I grew impatient to leave Ostend; every association connected with the
place was unpleasant. I hope I am not unjust in my estimate of it I
sincerely desire to be neither unjust to men nor cities, but I thought
it vulgar and commonplace. I know it is hard for a watering-place to
be otherwise; there is something essentially low in the green-baize
and bathing-house existence,--in that semi-nude sociality, begun on the
sands and carried out into deep water, which I cannot abide. I abhor,
besides, a lounging population in fancy toilets, a procession of donkeys
in scarlet trappings, elderly gentlemen with pocket-telescopes, and
fierce old ladies with camp-stools. The worn-out debauchees come to
recruit for another season of turtle and whitebait; the half-faded
victims of twenty polkas per night, the tiresome politician, pale from
a long session, all fiercely bent on fresh diet and sea-breezes, are
perfect antipathies to me, and I would rather seek companionship in a
Tyrol village than amidst these wounded and missing of a London
season. With all this I wanted to get away from the vicinity of the
Jopplyns,--they were positively odious to me. Is not the man who holds
in his keeping one scrap of your handwriting which displays you in
a light of absurdity, far more your enemy than the holder of your
protested bill? I own I think so. Debt is a very human weakness; like
disease, it attacks the best and the noblest amongst us. You' may pity
the fellow that cannot meet that acceptance, you may be sorry for the
anxiety it occasions him, the fruitless running here and there, the
protestations, promises, and even lies he goes through, but no sense of
ludicrous scorn mingles with your compassion, none of that contemptuous
laughter with which you read a copy of absurd verses or a maudlin
love-letter.
Imagine the difference of tone in him who says: “That's an old bill of
poor Potto's; he 'll never pay it now, and I 'm sure I 'll never ask
him.” Or, “Just read those lines; would you believe that any creature
out of Ham well could descend to such miserable drivel as that? It was
one Potts who wrote it.”
I wonder, could I obtain my manuscript from Jopplyn before I started.
What pretext could I adduce for the request? While I thus pondered, I
packed up my few wearables in my knapsack and prepared for the road.
They were, indeed, a very scanty supply, and painfully suggested to
my mind the estimate that waiters and hotel-porters must form of their
owner. “Cruel world,” muttered I, “whose maxim is, 'By their outsides
shall ye judge them.' Had I arrived here with a travelling-carriage and
a 'fourgon,' what respect and deference had awaited me,--how courteous
the landlord, how obliging the head-waiter! Twenty attentions which
could not be charged for in the bill had been shown me; and even had
I, in superb dignity, declined to descend from my carriage while the
post-horses were being harnessed, a levee of respectful flunkeys would
have awaited my orders. I have no doubt but there must be something very
intoxicating in all this homage. The smoke of the hecatombs must have
affected Jove as a sort of chloroform, or else he would never have sat
there sniffing them for centuries. Are you ever destined to experience
these sensations, Potts? Is there a time coming when anxious ears will
strain to catch your words, and eyes watch eagerly for your slightest
gestures? If such an era should ever come, it will be a great one for
the masses of mankind, and an evil one for snobbery. Such a lesson as I
will read the world on humility in high places, such an example will I
give of one elevated, but uncorrupted by fortune.”
“Let the carriage come to the door,” said I, closing my eyes, as I sunk
into my chair in revery. “Tell my people to prepare the entire of the
'Hôtel de Belle Vue' for my arrival, and my own cook to preside in the
kitchen.”
“Is this to go by the omnibus?” said the waiter, suddenly, on entering
my room in haste. He pointed to my humble knapsack.
“Yes,” said I, in deep confusion,--“yes, that's my luggage,--at least,
all that I have here at this moment. Where is the bill? Very moderate,
indeed,” muttered I, in a tone of approval. “I will take care to
recommend your house; attendance prompt, and the wines excellent.”
“Monsieur is complimentary,” said the fellow, with a grin; “he only
experimented upon a 'small Beaune' at one-twenty the bottle.”
I scowled at him, and he shrank again.
“And this _objet_ is also monsieur's,” said he, taking up a small white
canvas bag which was enclosed in my railroad wrapper.
“What is it?” cried I, taking it up. I almost fell back as I saw that
it was one of the despatch-bags of the Foreign Office, which in my hasty
departure from the Dover train I had accidentally carried off with me.
