Those brought up in the world of evangelical Christianity
are likely to remember being frightened when the Book of Revelation was
discussed, especially the sections describing what is going to happen at the
end of the World. There was always the thought that the events described were
imminent and that “fire and brimstone” awaited unbelievers.
Philip Henry Gosse was an evangelical Christian who led the congregation
of Brethren who met in Fore Street in St Marychurch Torquay during the second
half of the Nineteenth Century. Every Sunday, he preached a sermon and we have
a record of their contents as they were published in one of his last books, The Mysteries of God [1]. His preaching
on the end of the World would certainly have produced some discomfort in those
listening to him.
In the chapter entitled “Things coming on the Earth” [1] we
read:
It is probable that, at the
instant of Rapture of the Church, the whole of Papal Europe will be engulfed by
the yawning of the earth bursting into a vast Volcano, never to be quenched.
Perhaps one effect of this opening of the bowels of the globe will be to fill
up the depression of the Mediterranean; and so to accomplish that physical
change announced (Rev. xxi. 1),- “the sea was no more.”
The inference is that the destruction likely to result from this volcanic activity is to be aimed at Roman Catholicism, long a subject of
loathing by Gosse and other members of evangelical, non-conformist Christian
sects (and obviously not mentioned by name in the Bible, as the book was
written in the earliest days of Christianity). We are not told about the extent
of other eruptions and explosions, although it was well known in the Nineteenth
Century that other areas of the World have considerable volcanic activity. The
focus on the Mediterranean not only serves to allow focus on the fate of Roman
Catholics, but it also leads on to the events that are set to occur in, and
around, Jerusalem.
Most important is the descent of the New Jerusalem,
described by Gosse as [1]:
..the sudden coming into sight,
from heavenly space, of a glittering object, unknown to astronomers, self-luminous,
above the brightness of the sun, steadily approaching, till it enters our
atmosphere, and comes into close proximity to, if not actual contact with, this
globe; transcends all human experience, and defies all natural philosophy. But
the epoch is an epoch of miracle: the Almighty God is henceforth visibly
interposing; and is not bound by natural laws, which He made, and which He can
interrupt, or counteract, at his pleasure. The suspension of a non-rotating
cubic mass, 1500 miles every way, in our atmosphere or near it, composed of
such materials as gold and gems, and inhabited by millions of human beings, in
bodies, however ethereal, would surely so augment and throw out of bearing, the
specific gravity of the earth, so alter its relations to the sun, to the moon,
even to all the other planets, as to be inconceivable and impossible!..
..I suppose this cube to face the
earth cornerwise: to consist, indeed of two pyramids, placed base to base, of
which the upper will be the city-proper, and the lower will consist of the
twelve glorious foundations. These foundations are the most remarkable feature
in the whole material structure; and they form its distinctive character; “the
City that hath the foundations.”
This extraordinary description is based on Revelation
Chapter 21, with Gosse adding his own exegesis. Questions arise from this
description, of course, and contemporary readers must ask where the New
Jerusalem (Heaven) is now and whether it currently has a physical form, as it is going to at the end of the World. I’m sure that these questions also occurred to
Gosse, but he was happy to admit there were sections of the Bible that he could
not understand.
The attention to detail in The Mysteries of God is typical of the man and it replicates the
pattern of Gosse's investigations on seashore life and on many other aspects of
Natural History. His books on these subjects were very popular and they contain
many references to God as Creator. Like many contemporary readers, I do not pay
much attention to these interjections and they do not impact the rest of his
wonderful writing. Gosse was a profound Creationist and proposed his own theory
to explain the presence of the rock strata, with their associated fossils, that
came into existence over the few days stated in Genesis [2]. It is fitting that
he had something to say about both the beginning, and the end, of the World.
To Henry Gosse, religious belief was paramount and he always
wished to be able to ascend to Heaven in the Rapture [3] and not have to go
through the process of death. Unfortunately, he didn’t get his wish and died
four years after The Mysteries of God
was published.
[1] Philip Henry Gosse (1884) The Mysteries of God. London, Hodder and Stoughton.
[2] Philip Henry Gosse (1857) Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot. London, John Van
Voorst.
[3] Ann Thwaite (2002) Glimpses
of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse 1810-1888. London, Faber
and Faber.
William
Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), the pioneer of photography and refiner of the
calotype process, was a mathematician and keen archaeologist who lived at
Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. His family home is now owned by the National Trust
and it is easy for a visitor to imagine life in the old house, and the
adjoining village, during the Nineteenth Century.
