_Conversation in a Library._
When the wheels of Sir Owen’s coach had ceased from rattling over the
flinty pavement of the castle court, Robert De Lancaster glanced his
eyes round the room, and in a corner of it discovered his son Philip,
unnoticed of him before. Neither the cataract and confusion, that had
ensued upon Sir Owen’s tumble, nor the screams of a lady, in whose
safety he might be presumed to have some interest, had provoked this
disciple of Harpocrates to violate his taciturnity, or to stir from his
seat. At the same instant Colonel Wilson, a friend of the family,
entered, and brought tidings from the runners in the service of Mr.
Llewellyn, that things above stairs were going on as well as could be
expected.
Then with your leave, Colonel, said the lord of the castle, we will
adjourn to my library, and there await the event. Upon the word Philip
started from his corner, ran to the door and held it open for his
father. A silent bow was interchanged at passing; the library was near
at hand: the chairs were set ready, the candles lighted and the three
gentlemen arranged themselves round the fire in their customary seats.
I think, said De Lancaster, addressing himself to the colonel, amongst
all the extravagancies I have been betrayed into, there is none that
sits so light upon my conscience, as the passion I have had for
collecting books.
They certainly are a source of pleasure, said the colonel, to the
readers of them.
They cause great trouble to the writers, Philip answered in an under
voice, as if talking to himself.
Colonel Wilson was a disabled officer, having lost a leg in the service,
and had now retired upon a sinecure government of twenty shillings per
day to a small patrimonial estate in the near neighbourhood of Kray
Castle: he was a few years younger than Robert De Lancaster, who had
now kept his sixtieth birthday. Wilson had two sons; the elder was in
the army, and the younger at the head of Westminster school: he was a
man of strict probity, good understanding and an excellent heart. These
were qualities, which De Lancaster knew how to appreciate as well as any
man, and though his studies and pursuits had been widely different from
those of the Colonel, yet he courted his company, and lived in perfect
harmony with him as his friend and neighbour. Wilson on his part was not
blind to the eccentricities of De Lancaster, but as they never disagreed
except upon points, that did not interest the passions, their disputes
were carried on without any mixture of acrimony, and only served to keep
the conversation amicably alive.
Wilson had lived in the world; De Lancaster in study and retirement: the
latter would sometimes contend against assumptions, which to the former
appeared to be little less than self-evident; in the mean time De
Lancaster would oftentimes undertake to demonstrate paradoxes, that to
Wilson’s unsophisticated understanding seemed perfectly inexplicable:
these he was in the habit neither to admit, nor pertinaciously to
contest: if he had done the first, there would have been a speedy end to
the discussion; if he had pursued the latter course, there would have
been no end at all, for De Lancaster was not often in the humour to
recede from his positions.
Philip De Lancaster on the contrary believed all things, and examined
none: he was a man of great faith and few words; by no means wanting in
curiosity, but extremely averse from enquiry and trouble. Being an only
son and heir to the wealthy house of De Lancaster, it was thought
adviseable by the fathers on each side, who were the contracting
parties, that he should take to wife Matilda, only child of old Morgan
of Glen-Morgan, and presumptive heiress to his fortune and estate.
Philip, who had shewn no ardour as a lover, was by no means remarkably
uxorious as a husband; and Matilda did not molest him with her fondness
or attentions: They lived in the same house as appurtenances to the
family at Kray Castle, (for such from time immemorial had been the
custom of the De Lancasters) and they lived without quarrelling; for
they were very little together; their passions were never roused by
contradiction, or enflamed by jealousy; the husband had no attachments,
and the wife, who was said to have been thwarted in her first love, laid
herself out for no future admirers.
These few preliminary remarks may probably account for the placidity,
with which Philip now sate down in the library between his father and
the colonel to wait the issue of an event, in which if he did not
manifest a very lively interest, the reason very probably was, because
he did not feel it.
Philip, (if his sage remark is in the recollection of the reader) had
risqued a truism, when he modestly suggested that it was a troublesome
task to write a book. Philip did not speak this from his own experience;
therefore it is, that I call his truism a risque, for it was not always
that his father gave his passport to assertions of that character; but
the learned gentleman’s thoughts were just then employed not upon the
trouble, that we take when we bring our works into the world, but the
trouble, which we give, when we ourselves are brought into it, and upon
this topic he began to descant, as follows.