There it was, addressed to “Sir Shalley Doubleton, H.M.'s Envoy and
Minister at Hesse-Kalbbratonstadt, by the Hon. Grey Buller, Attaché,”
&c.
Here was not alone what might be construed into a theft, but what it was
well possible, might comprise one of the gravest offences against the
law: it might be high treason itself! Who would ever credit my story,
coupled as it was with the fact of my secret escape from the carriage;
my precipitate entrance into the first place I could find, not to speak
of the privacy I observed by not mixing with the passengers in the
mail packet, by keeping myself estranged from all observation in the
captain's cabin? Here, too, was the secret of the skipper's politeness
to me: he saw the bag, and believed me to be a Foreign Office messenger,
and this was his meaning, as he said, “I can answer for him, he can't
delay much here.” Yes; this was the entire mystification by which I
obtained his favor, his politeness, and his protection. What was to be
done in this exigency? Had the waiter not seen the bag, and with the
instincts of his craft calmly perused the address on it, I believe--nay,
I am quite convinced--I should have burned it and its contents on
the spot. The thought of his evidence against me in the event of a
discovery, however, entirely routed this notion, and, after a brief
consideration I resolved to convey the bag to its destination, and trump
up the most plausible explanation I could of the way it came into my
possession. His Excellency, I reasoned, will doubtless be too delighted
to receive his despatches to inquire very minutely as to the means by
which they were recovered, nor is it quite impossible that he may
feel bound to mark my zeal for the public service by some token of
recognition. This was a pleasant turn to give to my thoughts, and I took
it with all the avidity of my peculiar temperament. “Yes,” thought I,
“it is just out of trivial incidents like this a man's fortune is made
in life. For one man who mounts to greatness by the great entrance and
the state staircase, ten thousand slip in by _la petite Porte_. It
is, in fact, only by these chances that obscure genius obtains
acknowledgment How, for example, should this great diplomatist know
Potts if some accident should not throw them together? Raleigh flung
his laced jacket in a puddle, and for his reward he got a proud Queen's
favor. A village apothecary had the good fortune to be visiting the
state apartments at the Pavilion when George the Fourth was seized with
a fit; he bled him, brought him back to consciousness, and made him
laugh by his genial and quaint humor. The king took a fancy to him,
named him his physician, and made his fortune. I have often heard it
remarked by men who have seen much of life, that nobody, not one, goes
through the world without two or three such opportunities presenting
themselves. The careless, the indolent, the unobservant, and the idle,
either fail to remark, or are too slow to profit by them. The sharp
fellows, on the contrary, see in such incidents all that they need to
lead them to success. Into which of these categories you are to enter,
Potts, let this incident decide.”
Having by a reference to my John Murray ascertained the whereabouts of
the capital of Hesse-Kalbbratonstadt, I took my place at once on the
rail for Cologne, reading myself up on its beauty and its belongings as
I went There is, however, such a dreary sameness in these small Ducal
states, that I am ashamed to say how little I gleaned of anything
distinctive in the case before me. The reigning sovereign was, of
course, married to a Grand Duchess of Russia, and he lived at a
country-seat called Ludwig's Lust, or Carl's Lust, as it might be, “took
little interest in politics,”--how should he?--and “passed much of
his time in mechanical pursuits, in which he had attained considerable
proficiency;” in other words, he was a middle-aged gentleman, fond of
his pipe, and with a taste for carpentry. Some sort of connection with
our own royal family had been the pretext for having a resident minister
at his court, though what he was to do when he was there seemed not
so easy to say. Even John, glorious John, was puzzled how to make a
respectable half-page out of his capital, though there was a dome in the
Byzantine style, with an altarpiece by Peter von Grys, the angels in
the corner being added afterwards by Hans Lûders; and there was a
Hof Theatre, and an excellent inn, the “Schwein,” by Kramm, where the
sausages of home manufacture were highly recommendable, no less than a
table wine of the host's vineyard, called “Magenschmerzer,” and which,
Murray adds, would doubtless, if known, find many admirers in England;
and lastly, but far from leastly, there was a Music Garten, where
popular pieces were performed very finely by an excellent German band,
and to which promenade all the fashion of the capital nightly resorted.
I give you all these details, respected reader, just as I got them in my
“Northern Germany,” and not intending to obtrude any further description
of my own upon you; for who, I would ask, could amplify upon his
Handbook? What remains to be noted after John has taken the inventory?
