A full and happy hour passed away in Harley’s questions and Leonard’s
answers; the dialogue that naturally ensued between the two, on the first
interview after an absence of years so eventful to the younger man.
The history of Leonard during this interval was almost solely internal,
the struggle of intellect with its own difficulties, the wanderings of
imagination through its own adventurous worlds.
The first aim of Norreys in preparing the mind of his pupil for its
vocation, had been to establish the equilibrium of its powers, to calm
into harmony the elements rudely shaken by the trials and passions of the
old hard outer life.
The theory of Norreys was briefly this. The education of a superior human
being is but the development of ideas in one for the benefit of others. To
this end, attention should be directed—1st, To the value of the ideas
collected; 2dly, To their discipline; 3dly, To their expression. For the
first, acquirement is necessary; for the second, discipline; for the
third, art. The first comprehends knowledge, purely intellectual, whether
derived from observation, memory, reflection, books, or men, Aristotle, or
Fleet-street. The second demands _training_, not only intellectual, but
moral; the purifying and exaltation of motives; the formation of habits;
in which method is but a part of a divine and harmonious symmetry—a union
of intellect and conscience. Ideas of value, stored by the first process;
marshaled into force, and placed under guidance, by the second; it is the
result of the third, to place them before the world in the most attractive
or commanding form. This may be done by actions no less than words; but
the adaptation of means to end, the passage of ideas from the brain of one
man into the lives and souls of all, no less in action than in books,
requires study. Action has its art as well as literature. Here Norreys had
but to deal with the calling of the scholar, the formation of the writer,
and so to guide the perceptions toward those varieties in the sublime and
beautiful, the just combination of which is at once CREATION. Man himself
is but a combination of elements. He who combines in nature, creates in
art.
Such, very succinctly and inadequately expressed, was the system upon
which Norreys proceeded to regulate and perfect the great native powers of
his pupil; and though the reader may perhaps say that no system laid down
by another can either form genius or dictate to its results, yet probably
nine-tenths at least of those in whom we recognize the luminaries of our
race, have passed, unconsciously to themselves (for self-education is
rarely conscious of its phases), through each of these processes. And no
one who pauses to reflect will deny, that according to this theory,
illustrated by a man of vast experience, profound knowledge, and exquisite
taste, the struggles of genius would be infinitely lessened; its vision
cleared and strengthened, and the distance between effort and success
notably abridged.
Norreys, however, was far too deep a reasoner to fall into the error of
modern teachers, who suppose that education can dispense with labor. No
mind becomes muscular without rude and early exercise. Labor should be
strenuous, but in right directions. All that we can do for it is to save
the waste of time in blundering into needless toils.
The master had thus first employed his neophyte in arranging and compiling
materials for a great critical work in which Norreys himself was engaged.
In this stage of scholastic preparation, Leonard was necessarily led to
the acquisition of languages, for which he had great aptitude—the
foundations of a large and comprehensive erudition were solidly
constructed. He traced by the plowshare the walls of the destined city.
Habits of accuracy and of generalization became formed insensibly; and
that precious faculty which seizes, amidst accumulated materials, those
that serve the object for which they are explored—(that faculty which
quadruples all force, by concentrating it on one point)—once roused into
action, gave purpose to every toil and quickness to each perception. But
Norreys did not confine his pupil solely to the mute world of a library;
he introduced him to some of the first minds in arts, science, and
letters—and active life. “These,” said he, “are the living ideas of the
present, out of which books for the future will be written: study them;
and here, as in the volumes of the past, diligently amass and deliberately
compile.”
By degrees Norreys led on that young ardent mind from the selection of
ideas to their æsthetic analysis—from compilation to criticism; but
criticism severe, close, and logical—a reason for each word of praise or
of blame. Led in this stage of his career to examine into the laws of
beauty, a new light broke upon his mind; from amidst the masses of marble
he had piled around him, rose the vision of the statue.
