Virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are
incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice,
but adversity doth best discover virtue.--BACON.
It is somewhat remarkable that while Talbot was bequeathing to Clarence,
as the most valuable of legacies, the doctrines of a philosophy he had
acquired, perhaps too late to practise, Glendower was carrying those
very doctrines, so far as his limited sphere would allow, into the rule
and exercise of his life.
Since the death of the bookseller, which we have before recorded,
Glendower had been left utterly without resource. The others to whom he
applied were indisposed to avail themselves of an unknown ability. The
trade of bookmaking was not then as it is now, and if it had been,
it would not have suggested itself to the high-spirited and unworldly
student. Some publishers offered, it is true, a reward tempting enough
for an immoral tale; others spoke of the value of an attack upon the
Americans; one suggested an ode to the minister, and another hinted that
a pension might possibly be granted to one who would prove extortion not
tyranny. But these insinuations fell upon a dull ear, and the tribe of
Barabbas were astonished to find that an author could imagine interest
and principle not synonymous.
Struggling with want, which hourly grew more imperious and urgent;
wasting his life on studies which brought fever to his pulse and
disappointment to his ambition; gnawed to the very soul by the
mortifications which his poverty gave to his pride; and watching with
tearless eyes, but a maddening brain, the slender form of his wife, now
waxing weaker and fainter, as the canker of disease fastened upon the
core of her young but blighted life,--there was yet a high, though,
alas! not constant consolation within him, whenever, from the troubles
of this dim spot his thoughts could escape, like birds released from
their cage, and lose themselves in the lustre and freedom of their
native heaven.
“If,” thought he, as he looked upon his secret and treasured work, “if
the wind scatter or the rock receive these seeds, they were at least
dispersed by a hand which asked no selfish return, and a heart which
would have lavished the harvest of its labours upon those who know not
the husbandman and trample his hopes into the dust.”
But by degrees this comfort of a noble and generous nature, these
whispers of a vanity rather to be termed holy than excusable, began to
grow unfrequent and low. The cravings of a more engrossing and heavy
want than those of the mind came eagerly and rapidly upon him; the fair
cheek of his infant became pinched and hollow; his wife conquered nature
itself by love, and starved herself in silence, and set bread before him
with a smile and bade him eat.
“But you,--you?” he would ask inquiringly, and then pause.
“I have dined, dearest: I want nothing; eat, love, eat.” But he ate not.
The food robbed from her seemed to him more deadly than poison; and
he would rise, and dash his hand to his brow, and go forth alone, with
nature unsatisfied, to look upon this luxurious world and learn content.
It was after such a scene that, one day, he wandered forth into the
streets, desperate and confused in mind, and fainting with hunger, and
half insane with fiery and wrong thoughts, which dashed over his barren
and gloomy soul, and desolated, but conquered not! It was evening: he
stood (for he had strode on so rapidly, at first, that his strength was
now exhausted, and he was forced to pause) leaning against the railed
area of a house in a lone and unfrequented street. No passenger shared
this dull and obscure thoroughfare. He stood, literally, in scene as in
heart, solitary amidst the great city, and wherever he looked, lo, there
were none!
“Two days,” said he, slowly and faintly, “two days, and bread has only
once passed my lips; and that was snatched from her,--from those lips
which I have fed with sweet and holy kisses, and whence my sole comfort
in this weary life has been drawn. And she,--ay, she starves,--and my
child too. They complain not; they murmur not: but they lift up
their eyes to me and ask for--Merciful God! Thou didst make man in
benevolence; Thou dost survey this world with a pitying and paternal
eye: save, comfort, cherish them, and crush me if Thou wilt!”
At that moment a man darted suddenly from an obscure alley, and passed
Glendower at full speed; presently came a cry, and a shout, and a rapid
trampling of feet, and, in another moment, an eager and breathless crowd
rushed upon the solitude of the street.
“Where is he?” cried a hundred voices to Glendower,--“where,--which road
did the robber take?” But Glendower could not answer: his nerves were
unstrung, and his dizzy brain swam and reeled; and the faces which
peered upon him, and the voices which shrieked and yelled in his ear,
were to him as the forms and sounds of a ghastly and phantasmal world.
