A few days afterwards, and Helen, removed to a pure air, and under the
advice of the first physicians, was out of all danger.
It was a pretty detached cottage, with its windows looking over the wild
heaths of Norwood, to which Harley rode daily to watch the convalescence
of his young charge: an object in life was already found. As she grew
better and stronger, he coaxed her easily into talking, and listened to
her with pleased surprise. The heart so infantine and the sense so
womanly struck him much by its rare contrast and combination. Leonard,
whom he had insisted on placing also in the cottage, had stayed there
willingly till Helen's recovery was beyond question. Then he came to
Lord L'Estrange, as the latter was about one day to leave the cottage,
and said quietly, "Now, my Lord, that Helen is safe, and now that she
will need me no more, I can no longer be a pensioner on your bounty. I
return to London."
"You are my visitor, not my pensioner, foolish boy," said Harley, who had
already noticed the pride which spoke in that farewell; "come into the
garden and let us talk."
Harley seated himself on a bench on the little lawn; Nero crouched at his
feet; Leonard stood beside him.
"So," said Lord L'Estrange, "you would return to London? What to do?"
"Fulfil my fate."
"And that?"
"I cannot guess. Fate is the Isis whose veil no mortal can ever raise."
"You should be born for great things," said Harley, abruptly. "I am sure
that you write well. I have seen that you study with passion. Better
than writing and better than study, you have a noble heart, and the proud
desire of independence. Let me see your manuscripts, or any copies of
what you have already printed. Do not hesitate,--I ask but to be a
reader. I don't pretend to be a patron: it is a word I hate."
Leonard's eyes sparkled through their sudden moisture. He brought out
his portfolio, placed it on the bench beside Harley, and then went softly
to the farther part of the garden. Nero looked after him, and then rose
and followed him slowly. The boy seated himself on the turf, and Nero
rested his dull head on the loud heart of the poet.
Harley took up the various papers before him, and read them through
leisurely. Certainly he was no critic. He was not accustomed to analyze
what pleased or displeased him; but his perceptions were quick, and his
taste exquisite. As he read, his countenance, always so genuinely
expressive, exhibited now doubt and now admiration. He was soon struck
by the contrast, in the boy's writings, between the pieces that sported
with fancy and those that grappled with thought. In the first, the young
poet seemed so unconscious of his own individuality. His imagination,
afar and aloft from the scenes of his suffering, ran riot amidst a
paradise of happy golden creations. But in the last, the THINKER stood
out alone and mournful, questioning, in troubled sorrow, the hard world
on which he gazed. All in the thought was unsettled, tumultuous; all in
the fancy serene and peaceful. The genius seemed divided into twain
shapes,--the one bathing its wings amidst the starry dews of heaven; the
other wandering, "melancholy, slow," amidst desolate and boundless sands.
Harley gently laid down the paper and mused a little while. Then he rose
and walked to Leonard, gazing on his countenance as he neared the boy,
with a new and a deeper interest.
"I have read your papers," he said, "and recognize in them two men,
belonging to two worlds, essentially distinct." Leonard started, and
murmured, "True, true!"
"I apprehend," resumed Harley, "that one of these men must either destroy
the other, or that the two must become fused and harmonized into a single
existence. Get your hat, mount my groom's horse, and come with me to
London; we will converse by the way. Look you, I believe you and I agree
in this,--that the first object of every noble spirit is independence.
It is towards this independence that I alone presume to assist you, and
this is a service which the proudest man can receive without a blush."
Leonard lifted his eyes towards Harley's, and those eyes swam with
grateful tears; but his heart was too full to answer. "I am not one of
those," said Harley, when they were on the road, "who think that because
a young man writes poetry he is fit for nothing else, and that he must be
a poet or a pauper. I have said that in you there seems to me to be two
men,--the man of the Actual world, the man of the Ideal. To each of
these men I can offer a separate career. The first is perhaps the more
tempting. It is the interest of the State to draw into its service all
the talent and industry it can obtain; and under his native State every
citizen of a free country should be proud to take service. I have a
friend who is a minister, and who is known to encourage talent,--Audley
Egerton. I have but to say to him, 'There is a young man who will repay
the government whatever the government bestows on him;' and you will rise
to-morrow independent in means, and with fair occasions to attain to
fortune and distinction. This is one offer,--what say you to it?"
Leonard thought bitterly of his interview with Audley Egerton, and the
minister's proffered crown-piece. He shook his head, and replied,
"Oh, my Lord, how have I deserved such kindness? Do with me what you
will; but if I have the option, I would rather follow my own calling.
This is not the ambition that inflames me."
"Hear, then, the other offer. I have a friend with whom I am less
intimate than Egerton, and who has nothing in his gift to bestow. I
speak of a man of letters,--Henry Norreys,--of whom you have doubtless
heard, who, I should say, conceived an interest in you when be observed
you reading at the bookstall. I have often heard him say that literature
as a profession is misunderstood, and that rightly followed, with the
same pains and the same prudence which are brought to bear on other
professions, a competence at least can be always ultimately obtained.
But the way may be long and tedious, and it leads to no power but over
thought; it rarely attains to wealth; and though reputation may be
certain, fame, such as poets dream of, is the lot of few. What say you
to this course?"
