LETTER FROM PISISTRATUS CAXTON, TO ALBERT TREVANION, ESQ., M. P.
(_The confession of a youth who, in the Old World, finds himself one
too many._)
"My dear Mr Trevanion,--I thank you cordially, and so we do all, for
your reply to my letter, informing you of the villanous traps through
which we have passed not indeed with whole skins, but still whole in
life and limb--which considering that the traps were three, and the
teeth sharp, was more than we could reasonably expect. We have taken to
the wastes, like wise foxes as we are, and I do not think a bait can be
found that will again snare the fox paternal. As for the fox filial,
it is different, and I am about to prove to you that he is burning to
redeem the family disgrace. Ah! my dear Mr Trevanion, if you are busy
with 'blue books' when this letter reaches you, stop here, and put it
aside for some rare moment of leisure. I am about to open my heart to
you, and ask you, who know the world so well, to aid me in an escape
from those _flammantia mænia_, wherewith I find that world begirt and
enclosed. For look you, sir, you and my father were right when you
both agreed that the mere book life was not meant for me. And yet what
is not book life, to a young man who would make his way through the
ordinary and conventional paths to fortune? All the professions are so
book-lined, book-hemmed, book-choked, that wherever these strong hands
of mine stretch towards action, they find themselves met by octavo
ramparts, flanked with quarto crenellations. For first, this college
life, opening to scholarships, and ending, perchance, as you political
economists would desire, in Malthusian fellowships--premiums for
celibacy--consider what manner of thing it is!
"Three years, book upon book,--a great Dead Sea before one, three years
long, and all the apples that grow on the shore full of the ashes of
pica and primer! Those three years ended, the fellowship, it may be,
won,--still books--books--if the whole world does not close at the
college gates. Do I, from scholar, effloresce into literary man, author
by profession?--books--books! Do I go into the law?--books--books.
_Ars longa, vita brevis_, which, paraphrased, means that it is slow
work before one fags one's way to a brief! Do I turn doctor? Why,
what but books can kill time, until, at the age of forty, a lucky
chance may permit me to kill something else? The church? (for which,
indeed, I don't profess to be good enough,)--that is book life _par
excellence_, whether, inglorious and poor, I wander through long
lines of divines and fathers; or, ambitious of bishopricks, I amend
the corruptions, not of the human heart, but of a Greek text, and
through defiles of scholiasts and commentators win my way to the See.
In short, barring the noble profession of arms--which you know, after
all, is not precisely the road to fortune--can you tell me any means
by which one may escape these eternal books, this mental clockwork,
and corporeal lethargy. Where can this passion for life that runs riot
through my veins find its vent? Where can these stalwart limbs, and
this broad chest, grow of value and worth, in this hot-bed of cerebral
inflammation and dyspeptic intellect? I know what is in me; I know I
have the qualities that should go with stalwart limbs and broad chest.
I have some plain common sense, some promptitude and keenness, some
pleasure in hardy danger, some fortitude in bearing pain--qualities for
which I bless Heaven, for they are qualities good and useful in private
life. But in the forum of men, in the market of fortune, are they not
_flocci, nauci, nihili_?
"In a word, dear sir and friend, in this crowded Old World, there
is not the same room that our bold forefathers found for men to walk
about, and jostle their neighbours. No; they must sit down like boys
at their form, and work out their tasks, with rounded shoulders and
aching fingers. There has been a pastoral age, and a hunting age, and
a fighting age. Now we have arrived at the age sedentary. Men who sit
longest carry all before them: puny delicate fellows, with hands just
strong enough to wield a pen, eyes so bleared by the midnight lamp
that they see no joy in that buxom sun, (which draws me forth into
the fields, as life draws the living,) and digestive organs worn and
macerated by the relentless flagellation of the brain. Certainly,
if this is to be the Reign of Mind, it is idle to repine, and kick
against the pricks; but is it true that all these qualities of action
that are within me are to go for nothing! If I were rich, and happy
in mind and circumstance, well and good; I should shoot, hunt, farm,
travel, enjoy life, and snap my fingers at ambition. If I were so
poor and so humbly bred that I could turn gamekeeper or whipper-in,
as pauper gentlemen virtually did of old, well and good too; I should
exhaust this troublesome vitality of mine, by nightly battles with
poachers, and leaps over double dykes and stone walls. If I were so
depressed of spirit that I could live without remorse on my father's
small means, and exclaim with Claudian, 'The earth gives me feasts that
cost nothing,' well and good too; it were a life to suit a vegetable,
or a very minor poet. But as it is!--here I open another leaf of my
heart to you! To say that, being poor, I want to make a fortune, is to
say that I am an Englishman. To attach ourselves to a thing positive,
belongs to our practical race. Even in our dreams, if we build castles
in the air, they are not _Castles of Indolence_,--indeed they have very
little of the castle about them, and look much more like Hoare's Bank
on the east side of Temple Bar! I desire, then, to make a fortune. But
I differ from my countrymen, first, by desiring only what you rich men
would call but a _small_ fortune; secondly, in wishing that I may not
spend my whole life in that said fortune-making. Just see, now, how I
am placed.
