A SCHOLAR, BUT OF A DIFFERENT MOULD FROM THE STUDENT OF
GRASSDALE.--NEW PARTICULARS CONCERNING GEOFFREY LESTER.--THE
JOURNEY RECOMMENCED.
Upon inquiring for Mr. Elmore, Walter was shown into a handsome
library, that appeared well-stocked with books, of that good, old-
fashioned size and solidity, which are now fast passing from the world,
or at least shrinking into old shops and public collections. The time may
come, when the mouldering remains of a folio will attract as much
philosophical astonishment as the bones of the mammoth. For behold, the
deluge of writers hath produced a new world of small octavo! and in the
next generation, thanks to the popular libraries, we shall only vibrate
between the duodecimo and the diamond edition. Nay, we foresee the time
when a very handsome collection may be carried about in one's waistcoat-
pocket, and a whole library of the British Classics be neatly arranged in
a well-compacted snuff-box.
In a few minutes Mr. Elmore made his appearance; he was a short, well-
built man, about the age of fifty. Contrary to the established mode, he
wore no wig, and was very bald; except at the sides of the head, and a
little circular island of hair in the centre. But this defect was
rendered the less visible by a profusion of powder. He was dressed with
evident care and precision; a snuff-coloured coat was adorned with a
respectable profusion of gold lace; his breeches were of plum-coloured
satin; his salmon-coloured stockings, scrupulously drawn up, displayed a
very handsome calf; and a pair of steel buckles in his high-heeled and
square-toed shoes, were polished into a lustre which almost rivalled the
splendour of diamonds. Mr. Jonas Elmore was a beau, a wit, and a scholar
of the old school. He abounded in jests, in quotations, in smart sayings,
and pertinent anecdotes: but, withal, his classical learning, (out of the
classics he knew little enough,) was at once elegant, but wearisome;
pedantic, but profound.
To this gentleman Walter presented a letter of introduction which he had
obtained from a distinguished clergyman in York. Mr. Elmore received it
with a profound salutation--"Aha, from my friend, Dr. Hebraist," said he,
glancing at the seal, "a most worthy man, and a ripe scholar. I presume
at once, Sir, from his introduction, that you yourself have cultivated
the literas humaniores. Pray sit down--ay--I see, you take up a book, an
excellent symptom; it gives me an immediate insight into your character.
But you have chanced, Sir, on light reading,--one of the Greek novels, I
think,--you must not judge of my studies by such a specimen."
"Nevertheless, Sir, it does not seem to my unskilful eye very easy
Greek."
"Pretty well, Sir; barbarous, but amusing,--pray continue it. The
triumphal entry of Paulus Emilius is not ill told. I confess, that I
think novels might be made much higher works than they have been yet.
Doubtless, you remember what Aristotle says concerning Painters and
Sculptors, 'that they teach and recommend virtue in a more efficacious
and powerful manner, than Philosophers by their dry precepts, and are
more capable of amending the vicious, than the best moral lessons without
such aid.' But how much more, Sir, can a good novelist do this, than the
best sculptor or painter in the world! Every one can be charmed by a fine
novel, few by a fine painting. 'Indocti rationem artis intelligunt,
indocti voluptatem.' A happy sentence that in Quinctilian, Sir, is it
not? But, bless me, I am forgetting the letter of my good friend Dr.
Hebraist. The charms of your conversation carry me away. And indeed I
have seldom the happiness to meet a gentleman so well-informed as
yourself. I confess, Sir, I confess that I still retain the tastes of my
boyhood; the Muses cradled my childhood, they now smooth the pillow of my
footstool--Quem tu, Melpomene, are not yet subject to gout, dira podagra:
By the way, how is the worthy Doctor since his attack?--Ah, see now, if
you have not still, by your delightful converse, kept me from his letter-
-yet, positively I need no introduction to you, Apollo has already
presented you to me. And as for the Doctor's letter, I will read it after
dinner; for as Seneca--" "I beg your pardon a thousand times, Sir," said
Walter, who began to despair of ever coming to the matter which seemed
lost sight of beneath this battery of erudition, "but you will find by
Dr. Hebraist's letter, that it is only on business of the utmost
importance that I have presumed to break in upon the learned leisure of
Mr. Jonas Elmore."
