This leads us to consider the question, which is the most momentous of any that can be proposed on this topic—If the plan of locating the idle hands of Ireland on her waste lands is not adopted, what other resource exists for the relief of the redundant population, which is, as we have stated, so enormous and unquestionable a burden on England and Scotland? It is clear that, in Ireland itself, as the law now stands, two plans only are thought of, and if government does not bring forward a third plan, one or other of these must quickly predominate. Either the main body of the landlords, who are known to be quite incredulous as to any improvements being effected by their cottar tenants, must be allowed to pursue their own system of keeping them on hand—i.e., only as tenants-at-will—and clearing their lands of them as rapidly as possible, with a view to large farms or sheep-pastures; or else that system must be adopted, which is demanded generally by the tenantry and by the Roman Catholic priests in Ireland, of giving to the tenants one form or other of what has been called "fixity of tenure"—i.e., such security against a ruinous rise of rent, or dispossession, as may induce them to exert all their energies, and sometimes to bring forth concealed capital, for the improvement of the soil, and, in many instances, for the reclamation of wastes;—this party maintaining that the main cause of the generally wretched condition of the cottars, and imperfect cultivation of the soil, is not the indolence of the people, but their knowledge that they are constantly liable to a rise ofrent, or expulsion from their farms, immediately on its being perceived that they are effecting any improvement.
These are the two remedies for the existing state of matters in Ireland, which these two parties wish to apply, and unless a third plan be adopted by government, one or other of these must quickly predominate. Now, let us consider the results to be expected in either case.
If government does nothing, but merely protects, by an armed force, the proprietors and their agents from the fury of the people, the system of clearance of the estates will be more and more acted on; and we must reckon on one-half or even two-thirds of the still existing population on most of the estates being turned adrift. No doubt the poor-law will make these outcasts a heavy burden on the proprietors; and it is held by many, and very probably with justice, that, instead of turning their cottar tenants adrift, and then having to deal with them as unemployed poor, if they were to accord to them such a tenant-right as exists generally, as a voluntary compact, in Ulster, they might expect the poor-rate to be so much less, the cultivation so to improve and extend, and the payment of rents to become gradually so much more punctual, that their own condition would be gradually amended. But it is certain thatthis is not the view that they take of their own positionat this moment, nor that on which they will voluntarily act;for if it were, the tenant-right, or at least the practice of granting long leases, would be as generalin other parts of Ireland as it now is in Ulster, or in Scotland.
This being so, the poor-law, giving the right to relief to the ejected poor, must either be enforced or not enforced. If it is enforced, and no other resource for the relief of those people is presented, there is every prospect of many of the unions becoming bankrupt, and the proprietors being involved in the ruin. We know that this consummation is already proclaimed by many of the proprietors in Ireland and their friends as nigh at hand; and the only advantage which in that case can be said to be derived from the poor-rate is, that the ruin and degradation, otherwise confined to the lower ranks, will have extended, as in justice they should, to every class of society. Again, if the poor-law is not enforced, and the redundant population is thrown, as heretofore, on its own resources, we havefirst, thatres pessimi exempli—a law openly violated—that the rich may escape its inflictions, and the poor be deprived of its protection; andsecondly, we have no other prospect before us but a continuance and increase of all that misery, vagrancy, famine, and pestilence in Ireland, and all that extension of these evils to the great towns of England and Scotland, which have made our connexion with Ireland the bane of this country.
On the other hand, if the legislature were to adopt the only effectual means of restraining the clearances by the landlords—i.e., to grant the desired boon of fixity of tenure, at the existing rent, to all the tenants—or even absolutely require leases of a certain duration to be given to them all—it cannot be denied that they would commit the grave political offence of extensive interference not only with portions of private property, (which, all admit, may be justly taken, on reasonable compensation, for public objects,) but with the whole income of many individuals. This offence is of such a character, that we can hardly expect to see a measure involving it ever adopted by any legislature in this country; and it must be confessed that, however well adapted such a measure may be to the exigency of the present time in Ireland, the precedent thereby established would go far to justify many acts, as regards other possessions of property, which can hardly be called by any other name than spoliation.
These are the considerations which lead us to believe that, in the present circumstances of Ireland—a population having grown up in the absence of any poor-law—with which a law, enacted tardily, and at a most disastrous period, cannot be expected to cope—the newly-acquired right to existence of the Irish poor must be aided and supported—as was always desired by Mr P. Scrope, and all the more enlightened advocates of that measure, and at one time proposed by the presentPremier—by another measure, on the part of government, wherebyemployment may be procured for them, the resources of the country improved, and the proprietors taught, by example much more effectually than they can ever be by precept, how these duties, now legally imposed on them for the benefit of the poor, may be made to consist with improvement of their own position.
What is often said of the impolicy of government coming into the market for the purchase and improvement of lands in Ireland, as deterring private speculators from coming forward, and checking the influx of really productive capital, would be a very fair allegation, if the object in view were merely the economical one of raising the value of the land and the income of the landed proprietors. But this is not adverting to the real difficulty of the case,the existence of a redundant population—the result of the causes above explained,but now possessing a legal right to existence in the country—much more numerous than is required for that improved cultivation of the soil, which would be the most obviously and rapidly profitable to the proprietors. The problem for solution is, not simply how to enrich the country, but how to enrich it without exterminating any part of this redundant population. This is no object for private speculators, looking only to pounds, shillings, and pence; but it is, or should be, an object of paramount importance to the government of a country, to whom even an increase of wealth ought to be desirable, not for its own sake, but because it is the essential condition, and therefore the exponent, of an extension of human happiness; to whom, therefore, the lives of the poor ought to be at least as sacred as the purses of the proprietors and capitalists in Ireland.
Taking this view of the duty of government, we may cordially acquiesce in the statement of Mr Thornton, quoted and approved by Mill, that the great want of Ireland at this moment is, not the influx of capital (as it might be if we were at liberty to disregard the lives of the people, and look only to the wealth of the country,) but the protection and encouragement of its industry, and such an increase of its capital only as may be consistent with, or even produced by, an increase of the labour of all its able-bodied inhabitants. And it is because it is evident that the existing proprietors cannot in general perceive how this is to be done, or command the means of doing it, that the interference of government appears to be the only possible means of rescuing that unhappy country from misery.
