Cockshut, A. O. J. Truth to Life; the Art of Biography in the Nineteenth Century. London, Collins, 1974.
Reviewed with great esteem by somebody named JMS Tomkins. The issue of a psychological truth comes up, which is an intriguing indicatino of the depth of Cockshut's consideration.
No assumption is left lying unexamined; it is matched against facts and questioned as to its logical consequences. Defending Southey's emblematic interpretation of the providential deliverance from the fire of John Wesley in his childhood, against the modern expectation that the incident will be accepted as formative of his mind, he points out the grave intellectual difficulties that such an acceptance brings in its train.
The lesson: never turn away from intellectual difficulty. Anon!
Southey's biography of John Wesley is available for free download from Google Books; the anecdote in question is from near the beginning of the book.
Saved from the Flames
John, his second son, the founder of the Methodists, was born at Epworth on the 17th of June 1703. Epworth is a market-town in the Lindsay division of Lincolnshire, irregularly built, and containing at that time in its parish about two thousand persons. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in the culture and preparation of hemp and flax, in spinning these articles, and in the manufactory of sacking and bagging. Mr. Wesley found his parishioners in a profligate state; and the zeal with which he discharged his duty in admonishing them of their sins, excited a spirit of diabolical hatred in those whom it failed to reclaim. Some of these wretches twice attempted to set his house on fire, without success: they succeeded in a third attempt. At midnight some pieces of burning wood fell from the roof upon the bed in which one of the children lay, and burnt her feet. Before she could give the alarm, Mr. Wesley was roused by a cry of fire from the street: little imagining that it was in his own house, he opened the door, and found it full of smoke, and that the roof was already burnt through. His wife being ill at the time, slept apart from him, and in a separate room. Bidding her and the two eldest girls rise and shift for their lives, he burst open the nursery door, where the maid was sleeping with five children. She snatched up the youngest, and bade the others follow her; the three elder did so, but John, who was then six years old, was not awakened by all this, and in the alarm and confusion he was forgotten. By the time they reached the hall, the flames had spread every where around them, and Mr. Wesley then found that the keys of the house-door were above stairs. He ran and recovered them, a minute before the stair-case took fire. When the door was opened, a strong north-east wind drove in the flames with such violence from the side of the house, that it was impossible to stand against them. Some of the children got through the windows, and others through a little door into the garden. Mrs. Wesley could not reach the garden door, and^ was not in a condition to climb to the windows : after three times attempting to face the flames, and shrinking as often from their force, she besought Christ to preserve her, if it was his will, from that dreadful death : she then, to use her own expression, waded through the fire, and escaped into the street naked as she was, with some slight scorching of the hands and face. At this time John, who had not been remembered till that moment, was heard crying in the nursery. The father ran to the stairs, but they were so nearly consumed, that they could not bear his weight, and being utterly in despair, he fell upon his knees in the hall, and in agony commended the soul of the child to God. John had been awakened by the light, and thinking it was day, called to the maid to take him up ; but as no one answered, he opened the curtains, and saw streaks of fire upon the top of the room. He ran to the door, and finding it impossible to escape that way, climbed upon a chest which stood near the window, and he was then seen from the yard. There was no time for procuring a ladder, but it was happily a low house: one man was hoisted upon the shoulders of another, and could then reach the window, so as to take him out: a moment later and it would have been too late : the whole roof fell in, and had it not fallen inward, they must all have been crushed together. When the child was carried out to the house where his parents were, the father cried out, " Come, neighbours, let us kneel down: let us give thanks to God ! he has given me all my eight children : let the house go, I am rich enough." John Wesley remembered this providential deliverance through life with the deepest gratitude. In reference to it he had a house in flames engraved as an emblem under one of his portraits, with these words for the motto, '' Is not this a brand plucked out of the burning ?"
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