BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCXXXII. OCTOBER, 1851. VOL. LXX.
CONTENTS.
THE ESSAYS OF MR HELPS, 379
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. PART XIV, 392
THE NEW ZEALANDERS, 414
THE ITALIAN REVOLUTION, 431
LEVANTINE RAMBLES, 447
DAY-DREAMS OF AN EXILE, 465
A VOICE FROM THE DIGGINGS, 470
THE EXPERIMENT, 488
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET;
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SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCXXXII. OCTOBER, 1851. VOL. LXX.
THE ESSAYS OF MR HELPS.[1]
The writings which we have set down at the foot of our page have been so
generally attributed to a gentleman of the name of Helps, that, although
even the latest of the series is published anonymously, we have ventured
to ascribe them to him. Why the author should withhold his name from the
title-page when it has become so currently associated with his works, is
a matter of personal taste with which, it may be said, we have nothing
to do. It may be genuine modesty, or whim, or caprice, or something
bordering on affectation. “It is his pleasure.” We would simply suggest
that, if we are to talk about books, it is pleasant to have some name to
which to ascribe them, although it may teach us nothing more of the
author than he had chosen to reveal in his works: it is pleasant to have
a name, and it is pleasant also to feel that we have the right one, to
feel that we speak with certainty and security. If a writer has a motive
for keeping his authorship a secret, by all means let him keep the
secret; but if publicity and renown are not avoided, why may we not have
that feeling of certainty which the name on the title-page can alone
give to perfect strangers?
To us the name gives no further information than the books themselves.
From these we gather that the earlier essays were written by some
gentleman in office, who occupied the intervals of business in literary
composition; and that the later series are the production of the same
gentleman, retired from official cares, and enjoying in some country
retreat that combination—surely the most delightful which human life
presents—of domestic joys with literary pursuits. We hope this part of
the picture is not merely a dramatic artifice of composition. The
retirement from official duties has certainly been favourable to the
cultivation of literature; the later series are far superior to the
former. His last work, _Companions of my Solitude_, is a very charming
little book; and its perusal, by inducing us to revert to its
predecessors, has led us to this general notice of his writings.
Mr Helps has, in his quiet way, been somewhat severe upon the
presumption of the critics; we hope we shall not be manifesting any
undue or ungracious presumption if we take notice, at the outset, of the
very marked improvement his works exhibit. There is a steady progressive
movement displayed in each successive effort of his pen. In the list
which the reader has before him, and in which the works are set down in
their order of publication, each one is conspicuously in advance of its
predecessor. The second is better than the first, the third better than
the second, and the fourth best of all. There has been a still later
publication, _The Conquerors of the New World and their Bondsmen_; but
of this only one volume has hitherto appeared. It is a historical work,
and does not run on the same line with the others. So far as we can at
present judge of it, we are afraid that it would form something like an
anticlimax. We shall therefore take advantage of its unfinished state to
dismiss it at once out of court. This steady progress we have noticed is
a rather unusual characteristic. At least in our own epoch, men have
more frequently given us of their abundance in their first or their
second work, and have put us off with scantier measure in their
subsequent dealings with the public. With Mr Helps it has been
otherwise: his last work is the most thoughtful; and if he retains the
habits of a student, and is disposed to literary labour, we may
confidently expect from him productions still more excellent than
anything he has given us. We do not think, however, that he will surpass
himself by turning to history. We should petition for a second series of
_Companions of my Solitude_.
The first work on our list, the _Essays written in Intervals of
Business_, has no attractions for us whatever. It is full of good
advice, which no one will gainsay, and no one will ever think of
applying; and of general truths, so very true, and so very general, that
they are worth nothing. These essays seemed to be written for no
definite purpose; they have the air of themes, very carefully composed
out of pure love, and for the practice, of composition. Very correct is
our official author, very formal and precise, and has an excessive love
for giving good counsels. He says, shrewdly enough, that “it is with
advice as with taxation; we can endure very little of either, if they
come to us in a direct way.” But this does not check him for a moment;
he goes on to give advice about this very matter of advice, telling
folks where and how they may get it. Throughout this little volume there
does not seem to be a single sentence that would provoke dispute, and,
as a consequence, not a single sentence of any real utility. As we are
passing in review the whole of Mr Helps’ works, we are compelled to say
thus much of his earliest production. But we say it without the least
asperity. We should not have gone out of our way to speak a word in
disparagement of these essays. Mr Helps has written and thought in so
much more effective manner since their publication, that he would
probably now agree with us that many of them should have been treated as
college exercises—themes that we turn into Johnsonian English, or
Ciceronian Latin, and there leave. Practice is an excellent thing in
composition, as well as in music; but it is not agreeable to listen to
the _do, re, mi, fa_ of the finest voice in the world.
The _Claims of Labour_, and the accompanying essay on the improvement of
the condition of the poor, have a direct and serious object, and this at
once raises them into a far higher character than their predecessors.
Here the author writes for a purpose, and a very excellent purpose. If
we do not dwell long on these essays, it is because the subjects of them
have at other times occupied our attention, and will again be frequently
discussed in our pages. Mr Helps, however, has the merit of calling
public attention to the condition of the poor, and especially to the
state of their dwelling-houses, at a time when the subject had not
become quite so familiar to men’s minds as it is at present. The Report
upon the Health of Towns had been lately published, and he was amongst
the first to extend the information collected by it, and to insist upon
the measures which it pointed out. The relation, too, which the
employers bear to those they employ, whether as domestic servants or
paid artisans, is a subject which has lately risen up before us in all
its vital importance; and even a little “moral preachment” on the topic
was not altogether out of place. We like that fine sense which Mr Helps,
on more than one occasion, displays, of the consideration due to the
domestic servant who is living under your roof. A very galling tyranny
may be exercised by ladies and gentlemen.
“Only think,” he says, “what it must be to share one’s home with one’s
oppressor; to have no recurring time when one is certain to be free
from those harsh words and unjust censures, which are almost more than
blows, ay, even to those natures we are apt to fancy so hardened to
rebuke. Imagine the deadness of heart that must prevail in that poor
wretch who never hears the sweet words of praise or of encouragement.
Many masters of families, men living in the rapid current of the
world, who are subject to a variety of impressions which, in their
busy minds, are made and effaced even in the course of a single day,
can with difficulty estimate the force of unkind words upon those
whose monotonous life leaves few opportunities of effacing any
unwelcome impressions.”
Still more important is it that the capitalist, the great employer of
labour, should understand how great a power, and, with it, how great a
trust is confided into his hands.
“Can a man,” says our author, “who has this destiny intrusted to him,
imagine that his vocation consists merely in getting together a large
lump of gold, and then being off with it to enjoy it, as he fancies,
in some other place; as if, indeed, the parable of the talents were to
be taken literally, and that a man should think that he has done his
part when he has made much gold and silver out of little?”
And he adds, that men in this position of life would, in the skilful
direction and humane supervision of labour, “find room for the exercise
of all the powers of their minds, of their best affections, and of
whatever was worthy in their ambition.”
Nor do those who indirectly employ labour by purchasing articles, and
giving commissions, escape from all responsibility in this matter; nor
does our author fail to visit them with a due measure of reproof.
“What a striking instance,” he says, “the treatment of these poor
milliner girls is of the neglect of duty on the part of employers! I
mean of those who immediately superintend this branch of labour, _and
of those who cause it_. Had the former been the least aware of their
responsibility, would they have hesitated to remonstrate against the
unreasonable orders of their customers? And as for the latter, for the
ladies who expect such orders to be complied with, how sublimely
inconsiderate of the comfort of those beneath them they must have
become. I repeat it again: The careless cruelty in the world almost
outweighs the rest.”