Many high authorities are fully convinced that the improvement of the cultivated portion of the land, and even of the rents of the proprietors, may be equally well effected by thepetite culture, by keeping the cottars in their places, and merely giving them instruction as to cultivation, and security for a fair share of the profits of the improvements they effect—as by clearing the land of them, and enlarging the farms. All who have studied the subject, seem to be agreed as to the very general "almost superhuman" industry of peasantproprietors, in all parts of the world, and among all races of men. "The idea of property, however," says Mr Mill, "does not necessarily imply that there should be no rent, any more than that there should be no taxes. It merely implies, that the rent should be a fixed charge, not liable to be raised against the possessor by his own improvements, or by the will of a landlord." "Give a man a secure possession of a bleak rock," says Arthur Young, "and he will turn it into a garden; give him only a nine-years' lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert." It is accordingly stated by this author, and by others, as the result of experience, that long leases, at a low rent, will effect wonders, even in Ireland; and in proof of this, Mr Mill refers to the example of a company, called the Irish Waste Land Improvement Society, who have undertaken improvements in Ireland, not by creating large farms, and cultivating them by hind labour, but by farms only of a size sufficient for a single family—giving, however, small advances of capital, and a temporary security of tenure by thirty-one years' leases. Col. Robinson, the manager of this Society, reports of their operations in 1845,—"These 245 tenants and their families have, by spade husbandry, reclaimed andbrought into cultivation 1032 acres of land, previously unproductive waste, on which they raised, last year, crops valued at £3896, being the proportion of £15, 18s. each tenant; and their live stock, now on the estates, is valued, according to present prices in the neighbouring markets, at £4162, being at the rate of £16, 19s. for each—£1304, a sum equal to their present annual rent, having been added since February 1844;" and he adds, "By the statistical tables and returns, it is proved that the tenants, in general, improve their little farms, and increase their cultivation and crops, innearly direct proportion to the number of available working personsof both sexes of which their families consist." The occupants of larger farms than 20 acres, he states to be "a class too often deficient in the enduring industry indispensable for the successful prosecution of mountain improvements."[6]Mr Mill's general conclusion is, that "under the new Irish Poor-Law there are no means for the landlords for escaping ruin," (as has been stated above,) "unless, by some potent stimulant to the industrial energies of the people, they can largely increase the produce of agriculture; and since there is no stimulant available so potent as a permanent interest in the soil, either the present landlords, or their English mortgagees, to whom the estates of the more impoverished landowners must inevitably pass, would find it to their advantage, if not to grant at once this permanent interest to their tenants, at least to hold out to them, the prospect of acquiring it."[7]To the same purpose, Sir Robert Kane states his belief that "there are not people enough in Ireland for the small-farm system" if it were carried on in the manner which the experience of other countries has shown to be practicable, and which requires only a certain amount of instruction and of encouragement to the tenants, to enable them to raise at least as much produce, and pay a better rent, than large farms would do.[8]But although this appears a very probable, as well as hopeful view, of the position of the cultivated parts of Ireland, and of the prospects of individual proprietors undertaking to reclaim the wastes, yet it is obvious that we can have no security for the landlords taking this view of their position, and that it would be a very questionable stretch of power to compel them to act upon it. And what we wish particularly to urge is, thatit is not necessary to come to any decisionon the disputed question of the grand orpetite cultureas applicable to thecultivateddistricts of Ireland, because thewastelands fortunately furnish a resource which isclear additionto the existing means of maintaining the agricultural population, available at a small preliminary expense only, which, we maintain, ought to be borne by the government of this country. The redundant population being thus disposed of, all the landlords will be left at liberty to try whatever modes of improving their estates they may think fit—subject always to this salutary check, that if by any of these modes they render an additional part of the population redundant, they will be compelled, by the poor-law, to pay more or less for them.
The digest of Lord Devon's report shows, that there were in Ireland, when it was drawn up, "326,089 occupiers of land, whose holdings were under eight acres each, and that the consolidation of these small holdings, up to eight acres, would require the removal of about 192,363 families; but, then, thefirstclass ofimprovable waste landsin Ireland (on which we wish to see them employed) would furnish to all those removed families locations of about eight acres each—or, the first and second qualities of improvable waste land, taken together, would furnish them with locations of twenty acres each." These facts seem fully sufficient to justify Mr Mill's conclusion, (formerly quoted,) that if we "suppose such a number drafted off to a state of independence and comfort, together with a very moderateadditional relief by emigration, the introduction of English capital and farming over theremaining surfaceof Ireland (at least where the proprietors may think it necessary) would at once cease to be chimerical."[9]At least we feel justified by these facts, by all the statements here made, and by the authorities by whom this plan has been recommended, in demanding that a measure which promises so much relief, not only to the miseries of Ireland, but to the various philanthropic designs in this country—which are so continually thwarted by the influx of Irish poor—should be fairly and openly canvassed; and that, if any serious objections can be stated to it, they should be publicly brought forward and discussed.
As to the simply economical objection, on the score of the outlay that would be required, we do not lay stress on the statement made on no less authority than Lord Devon's Commission, that, in fact, it ought to cost nothing; and that the improved rental of the land ought to bring in a return of ten per cent on the capital invested in the speculation. We may admit that this is too sanguine a view of the matter—that the sums advanced by the government of this country will probably be tardily and only partially repaid. Still, when we reflect on the facts that have been stated as to the actual cultivation of waste lands in Ireland, and on the concurrent opinion of so many able and experienced men, who have examined the country carefully, and report specifically on the facilities for the improvement of its different parts, it seems impossible to doubt, that, if the expenditure of the sums advanced by government is superintended and controlled by the talent and experience which the country may expect that the government can command, the repayment of a considerable part of the outlay, particularly of that which may be advanced on the credit of the poor-law unions, may be expected within a few years. And even if there were ultimately a loss to the extent of one-half of the £10,000,000, which has been stated as the probable expense of the whole change, the money will at all events have gone to the immediate relief of Irish suffering, and been better spent than what was formerly voted for that purpose; and we cannot think that a nation which spent a larger sum, only two years ago, in the mere relief of the sufferings of the Irish people, without any attempt at improvement, and very generally with a deteriorating (because not previously considered) effect on the resources of the country—and which spent £20,000,000 only a few years ago with very questionable effect, but certainly without being grudged, in attempting to assuage the sufferings, and raise the condition of the negroes in the West Indies—can repent the loss of a fourth part of that sum, in an attempt which can hardly by possibility fail of producing considerable effect, to provide remunerative employment for the hordes of Irish labourers in their own country, and arrest those grievous calamities which their diffusion over this country has brought on themselves, and on so many others who have come in contact with them.
In thus stating the grounds of a very decided opinion as to the measure supplementary to the new poor-law, which is most essentially required for Ireland, we do not of course mean to deny, that various other means may be adopted, with more or less of good effect, in furtherance of the same grand object. We have no doubt that both religious and secular education are of the utmost importance to the civilisation and improvement of every country; and although we do not regard education, as some authors do, as the main remedy for the evils of over-population, (being thoroughly persuaded that nature has provided for this object more surely than education can, by that growth of artificial wants in the human mind, which is the result and the reward of pains taken to relieve suffering and secure comfort during youth,) we are as anxious as any of our contemporaries for the extension of education in Ireland. We believe that instruction in agriculture, aswell as encouragement to industry, is very much needed in most parts of Ireland; and that measures for the direct communication of such instruction, both to landlords and tenants, may be very useful. We believe that in Ireland, as in this country, there is great need of sanitary regulations; and we trust that the draining, cleaning, and paving of the Irish towns will be regarded with as much interest as similar purifications in England and Scotland. But we think no one who reflects on the subject can fail to perceive two truths, and to acknowledge their direct bearing on the subject of Irish misery—first, that to a people nurtured in destitution and amidst scenes of suffering, something of the great mental stimuli ofemploymentandhopemust be applied, in order to enable them to appreciate, or permanently to profit by, any kind of education; and,secondly, that in the existence of laws securing sustenance to all the poor of a country, and at the same time enabling the higher ranks to exact labour as the price of that sustenance, we possess a security such as no other social arrangements can afford, for habitual attention to all means of bettering the condition of the poor, on the part of those who have it in their power to apply those means, and on whose exertions their successful application must necessarily depend. Thus the poor-laws of Ireland, and the subsidiary measures for procuring employment for the poor there, so far from being opposed to any wise system of instruction, or of sanitary improvement, must be regarded as in truth an essential preliminary to the truly beneficial operation of any system that may be devised for either of these purposes.