His head drooped upon his bosom; he clung to the area for support: the
crowd passed on; they were in pursuit of guilt; they were thirsting
after blood; they were going to fill the dungeon and feed the gibbet;
what to them was the virtue they could have supported, or the famine
they could have relieved? But they knew not his distress, nor the extent
of his weakness, or some would have tarried and aided: for there is,
after all, as much kindness as cruelty in our nature; perhaps they
thought it was only some intoxicated and maudlin idler; or, perhaps, in
the heat of their pursuit, they thought not at all.
So they rolled on, and their voices died away, and their steps were
hushed, and Glendower, insensible and cold as the iron he clung to, was
once more alone. Slowly he revived; he opened his dim and glazing eyes,
and saw the evening star break from its chamber, and, though sullied by
the thick and foggy air, scatter its holy smiles upon the polluted city.
He looked quietly on the still night, and its first watcher among the
hosts of heaven, and felt something of balm sink into his soul; not,
indeed, that vague and delicious calm which, in his boyhood of poesy and
romance, he had drunk in, by green solitudes, from the mellow twilight:
but a quiet, sad and sober, circling gradually over his mind, and
bringing it back from its confused and disordered visions and darkness
to the recollection and reality of his bitter life.
By degrees the scene he had so imperfectly witnessed, the fight of
the robber and the eager pursuit of the mob, grew over him: a dark and
guilty thought burst upon his mind.
“I am a man like that criminal,” said he, fiercely. “I have nerves,
sinews, muscles, flesh; I feel hunger, thirst, pain, as acutely: why
should I endure more than he can? Perhaps he had a wife, a child, and
he saw them starving inch by inch, and he felt that he ought to be their
protector; and so he sinned. And I--I--can I not sin too for mine? can I
not dare what the wild beast, and the vulture, and the fierce hearts of
my brethren dare for their mates and young? One gripe from this hand,
one cry from this voice, and my board might be heaped with plenty, and
my child fed, and she smile as she was wont to smile,--for one night at
least.”
And as these thoughts broke upon him, Glendower rose, and with a step
firm, even in weakness, he strode unconsciously onward.
A figure appeared; Glendower’s heart beat thick. He slouched his hat
over his brows, and for one moment wrestled with his pride and his stern
virtue: the virtue conquered, but not the pride; the virtue forbade him
to be the robber; the pride submitted to be the suppliant. He sprang
forward, extended his hands towards the stranger, and cried in a sharp
voice, the agony of which rang through the long dull street with a
sudden and echoless sound, “Charity! food!”
The stranger paused; one of the boldest of men in his own line, he
was as timid as a woman in any other. Mistaking the meaning of the
petitioner, and terrified by the vehemence of his gesture, he said, in a
trembling tone, as he hastily pulled out his purse,--
“There, there! do not hurt me; take it; take all!” Glendower knew the
voice, as a sound not unfamiliar to him; his pride returned in full
force. “None,” thought he, “who know me, shall know my full degradation
also.” And he turned away; but the stranger, mistaking this motion,
extended his hand to him, saying, “Take this, my friend: you will
have no need of violence!” and as he advanced nearer to his supposed
assailant, he beheld, by the pale lamplight, and instantly recognized,
his features.
“Ah!” cried he, in astonishment, but with internal rejoicing, “ah! is it
you who are thus reduced?”
“You say right, Crauford,” said Glendower, sullenly, and drawing himself
up to his full height, “it is I: but you are mistaken; I am a beggar,
not a ruffian!”
“Good heavens!” answered Crauford; “how fortunate that we should meet!
Providence watches over us unceasingly! I have long sought you in vain.
But” (and here the wayward malignity, sometimes, though not always, the
characteristic of Crauford’s nature, irresistibly broke out), “but that
you, of all men, should suffer so,--you, proud, susceptible, virtuous
beyond human virtue,--you, whose fibres are as acute as the naked
eye,--that you should bear this and wince not!”