The subject of the second essay is of a practical importance that
scarcely admits of exaggeration. When multitudes are crowded together,
the dwelling-houses of the poor, the ventilation and drainage of the
city, become matters of the most momentous consequence. Foul air, foul
habits of living, have been the source of all our plagues, our choleras,
our typhus fevers, our pestilences of every description. There never was
any other source for these scourges of man’s indolence or cupidity.
There never was a plague that had any other origin than dirt and
idleness, and the injustice that treads down into the dirt. However such
plagues have been propagated when they have once reached their dreadful
maturity, this is their only origin. You must look into the _alleys_ and
_wynds_ of Constantinople if you would know why the plague has ever
travelled to us from the East: it originated there, just as the British
cholera rises upon us, the natural exhalation of filth and impurity. Mr
Helps seems to be occasionally embarrassed by some presumed objection to
the _interference_ of Government in these sanitary measures. We have
heard some outcries, more or less sincere, against the centralisation
which certain measures adopted by the Legislature have been thought to
favour. The machinery which the Legislature had employed has been
objected to; and it has been said that our local or municipal
governments ought to be more largely intrusted or empowered. But we
never heard that any sane man had objected to the fact of legislation
itself being applied to what is really a matter of life or death to the
community. We can hardly believe that anyone could be so utterly witless
and besotted as to think this a proper occasion for exercising his
jealousy against the interference of Government. It is quite true that
there is a class of cases where the end is most desirable, and where yet
that interference is deprecated. And why? Because legislation cannot
accomplish the end proposed. To secure to each man a fair remuneration
for his labour would be infinitely desirable. Government ought to do
it—if it could. But it cannot; and therefore it is we oppose any
legislative attempt to regulate the rate of wages. The attempt would
only aggravate the mischief it sought to remedy.
Where there is a good end to be attained, which cannot be secured by
separate and individual effort, and which can be attained by an effort
of the national will through the organs of Government, there you have
made out an indisputable case for the interference of the Legislature.
It is not a good end if it be not worth the costly or cumbrous machinery
you put in motion to accomplish it. In that case it is a slight and
trivial object. Now, great sanitary measures answer entirely to the
criterion we have given; they are of indisputable utility, worth any
conceivable cost. The object to be attained is one which requires
co-operation, which cannot be attained by separate and voluntary
efforts; and it is one within the scope and power of legislation. “The
Athenian in the comedy,” writes Mr Helps, “wearied of war, concludes a
separate peace with the enemy for himself, his wife, his children, and
his servant.” But it is only in the comedy that such a separate peace is
possible. And it would be a still grosser fiction that would represent
any one of our citizens, buried in the living mass of a town population,
making a private treaty against foul air and filthy drainage, for
himself, his wife, his children, and his servant. If his neighbour
can make money by poisoning the air, or if he has but a senseless or
depraved nostril, the whole district must suffer.
_Friends in Council, a Series of Readings and Discourse thereon_, has
more of original matter than either of its predecessors; and the device
adopted of interspersing fictitious conversation with the essays, gives
relief and variety to the composition. The author, who takes the name of
_Milverton_, is supposed to read his several papers before his
friends—_Dunsford_, a clergyman—and _Ellesmere_, a barrister. After the
essay a conversation ensues either on the subject of it, or on some
other topic which it may have suggested, and which is not always very
closely connected with the essay. We notice that, when the “Reading” has
been rather dull, the “Discourse,” by a just compensation, is more
sprightly than usual. Thus the attention of the reader is never allowed
to flag for any length of time; although here also it is sometimes tried
by that theme-like writing we have spoken of before. Essays on “Truth,”
on “Greatness,” have a very formidable aspect. He who has anything of
his own on topics like these should tell it us at once, and with as
little prefatory or formal matter as possible. We do not want the whole
skeleton of an essay for one single pound of flesh. Here is “An Essay
upon History,” which does not occupy a very long space, but where we
have the subject laid out in regular sections. 1. Why History should be
read; 2. How History should be read; 3. By whom History should be
written; and so forth. Why, it is dreary as land-measuring. All this
superficial measurement, so many acres of bog, so many of pasture, we
could willingly dispense with. If you have any edible root, or but a
wild-flower gathered from a hedge, give us that, and give it at once.
One is not to survey a whole district every time one digs out a potato.
The character of Ellesmere is well sustained throughout the
conversations; it is quite a life-like and dramatic sketch. He talks
neither better nor worse than many a clear-headed barrister of
Westminster Hall. Under a glittering hardness of manner he retains kind
feelings and genuine convictions. Such men as Ellesmere every one has
encountered. They repel you at first by their flippancy, their boundless
impudence of assertion, and their perpetual air of mockery and derision:
you think they have neither love for anything, nor faith in anything;
but, on closer acquaintance, they are found really to have a heart under
that jingling coat of mail which they carry over it. Let us give a
specimen of the lighter manner of Ellesmere. An Essay on Education has
been read.
“_Ellesmere._—You have been unexpectedly merciful to us. The moment I
heard the essay given out, there flitted before my frightened mind
volumes of reports, Battersea schools, Bell, Wilderspin, normal farms,
National Society, British schools, interminable questions about how
religion might be separated altogether from secular education, or so
much religion taught as all religious sects could agree in. These are
all very good things for people to discuss, I dare say; but, to tell
the truth, the whole subject sits heavy on my soul. I meet a man of
inexhaustible dulness, and he talks to me for three hours upon some
great subject—this very one of education, for instance—till I sit
entranced by stupidity, thinking the while, ‘And this is what we are
to become by education—to be like you?’ Then I see a man like D——, a
judicious, reasonable, conversable being, knowing how to be silent
too—a man to go through a campaign with—and I find he cannot read or
write.
“_Milverton._—This sort of contrast is just the thing to strike you,
Ellesmere; and yet you know as well as any of us, that to bring
forward such contrasts by way of depreciating education would be most
unreasonable....
“_Ellesmere._—I wanted to tell you that I think you are quite right,
Milverton, in saying a good deal about multifariousness of pursuit.
You see a wretch of a pedant, who knows all about tetrameters, or
statutes of uses, but who can hardly answer his child a question as
they walk about the garden together. The man has never given a good
thought or look to nature. Well then, again, what a stupid thing it is
that we are not all taught music. Why learn the language of many
portions of mankind, and leave the universal language of the feelings,
as you would call it, unlearnt!
“_Milverton._—I quite agree with you; but I thought you always set
your face, or rather your ears, against music.
“_Dunsford._—So did I.
“_Ellesmere._—I should like to know all about it. It is not to my mind
that a cultivated man should be quite thrown out by any topic of
conversation, or that there should be any form of human endeavour or
accomplishment which he has no conception of.”
In the quotation we shall next give, it is the good sense of Milverton
which perhaps takes the lead. The Essay has been on Public Improvements,
and this is part of the conversation which ensues:—
“_Ellesmere._—Another very merciful essay! When we had once got upon
the subject of sanitary improvements, I thought we should soon be
five-fathom deep in blue books, reports, interminable questions of
sewerage, and horrors of all kinds.
“_Milverton._—It would be difficult to say too much about sanitary
matters—that is, if by saying much one could gain attention. I am
convinced that the most fruitful source of physical evil to mankind
has been impure air, arising from circumstances which might have been
obviated. Plague and pestilence of all kinds—cretinism, too, and all
scrofulous disorders—are probably mere questions of ventilation.
“_Ellesmere._—Seriously speaking, I quite agree with you. And what
delights me in sanitary improvements is, that they can hardly do harm.
Give a poor man good air, and you do not diminish his self-reliance.