"Under ordinary circumstances, I must begin by taking from my father a
large slice of an income that will ill spare paring. According to my
calculation, my parents and my uncle want all they have got--and the
subtraction of the yearly sum on which Pisistratus is to live, till he
can live by his own labours, would be so much taken from the decent
comforts of his kindred. If I return to Cambridge, with all economy, I
must thus narrow still more the _res angusta domi_--and when Cambridge
is over, and I am turned loose upon the world--failing, as is likely
enough, of the support of a fellowship--how many years must I work, or
rather, alas! not work, at the bar (which, after all, seems my best
calling) before I can in my turn provide for those who, till then, rob
themselves for me?--till I have arrived at middle life, and they are
old and worn out--till the chink of the golden bowl sounds but hollow
at the ebbing well! I would wish that, if I can make money, those I
love best may enjoy it while enjoyment is yet left to them; that my
father shall see _The History of Human Error_, complete, bound in
Russia on his shelves; that my mother shall have the innocent pleasures
that content her, before age steals the light from her happy smile;
that before Roland's hair is snow-white, (alas! the snows there thicken
fast,) he shall lean on my arm, while we settle together where the
ruin shall be repaired or where left to the owls; and where the dreary
bleak waste around shall laugh with the gleam of corn:--for you know
the nature of this Cumberland soil--you, who possess much of it, and
have won so many fair acres from the wild;--you know that my uncle's
land, now (save a single farm) scarce worth a shilling an acre, needs
but capital to become an estate more lucrative than ever his ancestors
owned. You know that, for you have applied your capital to the same
kind of land, and, in doing so, what blessings--which you scarcely
think of in your London library--you have effected!--what mouths you
feed, what hands you employ! I have calculated that my uncle's moors,
which now scarce maintain two or three shepherds, could, manured by
money, maintain two hundred families by their labour. All this is worth
trying for! therefore Pisistratus wants to make money. Not so much! he
does not require millions--a few spare thousand pounds would go a long
way; and with a modest capital to begin with, Roland should become a
true squire, a real landowner, not the mere lord of a desert. Now then,
dear sir, advise me how I may, with such qualities as I possess, arrive
at that capital--ay, and before it is too late--so that money-making
may not last till my grave.
"Turning in despair from this civilised world of ours, I have cast
my eyes to a world far older,--and yet more to a world in its giant
childhood. India here,--Australia there!--what say you, sir--you who
will see dispassionately those things that float before my eyes through
a golden haze, looming large in the distance? Such is my confidence in
your judgment that you have but to say, 'Fool, give up thine El Dorados
and stay at home,--stick to the books and the desk--annihilate that
redundance of animal life that is in thee--grow a mental machine. Thy
physical gifts are of no avail to thee; take thy place among the slaves
of the Lamp," and I will obey without a murmur. But if I am right--if
I have in me attributes that here find no market; if my repinings are
but the instincts of nature, that, out of this decrepid civilisation,
desire vent for growth in the young stir of some more rude and vigorous
social system--then give me, I pray, that advice which may clothe my
idea in some practical and tangible embodiments. Have I made myself
understood?
"Rarely do we see a newspaper here, but occasionally one finds its
way from the parsonage; and I have lately rejoiced at a paragraph
that spoke of your speedy entrance into the administration as a
thing certain. I write to you before you are a minister; and you see
what I seek is not in the way of official patronage: A niche in an
office!--oh, to me that were worse than all. Yet I did labour hard with
you, but--_that_ was different! I write to you thus frankly, knowing
your warm noble heart--and as if you were my father. Allow me to add
my humble but earnest congratulations on Miss Trevanion's approaching
marriage with one worthy, if not of her, at least of her station. I do
so as becomes one whom you have allowed to retain the right to pray for
the happiness of you and yours.