"Business!" replied Mr. Elmore, producing his spectacles, and
deliberately placing them athwart his nose,
"'His mane edictum, post prandia Callirhoen, etc.
"Business in the morning, and the ladies after dinner. Well, Sir, I will
yield to you in the one, and you must yield to me in the other: I will
open the letter, and you shall dine here, and be introduced to Mrs.
Elmore;--What is your opinion of the modern method of folding letters? I-
-but I see you are impatient." Here Mr. Elmore at length broke the seal;
and to Walter's great joy fairly read the contents within.
"Oh! I see, I see!" he said, refolding the epistle, and placing it in his
pocket-book; "my friend, Dr. Hebraist, says you are anxious to be
informed whether Mr. Clarke ever received the legacy of my poor cousin,
Colonel Elmore; and if so, any tidings I can give you of Mr. Clarke
himself; or any clue to discover him will be highly acceptable. I gather,
Sir, from my friend's letter, that this is the substance of your business
with me, caput negotii;--although, like Timanthes, the painter, he leaves
more to be understood than is described, 'intelligitur plus quam
pingitur,' as Pliny has it."
"Sir," said Walter, drawing his chair close to Mr. Elmore, and his
anxiety forcing itself to his countenance, "that is indeed the substance
of my business with you; and so important will be any information you can
give me that I shall esteem it a--" "Not a very great favour, eh?--not
very great?"
"Yes, indeed, a very great obligation."
"I hope not, Sir; for what says Tacitus--that profound reader of the
human heart,--'beneficia eo usque loeta sunt,' favours easily rapaid
beget affection--favours beyond return engender hatred. But, Sir, a truce
to trifling;" and here Mr. Elmore composed his countenance, and changed,-
-which he could do at will, so that the change was not expected to last
long--the pedant for the man of business.
"Mr. Clarke did receive his legacy: the lease of the house at
Knaresborough was also sold by his desire, and produced the sum of seven
hundred and fifty pounds; which being added to the farther sum of a
thousand pounds, which was bequeathed to him, amounted to seventeen
hundred and fifty pounds. It so happened, that my cousin had possessed
some very valuable jewels, which were bequeathed to myself. I, Sir,
studious, and a cultivator of the Muse, had no love and no use for these
baubles; I preferred barbaric gold to barbaric pearl; and knowing that
Clarke had been in India, from whence these jewels had been brought, I
showed them to him, and consulted his knowledge on these matters, as to
the best method of obtaining a sale. He offered to purchase them of me,
under the impression that he could turn them to a profitable speculation
in London. Accordingly we came to terms: I sold the greater part of them
to him for a sum a little exceeding a thousand pounds. He was pleased
with his bargain; and came to borrow the rest of me, in order to look at
them more considerately at home, and determine whether or not he should
buy them also. Well, Sir, (but here comes the remarkable part of the
story,) about three days after this last event, Mr. Clarke and my jewels
both disappeared in rather a strange and abrupt manner. In the middle of
the night he left his lodging at Knaresborough, and never returned;
neither himself nor my jewels were ever heard of more!"
"Good God!" exclaimed Walter, greatly agitated; "what was supposed to be
the cause of his disappearance?"
"That," replied Elmore, "was never positively traced. It excited great
surprise and great conjecture at the time. Advertisements and handbills
were circulated throughout the country, but in vain. Mr. Clarke was
evidently a man of eccentric habits, of a hasty temper, and a wandering
manner of life; yet it is scarcely probable that he took this sudden
manner of leaving the country either from whim or some secret but honest
motive never divulged. The fact is, that he owed a few debts in the town-
-that he had my jewels in his possession, and as (pardon me for saying
this, since you take an interest in him,) his connections were entirely
unknown in these parts, and his character not very highly estimated,--
(whether from his manner, or his conversation, or some undefined and
vague rumours, I cannot say)--it was considered by no means improbable
that he had decamped with his property in this sudden manner in order to
save himself that trouble of settling accounts which a more seemly and
public method of departure might have rendered necessary. A man of the
name of Houseman, with whom he was acquainted, (a resident in
Knaresborough,) declared that Clarke had borrowed rather a considerable
sum from him, and did not scruple openly to accuse him of the evident
design to avoid repayment. A few more dark but utterly groundless
conjectures were afloat; and since the closest search--the minutest
inquiry was employed without any result, the supposition that he might
have been robbed and murdered was strongly entertained for some time; but
as his body was never found, nor suspicion directed against any
particular person, these conjectures insensibly died away; and being so
complete a stranger to these parts, the very circumstance of his
disappearance was not likely to occupy, for very long, the attention of
that old gossip the Public, who, even in the remotest parts, has a
thousand topics to fill up her time and talk. And now, Sir, I think you
know as much of the particulars of the case as any one in these parts can
inform you."