You only add to his health and vigour—make more of a man of him....
There is an immensity of nonsense uttered about making people happy,
which is to be done, according to happiness-mongers, by quantities of
sugar and tea, and suchlike things. One knows the importance of food,
but there is no Elysium to be got out of it.
“_Milverton._—I know what you mean. Suppose you could give them oceans
of tea and mountains of sugar, and abundance of any luxury that you
choose to imagine, but at the same time you inserted a hungry, envious
spirit; and then what have you done?... You do not know what injury
you may do a man, when you destroy all reverence in him. _It will be
found out some day that men derive more pleasure and profit from
having superiors than from having inferiors._... To come to minor
matters. It is a great pity that the system of building upon leases
should be so commonly adopted. Nobody expects to live out the
leasehold term which he takes to build upon. C. always says that the
modern lath-and-plaster system is a wickedness; and upon my word I
think he is right. It is inconceivable to me how a man can make up his
mind to build, or do anything else, in a temporary, slight, insincere
fashion. What has a man to say for himself who must sum up the doings
of his life in this way, ‘I chiefly employed myself in making and
selling things which seemed to be good, and were not, and nobody has
occasion to bless me for anything I have done’?
“_Ellesmere._—Humph! you put it mildly. But the man has made, perhaps,
seven per cent of his money; or, if he has made no per cent, he has
ruined several men of his own trade, which is not to go for nothing
when a man is taking stock of his good deeds.”
Recreation is a favourite subject with our author. We have an essay on
it here. He is very solicitous that amusement should be found for the
people: our own notion is that people will best amuse themselves, and
that it would be the hardest thing in the world to attempt to do this
for them. However, there are many good things on this subject in Mr
Helps’s Essay.
“If ever a people,” he says, “required to be amused, it is we
sad-hearted Anglo-Saxons. Heavy eaters, hard thinkers, often given up
to a peculiar melancholy of our own, with a climate that, for months
together, would frown away mirth if it could—many of us with very
gloomy thoughts about our hereafter: if ever there were a people who
should avoid increasing their dulness by all work and no play, we are
that people. ‘They took their pleasure sadly,’ says Froissart, ‘after
their fashion.’ We need not ask of what nation Froissart was
speaking.”
See that Dutchman, how lumpish, how very fat he gets—he is the very
person who ought to dance, and he stands looking on. But your Dutchman
does not want to dance. Foreigners marvel how Englishmen can spend their
Sunday as they do—so very monotonously, as it seems—they have no idea
how very agreeable mere rest is to the man who has been energetically
occupied the whole week. “All work, and no play,” sounds very terrible;
but ask any man when he has been most happy, and he will tell you, when
he was absorbed in his work, when play would have been a mere hindrance,
when the mere pleasure of relieved attention, or of quick animal
movement after one constrained position, was all the amusement he could
have welcomed. Work is the greatest pleasure we have—while it is the
predominant habit, and no longer. Remember this, you busy
philanthropists.
The subject of slavery occupies a very prominent place; several
consecutive Readings are devoted to it. The whole is brought to bear
upon the existence of negro slavery in the southern states of America.
Mr Helps combats every excuse that has been brought forward in its
defence, and argues that it is as needless as it is cruel and unjust.
We ourselves will not for a moment attempt to justify what is plainly
opposed to the fundamental laws of morality. We would beg leave simply
to suggest that these great laws of morality present us with a model of
human conduct to which it is to be hoped human societies will one day
attain. But human societies, in the course of this progress, cannot be
altogether governed by such rules. A perfect morality is the last thing
to be realised. The law of progress being assumed, it is necessary that
humanity should pass through many phases by no means reconcilable to the
pure laws of morality. Such are all Roman empires, all Indian conquests,
all colonisations where the hunting-field of the aborigines is converted
into a corn-field, and the native inhabitants driven back and
exterminated, and perhaps many other achievements and institutions of
human societies which are not even suspected at present of having any
taint of immorality.
Touching this very subject of slavery, we see that in early and
patriarchal times it was the necessary form which the relation took
between the owner of land or flocks and his labourer. It is here the
natural predecessor of our present system of payment by wages. Money
payment of wages, it is plain, could have no place till money was in
general use—till markets had been formed—till something of trade and
commerce had been established. In earliest times the landlord must pay
his labourer by supplying him with food and clothing. But the labourer
could not save up his food for the period of old age or the days of
sickness. Presuming, therefore, that the owner of land or flocks was to
keep possession of his property, that arrangement which we denominate
slavery was the only equitable one which could be made. If the wealthy
patriarch were to say to his labourer, I will feed and clothe you so
long as you are willing to serve me, and do serve me, the result would
be, that in sickness and in old age the labourer would be utterly
destitute. The only fair bargain that could be made was just this, to
buy the labour of the man for his whole life, by sustaining him for his
whole life. The labourer must become his bondsman.
There is also another origin of slavery odious enough—that of war. Here
the captive is only spared from death to be made an unwilling drudge for
life. Slavery may then become one of the most terrible curses and crimes
of a community. We merely point out that there is a state of society in
which it is inevitable. With the introduction of commerce better forms
of relationship between landlord and labourer become possible, and are,
or ought to be, adopted.
Now, reverting to the case before us of the southern states of America,
we presume that an advocate of their cause would urge that, owing to the
simplicity and ignorance of the black population, and their careless and
improvident character, the system of paying for labour by wages would be
as inapplicable here as in those early and patriarchal times we have
been alluding to. Here, also, the best forms of the bargain for both
parties would be to buy the labour of the man for his whole life, by
taking care of him for his whole life.
We do not acquiesce in this reasoning; at the same time we are ready to
admit that it requires a more intimate knowledge of the negro population
than we can possibly possess, to determine how far it ought to carry
conviction. But presuming that it is a fair defence, there can be surely
no doubt that it would be most desirable _to cultivate a provident and
reflective character in the negro_, so far as this can be done during
the continuance of slavery, in order that a better system may be
introduced. That slavery brings with it a terrible abuse of power, must
be admitted by every one. Granting, therefore, that no better form of
relationship could at present be established between landlord and
labourer, it must be infinitely desirable to prepare the way for a
better. Here it is that we take up the controversy against the planters.
Instead of doing their best to prepare the negro population for a better
system, (which, if once established, would be to their own advantage as
well,) they do their utmost to oppose the education of the slave, which
is the only means of preparation they have in their power. In some
provinces to educate a slave is treated as a criminal act; but doubtless
there are very different laws and customs amongst different states and
different masters. It is here, however, that we join issue with the
planters. We do not like, and do not call for, sudden changes; we have
always sought to allay rather than to excite the popular agitation of
this topic. If the existing system is the only one at present
practicable, we must, of force, accept it. We shall not tell the
planter, in the high vein of certain moralists—if you and your white
brethren cannot cultivate this soil without slave-labour, go to some
other soil and to some other climate. Such high heroic maxims of
morality, which we have not to practise ourselves, it is of very little
use to preach to others. But we do say that, by opposing the education
of the slave, the planters are rendering all but impossible that gradual
change from one system to the other, which would be so much for the
benefit of both parties. The ignorance of the slave may keep him unfit
for manumission, but it will not secure him from the access of passion,
and from sudden or violent attempts to obtain his liberty.
Mr Helps takes some pains to show that the negro is of the same species
as the white man. What if he were _not_? What if the black population of
Africa sprang originally from a different stock—their resemblance to
ourselves would not be the less on this account. We are far from wishing
to throw the least doubt upon the question; we would merely observe,
that the advocate of permanent slavery, if such there be, would gain
nothing by his doctrine of races. The negro is _a man_, just as
certainly whether you call him a _variety_ or a new _species_. The
difference between him and ourselves is neither greater nor less; the
bond of brotherhood is the same.
