1853.
A project for studying in Paris.--Reading.--A healthy life.--Quinsy.
--My most intimate friend.
If there is any good in an autobiography it ought to be as an example or
a warning to others; so at the risk of seeming to moralize, which,
however, is far from my intention, I will say something in this place
about my manner of life in those days.
First with regard to art, it was not my fault if all the painters I had
applied to said that they did not take pupils. There was a young
gentleman in our neighborhood who, though a rich man's son, worked
seriously at painting, and put himself every year under the direction of
a French artist in Paris, where he studied in an atelier. I had an idea
of joining him, but my guardian (who with all her sweetness of
disposition could be authoritative when she liked) put a stop to the
project by saying that she refused her consent to any plan involving
absence from England before the expiration of my minority. She had the
usual English idea that Paris is a more immoral place than London.
Perhaps it may be, but great capitals such as Paris, London, and Vienna
have this in common, that you may be moral in them, or immoral, as you
like; and if we are to avoid a town because immorality is practised
there, we must avoid all the great and most of the smaller centres of
intelligence.
For the present I worked from nature, but not with sufficient energy or
regularity. I had not found my path, and was always dissatisfied with my
studies. In literature my reading was abundant, and included the best
English poets and essayists. I had entirely given up reading Latin and
Greek at that time, and was not just then studying any modern language
in their place. Young men both over-estimate and under-estimate their
own gifts,--they do not know themselves, as indeed how should they? I
had an impression that Nature had not endowed me with a gift for
languages. This impression was not only erroneous, but the exact
contrary of the truth, for I am a born linguist.
My life in general was healthy and active. It included a great deal of
walking exercise, sometimes five hours in a day. This, with bathing,
kept me in fair health, though I never had what is called robust health,
that which allows its possessor to commit great imprudences with
impunity. I was once near losing life altogether by an odd result from a
small accident. My horse, which was a heavy and large animal, put his
foot accidentally on mine. The accident did not prevent me from riding
out on the moors, but when I got there the pain became so violent that I
held my foot in a cold rivulet. During the night the pain returned, and
then I foolishly plunged the foot into a cold bath. The result was that
the inflammation flew to the throat, and I had a quinsy which nearly
carried me off. I remember asking for everything by writing on a slate,
and the intense longing I had for lemonade.
My most intimate friend in those days was a young solicitor in Burnley,
a man of remarkable ability and naturally polished manners. His
professional duties did not leave him very much time for reading, but he
had a mind far above the common Philistinism that cannot appreciate
literature. I must have wearied him sadly sometimes by reading my own
verses,--always a most foolish thing to do, and at this day quite
remote from my notions of an author's dignity. Handsley was wisely
indifferent to literary fame, and never wrote anything himself except
his letters, which were those of a clear-headed man of business. He took
upon himself great labors and great responsibilities, which ripened his
faculties at a very early age, and he bore them with uncommon firmness
and prudence. I never met with his superior in the practical sense that
seizes upon opportunities, and in the energy which arrives in time.
"Opportunity is kind," said George Eliot, "but only to the industrious."
Handsley was always one of those to whom Opportunity is kind. If his
career had been in Parliament I am convinced that he would have risen
high. His merits were exactly those that are most valued in an English
Cabinet Minister. At the present time he has under his management some
of the largest collieries in Lancashire, and has been for many years one
of the most influential men in the neighborhood.