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CASHEL BYRON’S PROFESSION
By George Bernard Shaw
PROLOGUE
I
Moncrief House, Panley Common. Scholastic establishment for the sons of
gentlemen, etc.
Panley Common, viewed from the back windows of Moncrief House, is
a tract of grass, furze and rushes, stretching away to the western
horizon.
One wet spring afternoon the sky was full of broken clouds, and the
common was swept by their shadows, between which patches of green
and yellow gorse were bright in the broken sunlight. The hills to the
northward were obscured by a heavy shower, traces of which were drying
off the slates of the school, a square white building, formerly a
gentleman’s country-house. In front of it was a well-kept lawn with a
few clipped holly-trees. At the rear, a quarter of an acre of land was
enclosed for the use of the boys. Strollers on the common could hear, at
certain hours, a hubbub of voices and racing footsteps from within the
boundary wall. Sometimes, when the strollers were boys themselves,
they climbed to the coping, and saw on the other side a piece of common
trampled bare and brown, with a few square yards of concrete, so worn
into hollows as to be unfit for its original use as a ball-alley. Also
a long shed, a pump, a door defaced by innumerable incised inscriptions,
the back of the house in much worse repair than the front, and about
fifty boys in tailless jackets and broad, turned-down collars. When the
fifty boys perceived a stranger on the wall they rushed to the spot with
a wild halloo, overwhelmed him with insult and defiance, and dislodged
him by a volley of clods, stones, lumps of bread, and such other
projectiles as were at hand.
On this rainy spring afternoon a brougham stood at the door of Moncrief
House. The coachman, enveloped in a white india-rubber coat, was
bestirring himself a little after the recent shower. Within-doors, in
the drawing-room, Dr. Moncrief was conversing with a stately lady aged
about thirty-five, elegantly dressed, of attractive manner, and only
falling short of absolute beauty in her complexion, which was deficient
in freshness.
“No progress whatever, I am sorry to say,” the doctor was remarking.
“That is very disappointing,” said the lady, contracting her brows.
“It is natural that you should feel disappointed,” replied the doctor.
“I would myself earnestly advise you to try the effect of placing him
at some other--” The doctor stopped. The lady’s face had lit up with a
wonderful smile, and she had raised her hand with a bewitching gesture
of protest.
“Oh, no, Dr. Moncrief,” she said. “I am not disappointed with YOU; but
I am all the more angry with Cashel, because I know that if he makes no
progress with you it must be his own fault. As to taking him away, that
is out of the question. I should not have a moment’s peace if he were
out of your care. I will speak to him very seriously about his conduct
before I leave to-day. You will give him another trial, will you not?”
“Certainly. With the greatest pleasure,” exclaimed the doctor, confusing
himself by an inept attempt at gallantry. “He shall stay as long as
you please. But”--here the doctor became grave again--“you cannot too
strongly urge upon him the importance of hard work at the present time,
which may be said to be the turning-point of his career as a student. He
is now nearly seventeen; and he has so little inclination for study that
I doubt whether he could pass the examination necessary to entering one
of the universities. You probably wish him to take a degree before he
chooses a profession.”
“Yes, of course,” said the lady, vaguely, evidently assenting to the
doctor’s remark rather than expressing a conviction of her own. “What
profession would you advise for him? You know so much better than I.”
“Hum!” said Dr. Moncrief, puzzled. “That would doubtless depend to some
extent on his own taste--”
“Not at all,” said the lady, interrupting him with vivacity. “What does
he know about the world, poor boy? His own taste is sure to be something
ridiculous. Very likely he would want to go on the stage, like me.”
“Oh! Then you would not encourage any tendency of that sort?”
“Most decidedly not. I hope he has no such idea.”
“Not that I am aware of. He shows so little ambition to excel in any
particular branch that I should say his choice of a profession may be
best determined by his parents. I am, of course, ignorant whether his
relatives possess influence likely to be of use to him. That is often
the chief point to be considered, particularly in cases like your son’s,
where no special aptitude manifests itself.”
“I am the only relative he ever had, poor fellow,” said the lady, with
a pensive smile. Then, seeing an expression of astonishment on the
doctor’s face, she added, quickly, “They are all dead.”
“Dear me!”
“However,” she continued, “I have no doubt I can make plenty of interest
for him. But it is difficult to get anything nowadays without passing
competitive examinations. He really must work. If he is lazy he ought to
be punished.”
The doctor looked perplexed. “The fact is,” he said, “your son can
hardly be dealt with as a child any longer. He is still quite a boy in
his habits and ideas; but physically he is rapidly springing up into a
young man. That reminds me of another point on which I will ask you
to speak earnestly to him. I must tell you that he has attained some
distinction among his school-fellows here as an athlete. Within due
bounds I do not discourage bodily exercises: they are a recognized part
of our system. But I am sorry to say that Cashel has not escaped that
tendency to violence which sometimes results from the possession of
unusual strength and dexterity. He actually fought with one of the
village youths in the main street of Panley some months ago. The matter
did not come to my ears immediately; and, when it did, I allowed it to
pass unnoticed, as he had interfered, it seems, to protect one of the
smaller boys. Unfortunately he was guilty of a much more serious fault
a little later. He and a companion of his had obtained leave from me to
walk to Panley Abbey together. I afterwards found that their real object
was to witness a prize-fight that took place--illegally, of course--on
the common. Apart from the deception practised, I think the taste they
betrayed a dangerous one; and I felt bound to punish them by a severe
imposition, and restriction to the grounds for six weeks. I do not hold,
however, that everything has been done in these cases when a boy has
been punished. I set a high value on a mother’s influence for softening
the natural roughness of boys.”
“I don’t think he minds what I say to him in the least,” said the lady,
with a sympathetic air, as if she pitied the doctor in a matter that
chiefly concerned him. “I will speak to him about it, of course.
Fighting is an unbearable habit. His father’s people were always
fighting; and they never did any good in the world.”
“If you will be so kind. There are just the three points: the necessity
for greater--much greater--application to his studies; a word to him
on the subject of rough habits; and to sound him as to his choice of a
career. I agree with you in not attaching much importance to his ideas
on that subject as yet. Still, even a boyish fancy may be turned to
account in rousing the energies of a lad.”
“Quite so,” assented the lady. “I will certainly give him a lecture.”
The doctor looked at her mistrustfully, thinking perhaps that she
herself would be the better for a lecture on her duties as a mother. But
he did not dare to tell her so; indeed, having a prejudice to the effect
that actresses were deficient in natural feeling, he doubted the use of
daring. He also feared that the subject of her son was beginning to bore
her; and, though a doctor of divinity, he was as reluctant as other men
to be found wanting in address by a pretty woman. So he rang the bell,
and bade the servant send Master Cashel Byron. Presently a door was
heard to open below, and a buzz of distant voices became audible.