We pass on somewhat rapidly, that we may reserve space for the last, and
in our opinion the far most interesting, of Mr Helps’s essays. In the
_Companions of my Solitude_, we at length take leave entirely of that
formal, precept-giving manner, which we cannot but think must have had
some connection with the official state and character of our author. He
now comes before us as the retired student and meditative man. He
saunters through the woods or over the downs, revolving the hard
problems of social philosophy. He is accompanied only by his thoughts;
and these, which are the companions of his solitude, he gives us in an
easy unrestrained manner. He has become an erring and perplexed mortal,
like one of ourselves, and therefore has become instructive; he is open
to dispute, and therefore suggests and teaches something. There is but
one way of being always correct, and agreeing with everybody; it is to
say nothing that can be of possible use to any one. Mr Helps closes his
volume with a chapter on the “art of leaving off,” and evidently
flatters himself that he has practised the art to perfection in the
present instance. But if there be such a thing as leaving off too soon,
Mr Helps has not been so successful as he imagines. He leaves off here a
great deal too soon.
“When in the country,” it is thus the book opens, “I live much alone;
and as I wander over downs and commons, and through lanes with lofty
hedges, many thoughts come into my mind. I find, too, the same ones
come again and again, and are spiritual companions. At times they
insist upon being with me, and are resolutely intrusive. I think I
will describe them, that so I may have more mastery over them....
“I think often of the hopes of the race here, of what is to become of
our western civilisation, and what can be made of it. Others may
pursue science or art, and I long to do so too; but I cannot help
thinking of the state and fortune of large masses of mankind, and
hoping that thought may do something for them. After all my
cogitations, my mind generally returns to one thing, the education of
the people. _For want of general cultivation, how much individual
excellence is crippled._ Of what avail, for example, is it for any one
of us to have surmounted any social terror, or any superstition, while
his neighbours lie sunk in it. His conduct in reference to them
becomes a constant care and burden.
“Meditating upon general improvement, I often think a great deal about
the climate in these parts of the world; and I see that without much
husbandry of our means and resources, it is difficult for us to be
anything but low barbarians. The difficulty of living at all in a
cold, damp, destructive climate is great. Socrates went about with
very scanty clothing, and men praise his wisdom in caring so little
for the goods of this life. He ate sparingly and of mean food. _That
is not the way, I suspect, that we can make a philosopher here. Here
we must make prudence one of the substantial virtues._
“One thing, though, I see, and that is, that there is _a quantity of
misplaced labour_—of labour which does not go in stern contest with
the rugged world around us, in the endeavour to compel nature to give
us our birthright, but in fighting with ‘strong delusions’ of all
kinds, or rather of putting up obstacles which we laboriously knock
down again. Law, for example—what a loss is there; of time, of heart,
of love, of leisure! There are good men whose minds are set upon
improving the law; but I doubt whether any of them are prepared to go
far enough....
“_There are many things done now in the law at great expense by
private individuals, which ought to be done for all by officers of the
State._ It is as if each individual had to make a road for himself
whenever he went out, instead of using the King’s highway.”
The whole passage is studded with thought. If we have abridged it in our
extract, it has been only to save space: we would more willingly have
quoted without any omission or interruption. We pause in the last
paragraph to carry out a little further the observation it contains.
Government pays the judges, but leaves the suitor to pay for all the
preparatory services necessary to bring his cause before him to be
adjudicated. Even officers of the court are paid by fees. One of the
commissions for inquiring into the law has recommended the substitution
of a salary from Government instead of this mode of remuneration. The
recommendation, we believe, in some cases, has been already attended to.
But, as Mr Helps suggests, much more might be done for the relief of the
suitor. There is a well-known passage in _Blackstone_, wherein he tells
us that kings, lords, and commons, army and navy, customs and taxes,
have all for their great ultimate object, to seat a judge upon the
bench, and put twelve jurymen in the jury-box. But kings, lords and
commons, and the rest of these imposing powers have accomplished their
task very inefficiently, if, before the suitor can have the benefit of
judge and jury, he must pay the doorkeepers most exorbitantly.
It has at first a certain air of plausibility, to say, that he who wants
to go to law must pay the expenses of it. But, in reality, _those reap
most completely the benefit of an established system of jurisprudence
who never have occasion to go to law_. To throw the expenses of justice
on the hapless suitor is by no means equitable. As far as possible the
whole society ought to take upon itself the burden and the costs of
administering justice. We say as far as possible, because there are
certain services which an attorney renders to his client, which it would
not be well for the client himself to transfer to a salaried
functionary. They would not be so effectually performed.
Of course we know that we are laying down general principles, out of
hearing of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and we confess that there is
little pleasure or profit in contemplating schemes to which he has so
decisive an answer at hand—no funds, no ways and means. Nevertheless, in
the course of our reading on this subject of law reform, we remember to
have fallen in with a scheme or proposition which—setting aside the
fiscal objections—won considerably upon us. Of all impracticable schemes
it seemed to us the least unreasonable. It was this—to leave the
function of the attorney at present untouched, but to join the barrister
with the judge—having a bar appointed and paid by Government. A blow at
the independence of the bar, it will be said, in the first place. But in
these days of a free press and a representative Parliament, no
_political_ mischief can ensue from such a measure. We may proceed to
discuss it as it would simply affect our jurisprudence.
The anonymous author of this proposal looks upon the saving of the fee
paid to the counsel as the least part of the benefit to result from it.
He is of opinion that it would ultimately lead to the framing of a
simple intelligible code, both of substantial law and of procedure, and
thus, indirectly, sweep away the causes of delay and of expenditure. The
bar, under this system, would consist of a body of men who had
thoroughly studied the law, and from whom the judges would be selected,
who would act as assistants to justice, not as engaged partisans of the
client. Some system of advocacy is required, because the suitors can
very rarely state their own case, and the law bearing on it, with
distinctness, nor marshal the evidence they have to bring into court.
But this is the utmost duty of an advocate, if the administration of
justice is the true end to be sought for. Zeal for the client which
carries him farther than this, is zeal for injustice. The existing
system of advocacy presents us with the very immoral practice, and the
altogether most anomalous proceeding, of a highly cultivated lawyer not
only stating the truth and the evidence on one side, (which is all that
justice requires or admits,) but exercising his utmost ingenuity to
disguise the truth, to distort the law, and to shut out the evidence
upon the opposite side. All this leads to a perpetual entanglement of
the law itself; whereas the bar ought, in reality, to present to us a
cultivated and laborious class of men, who had made jurisprudence their
great study, and who were there to expound the law to such as needed
advice, to conduct the causes of such as had causes to try, to be the
great depositaries of the learning and science of jurisprudence, and
have it for their object and ambition to advance the jurisprudence of
their country. The publicity with which their functions would be
performed, the intellectual nature of those functions, and the fact that
the judges would be chosen from their body, our author argues, would be
sufficient security that they would not grow sluggish or neglectful in
the discharge of their duties. As to displays of oratory—if oratory be
regarded as an appeal to passion—he boldly asserts that a court of
justice is not a fit arena for it. Such eloquence may be carried into
Parliament, into public meetings of a hundred descriptions; and there is
the pulpit and the lecture-room for the display of oratory of a
reflective and imaginative cast. But there is an eloquence which
consists in lucid, succinct statement of law and of facts; this, which
has been often described as the eloquence of the bench, in
contradistinction to that of the bar, is the only species which it is at
all desirable to cultivate in a court of justice. Such are the outlines
of our author’s scheme, and his reasons for it. But we have no wish to
enter further into what bears so evidently the character of a quite
imaginary reform.