During a visit
to Lacock Abbey, I had a chance to look through the library (only at the spines
of the books, as they were wired in for security purposes - see above) and was
drawn to a copy of Foot-prints of the
Creator: or the Asterolepis of Stromness by Hugh Miller. I have no idea
whether Fox Talbot read this copy, but I feel sure that he did. The book was an
important contribution to debates about apparent conflicts between the literal
truth of the Bible and mounting support for the reality of geological time
scales and for the evolution of organisms, especially humans. Foot-prints of the Creator was written
as a response to the ideas put forward in Vestiges
of the Natural History of Creation published, anonymously, by Robert
Chambers in 1844. That book, very popular at the time, described the evolution
of both the physical and biological world, using, in part, ideas that had
earlier been propounded by Lamarck. Of the development hypothesis, Miller
wrote:
If, during a period so vast as to be scarce
expressible by figures, the creatures now human have been rising, by almost infinitesimals, from compound
microscopic cells,-minute vital globules within globules, begot by electricity
on dead gelatinous matter,-until they have at length become the men and women
whom we see around us, we must hold either the monstrous belief, that all the
vitalities, whether those of monads or of mites, of fishes or of reptiles, of
birds or of beasts, are individually and inherently immortal and undying, or
that human souls are not so. [1]
It was
this latter point that was so important to Miller who, as a committed
Christian, could not countenance the idea of humans without souls. There was no
conflict, however, with the view of geological time scales, and Miller
described periods of creation and extinction in The Testimony of the Rocks; or, Geology in its Bearings on the Two
Theologies, Natural and Revealed. The book was published posthumously and
is based on several lectures, with the addition of further chapters “written
mainly to complete and impart a character of unity to the volume of which they
form a part” [2]. In the preliminary section entitled “To the Reader”, Miller
writes:
It will be seen that I adopt.. ..[a] scheme of
reconciliation between Geologic and Mosaic Records which accepts the six days
of creation as vastly extended periods; and I have been reminded by a somewhat
captious critic that I once held a very different view, and twitted with what
he terms inconsistency. I certainly did once believe.. .. that the six days
were simply natural days of twenty-four hours each,-that they had compressed
the entire work of the existing creation,-and that the latest of the geological
ages was separated by a great chaotic gap from our own. [2]
He
continues by stating that:
..the conclusion at which I have been compelled to
arrive is, that for many long ages ere man was ushered into being, not a few of
his humbler contemporaries of the fields and woods enjoyed life in their
present haunts, and that for thousands of years anterior to even their
appearance, many of the existing molluscs lived in our seas. That day during
which the present creation came into being, and in which God, when he had made
“the beast of the earth after his kind, and the cattle after their kind,” at
length terminated the work by moulding a creature in his own image, to whom he
gave dominion over them all, was not a brief period of a few hours’ duration,
but extended over mayhap millenniums of centuries. No blank chaotic gap of
death and darkness separated the creation to which man belongs from that of the
old extinct elephant, hippopotamus, and hyæna; for
familiar animals such as the red deer, the roe, the fox, the wild cat, and the
badger, lived throughout the period which connected their times with our own;
and so I have been compelled to hold, that the days of creation were not
natural, but prophetic days, and stretched far back into the bygone eternity.
After in some degree committing myself to the other side, I have yielded to the
evidence which I found it impossible to resist; and such in this matter has
been my inconsistency,-an inconsistency of which the world has furnished examples
in all the sciences, and will, I trust, in its onward progress, continue to
furnish many more. [2]
Although
unable to accept ideas about the evolution of humans, Miller had changed his
mind about the literal description of the days of Creation in The Bible. He
made extensive studies of the fossils in his native Scotland, and elsewhere,
and found geological time periods the only possible explanation for the
changing flora and fauna in different rock strata.
Hugh
Miller (1802-1856) was brought up in Cromarty and left school at around
sixteen. His father had died when he was five and his maternal uncles were an
important influence on the young Hugh, encouraging his fascination with the
natural world and also with folklore and legend, interests that remained with
him for the rest of his life. He had always been a keen reader and liked to
write, but he needed a job and so became a stonemason, travelling to wherever
there was work. His skills with hammer and chisel aided his developing interest
in geology and he was expert in breaking open nodules that contained fossils.