There entered, in the front drawing-room of my father's house in Russell Street—an Elf!!! clad in white,—small, delicate, with curls of jet over her shoulders;—with eyes so large and so lustrous that they shone through the room, as no eyes merely human could possibly shine. The Elf approached, and stood facing us. The sight was so unexpected, and the apparition so strange, that we remained for some moments in startled silence. At length my father, as the bolder and wiser man of the two, and the more fitted to deal with the eirie things of another world, had the audacity to step close up to the little creature, and, bending down to examine its face, said, "What do you want, my pretty child?"
Pretty child! was it only a pretty child after all? Alas! it would be well if all we mistake for fairies at the first glance could resolve themselves only into pretty children!
"Come," answered the child, with a foreign accent, and taking my father by the lappet of his coat—"come! poor papa is so ill! I am frightened! come—and save him—"
"Certainly," exclaimed my father quickly: "where's my hat, Sisty? Certainly, my child! we will go and save papa."
"But who is papa?" asked Pisistratus—a question that would never have occurred to my father. He never asked who or what the sick papas of poor children were, when the children pulled him by the lappet of his coat.—"Who is papa?"
The child looked hard at me, and the big tears rolled from those large luminous eyes, but quite silently. At this moment, a full-grown figure filled up the threshold, and, emerging from the shadow, presented to us the aspect of a stout, well-favoured young woman. She dropped a curtsy, and then said, mincingly,
"Oh, miss! you ought to have waited for me, and not alarmed the gentlefolks by running up stairs in that way. If you please, sir, I was settling with the cabman, and he was so imperent: them low fellows always are, when they have only us poor women to deal with, sir,—and——"
"But what is the matter?" cried I; for my father had taken the child in his arms, soothingly, and she was now weeping on his breast.
"Why, you see, sir, (another curtsy,) the gent only arrived last night at our hotel, sir—The Lamb, close by Lunnun Bridge—and he was taken ill—and he's not quite in his right mind like:—so we sent for the doctor, and the doctor looked at the brass plate on the gent's carpet-bag, sir,—and then he looked into theCourt Guide, and he said, 'There is a Mr Caxton in Great Russell Street,—is he any relation?' and this young lady said, 'That's my papa's brother, and we were going there.'—And so, sir, as the Boots was out, I got into a cab, and miss would come with me, and——"
"Roland—Roland ill!—Quick—quick, quick!" cried my father; and, with the child still in his arms, he ran down the stairs. I followed with his hat, which, of course, he had forgotten. A cab, by good luck, was passing our very door; but the chambermaid would not let us enter it till she had satisfied herself that it was not the same she had dismissed. This preliminary investigation completed, we entered and drove to The Lamb.
The chambermaid, who sate opposite, passed the time in ineffectual overtures to release my father of the little girl, who still clung nestling to his breast,—in a long epic, much broken into episodes, of the causes which had led to her dismissal of the late cabman, who, to swell his fare, had thought proper to take a "circumbendibus!"—and with occasional tugs at her cap, and smoothings down of her gown, and apologies for being such a figure, especially when her eyes rested on my satin cravat, or drooped on my varnished boots.
Arrived at The Lamb, the chambermaid,with conscious dignity, led us up a large staircase, which seemed interminable. As she mounted the region above the third story, she paused to take breath, and inform us, apologetically, that the house was full, but that, if the "gent" stayed over Friday, he would be moved into No. 54, "with a look-out and a chimbly." My little cousin now slipped from my father's arms, and, running up the stairs, beckoned to us to follow. We did so, and were led to a door, at which the child stopped and listened; then taking off her shoes, she stole in on tiptoe. We entered after her.
By the light of a single candle, we saw my poor uncle's face: it was flushed with fever, and the eyes had that bright, vacant stare which it is so terrible to meet.—Less terrible is it to find the body wasted, the features sharp with the great life-struggle, than to look on the face from which the mind is gone,—the eyes in which there is no recognition. Such a sight is a startling shock to that unconscious habitual materialism with which we are apt familiarly to regard those we love: for, in thus missing the mind, the heart, the affection that sprang to ours, we are suddenly made aware that it was the somethingwithinthe form, and not the form itself, that was so dear to us. The form itself is still, perhaps, little altered; but that lip which smiles no welcome, that eye which wanders over us as strangers, that ear which distinguishes no more our voices,—thefriendwe sought is not there! Even our own love is chilled back—grows a kind of vague superstitious terror. Yes, it was not the matter, still present to us, which had conciliated all those subtle nameless sentiments which are classed and fused in the word "affection,"—it was the airy, intangible, electricsomething,—the absence of which now appals us.
I stood speechless—my father crept on, and took the hand that returned no pressure:—The child only did not seem to share our emotions,—but, clambering on the bed, laid her cheek on the breast and was still.
"Pisistratus," whispered my father at last, and I stole near, hushing my breath—"Pisistratus, if your mother were here!"
I nodded; the same thought had struck us both. His deep wisdom, my active youth, both felt their nothingness then and there. In the sick chamber, both turned helplessly to miss thewoman.
So I stole out, descended the stairs, and stood in the open air in a sort of stunned amaze. Then the tramp of feet, and the roll of wheels, and the great London roar, revived me. That contagion of practical life which lulls the heart and stimulates the brain,—what an intellectual mystery there is in its common atmosphere! In another moment I had singled out, like an inspiration, from a long file of those ministrants of our Trivia, the cab of the lightest shape and with the strongest horse, and was on my way, not to my mother's, but to Dr M—— H——, Manchester Square, whom I knew as the medical adviser to the Trevanions. Fortunately, that kind and able physician was at home, and he promised to be with the sufferer before I myself could join him. I then drove to Russell Street, and broke to my mother, as cautiously as I could, the intelligence with which I was charged.
When we arrived at The Lamb, we found the doctor already writing his prescription and injunctions: the activity of the treatment announced the danger. I flew for the surgeon who had been before called in. Happy those who are strange to that indescribable silent bustle which the sick-room at times presents—that conflict which seems almost hand to hand between life and death—when all the poor, unresisting, unconscious frame is given up to the war against its terrible enemy; the dark blood flowing—flowing; the hand on the pulse, the hushed suspense, every look on the physician's bended brow; then the sinaplasms to the feet, and the ice to the head; and now and then, through the lull or the low whispers, the incoherent voice of the sufferer—babbling, perhaps, of green fields and fairyland, while your hearts are breaking! Then, at length, the sleep—in that sleep, perhaps, the crisis—the breathless watch, the slow waking, the firstsanewords—the old smile again, only fainter—your gushing tears, your low—"Thank God! thank God!"