The doctor fidgeted and tried to think of something to say, but his
invention failed him: he sat in silence while the inarticulate buzz rose
into a shouting of “By-ron!” “Cash!” the latter cry imitated from the
summons usually addressed to cashiers in haberdashers’ shops.
Finally there was a piercing yell of “Mam-ma-a-a-a-ah!” apparently in
explanation of the demand for Byron’s attendance in the drawing-room.
The doctor reddened. Mrs. Byron smiled. Then the door below closed,
shutting out the tumult, and footsteps were heard on the stairs.
“Come in,” cried the doctor, encouragingly.
Master Cashel Byron entered blushing; made his way awkwardly to his
mother, and kissed the critical expression which was on her upturned
face as she examined his appearance. Being only seventeen, he had not
yet acquired a taste for kissing. He inexpertly gave Mrs. Byron quite a
shock by the collision of their teeth. Conscious of the failure, he drew
himself upright, and tried to hide his hands, which were exceedingly
dirty, in the scanty folds of his jacket. He was a well-grown youth,
with neck and shoulders already strongly formed, and short auburn hair
curling in little rings close to his scalp. He had blue eyes, and an
expression of boyish good-humor, which, however, did not convey any
assurance of good temper.
“How do you do, Cashel?” said Mrs. Byron, in a queenly manner, after a
prolonged look at him.
“Very well, thanks,” said he, grinning and avoiding her eye.
“Sit down, Byron,” said the doctor. Byron suddenly forgot how to sit
down, and looked irresolutely from one chair to another. The doctor made
a brief excuse, and left the room; much to the relief of his pupil.
“You have grown greatly, Cashel. And I am afraid you are very awkward.”
Cashel colored and looked gloomy.
“I do not know what to do with you,” continued Mrs. Byron. “Dr. Moncrief
tells me that you are very idle and rough.”
“I am not,” said Cashel, sulkily. “It is bec--”
“There is no use in contradicting me in that fashion,” said Mrs. Byron,
interrupting him sharply. “I am sure that whatever Dr. Moncrief says is
perfectly true.”
“He is always talking like that,” said Cashel, plaintively. “I can’t
learn Latin and Greek; and I don’t see what good they are. I work as
hard as any of the rest--except the regular stews, perhaps. As to
my being rough, that is all because I was out one day with Gully
Molesworth, and we saw a crowd on the common, and when we went to see
what was up it was two men fighting. It wasn’t our fault that they came
there to fight.”
“Yes; I have no doubt that you have fifty good excuses, Cashel. But I
will not allow any fighting; and you really must work harder. Do you
ever think of how hard _I_ have to work to pay Dr. Moncrief one hundred
and twenty pounds a year for you?”
“I work as hard as I can. Old Moncrief seems to think that a fellow
ought to do nothing else from morning till night but write Latin verses.
Tatham, that the doctor thinks such a genius, does all his constering
from cribs. If I had a crib I could conster as well--very likely
better.”
“You are very idle, Cashel; I am sure of that. It is too provoking to
throw away so much money every year for nothing. Besides, you must soon
be thinking of a profession.”
“I shall go into the army,” said Cashel. “It is the only profession for
a gentleman.”
Mrs. Byron looked at him for a moment as if amazed at his presumption.
But she checked herself and only said, “I am afraid you will have to
choose some less expensive profession than that. Besides, you would have
to pass an examination to enable you to enter the army; and how can you
do that unless you study?”
“Oh, I shall do that all right enough when the time comes.”
“Dear, dear! You are beginning to speak so coarsely, Cashel. After all
the pains I took with you at home!”
“I speak the same as other people,” he replied, sullenly. “I don’t see
the use of being so jolly particular over every syllable. I used to have
to stand no end of chaff about my way of speaking. The fellows here know
all about you, of course.”
“All about me?” repeated Mrs. Byron, looking at him curiously.
“All about your being on the stage, I mean,” said Cashel. “You complain
of my fighting; but I should have a precious bad time of it if I didn’t
lick the chaff out of some of them.”
Mrs. Byron smiled doubtfully to herself, and remained silent and
thoughtful for a moment. Then she rose and said, glancing at the
weather, “I must go now, Cashel, before another shower begins. And do,
pray, try to learn something, and to polish your manners a little. You
will have to go to Cambridge soon, you know.”
“Cambridge!” exclaimed Cashel, excited. “When, mamma? When?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Not yet. As soon as Dr. Moncrief says you are fit to
go.”
“That will be long enough,” said Cashel, much dejected by this reply.
“He will not turn one hundred and twenty pounds a year out of doors in
a hurry. He kept big Inglis here until he was past twenty. Look here,
mamma; might I go at the end of this half? I feel sure I should do
better at Cambridge than here.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Byron, decidedly. “I do not expect to have to take
you away from Dr. Moncrief for the next eighteen months at least, and
not then unless you work properly. Now don’t grumble, Cashel; you annoy
me exceedingly when you do. I am sorry I mentioned Cambridge to you.”
“I would rather go to some other school, then,” said Cashel, ruefully.
“Old Moncrief is so awfully down on me.”
“You only want to leave because you are expected to work here; and that
is the very reason I wish you to stay.”
Cashel made no reply; but his face darkened ominously.
“I have a word to say to the doctor before I go,” she added, reseating
herself. “You may return to your play now. Good-bye, Cashel.” And she
again raised her face to be kissed.
“Good-bye,” said Cashel, huskily, as he turned toward the door,
pretending that he had not noticed her action.
“Cashel!” she said, with emphatic surprise. “Are you sulky?”
“No,” he retorted, angrily. “I haven’t said anything. I suppose my
manners are not good enough, I’m very sorry; but I can’t help it.”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Byron, firmly. “You can go, Cashel. I am not
pleased with you.”
Cashel walked out of the room and slammed the door. At the foot of the
staircase he was stopped by a boy about a year younger than himself, who
accosted him eagerly.
“How much did she give you?” he whispered.
“Not a halfpenny,” replied Cashel, grinding his teeth.
“Oh, I say!” exclaimed the other, much disappointed. “That was beastly
mean.”
“She’s as mean as she can be,” said Cashel. “It’s all old Monkey’s
fault. He has been cramming her with lies about me. But she’s just as
bad as he is. I tell you, Gully, I hate my mother.”
“Oh, come!” said Gully, shocked. “That’s a little too strong, old chap.
But she certainly ought to have stood something.”