As described in the excellent biography Hugh
Miller: Stonemason, Geologist, Writer by Michael A. Taylor [3], Miller
achieved fame as an expert on fossil fish from sandstones and this despite his
natural shyness and difficulty in enjoying formal meetings. After a spell
working in a bank, he was appointed the editor of an Edinburgh newspaper, The Witness, that enabled him to write
on a number of subjects and he was involved in debates on the future of the
Free Church in Scotland, holding strongly Calvinist views. It is perhaps
surprising, then, that Hugh Miller ended his own life and the reasons for his
suicide are not clear, although he suffered from severe health issues caused by
silicosis, acquired when he worked in an atmosphere thick with stone dust in
his younger years. To the end, he was a committed Christian and his faith was not
challenged by the difference between the “geologic and Mosaic records”. He was
“not a man torn between science and religion, but, on the contrary, one who is
comfortable with both.” [4]
Another
book published in 1857 took a quite different line to that in The Testimony of the Rocks. Philip Henry
Gosse (1810-1888) was a member of the Brethren and could neither accept ideas
on evolution or anything that questioned the literal truth of the Holy Bible.
The developing ideas on the mid-Nineteenth Century were thus a challenge that
he felt he must address. Like Hugh Miller, Henry Gosse had no formal training
but he, too, became an expert in his field, in this case Natural History. In
his early years he was encouraged in his observations by a maternal aunt and he
went on to be fascinated by all the living organisms around him. His work on
sea anemones and corals is still recognised as important, but he also published
on a wide range of other topics. Interestingly, like Hugh Miller, he was a shy
man and an excellent writer, but Henry Gosse was also a gifted painter and
illustrator and his books became widely popular as a result. One book was not a
success and this was Omphalos,
sub-titled an attempt to untie the
geological knot, and this was Henry Gosse’s way of resolving the conflict
that Miller also addressed. Although primarily an observer of living organisms,
Henry Gosse had an excellent knowledge of rock strata, the fossil record and
geological time and he accepted this reality. However, Gosse theorised that
they were part of the six-day Creation, with the structure of the Earth’s
crust, including the remains of organisms, having been created in a few days.
Unsurprisingly, this view was considered absurd by scientists at the time and,
to Henry Gosse’s surprise, it was also regarded very unfavourably by
Christians, as they found it unlikely that God would wish to deceive by hiding
fossils within rocks [5].
It seems
strange that devout Christians, working with the same Holy Book, have such
disparate views and the debate about Creation, and what was meant in Genesis,
continues today. Of course, it causes such strong feelings because there are always
differences of opinion in human culture and we have a tendency to only fully
acknowledge our own personal beliefs. Hugh Miller was able to accept a change
in his views in the light of changing evidence and it did not impact his faith,
but Henry Gosse found himself boxed into a corner. Gosse had the satisfaction
of maintaining the purity of his position, but it left him isolated and
disappointed. No more so than in his relationship with his only son Edmund,
with whom he had been very close and who, as a youth, could not follow his
father’s dogmatic approach.
I greatly
admire Henry Gosse as a Natural Historian and find his books, and
illustrations, quite wonderful. He was a caring man whose religious beliefs
underscored everything that he did, but whether we could have sustained a
conversation, or a friendship, is debatable. In contrast, I think I would feel
less guarded when meeting Hugh Miller, although his energy and time-keeping
might be a strain. Both men are important parts of the period of Natural
History described by Lynn Barber as its heyday [6] and Miller and Gosse are
given adjacent chapters in her book. The transformational work of Darwin in On the Origin of Species published in
1859, just two years after The Testimony
of the Rocks and Omphalos,
provided, in natural selection, a mechanism to explain evolution and it
transformed our thinking. It is such an important book that it has overshadowed
the contributions made by Miller and by Gosse, yet the change of mind of one,
and the determination not to change by the other, give insights into current
debates on Creation and evolution. Their books are worth reading.
I wonder
if Fox Talbot read both?
[1] Hugh
Miller (1849) Foot-prints of the Creator:
or the Asterolepis of Stromness. London, Johnstone and Hunter.
[2] Hugh
Miller (1857) The Testimony of the Rocks;
or, Geology in its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed.
Edinburgh, Thomas Constable & Co.
[3]
Michael A. Taylor (2007) Hugh Miller:
Stonemason, Geologist, Writer. Edinburgh, NMS Publishing Limited.
[4] Simon
J. Knell and Michael A. Taylor (2006) Hugh Miller: fossils, landscape and
literary geology. Proceedings of the
Geologists’ Association 117: 85-98.
[5] Roger
S. Wotton (2012) Walking with Gosse:
Natural History, Creation and Religious Conflicts. Southampton, Clio
Publishing.
[6] Lynn
Barber (1980) The Heyday of Natural
History. London, Jonathan Cape.