“You do my humanity wrong!” said Glendower, with a bitter and almost
ghastly smile; “I do worse than wince!”
“Ay, is it so?” said Crauford; “have you awakened at last? Has your
philosophy taken a more impassioned dye?”
“Mock me not!” cried Glendower; and his eye, usually soft in its deep
thoughtfulness, glared wild and savage upon the hypocrite, who stood
trembling, yet half sneering, at the storm he had raised; “my passions
are even now beyond my mastery; loose them not upon you!”
“Nay,” said Crauford, gently, “I meant not to vex or wound you. I have
sought you several times since the last night we met, but in vain; you
had left your lodgings, and none knew whither. I would fain talk
with you. I have a scheme to propose to you which will make you rich
forever,--rich,--literally rich! not merely above poverty, but high in
affluence!”
Glendower looked incredulously at the speaker, who continued,--
“The scheme has danger: that you can dare!”
Glendower was still silent; but his set and stern countenance was
sufficient reply. “Some sacrifice of your pride,” continued Crauford:
“that also you can bear?” and the tempter almost grinned with pleasure
as he asked the question.
“He who is poor,” said Glendower, speaking at last, “has a right to
pride. He who starves has it too; but he who sees those whom he loves
famish, and cannot aid, has it not!”
“Come home with me, then,” said Crauford; “you seem faint and weak:
nature craves food; come and partake of mine; we will then talk over
this scheme, and arrange its completion.”
“I cannot,” answered Glendower, quietly. “And why?”
“Because they starve at home!”
“Heavens!” said Crauford, affected for a moment into sincerity; “it is
indeed fortunate that business should have led me here: but meanwhile
you will not refuse this trifle,--as a loan merely. By and by our scheme
will make you so rich that I must be the borrower.”
Glendower did hesitate for a moment; he did swallow a bitter rising of
the heart: but he thought of those at home and the struggle was over.
“I thank you,” said he; “I thank you for their sake: the time may
come,”--and the proud gentleman stopped short, for his desolate fortunes
rose before him and forbade all hope of the future.
“Yes!” cried Crauford, “the time may come when you will repay me this
money a hundredfold. But where do you live? You are silent. Well, you
will not inform me: I understand you. Meet me, then, here, on this very
spot, three nights hence: you will not fail?”
“I will not,” said Glendower; and pressing Crauford’s hand with a
generous and grateful warmth, which might have softened a heart less
obdurate, he turned away.
Folding his arms, while a bitter yet joyous expression crossed his
countenance, Crauford stood still, gazing upon the retreating form of
the noble and unfortunate man whom he had marked for destruction.
“Now,” said he, “this virtue is a fine thing, a very fine thing to
talk so loftily about. A little craving of the gastric juices, a little
pinching of this vile body, as your philosophers and saints call our
better part, and, lo! virtue oozes out like water through a leaky
vessel,--and the vessel sinks! No, no; virtue is a weak game, and a
poor game, and a losing game. Why, there is that man, the very pink of
integrity and rectitude, he is now only wanting temptation to fall; and
he will fall, in a fine phrase, too, I’ll be sworn! And then, having
once fallen, there will be no medium: he will become utterly corrupt;
while I, honest Dick Crauford, doing as other wise men do, cheat a trick
or two, in playing with fortune, without being a whit the worse for it.
Do I not subscribe to charities? am I not constant at church, ay, and
meeting to boot? kind to my servants, obliging to my friends, loyal to
my king? ‘Gad, if I were less loving to myself, I should have been far
less useful to my country! And now, now let me see what has brought me
to these filthy suburbs. Ah, Madame H----. Woman, incomparable
woman! On, Richard Crauford, thou hast made a good night’s work of it
hitherto!--business seasons pleasures!” and the villain upon system
moved away.
Glendower hastened to his home; it was miserably changed, even from the
humble abode in which we last saw him. The unfortunate pair had chosen
their present residence from a melancholy refinement in luxury; they had
chosen it because none else shared it with them, and their famine and
pride and struggles and despair were without witness or pity.
