On my return to the Lamb, I found that my uncle was in a soft sleep; and
after a morning visit from the surgeon, and his assurance that the fever
was fast subsiding, and all cause for alarm was gone, I thought it
necessary to go back to Trevanion's house and explain the reason for my
night's absence. But the family had not returned from the country.
Trevanion himself came up for a few hours in the afternoon, and seemed
to feel much for my poor uncle's illness. Though, as usual, very busy,
he accompanied me to the Lamb to see my father and cheer him up. Roland
still continued to mend, as the surgeon phrased it; and as we went back
to St. James's Square, Trevanion had the consideration to release me
from my oar in his galley for the next few days. My mind, relieved from
my anxiety for Roland, now turned to my new friend. It had not been
without an object that I had questioned the young man as to his
knowledge of French. Trevanion had a large correspondence in foreign
countries which was carried on in that language; and here I could be but
of little help to him. He himself, though he spoke and wrote French
with fluency and grammatical correctness, wanted that intimate knowledge
of the most delicate and diplomatic of all languages to satisfy his
classical purism.
For Trevanion was a terrible word-weigher. His taste was the plague of
my life and his own. His prepared speeches (or rather perorations) were
the most finished pieces of cold diction that could be conceived under
the marble portico of the Stoics,--so filed and turned, trimmed and
tamed, that they never admitted a sentence that could warm the heart, or
one that could offend the ear. He had so great a horror of a vulgarism
that, like Canning, he would have made a periphrasis of a couple of
lines to avoid using the word "cat." It was only in extempore speaking
that a ray of his real genius could indiscreetly betray itself. One may
judge what labor such a super-refinement of taste would inflict upon a
man writing in a language not his own to some distinguished statesman or
some literary institution,--knowing that language just well enough to
recognize all the native elegances he failed to attain. Trevanion at
that very moment was employed upon a statistical document intended as a
communication to a Society at Copenhagen of which he was all honorary
member. It had been for three weeks the torment of the whole house,
especially of poor Fanny (whose French was the best at our joint
disposal). But Trevanion had found her phraseology too mincing, too
effeminate, too much that of the boudoir. Here, then, was an
opportunity to introduce my new friend and test the capacities that I
fancied he possessed. I therefore, though with some hesitation, led the
subject to "Remarks on the Mineral Treasures of Great Britain and
Ireland" (such was the title of the work intended to enlighten the
savants of Denmark); and by certain ingenious circumlocutions, known to
all able applicants, I introduced my acquaintance with a young gentleman
who possessed the most familiar and intimate knowledge of French, and
who might be of use in revising the manuscript. I knew enough of
Trevanion to feel that I could not reveal the circumstances under which
I had formed that acquaintance, for he was much too practical a man not
to have been frightened out of his wits at the idea of submitting so
classical a performance to so disreputable a scapegrace. As it was,
however, Trevanion, whose mind at that moment was full of a thousand
other things, caught at my suggestion, with very little cross-
questioning on the subject, and before he left London consigned the
manuscript to my charge.
"My friend is poor," said I, timidly.
"Oh! as to that," cried Trevanion, hastily, "if it be a matter of
charity, I put my purse in your hands; but don't put my manuscript in
his! If it be a matter of business, it is another affair; and I must
judge of his work before I can say how much it is worth,--perhaps
nothing!"
So ungracious was this excellent man in his very virtues!
"Nay," said I, "it is a matter of business, and so we will consider it."
"In that case," said Trevanion, concluding the matter and buttoning his
pockets, "if I dislike his work,--nothing; if I like it,--twenty
guineas. Where are the evening papers?" and in another moment the
member of Parliament had forgotten the statist, and was pishing and
tutting over the "Globe" or the "Sun."
On Thursday my uncle was well enough to be moved into our house; and on
the same evening I went forth to keep my appointment with the stranger.
The clock struck nine as we met. The palm of punctuality might be
divided between us. He had profited by the interval, since our last
meeting, to repair the more obvious deficiencies of his wardrobe; and
though there was something still wild, dissolute, outlandish, about his
whole appearance, yet in the elastic energy of his step and the resolute
assurance of his bearing there was that which Nature gives to her own
aristocracy: for, as far as my observation goes, what has been called
the "grand air" (and which is wholly distinct from the polish of manner
or the urbane grace of high breeding) is always accompanied, and perhaps
produced, by two qualities,--courage, and the desire of command. It is
more common to a half-savage nature than to one wholly civilized.
The Arab has it, so has the American Indian; and I suspect that it
was more frequent among the knights and barons of the Middle Ages
than it is among the polished gentlemen of the modern drawing-room.
We shook hands, and walked on a few moments in silence; at length thus
commenced the Stranger,--
"You have found it more difficult, I fear, than you imagined, to make
the empty sack stand upright. Considering that at least one third of
those born to work cannot find it, why should I?"
Pisistratus.--"I am hard-hearted enough to believe that work never fails
to those who seek it in good earnest. It was said of some man, famous
for keeping his word, that 'if he had promised you an acorn, and all the
oaks in England failed to produce one, he would have sent to Norway for
an acorn.' If I wanted work, and there was none to be had in the Old
World, I would find my way to the New. But to the point: I have found
something for you, which I do not think your taste will oppose, and
which may open to you the means of an honorable independence. But I
cannot well explain it in the streets: where shall we go?"
