since his death. If not more wide-spread, it is more just, and more worthy of his great moral and intellectual qualities. Still more perfect justice will, doubtless, be rendered to him by posterity. Admiration of his wit will become subordinate, as it ought to be, to respect for the purposes to which it was applied, and for the good sense by which it was guided.
Already this appreciation has begun. And it is worthy of remark that the hasty and unregarded productions of his pen which were only saved from the flames by the pious hand of affection, have tended greatly to raise his reputation as a sound and original thinker.
There is one other point upon which I feel bound by gratitude to touch.
Within our times, no man has done so much to obtain for women toleration for the exercise
of their understandings and for the culture of their talents, as Sydney Smith. Others have uttered louder complaints, and
have put forward loftier claims, on their behalf. But in this, as in all his demands for
reform, Sydney Smith kept within the bounds of the safe and the
possible. To those who knew him it is unnecessary to declare that he had no desire to
convert women into pedants, to divest them of any of the attributes or attractions of their
sex, or to engage in
| PREFACE. | xvii |
What he asked for women was, opportunity and encouragement to make themselves the intelligent companions of men of sense; or to furnish themselves with ideas and pursuits which might give interest to lives otherwise insipid and barren. These demands, consonant with nature and reason, he urged in a way to disarm opposition and vanquish prejudice. Sydney Smith was too completely above cant and imposture to deny the influence and the value of youth and beauty. But he laboured to induce women to acquire some substitutes for beauty, some resources against old-age, some power of commanding attention and respect when the victorious charms of youth have fled. A new era in the moral and intellectual condition of women dates from his Lectures at the Royal Institution. And though it is to be regretted that a task which might have worthily employed the most vigorous pen has devolved on female hands, it is by them, perhaps, that this tribute of respect, affection, and gratitude is most fitly paid.
P.S.—I have generally omitted not only the usual formulæ at the conclusion
of letters, but many continually recurring expressions of kindness and affection, friendly
greetings, domestic news sought and
| xviii | PREFACE. |
It is not pretended that the following Letters are of equal merit and importance. They are, on the contrary, very unequal. The great object I had in view in their selection was, to present a true and complete picture of the writer under his various aspects; to show that the formidable critic, the admired wit, the earnest and intrepid champion of truth and freedom, the man in whom honour, sincerity, and principle were paramount, was also full of kindly affections and generous indulgence; and did not think it a waste of time and wit to delight the weaker part of mankind—women and children—with his playful sallies. The Letters are intended as illustrations of a thoroughly genuine, unaffected, and many-sided character; and they bear the impress of the peculiar mood of the writer’s mind, the peculiar circumstances by which he was surrounded, or the peculiar character and position of the person to whom they are addressed.
This was the view taken by Mrs. Sydney
Smith. “Enough there is,” she says, in a letter to me,
“to
| PREFACE. | xix |
If, in my ignorance of facts or persons referred to in these Letters, I have suffered any allusion to pass which can give the slightest pain, I can only say it is not alone unintentional, but completely at variance with my intentions. Whatever be the faults of the selection, I beg that it may be distinctly understood that they are to be imputed to me; and that no portion of the responsibility rests on Lady Holland. She has been so good as to continue to me the confidence which her mother was pleased to repose in me, and my choice (out of the materials furnished to me) has been free.
Lady Holland has most appropriately dedicated her
Memoir to the memory of her Mother. Be it permitted to me to add my respectful tribute to
that faithful and devoted spirit which has inspired and directed my humble labours. To me,
the foregoing selection will always appear her work. But for her entire confidence in the
claims of him she had loved and revered through life,—a confidence which no discouragements
could shake,—this volume would probably never have existed. It was she who collected,
transcribed, and arranged the mass of letters out of
| xx | PREFACE. |
Not that I was blind to the difficulties. Mr. Sydney Smith had long enjoyed a reputation perfectly unmatched for a gift the most dazzling, and the most evanescent of all intellectual gifts. Those who had heard him talk, felt with a sort of despair, how pale a shadow of the reality, any description of him must inevitably be. Many, if not most, of his surviving friends and associates looked coldly on the project; and it seemed to be the general opinion that there was “nothing to tell,” and that any attempt to draw an enduring portrait of the most brilliant of conversers would be a failure.
