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THE CAXTONS
A FAMILY PICTURE
BY
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON (LORD LYTTON)
THE CAXTONS.
PART XIII,
CHAPTER I.
Saint Chrysostom, in his work on "The Priesthood," defends deceit, if
for a good purpose, by many Scriptural examples; ends his first book by
asserting that it is often necessary, and that much benefit may arise
from it; and begins his second book by saying that it ought not to be
called "deceit," but "good management." (1)
"Good management," then, let me call the innocent arts by which I now
sought to insinuate my project into favor and assent with my
unsuspecting family. At first I began with Roland. I easily induced
him to read some of the books, full of the charm of Australian life,
which Trevanion had sent me; and so happily did those descriptions suit
his own erratic tastes, and the free, half-savage man that lay rough and
large within that soldierly nature, that he himself, as it were, seemed
to suggest my own ardent desire, sighed, as the careworn Trevanion had
done, that "he was not my age," and blew the flame that consumed me,
with his own willing breath. So that when at last--wandering one day
over the wild moors--I said, knowing his hatred of law and lawyers:
"Alas, uncle, that nothing should be left for me but the Bar!" Captain
Roland struck his cane into the peat and exclaimed, "Zounds,
sir! the Bar and lying, with truth and a world fresh from God before
you!"
"Your hand, uncle,--we understand each other. Now help me with those
two quiet hearts at home!"
"Plague on my tongue! what have I done?" said the Captain, looking
aghast. Then, after musing a little time, he turned his dark eye on me
and growled out, "I suspect, young sir, you have been laying a trap for
me; and I have fallen into it, like an old fool as I am."
"Oh, sir, I? you prefer the Bar!--"
"Rogue!"
"Or, indeed, I might perhaps get a clerkship in a merchant's office?"
"If you do, I will scratch you out of the pedigree!"
"Huzza, then, for Australasia!"
"Well, well, well!" said my uncle,--
"With a smile on his lip, and a tear in his eye,"--
"the old sea-king's blood will force its way,--a soldier or a rover,
there is no other choice for you. We shall mourn and miss you; but who
can chain the young eagles to the eyrie?"
I had a harder task with my father, who at first seemed to listen to me
as if I had been talking of an excursion to the moon. But I threw in a
dexterous dose of the old Greek Cleruchioe cited by Trevanion, which set
him off full trot on his hobby, till after a short excursion to Euboea
and the Chersonese, he was fairly lost amidst the Ionian colonies of
Asia Minor. I then gradually and artfully decoyed him into his favorite
science of Ethnology; and while he was speculating on the origin of the
American savages, and considering the rival claims of Cimmerians,
Israelites, and Scandinavians, I said quietly: "And you, sir, who think
that all human improvement depends on the mixture of races; you, whose
whole theory is an absolute sermon upon emigration, and the
transplanting and interpolity of our species,--you, sir, should be the
last man to chain your son, your elder son, to the soil, while your
younger is the very missionary of rovers."
"Pisistratus," said my father, "you reason by synecdoche,--ornamental,
but illogical;" and therewith, resolved to hear no more, my father rose
and retreated into his study.
But his observation, now quickened, began from that day to follow my
moods and humors; then he himself grew silent and thoughtful, and
finally he took to long conferences with Roland. The result was that
one evening in spring, as I lay listless amidst the weeds and fern that
sprang up through the melancholy ruins, I felt a hand on my shoulder;
and my father, seating himself beside me on a fragment of stone, said
earnestly; "Pisistratus, let us talk. I had hoped better things from
your study of Robert Hall."
"Nay, dear father, the medicine did me great good: I have not repined
since, and I look steadfastly and cheerfully on life. But Robert Hall
fulfilled his mission, and I would fulfil mine."
"Is there no mission in thy native land, O planeticose and exallotriote
spirit?" (2) asked my father, with compassionate rebuke.
"Alas, yes! But what the impulse of genius is to the great, the
instinct of vocation is to the mediocre. In every man there is a
magnet; in that thing which the man can do best there is a loadstone."
"Papoe!" said my father, opening his eyes; "and are no loadstones to be
found for you nearer than the Great Australasian Bight?"
"Ah,--sir, if you resort to irony I can say no more!" My father looked
down on me tenderly as I hung my head, moody and abashed.
"Son," said he, "do you think that there is any real jest at my heart
when the matter discussed is whether you are to put wide seas and long
years between us?" I pressed nearer to his side, and made no answer.
"But I have noted you of late," continued my father, "and I have
observed that your old studies are grown distasteful to you; and I have
talked with Roland, and I see that your desire is deeper than a boy's
mere whim. And then I have asked myself what prospect I can hold out at
home to induce you to be contented here, and I see none; and therefore I
should say to you, 'Go thy ways, and God shield thee,'--but,
Pisistratus, your mother!"
"Ah, sir, that is indeed the question; and there indeed I shrink! But,
after all, whatever I were,--whether toiling at the Bar or in some
public office,--I should be still so much from home and her. And then
you, sir, she loves you so entirely that--"
"No," interrupted my father; "you can advance no arguments like these to
touch a mother's heart. There is but one argument that comes home
there: is it for your good to leave her? If so, there will be no need
of further words. But let us not decide that question hastily; let you
and I be together the next two months. Bring your books and sit with
me; when you want to go out, tap me on the shoulder, and say 'Come.' At
the end of those two months I will say to you 'Go' or 'Stay.' And you
will trust me; and if I say the last, you will submit?"
"Oh yes, sir, yes!"
(1) Hohler's translation.
(2) Words coined by Mr. Caxton from (Greek word), "disposed to roaming,"
and (Greek word), "to export, to alienate."