And so, suddenly one day Norreys said to him, “I need a compiler no
longer—maintain yourself by your own creations.” And Leonard wrote, and a
work flowered up from the seed deep buried, and the soil well cleared to
the rays of the sun and the healthful influence of expanded air.
That first work did not penetrate to a very wide circle of readers, not
from any perceptible fault of its own—there is luck in these things, the
first anonymous work of an original genius is rarely at once eminently
successful. But the more experienced recognized the promise of the book.
Publishers, who have an instinct in the discovery of available talent,
which often forestalls the appreciation of the public, volunteered liberal
offers. “Be fully successful this time,” said Norreys; “think not of
models nor of style. Strike at once at the common human heart—throw away
the corks—swim out boldly. One word more—never write a page till you have
walked from your room to Temple Bar, and, mingling with men, and reading
the human face, learn why great poets have mostly passed their lives in
cities.”
Thus Leonard wrote again, and woke one morning to find himself famous. So
far as the chances of all professions dependent on health will permit,
present independence, and, with foresight and economy, the prospects of
future competence were secured.
“And, indeed,” said Leonard, concluding a longer but a simpler narrative
than is here told—“indeed, there is some chance that I may obtain at once
a sum that will leave me free for the rest of my life to select my own
subjects and write without care for renumeration. This is what I call the
true (and, perhaps, alas! the rare) independence of him who devotes
himself to letters. Norreys, having seen my boyish plan for the
improvement of certain machinery in the steam-engine, insisted on my
giving much time to mechanics. The study that once pleased me so greatly,
now seemed dull; but I went into it with good heart; and the result is,
that I have improved so far on my original idea, that my scheme has met
the approbation of one of our most scientific engineers; and I am assured
that the patent for it will be purchased of me upon terms which I am
ashamed to name to you, so disproportioned do they seem to the value of so
simple a discovery. Meanwhile, I am already rich enough to have realized
the two dreams of my heart—to make a home in the cottage where I had last
seen you and Helen—I mean Miss Digby; and to invite to that home her who
had sheltered my infancy.”
“Your mother, where is she? Let me see her.”
Leonard ran out to call the widow, but, to his surprise and vexation,
learned that she had quitted the house before L’Estrange arrived.
He came back perplexed how to explain what seemed ungracious and
ungrateful, and spoke with hesitating lip and flushed cheek of the widow’s
natural timidity and sense of her own homely station. “And so overpowered
is she,” added Leonard, “by the recollection of all that we owe to you,
that she never hears your name without agitation or tears, and trembled
like a leaf at the thought of seeing you.”
“Ha!” said Harley, with visible emotion. “Is it so?” And he bent down,
shading his face with his hand. “And,” he renewed, after a pause, but not
looking up—“and you ascribe this fear of seeing me, this agitation at my
name, solely to an exaggerated sense of—of the circumstances attending my
acquaintance with yourself?”
“And, perhaps, to a sort of shame that the mother of one you have made her
proud of is but a peasant.”
“That is all,” said Harley, earnestly, now looking up and fixing eyes in
which stood tears, upon Leonard’s ingenuous brow.
“Oh, my dear lord, what else can it be? Do not judge her harshly.”
L’Estrange rose abruptly, pressed Leonard’s hand, muttered something not
audible, and then drawing his young friend’s arm in his, led him into the
garden, and turned the conversation back to its former topics.
Leonard’s heart yearned to ask after Helen, and yet something withheld him
from doing so, till, seeing Harley did not volunteer to speak of her, he
could not resist his impulse. “And Helen—Miss Digby—is she much changed?”
“Changed, no—yes; very much.”
“Very much!” Leonard sighed.
“I shall see her again?”
“Certainly,” said Harley, in a tone of surprise. “How can you doubt it?
And I reserve to you the pleasure of saying that you are renowned. You
blush; well, I will say that for you. But you shall give her your books.”
“She has not yet read them, then?—not the last? The first was not worthy
of her attention,” said Leonard, disappointed.
“She has only just arrived in England; and, though your books reached me
in Germany, she was not then with me. When I have settled some business
that will take me from town, I shall present you to her and my mother.”