Picture all this; it is past: Roland has spoken—his sense has returned—my mother is leaning over him—his child's small hands are clasped round his neck—the surgeon, who has been there six hours, has taken up his hat, and smiles gaily as he nods farewell—and my father is leaning against the wall, with his face covered with his hands.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
All this had been so sudden that, to use the trite phrase—for no other is so expressive—it was like a dream. I felt an absolute, an imperious want of solitude, of the open air. The swell of gratitude almost stifled me—the room did not seem large enough for my big heart. In early youth, if we find it difficult to control our feelings, so we find it difficult to vent them in the presence of others. On the spring side of twenty, if any thing affects us, we rush to lock ourselves up in our room, or get away into the streets or the fields; in our earlier years we are still the savages of Nature, and we do as the poor brute does,—the wounded stag leaves the herd, and, if there is any thing on a dog's faithful heart, he slinks away into a corner.
Accordingly, I stole out of the hotel, and wandered through the streets, which were quite deserted. It was about the first hour of dawn, the most comfortless hour there is, especially in London! But I only felt freshness in the raw air, and soothing in the desolate stillness. The love my uncle inspired was very remarkable in its nature: it was not like that quiet affection with which those advanced in life must usually content themselves, but connected with the more vivid interest that youth awakens. There was in him still so much of vivacity and fire, in his errors and crotchets so much of the self-delusion of youth, that one could scarce fancy him other than young. Those Quixotic exaggerated notions of honour, that romance of sentiment, which no hardship, care, grief, disappointment, could wear away, (singular in a period when, at two-and-twenty, young men declare themselvesblasés!) seemed to leave him all the charm of boyhood. A season in London had made me more a man of the world, older in heart than he was. Then, the sorrow that gnawed him with such silent sternness. No—Captain Roland was one of those men who seize hold of your thoughts, who mix themselves up with your lives. The idea that Roland should die—die with the load at his heart unlightened, was one that seemed to take a spring out of the wheels of nature, an object out of the aims of life—of my life at least. For I had made it one of the ends of my existence to bring back the son to the father, and restore the smile, that must have been gay once, to the downward curve of that iron lip. But Roland was now out of danger,—and yet, like one who has escaped shipwreck, I trembled to look back on the danger past; the voice of the devouring deep still boomed in my ears. While rapt in my reveries, I stopped mechanically to hear a clock strike—four; and, looking round, I perceived that I had wandered from the heart of the city, and was in one of the streets that lead out of the Strand. Immediately before me, on the door-steps of a large shop, whose closed shutters wore as obstinate a stillness as if they had guarded the secrets of seventeen centuries in a street in Pompeii,—reclined a form fast asleep; the arm propped on the hard stone supporting the head, and the limbs uneasily strewn over the stairs. The dress of the slumberer was travel-stained, tattered, yet with the remains of a certain pretence: an air of faded, shabby, penniless gentility made poverty more painful; because it seemed to indicate unfitness to grapple with it. The face of this person was hollow and pale, but its expression, even in sleep, was fierce and hard. I drew near and nearer; I recognised the countenance, the regular features, the raven hair, even a peculiar gracefulness of posture: the young man whom I had met at the inn by the way-side, and who had left me alone with the Savoyardand his mice in the churchyard, was before me. I remained behind the shadow of one of the columns of the porch, leaning against the area rails, and irresolute whether or not so slight an acquaintance justified me in waking the sleeper—when a policeman, suddenly emerging from an angle in the street, terminated my deliberations with the decision of his practical profession; for he laid hold of the young man's arm and shook it roughly,—"You must not lie here, get up and go home!" The sleeper woke with a quick start, rubbed his eyes, looked round, and fixed them upon the policeman so haughtily that that discriminating functionary probably thought that it was not from sheer necessity that so improper a couch had been selected, and with an air of greater respect he said, "You have been drinking, young man,—can you find your way home?"
"Yes," said the youth, resettling himself—"you see I have found it!"
"By the Lord Harry!" muttered the policeman, "if he ben't going to sleep again! Come, come! walk on, or I must walk you off."
My old acquaintance turned round. "Policeman," said he, with a strange sort of smile, "what do you think this lodging is worth?—I don't say for the night, for you see that is over, but for the next two hours? The lodging is primitive, but it suits me; I should think a shilling would be a fair price for it, eh?"
"You love your joke, sir," said the policeman, with a brow much relaxed, and opening his hand mechanically.
"Say a shilling, then—it is a bargain! I hire it of you upon credit. Good-night, and call me at six o'clock."
With that the young man settled himself so resolutely, and the policeman's face exhibited such bewilderment, that I burst out laughing, and came from my hiding-place.
The policeman looked at me. "Do you know this—this"—
"This gentleman?" said I, gravely. "Yes, you may leave him to me;" and I slipped the price of the lodging into the policeman's hand. He looked at the shilling—he looked at me—he looked up the street and down the street—shook his head, and walked off. I then approached the youth, touched him, and said—"Can you remember me, sir; and what have you done with Mr Peacock?"
Stranger(after a pause.)—I remember you; your name isCaxton.
Pisistratus.—And yours?
Stranger.—Poor-devil, if you ask my pockets—pockets, which are the symbols of man; Dare-devil, if you ask my heart. (Surveying me from head to foot)—The world seems to have smiled on you, Mr Caxton! Are you not ashamed to speak to a wretch lying on the stones?—but, to be sure, no one sees you.
Pisistratus(sententiously.)—Had I lived in the last century, I might have found Samuel Johnson lying on the stones.
Stranger(rising.)—You have spoilt my sleep; you had a right, since you paid for the lodging. Let me walk with you a few paces; you need not fear—I do not pick pockets—yet!
Pisistratus.—You say the world has smiled on me; I fear it has frowned on you. I don't say "courage," for you seem to have enough of that; but I say "patience," which is the rarer quality of the two.
Stranger.—Hem! (Again looking at me keenly)—Why is it that you stop to speak to me—one of whom you know nothing, or worse than nothing?
Pisistratus.—Because I have often thought of you; because you interest me; because—pardon me—I would help you if I can—that is, if you want help.
Stranger.—Want!—I am one want! I want sleep—I want food;—I want the patience you recommend—patience to starve and rot. I have travelled from Paris to Boulogne on foot, with twelve sous in my pocket. Out of those twelve sous in my pocket I saved four; with the four I went to a billiard-room at Boulogne; I won just enough to pay my passage and buy three rolls. You see I only require capital in order to make a fortune. If with four sous I can win ten francs in a night, what could I win with a capital of four sovereigns, and in the course of a year?—that is an application of the Rule of Three which my head aches too much tocalculate just at present. Well, those three rolls have lasted me three days; the last crumb went for supper last night. Therefore, take care how you offer me money, (for that is what men mean by help.) You see I have no option but to take it. But I warn you, don't expect gratitude!—I have none in me!