“I don’t know what you intend to do, Gully; but I mean to bolt. If she
thinks I am going to stick here for the next two years she is jolly much
mistaken.”
“It would be an awful lark to bolt,” said Gully, with a chuckle. “But,”
he added, seriously, “if you really mean it, by George, I’ll go too!
Wilson has just given me a thousand lines; and I’ll be hanged if I do
them.”
“Gully,” said Cashel, his eyes sparkling, “I should like to see one of
those chaps we saw on the common pitch into the doctor--get him on the
ropes, you know.”
Gully’s mouth watered. “Yes,” he said, breathlessly; “particularly the
fellow they called the Fibber. Just one round would be enough for the
old beggar. Let’s come out into the playground; I shall catch it if I am
found here.”
II
That night there was just sufficient light struggling through the clouds
to make Panley Common visible as a black expanse, against the lightest
tone of which a piece of ebony would have appeared pale. Not a human
being was stirring within a mile of Moncrief House, the chimneys of
which, ghostly white on the side next the moon, threw long shadows on
the silver-gray slates. The stillness had just been broken by the stroke
of a quarter past twelve from a distant church tower, when, from the
obscurity of one of these chimney shadows, a head emerged. It belonged
to a boy, whose body presently wriggled through an open skylight. When
his shoulders were through he turned himself face upward, seized the
miniature gable in which the skylight was set, drew himself completely
out, and made his way stealthily down to the parapet. He was immediately
followed by another boy.
The door of Moncrief House was at the left-hand corner of the front, and
was surmounted by a tall porch, the top of which was flat and could be
used as a balcony. A wall, of the same height as the porch, connected
the house front with the boundary wall, and formed part of the enclosure
of a fruit garden which lay at the side of the house between the lawn
and the playground. When the two boys had crept along the parapet to a
point directly above the porch they stopped, and each lowered a pair
of boots to the balcony by means of fishing-lines. When the boots were
safely landed, their owners let the lines drop and reentered the house
by another skylight. A minute elapsed. Then they reappeared on the top
of the porch, having come out through the window to which it served as a
balcony. Here they put on their boots, and stepped on to the wall of the
fruit garden. As they crawled along it, the hindmost boy whispered.
“I say, Cashy.”
“Shut up, will you,” replied the other under his breath. “What’s wrong?”
“I should like to have one more go at old mother Moncrief’s pear-tree;
that’s all.”
“There are no pears on it this season, you fool.”
“I know. This is the last time we shall go this road, Cashy. Usen’t it
to be a lark? Eh?”
“If you don’t shut up, it won’t be the last time; for you’ll be caught.
Now for it.”
Cashel had reached the outer wall, and he finished his sentence by
dropping from it to the common. Gully held his breath for some moments
after the noise made by his companion’s striking the ground. Then he
demanded in a whisper whether all was right.
“Yes,” returned Cashel, impatiently. “Drop as soft as you can.”
Gully obeyed; and was so careful lest his descent should shake the
earth and awake the doctor, that his feet shrank from the concussion. He
alighted in a sitting posture, and remained there, looking up at Cashel
with a stunned expression.
“Crikey!” he ejaculated, presently. “That was a buster.”
“Get up, I tell you,” said Cashel. “I never saw such a jolly ass as you
are. Here, up with you! Have you got your wind back?”
“I should think so. Bet you twopence I’ll be first at the cross roads. I
say, let’s pull the bell at the front gate and give an awful yell before
we start. They’ll never catch us.”
“Yes,” said Cashel, ironically; “I fancy I see myself doing it, or you
either. Now then. One, two, three, and away.”
They ran off together, and reached the cross roads about eight minutes
later; Gully completely out of breath, and Cashel nearly so. Here,
according to their plan, Gully was to take the north road and run to
Scotland, where he felt sure that his uncle’s gamekeeper would hide
him. Cashel was to go to sea; where, he argued, he could, if his affairs
became desperate, turn pirate, and achieve eminence in that profession
by adding a chivalrous humanity to the ruder virtues for which it is
already famous.
Cashel waited until Gully had recovered from his race. Then he said.
“Now, old fellow, we’ve got to separate.”
Gully, thus confronted with the lonely realities of his scheme, did not
like the prospect. After a moment’s reflection he exclaimed:
“Damme, old chap, but I’ll come with you. Scotland may go and be
hanged.”
But Cashel, being the stronger of the two, was as anxious to get rid of
Gully as Gully was to cling to him. “No,” he said; “I’m going to rough
it; and you wouldn’t be able for that. You’re not strong enough for a
sea life. Why, man, those sailor fellows are as hard as nails; and even
they can hardly stand it.”
“Well, then, do you come with me,” urged Gully. “My uncle’s gamekeeper
won’t mind. He’s a jolly good sort; and we shall have no end of
shooting.”
“That’s all very well for you, Gully; but I don’t know your uncle;
and I’m not going to put myself under a compliment to his gamekeeper.
Besides, we should run too much risk of being caught if we went through
the country together. Of course I should be only too glad if we could
stick to one another, but it wouldn’t do; I feel certain we should be
nabbed. Good-bye.”
“But wait a minute,” pleaded Gully. “Suppose they do try to catch us; we
shall have a better chance against them if there are two of us.”
“Stuff!” said Cashel. “That’s all boyish nonsense. There will be at
least six policemen sent after us; and even if I did my very best, I
could barely lick two if they came on together. And you would hardly
be able for one. You just keep moving, and don’t go near any railway
station, and you will get to Scotland all safe enough. Look here, we
have wasted five minutes already. I have got my wind now, and I must be
off. Good-bye.”
Gully disdained to press his company on Cashel any further. “Good-bye,”
he said, mournfully shaking his hand. “Success, old chap.”
“Success,” echoed Cashel, grasping Gully’s hand with a pang of remorse
for leaving him. “I’ll write to you as soon as I have anything to tell
you. It may be some months, you know, before I get regularly settled.”
He gave Gully a final squeeze, released him, and darted off along the
road leading to Panley Village. Gully looked after him for a moment, and
then ran away Scotlandwards.