"My Lord, I decide," said Leonard, firmly; and then, his young face
lighting up with enthusiasm, he exclaimed, "Yes, if, as you say, there be
two men within me, I feel that were I condemned wholly to the mechanical
and practical world, one would indeed destroy the other. And the
conqueror would be the ruder and the coarser. Let me pursue those ideas
that, though they have but flitted across me, vague and formless, have
ever soared towards the sunlight. No matter whether or not they lead to
fortune or to fame,--at least they will lead me upward! Knowledge for
itself I desire; what care I if it be not power!"
"Enough," said Harley, with a pleased smile at his young companion's
outburst. "As you decide so shall it be settled. And now permit me, if
not impertinent, to ask you a few questions. Your name is Leonard
Fairfield?"
The boy blushed deeply, and bowed his head as if in assent.
"Helen says you are self-taught; for the rest she refers me to you,--
thinking, perhaps, that I should esteem you less--rather than yet more
highly--if she said you were, as I presume to conjecture, of humble
birth."
"My birth," said Leonard, slowly, "is very--very--humble."
"The name of Fairfield is not unknown to me. There was one of that name
who married into a family in Lansmere, married an Avenel," continued
Harley, and his voice quivered. "You change countenance. Oh, could your
mother's name have been Avenel?"
"Yes," said Leonard, between his set teeth. Harley laid his hand on the
boy's shoulder. "Then, indeed, I have a claim on you; then, indeed, we
are friends. I have a right to serve any of that family."
Leonard looked at him in surprise--"For," continued Harley, recovering
himself, "they always served my family; and my recollections of Lansmere,
though boyish, are indelible." He spurred on his horse as the words
closed, and again there was a long pause; but from that time Harley
always spoke to Leonard in a soft voice, and often gazed on him with
earnest and kindly eyes.
They reached a house in a central, though not fashionable street. A man-
servant of a singularly grave and awful aspect opened the door,--a man
who had lived all his life with authors. Poor fellow, he was indeed
prematurely old! The care on his lip and the pomp on his brow--no
mortal's pen can describe!
"Is Mr. Norreys at home?" asked Harley.
"He is at home--to his friends, my Lord," answered the man, majestically;
and he stalked across the hall with the step of a Dangeau ushering some
Montmorenci into the presence of Louis le Grand.
"Stay; show this gentleman into another room. I will go first into the
library; wait for me, Leonard." The man nodded, and conducted Leonard
into the dining-room. Then pausing before the door of the library, and
listening an instant, as if fearful to disturb some mood of inspiration,
opened it very softly. To his ineffable disgust, Harley pushed before,
and entered abruptly. It was a large room, lined with books from the
floor to the ceiling. Books were on all the tables, books were on all
the chairs. Harley seated himself on a folio of Raleigh's "History of
the World," and cried, "I have brought you a treasure!"
"What is it?" said Norreys, good-humouredly, looking up from his desk.
"A mind!"
"A mind!" echoed Norreys, vaguely.
"Your own?"
"Pooh! I have none,--I have only a heart and a fancy. Listen. You
remember the boy we saw reading at the book stall. I have caught him for
you, and you shall train him into a man. I have the warmest interest in
his future, for I know some of his family, and one of that family was
very dear to me. As for money, he has not a shilling, and not a shilling
would he accept gratis from you or me either. But he comes with bold
heart to work,--and work you must find him." Harley then rapidly told
his friend of the two offers he had made to Leonard, and Leonard's
choice.
"This promises very well; for letters a man must have a strong vocation,
as he should have for law. I will do all that you wish."
Harley rose with alertness, shook Norreys cordially by the hand, hurried
out of the room, and returned with Leonard.
Mr. Norreys eyed the young man with attention. He was naturally rather
severe than cordial in his manner to strangers,--contrasting in this, as
in most things, the poor vagabond Burley; but he was a good judge of the
human countenance, and he liked Leonard's. After a pause he held out his
hand.
"Sir," said he, "Lord L'Estrange tells me that you wish to enter
literature as a calling, and no doubt to study it as an art. I may help
you in this, and you meanwhile can help me. I want an amanuensis,--I
offer you that place. The salary will be proportioned to the services
you will render me. I have a room in my house at your disposal. When I
first came up to London, I made the same choice that I hear you have
done. I have no cause, even in a worldly point of view, to repent my
choice. It gave me an income larger than my wants. I trace my success
to these maxims, which are applicable to all professions: 1st, Never to
trust to genius for what can be obtained by labour; 2dly, Never to
profess to teach what we have not studied to understand; 3dly, Never to
engage our word to what we do not our best to execute.
"With these rules, literature--provided a man does not mistake his
vocation for it, and will, under good advice, go through the preliminary
discipline of natural powers, which all vocations require--is as good a
calling as any other. Without them, a shoeblack's is infinitely better."
"Possibly enough," muttered Harley; "but there have been great writers
who observed none of your maxims."
"Great writers, probably, but very unenviable men. My Lord, my Lord,
don't corrupt the pupil you bring to me." Harley smiled, and took his
departure, and left Genius at school with Common-Sense and Experience.