I said just now, let us think. I had better have said, let us not
think; for thought is painful, even dangerous when carried to excess.
Happy is he who thinks but little, whose ideas are so confined as not to
cause the intellectual fever, wearing out the mind and body, and often
threatening both with dissolution. There is a happy medium of
intellect, sufficient to convince us that all is good--sufficient to
enable us to comprehend that which is revealed, without a vain endeavour
to pry into the hidden; to understand the one, and lend our faith unto
the other; but when the mind would soar unto the heaven not opened to
it, or dive into sealed and dark futurity, how does it return from its
several expeditions? confused, alarmed, unhappy; willing to rest, yet
restless; willing to believe, yet doubting; willing to end its futile
travels, yet setting forth anew. Yet, how is a superior understanding
envied! how coveted by all! a gift which always leads to danger, and
often to perdition.
Thank Heaven! I have not been intrusted with one of those
thorough-bred, snorting, champing, foaming sort of intellects, which run
away with Common Sense, who is jerked from his saddle at the beginning
of its wild career. Mine is a good, steady, useful hack, who trots
along the high-road of life, keeping on his own side, and only stumbling
a little now and then, when I happen to be careless,--ambitious only to
arrive safely at the end of his journey, not to pass by others.
Why am I no longer ambitious? once I was, but 'twas when I was young and
foolish. Then methought "It were an easy leap to pluck bright honour
from the pale-faced moon;" but now I am old and fat, and there is
something in fat which chokes or destroys ambition. It would appear
that it is requisite for the body to be active and springing as the
mind; and if it is not, it weighs the latter down to its own gravity.
Who ever heard of a fat man being ambitious? Caesar was a spare man;
Bonaparte was thin, as long as he climbed the ladder; Nelson was a
shadow. The Duke of Wellington has not sufficient fat in his
composition to grease his own Wellington-boots. In short, I think my
hypothesis to be fairly borne out, that fat and ambition are
incompatible.
It is very melancholy to be forced to acknowledge this, for I am
convinced that it may be of serious injury to my works. An author with
a genteel figure will always be more read than one who is corpulent.
All his etherealness departs. Some young ladies may have fancied me an
elegant young man, like Lytton Bulwer, full of fun and humour,
concealing all my profound knowledge under the mask of levity, and have
therefore read my books with as much delight as has been afforded by
Pelham. But the truth must be told. I am a grave, heavy man, with my
finger continually laid along my temple, seldom speaking unless spoken
to--and when ladies talk, I never open my mouth; the consequence is,
that sometimes, when there is a succession of company, I do not speak
for a week. Moreover, I am married, with five small children; and now
all I look forward to, and all I covet, is to live in peace, and die in
my bed.
I wonder why I did not commence authorship before! How true it is that
a man never knows what he can do until he tries! The fact is, I never
thought that I could make a novel; and I was thirty years old before I
stumbled on the fact. What a pity!
Writing a book reminds me very much of making a passage across the
Atlantic. At one moment, when the ideas flow, you have the wind aft,
and away you scud, with a flowing sheet, and a rapidity which delights
you: at other times, when your spirit flags, and you gnaw your pen (I
have lately used iron pens, for I'm a devil of a crib-biter), it is like
unto a foul wind, tack and tack, requiring a long time to get on a short
distance. But still you do go, although but slowly; and in both cases
we must take the foul wind with the fair. If a ship were to furl her
sails until the wind again was favourable, her voyage would be
protracted to an indefinite time; and, if an author were to wait until
he again felt in a humour, it would take a life to write a novel.
Whenever the wind is foul, which it now most certainly is, for I am
writing any thing but "Newton Forster," and which will account for this
rambling, stupid chapter, made up of odds and ends, strung together like
what we call "skewer pieces" on board of a man-of-war; when the wind is
foul, as I said before, I have, however, a way of going a-head, by
getting up the steam which I am now about to resort to--and the fuel is
brandy. All on this side of the world are asleep, except gamblers,
house breakers, the new police, and authors. My wife is in the arms of
Morpheus--an allegorical _crim con_, which we husbands are obliged to
wink at; and I am making love to the brandy bottle, that I may stimulate
my ideas, as unwilling to be roused from their dark cells of the brain
as the spirit summoned by Lochiel, who implored at each response, "Leave
me, oh! leave me to repose."
Now I'll invoke them, conjure them up, like little imps, to do my
bidding:--
By this glass, which now I drain,
By this spirit, which shall cheer you,
As its fumes mount to my brain,
From thy torpid slumbers rear you.
By this head, so tired with thinking,
By this hand, no longer trembling,
By these lips, so fond of drinking,
Let me feel that you're assembling.
By the bottle placed before me,
(Food for you, ere morrow's sun),
By this second glass, I pour me,
Come, you _little beggars_, route.