One day the Trevanions had all gone into the country, on a visit to a
retired minister, distantly related to Lady Ellinor, and who was one
of the few persons Trevanion himself condescended to consult. I had
almost a holiday. I went to call on Sir Sedley Beaudesert. I had
always longed to sound him on one subject, and had never dared. This
time I resolved to pluck up courage.
"Ah, my young friend!" said he, rising from the contemplation of a
villanous picture by a young artist, which he had just benevolently
purchased, "I was thinking of you this morning--Wait a moment,
Summers, (this to the valet.) Be so good as to take this picture, let
it be packed up, and go down into the country. It is a sort of
picture," he added, turning to me, "that requires a large house. I
have an old gallery with little casements that let in no light. It is
astonishing how convenient I have found it!" As soon as the picture
was gone, Sir Sedley drew a long breath as if relieved; and resumed
more gaily--
"Yes, I was thinking of you; and if you will forgive any interference
in your affairs--from your father's old friend--I should be greatly
honoured by your permission to ask Trevanion what he supposes is to be
the ultimate benefit of the horrible labours he inflicts upon you--"
"But, my dear Sir Sedley, I like the labours; I am perfectly
contented--"
"Not to remain always secretary to one who, if there were no business
to be done among men, would set about teaching the ants to build hills
upon better architectural principles! My dear sir, Trevanion is an
awful man, a stupendous man, one _catches fatigue_ if one is in the
same room with him three minutes! At your age, an age that ought to be
so happy," continued Sir Sedley, with a compassion perfectly angelic,
"it is sad to see so little enjoyment!"
"But, Sir Sedley, I assure you that you are mistaken. I thoroughly
enjoy myself; and have I not heard even you confess that one may be
idle and not happy?"
"I did not confess that till I was on the wrong side of forty," said
Sir Sedley, with a slight shade on his brow.
"Nobody would ever think you were on the wrong side of forty!" said I
with artful flattery, winding into my subject. "Miss Trevanion for
instance--"
I paused--Sir Sedley, looked hard at me, from his bright dark-blue
eyes. "Well, Miss Trevanion for instance?--"
"Miss Trevanion, who has all the best-looking fellows in London round
her, evidently prefers you to any of them." I said this with a great
gulp. I was obstinately bent on plumbing the depth of my own fears.
Sir Sedley rose; he laid his hand kindly on mine and said, "Do not let
Fanny Trevanion torment you even more than her father does!--"
"I don't understand you, Sir Sedley!"
"But if I understand you, that is more to the purpose. A girl like
Miss Trevanion is cruel till she discovers she has a heart. It is not
safe to risk one's own with any woman till she has ceased to be a
coquette. My dear young friend, if you took life less in earnest, I
should spare you the pain of these hints. Some men sow flowers, some
plant trees--you are planting a tree under which you will soon find
that no flower will grow. Well and good, if the tree could last to
bear fruit and give shade; but beware lest you have to tear it up one
day or other, for then--what then? why, you will find your whole life
plucked away with its roots!"
Sir Sedley said these last words with so serious an emphasis, that I
was startled from the confusion I had felt at the former part of his
address. He paused long, tapped his snuff-box, inhaled a pinch slowly,
and continued with his more accustomed sprightliness.
"Go as much as you can into the world--again I say 'enjoy yourself.'
And again I ask, what is all this labour to do for you? On some men,
far less eminent than Trevanion, it would impose a duty to aid you in
a practical career, to secure you a public employment--not so on him.
He would not mortgage an inch of his independence by asking a favour
from a minister. He so thinks occupation the delight of life, that he
occupies you out of pure affection. He does not trouble his head about
your future. He supposes your father will provide for _that_, and does
not consider that meanwhile your work leads to nothing! Think over all
this. I have now bored you enough."
I was bewildered--I was dumb: these practical men of the world, how
they take us by surprise! Here had I come to _sound_ Sir Sedley, and
here was I plumbed, gauged, measured, turned inside out, without
having got an inch beyond the surface of that smiling, _debonnair_,
unruffled ease. Yet with his invariable delicacy, in spite of all this
horrible frankness, Sir Sedley had not said a word to wound what he
might think the more sensitive part of my _amour propre_--not a word
as to the inadequacy of my pretensions to think seriously of Fanny
Trevanion. Had we been the Celadon and Chloe of a country village, he
could not have regarded us as more equal, so far as the world went.
And for the rest, he rather insinuated that poor Fanny, the great
heiress, was not worthy of me, than that I was not worthy of Fanny.
I felt that there was no wisdom in stammering and blushing out denials
and equivocations; so I stretched my hand to Sir Sedley, took up my
hat,--and went. Instinctively I bent my way to my father's house. I
had not been there for many days. Not only had I had a great deal to
do in the way of business, but I am ashamed to say that pleasure
itself had so entangled my leisure hours, and Miss Trevanion
especially so absorbed them, that, without even uneasy foreboding, I
had left my father fluttering his wings more feebly and feebly in the
web of Uncle Jack. When I arrived in Russell Street, I found the fly
and the spider cheek by jowl together. Uncle Jack sprang up at my
entrance, and cried, "Congratulate your father, congratulate _him_.
No; congratulate the world!"
"What, Uncle!" said I, with a dismal effort at sympathising
liveliness, "is the 'Literary Times' launched at last?"