From the law Mr Helps takes us to the church, and to some of the
delicate questions which are now agitated with respect to it. This is a
topic on which he both interests and tantalises us. Whether from a
prudent restraint, or a timidity not inexcusable, there is evidently
much in his thoughts on this subject which he withholds. When we express
a wish that such a man as Mr Helps would speak out fully on this topic,
it is not because we expect, or ought rationally to expect, any novelty
upon questions so long agitated, but because, if we mistake not, he is
one of a party amongst English laymen who have become important by their
numbers, their intelligence, and their piety. They belong to the
national church; they do not desire to quit it; but they desire, in some
way which we do not clearly understand, to render its ritual and its
discipline more effective. We should wish persons of this description to
explain themselves distinctly. The following intimations of opinion we
ourselves read with interest, and, as we have said, felt a little
tantalised that they were not more than intimations:—
“As I went along, I thought of the Church of England and of what might
be its future fortunes. One’s acquaintances who meet one in the
streets shrug their shoulders and exclaim, ‘What a state the Church is
in! Oh that these questions that divide it had never been raised!’ I
do not agree with them, and sometimes I tell them so. If there are
these great differences amongst thoughtful men about great subjects,
why should they (the differences) be stifled? Are we always to be
walking about as masked figures?
“For my own part, it has long appeared to me that our Church stands
upon foundations which need more breadth and solidity, both as it
regards the hold it ought to have on the reason, and on the affection
of its members....
“As regards affection, how can any but those who are naturally devout
and affectionate, which is not the largest class, have an affectionate
regard for anything which presents so cold and formal an appearance as
the Church of England? The services are too long; and, for the most
part, are surrounded by the most prosaic circumstances. Too many
sermons are preached; and yet, after all, too little is made by
preaching. Order, decency, cleanliness, propriety, and very often good
sense, are to be seen in full force in Anglican Churches once a-week;
but there is a deficiency of heartiness.
“The perfection to be aimed at, as it seems to me, and so I have said
before, would be a Church _with a very simple creed, and very grand
ritual_, and a useful and devoted priesthood. But these combinations
are only in utopias, blessed islands, and other fabulous places: no
vessel enters their ports, _for they are as yet only in the minds of
thoughtful men_.
“In forming such an imaginary Church, there certainly are some things
that might be adopted from the Roman Catholics. The other day I was at
Rouen. I went to see the grand old cathedral. The great western doors
were thrown wide open. Right upon the market place filled with
flowers, and in the centre aisle, not before any image, a poor woman
and her child were praying. I was only there a few minutes, and these
two figures remain impressed upon my mind. It is surely very good that
the poor should have some place free from the restraints,
interruptions, the familiarity and the squalidness of home, where they
may think a great thought, utter a lonely sigh, a fervent prayer, an
inward wail. And the rich need the same thing too....
“People say to themselves if we touch this or that thing which they
disapprove of, we do not know what harm we may be doing to people of
less insight or less caution than ourselves, and so they go on,
content with a very rude attempt indeed at communion in spiritual
matters, provided they do not, as they would say, unsettle their
neighbours. There is something good and humble in this; there is
something also of indifference: if our ancestors had always been
content with silent protests against the thing they disapproved of, we
might have been in a worse position than we are now.
“The intellectual energies of cultivated men want directing to the
great question. If there is doubt in any matter, shall we not examine?
Instead of that, men shut their thoughts up, and pretend to be
orthodox—play at being orthodox.”
“A simple creed and a grand ritual”—Are they not incompatible? In all
the instances we can call to mind the ritual has a spiritual meaning,
and this spiritual meaning becomes a portion of the creed. For our own
part, we are like those acquaintances of Mr Helps, who deeply regret
that any divisions should exist in the Church. At the same time we quite
agree with Mr Helps himself in recognising the impossibility of
preventing those divisions, by imposing silence on any considerable
number of its genuine members.
A National Church can exist no longer than it represents a certain
amount of the national piety. Those who conform to it from policy, or
indifference, or love of ease and tranquillity, lend to it a secondary
support of unquestionable importance. But the least reflection will tell
us that this support is most truly of a secondary character. If the
spirit of piety has deserted it, and gone elsewhere, the institution may
be said to be defunct. Now, whilst only a few sincere and pious members
of the Church feel a desire for any change in its ritual, they will do
well to remain silent; but if the numbers of such men increase, it
becomes of importance that they should be heard, and, if possible, their
wishes attended to. It is for such men, and by such men, that the Church
really exists. As for the politician, or the worldling, or the mere
formalist, they may _buttress_ round a church when it is once erected,
but not for them was it built, nor by them alone could it possibly be
sustained. When a man of the world, for instance, complains that the
Church services are too long, we pass by the murmur unheeded. Long or
short, he cares in his heart very little about them; perhaps finds in
their acknowledged length a convenient excuse for not attending them at
all. It is quite a different matter when the sincere pietist, for whom
these services are framed, expresses the same opinion, and laments that
by the time the sermon commences, from which he would desire to profit,
his attention has been quite exhausted. We repeat that we should prefer
that such men as Mr Helps should explain to us distinctly what changes
they would effect. If they are such as are not adverse to the broad
principles of Protestantism, it is of moment that their wishes should be
consulted. If they are, indeed, such as would tend to efface the great
landmarks of our Protestant faith, let us know them—that we may resist
them to the utmost.
No small portion of the volume before us is occupied by a subject as
important as it is delicate and difficult to treat. Mr Helps calls it
“the sin of great cities.” The appellation is very correct, and of
itself gives rise to one consolatory reflection. There may be illicit
pleasure in the village or the hamlet, but it is only in great towns
that the degrading trade of the prostitute is known. Human society can
therefore exist without this foul and shameful species of commerce.
Our author has been meditating on the sad waste of youth and beauty
which the streets of a great city reveal to us, and on the many women
who might have made a home happy, who are left to corrupt and to be
corrupted in the highways of life; and he thus prettily introduces his
subject:—
“It was a bright winter’s day; and I sat upon a garden seat in a
sheltered nook towards the south, having come out of my study to enjoy
the warmth, like a fly that has left some snug crevice to stretch his
legs upon the unwontedly sunny pane in December. My little daughter
(she is a very little thing, about four years old) came running up to
me, and when she had arrived at my knees, held up a straggling but
pretty weed. Thus, with great earnestness, as if fresh from some
controversy on the subject, she exclaimed, ‘Is this a weed, papa? is
this a weed?’
“‘Yes, a weed,’ I replied.
“With a look of disappointment she moved off to the one she loved best
amongst us; and asking the same question, received the same answer.
“‘But it has flowers,’ the child replied.
“‘That does not signify; it is a weed,’ was the inexorable answer.
“Presently after a moment’s consideration, the child ran off again,
and meeting the gardener just near my nook, though out of sight from
where I sat, she coaxingly addressed him.
“‘Nicholas dear, is this a weed?’
“‘Yes, Miss; they call it shepherds’ purse.’
“A pause ensued. I thought the child was now fairly silenced by
authority, when all at once the little voice began again, ‘Will you
plant it in my garden, Nicholas dear? Do plant it in my garden.’
“There was no resisting the anxious entreaty of the child; and man and
child moved off together to plant the weed in one of those plots of
ground which the children walk about upon a good deal, and put
branches of trees in and grownup flowers, and which they call their
garden.
“But the child’s words, ‘Will you plant it in my garden?’ remained
upon my mind. That is what I have always been thinking, I exclaimed;
and it is what I will begin by saying.”
