A Colonial Secretary – Part II

We are indebted to a reverend correspondent for the correction of an error in our last article on Miles Gerald Keon. His master at Stonyhust was Father John, not Father James, Etheridge, (afterwards Bishop of Demerara).^[1]

During the chief part of his active literary life in London—as his position was that rather of free lance of the Press than of one whose responsibilities were fixed and distinctive—Keon’s labours were curiously discursive in their character. To Cassell’s Educational Course, for example, he contributed a little volume entitled, Lessons in French. One critic speaks of it as “being, without exaggeration, an elementary masterpiece.” His early experiences in France had made him a master of the language, even in its subtlest nuances, and eminently well fitted to discharge the duty of instructor. We make particular mention of this little work as it throws a strong side-light upon one of the chief features of its author’s character, the devouring zeal he had for promoting the well-being of his fellow-men. It was published in 1851, the year of the first and greatest of the so-called “World- Fairs,” when England swarmed with French mechanics. Keon saw here a splendid opportunity of destroying many ancient prejudices and adding his mite to the hive-like fund of knowledge-diffusing agencies. In the wall of separation between two immense communities, he struck an opening and set up a gate of sociability. He produced this school-book, planned for the millions for whom as yet the School Board had not set up its offices in every town and village. For nine months he had worked eight and nine hours a day at this labour of love, adapting his “Lessons” down to the capacity of the audience he was seeking after. Nor was he content to sit idle after its appearance; through his publishers he proclaimed prizes, open exclusively to the working classes; he drew up test exercises; judged the performances, and made the awards amongst hundreds of competitors. It is no wonder that a famous man of letters (whom the public voice had hailed as our First Minister of Education, when there was talk of establishing that office) pronounced this work to be, of its kind, the ablest and most philanthropic that had appeared in the nineteenth century. Keon afterwards had the satisfaction of finding it in extensive use as a textbook in the United States and Canada.

In 1850 he was sent on a political mission to St. Petersburg, and from thence wrote A Letter on the Greek Question, then perplexing the minds of statesmen. This long and able letter has since been reprinted; at the time it formed the basis of one of the most eloquent speeches delivered by Lord Stanley in the House. It was owing, no doubt, to the political knowledge displayed in it of the relations between England and Russia that Keon was subsequently invited to write the “History of the Crimean War,” for the Illustrated London News.

In 1856 he went as correspondent of the Morning Post to Moscow, on the occasion of the Emperor Alexander’s coronation. Many pleasant glimpses of his life at this period are given in Voyage en Russie, by the eminent French geographer and geologist, M. Boucher de Perthes. They happened to stay at the same hotel, Spink’s Hotel, in St. Petersburg, and they met for the first time at a council of war which was being held to discuss the Joss of the Frenchman’s watch. Keon undertook to recover the stolen property, and hands were shaken over the bargain. M. Perthes thus introduces him to his readers: “M. Keon, sur lequel j’aurai souvent l’occasion de revenir, ami particulier de l’écrivain célèbre, Sir Edouard Bulwer Lytton, est Irlandais et Catholique zélé; il écrit et parle facilement le français, connaît au mieux notre littérature et, comme helléniste et latiniste il est de première force. Malheureusement un peu fantasque, ainsi que tous les Anglais gens d’esprit, il se préoccupe fort de sa santé, en faisant précisément tout ce qu’il faut pour la détruire. Il s’était mis en tête que les boissons fermentées etaient nuisibles; il ne buvait donc que de l’eau et se noyait de^[2] thé, mangeait peu, et seulement de quelques mets bien Anglais ou Irlandais, affectionnant surtout certaine médecine nationale, dont il fait un continuel usage. Ainsi, quoique parfaitement constitué et naturellement robuste, il etait parvenu, non par des excès, car c’était l’homme le plus sobre du monde, mais, à force de régime et de purgations, a ruiner son tempérament. Sa manière de travailler n’etait ni plus hygiénique ni plus rationelle; pressé de besogne, il passait le jour à flâner; et puis, au lieu de se coucher, il écrivait toute la nuit, mais alors il le faisait avec une facilité merveilleuse. Très religieux, comme la plupart des Catholiques Irlandais, sa religion touchait de près au fanatisme. Il n’était pas plus tolérant en politique ni même en littérature et, au bon sens près dont il avait beaucoup, il était aussi entêté que notre savant de Wittemberg; quand il avait adopté une opinion sur un livre ou sur un auteur, il était impossible de l’en faire changer. Il se serait fait martyriser pour Homère comme pour Saint Augustin, pour l’orateur Wig (sic) ou Torie, car je ne me rappelle plus pour lequel il était. Très partisan de la presse en Angleterre, il se fâcha un jour tout rouge parce que je disais qu’elle était par trop muselée en France et que c’était d’une mauvaise politique de comprimer ainsi l’opinion. Lui, il approuvait sans restriction toutes ces mesures répressives, en disant que la France ne pouvait être tranquille qu’ à ce prix; et s’il eût été ministre, il aurait encore resserré la muselière.” After doing St. Petersburg in droski together, they went to Moscow, fighting endless battles with the Russian police about passports, in which Keon’s constant reference to the English Ambassador—“je vais en référer à mon ambassadeur”——was most useful. One of the outcomes of the friendship thus established was that Keon was made an honorary member of the Abbeville Literary and Scientific Institution, of which Perthes was at the time President.