Panley Village consisted of a High Street, with an old-fashioned inn at
one end, a modern railway station and bridge at the other, and a pump
and pound midway between. Cashel stood for a while in the shadow under
the bridge before venturing along the broad, moonlit street. Seeing no
one, he stepped out at a brisk walking pace; for he had by this time
reflected that it was not possible to run all the way to the Spanish
main. There was, however, another person stirring in the village besides
Cashel. This was Mr. Wilson, Dr. Moncrief’s professor of mathematics,
who was returning from a visit to the theatre. Mr. Wilson had
an impression that theatres were wicked places, to be visited by
respectable men only on rare occasions and by stealth. The only plays he
went openly to witness were those of Shakespeare; and his favorite was
“As You Like It”; Rosalind in tights having an attraction for him which
he missed in Lady Macbeth in petticoats. On this evening he had seen
Rosalind impersonated by a famous actress, who had come to a neighboring
town on a starring tour. After the performance he had returned to
Panley, supped there with a friend, and was now making his way back to
Moncrief House, of which he had been intrusted with the key. He was in
a frame of mind favorable for the capture of a runaway boy. An habitual
delight in being too clever for his pupils, fostered by frequently
overreaching them in mathematics, was just now stimulated by the effect
of a liberal supper and the roguish consciousness of having been to the
play. He saw and recognized Cashel as he approached the village pound.
Understanding the situation at once, he hid behind the pump, waited
until the unsuspecting truant was passing within arm’s-length, and then
stepped out and seized him by the collar of his jacket.
“Well, sir,” he said. “What are you doing here at this hour? Eh?”
Cashel, scared and white, looked up at him, and could not answer a word.
“Come along with me,” said Wilson, sternly.
Cashel suffered himself to be led for some twenty yards. Then he stopped
and burst into tears.
“There is no use in my going back,” he said, sobbing. “I have never done
any good there. I can’t go back.”
“Indeed,” said Wilson, with magisterial sarcasm. “We shall try to make
you do better in future.” And he forced the fugitive to resume his
march.
Cashel, bitterly humiliated by his own tears, and exasperated by a
certain cold triumph which his captor evinced on witnessing them, did
not go many steps farther without protest.
“You needn’t hold me,” he said, angrily; “I can walk without being
held.” The master tightened his grasp and pushed his captive forward.
“I won’t run away, sir,” said Cashel, more humbly, shedding fresh tears.
“Please let me go,” he added, in a suffocated voice, trying to turn his
face toward his captor. But Wilson twisted him back again, and urged him
still onward. Cashel cried out passionately, “Let me go,” and struggled
to break loose.
“Come, come, Byron,” said the master, controlling him with a broad,
strong hand; “none of your nonsense, sir.”
Then Cashel suddenly slipped out of his jacket, turned on Wilson, and
struck up at him savagely with his right fist. The master received the
blow just beside the point of his chin; and his eyes seemed to Cashel
roll up and fall back into his head with the shock. He drooped forward
for a moment, and fell in a heap face downward. Cashel recoiled,
wringing his hand to relieve the tingling of his knuckles, and terrified
by the thought that he had committed murder. But Wilson presently moved
and dispelled that misgiving. Some of Cashel’s fury returned as he shook
his fist at his prostrate adversary, and, exclaiming, “YOU won’t
brag much of having seen me cry,” wrenched the jacket from him with
unnecessary violence, and darted away at full speed.
Mr. Wilson, though he was soon conscious and able to rise, did not feel
disposed to stir for a long time. He began to moan with a dazed faith
that some one would eventually come to him with sympathy and assistance.
Five minutes elapsed, and brought nothing but increased cold and pain.
It occurred to him that if the police found him they would suppose him
to be drunk; also that it was his duty to go to them and give them
the alarm. He rose, and, after a struggle with dizziness and nausea,
concluded that his most pressing duty was to get to bed, and leave Dr.
Moncrief to recapture his ruffianly pupil as best he could.
Accordingly, at half-past one o’clock, the doctor was roused by a
knocking at his chamber-door, outside which he presently found his
professor of mathematics, bruised, muddy, and apparently inebriated.
Five minutes elapsed before Wilson could get his principal’s mind on the
right track. Then the boys were awakened and the roll called. Byron and
Molesworth were reported absent. No one had seen them go; no one had
the least suspicion of how they got out of the house. One little boy
mentioned the skylight; but observing a threatening expression on the
faces of a few of the bigger boys, who were fond of fruit, he did not
press his suggestion, and submitted to be snubbed by the doctor for
having made it. It was nearly three o’clock before the alarm reached the
village, where the authorities tacitly declined to trouble themselves
about it until morning. The doctor, convinced that the lad had gone to
his mother, did not believe that any search was necessary, and contented
himself with writing a note to Mrs. Byron describing the attack on Mr.
Wilson, and expressing regret that no proposal having for its object the
readmission of Master Byron to the academy could be entertained.
The pursuit was now directed entirely after Molesworth, an it wan plain,
from Mr. Wilson’s narrative, that he had separated from Cashel outside
Panley. Information was soon forthcoming. Peasants in all parts of
the country had seen, they said, “a lad that might be him.” The
search lasted until five o’clock next afternoon, when it was rendered
superfluous by the appearance of Gully in person, footsore and
repentant. After parting from Cashel and walking two miles, he had lost
heart and turned back. Half way to the cross roads he had reproached
himself with cowardice, and resumed his flight. This time he placed
eight miles betwixt himself and Moncrief House. Then he left the road to
make a short cut through a plantation, and went astray. After wandering
until morning, thinking dejectedly of the story of the babes in the
wood, he saw a woman working in a field, and asked her the shortest way
to Scotland. She had never heard of Scotland; and when he asked the way
to Panley she lost patience and threatened to set her dog at him.
This discouraged him so much that he was afraid to speak to the other
strangers whom he met. Having the sun as a compass, he oscillated
between Scotland and Panley according to the fluctuation of his courage.
At last he yielded to hunger, fatigue, and loneliness, devoted his
remaining energy to the task of getting back to school; struck the
common at last, and hastened to surrender himself to the doctor, who
menaced him with immediate expulsion. Gully was greatly concerned at
having to leave the place he had just run away from, and earnestly
begged the doctor to give him another chance. His prayer was granted.
After a prolonged lecture, the doctor, in consideration of the facts
that Gully had been seduced by the example of a desperate associate,
that he had proved the sincerity of his repentance by coming back of his
own accord, and had not been accessory to the concussion of the brain
from which Mr. Wilson supposed himself to be suffering, accepted his
promise of amendment and gave him a free pardon. It should be added
that Gully kept his promise, and, being now the oldest pupil, graced his
position by becoming a moderately studious, and, on one occasion, even a
sensible lad.