Mr Helps asserts, with perfect truth, that there is no hope for any
great reform here, whilst the moral opinion of men remains what it is
upon the subject. The religious world are sufficiently stringent upon
every breach of chastity; but men in general have very inadequate
notions of the evil they do, when they encourage the polluting and
pestilential commerce of the prostitute. It used to be the fashion—and
perhaps is still in some quarters—to defend this corruption on the plea
that it draws off the libertine from the modest and virtuous woman. A
very poor argument. It makes the libertine. Those who corrupt or invade
the chastity of women, are the same persons who have been themselves
corrupted by association with a class of the opposite sex, whose very
business it has become to break down all the restraints of modesty. It
is here that a _Lovelace_ receives his first instructions; and the
annals of Newgate will tell us that those who have committed still more
violent crimes, are not men who have lived chaste up to the time of
their offence. It makes the libertine. Still, if we had _Ellesmere_
amongst us, we should hear him replying, we suspect, in some such manner
as this:—I know that it is not the maiden knight who practises the arts
of the seducer. I know very well that he who is tried at the Old Bailey
has not rushed from a life of innocence and purity to the foul violence
he has committed. But this, too, I know, that if men become, in their
moral opinion, more strict against one form of _unconjugal_ pleasure,
they will become more indulgent in regard to some other form. There will
be more intrigue. I detest this Venus of the market place as much as
you; but I cannot help seeing that, if you banish her, you must expect
more lovemaking to go on in the private dwelling-house. I do not say,
however, that upon the whole this might not be a good bargain.
But we have not Ellesmere with us, and we shall attend to Milverton. As
one part of his subject he touches on the cruel indifference which some
men, who would still be thought very moral, can be guilty of towards
their illegitimate children. We should have hesitated to draw the
following picture; we should have doubted whether so flagrant a
hypocrisy existed in the world. Mr Helps, however, is a cautious man,
and probably drew from real life.
“I suppose there are few things clearer to the human mind than that a
father owes duties to his child. The dullest savages have seen that.
How can a man for a moment imagine that any difference of rank between
the mother of his child and himself can absolve him from paternal
duties? I am lost in astonishment at the notion. And then imagine a
man performing all manner of minor duties, neglecting this first one
the while. I always fancy that we may be surrounded by spiritual
powers. Now, think what a horrible mockery it must seem to them, when
they behold a man going to charity dinners, busying himself about
flannel for the poor, jabbering about education at public meetings,
immersed in indifferent forms and ceremonies of religion, or raging
against such things, _because it is his duty_, as he tells you; and at
the door, holding a link, or perhaps at that moment bringing home the
produce of small thefts in a neighbouring narrow alley—is his own
child, a pinched-up, haggard, outcast, cunning-looking little thing.
Throw down, man, the flannel and the soap, and the education, and the
Popery, and the Protestantism, and go up that narrow alley and tend
your child. Do not heap that palpably unjust burden on the back of a
world which has enough at all times of its own to bear. If you cannot
find your own child, adopt two others in its place, and let your care
for them be a sort of sin-offering.”
We have extended our extracts very far, but we do not like exactly to
leave off with this melancholy topic. At the same time it is by no means
our wish to spoil the perusal of this little book to such as have not
yet read it, by being too liberal in our quotations. From the number of
passages against which we find our pencil-mark, we will extract one
more. Mr Helps makes some observations worth giving reflection to, on
the power which the weak have over the strong—in what he calls “the
tyranny of the weak.”
“I venture to say that there is no observant man of the world who has
lived to the age of thirty, who has not seen numerous instances of
severe tyranny exercised by persons belonging to one or other of these
classes—(the sick, the aged, the spoilt, the pious but weak-minded);
and which tyranny has been established, continued and endured, solely
by reason of the weakness, real or supposed, of the persons exercising
it. Talking once with a thoughtful man on this subject, he remarked to
me, that, of course, the generous suffered much from the tyranny I was
speaking of, as the strength of it was drawn from their strength.
“If you come to analyse it, it is a tyranny exercised by playing upon
the good-nature, the fear of responsibility, the dread of acting
selfishly, the horror of giving pain, prevalent among good and kind
people. They often know that it is a tremendous tyranny they are
suffering under, but they do not feel it the less because they are
consenting parties.”
We must now bid adieu to Mr Helps, again expressing our hope that he
will give us more of these thoughts, which we promise him shall be the
“Companions of _our_ Solitude” as well as of his own.
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.
BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.
CHAPTER XVI.
Before a table, in the apartments appropriated to him in his father’s
house at Knightsbridge, sate Lord L’Estrange, sorting or destroying
letters and papers—an ordinary symptom of change of residence. There are
certain trifles by which a shrewd observer may judge of a man’s
disposition. Thus, ranged on the table, with some elegance, but with
soldierlike precision, were sundry little relics of former days,
hallowed by some sentiment of memory, or perhaps endeared solely by
custom; which, whether he was in Egypt, Italy, or England, always made
part of the furniture of Harley’s room. Even the small, old-fashioned,
and somewhat inconvenient inkstand in which he dipped the pen as he
labelled the letters he put aside, belonged to the writing-desk which
had been his pride as a schoolboy. Even the books that lay scattered
round were not new works, not those to which we turn to satisfy the
curiosity of an hour, or to distract our graver thoughts: they were
chiefly either Latin or Italian poets, with many a pencil-mark on the
margin; or books which, making severe demand on thought, require slow
and frequent perusal, and become companions. Somehow or other, in
remarking that even in dumb inanimate things the man was averse to
change, and had the habit of attaching himself to whatever was connected
with old associations, you might guess that he clung with pertinacity to
affections more important, and you could better comprehend the freshness
of his friendship for one so dissimilar in pursuits and character as
Audley Egerton. An affection once admitted into the heart of Harley
L’Estrange, seemed never to be questioned or reasoned with: it became
tacitly fixed, as it were, into his own nature; and little less than a
revolution of his whole system could dislodge or disturb it.
Lord L’Estrange’s hand rested now upon a letter in a stiff legible
Italian character; and instead of disposing of it at once, as he had
done with the rest, he spread it before him, and reread the contents. It
was a letter from Riccabocca, received a few weeks since, and ran thus:—
_Letter from Signior Riccabocca to Lord L’Estrange._
“I thank you, my noble friend, for judging of me with faith in my
honour, and respect for my reverses.
“No, and thrice no, to all concessions, all overtures, all treaty with
Giulio Franzini. I write the name, and my emotions choke me. I must
pause, and cool back into disdain. It is over. Pass from that subject.
But you have alarmed me. This sister! I have not seen her since her
childhood; but she was brought up under _his_ influence—she can but
work as his agent. She wish to learn my residence! It can be but for
some hostile and malignant purpose. I may trust in you—I know that.
You say I may trust equally in the discretion of your friend. Pardon
me—my confidence is not so elastic. A word may give the clue to my
retreat. But, if discovered, what harm can ensue? An English roof
protects me from Austrian despotism: true; but not the brazen tower of
Danaë could protect me from Italian craft. And, were there nothing
worse, it would be intolerable to me to live under the eyes of a
relentless spy. Truly saith our proverb, ‘He sleeps ill for whom the
enemy wakes.’ Look you, my friend, I have done with my old life—I wish
to cast it from me as a snake its skin. I have denied myself all that
exiles deem consolation. No pity for misfortune, no messages from
sympathising friendship, no news from a lost and bereaved country
follow me to my hearth under the skies of the stranger. From all these
I have voluntarily cut myself off. I am as dead to the life I once
lived as if the Styx rolled between _it_ and me. With that sternness
which is admissible only to the afflicted, I have denied myself even
the consolation of your visits. I have told you fairly and simply that
your presence would unsettle all my enforced and infirm philosophy,
and remind me only of the past, which I seek to blot from remembrance.