"Oh, that is all settled--settled long since. Here's a specimen of the
type we have chosen for the leaders." And Uncle Jack, whose pocket was
never without a wet sheet of some kind or other, drew forth a steaming
papyral monster, which in point of size was to the political "Times"
as a mammoth may be to an elephant. "That is all settled. We are only
preparing our contributors, and shall put out our programme next week
or the week after. No, Pisistratus, I mean the Great Work."
"My dear father, I am so glad. What! it is really sold then?"
"Hum!" said my father.
"Sold!" burst forth Uncle Jack. "Sold--no, sir, we would not sell it!
No; if all the booksellers fell down on their knees to us, as they
will some day, that book should not be sold! Sir, that book is a
revolution--it is an era--it is the emancipator of genius from
mercenary thraldom;--THAT BOOK!--"
I looked inquiringly from uncle to father, and mentally retracted my
congratulations. Then Mr Caxton, slightly blushing, and shyly rubbing
his spectacles, said, "You see, Pisistratus, that though poor Jack has
devoted uncommon pains to induce the publishers to recognise the merit
he has discovered in the 'History of Human Error,' he has failed to do
so."
"Not a bit of it; they all acknowledge its miraculous learning--its--"
"Very true; but they don't think it will sell, and therefore most
selfishly refuse to buy it. One bookseller, indeed, offered to treat
for it if I would leave out all about the Hottentots and Caffres, the
Greek philosophers and Egyptian priests, and, confining myself solely
to polite society, entitle the work 'Anecdotes of the Courts of
Europe, ancient and modern.'"
"The wretch!" groaned Uncle Jack.
"Another thought it might be cut up into little essays, leaving out
the quotations, entitled 'Men and Manners.'"
"A third was kind enough to observe, that though this particular work
was quite unsaleable, yet as I appeared to have some historical
information, he should be happy to undertake a historical romance from
'my graphic pen'--that was the phrase, was it not, Jack?"
Jack was too full to speak. --"Provided I would introduce a proper
love-plot, and make it into three volumes post octavo, twenty-three
lines in a page, neither more nor less. One honest fellow at last was
found, who seemed to me a very respectable and indeed enterprising
person. And after going through a list of calculations, which showed
that no possible profit could arise, he generously offered to give me
half of those no-profits, provided I would guarantee half the very
visible expenses. I was just meditating the prudence of accepting this
proposal, when your uncle was seized with a sublime idea, which has
whisked up my book in a whirlwind of expectation."
"And that idea?" said I despondently.
"That idea," quoth Uncle Jack, recovering himself, "is simply and
shortly this. From time immemorial authors have been the prey of the
publishers. Sir, authors have lived in garrets, nay, have been choked
in the street by an unexpected crumb of bread, like the man who wrote
the play, poor fellow!"
"Otway," said my father. "The story is not true--no matter."
"Milton, sir, as every body knows, sold Paradise Lost for ten
pounds--ten pounds, sir! In short, instances of a like nature are too
numerous to quote. But the booksellers, sir,--they are leviathans--they
roll in seas of gold. They subsist upon authors as vampires upon little
children. But at last endurance has reached its limit--the fiat has
gone forth--the tocsin of liberty has resounded--authors have burst
their fetters. And we have just inaugurated the institution of 'THE
GRAND ANTI-PUBLISHER CONFEDERATE AUTHORS' SOCIETY,' by which,
Pisistratus--by which, mark you, every author is to be his own
publisher; that is, every author who joins the Society. No more
submission of immortal works to mercenary calculators, to sordid
tastes--no more hard bargains and broken hearts!--no more crumbs of
bread choking great tragic poets in the streets--no more Paradises Lost
sold at L10 a-piece! The author brings his book to a select committee
appointed for the purpose; men of delicacy, education, and
refinement--authors themselves--they read it, the Society publish; and
after a modest commission towards the funds of the Society, the
treasurer hands over the profits to the author."
"So that in fact, Uncle, every author who can't find a publisher any
where else, will of course come to the Society. The fraternity will be
numerous!"
"It will indeed."
"And the speculation--ruinous?"
"Ruinous, why?"
"Because in all mercantile negotiations it is ruinous to invest
capital in supplies which fail of demand. You undertake to publish
books that booksellers will not publish. Why? because booksellers
can't sell them! It is just probable that you'll not sell them any
better than the booksellers. Ergo, the more your business the larger
your deficit. And the more numerous your society, the more disastrous
your condition. Q.E.D."
"Pooh! The select committee will decide what books are to be
published."
"Then where the deuce is the advantage to the authors? I would as lief
submit my work to a publisher as I would to a select committee of
authors. At all events, the publisher is not my rival; and I suspect
he is the best judge, after all, of a book--as an accoucheur ought to
be of a baby."
"Upon my word, nephew, you pay a bad compliment to your father's great
work, which the booksellers will have nothing to do with."
That was artfully said, and I was posed; when Mr Caxton observed, with
an apologetic smile--
"The fact is, my dear Pisistratus, that I want my book published
without diminishing the little fortune I keep for you some day. Uncle
Jack starts a society so to publish it.--Health and long life to Uncle
Jack's society! One can't look a gift-horse in the mouth."
Here my mother entered, rosy from a shopping expedition with Mrs
Primmins; and in her joy at hearing that I could stay dinner, all
else was forgotten. By a wonder, which I did not regret, Uncle Jack
really was engaged to dine out. He had other irons in the fire besides
the "Literary Times" and the "Confederate Authors' Society;" he was
deep in a scheme for making house-tops of felt, (which, under other
hands, has, I believe, since succeeded;) and he had found a rich man
(I suppose a hatter) who seemed well inclined to the project, and had
actually asked him to dine and expound his views!