We may imagine the various sensations which this unsatisfactory
intelligence caused in the adventurous son of the lost wanderer. He
continued to throw out additional guesses, and to make farther inquiries
concerning a tale which seemed to him so mysterious, but without effect;
and he had the mortification to perceive, that the shrewd Jonas was, in
his own mind, fully convinced that the permanent disappearance of Clark
was accounted for only by the most dishonest motives.
"And," added Elmore, I am confirmed in this belief by discovering
afterwards from a tradesman in York who had seen my cousin's jewels--that
those I had trusted to Mr. Clarke's hands were more valuable than I had
imagined them, and therefore it was probably worth his while to make off
with them as quietly as possible. He went on foot, leaving his horse, a
sorry nag, to settle with me and the other claimants.
"I, pedes quo te rapiunt et aurae!"
"Heavens!" thought Walter, sinking back in his chair sickened and
disheartened, "what a parent, if the opinions of all men who knew him be
true, do I thus zealously seek to recover!"
The good-natured Elmore, perceiving the unwelcome and painful impression
his account had produced on his young guest, now exerted himself to
remove, or at least to lessen it; and turning the conversation into a
classical channel, which with him was the Lethe to all cares, he soon
forgot that Clarke had ever existed, in expatiating on the unappreciated
excellences of Propertius, who, to his mind, was the most tender of all
elegiac poets, solely because he was the most learned. Fortunately this
vein of conversation, however tedious to Walter, preserved him from the
necessity of rejoinder, and left him to the quiet enjoyment of his own
gloomy and restless reflections.
At length the time touched upon dinner; Elmore, starting up, adjourned to
the drawing-room, in order to present the handsome stranger to the
placens uxor--the pleasing wife, whom, in passing through the hall, he
eulogized with an amazing felicity of diction.
The object of these praises was a tall, meagre lady, in a yellow dress
carried up to the chin, and who added a slight squint to the charms of
red hair, ill concealed by powder, and the dignity of a prodigiously high
nose. "There is nothing, Sir," said Elmore, "nothing, believe me, like
matrimonial felicity. Julia, my dear, I trust the chickens will not be
overdone."
"Indeed, Mr. Elmore, I cannot tell; I did not boil them."
"Sir," said Elmore, turning to his guest, I do not know whether you will
agree with me, but I think a slight tendency to gourmandism is absolutely
necessary to complete the character of a truly classical mind. So many
beautiful touches are there in the ancient poets--so many delicate
allusions in history and in anecdote relating to the gratification of the
palate, that if a man have no correspondent sympathy with the illustrious
epicures of old, he is rendered incapable of enjoying the most beautiful
passages, that--Come, Sir, the dinner is served:
"'Nutrimus lautis mollissima corpora mensis.'"
As they crossed the hall to the dining-room, a young lady, whom Elmore
hastily announced as his only daughter, appeared descending the stairs,
having evidently retired for the purpose of re-arranging her attire for
the conquest of the stranger. There was something in Miss Elmore that
reminded Walter of Ellinor, and, as the likeness struck him, he felt, by
the sudden and involuntary sigh it occasioned, how much the image of his
cousin had lately gained ground upon his heart.
Nothing of any note occurred during dinner, until the appearance of the
second course, when Elmore, throwing himself back with an air of content,
that signified the first edge of his appetite was blunted, observed, Sir,
the second course I always opine to be the more dignified and rational
part of a repast--
"'Quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit.'"