Has he forgotten a nail or a saint's shin-bone? With him for a guide, a
man may feel that he has done his Em-ope conscientiously; and though it
be hard to treasure up all the hard names of poets, painters, priests,
and warriors, it is not worse than botany, and about as profitable.
For the same reason that I have given above, I spare my reader all
the circumstances of my journey, my difficulties about carriage, my
embarrassments about steamboats and cab fares, which were all of the
order that Brown and Jones have experienced, are experiencing, and will
continue to experience, till the arrival of that millenary period when
we shall all converse in any tongue we please.
It was at nightfall that I drove into Kalbbratonstadt, my postilion
announcing my advent at the gates, and all the way to the Platz where
the inn stood, by a volley of whip-crackings which might have announced
a Grand-Duke or a prima donna. Some casements were hastily opened, as
we rumbled along, and the guests of a _café_ issued hurriedly into
the street to watch us; but these demonstrations over, I gained the
“Schwein” without further notice, and descended.
Herr Krainm looked suspiciously at the small amount of luggage of the
traveller who arrived by “extra post,” but, like an honest German, he
was not one to form rash judgments, and so he showed me to a comfortable
apartment, and took my orders for supper in all respectfulness.
He waited upon me also at my meal, and gave me opportunity for
conversation. While I ate my Carbonade mit Kartoffel-Salad, therefore, I
learned that, being already nine o'clock, it was far too late an hour
to present myself at the English Embassy,--for so he designated our
minister's residence; that, at this advanced period of the night there
were but few citizens out of their beds: the Ducal candle was always
extinguished at half-past eight, and only roisterers and revellers kept
it up much later. My first surprise over, I owned I liked all this.
It smacked of that simple patriarchal existence I had so long yearned
after. Let the learned explain it, but there is, I assert, something in
the early hours of a people that guarantee habits of simplicity, thrift,
and order. It is all very well to say that people can be as wicked at
eight in the evening as at two or three in the morning; that crime cares
little for the clock, nor does vice respect the chronometer; but does
experience confirm this, and are not the small hours notorious for the
smallest moralities? The Grand-Duke, who is fast asleep at nine, is
scarcely disturbed by dreams of cruelties to his people. The police
minister, who takes his bedroom candle at the same hour, is seldom
harassed by devising new schemes of torture for his victims. I suffered
my host to talk largely of his town and its people; and probably such
a listener rarely presented himself, for he certainly improved the
occasion. He assured me, with a gravity that vouched for the conviction,
that the capital, though by no means so dear as London or Paris,
contained much, if not all, these more pretentions cities could boast.
There was a court, a theatre, a promenade, a public fountain, and a new
jail, one of the largest in all Germany. Jenny Lind had once sung at the
opera on her way to Vienna; and to prove how they sympathized in every
respect with greater centres of population, when the cholera raged at
Berlin, they, too, lost about four hundred of their townsfolk. Lastly,
he mentioned, and this boastfully, that though neither wanting organs
of public opinion, nor men of adequate ability to guide them, the
Kalbbratoners had never mixed themselves up in politics, but proudly
maintained that calm and dignified attitude which Europe would one day
appreciate; that is, if she ever arrived at the crowning knowledge of
the benefit of letting her differences be decided by some impartial
umpire.
More than once, as I heard him, I muttered to myself, “Potts, this is
the very spot you have sought for; here is all the tranquil simplicity
of the village, with the elevated culture of a great city. Here
are sages and philosophers clad in homespun, Beauty herself in
linsey-woolsey. Here there are no vulgar rivalries of riches, no
contests in fine clothes, no opposing armies of yellow plush. Men are
great by their faculties, not in their flunkeys. How elevated must be
the tone of their thoughts, the style of their conversation! and what a
lucky accident it was that led you to that goal to which all your wishes
and hopes have been converging!--For how much can a man live--a single
gentleman like myself--here in your city?” asked I of my host.
He sat down at this, and, filling himself a large goblet of my
wine,--the last in the bottle,--he prepared for a lengthy _séance_.
“First of all,” said he, “how would he wish to live? Would he desire
to mingle in our best circles, equal to any in Europe, to know Herr von
Krugwitz, and the Gnadige Frau von Steinhaltz?”
“Well,” thought I, “these be fair ambitions.” And I said, “Yes, both of
them.”
