Mark Rutherfords Deliverance | Page 5

Politics had not
become what they will one day become, a matter of life or death,
dividing men with really private love and hate. What a mockery
controversy was in the House! How often I have seen members, who

were furious at one another across the floor, quietly shaking hands
outside, and inviting one another to dinner! I have heard them say that
we ought to congratulate ourselves that parliamentary differences do
not in this country breed personal animosities. To me this seemed
anything but a subject of congratulation. Men who are totally at
variance ought not to be friends, and if Radical and Tory are not totally,
but merely superficially at variance, so much the worse for their
Radicalism and Toryism.
It is possible, and even probable, that the public fury and the
subsequent amity were equally absurd. Most of us have no real loves
and no real hatreds. Blessed is love, less blessed is hatred, but thrice
accursed is that indifference which is neither one nor the other, the
muddy mess which men call friendship.
M'Kay--for that was his name--lived, as I have said, in Goodge Street,
where he had unfurnished apartments. I often spent part of the Sunday
with him, and I may forestall obvious criticism by saying that I do not
pretend for a moment to defend myself from inconsistency in
denouncing members of Parliament for their duplicity, M'Kay and
myself being also guilty of something very much like it. But there was
this difference between us and our parliamentary friends, that we
always divested ourselves of all hypocrisy when we were alone. We
then dropped the stage costume which members continued to wear in
the streets and at the dinner- table, and in which some of them even
slept and said their prayers.
London Sundays to persons who are not attached to any religious
community, and have no money to spend, are rather dreary. We tried
several ways of getting through the morning. If we heard that there was
a preacher with a reputation, we went to hear him. As a rule, however,
we got no good in that way. Once we came to a chapel where there was
a minister supposed to be one of the greatest orators of the day. We had
much difficulty in finding standing room. Just as we entered we heard
him say, "My friends, I appeal to those of you who are parents. You
know that if you say to a child 'go,' he goeth, and if you say 'come,' he
cometh. So the Lord"--But at this point M'Kay, who had children,
nudged me to come out; and out we went. Why does this little scene
remain with me? I can hardly say, but here it stands. It is remembered,
not so much by reason of the preacher as by reason of the apparent

acquiescence and admiration of the audience, who seemed to be
perfectly willing to take over an experience from their pastor--if indeed
it was really an experience-- which was not their own. Our usual haunts
on Sunday were naturally the parks and Kensington Gardens; but
artificial limited enclosures are apt to become wearisome after a time,
and we longed for a little more freedom if a little less trim. So we
would stroll towards Hampstead or Highgate, the only drawback to
these regions being the squalid, ragged, half town, half suburb, through
which it was necessary to pass. The skirts of London when the air is
filled with north-easterly soot, grit, and filth, are cheerless, and the least
cheerful part of the scene is the inability of the vast wandering masses
of people to find any way of amusing themselves. At the corner of one
of the fields in Kentish Town, just about to be devoured, stood a
public-house, and opposite the door was generally encamped a man
who sold nothing but Brazil nuts. Swarms of people lazily wandered
past him, most of them waiting for the public-house to open. Brazil
nuts on a cold black Sunday morning are not exhilarating, but the
costermonger found many customers who bought his nuts, and ate them,
merely because they had nothing better to do. We went two or three
times to a freethinking hall, where we were entertained with
demonstrations of the immorality of the patriarchs and Jewish heroes,
and arguments to prove that the personal existence of the devil was a
myth, the audience breaking out into uproarious laughter at comical
delineations of Noah and Jonah. One morning we found the place
completely packed. A "celebrated Christian," as he was described to us,
having heard of the hall, had volunteered to engage in debate on the
claims of the Old Testament to Divine authority. He turned out to be a
preacher whom we knew quite well. He was introduced