Meanwhile Mrs. Byron, not suspecting the importance of the doctor’s
note, and happening to be in a hurry when it arrived, laid it by
unopened, intending to read it at her leisure. She would have forgotten
it altogether but for a second note which came two days later,
requesting some acknowledgment of the previous communication. On
learning the truth she immediately drove to Moncrief House, and there
abused the doctor as he had never been abused in his life before; after
which she begged his pardon, and implored him to assist her to recover
her darling boy. When he suggested that she should offer a reward for
information and capture she indignantly refused to spend a farthing on
the little ingrate; wept and accused herself of having driven him away
by her unkindness; stormed and accused the doctor of having treated him
harshly; and, finally, said that she would give one hundred pounds to
have him back, but that she would never speak to him again. The doctor
promised to undertake the search, and would have promised anything
to get rid of his visitor. A reward of fifty pounds was offered. But
whether the fear of falling into the clutches of the law for murderous
assault stimulated Cashel to extraordinary precaution, or whether he had
contrived to leave the country in the four days which elapsed between
his flight and the offer of the reward, the doctor’s efforts were
unsuccessful; and he had to confess their failure to Mrs. Byron. She
agreeably surprised him by writing a pleasant letter to the effect that
it was very provoking, and that she could never thank him sufficiently
for all the trouble he had taken. And so the matter dropped.
Long after that generation of scholars had passed away from Moncrief
House, the name of Cashel Byron was remembered there as that of a hero
who, after many fabulous exploits, had licked a master and bolted to the
Spanish Main.
III
There was at this time in the city of Melbourne, in Australia, a wooden
building, above the door of which was a board inscribed “GYMNASIUM AND
SCHOOL OF ARMS.” In the long, narrow entry hung a framed manuscript
which set forth that Ned Skene, ex-champion of England and the colonies,
was to be heard of within daily by gentlemen desirous of becoming
proficient in the art of self-defence. Also the terms on which Mrs.
Skene, assisted by a competent staff of professors, would give lessons
in dancing, deportment, and calisthenics.
One evening a man sat smoking on a common wooden chair outside the door
of this establishment. On the ground beside him were some tin tacks and
a hammer, with which he had just nailed to the doorpost a card on which
was written in a woman’s handwriting: “WANTED A MALE ATTENDANT WHO CAN
KEEP ACCOUNTS. INQUIRE WITHIN.” The smoker was a powerful man, with a
thick neck that swelled out beneath his broad, flat ear-lobes. He had
small eyes, and large teeth, over which his lips were slightly parted in
a good-humored but cunning smile. His hair was black and close-cut; his
skin indurated; and the bridge of his nose smashed level with his face.
The tip, however, was uninjured. It was squab and glossy, and, by giving
the whole feature an air of being on the point of expanding to its
original shape, produced a snubbed expression which relieved the
otherwise formidable aspect of the man, and recommended him as probably
a modest and affable fellow when sober and unprovoked. He seemed about
fifty years of age, and was clad in a straw hat and a suit of white
linen.
He had just finished his pipe when a youth stopped to read the card on
the doorpost. This youth was attired in a coarse sailor’s jersey and a
pair of gray tweed trousers, which he had considerably outgrown.
“Looking for a job?” inquired the ex-champion of England and the
colonies.
The youth blushed and replied, “Yes. I should like to get something to
do.”
Mr. Skene stared at him with stern curiosity. His piofessional pursuits
had familiarized him with the manners and speech of English gentlemen,
and he immediately recognized the shabby sailor lad as one of that
class.
“Perhaps you’re a scholar,” said the prize-fighter, after a moment’s
reflection.
“I have been at school; but I didn’t learn much there,” replied the
youth. “I think I could bookkeep by double entry,” he added, glancing at
the card.
“Double entry! What’s that?”
“It’s the way merchants’ books are kept. It is called so because
everything is entered twice over.”
“Ah!” said Skene, unfavorably impressed by the system; “once is enough
for me. What’s your weight?”
“I don’t know,” said the lad, with a grin.
“Not know your own weight!” exclaimed Skene. “That ain’t the way to get
on in life.”
“I haven’t been weighed since I was in England,” said the other,
beginning to get the better of his shyness. “I was eight stone four
then; so you see I am only a light-weight.”
“And what do you know about light-weights? Perhaps, being so well
educated, you know how to fight. Eh?”
“I don’t think I could fight you,” said the youth, with another grin.
Skene chuckled; and the stranger, with boyish communicativeness,
gave him an account of a real fight (meaning, apparently, one between
professional pugilists) which he had seen in England. He went on to
describe how he had himself knocked down a master with one blow
when running away from school. Skene received this sceptically, and
cross-examined the narrator as to the manner and effect of the blow,
with the result of convincing himself that the story was true. At the
end of a quarter of an hour the lad had commended himself so favorably
by his conversation that the champion took him into the gymnasium,
weighed him, measured him, and finally handed him a pair of boxing
gloves and invited him to show what he was made of. The youth, though
impressed by the prize-fighter’s attitude with a hopeless sense of
the impossibility of reaching him, rushed boldly at him several times,
knocking his face on each occasion against Skene’s left fist, which
seemed to be ubiquitous, and to have the property of imparting the
consistency of iron to padded leather. At last the novice directed
a frantic assault at the champion’s nose, rising on his toes in his
excitement as he did so. Skene struck up the blow with his right arm,
and the impetuous youth spun and stumbled away until he fell supine in a
corner, rapping his head smartly on the floor at the same time. He rose
with unabated cheerfulness and offered to continue the combat; but Skene
declined any further exercise just then, and, much pleased with his
novice’s game, promised to give him a scientific education and make a
man of him.
The champion now sent for his wife, whom he revered as a preeminently
sensible and well-mannered woman. The newcomer could see in her only a
ridiculous dancing-mistress; but he treated her with great deference,
and thereby improved the favorable opinion which Skene had already
formed of him. He related to her how, after running away from school, he
had made his way to Liverpool, gone to the docks, and contrived to hide
himself on board a ship bound for Australia. Also how he had suffered
severely from hunger and thirst before he discovered himself; and how,
notwithstanding his unpopular position as stowaway, he had been fairly
treated as soon as he had shown that he was willing to work. And in
proof that he was still willing, and had profited by his maritime
experience, he offered to sweep the floor of the gymnasium then and
there. This proposal convinced the Skenes, who had listened to his story
like children listening to a fairy tale, that he was not too much of a
gentleman to do rough work, and it was presently arranged that he should
thenceforth board and lodge with them, have five shillings a week for
pocket-money, and be man-of-all-work, servant, gymnasium-attendant,
clerk, and apprentice to the ex-champion of England and the colonies.