“And to be on the list of the court dinners? There are two yearly, one
at Easter, the other on his Highness's birthday, whom may Providence
long protect!”
To this also might he aspire.
“And to have a stall at the Grand Opera, and a carriage to return
visits--twice in carnival time--and to live in a handsome quarter, and
dine every day at our _table d'hote_ here with General von Beulwitz and
the Hof rath von Schlaff-richter? A life like this is costly, and would
scarcely be comprised under two thousand florins a year.”
How my heart bounded at the notion of refinement, culture, elevated
minds, and polished habits; “science,” indeed, and the “musical
glasses,” all for one hundred and sixty pounds per annum.
“It is not improbable that you will see me your guest for many a day
to come,” said I, as I ordered another bottle, and of a more generous
vintage, to honor the occasion.
My host offered no opposition to my convivial projects; nay, he aided
them by saying,--
“If you have really an appreciation for something super-excellent in
wine, and wish to taste what Freiligrath calls 'der Deutschen Nectar,' I
'll go and fetch you a bottle.”
“Bring it by all means,” said I. And away he went on his mission.
“Providence blessed me with two hands,” said he, as he re-entered the
room, “and I have brought two flasks of Lieb Herzentbaler.”
There is something very artistic in the way your picture-dealer, having
brushed away the dust from a Mieris or a Gerard Dow, places the work in
a favorite light before you, and then stands to watch the effect on your
countenance. So, too, will your man of rare manuscripts and illuminated
missals offer to your notice some illegible treasure of the fourth
century; but these are nothing to the mysterious solemnity of him who,
uncorking a bottle of rare wine, waits to note the varying sensations of
your first enjoyment down to your perfect ecstasy.
I tried to perform my part of the piece with credit: I looked long
at the amber-colored liquor in the glass; I sniffed it and smiled
approvingly; the host smiled too, and said, “Ja!” Not another syllable
did he utter, but how expressive was that “Ja!” “Ja!” meant, “You are
right, Potts, it is the veritable wine of 1764, bottled for the Herzog
Ludwig's marriage; every drop of it is priceless. Mark the odor, how it
perfumes the air around us; regard the color--the golden hair of Venus
can alone rival it; see how the oily globules cling to the glass!” “Ja!”
meant all this, and more.
As I drank off my glass, I was sorely puzzled by the precise expression
in which to couch my approval; but he supplied it and said, “Is it not
Gôttlich?” and I said it _was_ Gôttlich; and while we finished the
two bottles, this solitary phrase sufficed for converse between
us, “Gôttlich!” being uttered by each as he drained his glass, and
“Gôttlich!” being re-echoed by his companion.
There is great wisdom in reducing our admiration to a word; giving,
as it were, a cognate number to our estimate of anything. Wherever we
amplify, we usually blunder: we employ epithets that disagree, or, in
even less questionable taste, soar into extravagances that are absurd.
Besides, our moods of highest enjoyment are not such as dispose to
talkativeness; the ecstasy that is most enthralling is self-contained.
Who, on looking at a glorious landscape, does not feel the insufferable
bathos of the descriptive enthusiast beside him? How grateful would
he own himself if he would be satisfied with one word for his
admiration! And if one needs this calm repose, this unbroken peace, for
the enjoyment of scenery, equally is it applicable to our appreciation
of a curious wine. I have no recollection that any further conversation
passed between us, but I have never ceased, and most probably never
shall cease, to have a perfect memory of the pleasant ramble of my
thoughts as I sat there sipping, sipping. I pondered long over a plan
of settling down in this place for life, by what means I could realize.
sufficient to live in that elevated sphere the host spoke of. If Potts
père--I mean my father--were to learn that I were received in the
highest circles, admitted to all that was most socially exclusive, would
he be induced to make an adequate provision for me? He was an ambitious
and a worldly man; would he see in these beginnings of mine the seeds of
future greatness? Fathers, I well knew, are splendidly generous to
their successful children, and “the poor they send empty away.” It is
so pleasant to aid him who does not need assistance, and such a hopeless
task to be always saving him who _will_ be drowned.