While
visiting the Library of Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, I found a copy of Hugh
Miller's Foot-prints of the Creator: or
the Asterolepis of Stromness and wondered whether the Fox Talbot family had
been enthusiastic readers of the book [1]. Last week, I was at Oxburgh Hall,
the ancestral home of the Roman Catholic Bedingfield family, famous for its
well-preserved Priest's Hole, into which the brave can still clamber. This
hidden room was to protect Roman Catholic clerics after the Reformation, a time
when they were hunted and persecuted. The house and park are wonderful places
to visit [2] and I followed my usual habit of perusing the spines of the
volumes in the Library: one of the books that stood out was a copy of
Jean-Henri Fabre's Social Life in the
Insect World.
Fabre,
who lived from 1823 to 1915, was an enthusiastic entomologist and had the
ability to engage readers with his descriptions of insects and their behaviour,
often amplified by the results of experiments that he conducted. Here is an
example from Social Life in the Insect
World where he discusses his observations on the Oak Eggar Moth Lasiocampa quercus (see above). The text
is translated from the French and this is what members of the Bedingfield
family would have read [3]:
One afternoon, while trying to determine whether
sight plays any part in the search for the female once the males had entered
the room, I placed the female in a bell-glass and gave her a slender twig of
oak with withered leaves as a support. The glass was set upon a table facing
the open window. Upon entering the room the moths could not fail to see the
prisoner, as she stood directly in the way. The tray, containing a layer of
sand, on which the female had passed the preceding day and night, covered with
a wire-gauze dish-cover, was in my way. Without premeditation I placed it at
the other end of the room on the floor, in a corner where there was little
light. It was a dozen yards away from the window.
The result
of these preparations entirely upset my preconceived ideas. None of the
arrivals stopped at the bell-glass, where the female was plainly to be seen,
the light falling full upon her prison. Not a glance, not an inquiry. They all
flew to the further end of the room, into the dark corner where I had placed
the tray and the empty dish-cover.
They
alighted on the wire dome, explored it persistently, beating their wings and
jostling one another. All the afternoon, until sunset, the moths danced about
the empty cage the same saraband that the actual presence of the female had
previously evoked. Finally they departed: not all, for there were some that
would not go, held by some magical attractive force.
The
description of what we now know to be the action of pheromones is delightful:
who could not be fascinated by Fabre's account of his experiment? Charles
Darwin certainly valued his work in insect biology and, in a letter to Fabre on
31st January 1880 [4], wrote:
I hope that you will permit me to have the
satisfaction of thanking you cordially for the lively pleasure which I have
derived from reading your book. Never have the wonderful habits of insects been
more vividly described, and it is almost as good to read about them as to see
them.
Further
in the same letter comes this:
I am sorry that you are so strongly opposed to the
Descent theory; I have found the searching for the history of each structure or
instinct an excellent aid to observation; and wonderful observer as you are, it
would suggest new points to you. If I were to write on the evolution of
insects, I could make good use of some of the facts which you give.
Fabre's
Creationism came from his deep religious beliefs, recorded by his biographer
and namesake, Abbé Augustin Fabre [5]:
..in these times of overweening atheism [the
biography was published in 1921], when so many pseudo-scientists are striving
to persuade the ignorant that science is learning to dispense with God, would
it not be a most timely thing to reveal, to the eyes of all, a scientist of
undoubted genius who finds in science fresh arguments for belief, and manifold
occasions for affirming his faith in the God who has created and rules the
world?
Incorporating
quotes from Jean-Henri Fabre, he continues:
.."Life is a horrible phantasmagoria. But it
leads us to a better future.".. ..This future the naturalist [Fabre] liked
to conceive in accordance with the images familiar in his mind, as being a more
complete understanding of the great book of which he had deciphered only a few
words, as a more perfect communion with the offices of nature, in the incense
of the perfumes "that are softly exhaled by the carven flowers from their
golden censers," amid the delightful symphonies in which are mingled the
voices of crickets and Cicadae, chaffinches and siskins, skylarks and
goldfinches, "those tiny choristers," all singing and fluttering,
"trilling their motets to the glory of Him who gave them voice and wings
on the fifth day of Genesis."..
.."And when one evening," says his
friend, "I remarked that these little miracles clearly proved the
existence of a divine Artificer: 'For me, I do not believe in God', declared
the scientist, repeating for the last time his famous and paradoxical
profession of faith: 'I do not believe
in God, because I see Him in all
things and everywhere.'"