Stranger (after some hesitation).--"I have a lodging near here which I
need not blush to take you to,--I mean, that it is not among rogues and
castaways."
Pisistratus (much pleased, and taking the stranger's arm).--"Come,
then."
Pisistratus and the stranger pass over Waterloo Bridge and pause before
a small house of respectable appearance. Stranger admits them both with
a latch-key, leads the way to the third story, strikes a light, and does
the honors to a small chamber, clean and orderly. Pisistratus explains
the task to be done, and opens the manuscript. The stranger draws his
chair deliberately towards the light and runs his eye rapidly over the
pages. Pisistratus trembles to see him pause before a long array of
figures and calculations. Certainly it does not look inviting; but,
pshaw! it is scarcely a part of the task, which limits itself to the
mere correction of words.
Stranger (briefly).--"There must be a mistake here--stay!--I see--" (He
turns back a few pages and corrects with rapid precision an error in a
somewhat complicated and abstruse calculation.)
Pisistratus (surprised).--"You seem a notable arithmetician."
Stranger.--"Did I not tell you that I was skilful in all games of
mingled skill and chance? It requires an arithmetical head for that: a
first-rate card-player is a financier spoilt. I am certain that you
never could find a man fortunate on the turf or at the gaining-table who
had not an excellent head for figures. Well, this French is good
enough, apparently; there are but a few idioms, here and there, that,
strictly speaking, are more English than French. But the whole is a
work scarce worth paying for!"
Pisistratus.--"The work of the head fetches a price not proportioned to
the quantity, but the quality. When shall I call for this?"
Stranger.--"To-morrow." (And he puts the manuscript away in a drawer.)
We then conversed on various matters for nearly an hour; and my
impression of this young man's natural ability was confirmed and
heightened. But it was an ability as wrong and perverse in its
directions or instincts as a French novelist's. He seemed to have, to a
high degree, the harder portion of the reasoning faculty, but to be
almost wholly without that arch beautifier of character, that sweet
purifier of mere intellect,--the imagination; for though we are too much
taught to be on our guard against imagination, I hold it, with Captain
Roland, to be the divinest kind of reason we possess, and the one that
leads us the least astray. In youth, indeed, it occasions errors, but
they are not of a sordid or debasing nature. Newton says that one final
effect of the comets is to recruit the seas and the planets by a
condensation of the vapors and exhalations therein; and so even the
erratic flashes of an imagination really healthful and vigorous deepen
our knowledge and brighten our lights; they recruit our seas and our
stars. Of such flashes my new friend was as innocent as the sternest
matter-of-fact person could desire. Fancies he had in profusion, and
very bad ones; but of imagination not a scintilla! His mind was one of
those which live in a prison of logic, and cannot, or will not, see
beyond the bars such a nature is at once positive and sceptical. This
boy had thought proper to decide at once on the numberless complexities
of the social world from his own harsh experience.
With him the whole system was a war and a cheat. If the universe were
entirely composed of knaves, he would be sure to have made his way. Now
this bias of mind, alike shrewd and unamiable, might be safe enough if
accompanied by a lethargic temper; but it threatened to become terrible
and dangerous in one who, in default of imagination, possessed abundance
of passion: and this was the case with the young outcast. Passion, in
him, comprehended many of the worst emotions which militate against
human happiness. You could not contradict him but you raised quick
choler; you could not speak of wealth, but the cheek paled with gnawing
envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this poor boy his beauty,
his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery
atmosphere--had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an
arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into prejudices
against him. Irascible, envious, arrogant,--bad enough, but not the
worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold,
repellent cynicism,--his passions vented themselves in sneers. There
seemed in him no moral susceptibility, and, what was more remarkable in
a proud nature, little or nothing of the true point of honor. He had,
to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called
"ambition," but no apparent wish for fame or esteem or the love of his
species; only the hard wish to succeed, not shine, not serve,--succeed,
that he might have the right to despise a world which galled his self-
conceit, and enjoy the pleasures which the redundant nervous life in him
seemed to crave. Such were the more patent attributes of a character
that, ominous as it was, yet interested me, and yet appeared to me to be
redeemable,--nay, to have in it the rude elements of a certain
greatness. Ought we not to make something great out of a youth, under
twenty, who has, in the highest degree, quickness to conceive and
courage to execute? On the other hand, all faculties that can make
greatness, contain those that can attain goodness. In the savage
Scandinavian or the ruthless Frank lay the germs of a Sidney or a
Bayard. What would the best of us be if he were suddenly placed at war
with the whole world? And this fierce spirit was at war with the whole
world,--a war self-sought, perhaps, but it was war not the less. You
must surround the savage with peace, if you want the virtues of peace.
I cannot say that it was in a single interview and conference that I
came to these convictions; but I am rather summing up the impressions
which I received as I saw more of this person, whose destiny I presumed
to take under my charge.
In going away, I said, "But at all events you have a name in your
lodgings: whom am I to ask for when I call tomorrow?"
"Oh! you may know my name now," said he smiling, "it is Vivian,--Francis
Vivian."