But all this was no answer to one who rested his claims to the admiration
and respect of mankind on far higher qualities. To convey to others her own conviction of
his eminent virtues, was the one remaining deep and earnest purpose of her life. Nothing
could be more affecting and more venerable than this resolute struggle of a loving heart
with the difficulties in the way of the accomplishment of its pious wishes. Her pride in
her husband was only equalled by her humility about herself; and nothing could persuade her
that she was competent to do what she so intensely longed to see done. I may, I hope, be
excused for quoting a few sentences from
| PREFACE. | xxi |
I am encouraged to do this by some words from one of the few surviving early friends of Mr. Sydney Smith; one whose opinion is entitled to the utmost deference—Lord Murray. “If,” he says, “you could add anything to what you have already said in your Preface* respecting Mrs. Sydney Smith’s urgent desire that some account of her husband’s life should be written, you would no way exceed the truth; for it was a matter constantly weighing on her mind during the last years of her life. Lady Holland must therefore have felt herself bound, as a matter of duty, to do what she has done.”
In December, 1845, Mrs. Sydney Smith wrote to me:—“Most persons, of whose good sense and discretion I have a high estimate, think that any little Memoir, illustrated by genuine letters, it would be yet too soon to publish. I confess it is foregoing the last gratification that remains to me—the hope of seeing that published of him, which to me far exceeds all the brilliancy of head that the world took cognizance of, but which I least valued; well knowing what the world knew not, the perfection of his heart, and his fearless love of truth. If delayed, I can never hope to see it; but I am not so selfish as for an instant to
* To the unpublished edition. |
| xxii | PREFACE. |
In March, 1846, she writes:—“I shall never see the completion of the Memoir it would have been such an unspeakable satisfaction to me to see perfected. Some, the best judging perhaps, say, it is too soon, as the letters and incidents relate to many living persons. I have therefore yielded up the great and now only remaining delight I could have felt, at the suggestion of the wiser and more fastidious of my friends; in the meantime I go on collecting.”
In June, 1849, I received the following letter:—
“I hardly know how to make my request, so sensible am I to the liberty I am about to take with you; but to waste no more of your time in words, I will at once state my earnest desire.
“Much more that is excellent of my dear husband is deserving of notice than is derivable from his ‘Works;’ yet who will record it? Of his great talents, he has himself taken care; of these, no one doubts. Of the far more admirable qualities of his mind and heart, the world knows nothing! His playfellows are almost all gone. Who that well knew him, and is capable of appreciating him, will undertake the task? * * * * *
| PREFACE. | xxiii |
“I prefer writing, rather than saying my wishes to you, because it will be less painful to you to write ‘No’ than to speak it, should ray anxious desire prove objectionable to you.”
After repeated endeavours on my part to induce Mrs. Sydney to seek some more competent Editor, I received a letter containing these words:—“My days, I suspect, cannot be many, and thence my urgency. Pray attribute it to the real motive—the desire to see that done which shall fill up the measure of my wishes. I have arranged his letters by the years and months, so that he indirectly tells the incidents of his own life. But now comes my own incapacity. I think every word he ever wrote so precious, that my better judgment is blinded, and I should not be able to erase a line or a thought. Here I greatly want one on whose just perception, on whose right feelings of affectionate regard not only for him, but for his fame, I can implicitly rely.”
But though she speaks of her incapacity, the following passage from a subsequent letter shows what a just and distinct conception she had formed of what ought to be attempted:—
“An eventless life must be made up of character, of comments by
friends, of a narrative of the immense difficulties through which, without interest,
without connections, with the heavy weight of poverty on his shoulders, he dared
bravely and honestly, and
| xxiv | PREFACE. |
“Such mixed materials cannot come up to the magnitude of his deserts; yet if it be the only thing that remains to his survivors to do, that the memory of so much that was admirable and affectionate in private life, as well as great and noble in the wider range of human interests (which he ever strenuously advocated) may not perish, it is surely expedient that it should be done. It is only in the fullness and freshness of familiar correspondence that are illustrated the genuine feelings and character.”
Such were the influences under which I undertook my task. Fortunately for the public, ill health prevented my attempting the more important part of it, which has thus fallen into the only hands competent to do it justice. The humbler portion which I retained has been executed with a constant reference to the wishes and opinions of her from whom I received my commission, and to whom, though departed, I have never ceased to consider myself responsible.
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