You have complied on the one condition, that whenever I really want
your aid I will ask it; and, meanwhile, you have generously sought to
obtain me justice from the cabinets of ministers and in the courts of
kings. I did not refuse your heart this luxury; for I have a
child—(Ah! I have taught that child already to revere your name, and
in her prayers it is not forgotten.) But now that you are convinced
that even your zeal is unavailing, I ask you to discontinue attempts
that may but bring the spy upon my track, and involve me in new
misfortunes. Believe me, O brilliant Englishman, that I am satisfied
and contented with my lot. I am sure it would not be for my happiness
to change it. ‘Chi non ha provato il male non conosce il bene.’ (‘One
does not know when one is well off till one has known misfortune.’)
You ask me how I live—I answer, _alla giornata_—to the day—not for the
morrow, as I did once. I have accustomed myself to the calm existence
of a village. I take interest in its details. There is my wife, good
creature, sitting opposite to me, never asking what I write, or to
whom, but ready to throw aside her work and talk the moment the pen is
out of my hand. Talk—and what about? Heaven knows! But I would rather
hear that talk, though on the affairs of a hamlet, than babble again
with recreant nobles and blundering professors about commonwealths and
constitutions. When I want to see how little those last influence the
happiness of wise men, have I not Machiavel and Thucydides? Then,
by-and-by, the Parson will drop in, and we argue. He never knows when
he is beaten, so the argument is everlasting. On fine days I ramble
out by a winding rill with my Violante, or stroll to my friend the
Squire’s, and see how healthful a thing is true pleasure; and on wet
days I shut myself up, and mope, perhaps, till, hark! a gentle tap at
the door, and in comes Violante, with her dark eyes, that shine out
through reproachful tears—reproachful that I should mourn alone, while
she is under my roof—so she puts her arms round me, and in five
minutes all is sunshine within. What care we for your English grey
clouds without?
“Leave me, my dear Lord—leave me to this quiet happy passage towards
old age, serener than the youth that I wasted so wildly; and guard
well the secret on which my happiness depends.
“Now to yourself, before I close. Of that same _yourself_ you speak
too little, as of me too much. But I so well comprehend the profound
melancholy that lies underneath the wild and fanciful humour with
which you but suggest, as in sport, what you feel so in earnest. The
laborious solitude of cities weighs on you. You are flying back to the
_dolce far niente_—to friends few, but intimate; to life monotonous,
but unrestrained; and even there the sense of loneliness will again
seize upon you; and you do not seek, as I do, the annihilation of
memory; your dead passions are turned to ghosts that haunt you, and
unfit you for the living world. I see it all—I see it still, in your
hurried fantastic lines, as I saw it when we two sat amidst the pines
and beheld the blue lake stretched below. I troubled by the shadow of
the Future, you disturbed by that of the Past.
“Well, but you say, half-seriously, half in jest, ‘I _will_ escape
from this prison-house of memory; I will form new ties, like other
men, and before it be too late; I _will_ marry—ay, but I must
love—there is the difficulty’—difficulty—yes, and heaven be thanked
for it! Recall all the unhappy marriages that have come to your
knowledge—pray have not eighteen out of twenty been marriages for
love? It always has been so, and it always will. Because, whenever we
love deeply, we exact so much and forgive so little. Be content to
find some one with whom your hearth and your honour are safe. You will
grow to love what never wounds your heart—you will soon grow out of
love with what must always disappoint your imagination. _Cospetto!_ I
wish my Jemima had a younger sister for you. Yet it was with a deep
groan that I settled myself to a—Jemima.
“Now, I have written you a long letter, to prove how little I need of
your compassion or your zeal. Once more let there be long silence
between us. It is not easy for me to correspond with a man of your
rank, and not incur the curious gossip of my still little pool of a
world which the splash of a pebble can break into circles. I must take
this over to a post-town some ten miles off, and drop it into the box
by stealth.
“Adieu, dear and noble friend, gentlest heart and subtlest fancy that
I have met in my walk through life. Adieu—write me word when you have
abandoned a day-dream and found a Jemima.
ALPHONSO.
“_P.S._—For heaven’s sake, caution and recaution your friend the
minister, not to drop a word to this woman that may betray my
hiding-place.”
“Is he really happy?” murmured Harley, as he closed the letter; and he
sank for a few moments into a reverie.
“This life in a village—this wife in a lady who puts down her work to
talk about villagers—what a contrast to Audley’s full existence. And I
can never envy nor comprehend either—yet my own—what is it?”
He rose, and moved towards the window, from which a rustic stair
descended to a green lawn—studded with larger trees than are often found
in the grounds of a suburban residence. There were calm and coolness in
the sight, and one could scarcely have supposed that London lay so near.
The door opened softly, and a lady, past middle age, entered; and,
approaching Harley, as he still stood musing by the window, laid her
hand on his shoulder. What character there is in a hand! Hers was a hand
that Titian would have painted with elaborate care! Thin, white, and
delicate—with the blue veins raised from the surface. Yet there was
something more than mere patrician elegance in the form and texture. A
true physiologist would have said at once, “there are intellect and
pride in that hand, which seems to fix a hold where it rests; and, lying
so lightly, yet will not be as lightly shaken off.”
“Harley,” said the lady—and Harley turned—“you do not deceive me by that
smile,” she continued sadly; “you were not smiling when I entered.”
“It is rarely that we smile to ourselves, my dear mother; and I have
done nothing lately so foolish as to cause me to smile _at_ myself.”
“My son,” said Lady Lansmere, somewhat abruptly, but with great
earnestness, “you come from a line of illustrious ancestors; and
methinks they ask from their tombs why the last of their race has no aim
and no object—no interest—no home in the land which they served, and
which rewarded them with its honours.”
“Mother,” said the soldier simply, “when the land was in danger I served
it as my forefathers served—and my answer would be the scars on my
breast.”
“Is it only in danger that a country is served—only in war that duty is
fulfilled? Do you think that your father, in his plain manly life of
country gentleman, does not fulfil, though obscurely, the objects for
which aristocracy is created and wealth is bestowed?”
“Doubtless he does, ma’am—and better than his vagrant son ever can.”
“Yet his vagrant son has received such gifts from nature—his youth was
so rich in promise—his boyhood so glowed at the dream of glory!—”
“Ay,” said Harley very softly, “it is possible—and all to be buried in a
single grave!”
The Countess started, and withdrew her hand from Harley’s shoulder.
Lady Lansmere’s countenance was not one that much varied in expression.
She had in this, as in her cast of feature, little resemblance to her
son.
Her features were slightly aquiline—the eyebrows of that arch which
gives a certain majesty to the aspect: the lines round the mouth were
habitually rigid and compressed. Her face was that of one who had gone
through great emotion and subdued it. There was something formal, and
even ascetic, in the character of her beauty, which was still
considerable;—in her air and in her dress. She might have suggested to
you the idea of some Gothic baroness of old, half chatelaine, half
abbess; you would see at a glance that she did not live in the light
world round her, and disdained its fashion and its mode of thought; yet
with all this rigidity it was still the face of the woman who has known
human ties and human affections. And now, as she gazed long on Harley’s
quiet, saddened brow, it was the face of a mother.
“A single grave,” she said, after a long pause. “And you were then but a
boy, Harley! Can such a memory influence you even to this day? It is
scarcely possible: it does not seem to me within the realities of man’s
life—though it might be of woman’s.”
“I believe,” said Harley, half soliloquising, “that I have a great deal
of the woman in me. Perhaps men who live much alone, and care not for
men’s objects, do grow tenacious of impressions, as your sex does. But
oh,” he cried aloud, and with a sudden change of countenance, “oh, the
hardest and the coldest man would have felt as I do, had he known
_her_—had he loved _her_. She was like no other woman I have ever met.