In the early part of 1858, he was induced, by false representations, to accept the editorship of the Bengal Hurkaru, a daily paper published at Calcutta. The transaction was managed by a so-called agent of the paper in London, and to him, as part of the bargain, Keon paid over a large sum of money. When, however, he landed in Calcutta, he found the whole agreement repudiated by the proprietor of the paper and another editor installed in his place. It was not likely that, with his experience in matters political and his literary ability, Keon would be long without occupation. At Malta, on his way back to England, he received the news of his appointment to the Colonial Secretaryship at Bermuda. The nomination came through Bulwer Lytton—then at the head of the Colonial Office—who gladly availed himself of his short term of power to repay the long and faithful services of his friend to the Conservative cause. His career at Bermuda is of necessity less eventful than his life in London, as he no longer had to contend in the struggle for existence, but was enabled to enjoy the advantages of an assured position. He held the post of Secretary during the last sixteen years of his life, giving universal satisfaction and entering heart and soul into every movement that could benefit the colony. He became a thorough master of the practical working of the different Colonial institutions; to him fell the work of carrying into effect the administrative acts of various successive governors.

We may be sure that he at first felt keenly the separation from all his literary companionships. He found his principal consolation in constant correspondence with many of his old associates, notably with Lord Lytton, whose letters to Keon would in themselves form a very complete biography of our subject. Many of these letters we have before us now, mostly dated from Knebworth. At one time, when the great novelist began to find his strength decaying, he seems to have thought of trying Bermuda as a health resort. “I wish,” writes he, “Bermuda was not so distant, though I suppose even there coughs exist and consumption is not unknown.” Keon, on the other hand, was not unnaturally anxious to secure a home-appointment under Government, but Lytton dissuades him from this chiefly because, with the new era of competitive examinations, it would probably fall to his lot, in event of such a change, to serve under men much younger and less able than himself. In a characteristic letter the author of My Novel, after speaking of Montalembert in terms of unqualified praise, laughs to scorn the Garibaldian craze that was then abroad in London. His words are: “Since Britain was first discovered by the Romans, there is no instance of any foreigner or any native, however illustrious, exciting so widespread a feeling of adulation. I suspect the main and radical reason of it to be this: it is to the interest of stupid people to make a demigod of a stupid man. His coronation crowns their stupidity. As Garibaldi is incontestably a stupid, perhaps the very stupidest man that ever obtained, so this was an occasion that might never occur again to prove to the world how beautiful and grand a thing stupidity is in the eyes of stupid people. I am convinced that rightly examined this is the main cause of the worship just paid to this melodramatic visitor, though of course there are some minor and ancillary causes to make the main one less visible. But most of Garibaldi’s fine qualities, such as his knight-errantry in aiding rebellions, his animal courage, &c., are qualities among Englishmen as plentiful as blackberries, and we do not pay any homage to those who evince them. As for Garibaldi’s disinterestedness, he seems to have got tired of that virtue, since he authorized the alms-box to be sent round for him here, and makes pecuniary investment out of his political capital.” The letters between the friends are full of allusions such as these to topics or men for the moment occupying the public mind. The lectures which Keon delivered in Bermuda on “Government, its Source, its Form, and its Means,”^[3] won for themselves more than an insular reputation. He received tempting offers from the United States and Canada to undertake a lecturing tour, in the wake of Charles Dickens. These he was obliged to refuse, as he felt that, Irishman and Catholic as he was, the lectures would be attended chiefly by Irishmen and, as Fenianism was at that time rampant, enemies at home could easily misconstrue his action. Under any circumstances, it would have been a false and perilous position for a paid British functionary. He twice, however, made visits to the States, the first time in search of health, and the second time to spend a happy week with his old Stonyhurst classfellow, the Hon. Enoch Lewis Lowe, Governor of Maryland. They had been companions from Figures up to Rhetoric (Lowe being Carthaginian Prætor most of the time), and we may imagine how the conversation would go during the few days they were together. Exactly midway in his career as Colonial Secretary he gave to the world the classic Christian romance, Dion and the Sybils, with which his name is most generally associated. It was received with universal favour as being the composition of a skilled and practised man of letters, and bearing abundant proofs of ripe scholarship. Amongst testimonies from personal friends, came the following from Lord Lytton: “I have read Dion with much pleasure and sincere admiration of its many beauties of design and composition. It is not to be judged as a novel, but rather as a picture of a particular epoch, partly fancy, partly historical, and reminds me more of German fiction than English. There are some details of classical manners new and interesting to me; others in which, I think, perhaps unmeaningly, you fail in the right colour. In historical character you succeed in giving to Augustus some of the wonderful charm he possessed over his time; but I don’t think you do sufficient justice to the intellect and above all to the profound secresy and wariness of Tiberius. There are charming bits of writing interspersed, and Dion’s argument is very strikingly reasoned.”