[That which is now reason, at first was but desire.]
"Ah! Mr. Elmore," said the lady, glancing towards a brace of very fine
pigeons, "I cannot tell you how vexed I am at a mistake of the
gardener's: you remember my poor pet pigeons, so attached to each other--
would not mix with the rest--quite an inseparable friendship, Mr. Lester
--well, they were killed by mistake, for a couple of vulgar pigeons. Ah!
I could not touch a bit of them for the world."
"My love," said Elmore, pausing, and with great solemnity, "hear how
beautiful a consolation is afforded to you in Valerius Maximus:--'Ubi
idem et maximus et honestissimus amor est, aliquando praestat morte jungi
quam vitae distrahi;' which being interpreted, means, that wherever, as in
the case of your pigeons, a thoroughly high and sincere affection exists,
it is sometimes better to be joined in death than divided in life.--Give
me half the fatter one, if you please, Julia."
"Sir," said Elmore, when the ladies withdrew, "I cannot tell you how
pleased I am to meet with a gentleman so deeply imbued with classic lore.
I remember, several years ago, before my poor cousin died, it was my lot,
when I visited him at Knaresborough, to hold some delightful
conversations on learned matters with a very rising young scholar who
then resided at Knaresborough,--Eugene Aram. Conversations as difficult
to obtain as delightful to remember, for he was exceedingly reserved."
"Aram!" repeated Walter.
"What, you know him then?--and where does he live now?"
"In--, very near my uncle's residence. He is certainly a remarkable man."
"Yes, indeed he promised to become so. At the time I refer to, he was
poor to penury, and haughty as poor; but it was wonderful to note the
iron energy with which he pursued his progress to learning. Never did I
see a youth,--at that time he was no more,--so devoted to knowledge for
itself.
'Doctrin‘ pretium triste magister habet.'"
"Methinks," added Elmore, "I can see him now, stealing away from the
haunts of men,
'With even step and musing gait,'--
across the quiet fields, or into the woods, whence he was certain not to
re-appear till night-fall. Ah! he was a strange and solitary being, but
full of genius, and promise of bright things hereafter. I have often
heard since of his fame as a scholar, but could never learn where he
lived or what was now his mode of life. Is he yet married?"
"Not yet, I believe; but he is not now so absolutely poor as you describe
him to have been then, though certainly far from rich."
"Yes, yes, I remember that he received a legacy from a relation shortly
before he left Knaresborough. He had very delicate health at that time:
has he grown stronger with increasing years?"
"He does not complain of ill health. And pray, was he then of the same
austere and blameless habits of life that he now professes?"
"Nothing could be so faultless as his character appeared; the passions of
youth--(ah! I was a wild fellow at his age,) never seemed to venture near
one.
'Quem casto erudit docta Minerva sinu.'
Well, I am surprised he has not married. We scholars, Sir, fall in love
with abstractions, and fancy the first woman we see is--Sir, let us drink
the ladies."
The next day Walter, having resolved to set out for Knaresborough,
directed his course towards that town; he thought it yet possible that he
might, by strict personal inquiry, continue the clue that Elmore's
account had, to present appearance, broken. The pursuit in which he was
engaged, combined, perhaps, with the early disappointment to his
affections, had given a grave and solemn tone to a mind naturally ardent
and elastic. His character acquired an earnestness and a dignity from
late events; and all that once had been hope within him, deepened into
thought. As now, on a gloomy and clouded day he pursued his course along
a bleak and melancholy road, his mind was filled with that dark
presentiment--that shadow from the coming event, which superstition
believes the herald of the more tragic discoveries, or the more fearful
incidents of life; he felt steeled, and prepared for some dread
denouement,--to a journey to which the hand of Providence seemed to
conduct his steps; and he looked on the shroud that Time casts over all
beyond the present moment with the same intense and painful resolve with
which, in the tragic representations of life, we await the drawing up of
the curtain before the last act, which contains the catastrophe--that
while we long, we half shudder to behold.
Meanwhile, in following the adventures of Walter Lester, we have greatly
outstript the progress of events of Grassdale, and thither we now return.