He soon found his bargain no easy one. The gymnasium was open from nine
in the morning until eleven at night, and the athletic gentlemen who
came there not only ordered him about without ceremony, but varied the
monotony of being set at naught by the invincible Skene by practising
what he taught them on the person of his apprentice, whom they pounded
with great relish, and threw backwards, forwards, and over their
shoulders as though he had been but a senseless effigy, provided for
that purpose. Meanwhile the champion looked on and laughed, being too
lazy to redeem his promise of teaching the novice to defend himself. The
latter, however, watched the lessons which he saw daily given to others,
and, before the end of a month, he so completely turned the tables on
the amateur pugilists of Melbourne that Skene one day took occasion to
remark that he was growing uncommon clever, but that gentlemen liked
to be played easy with, and that he should be careful not to knock them
about too much. Besides these bodily exertions, he had to keep account
of gloves and foils sold and bought, and of the fees due both to Mr. and
Mrs. Skene. This was the most irksome part of his duty; for he wrote
a large, schoolboy hand, and was not quick at figures. When he at last
began to assist his master in giving lessons the accounts had fallen
into arrear, and Mrs. Skene had to resume her former care of them; a
circumstance which gratified her husband, who regarded it as a fresh
triumph of her superior intelligence. Then a Chinaman was engaged to do
the more menial work of the establishment. “Skene’s novice,” as he was
now generally called, was elevated to the rank of assistant professor to
the champion, and became a person of some consequence in the gymnasium.
He had been there more than nine months, and had developed from an
active youth into an athletic young man of eighteen, when an important
conversation took place between him and his principal. It was evening,
and the only persons in the gymnasium were Ned Skene, who sat smoking
at his ease with his coat off, and the novice, who had just come
down-stairs from his bedroom, where he had been preparing for a visit to
the theatre.
“Well, my gentleman,” said Skene, mockingly; “you’re a fancy man, you
are. Gloves too! They’re too small for you. Don’t you get hittin’ nobody
with them on, or you’ll mebbe sprain your wrist.”
“Not much fear of that,” said the novice, looking at his watch, and,
finding that he had some minutes to spare, sitting down opposite Skene.
“No,” assented the champion. “When you rise to be a regular professional
you won’t care to spar with nobody without you’re well paid for it.”
“I may say I am in the profession already. You don’t call me an amateur,
do you?”
“Oh, no,” said Skene, soothingly; “not so bad as that. But mind you,
my boy, I don’t call no man a fighting-man what ain’t been in the ring.
You’re a sparrer, and a clever, pretty sparrer; but sparring ain’t the
real thing. Some day, please God, we’ll make up a little match for you,
and show what you can do without the gloves.”
“I would just as soon have the gloves off as on,” said the novice, a
little sulkily.
“That’s because you have a heart as big as a lion,” said Skene, patting
him on the shoulder. But the novice, who was accustomed to hear his
master pay the same compliment to his patrons whenever they were seized
with fits of boasting (which usually happened when they got beaten),
looked obdurate and said nothing.
“Sam Ducket, of Milltown, was here to-day while you was out giving
Captain Noble his lesson,” continued Skene, watching his apprentice’s
face cunningly. “Now Sam is a real fighting-man, if you like.”
“I don’t think much of him. He’s a liar, for one thing.”
“That’s a failing of the profession. I don’t mind telling YOU so,”
said Skene, mournfully. Now the novice had found out this for himself,
already. He never, for instance, believed the accounts which his master
gave of the accidents and conspiracies which had led to his being
defeated three times in the ring. However, as Skene had won fifteen
battles, his next remark was undeniable. “Men fight none the worse for
being liars. Sam Ducket bet Ebony Muley in twenty minutes.”
“Yes,” said the novice, scornfully; “and what is Ebony Muley? A wretched
old nigger nearly sixty years old, who is drunk seven days in the week,
and would sell a fight for a glass of brandy! Ducket ought to have
knocked him out of time in seventy seconds. Ducket has no science.”
“Not a bit,” said Ned. “But he has lots of game.”
“Pshaw! Come, now, Ned; you know as well as I do that that is one of the
stalest commonplaces going. If a fellow knows how to box, they always
say he has science but no pluck. If he doesn’t know his right hand from
his left, they say that he isn’t clever but that he is full of game.”
Skene looked with secret wonder at his pupil, whose powers of
observation and expression sometimes seemed to him almost to rival those
of Mrs. Skene. “Sam was saying something like that to-day,” he remarked.
“He says you’re only a sparrer, and that you’d fall down with fright if
you was put into a twenty-four-foot ring.”
The novice flushed. “I wish I had been here when Sum Ducket said that.”
“Why, what could you ha’ done to him?” said Skene, his small eyes
twinkling.
“I’d have punched his head; that’s what I could and would have done to
him.”
“Why, man, he’d eat you.”
“He might. And he might eat you too, Ned, if he had salt enough with
you. He talks big because he knows I have no money; and he pretends he
won’t strip for less than fifty pounds a side.”
“No money!” cried Skene. “I know them as’ll make up fifty pound before
twelve to-morrow for any man as I will answer for. There’d be a start
for a young man! Why, my fust fight was for five shillings in Tott’nam
Fields; and proud I was when I won it. I don’t want to set you on to
fight a crack like Sam Ducket anyway against your inclinations; but
don’t go for to say that money isn’t to be had. Let Ned Skene pint to a
young man and say, ‘That’s the young man as Ned backs,’ and others will
come for’ard--ay, crowds of ‘em.”
The novice hesitated. “Do you think I ought to, Ned?” he said.
“That ain’t for me to say,” said Skene, doggedly. “I know what I would
ha’ said at your age. But perhaps you’re right to be cautious. I tell
you the truth, I wouldn’t care to see you whipped by the like of Sam
Ducket.”
“Will you train me if I challenge him?”
“Will I train you!” echoed Skene, rising with enthusiasm. “Ay will I
train you, and put my money on you, too; and you shall knock fireworks
out of him, my boy, as sure as my name’s Ned Skene.”
“Then,” cried the novice, reddening with excitement, “I’ll fight him.
And if I lick him you will have to hand over your belt as champion of
the colonies to me.”
“So I will,” said Skene, affectionately. “Don’t out late; and don’t for
your life touch a drop of liquor. You must go into training to-morrow.”
This was Cashel Byron’s first professional engagement.
CHAPTER I
Wiltstoken Castle was a square building with circular bastions at the
corners, each bastion terminating skyward in a Turkish minaret. The
southwest face was the front, and was pierced by a Moorish arch fitted
with glass doors, which could be secured on occasion by gates of
fantastically hammered iron. The arch was enshrined by a Palladian
portico, which rose to the roof, and was surmounted by an open pediment,
in the cleft of which stood a black-marble figure of an Egyptian, erect,
and gazing steadfastly at the midday sun. On the ground beneath was
an Italian terrace with two great stone elephants at the ends of the
balustrade. The windows on the upper story were, like the entrance,
Moorish; but the principal ones below were square bays, mullioned.