In 1869 Keon obtained leave of absence, and hastened back to England to accept a long-standing invitation to Knebworth. He visited Stonyhurst on his way, in the early days of Father Purbrick’s Rectorship. Later on he fulfilled the dearest wish of his heart, setting foot in the Eternal City for the first time. He was presented to Pope Pius IX. by the Archbishop of Halifax, and was received with marked distinction by the Holy Father, who welcomed him as an elegant writer and successful author. He, moreover, gave him, as a souvenir of the interview, a beautiful amber rosary in a velvet case stamped with the Pontifical arms. Keon had shown the Holy Father a present sent by Pope Pius VII. to his grandmother, the Countess Cerati, for important political services rendered by her husband when Prime Minister to Queen Maria Theresa. Interested in the story of the gift, the Sovereign Pontiff exclaimed: “Pius VII. gave your grandmother a present, and Pius IX. will give you another,” and suited the action to the words.

Returning to his island home, Keon spent the last five years of his life in the close discharge of his duty, without the occurrence of any noteworthy event. He still continued to devote his leisure moments to literature, and at the time of his death had half-finished another novel, The Modern Pro-Consul, in which, here and there, we find portraitures of his Stonyhurst masters and schoolfellows. He died in 1875. His funeral was a public one, and, in testimony to his worth and public services, was the largest that had taken place at Bermuda. All the Members of Council followed him to his last resting-place from the little Catholic church, for which in life he had worked hard and made many personal sacrifices.

In an article such as this, which aims simply at presenting to those interested in Stonyhurst the career in outline of a devoted son of hers, but little opportunity is afforded for any analysis of character. That Keon was a man who had something in him and about him greater and nobler than the legacy of his writings would indicate, is shown by the power he had of attaching to himself and keeping the friendship of such men as Bulwer Lytton, Lord Strangford, and Charles Kent. The last-named is the sole survivor of the little band of litterateurs who won their spurs together in the second decade of the century. He describes his connexion with Keon thus touchingly:

“He and I regarded each other with a brother’s affection. Neither of us had a more intimate friend in the world. Our intimacy, which remained unbroken to the last, began when we were contributing to Dolman’s Magazine, before he had as yet assumed the editorship. What first attracted me to him was his fervour in religion and his really marvellous brilliancy in conversation. As a conversationalist he was at his best and brightest. And I can never forget that what made him first take to me, in the early days of our intercourse, was a chance remark of mine one day when we were talking of the alien eyes with which Catholics at that time were regarded in this country. My remark being that instead of my being prejudicially influenced by this general disdain for Catholicism, I could not help feeling as I moved amongst the heretical crowd as if I were a prince in disguise, one’s personal insignificance as a Catholic being exalted by the fact of one’s possession of the priceless gift of Catholicism. As a signal token of his personal humility he once confided to me his longing to have inscribed over his grave, in lieu of name or date, the words: ‘Here lies the leprous beggar of the Lord.’ I shuddered when I heard him utter the words. I am profoundly affected by them whenever I recall them to mind, now that he is dead. In them spoke the celebrant of St. Alexis. Humility like that commands my veneration.”

As a fitting conclusion we give Keon’s own estimate of his life and works from the Introduction to Dion and the Sybils:

“I have pursued honour, not wholly in vain, in some common, open arenas. I have taken my part—and I suppose it is not over yet—in the battles of life. On certain occasions I have struggled victoriously against very considerable odds. Better, abler, more gifted men have succumbed around me, and I have trembled for myself when I saw them sink. Inferiority shuddered to witness all their strength, vigour, genius, and courage, overwhelmed at its side. Some famous men have been, and are, my friends; and some great men, both in the true and the false sense of the epithet, I have seen, known, and studied. I have mixed with many classes in various and large communities; have sojourned in four continents; have conversed in the languages of those whose ideas reflected, contradicted, or enlarged my own; have watched the rage of modern business with infectious suspense and sympathy; and amidst the monuments, the arts, the traditions, and the literatures, where so much human passion and human intelligence have spent their noblest toil, have experienced my share of emotion. I have erred and suffered and blundered; encountered checks and afterwards looked back upon them; received directions and given directions. I have striven and been beaten; have striven and prevailed; have missed my turn and had my turn. I have known both kinds of disappointment, that of failure and that which better deserves the name—I mean the disappointment of success. When disappointed by failure, we console ourselves with the hope of prospering better another time; but when our purpose is accomplished, and it yields us not a shred of that satisfaction the thought of which had stimulated us to our attempt, where is then the solace? Who can fill an infinite void? Who can dry ‘immediate tears’? It is done every day. I am not a ‘superior person’; I wish I was. I am no reprover of others, officially or officiously. In fine, I am anything you may please to conclude, except traitor, coward, or liar. I would much rather be something better; but such as we are, we are.”