It is
fitting then that Fabre's book is in the Library (shown below) at Oxburgh Hall,
the home of the Roman Catholic Bedingfield family. Not only will family members
have thoroughly enjoyed Fabre's descriptions of his observations and
experiments in entomology, they would also empathise with the importance of his
faith, although they may have questioned Fabre's dogmatism. It is easy to
sympathise with Darwin's frustration at the conflict between reason and the
unbending position of those believing that The Holy Bible must be taken
literally. It is a conflict that continues today.
[5] Abbé Augustin Fabre (1921) The Life of Jean Henri Fabre, the Entomologist 1823-1910
(translated by Bernard Miall). New York,
The
Scotney Castle Estate in Kent provides a wonderful example of an English
Romantic landscape. The original castle was modified extensively in the early
Nineteenth Century (below, upper) and a new house, in a quite different style
(below, lower), built on the hill overlooking it. The grounds are beautiful,
but the old castle and its moat are the dominant features and can be seen from
all the best rooms in the new house, completed on the instructions of Edward
Hussey III in 1843.
When
visiting large houses owned by the National Trust, I always make a point of
looking at the titles of the books in their libraries (see the previous two
articles). It is clear that Edward Hussey III, like many of his class in the
mid-Nineteenth Century, was interested in Science and Natural History. Among
the books in the new house were Jabez Hogg's The Microscope: it's History, Construction and Application
(published in 1854), James F. Johnston's The
Chemistry of Common Life (published in 1855) and Mrs T. J. Hussey's Illustrations of British Mycology
(published in two parts in 1847 and 1855). Hogg's book was very popular at the
time, selling over 50,000 copies, and it describes the physics of microscopy;
the construction of microscopes; how to prepare materials for microscopy; and
descriptions of animals, plants and their parts. It was a comprehensive guide
for those indulging in this Victorian passion, and Johnston's work gave some
answers to questions about the biology of organisms that were observed, with
sections on air and odours; water; soil; foodstuffs and digestion; liquors; and
narcotics (!).
However,
it was Mrs Hussey's book that most attracted my attention, as she had a family
connection to Scotney Castle. Anna Maria was married to Thomas John Hussey, the
son of the Reverend John Hussey, who was the younger brother of Edward Hussey,
the grandfather of Edward III who built the new house. Maria (the name by which
she was known in the family) was the daughter of the Reverend J. T. A. Reed and
the Reed family, like the Husseys, were acquainted with many leading figures of
the day in science, including Babbage, Herschel, Fox Talbot and Graves. Both
families knew the Darwins of Downe and Maria's younger brother George Varenne
Reed was tutor to Charles Darwin's sons [1].
Maria had
three younger sisters, all of whom were interested in botany and in collecting
plants [2], and she wrote a wonderfully personal journal during a visit that
she made to Dover with her youngest sister Kate (Catherine) in 1836 [2]. At the
time, Maria was 31 years old, with two young children, and Kate 19 years old.
In addition to many visits to the shore to observe marine life, the two
collected plants, fossils and other geological specimens during walks in the
Dover area, some of which required short trips by boat. There is no mention of
her interest in fungi in the journal.
In Illustrations of British Mycology, Maria
describes fungi (funguses to her) that can be collected in Britain; the means
of collecting them; and how to identify them. It is detailed, accurate and
scholarly, with many plates that show the skill of both Maria and her sister
Fanny (Frances) as illustrators - montages of some of the lithographs in the
book are shown below. We learn from Elizabeth Finn that Maria was not happy
with the work of the lithographers [1] and one can only wonder at how good the
originals must have been:
In
addition to its value in allowing accurate identifications, the book also
conveys Maria's enthusiasm for the subject. Here are two examples of her
descriptions, first of toadstools and then of mushrooms [3]:
This splendid Agaric lifts its head boldly, the
"observed of all observers", even the most careless so that it is
oftener kicked to pieces, and other attentions of the kind bestowed on it, than
most "Toadstools" receive: I have mourned over specimens nearly a
foot across, their pure ivory gills and glowing scarlet pileus crushed in the
dusty road.
The English "Mushroom" proper takes two
different forms, according to soil and other conditions of site. The first case
is that of rich cool loam districts, such as the extensive grazing pastures
where the dairymen of Bucks herd their cows, and which have not been ploughed
or mowed within the scope of the remotest tradition; the herbage is kept down
by the cattle, and neither rude gravel below, not rank matted grass above,
offers obstacles to the regular development of the fairest and most fragile of
mushrooms, the very perfection of the thing! no freckles deface the white silky
pileus, no thick cottony screen swathes a clumsy stem betokening coarse
over-feeding; a light soft veil is all the protection the gills ever had, and
they have expanded so rapidly even that has disappeared, or left only a few
lacerated fragments on the stem; tender, succulent, friable and digestible,
nourished on pure earth, in air redolent of wild thyme and the breath of kine,
by dew which might be Fairies' nectar it is so free from the impurities of city
miasma..