The castle was considered grand by the illiterate; but architects and
readers of books on architecture condemned it as a nondescript
mixture of styles in the worst possible taste. It stood on an eminence
surrounded by hilly woodland, thirty acres of which were enclosed as
Wiltstoken Park. Half a mile south was the little town of Wiltstoken,
accessible by rail from London in about two hours.
Most of the inhabitants of Wiltstoken were Conservatives. They stood in
awe of the castle; and some of them would at any time have cut half a
dozen of their oldest friends to obtain an invitation to dinner, or oven
a bow in public, from Miss Lydia Carew, its orphan mistress. This Miss
Carew was a remarkable person. She had inherited the castle and park
from her aunt, who had considered her niece’s large fortune in railways
and mines incomplete without land. So many other legacies had Lydia
received from kinsfolk who hated poor relations, that she was now, in
her twenty-fifth year, the independent possessor of an annual income
equal to the year’s earnings of five hundred workmen, and under no
external compulsion to do anything in return for it. In addition to the
advantage of being a single woman in unusually easy circumstances, she
enjoyed a reputation for vast learning and exquisite culture. It was
said in Wiltstoken that she knew forty-eight living languages and
all dead ones; could play on every known musical instrument; was an
accomplished painter, and had written poetry. All this might as well
have been true as far as the Wiltstokeners were concerned, since she
knew more than they. She had spent her life travelling with her father,
a man of active mind and bad digestion, with a taste for sociology,
science in general, and the fine arts. On these subjects he had written
books, by which he had earned a considerable reputation as a critic and
philosopher. They were the outcome of much reading, observation of men
and cities, sight-seeing, and theatre-going, of which his daughter had
done her share, and indeed, as she grew more competent and he weaker and
older, more than her share. He had had to combine health-hunting with
pleasure-seeking; and, being very irritable and fastidious, had schooled
her in self-control and endurance by harder lessons than those which had
made her acquainted with the works of Greek and German philosophers long
before she understood the English into which she translated them.
When Lydia was in her twenty-first year her father’s health failed
seriously. He became more dependent on her; and she anticipated that he
would also become more exacting in his demands on her time. The contrary
occurred. One day, at Naples, she had arranged to go riding with an
English party that was staying there. Shortly before the appointed
hour he asked her to make a translation of a long extract from Lessing.
Lydia, in whom self-questionings as to the justice of her father’s yoke
had been for some time stirring, paused thoughtfully for perhaps two
seconds before she consented. Carew said nothing, but he presently
intercepted a servant who was bearing an apology to the English party,
read the note, and went back to his daughter, who was already busy at
Lessing.
“Lydia,” he said, with a certain hesitation, which she would have
ascribed to shyness had that been at all credible of her father when
addressing her, “I wish you never to postpone your business to literary
trifling.”
She looked at him with the vague fear that accompanies a new and
doubtful experience; and he, dissatisfied with his way of putting the
case, added, “It is of greater importance that you should enjoy yourself
for an hour than that my book should be advanced. Far greater!”
Lydia, after some consideration, put down her pen and said, “I shall not
enjoy riding if there is anything else left undone.”
“I shall not enjoy your writing if your excursion is given up for it,”
he said. “I prefer your going.”
Lydia obeyed silently. An odd thought struck her that she might end the
matter gracefully by kissing him. But as they were unaccustomed to make
demonstrations of this kind, nothing came of the impulse. She spent the
day on horseback, reconsidered her late rebellious thoughts, and made
the translation in the evening.
Thenceforth Lydia had a growing sense of the power she had unwittingly
been acquiring during her long subordination. Timidly at first, and more
boldly as she became used to dispense with the parental leading-strings,
she began to follow her own bent in selecting subjects for study, and
even to defend certain recent developments of art against her father’s
conservatism. He approved of this independent mental activity on her
part, and repeatedly warned her not to pin her faith more on him than
on any other critic. She once told him that one of her incentives to
disagree with him was the pleasure it gave her to find out ultimately
that he was right. He replied gravely:
“That pleases me, Lydia, because I believe you. But such things are
better left unsaid. They seem to belong to the art of pleasing, which
you will perhaps soon be tempted to practise, because it seems to all
young people easy, well paid, amiable, and a mark of good breeding. In
truth it is vulgar, cowardly, egotistical, and insincere: a virtue in
a shopman; a vice in a free woman. It is better to leave genuine praise
unspoken than to expose yourself to the suspicion of flattery.”
Shortly after this, at his desire, she spent a season in London, and
went into English polite society, which she found to be in the main a
temple for the worship of wealth and a market for the sale of virgins.
Having become familiar with both the cult and the trade elsewhere, she
found nothing to interest her except the English manner of conducting
them; and the novelty of this soon wore off. She was also incommoded by
her involuntary power of inspiring affection in her own sex. Impulsive
girls she could keep in awe; but old women, notably two aunts who had
never paid her any attention during her childhood, now persecuted her
with slavish fondness, and tempted her by mingled entreaties and bribes
to desert her father and live with them for the remainder of their
lives. Her reserve fanned their longing to have her for a pet; and, to
escape them, she returned to the Continent with her father, and ceased
to hold any correspondence with London. Her aunts declared themselves
deeply hurt, and Lydia was held to have treated them very injudiciously;
but when they died, and their wills became public, it was found that
they had vied with one another in enriching her.
When she was twenty-five years old the first startling event of her life
took place. This was the death of her father at Avignon. No endearments
passed between them even on that occasion. She was sitting opposite to
him at the fireside one evening, reading aloud, when he suddenly said,
“My heart has stopped, Lydia. Good-bye!” and immediately died. She had
some difficulty in quelling the tumult that arose when the bell was
answered. The whole household felt bound to be overwhelmed, and took
it rather ill that she seemed neither grateful to them nor disposed to
imitate their behavior.
Carew’s relatives agreed that he had made a most unbecoming will. It
was a brief document, dated five years before his death, and was to the
effect that he bequeathed to his dear daughter Lydia all he possessed.