"My dear Mr Trevanion, this is a long letter, and I dare not even read
it over, lest if I do, I should not send it. Take it with all its
faults, and judge of it with that kindness with which you have judged
ever
Your grateful and devoted servant,
"PISISTRATUS CAXTON."
LETTER FROM ALBERT TREVANION, ESQ., M.P. TO PISISTRATUS CAXTON.
_Library of the House of Commons, Tuesday Night._
"My dear Pisistratus,--* * * * * is up! we are in for it for two mortal
hours. I take flight to the library, and devote those hours to you.
Don't be conceited, but that picture of yourself which you have placed
before me has struck me with all the force of an original. The state of
mind which you describe so vividly must be a very common one, in our
era of civilisation, yet I have never before seen it made so prominent
and life-like. You have been in my thoughts all day. Yes, how many
young men must there be like you, in this Old World, able, intelligent,
active, and persevering enough, yet not adapted for success in any of
our conventional professions--'mute, inglorious Raleighs.' Your letter,
young artist, is an illustration of the philosophy of colonising. I
comprehend better, after reading it, the old Greek colonisation,--the
sending out not only the paupers, the refuse of an over-populated
state, but a large proportion of a better class--fellows full of pith
and sap, and exuberant vitality, like yourself, blending in those
wise _cleruchiæ_ a certain portion of the aristocratic with the more
democratic element; not turning a rabble loose upon a new soil, but
planting in the foreign allotments all the rudiments of a harmonious
state, analogous to that in the mother country--not only getting rid
of hungry craving mouths, but furnishing vent for a waste surplus of
intelligence and courage, which at home is really not needed, and more
often comes to ill than to good;--here only menaces our artificial
embankments, but there, carried off in an aqueduct, might give life to
a desert.
"For my part, in my ideal of colonisation, I should like that each
exportation of human beings had, as of old, its leaders and chiefs--not
so appointed from the mere quality of rank, often, indeed, taken
from the humbler classes--but still men to whom a certain degree of
education should give promptitude, quickness, _adaptability_--men in
whom their followers can confide. The Greeks understood that. Nay,
as the colony makes progress--as its principal town rises into the
dignity of a capital--a _polis_ that needs a polity--I sometimes think
it might be wise to go still farther, and not only transplant to it a
high standard of civilisation, but draw it more closely into connexion
with the parent state, and render the passage of spare intellect,
education, and _civility_, to and fro, more facile, by draughting
off thither the spare scions of royalty itself. I know that many of
my more 'liberal' friends would pooh-pooh this notion; but I am sure
that the colony altogether, when arrived to a state that would bear
the importation, would thrive all the better for it. And when the day
shall come (as to all healthful colonies it must come sooner or later)
in which the settlement has grown an independent state, we may thereby
have laid the seeds of a constitution and a civilisation similar to
our own--with self-developed forms of monarchy and aristocracy, though
of a simpler growth than old societies accept, and not left a strange
motley chaos of struggling democracy--an uncouth livid giant, at which
the Frankenstein may well tremble--not because it is a giant, but
because it is a giant half completed.[8] Depend on it, the New World
will be friendly or hostile to the Old, _not in proportion to the
kinship of race, but in proportion to the similarity of manners and
institutions_--a mighty truth, to which we colonisers have been blind.
[8] These pages were sent to press before the author had seen Mr
Wakefield's recent work on Colonisation, wherein the views here
expressed are enforced with great earnestness and conspicuous sagacity.
The author is not the less pleased at this coincidence of opinion,
because he has the misfortune to dissent from certain other parts of Mr
Wakefield's elaborate theory.
"Passing from these more distant speculations to this positive present
before us, you see already, from what I have said, that I sympathise
with your aspirations--that I construe them as you would have
me;--looking to your nature and to your objects, I give you my advice
in a word--EMIGRATE!
"My advice is, however, founded on one hypothesis--viz., that you
are perfectly sincere--you will be contented with a rough life, and
with a moderate fortune at the end of your probation. Don't dream
of emigrating if you want to make a million, or the tenth part of
a million. Don't dream of emigrating, unless you can _enjoy_ its
hardships,--to _bear_ them is not enough!