Pisistratus.—You are not so bad as you paint yourself. I would do something more for you, if I can, than lend you the little I have to offer: will you be frank with me?
Stranger.—That depends—I have been frank enough hitherto, I think.
Pisistratus.—True; so I proceed without scruple. Don't tell me your name or your condition, if you object to such confidence; but tell me if you have relations to whom you can apply? You shake your head: well, then, are you willing to work for yourself? or is it only at the billiard-table—pardon me—that you can try to make four sous produce ten francs?
Stranger(musing.)—I understand you; I have never worked yet—I abhor work. But I have no objection to try if it is in me.
Pisistratus.—It is in you: a man who can walk from Paris to Boulogne with twelve sous in his pocket, and save four for a purpose—who can stake those four on the cool confidence in his own skill, even at billiards—who can subsist for three days on three rolls—and who, on the fourth day, can wake from the stones of a capital with an eye and a spirit as proud as yours, has in him all the requisites to subdue fortune.
Stranger.—Do you work?—you?
Pisistratus.—Yes—and hard.
Stranger.—I am ready to work, then.
Pisistratus.—Good. Now, what can you do?
Stranger(with his odd smile.)—Many things useful. I can split a bullet on a penknife: I know the secret tierce of Coulon, the fencing-master: I can speak two languages (besides English) like a native, even to their slang: I know every game in the cards: I can act comedy, tragedy, farce: I can drink down Bacchus himself: I can make any woman I please in love with me—that is, any woman good-for-nothing. Can I earn a handsome livelihood out of all this—wear kid gloves, and set up a cabriolet?—you see my wishes are modest!
Pisistratus.—You speak two languages, you say, like a native,—French, I suppose, is one of them?
Stranger.—Yes.
Pisistratus.—Will you teach it?
Stranger(haughtily.)—No.Je suis gentilhomme, which means more or less than a gentleman.Gentilhommemeans well born, because free born,—teachers are slaves!
Pisistratus(unconsciously imitating Mr Trevanion.)—Stuff!
Stranger(looks angry, and then laughs.)—Very true; stilts don't suit shoes like these! But I cannot teach: heaven help those I should teach!—Anything else?
Pisistratus.—Anything else!—you leave me a wide margin. You know French thoroughly;—to write as well as speak?—that is much. Give me some address where I can find you,—or will you call on me?
Stranger.—No! Any evening at dusk I will meet you. I have no address to give; and I cannot show these rags at another man's door.
Pisistratus.—At nine in the evening, then, and here in the Strand, on Thursday next. I may then have found something that will suit you. Meanwhile—(slides his purse into the Stranger's hand. N.B.—Purse not very full.)
Stranger, with the air of one conferring a favour, pockets the purse; and there is something so striking in the very absence of all emotion at so accidental a rescue from starvation, thatPisistratusexclaims,—
"I don't know why I should have taken this fancy to you, Mr Dare-devil, if that be the name that please you best. The wood you are made of seems cross-grained, and full of knots; and yet, in the hands of a skilful carver, I think it would be worth much."
Stranger(startled.)—Do you? do you? None, I believe, ever thought that before. But the same wood, I suppose, that makes the gibbet could make the mast of a man-of-war. I tell you, however, why you have taken this fancy to me,—the strong sympathise with the strong. You, too, could subdue fortune!
Pisistratus.—Stop; if so—if there is congeniality between us, then liking should be reciprocal. Come, say that; for half my chance of helping you is in my power to touch your heart.
Stranger(evidently softened.)—If I were as great a rogue as I ought to be, my answer would be easy enough. As it is, I delay it.—Adieu—on Thursday.
Strangervanishes in the labyrinth of alleys round Leicester Square.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
On my return to The Lamb, I found that my uncle was in a soft sleep; and after an evening visit from the surgeon, and his assurance that the fever was fast subsiding, and all cause for alarm was gone, I thought it necessary to go back to Trevanion's house, and explain the reason for my night's absence. But the family had not returned from the country. Trevanion himself came up for a few hours in the afternoon, and seemed to feel much for my poor uncle's illness. Though, as usual, very busy, he accompanied me to The Lamb, to see my father, and cheer him up. Roland still continued to mend, as the surgeon phrased it; and as we went back to St James's Square, Trevanion had the consideration to release me from my oar in his galley, for the next few days. My mind, relieved from my anxiety for Roland, now turned to my new friend. It had not been without an object that I had questioned the young man as to his knowledge of French. Trevanion had a large correspondence in foreign countries, which was carried on in that language, and here I could be but of little help to him. He himself, though he spoke and wrote French with fluency and grammatical correctness, wanted that intimate knowledge of the most delicate and diplomatic of all languages to satisfy his classical purism. For Trevanion was a terribleword-weigher. His taste was the plague of my life and his own. His prepared speeches (or rather perorations) were the most finished pieces of cold diction that could be conceived under the marble portico of the Stoics,—so filed and turned, trimmed and tamed, that they never admitted a sentence that could warm the heart,—or one that could offend the ear. He had so great a horror of a vulgarism that, like Canning, he would have made a periphrasis of a couple of lines to avoid using the word 'cat.' It was only in extempore speaking that a ray of his real genius could indiscreetly betray itself. One may judge what labour such a super-refinement of taste would inflict upon a man writing in a language not his own to some distinguished statesman, or some literary institution,—knowing that language just well enough to recognise all the native elegances he failed to attain. Trevanion, at that very moment, was employed upon a statistical document, intended as a communication to a Society at Copenhagen, of which he was an honorary member. It had been for three weeks the torment of the whole house, especially of poor Fanny, (whose French was the best at our joint disposal.) But Trevanion had found her phraseology too mincing, too effeminate, too much that of theboudoir. Here, then, was an opportunity to introduce my new friend, and test the capacities that I fancied he possessed. I therefore, though with some hesitation, led the subject to "Remarks on the Mineral Treasures of Great Britain and Ireland," (such was the title of the work intended to enlighten thesavansof Denmark;) and, by certain ingenious circumlocutions, known to all able applicants, I introduced my acquaintance with a young gentleman who possessed the most familiar and intimate knowledge of French, and who might be of use in revising the manuscript. I knew enough of Trevanion, to feel that I could not reveal the circumstances under which I had formed that acquaintance, for he was much too practical a man not to have been frightened out of his wits at the idea of submitting so classical a performance to so disreputable a scapegrace. As it was, however, Trevanion, whose mind at that momentwas full of a thousand other things, caught at my suggestion, with very little cross-questioning on the subject, and, before he left London, consigned the manuscript to my charge.
"My friend is poor," said I timidly.
"Oh! as to that," cried Trevanion hastily, "if it is a matter of charity, I put my purse in your hands; but don't put my manuscript in his! If it is a matter of business, it is another affair, and I must judge of his work before I can say how much it is worth—perhaps nothing!"
