The Aftermath: Gleanings from a Busy Life

Few men have pursued more honourably, more usefully, or more successfully the career of letters than Thomas Caliban, D.D., of Winchelthorpe-on-Sea, near Portsmouth. Inheriting, as his name would imply, the grand old Huguenot strain, his father was a Merchant Taylor of the City of London, and principal manager of the Anglo-Chilian Bank; his mother the fifth daughter of K. Muller, Esq., of Brighton, a furniture dealer and reformer of note in the early forties.

The connection established between my own family and that of Dr. Caliban I purposely pass over as not germane to the ensuing pages, remarking only that the friendship, guidance, and intimacy of such a man will ever count among my chiefest treasures. Of him it may truly be written: “He maketh them to shine like Sharon; the waters are his in Ram-Shaîd, and Gilgath praiseth him.”

I could fill a volume of far greater contents than has this with the mere record of his every-day acts during the course of his long and active career. I must content myself, in this sketch, with a bare summary of his habitual deportment. He would rise in the morning, and after a simple but orderly toilet would proceed to family prayers, terminating the same with a hymn, of which he would himself read each verse in turn, to be subsequently chanted by the assembled household. To this succeeded breakfast, which commonly consisted of ham, eggs, coffee, tea, toast, jam, and whatnot—in a word, the appurtenances of a decent table.

Breakfast over, he would light a pipe (for he did not regard indulgence in the weed as immoral, still less as un-Christian: the subtle word ἐπιείκεια, which he translated “sweet reasonableness,” was painted above his study door—it might have served for the motto of his whole life), he would light a pipe, I say, and walk round his garden, or, if it rained, visit the plants in his conservatory.

Before ten he would be in his study, seated at a large mahogany bureau, formerly the property of Sir Charles Henby, of North-chapel, and noon would still find him there, writing in his regular and legible hand the notes and manuscripts which have made him famous, or poring over an encyclopædia, the more conscientiously to review some book with which he had been entrusted.

After the hours so spent, it was his habit to take a turn in the fresh air, sometimes speaking to the gardener, and making the round of the beds; at others passing by the stables to visit his pony Bluebell, or to pat upon the head his faithful dog Ponto, now advanced in years and suffering somewhat from the mange.