Who has not seen--who not admired, that noble picture by Daniel Maclise,
which refreshes the immortal name of my ancestor Caxton! For myself,
while with national pride I heard the admiring murmurs of the foreigners
who grouped around it (nothing, indeed, of which our nation may be more
proud had they seen in the Crystal Palace)--heard, with no less a pride
in the generous nature of fellow artists, the warm applause of living
and deathless masters, sanctioning the enthusiasm of the popular
crowd;--what struck me more than the precision of drawing, for which the
artist has been always renowned, and the just though gorgeous affluence
of color which he has more recently acquired, was the profound depth of
conception, out of which this great work had so elaborately arisen. That
monk, with his scowl towards the printer and his back on the Bible, over
which _his form casts a shadow_--the whole transition between the
mediaeval Christianity of cell and cloister, and the modern Christianity
that rejoices in the daylight, is depicted there, in the shadow
that obscures the Book--in the scowl that is fixed upon the
Book-diffuser;--that sombre musing face of Richard, Duke of Gloucester,
with the beauty of Napoleon, darkened to the expression of a Fiend,
looking far and anxiously into futurity, as if foreseeing there what
antagonism was about to be created to the schemes of secret crime and
unrelenting force;--the chivalrous head of the accomplished Rivers, seen
but in profile, under his helmet, as if the age when Chivalry must
defend its noble attributes, in steel, was already half passed away:
and, not least grand of all, the rude thews and sinews of the artisan
forced into service on the type, and the ray of intellect, fierce, and
menacing revolutions yet to be, struggling through his rugged features,
and across his low knitted brow;--all this, which showed how deeply the
idea of the discovery in its good and its evil its saving light and its
perilous storms, had sunk into the artist's soul, charmed me as
effecting the exact union between sentiment and execution, which is the
true and rare consummation of the Ideal in Art. But observe, while in
these personages of the group are depicted the deeper and graver
agencies implicated in the bright but terrible invention--observe how
little the light epicures of the hour heed the scowl of the monk, or the
restless gesture of Richard, or the troubled gleam in the eyes of the
artisan--King Edward, handsome _Poco curante_, delighted, in the
surprise of a child, with a new toy; and Clarence, with his curious yet
careless glance--all the while Caxton himself, calm, serene, untroubled,
intent solely upon the manifestation of his discovery, and no doubt
supremely indifferent whether the first proofs of it shall be dedicated
to a Rivers or an Edward, a Richard or a Henry, Plantagenet or
Tudor--'tis all the same to that comely, gentle-looking man. So is it
ever with your Abstract Science!--not a jot cares its passionless logic
for the woe or weal of a generation or two. The stream, once emerged
from its source, passes on into the Great Intellectual Sea, smiling over
the wretch that it drowns, or under the keel of this ship which it
serves as a slave.
Now, when about to commence the present chapter on the Varieties of
Life, this masterpiece of thoughtful art forced itself on my
recollection, and illustrated what I designed to say. In the surface of
every age, it is often that which but amuses, for the moment, the
ordinary children of pleasant existence, the Edwards and the Clarences
(be they kings and dukes, or simplest of simple subjects), which
afterwards towers out as the great serious epoch of the time. When we
look back upon human records, how the eye settles upon Writers as the
main landmarks of the past! We talk of the age of Augustus, of
Elizabeth, of Louis XIV., of Anne, as the notable eras of the world.
Why? Because it is their writers who have made them so. Intervals
between one age of authors and another lie unnoticed, as the flats and
common lands of uncultured history. And yet, strange to say, when these
authors are living amongst us, they occupy a very small portion of our
thoughts, and fill up but desultory interstices in the bitumen and tufo
wherefrom we build up the Babylon of our lives! So it is, and perhaps so
it should be, whether it pleases the conceit of penmen or not. Life is
meant to be active; and books, though they give the action to future
generations, administer but to the holiday of the present.
And so, with this long preface, I turn suddenly from the Randals and the
Egertons, and the Levys, Avenels, and Peschieras--from the plots and
passions of practical life, and drop the reader suddenly into one of
those obscure retreats wherein Thought weaves, from unnoticed moments, a
new link to the chain that unites the ages.
Within a small room, the single window of which opened on a fanciful and
fairy-like garden, that has been before described, sat a young man
alone. He had been writing: the ink was not dry on his manuscript, but
his thoughts had been suddenly interrupted from his work, and his eyes
now lifted from the letter which had occasioned that interruption,
sparkled with delight. "He will come," exclaimed the young man; "come
here--to the home which I owe to him. I have not been unworthy of his
friendship. And she"--his breast heaved, but the joy faded from his
face. "Oh strange, strange, that I feel sad at the thought to see her
again. See _her_--ah, no!--my own comforting Helen--my own Child-angel!