So ungracious was this excellent man in his very virtues!
"Nay," said I, "itisa matter of business, and so we will consider it."
"In that case," said Trevanion, concluding the matter, and buttoning his pockets, "if I dislike his work,nothing; if I like it, twenty guineas. Where are the evening papers?" and in another moment the member of parliament had forgotten the statist, and was pishing and tutting over theGlobeor theSun.
On Thursday, my uncle was well enough to be moved into our house; and on the same evening, I went forth to keep my appointment with the stranger. The clock struck nine as we met. The palm of punctuality might be divided between us. He had profited by the interval, since our last meeting, to repair the more obvious deficiencies of his wardrobe; and though there was something still wild, dissolute, outlandish, about his whole appearance, yet in the elastic energy of his step, and the resolute assurance of his bearing, there was that which Nature gives to her own aristocracy,—for, as far as my observation goes, what has been called the "grand air" (and which is wholly distinct from the polish of manner, or the urbane grace of high breeding,) is always accompanied, and perhaps produced, by two qualities—courage, and the desire of command. It is more common to a half-savage nature than one wholly civilised. The Arab has it, so has the American Indian; and I suspect it was more frequent among the knights and barons of the middle ages than it is among the polished gentlemen of the modern drawing-room.
We shook hands, and walked on a few moments in silence; at length thus commenced theStranger,—
"You have found it more difficult, I fear, than you imagined, to make the empty sack stand upright. Considering that at least one third of those born to work cannot find it, why should I?"
Pisistratus.—I am hard-hearted enough to believe that work never fails to those who seek it in good earnest. It was said of some man, famous for keeping his word, that "if he had promised you an acorn, and all the oaks in England failed to produce one, he would have sent to Norway for an acorn." If I wanted work, and there was none to be had in the Old World, I would find my way to the New. But, to the point: Ihavefound something for you, which I do not think your taste will oppose, and which may open to you the means of an honourable independence. But I cannot well explain it in the streets, where shall we go?
Stranger(after some hesitation.)—I have a lodging near here, which I need not blush to take you to—I mean, that it is not among rogues and castaways.
Pisistratus(much pleased, and taking the stranger's arm.) Come, then.
Pisistratus and the stranger pass over Waterloo Bridge, and pause before a small house of respectable appearance. Stranger admits them both with a latch-key—leads the way to the third story—strikes a light, and does the honours to a small chamber, clean and orderly. Pisistratus explains the task to be done, and opens the manuscript. The stranger draws his chair deliberately towards the light, and runs his eye rapidly over the pages. Pisistratus trembles to see him pause before a long array of figures and calculations. Certainly it does not look inviting; but, pshaw! it is scarcely a part of the task, which limits itself to the mere correction of words.
Stranger(briefly.)—There must be a mistake here. Stay!—I see,—[He turns back a few pages, and corrects with rapid precision an error in a somewhat complicated and abstruse calculation.]
Pisistratus(surprised.)—You seem a notable arithmetician.
Stranger.—Did I not tell you that I was skilful in all games of mingled skill and chance? It requires an arithmetical head for that: a first-rate card-player is a financier spoilt. I am certain that you could never find a man fortunate on the turf, or at the gaming-table, who had not an excellent head for figures. Well, this French is good enough apparently: there are but a few idioms, here and there, that, strictly speaking, are more English than French. But the whole is a work scarce worth paying for!
Pisistratus.—The work of the head fetches a price not proportioned to the quantity, but the quality. When shall I call for this?
Stranger.—To-morrow. [And he puts the manuscript away in a drawer.]
We then conversed on various matters for nearly an hour; and my impression of this young man's natural ability was confirmed and heightened. But it was an ability as wrong and perverse in its directions or instincts as a French novelist's. He seemed to have, to a high degree, the harder portion of the reasoning faculty, but to be almost wholly without that arch beautifier of character, that sweet purifier of mere intellect—the imagination. For, though we are too much taught to be on our guard against imagination, I hold it, with Captain Roland, to be the divinest kind of reason we possess, and the one that leads us the least astray. In youth, indeed, it occasions errors, but they are not of a sordid or debasing nature. Newton says that one final effect of the comets is to recruit the seas and the planets by a condensation of the vapours and exhalations therein; and so even the erratic flashes of an imagination really healthful and vigorous deepen our knowledge and brighten our lights; they recruit our seas and our stars. Of such flashes my new friend was as innocent as the sternest matter-of-fact person could desire. Fancies he had in profusion, and very bad ones; but of imagination not ascintilla! His mind was one of those which live in a prison of logic, and cannot, or will not, see beyond the bars: such a nature is at once positive and sceptical. This boy had thought proper to decide at once on the numberless complexities of the social world from his own harsh experience. With him the whole system was a war and a cheat. If the universe were entirely composed of knaves, he would be sure to have made his way. Now this bias of mind, alike shrewd and unamiable, might be safe enough if accompanied by a lethargic temper; but it threatened to become terrible and dangerous in one who, in default of imagination, possessed abundance of passion: and this was the case with the young outcast. Passion, in him, comprehended many of the worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of wealth, but the cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this poor boy—his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere—had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into prejudices against him. Irascible, envious, arrogant—bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold repellant cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed in him no moral susceptibility; and, what was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the true point of honour. He had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no apparent wish for fame, or esteem, or the love of his species; only the hard wish to succeed, not shine, not serve,—succeed, that he might have the right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit, and enjoy the pleasures which the redundant nervous life in him seemed to crave. Such were the more patent attributes of a character that, ominous as it was, yet interested me, and yet appeared to me redeemable,—nay, to have in it the rude elements of a certain greatness. Ought we not to make something great out of a youth under twenty who has, in the highest degree, quickness to conceive and courage to execute? On the other hand, all faculties that can make greatness contain those that canattain goodness. In the savage Scandinavian, or the ruthless Frank, lay the germs of a Sidney or a Bayard. What would the best of us be, if he were suddenly placed at war with the whole world? And this fierce spiritwasat war with the whole world—a war self-sought, perhaps, but it was war not the less. You must surround the savage with peace, if you want the virtues of peace.
I cannot say that it was in a single interview and conference that I came to these convictions; but I am rather summing up the impressions which I received as I saw more of this person, whose destiny I had presumed to take under my charge.
In going away, I said, "But, at all events, you have a name in your lodgings: whom am I to ask for when I call to-morrow?"