Bright and glorious creature of another sphere! She descended on this
earth, and darkened it when she passed away. It is no use striving.
Mother, I have as much courage as our steel-clad fathers ever had. I
have dared in battle and in deserts—against man and the wild
beast—against the storm and the ocean—against the rude powers of
Nature—dangers as dread as ever pilgrim or Crusader rejoiced to brave.
But courage against that one memory! no, I have none!”
“Harley, Harley, you break my heart,” cried the Countess, clasping her
hands.
“It is astonishing,” continued her son, so wrapped in his own thoughts
that he did not perhaps hear her outcry. “Yea, verily, it is
astonishing, that considering the thousands of women I have seen and
spoken with, I never see a face like hers—never hear a voice so sweet.
And all this universe of life cannot afford me one look and one tone
that can restore me to man’s privilege—love. Well, well, well, life has
other things yet—Poetry and Art live still—still smiles the heaven, and
still wave the trees. Leave me to happiness in my own way.”
The Countess was about to reply, when the door was thrown hastily open,
and Lord Lansmere walked in.
The Earl was some years older than the Countess, but his placid face
showed less wear and tear; a benevolent, kindly face—without any
evidence of commanding intellect, but with no lack of sense in its
pleasant lines. His form not tall, but upright, and with an air of
consequence—a little pompous, but good-humouredly so. The pomposity of
the _Grand Seigneur_, who has lived much in provinces—whose will has
been rarely disputed, and whose importance has been so felt and
acknowledged as to react insensibly on himself;—an excellent man; but
when you glanced towards the high brow and dark eye of the Countess, you
marvelled a little how the two had come together, and, according to
common report, lived so happily in the union.
“Ho, ho! my dear Harley,” cried Lord Lansmere, rubbing his hands with an
appearance of much satisfaction, “I have just been paying a visit to the
Duchess.”
“What Duchess, my dear father?”
“Why, your mother’s first cousin, to be sure—the Duchess of
Knaresborough, whom, to oblige me, you condescended to call upon; and
delighted I am to hear that you admire Lady Mary—”
“She is very high-bred, and rather—high-nosed,” answered Harley. Then
observing that his mother looked pained, and his father disconcerted, he
added seriously, “But handsome certainly.”
“Well, Harley,” said the Earl, recovering himself, “the Duchess, taking
advantage of our connection to speak freely, has intimated to me that
Lady Mary has been no less struck with yourself; and, to come to the
point, since you allow that it is time you should think of marrying, I
do not know a more desirable alliance. What do you say, Catherine?”
“The Duke is of a family that ranks in history before the Wars of the
Roses,” said Lady Lansmere, with an air of deference to her husband;
“and there has never been one scandal in its annals, or one blot in its
scutcheon. But I am sure my dear Lord must think that the Duchess should
not have made the first overture—even to a friend and a kinsman?”
“Why, we are old-fashioned people,” said the Earl, rather embarrassed,
“and the Duchess is a woman of the world.”
“Let us hope,” said the Countess mildly, “that her daughter is not.”
“I would not marry Lady Mary, if all the rest of the female sex were
turned into apes,” said Lord L’Estrange, with deliberate fervour.
“Good heavens!” cried the Earl, “what extraordinary language is this!
And pray why, sir?”
HARLEY.—“I can’t say—there is no why in these cases. But, my dear
father, you are not keeping faith with me.”
LORD LANSMERE.—“How?”
HARLEY.—“You, and my Lady here, entreat me to marry—I promise to do my
best to obey you; but on one condition—that I choose for myself, and
take my time about it. Agreed on both sides. Whereon, off goes your
Lordship—actually before noon, at an hour when no lady without a shudder
could think of cold blonde and damp orange flowers—off goes your
Lordship, I say, and commits poor Lady Mary and your unworthy son to a
mutual admiration—which neither of us ever felt. Pardon me, my
father—but this is grave. Again let me claim your promise—full choice
for myself, and no reference to the Wars of the Roses. What war of the
roses like that between Modesty and Love upon the cheek of the virgin!”
LADY LANSMERE.—“Full choice for yourself, Harley;—so be it. But we, too,
named a condition—Did we not, Lansmere?”
The EARL, (puzzled.)—“Eh—did we? Certainly we did.”
HARLEY.—“What was it?”
LADY LANSMERE.—“The son of Lord Lansmere can only marry the daughter of
a gentleman.”
The EARL.—“Of course—of course.”
The blood rushed over Harley’s fair face, and then as suddenly left it
pale.
He walked away to the window—his mother followed him, and again laid her
hand on his shoulder.
“You were cruel,” said he, gently and in a whisper, as he winced under
the touch of the hand. Then turning to the Earl, who was gazing at him
in blank surprise—(it never occurred to Lord Lansmere that there could
be a doubt of his son’s marrying beneath the rank modestly stated by the
Countess)—Harley stretched forth his hand, and said, in his soft winning
tone, “You have ever been most gracious to me, and most forbearing; it
is but just that I should sacrifice the habits of an egotist, to gratify
a wish which you so warmly entertain. I agree with you, too, that our
race should not close in me—_Noblesse oblige_. But you know I was ever
romantic; and I must love where I marry—or, if not love, I must feel
that my wife is worthy of all the love I could once have bestowed. Now,
as to the vague word ‘gentleman’ that my mother employs—word that means
so differently on different lips—I confess that I have a prejudice
against young ladies brought up in the ‘excellent foppery of the world,’
as the daughters of gentlemen of our rank mostly are. I crave,
therefore, the most liberal interpretation of this word ‘gentleman.’ And
so long as there be nothing mean or sordid in the birth, habits, and
education of the father of this bride to be, I trust you will both agree
to demand nothing more—neither titles nor pedigree.”
“Titles, no—assuredly,” said Lady Lansmere; “they do not make
gentlemen.”
“Certainly not,” said the Earl. “Many of our best families are
untitled.”
“Titles—no,” repeated Lady Lansmere; “but ancestors—yes.”
“Ah, my mother,” said Harley, with his most sad and quiet smile, “it is
fated that we shall never agree. The first of our race is ever the one
we are most proud of; and pray, what ancestors had he? Beauty, virtue,
modesty, intellect—if these are not nobility enough for a man, he is a
slave to the dead.”
With these words Harley took up his hat and made towards the door.
“You said yourself, _Noblesse oblige_,” said the Countess, following him
to the threshold; “we have nothing more to add.”
Harley slightly shrugged his shoulders, kissed his mother’s hand,
whistled to Nero, who started up from a doze by the window, and went his
way.
“Does he really go abroad next week?” said the Earl.
“So he says.”
“I am afraid there is no chance for Lady Mary,” resumed Lord Lansmere,
with a slight but melancholy smile.
“She has not intellect enough to charm him. She is not worthy of
Harley,” said the proud mother.
“Between you and me,” rejoined the Earl, rather timidly, “I don’t see
what good his intellect does him. He could not be more unsettled and
useless if he were the merest dunce in the three kingdoms. And so
ambitious as he was when a boy! Katherine, I sometimes fancy that you
know what changed him.”
“I! Nay, my dear Lord, it is a common change enough with the young, when
of such fortunes; who find, when they enter life, that there is really
little left for them to strive for. Had Harley been a poor man’s son, it
might have been different.”
“I was born to the same fortunes as Harley,” said the Earl, shrewdly,
“and yet I flatter myself I am of some use to old England.”
The Countess seized upon the occasion, complimented her Lord, and turned
the subject.