_Her_ I can never see again! The grown woman--that is not my Helen. And
yet--and yet (he resumed, after a pause), if ever she read the pages, in
which thought flowed and trembled under her distant starry light--if
ever she see how her image has rested with me, and feel that, while
others believe that I invent, I have but remembered--will she not, for a
moment, be my own Helen again! Again, in heart and in fancy, stand by my
side on the desolate bridge--hand in hand--orphans both, as we stood in
the days so sorrowful, yet, as I recall them, so sweet--Helen in
England, it is a dream!"
He rose, half consciously, and went to the window. The fountain played
merrily before his eyes, and the birds in the aviary carolled loud to
his ear. "And in this house," he murmured, "I saw her last! And there,
where the fountain now throws its stream on high--there her benefactor
and mine told me that I was to lose _her_, and that I might win--fame.
Alas!"
At this time a woman, whose dress was somewhat above her mien and air,
which, though not without a certain air of respectability, were very
homely, entered the room; and, seeing the young man standing thus
thoughtful by the window, paused. She was used to his habits; and since
his success in life, had learned to respect them. So she did not disturb
his reverie, but began softly to arrange the room--dusting, with the
corner of her apron, the various articles of furniture, putting a stray
chair or two in its right place, but not touching a single paper.
Virtuous woman, and rare as virtuous!
The young man turned at last, with a deep, yet not altogether painful
sigh--
"My dear mother, good day to you. Ah, you do well to make the room look
its best. Happy news! I expect a visitor!"
"Dear me, Leonard, will he want? lunch--or what?"
"Nay, I think not, mother. It is he to whom we owe all--'_Hoec otia
fecit_.' Pardon my Latin; it is Lord L'Estrange."
The face of Mrs. Fairfield (the reader has long since divined the name)
changed instantly, and betrayed a nervous twitch of all the muscles,
which gave her a family likeness to old Mrs. Avenel.
"Do not be alarmed, mother. He is the kindest--"
"Don't talk so; I can't bear it!" cried Mrs. Fairfield.
"No wonder you are affected by the recollection of all his benefits. But
when once you have seen him, you will find yourself ever after at your
ease. And so, pray, smile and look as good as you are; for I am proud of
your open honest look when you are pleased, mother. And he must see your
heart in your face as I do."
With this, Leonard put his arm round the widow's neck and kissed her.
She clung to him fondly for a moment, and he felt her tremble from head
to foot. Then she broke from his embrace, and hurried out of the room.
Leonard thought perhaps she had gone to improve her dress, or to carry
her housewife energies to the decoration of the other rooms; for "the
house" was Mrs. Fairfield's hobby and passion; and now that she worked
no more, save for her amusement, it was her main occupation. The hours
she contrived to spend daily in bustling about those little rooms, and
leaving every thing therein to all appearance precisely the same, were
among the marvels in life which the genius of Leonard had never
comprehended. But she was always so delighted when Mr. Norreys or some
rare visitor came, and said (Mr. Norreys never failed to do so,) "How
neatly all is kept here. What could Leonard do without you, Mrs.
Fairfield?"
And to Norrey's infinite amusement, Mrs. Fairfield always returned the
same answer. "'Deed, sir, and thank you kindly, but 'tis my belief that
the drawin'-room would be awful dusty."
Once more left alone, Leonard's mind returned to the state of reverie,
and his face assumed the expression that had now become to it habitual.
Thus seen, he was changed much since we last beheld him. His cheek was
more pale and thin, his lips more firmly compressed, his eye more fixed
and abstract. You could detect, if I may borrow a touching French
expression, that "sorrow had passed by there." But the melancholy on his
countenance was ineffably sweet and serene, and on his ample forehead
there was that power, so rarely seen in early youth--the power that has
conquered, and betrays its conquests but in calm. The period of doubt,
of struggle, of defiance, was gone for ever; genius and soul were
reconciled to human life. It was a face most loveable; so gentle and
peaceful in its character. No want of fire; on the contrary, the fire
was so clear and so steadfast, that it conveyed but the impression of
light. The candor of boyhood, the simplicity of the villager were still
there--refined by intelligence, but intelligence that seemed to have
traversed through knowledge--not with the footstep, but the
wing--unsullied by the mire--tending towards the star--seeking through
the various grades of being but the lovelier forms of truth and
goodness; at home as should be the Art that consummates the Beautiful--
"In den heitern Regionen
Wo die reinen Formen wohnen."[23]
From this reverie Leonard did not seek to rouse himself, till the bell
at the garden gate rang loud and shrill; and then starting up and
hurrying into the hall, his hand was grasped in Harley's.