"Australia is the land for you, as you seem to surmise. Australia is
the land for two classes of emigrants: 1st, The man who has nothing but
his wits, and plenty of them; 2dly, The man who has a small capital,
and who is contented to spend ten years in trebling it. I assume that
you belong to the latter class. Take out £3000, and before you are
thirty years old, you may return with £10,000 or £12,000. If that
satisfies you, think seriously of Australia. By coach, tomorrow, I will
send you down all the best books and reports on the subject; and I
will get you what detailed information I can from the Colonial Office.
Having read these, and thought over them dispassionately, spend some
months yet among the sheep-walks of Cumberland; learn all you can, from
all the shepherds you can find--from Thyrsis to Menalcas. Do more; fit
yourself in every way for a life in the Bush, where the philosophy of
the division of labour is not yet arrived at. Learn to turn your hand
to everything. Be something of a smith, something of a carpenter--do
the best you can with the fewest tools; make yourself an excellent
shot; break in all the wild horses and ponies you can borrow and beg.
Even if you want to do none of these things when in your settlement,
the having learned to do them will fit you for many other things not
now foreseen. _De-fine-gentlemanise_ yourself from the crown of your
head to the sole of your foot, and become the greater aristocrat for so
doing; for he is more than an aristocrat, he is a king, who suffices
in all things for himself--who is his own master, because he wants no
_valetaille_. I think Seneca has expressed that thought before me; and
I would quote the passage, but the book, I fear, is not in the library
of the House of Commons. But now--(cheers, by Jove. I suppose * * * * *
is down! Ah! it is so; and C---- is up, and that cheer followed a sharp
hit at me. How I wish I were your age, and going to Australia with
you!) But now--to resume my suspended period--but now to the important
point--capital. You must take that, unless you go as a shepherd, and
then goodbye to the idea of £10,000 in ten years. So, you see, it
appears at the first blush that you must still come to your father;
but, you will say, with this difference, that you borrow the capital,
with every chance of repaying it, instead of frittering away the income
year after year till you are eight-and-thirty or forty at least. Still,
Pisistratus, you don't, in this, gain your object at a leap; and my
dear old friend ought not to lose his son and his money too. You say
you write to me as to your own father. You know I hate professions; and
if you did not mean what you say, you have offended me mortally. As a
father, then, I take a father's rights, and speak plainly. A friend of
mine, Mr Bolding, a clergyman, has a son--a wild fellow, who is likely
to get into all sorts of scrapes in England, but with plenty of good in
him, notwithstanding--frank, bold--not wanting in talent, but rather
in prudence--easily tempted and led away into extravagance. He would
make a capital colonist, (no such temptations in the Bush,) if tied to
a youth like you. Now I propose, with your leave, that his father shall
advance him £1500,--which shall not, however, be placed in his hands,
but in yours, as head partner in the firm. You, on your side, shall
advance the same sum of £1500, which you shall borrow from me, for
three years without interest. At the end of that time interest shall
commence, and the capital, with the interest on the said first three
years, shall be repaid to me, or my executors, on your return. After
you have been a year or two in the Bush, and felt your way, and learned
your business, you may then safely borrow £1500 more from your father;
and, in the meanwhile, you and your partner will have had together the
full sum of £3000 to commence with. You see in this proposal I make you
no gift, and I run no risk, even by your death. If you die, insolvent,
I will promise to come on your father, poor fellow!--for small joy
and small care will he have then in what may be left of his fortune.
There--I have said all; and I will never forgive you if you reject an
aid that will serve you so much, and cost me so little.
"I accept your congratulations on Fanny's engagement with Lord
Castleton. When you return from Australia you will still be a young
man, she (though about your own years) almost a middle-aged woman, with
her head full of pomps and vanities. All girls have a short period of
girlhood in common; but when they enter womanhood, the woman becomes
the woman of her class. As for me, and the office assigned to me by
report, you know what I said when we parted, and--but here J---- comes,
and tells me that 'I am expected to speak, and answer N----, who is
just up, brimful of malice,'--the House crowded, and hungering for
personalities. So I, the man of the Old World, gird up my loins, and
leave you with a sigh, to the fresh youth of the New--
'Ne tibi sit duros acuisse in pr[oe]lia dentes.'
"Yours affectionately,
"ALBERT TREVANION."