He had, however, left her certain private instructions. One of these,
which excited great indignation in his family, was that his body
should be conveyed to Milan, and there cremated. Having disposed of
her father’s remains as he had directed, she came to set her affairs
in order in England, where she inspired much hopeless passion in
the toilers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Chancery Lane, and agreeably
surprised her solicitors by evincing a capacity for business, and a
patience with the law’s delay, that seemed incompatible with her age and
sex. When all was arranged, and she was once more able to enjoy perfect
tranquillity, she returned to Avignon, and there discharged her last
duty to her father. This was to open a letter she had found in his desk,
inscribed by his hand: “For Lydia. To be read by her at leisure when I
and my affairs shall be finally disposed of.” The letter ran thus:
“MY DEAR LYDIA,--I belong to the great company of disappointed men. But
for you, I should now write myself down a failure like the rest. It is
only a few years since it first struck me that although I had failed in
many ambitions with which (having failed) I need not trouble you now,
I had achieved some success as a father. I had no sooner made this
discovery than it began to stick in my thoughts that you could draw no
other conclusion from the course of our life together than that I have,
with entire selfishness, used you throughout as my mere amanuensis
and clerk, and that you are under no more obligation to me for your
attainments than a slave is to his master for the strength which
enforced labor has given to his muscles. Lest I should leave you
suffering from so mischievous and oppressive an influence as a sense of
injustice, I now justify myself to you.
“I have never asked you whether you remember your mother. Had you at any
time broached the subject, I should have spoken quite freely to you on
it; but as some wise instinct led you to avoid it, I was content to let
it rest until circumstances such as the present should render further
reserve unnecessary. If any regret at having known so little of the
woman who gave you birth troubles you, shake it off without remorse. She
was the most disagreeable person I ever knew. I speak dispassionately.
All my bitter personal feeling against her is as dead while I write as
it will be when you read. I have even come to cherish tenderly certain
of her characteristics which you have inherited, so that I confidently
say that I never, since the perishing of the infatuation in which I
married, felt more kindly toward her than I do now. I made the best,
and she the worst, of our union for six years; and then we parted. I
permitted her to give what account of the separation she pleased, and
allowed her about five times as much money as she had any right
to expect. By these means I induced her to leave me in undisturbed
possession of you, whom I had already, as a measure of precaution,
carried off to Belgium. The reason why we never visited England during
her lifetime was that she could, and probably would, have made my
previous conduct and my hostility to popular religion an excuse for
wresting you from me. I need say no more of her, and am sorry it was
necessary to mention her at all.
“I will now tell you what induced me to secure you for myself. It was
not natural affection; I did not love you then, and I knew that you
would be a serious encumbrance to me. But, having brought you into the
world, and then broken through my engagements with your mother, I felt
bound to see that you should not suffer for my mistake. Gladly would
I have persuaded myself that she was (as the gossips said) the fittest
person to have charge of you; but I knew better, and made up my mind to
discharge my responsibility as well as I could. In course of time
you became useful to me; and, as you know, I made use of you without
scruple, but never without regard to your own advantage. I always kept
a secretary to do whatever I considered mere copyist’s work. Much as you
did for me, I think I may say with truth that I never imposed a task of
absolutely no educational value on you. I fear you found the hours you
spent over my money affairs very irksome; but I need not apologize for
that now: you must already know by experience how necessary a knowledge
of business is to the possessor of a large fortune.
“I did not think, when I undertook your education, that I was laying the
foundation of any comfort for myself. For a long time you were only a
good girl, and what ignorant people called a prodigy of learning.
In your circumstances a commonplace child might have been both. I
subsequently came to contemplate your existence with a pleasure which
I never derived from the contemplation of my own. I have not succeeded,
and shall not succeed in expressing the affection I feel for you, or
the triumph with which I find that what I undertook as a distasteful
and thankless duty has rescued my life and labor from waste. My literary
travail, seriously as it has occupied us both, I now value only for
the share it has had in educating you; and you will be guilty of no
disloyalty to me when you come to see that though I sifted as much sand
as most men, I found no gold. I ask you to remember, then, that I did my
duty to you long before it became pleasurable or even hopeful. And, when
you are older and have learned from your mother’s friends how I failed
in my duty to her, you will perhaps give me some credit for having
conciliated the world for your sake by abandoning habits and
acquaintances which, whatever others may have thought of them, did much
while they lasted to make life endurable to me.
“Although your future will not concern me, I often find myself thinking
of it. I fear you will soon find that the world has not yet provided a
place and a sphere of action for wise and well-instructed women. In my
younger days, when the companionship of my fellows was a necessity
to me, I voluntarily set aside my culture, relaxed my principles, and
acquired common tastes, in order to fit myself for the society of the
only men within my reach; for, if I had to live among bears, I had
rather be a bear than a man. Let me warn you against this. Never attempt
to accommodate yourself to the world by self-degradation. Be patient;
and you will enjoy frivolity all the more because you are not frivolous:
much as the world will respect your knowledge all the more because of
its own ignorance.
“Some day, I expect and hope, you will marry. You will then have an
opportunity of making an irremediable mistake, against the possibility
of which no advice of mine or subtlety of yours can guard you. I think
you will not easily find a man able to satisfy in you that desire to be
relieved of the responsibility of thinking out and ordering our course
of life that makes us each long for a guide whom we can thoroughly
trust. If you fail, remember that your father, after suffering a bitter
and complete disappointment in his wife, yet came to regard his marriage
as the happiest event in his career. Let me remind you also, since you
are so rich, that it would be a great folly for you to be jealous of
your own income, and to limit your choice of a husband to those already
too rich to marry for money. No vulgar adventurer will be able to
recommend himself to you; and better men will be at least as much
frightened as attracted by your wealth. The only class against which
I need warn you is that to which I myself am supposed to belong. Never
think that a man must prove a suitable and satisfying friend for
you merely because he has read much criticism; that he must feel
the influences of art as you do because he knows and adopts the
classification of names and schools with which you are familiar; or
that because he agrees with your favorite authors he must necessarily
interpret their words to himself as you understand them. Beware of men
who have read more than they have worked, or who love to read better
than to work. Beware of painters, poets, musicians, and artists of all
sorts, except very great artists: beware even of them as husbands and
fathers. Self-satisfied workmen who have learned their business well,
whether they be chancellors of the exchequer or farmers, I recommend to
you as, on the whole, the most tolerable class of men I have met.
“I shall make no further attempt to advise you. As fast as my counsels
rise to my mind follow reflections that convince me of their futility.
“You may perhaps wonder why I never said to you what I have written down
here. I have tried to do so and failed. If I understand myself aright,
I have written these lines mainly to relieve a craving to express
my affection for you. The awkwardness which an over-civilized man
experiences in admitting that he is something more than an educated
stone prevented me from confusing you by demonstrations of a kind I had
never accustomed you to. Besides, I wish this assurance of my love--my
last word--to reach you when no further commonplaces to blur the
impressiveness of its simple truth are possible.
“I know I have said too much; and I feel that I have not said enough.
But the writing of this letter has been a difficult task. Practised as I
am with my pen, I have never, even in my earliest efforts, composed with
such labor and sense of inadequacy----”
Here the manuscript broke off. The letter had never been finished.