I do not
know if Maria visited Scotney, but I would like to think that she did, as the
estate must have been a splendid place for hunting fungi. The presence of her
book in the Library indicates that Edward III was likely to have had an
interest in this activity, and perhaps in looking at details of fungi using a
microscope, and who better than a relative (by marriage) to act as a guide?
Judging from her descriptions in the book and in her journal, she would have
made a fascinating companion on Nature rambles and she deserves to be ranked
alongside Margaret Gatty, Anna Atkins, and Amelia Griffiths, all eminent
Victorian Natural Historians.
[1]
Elizabeth A Finn (2009) Hussey, Anna Maria (1805-1853). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, Oxford University
Press.
[2]
Elizabeth Finn Botany, Boats and Bathing
Machines: Anna Maria Hussey's Holiday in Dover 1836. Available as an e-book
from Kent Archives Service - Ref U3754.
[3] Mrs
T. J. Hussey (1847) Illustrations of
British Mycology, containing Figures and Descriptions of the Funguses of
Interest and Novelty Indigenous to Britain. London, Reeve Brothers.
I like perusing the titles of books
in the libraries of large country houses. They give an impression of the
interests of previous owners of the house and, because of my liking for Natural
History, it is volumes on this subject that particularly catch my eye [1,2,3].
Last week, I visited Standen House,
the country home of the Beale family from the end of the Nineteenth Century. It
has lovely gardens and the interior of the house is decorated in Arts and Craft
style and contains some very fine furniture [4]. As would be expected in the
library of a family with seven children - and, later, grandchildren - there
were many volumes about fairy tales and adventure, but the book that stood out
for me was The Days and Nights of Birds by the French amateur
ornithologist Jacques Delamain (the cover of my copy is shown above).
Ornithology has always been a popular pastime, and many books have been written
about the habits, and habitats, of birds. In the Foreword of The Days and
Nights of Birds [5] Delamain writes:
"But has not everything essential been said about
birds?" The question was put to me one day by Abel Bonnard who was
unwilling to see too narrow a limit imposed on his keen poetical curiosity. I
assured him that this subject, like all which touch nature, was inexhaustible.
Indeed, for the seeker, one discovery leads to another and new problems appear
which the mind tries to solve. The beauty of living creatures and the setting
in which they move, life's harmony and complexity, always awake in us
unexpected echoes. Intellectual curiosity, the aesthetic sense and poetry never
fail to renew the world.
Each one of us follows his own way, seeking to
understand the mystery of creation. For some, the way grows endlessly broader,
embracing vast horizons, others advance slowly and shortsightedly along a
narrow path. But no one can set out without discovering riches..
We can see that Delamain's interest
in birds was wrapped up with his love of Nature and he communicated this in an
attractive prose style that is apparent even in translation. It is easy to see
how readers may be stimulated to look more closely at birds after reading his
books and Delamain concludes the Foreword by writing:
My first book, Why Birds Sing, brought me
precious assurance from my readers that I had taught them how better to observe
Nature, and how to love her more. If my present volume induces them to look
once more on the ever varied spectacle offered to our eyes by the seasons as
they pass, and increase their interest in the creatures that people our fields,
woods and rivers, it will have fulfilled its purpose.
One can imagine Mr Beale, or
visitors to Standen, reading the book and using it as a guide to their own
observations on walks in the garden or around the estate.
The writings of Delamain influenced
many others, including the composer Olivier Messaien. Messiaen was fascinated
by birdsong and Hill and Simeone [6] describe the result of his visit to
Delamain's home La Branderaie de Gardépéé (see above):
In April 1952,.. .. Messaien took what proved to be a
decisive step. At the suggestion of his publisher Leduc he paid a short visit
(15-17 April) to Jacques Delamain, a leading ornithologist and prolific author.
Delamain lived in south-west France, his house at Gardépéé set in large wooded
grounds midway between Cognac and the neighbouring town of Jarnac, where the
Delamain family firm still produces brandy. Delamain's tuition enabled
Messaien's knowledge of ornithology to catch up with his musical aspirations.
In particular, he learned to identify birds solely through their songs or
cries: 'It was [Delamain] who taught me to recognise a bird from its song,
without having to see its plumage or the shape of its beak.'
