EXCUSATORY.
It really may be numbered among doubts whether it is possible to
exaggerate the dangers into which a fictionist may fall. My marvel is,
that any go unstabbed. How on earth did Cervantes continue to grow old,
after having pointed the finger of derision at all grave Spain? There is
Boccaccio, too; he lived to turn threescore, in spite of the thousand
husbands and wives, who might pretty well imagine that he spoke of them.
Only consider how many villains, drawn to the life, Walter Scott
created. What! were there no heads found to fit his many caps, hats,
helmets, and other capillary properties? What! are we so blind, so few
of friends, that we cannot each pick out of our social circles Mrs.
Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's Mrs.
Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes
acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk, Snap,
and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise!
avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that,
should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives sheathed, which should
have drunk the blood of James? Hath every "[dash] good-natured friend"
forgotten to be officious, and neglected to demonstrate to relations and
acquaintances that this white villain is Mr. A., and that old virgin
poor Miss B.? Speak, Plumer Ward, courageous veteran, Have the critics
yet forgiven Mr. John Paragraph--forgotten, is impossible? and how is
it no house-keeper has arsenicked my soup, O rash recruit, for the
mysteries of perquisite divulged in Mrs. Quarles?
A dangerous craft is the tale-wright's, and difficult as dangerous.
Human nature goes in casts, as garden-pots do. Lo, you! the crowd of
thumb-pots; mean little tiny minds in multitudes, as near alike as
possible. Then there are the frequent thirty-twos, average "clever
creatures" in this mental age, wherein no one can make an ordinary
how-d'ye-do acquaintance without being advertised of his or her
surprising talents: and to pass by all intermediate sizes, here and
there standing by himself, in all the prickly pride of an immortal aloe,
some one big pot monopolizes all the cast of earth, domineering over the
conservatory as Brutus's colossal Caesar, or his metempsychosis in a
Wellington.
Again: no painter ever yet drew life-likeness, who had not the living
models at least in his mind's eye: but no good painter ever yet betrayed
the model in his figure; unless (though these instances are rarish too)
we except, _pace_ Lawrence, the mystery of portraiture. He takes indeed
a line here and a colour there; but he softens this and heightens that;
so that none but he can well discover any trace of Homer's noble head in
yonder sightless beggar, or Juno's queenly form in the Welsh woman
trudging with her strawberry load to Covent Garden market.
Flatter not thyself, fair Helen, I have not pictured thee in gentle
Grace: tremble not, my little white friend Clatter, thou art by no means
Simon Jennings. Dark Caroline Blunt, it is true thou hast fine eyes;
nevertheless, in nothing else (I am sorry to assure thee) art thou at
all like Emily Warren. Flaunting Lady Busbury, be calm; if you had not
been so wrathful, I never should have thought of you--undoubtedly you
are not the type of Mrs. Tracy.
Why will all these people don my imaginary characters? Truly, it may
seem to be a compliment, as proving that they speak from heart to heart,
of universal human nature, not unaptly; still is their inventor or
creator embarrassed terribly by such unwelcome honours; your precious
balms oppress him, gentle friends; lift off your palm branches; indeed,
he is unworthy of these petty triumphs; and, to be serious, he detests
them.
No: once and for all, let a plain first person say it, I abjure
personalities; my arrows are shot at a venture; and if they hit any one
at all, it is only that he stands in my shaft's way, and the harness of
his conscience is unbuckled. The target of my feeble aim is general--to
pierce the heart of evil, evil in the form of social heartlessness: it
is no fault of mine, if some alarmed particulars will crowd about the
mark. Ideal characters, ideal incidents, ideal scenes--to these I
honestly pledge myself: but as most men have two eyes, being neither
naturally monocular nor triocular, so most men of their own special cast
have similar distinguishable sympathies.
The overweening love of money is a seed, a soil, and a sun that
generates a certain crop: the aim of my poor husbandry is only to reap
this; but my sickle does not wish to wound the growers: let them stand
aside; or, better far, let them help me cut those rank and clogging
tares, and bind them up in bundles to be burned. Heart is a
sweet-smelling shrub, ill to stand against the chilling breath of
worldliness: my small care desires to cherish this; gather round it,
friends! shelter it beside me. How many fragrant flowers now are
bursting into beauty! how cheering is their scent! how healthful the
aroma of their bloom! Pluck them with me; they are sweet, delicate, and
lustrous to look upon, even as the night-blowing cereus.
Henceforth then, social circle, feel at peace with such as I am, whose
public parable would teach, without any thought of personality, entirely
disclaiming private interpretations: there are other people stout
besides one's uncle, other people deaf besides one's aunt. Sir Thomas
Dillaway is not Alderman Bunce, nor any other friend or foe I wot of; a
mere creature of the counting-house, he is a human ledger-mushroom: rub
away the mildew from your hearts, if any seem to see yourselves in him:
neither have I ventured to transplant Miss Cassiopeia Curtis's red hair
to dear Maria's head: imitate her graces, if you will, maiden; but
charge me not with copying your locks. Though "my son Jack" be a
boisterous big rogue, on 'Change, and off it--let not mine own honest
stock-broker put that hat upon his head, in the mono-mania that it fits
him, because he may heretofore have been both bull and bear; and as for
any other heroes yet to come upon this scene, to enact the tragedy or
comedy of Heart--"Know all men by these presents,"--your humble
servant's will is to smite bad principles, not offending persons; to
crusade against evil manners, not his guilty fellow-men.
Wo is me! who am I, that I should satirize my brethren?--Yet, wo is
me--if I silently hide the sin I see. Make me not an offender for a
word, seeing that my purposes are good. Be not hypercritical, for
Heart's sake, against a man whose aim it is to help the cause of Heart.
Neither count it sufficient to answer me with an inconclusive "_tu
quoque_:" I know it, I feel it, I confess it, I would away with it.
Heaven send to him that writes, as liberally as to those who read (yea,
more, according to his deeper needs and failings) the grace to
counteract all mammonizing blights, and to cultivate this garden of the
Heart.