"Oh, you may know my name now," said he, smiling: "it is Vivian—Francis Vivian."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
I remember one morning, when a boy, loitering by an old wall, to watch the operations of a garden spider, whose web seemed to be in great request. When I first stopped, she was engaged very quietly with a fly of the domestic species, whom she managed with ease and dignity. But just when she was most interested in that absorbing employment, came a couple of May-flies, and then a gnat, and then a blue-bottle,—all at different angles of the web. Never was a poor spider so distracted by her good fortune! She evidently did not know which godsend to take first. The aboriginal victim being released, she slid half-way towards the May-flies; then one of her eight eyes caught sight of the blue-bottle! and she shot off in that direction;—when the hum of the gnat again diverted her; and in the middle of this perplexity, pounce came a young wasp in a violent passion! Then the spider evidently lost her presence of mind; she became clean demented; and after standing, stupid and stock-still, in the middle of her meshes, for a minute or two, she ran off to her hole as fast as she could run, and left her guests to shift for themselves. I confess that I am somewhat in the dilemma of the attractive and amiable insect I have just described. I got on well enough while I had only my domestic fly to see after. But now that there is something fluttering at every end of my net, (and especially since the advent of that passionate young wasp, who is fuming and buzzing in the nearest corner!) I am fairly at a loss which I should first grapple with—and, alas! unlike the spider, I have no hole where I can hide myself, and let the web do the weaver's work. But I will imitate the spider as far as I can; and while the rest hum and struggle away their impatient, unnoticed hour, I will retreat into the inner labyrinth of my own life.
The illness of my uncle, and my renewed acquaintance with Vivian, had naturally sufficed to draw my thoughts from the rash and unpropitious love I had conceived for Fanny Trevanion. During the absence of the family from London, (and they stayed some time longer than had been expected,) I had leisure, however, to recall my father's touching history, and the moral it had so obviously preached to me; and I formed so many good resolutions, that it was with an untrembling hand that I welcomed Miss Trevanion at last to London, and with a firm heart that I avoided, as much as possible, the fatal charm of her society. The slow convalescence of my uncle gave me a just excuse for discontinuing our rides. What time Trevanion spared me, it was natural that I should spend with my family. I went to no balls or parties. I even absented myself from Trevanion's periodical dinners. Miss Trevanion at first rallied me on my seclusion with her usual lively malice. But I continued worthily to complete my martyrdom. I took care that no reproachful look at the gaiety that wrung my soul should betray my secret. Then Fanny seemed either hurt or disdainful, and avoided altogether entering her father's study; all at once, she changed her tactics, and was seized with a strange desire for knowledge, which brought her intothe room to look for a book, or ask a question, ten times a-day. I was proof to all. But, to speak truth, I was profoundly wretched. Looking back now, I am dismayed at the remembrance of my own sufferings: my health became seriously affected; I dreaded alike the trial of the day and the anguish of the night. My only distractions were in my visits to Vivian, and my escape to the dear circle of home. And that home was my safeguard and preservative in that crisis of my life. Its atmosphere of unpretending honour and serene virtue strengthened all my resolutions; it braced me for my struggles against the strongest passion which youth admits, and counteracted the evil vapours of that air in which Vivian's envenomed spirit breathed and moved. Without the influence of such a home, if I had succeeded in the conduct that probity enjoined towards those in whose house I was a trusted guest, I do not think I could have resisted the contagion of that malign and morbid bitterness against fate and the world which love, thwarted by fortune, is too inclined of itself to conceive, and in the expression of which Vivian was not without the eloquence that belongs to earnestness, whether in truth or falsehood. But, somehow or other, I never left the little room that contained the grand suffering in the face of the veteran soldier, whose lip, often quivering with anguish, was never heard to murmur; and the tranquil wisdom which had succeeded my father's early trials, (trials like my own,) and the loving smile on my mother's tender face, and the innocent childhood of Blanche, (by which name the Elf had familiarised herself to us,) whom I already loved as a sister,—without feeling that those four walls contained enough to sweeten the world, had it been filled to its capacious brim with gall and hyssop.
Trevanion had been more than satisfied with Vivian's performance—he had been struck with it. For though the corrections in the mere phraseology had been very limited, they went beyond verbal amendments—they suggested such words as improved the thoughts; and, besides that notable correction of an arithmetical error, which Trevanion's mind was formed to over-appreciate, one or two brief annotations on the margin were boldly hazarded, prompting some stronger link in a chain of reasoning, or indicating the necessity for some further evidence in the assertion of a statement. And all this from the mere natural and naked logic of an acute mind, unaided by the smallest knowledge of the subject treated of! Trevanion threw quite enough work into Vivian's hands, and at a remuneration sufficiently liberal to realise my promise of an independence. And more than once he asked me to introduce to him my friend. But this I continued to elude—heaven knows, not from jealousy, but simply because I feared that Vivian's manner and way of talk would singularly displease one who detested presumption, and understood no eccentricities but his own.
Still Vivian, whose industry was of a strong wing, but only for short flights, had not enough to employ more than a few hours of his day, and I dreaded lest he should, from very idleness, fall back into old habits, and reseek old friendships. His cynical candour allowed that both were sufficiently disreputable to justify grave apprehensions of such a result; accordingly, I contrived to find leisure in my evenings to lessen hisennui, by accompanying him in rambles through the gas-lit streets, or occasionally, for an hour or so, to one of the theatres.
Vivian's first care, on finding himself rich enough, had been bestowed on his person; and those two faculties of observation and imitation which minds so ready always eminently possess, had enabled him to achieve that graceful neatness of costume peculiar to the English gentleman. For the first few days of his metamorphosis, traces indeed of a constitutional love of show, or vulgar companionship, were noticeable; but one by one they disappeared. First went a gaudy neckcloth, with collars turned down; then a pair of spurs vanished; and lastly, a diabolical instrument that he called a cane—but which, by means of a running bullet, could serve as a bludgeon at one end, and concealed a dagger in the other—subsided into the ordinary walking-stick adapted to our peaceable metropolis.A similar change, though in a less degree, gradually took place in his manner and conversation. He grew less abrupt in the one, and more calm, perhaps more cheerful, in the other. It was evident that he was not insensible to the elevated pleasure of providing for himself by praiseworthy exertion—of feeling for the first time that his intellect was of use to him,creditably. A new world, though still dim—seen through mist and fog, began to dawn upon him.