The unlucky accident, by which my blundering neighbour has precipitated
Mrs. De Lancaster into labour-pains, must in all probability tend to
aggravate and enhance those sorrows, in which by the condition of her
sex she is destined to bring forth; and indeed, independent of that
accident, I should not wonder if the pains she suffers, and the screams
she utters, were more than ordinarily acute and piercing, planted as she
now is, by adoption into my family, in the very stream and current from
the fountain head of the primæval curse--
Whereabouts are we now, said the colonel within himself?
--Nevertheless, under the pressure of these apprehensions, I console
myself with the reflection, that if the general observation, that what
we produce with difficulty we are thereby influenced to preserve with
diligence, be true in all other cases, it will be also true in that of
child-bearing. If so, we may expect that the _storgee_, or natural
affection of my daughter-in-law towards her infant will be
proportionally greater than that of mothers, who shall have had easier
times.
I see no grounds for that conclusion, replied the colonel.
Surely, sir, resumed De Lancaster, you must have remarked, that in all
our operations, whether mental or manual, we are naturally most attached
to those on which most pains and labour have been expended. Slight
performances and slight opinions may be easily given up, but where great
deliberation has been bestowed, we are not soon persuaded to admit that
our time has been misspent and our talents misapplied.
Certainly, replied Wilson, there are some points, upon which we ought
not to waver in our opinions, but there are many others, which it is not
worth our while to be too pertinacious in defending. In my profession we
must not quarrel with men for their caprices, so long as they are not
mischievously or impiously eccentric. It is not often we can find a
mess-room in the same way of thinking, except upon the question of
another bottle.
In your profession, my good friend, resumed De Lancaster, (for which I
have all possible respect) the pliability you describe may be perfectly
in character, and much to be commended; for where differences are to be
adjusted by arguments, swords should not be admitted into the
conference. In my system of life I see no reason why I should be bound
to think with the majority; nay, I confess to you I am very ill inclined
to subscribe to popular opinions, unless upon strict investigation.
Are they always worth it? said the colonel.
I should think not, echoed Philip.
Pardon me, exclaimed De Lancaster! So many things are assumed without
being examined, and so many disbelieved without being disproved, that I
am not hasty to assent or dissent in compliment to the multitude; and on
this account perhaps I am considered as a man affecting singularity: I
hope I am not to be found guilty of that idle affectation, only because
I would not be a dealer in opinions, which I have not weighed before I
deliver them out. Above all things I would not traffic in conjectures,
but carefully avoid imposing upon others or myself by confident
anticipation, when nothing can be affirmed with certainty in this mortal
state of chance and change, that is not grounded on conviction; for
instance, in the case of the lady above stairs, whose situation keeps
our hopes and fears upon the balance, our presumption is, that Mrs. De
Lancaster shall be delivered of a child, either male or female, and in
all respects like other children--
I confess, said Wilson, that is my presumption, and I should be most
outrageously astonished, should it happen otherwise.
I don’t think it likely, murmured Philip.
No, no, no, replied De Lancaster; but we need not be reminded how many
præternatural and prodigious births have occurred and been recorded in
the annals of mankind. Whether the natives of the town of Stroud near
Rochester are to this day under the ban of Thomas a Becket I am not
informed; but when, in contempt of that holy person, they wantonly cut
off the tail of his mule as he rode through their street, you have it
from authority that every child thenceforward born to an inhabitant of
Stroud was punished by the appendage of an incommodious and enormous
tail, exactly corresponding with that, which had been amputated from
the archbishop’s mule.
Here a whistle from the colonel struck the auditory nerves of Philip,
who, gently laying his hand upon his stump, gravely reminded him that
Becket was a saint--
De Lancaster proceeded--- What then shall we say of the famous Martin
Luther, who being ordained to act so conspicuous a part in opposition to
the papal power, came into the world fully equipped for controversy; his
mother being delivered of her infant, (wonderful to relate) habited in
all points as a theologian, and (which I conceive must have sensibly
incommoded her) wearing a square cap on his head, according to academic
costuma. This, Colonel Wilson, may perhaps appear to you, as no doubt
it did to the midwife and all present at his birth, as a very
extraordinary and præternatural circumstance.
It does indeed appear so, said the colonel. I know you don’t invent the
fable; I should like to know your authority for it.
My authority, replied De Lancaster, in this case is the same as in that
of Becket’s mule; Martinus Delrius is my authority for both; and when we
find this gravely set forth by a writer of such high dignity and credit,
himself a doctor of theology, and public professor of the Holy
Scriptures in the university of Salamanca, who is bold enough to
question it?
I am not bold enough to believe it, said Wilson.