There was a certain embarrassment in Harley’s voice as he spoke; and,
turning round abruptly, he exclaimed, “But you have shown poetry even
here. I could not have conceived that so much beauty could be drawn from
what appeared to me the most commonplace of all suburban gardens. Why,
surely where that charming fountain now plays, stood the rude bench in
which I read your verses.”
“It is true; I wished to unite all together my happiest associations. I
think I told you, my lord, in one of my letters, that I had owed a very
happy, yet very struggling time in my boyhood to the singular kindness and
generous instructions of a foreigner whom I served. This fountain is
copied from one that I made in his garden, and by the margin of which many
a summer day I have sat and dreamt of fame and knowledge.”
“True, you told me of that; and your foreigner will be pleased to hear of
your success, and no less so of your graceful recollections. By the way,
you did not mention his name.”
“Riccabocca.”
“Riccabocca! My own dear and noble friend!—is it possible? One of my
reasons for returning to England is connected with him. You shall go down
with me and see him. I meant to start this evening.”
“My dear lord,” said Leonard, “I think that you may spare yourself so long
a journey. I have reason to suspect that Signor Riccabocca is my nearest
neighbor. Two days ago I was in the garden, when suddenly lifting my eyes
to yon hillock I perceived the form of a man seated among the bushwood;
and, though I could not see his features, there was something in the very
outline of his figure and his peculiar position, that irresistibly
reminded me of Riccabocca. I hastened out of the garden and ascended the
hill, but he was gone. My suspicions were so strong that I caused inquiry
to be made at the different shops scattered about, and learned that a
family consisting of a gentleman, his wife, and daughter, had lately come
to live in a house that you must have passed in your way hither, standing
a little back from the road, surrounded by high walls; and though they
were said to be English, yet from the description given to me of the
gentleman’s person by one who had noticed it, by the fact of a foreign
servant in their employ, and by the very name ‘Richmouth,’ assigned the
new comers, I can scarcely doubt that it is the family you seek.”
“And you have not called to ascertain?”
“Pardon me, but the family so evidently shunning observation (no one but
the master himself ever seen without the walls), the adoption of another
name, too, lead me to infer that Signor Riccabocca has some strong motive
for concealment; and now, with my improved knowledge of life, I can not,
recalling all the past, but suppose that Riccabocca was not what he
appeared. Hence, I have hesitated on formally obtruding myself upon his
secrets, whatever they be, and have rather watched for some chance
occasion to meet him in his walks.”
“You did right, my dear Leonard; but my reasons for seeing my old friend
forbid all scruples of delicacy, and I will go at once to his house.”
“You will tell me, my lord, if I am right.”
“I hope to be allowed to do so. Pray, stay at home till I return. And now,
ere I go, one question more. You indulge conjectures as to Riccabocca,
because he has changed his name—why have you dropped your own?”
“I wished to have no name,” said Leonard, coloring deeply, “but that which
I could make myself.”
“Proud poet, this I can comprehend. But from what reason did you assume
the strange and fantastic name of Oran?”
The flush on Leonard’s face became deeper. “My lord,” said he, in a low
voice, “it is a childish fancy of mine; it is an anagram.”
“Ah!”
“At a time when my cravings after knowledge were likely much to mislead,
and perhaps undo me, I chanced on some poems that suddenly affected my
whole mind, and led me up into purer air; and I was told that these poems
were written in youth, by one who had beauty and genius—one who was in her
grave—a relation of my own, and her familiar name was Nora—”
“Ah!” again ejaculated Lord L’Estrange, and his arm pressed heavily upon
Leonard’s.
“So, somehow or other,” continued the young author, falteringly, “I wished
that if ever I won to a poet’s fame, it might be to my own heart, at
least, associated with this name of Nora—with her whom death had robbed of
the fame that she might otherwise have won—with her who—”
He paused, greatly agitated.
Harley was no less so. But as if by a sudden impulse, the soldier bent
down his manly head and kissed the poet’s brow; then he hastened to the
gate, flung himself on his horse, and rode away.