Dr. McLaren and his love of the Theatrical

taken from Dr. McLaren of Manchester, a Sketch by E.T. McLaren, Home Life P.87-90

There were Shakespeare Readings, too, of which the following account is given by one who herself took a prominent part : (* Mrs. Thomson. See p. 107.)

“It was in those far-off early days that we arranged a series of Shakespeare Readings, which were kept up for long, and of which he was the heart and soul. During the winter months, we met in turns at half a dozen familiar houses, and each took part in reading. Dr. McLaren, naturally, had always the chief character ; and it was the greatest intellectual treat to listen to him as King Lear, Cardinal Wolsey, or Brutus. Sometimes we varied these by readings from Robert Browning ; each bringing a favourite poem. The grim horror of Hulbert and Hob came out with tremendous force under Dr. McLaren’s rendering of it. Instans Tyrannus was another in which I shall never forget the victorious ring of:

“The man sprang to his feet,

Stood erect, caught at God’s skirts, and prayed !

-So, I was afraid!”

What Browning was to him, when the deepest anguish of his life came, and he who had been “companioned by the woman there” had the “soul of his soul” “taken from his side”! When an evening quite clear of engagements came, letters cleared off, nothing more to be done in the study, then there was no hesitation as to how the evening was to be spent. Of reading to his family circle he never tired.

During the year immediately following his marriage he read to his wife the greater part of the fifth volume of Modern Painters, which was published that year, and though in later life Ruskin was pronounced “impossible” when his writings were suggested as “good for reading aloud” when they first appeared the author’s originality, earnestness, and the beauty of his style, captivated him, and to listen to the reading was true enjoyment. When reading aloud he did not keep his eyes fixed on the book, nor did he always look at the listeners, but he seemed every now and then to address himself to an invisible auditor, while the real auditors did not only listen, but looked; his own enthusiasm added a glow to the author’s words.1 It was not quite easy to “carry on needlework” while he read ! The late Canon Ainger, whose reading was so universally admired, had the same distinctive manner ; his constant change of expression fascinating his hearers.

Though at these times Mr. McLaren read Shakespeare, Carlyle, books of serious intent, as life got more busy and his children grew up, the evening reading became more of a recreation, a rebound from arduous work. In these years the John Leech cartoons had been printed in slim volumes, and his children joyfully hailed their appearance and listened open-eyed to their father’s comments thereon. The famous Nonsense Book he knew off by heart as soon as they did, and used its form of “There was an old man of,” etc. etc., to teach many a lesson in daily life !

His intercourse with his children was entirely natural. When they were very young he seemed to try to compete with them successfully too in the creation of fairy stories, and when older they took for granted that he was equally interested in what were to them the important incidents of school life. He was pleased when, voluntarily, notes of his sermons were taken which showed an intelligent grasp of the subject, but to their mother was very much left their direct religious teaching.

1. At the opening ceremony of the Rylands Library Dr. McLaren quite unexpectedly was asked to say “a few words.” When he came home he told, “I had at least one attentive listener to my small speech to-day, Henry Irving, he never took his eyes off me for an instant.” Some one sitting behind Henry Irving heard him, when Dr. McLaren sat down, turn to his companion and make use of a very strong expression followed by “What a man !” Perhaps he thought he saw a good actor spoiled.

Dr. McLaren, Scotland – Carr Bridge and a Final Regret

taken from C.A. Lejeune’s autobiography, Thank You for Having Me, the chapter “A Game of Crickit and other Storeys” P.31-33.

One fine September I was taken up to Scotland, to stay with Grandfather at his summer home at Carr Bridge near Inverness. It may seem odd that so far I have hardly mentioned grandfather, who, as I am only too constantly reminded, was the one important member of our family.

The reason is quite simple: I scarcely knew him. He lived with his married son, My Uncle Alistair, not far away from us in Fallowfield, but to the best of my recollection there was no close contact between our two households. I have a fancy there was no great love lost between Mother and Aunt Maggie. I can just remember Aunt Maggie as a pale person with a cat, who always gave me asthma. It may have been her aura or her cat.

I used to embroider smoking-caps for Grandfather at Christmas, and every now and the was taken to pay visits to him in his study. The study was a big upstairs room, reeking of pipe smoke, with a roaring fire and books up to the ceiling.

He was always very kind to me in his grave way; allowed me to blow down the speaking-tube connected with the kitchen, and even to strike a key or two on the mysterious machine he used for writing sermons. He was a very tall, wrinkled man, dressed in a frock-coat, with keen blue eyes and a jutting chin beard; something, to my mind, between a Mosaic god and Abraham Lincoln.

Grandfather was certainly in residence at Carr Bridge the year we went to stay there. I know that, because I was taken once to hear him preach at the chapel. His sermons were famous at that time in then non-conformist world, but I’m afraid I paid little heed to that one. The sun was shining, the hills were purple with the last of the ling and I was thinking how lovely it would be to go out and gather blaeberries.

My memories of Carr Bridge are largely of the kitchen, where I used to help Grandfather’s cook Bella to make girdle cakes, potato scones and sheets of crumbly, speckled oat cakes.

I remember being invited, with grave Highland courtesy, into a low, stone beehive of a cottage, with beds built into the walls and a warm, glorious fug of peat smoke. I remember drinking ice-cold water from the burns; filling a milk pail with ripe scarlet cranberries; and the rumour that the old veteran Wild Cat was roaming the woods behind the house again.

Most vividly of all I can remember the day when I was lost in the pine forest. I had strayed away from the others, who were picking berries, and was busy with my own ploys when suddenly it seemed that the straight red trunks on every side were no longer friendly but were closing in on me. I didn’t know which way to turn. There were no landmarks; every tree looked just the same and hostile. I was seized with atavistic panic. I screamed, and after an unbelievably long time people came. The whole thing was like the grimmest sort of fairy-tale, and I remember it more clearly than I remember yesterday.

I think Grandfather must have died not long after that Carr Bridge holiday. At least, we never went there any more, and he was an old man at the time, well on in his eighties. I wish now that I had known him better. I like to remember the last thing I ever heard him say. Mother had told him she was taking me to the theatre to see Peter Pan. Grandfather sighed and shook his head. I was afraid that for a moment he was going to upbraid: but no. “It is one of my deepest regrets,” was what he said, “that I never set foot inside a playhouse. I am sure that I have forfeited a great deal.”