And my father pushed aside his books.
O young reader, whoever thou art,--or reader at least who hast been
young,--canst thou not remember some time when, with thy wild troubles
and sorrows as yet borne in secret, thou hast come back from that hard,
stern world which opens on thee when thou puttest thy foot out of the
threshold of home,--come back to the four quiet walls wherein thine
elders sit in peace,--and seen, with a sort of sad amaze, how calm and
undisturbed all is there? That generation which has gone before thee in
the path of the passions,--the generation of thy parents (not so many
years, perchance, remote from thine own),--how immovably far off, in its
still repose, it seems from thy turbulent youth! It has in it a
stillness as of a classic age, antique as the statues of the Greeks.
That tranquil monotony of routine into which those lives that preceded
thee have merged; the occupations that they have found sufficing for
their happiness, by the fireside, in the arm-chair and corner
appropriated to each,--how strangely they contrast thine own feverish
excitement! And they make room for thee, and bid thee welcome, and then
resettle to their hushed pursuits as if nothing had happened! Nothing
had happened! while in thy heart, perhaps, the whole world seems to
have shot from its axis, all the elements to be at war! And you sit
down, crushed by that quiet happiness which you can share no more, and
smile mechanically, and look into the fire; and, ten to one, you say
nothing till the time comes for bed, and you take up your candle and
creep miserably to your lonely room.
Now, it in a stage-coach in the depth of winter, when three passengers
are warm and snug, a fourth, all besnowed and frozen, descends from the
outside and takes place amongst them, straightway all the three
passengers shift their places, uneasily pull up their cloak collars, re-
arrange their "comforters," feel indignantly a sensible loss of caloric:
the intruder has at least made a sensation. But if you had all the
snows of the Grampians in your heart, you might enter unnoticed; take
care not to tread on the toes of your opposite neighbor, and not a soul
is disturbed, not a "comforter" stirs an inch. I had not slept a wink,
I had not even lain down all that night,--the night in which I had said
farewell to Fanny Trevanion; and the next morning, when the sun rose, I
wandered out,--where I know not: I have a dim recollection of long,
gray, solitary streets; of the river, that seemed flowing in dull,
sullen silence, away, far away, into some invisible eternity; trees and
turf, and the gay voices of children. I must have gone from one end of
the great Babel to the other; for my memory only became clear and
distinct when I knocked, somewhere before noon, at the door of my
father's house, and, passing heavily up the stairs, came into the
drawing-room, which was the rendezvous of the little family; for since
we had been in London, my father had ceased to have his study apart, and
contented himself with what he called "a corner,"--a corner wide enough
to contain two tables and a dumb-waiter, with chairs a discretion all
littered with books. On the opposite side of this capacious corner sat
my uncle, now nearly convalescent, and he was jotting down, in his
stiff, military hand, certain figures in a little red account-book; for
you know already that my Uncle Roland was, in his expenses, the most
methodical of men.
My father's face was more benign than usual, for before him lay a
proof,--the first proof of his first work--his one work--the Great Book!
Yes! it had positively found a press. And the first proof of your first
work--ask any author what that is! My mother was out, with the faithful
Mrs. Primmins, shopping or marketing, no doubt; so, while the brothers
were thus engaged, it was natural that my entrance should not make as
much noise as if it had been a bomb, or a singer, or a clap of thunder,
or the last "great novel of the season," or anything else that made a
noise in those days. For what makes a noise now,--now, when the most
astonishing thing of all is our easy familiarity with things astounding;
when we say, listlessly, "Another revolution at Paris," or, "By the by,
there is the deuce to do at Vienna!" when De Joinville is catching fish
in the ponds at Claremont, and you hardly turn back to look at
Metternich on the pier at Brighton!
My uncle nodded and growled indistinctly; my father put aside his
books,--"you have told us that already."
Sir, you are very much mistaken; it was not then that he put aside his
books, for he was not then engaged in them,--he was reading his proof.
And he smiled, and pointed to it (the proof I mean) pathetically, and
with a kind of humor, as much as to say: "What can you expect,
Pisistratus? My new baby in short clothes--or long primer, which is all
the same thing!"
I took a chair between the two, and looked first at one, then at the
other. Heaven forgive me!--I felt a rebellious, ungrateful spite
against both. The bitterness of my soul must have been deep indeed to
have overflowed in that direction, but it did. The grief of youth is an
abominable egotist, and that is the truth. I got up from my chair and
walked towards the window; it was open, and outside the window was Mrs.
Primmins's canary, in its cage. London air had agreed with it, and it
was singing lustily. Now, when the canary saw me standing opposite to
its cage, and regarding it seriously, and, I have no doubt, with a very
sombre aspect, the creature stopped short, and hung its head on one
side, looking at me obliquely and suspiciously. Finding that I did it
no harm, it began to hazard a few broken notes, timidly and
interrogatively, as it were, pausing between each; and at length, as I
made no reply, it evidently thought it had solved the doubt, and
ascertained that I was more to be pitied than feared,--for it stole
gradually into so soft and silvery a strain that, I verily believe, it
did it on purpose to comfort me!--me, its old friend, whom it had
unjustly suspected. Never did any music touch me so home as did that
long, plaintive cadence. And when the bird ceased, it perched itself
close to the bars of the cage, and looked at me steadily with its
bright, intelligent eyes. I felt mine water, and I turned back and
stood in the centre of the room, irresolute what to do, where to go. My
father had done with the proof, and was deep in his folios. Roland had
clasped his red account-book, restored it to his pocket, wiped his pen
carefully, and now watched me from under his great beetle-brows.
Suddenly he rose, and stamping on the hearth with his cork leg,
exclaimed, "Look up from those cursed books, brother Austin! What is
there in your son's face? Construe that, if you can!"