..the visit to Delamain proved a life-changing
experience. Delamain inspired Messiaen to pursue his researches in a more
systematic way. The results can be seen in the surviving birdsong notebooks,
the Cahiers de notation des chants d'oiseaux, in which Messaien started
to collect his observations from nature..
Messaien went on to compose Réveil
des oiseaux and Hill and Simeone [5] include a quote from the composer
about this work:
"In Réveil des oiseaux [...] there's really
nothing but bird songs [...], without any added rhythm or counterpoint, and the
birds singing are really found together in nature; it's a completely truthful
work. It's about an awakening of birds in the beginning of a spring morning;
the cycle goes from midnight to noon: night songs, an awakening at four in the
morning, a big tutti of birds cut short by the sunrise, forenoon songs, and the
great silnce of noon.."
You can hear the piece in this
video clip [7] and it is interesting that it follows a sequence of bird song
through a day, perhaps in homage to Delamain's Days and Nights of Birds.
I find the link between Delamain
and Messaien fascinating: a great composer and a wonderful writer both
communicating about Nature and the pleasure that it gave them. Thank you
Standen, and the National Trust, for giving me a chance to tell the story.
In 2017,
I visited Dyrham Park for the first time. The late 17th and early 18th Century
house has a breathtaking setting (see above) and its grounds, with their ponds
and formal gardens, add to the perfection of it all. The interiors are equally
splendid and I enjoyed walking around, looking at the furnishings and
decoration, but I was drawn to a painting. This was Murillo's An Urchin Mocking an Old Woman eating Migas
that had been in the house for centuries, although the canvas I was staring at
was, I think, a copy [1] of the original (see below).
There are
two threads to Murillo's work: religious paintings and those of street life,
and the painting at Dyrham Park combines both. Prolific and popular in his
time, Murillo had an excellent technique and was able to convey movement and
feeling. I remember being struck by his work when I first saw The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities [2]
on a visit to the National Gallery in London as a teenager.
I have
indicated the main lines of composition in the Dyrham Park painting above, the
background being of little significance. From this analysis, we see that our
eye is led around the images, with the lines drawing us to the face of the
woman and, over and over again, to the face of the boy. The dog also plays a
part, as does the food that the woman is attempting to eat with a spoon. The
boy has a beautiful face (we can barely see his body, but for the right
shoulder and arm) and, while engaging us, he is mocking the old woman, who
looks across and up with fear and resignation. Her bowl of migas is drawn to
one side and partially hidden from him (and the dog) by her right arm. The
message is one of the cockiness of youth and the despair of bullying in old age
and being able to do nothing about it. While the religious component is hidden,
the painting could be taken as a model for at least one of the Beatitudes [3]
and may well have been conceived by Murillo with this in mind.
Another
question arises from the title of the work: what is migas? By chance, I had lunch
yesterday at Moro in Exmouth Market
in London. On the menu (see below, with magnified section) they had migas as an
accompaniment to grilled lamb and sweetcorn, so I had some. The migas that I
was served was a ball of fried, seasoned breadcrumbs and this is the way the
dish is served in modern Spain, and in many other countries, often with some
small pieces of meat or chorizo included. It is thus "leftovers" and
this further emphasises the lowly position of the old woman in the painting,
although her migas looks much more substantial and was possibly of bread scraps
moistened with liquid (water, milk, or oil?) from the jug seen in the bottom
left of the composition.
If you
get the chance, visit Dyrham Park [4]. It is a magnificent place and you, too,
can stare at the Murillo painting and be challenged by Murillo's urchin.
The Creationist W Welch believed that many planets
throughout the Universe are colonised by intelligent beings and that they lived
on cool parts of our sun [1]. Philip Henry Gosse, also a Creationist, thought
differently [2]:
I venture to suggest that not only
the Planets and Satellites of this system, but the Sun itself,- nay, the millions
of Suns, that, to our eyes are but specks in space,- (yet each one, perhaps,
with its system of planets and satellites) are none of them habitable as yet,
but are being prepared by God for habitation; each in succession to be got
ready for Colonization from Earth by Adam’s race. That God is, we may say,
furnishing his great House of many mansions, of which one small apartment alone
is occupied.
If I be asked how living,
breathing human bodies can possibly be transferred from world to world, I
reply, I have no conception, how. But if man himself has invented means of
travelling across oceans; of floating in the air; of living for hours under
water; of conversing audibly across hundreds of miles; of conveying written
messages thousands of miles in a minute,- I am quite sure the Omnipotent God
will find no difficulty in conveying men through stellar space, when He
pleases.