With a heavy step Glendower entered the chamber where his wife sat. When
at a distance he had heard a faint moan, but as he had approached it
ceased; for she from whom it came knew his step, and hushed her grief
and pain that they might not add to his own. The peevishness,
the querulous and stinging irritations of want, came not to that
affectionate and kindly heart; nor could all those biting and bitter
evils of fate which turn the love that is born of luxury into rancour
and gall scathe the beautiful and holy passion which had knit into one
those two unearthly natures. They rather clung the closer to each other,
as all things in heaven and earth spoke in tempest or in gloom around
them, and coined their sorrows into endearment, and their looks into
smiles, and strove each from the depth of despair to pluck hope and
comfort for the other.
This, it is true, was more striking and constant in her than in
Glendower; for in love, man, be he ever so generous, is always outdone.
Yet even when in moments of extreme passion and conflict the strife
broke from his breast into words, never once was his discontent vented
upon her, nor his reproaches lavished on any but fortune or himself, nor
his murmurs mingled with a single breath wounding to her tenderness or
detracting from his love.
He threw open the door; the wretched light cast its sickly beams over,
the squalid walls, foul with green damps, and the miserable yet clean
bed, and the fireless hearth, and the empty board, and the pale cheek
of the wife, as she rose and flung her arms round his neck, and murmured
out her joy and welcome. “There,” said he, as he extricated himself from
her, and flung the money upon the table, “there, love, pine no more,
feed yourself and our daughter, and then let us sleep and be happy in
our dreams.”
A writer, one of the most gifted of the present day, has told the
narrator of this history that no interest of a high nature can be given
to extreme poverty. I know not if this be true yet if I mistake not our
human feelings, there is nothing so exalted, or so divine, as a great
and brave spirit working out its end through every earthly obstacle
and evil; watching through the utter darkness, and steadily defying the
phantoms which crowd around it; wrestling with the mighty allurements,
and rejecting the fearful voice of that WANT which is the deadliest
and surest of human tempters; nursing through all calamity the love
of species, and the warmer and closer affections of private ties;
sacrificing no duty, resisting all sin; and amidst every horror and
every humiliation, feeding the still and bright light of that genius
which, like the lamp of the fabulist, though it may waste itself for
years amidst the depths of solitude, and the silence of the tomb, shall
live and burn immortal and undimmed, when all around it is rottenness
and decay!
And yet I confess that it is a painful and bitter task to record the
humiliations, the wearing, petty, stinging humiliations, of Poverty; to
count the drops as they slowly fall, one by one, upon the fretted and
indignant heart; to particularize, with the scrupulous and nice hand of
indifference, the fractional and divided movements in the dial-plate of
Misery; to behold the refinement of birth, the masculine pride of blood,
the dignities of intellect, the wealth of knowledge, the delicacy, and
graces of womanhood,--all that ennoble and soften the stony mass of
commonplaces which is our life frittered into atoms, trampled into the
dust and mire of the meanest thoroughfares of distress; life and soul,
the energies and aims of man, ground into one prostrating want, cramped
into one levelling sympathy with the dregs and refuse of his kind,
blistered into a single galling and festering sore: this is, I own, a
painful and a bitter task; but it hath its redemption,--a pride even in
debasement, a pleasure even in woe,--and it is therefore that, while I
have abridged, I have not shunned it. There are some whom the lightning
of fortune blasts, only to render holy. Amidst all that humbles and
scathes; amidst all that shatters from their life its verdure, smites
to the dust the pomp and summit of their pride, and in the very heart
of existence writeth a sudden and “strange defeature,”--they stand
erect,--riven, not uprooted,--a monument less of pity than of awe! There
are some who pass through the Lazar-House of Misery with a step more
august than a Caesar’s in his hall. The very things which, seen alone,
are despicable and vile, associated with them become almost venerable
and divine; and one ray, however dim and feeble, of that intense
holiness which, in the INFANT GOD, shed majesty over the manger and the
straw, not denied to those who in the depth of affliction cherish His
patient image, flings over the meanest localities of earth an emanation
from the glory of Heaven!