Such is the vanity of us poor mortals, that my interest in Vivian was probably increased, and my aversion to much in him materially softened, by observing that I had gained a sort of ascendency over his savage nature. When we had first met by the roadside, and afterwards conversed in the churchyard, the ascendency was certainly not on my side. But I now came from a larger sphere of society than that in which he had yet moved. I had seen and listened to the first men in England. What had then dazzled me only, now moved my pity. On the other hand, his active mind could not but observe the change in me; and, whether from envy or a better feeling, he was willing to learn from me how to eclipse me, and resume his earlier superiority—not to be superior chafed him. Thus he listened to me with docility when I pointed out the books which connected themselves with the various subjects incidental to the miscellaneous matters on which he was employed. Though he had less of the literary turn of mind than any one equally clever I have ever met, and had read little, considering the quantity of thought he had acquired, and the show he made of the few works (chiefly plays) with which he had voluntarily made himself familiar, he yet resolutely sate himself down to study; and though it was clearly against the grain, I augured the more favourably from tokens of a determination to do what was at the present irksome for a purpose in the future. Yet, whether I should have approved the purpose—had I thoroughly understood it—is another question! There were abysses, both in his past life and in his character, which I could not penetrate. There was in him both a reckless frankness and a vigilant reserve. His frankness was apparent in his talk on all matters immediately before us; in the utter absence of all effort to make himself seem better than he was. His reserve was equally shown in the ingenious evasion of every species of confidence that could admit me into such secrets of his life as he chose to conceal: where he had been born, reared, and educated; how he came to be thrown on his own resources; how he had contrived, how he had subsisted, were all matters on which he seemed to have taken an oath to Harpocrates, the god of silence. And yet he was full of anecdotes of what he had seen, of strange companions, whom he never named, but into whose society he had been thrown. And, to do him justice, I remarked that, though his precocious experience seemed to have been gathered from the holes and corners, the sewers and drains of life, and though he seemed wholly without dislike to dishonesty, and to regard virtue or vice with as serene an indifference as some grand poet who views them both merely as ministrants to his art, yet he never betrayed any positive breach of honesty in himself. He could laugh over the story of some ingenious fraud that he had witnessed, and seem insensible to its turpitude; but he spoke of it in the tone of an unreproving witness, not of an actual accomplice. As we grew more intimate, he felt gradually, however, thatpudor, or instinctive shame, which the contact with minds habituated to the distinctions between wrong and right unconsciously produces,—and such stories ceased. He never but once mentioned his family, and that was in the following odd and abrupt manner,—
"Ah!" cried he one day, stopping suddenly before a print-shop, "how that reminds me of my dear, dear mother."
"Which?" said I eagerly, puzzled between an engraving of Raffaelle's "Madonna," and another of "The Brigand's Wife."
Vivian did not satisfy my curiosity, but drew me on in spite of my reluctance.
"You loved your mother, then?" said I, after a pause.
"Yes, as a whelp may a tigress."
"That's a strange comparison."
"Or a bull-dog may the prizefighter, his master! Do you like that better?"
"Not much; is it a comparison your mother would like?"
"Like!—she is dead!" said he, rather falteringly.
I pressed his arm closer to mine.
"I understand you," said he, with his cynic repellant smile. "But you do wrong to feel for my loss. I feel for it; but no one who cares for me should sympathise with my grief."
"Why?"
"Because my mother was not what the world would call a good woman. I did not love her the less for that—and now let us change the subject."
"Nay; since you have said so much, Vivian, let me coax you to say on. Is not your father living?"
"Is not the Monument standing?"
"I suppose so,—what of that?"
"Why, it matters very little to either of us; and my question answers yours!"
I could not get on after this, and I never did get on a step farther. I must own that, if Vivian did not impart his confidence liberally, neither did he seek confidence inquisitively from me. He listened with interest if I spoke of Trevanion, (for I told him frankly of my connexion with that personage, though you may be sure that I said nothing of Fanny,) and of the brilliant world that my residence with one so distinguished opened to me. But if ever, in the fulness of my heart, I began to speak of my parents, of my home, he evinced either so impertinent anennui, or assumed so chilling a sneer, that I usually hurried way from him, as well as the subject, in indignant disgust. Once especially, when I asked him to let me introduce him to my father—a point on which I was really anxious, for I thought it impossible but that the devil within him would be softened by that contact—he said with his low, scornful laugh—
"My dear Caxton, when I was a child, I was so bored with 'Telemachus,' that, in order to endure it, I turned it into travesty."
"Well."
"Are you not afraid that the same wicked disposition might make a caricature of your Ulysses?"
I did not see Mr Vivian for three days after that speech; and I should not have seen him then, only we met, by accident, under the Colonnade of the Opera-House. Vivian was leaning against one of the columns, and watching the long procession which swept to the only temple in vogue that Art has retained in the English Babel. Coaches and chariots, blazoned with arms and coronets—cabriolets (the brougham had not then replaced them) of sober hue, but exquisite appointment, with gigantic horses and pigmy "tigers," dashed on and rolled off before him. Fair women and gay dresses, stars and ribbons—the rank and the beauty of the patrician world—passed him by. And I could not resist the compassion with which this lonely, friendless, eager, discontented spirit inspired me—gazing on that gorgeous existence in which it fancied itself formed to shine, with the ardour of desire and the despair of exclusion. By one glimpse of that dark countenance, I read what was passing within the yet darker heart. The emotion might not be amiable, nor the thoughts wise, yet, were they unnatural? I had experienced something of them—not at the sight of gay-dressed people, of wealth and idleness, pleasure and fashion; but when, at the doors of parliament, men who have won noble names, and whose word had weight on the destinies of glorious England, brushed heedlessly by to their grand arena; or when, amidst the holiday crowd of ignoble pomp, I had heard the murmur of fame buzz and gather round some lordly labourer in art or letters. That contrast between glory so near, and yet so far, and one's own obscurity, of course I had felt it—who has not? Alas, many a youth not fated to be a Themistocles, will yet feel that the trophies of a Miltiades will not suffer him to sleep! So I went up to Vivian, and laid my hand on his shoulder.
"Ah!" said he, more gently than usual, "I am glad to see you—and to apologise—I offended you the other day. But you would not get very gracious answers from souls in purgatory, if you talked to them of the happiness of heaven. Never speak tome about homes and fathers! Enough, I see you forgive me. Why are you not going to the opera?Youcan!"
"And you too, if you so please. A ticket is shamefully dear, to be sure; still, if you are fond of music, it is a luxury you can afford."
"Oh, you flatter me if you fancy the prudence of saving withholds me! I did go the other night, but I shall not go again. Music!—when you go to the opera, is it for the music?"
"Only partially, I own: the lights, the scene, the pageant, attract me quite as much. But I do not think the opera a very profitable pleasure for either of us. For rich idle people, I dare say, it may be as innocent an amusement as any other, but I find it a sad enervator."
"And I just the reverse—a horrible, stimulant! Caxton, do you know that, ungracious as it will sound to you, I am growing impatient of this 'honourable independence!' What does it lead to?—board, clothes, and lodging,—can it ever bring me any thing more?"
"At first, Vivian, you limited your aspirations to kid gloves and a cabriolet—it has brought you the kid gloves already, by-and-by it will bring the cabriolet!"
"Our wishes grow by what they feed on. You live in the great world—you can have excitement if you please it—I want excitement, I want the world, I want room for my mind, man! Do you understand me?"
"Perfectly—and sympathise with you, my poor Vivian; but it will all come. Patience! as I preached to you while dawn rose so comfortless over the streets of London. You are not losing time—fill your mind, read, study, fit yourself for ambition. Why wish to fly till you have got your wings? Live in books now: after all, they are splendid palaces, and open to us all, rich and poor."
"Books, books!—ah, you are the son of a bookman! It is not by books that men get on in the world, and enjoy life in the meanwhile."
"I don't know that; but, my good fellow, you want to do both—get on in the world as fast as labour can, and enjoy life as pleasantly as indolence may. You want to live like the butterfly, and yet have all the honey of the bee; and, what is the very deuce of the whole, even as the butterfly, you ask every flower to grow up in a moment; and as a bee, the whole hive must be stored in a quarter of an hour! Patience, patience, patience!"