Certainly a contrast in views, with one writer letting his
imagination run wild and the other taking a much more measured approach,
believing colonisation would be from the Earth, the site of God’s initial
Creation.
In addition to their consideration of the colonisation of
planets, Welch and Gosse both published theories about the origin of the Earth: Welch
in his book Religiosa Philosophia [3]
and Gosse in Omphalos: an attempt to
untie the geological knot [4]. Both men felt that their theories did not
contradict the account in Genesis in the Bible, that they held to be sacrosanct.
Welch suggested
that some part of the water from the firmament formed a large globular mass
from which particles condensed and then sedimented to form a solid core [3].
Over thirty years later, Gosse also tackled the conflict between the then
contemporary knowledge of geology and the Biblical account of Creation with his
theory of prochronism: the act of Creation included rock strata, and their
associated fossils, that thus bore evidence of “life before time”.
Little is known about Welch, but Henry Gosse was a very
well-known figure in the world of Natural History and I have a great admiration
for his descriptive and observational powers, his industry and his skills as an
illustrator. Until recently, I have steered away from his religious books, as I
feel little empathy with his rigid beliefs.
Given the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species two years after Omphalos, and the extraordinary effect that Darwin’s book had, it
is remarkable that Gosse held so firmly to his theory. This is what he wrote in
The Mysteries of God about scientific
thought in the Nineteenth Century:
The vast accession made to the
knowledge of natural things, during the past century, by the observations of
innumerable students, and by the conclusions deduced therefrom, has been, by
the Arch Enemy, turned into a most potent weapon against the faith, used with
marvellous skill for insidiously discrediting, first, and then arrogantly
denying, the teachings of Holy Scripture.
It is startling to mark how
fatally successful have been his tactics. A very large number of professed
Christians,- perhaps even the majority
of such as are competent to think about the matter,- are, more or less, tainted
with the prevalent unbelief; conscious of, at least, a lurking suspicion that
some of the Bible statements are not absolutely trustworthy; but must be, if
not rejected, explained away, in some non-natural exegesis. Even in those who
read Papers, or deliver Lectures, professedly to defend Revelation against
sceptical Science, this unworthy trimming is sometimes painfully manifest.. ..
Various subterfuges and shifts are used to evade the verbal accuracy of the
Sacred Word; needless concessions here, and admissions there, allow the truth
of God to pass by default. One makes a distinction between the veracity of
different parts, ignoring, or denying its integral unity. There is often an
underlying assumption that, at whatever cost, the teachings of the Bible must
be subject to the accepted conclusions of Science: and, in general, the tone of the Lecturer is one of frowning
severity toward the simple believer, and of tolerant sympathy toward the
scientific infidel.
I sympathise with Gosse’s position on deciding what is, and
what is not, factual in accounts in the Bible and it is something that must be
difficult for many contemporary Christians. Not for Gosse though. He was
unbending in his belief in the literal truth of the Bible and preached this to
the small group of fellow believers he led in St Marychurch in Torquay. The Mysteries of God is based on his
sermons, but it was not well received, even by fellow members of the Brethren
and it had few reviews [5]. In the book, Gosse again propounds the theory
of prochronism, stating that it had not been refuted in the 27 years since the
publication of Omphalos. Unfortunately,
this was probably because no-one bothered much about Gosse’s ideas, especially
as he rarely ventured far in the later part of his life (he died in 1888). He spent
much time at “Sandhurst”, his home in St Marychurch (see below – picture from [6]),
save for many visits to the shore, the local countryside, and to the Brethren
chapel he founded.
Another characteristic shared by Gosse and some contemporary
Christian Creationists, is their ability to see Satan (the “Arch Enemy”) everywhere
– as is so clear in the passage quoted above. Henry’s son, Edmund, found this,
and the religious fervour that drove it, unbearable, as we know from his
well-known book Father and Son. In
it, Edmund wrote [7]:
He who was so tender-hearted that
he could not bear to witness the pain and distress of any person, however
disagreeable or undeserving, was quite acquiescent in believing that God would
punish human beings, in millions, for ever, for a purely intellectual error of
comprehension. My Father’s inconsistencies of perception seem to me to have
been the result of a curious irregularity of equipment. Taking for granted, as
he did, the absolute integrity of the Scriptures, and applying to them his
trained scientific spirit, he contrived to stifle, with a deplorable success,
alike the function of the imagination, the sense of moral justice, and his own
deep and instinctive tenderness of heart.