My first care, therefore, should be to impress upon my parent the
appropriateness of his contributing his share to what already was an
accomplished success. “Wishing, as the French say, to make you a part in
my triumph, dear father, I write these lines.” How I picture him to my
mind's eye as he reads this, running frantically about to his neighbors,
and saying, “I have got a letter from Algy,--strange boy,--but as I
always foresaw, with great stuff in him, very remarkable abilities. See
what he has done,--struck out a perfect line of his own in life; just
the sort of thing genius alone can do. He went off from this one'
morning by way of a day's excursion, never returned,--never wrote. All
my efforts to trace him were in vain. I advertised, and offered rewards,
did everything, without success; and now, after all this long interval,
comes a letter by this morning's post to tell me that he is well, happy,
and prosperous. He is settled, it appears, in a German capital with a
hard name, a charming spot, with every accessory of enjoyment in it:
men of the highest culture, and women of most graceful and attractive
manner; as he himself writes, 'the elegance of a Parisian _salon_ added
to the wisdom of the professor's cabinet.' Here is Algy living with all
that is highest in rank and most distinguished in station; the favored
guest of the Prince, the bosom friend of the English minister; his
advice sought for, his counsel asked in every difficulty; trusted in the
most important state offices, and taken into the most secret counsels
of the duchy. Though the requirements of his station make heavy demands
upon his means, very little help from me will enable him to maintain
a position which a few years more will have consolidated into a rank
recognized throughout Europe.” Would the flintiest of fathers, would the
most primitive rock-hearted of parents, resist an appeal like this? It
is no hand to rescue from the waves is sought, but a little finger to
help to affluence. “Of course you 'll do it, Potts, and do it liberally;
the boy is a credit to you. He will place your name where you never
dreamed to see it. What do you mean to settle on him? Above all things,
no stinginess; don't disgust him.”
I hear these and such-like on every hand; even the most close-fisted and
miserly of our acquaintances will be generous of their friend's money;
and I think I hear the sage remarks with which they season advice with
touching allusions to that well-known ship that was lost for want of a
small outlay in tar. “Come down handsomely, Potts,” says a resolute man,
who has sworn never to pay a sixpence of his son's debts. “What better
use can we make of our hoardings than to render our young people happy?”
I don't like the man who says this, but I like his sentiments; and I
am much pleased when he goes on to remark that “there is no such good
investment as what establishes a successful son. Be proud of the boy,
Potts, and thank your stars that he had a soul above senna, and a spirit
above sal volatile!”
As I invent all this play of dialogue for myself, and picture the speakers
before me, I come at last to a small peevish little fellow named Lynch,
a merchant tailor, who lived next door to us, and enjoyed much of my
father's confidence. “So they tell me you have heard from that runaway
of yours, Potts. Is it true? What face does he put upon his disgraceful
conduct? What became of the livery-stable-keeper's horse? Did he sell
him, or ride him to death? A bad business if he should ever come back
again, which, of course, he's too wise for. And where is he now, and
what is he at?”
“You may read this letter, Mr. Lynch,” replies my father; “he is one who
can speak for himself.” And Lynch reads and sniggers, and reads again.
I see him as plainly as if he were but a yard from me. “I never heard
of this ducal capital before,” he begins, “but I suppose it's like the
rest of them,--little obscure dens of pretentious poverty, plenty of
ceremony, and very little to eat. How did he find it out? What brought
him there?”
“You have this letter before you, sir,” says my parent, proudly.
“Algernon Sydney is, I imagine, quite competent to explain what relates
to his own affairs.”
“Oh, perfectly, perfectly; only that I can't really make out how he
first came to this place, nor what it is that he does there now that
he's in it.”
My father hastily snatches the letter from his hands, and runs his eye
rapidly along to catch the passage which shall confute the objector and
cover him with shame and confusion. He cannot find it at once. “It is
this. No, it is on this side. Very strange, very singular indeed; but as
Algernon must have told me--” Alas! no, father, he has not told you, and
for the simple reason that he does not know it himself. For though I
mentioned with becoming pride the prominent stations Irishmen now hold
in most of the great states of Europe, and pointed to O'Donnel in Spain,
MacMahon in France, and the Field-Marshal Nugent in Austria, I utterly
forgot to designate the high post occupied by Potts in the Duchy of
Hesse-Kalbbratonstadt. To determine what this should be was now of
imminent importance, and I gave myself up to the solution with a degree
of intentness and an amount of concentration that set me off sound
asleep.
Yes, benevolent reader, I will confess it, questions of a complicated
character have always affected me, as the inside of a letter seems to
have struck Tony Lumkin,--“all buzz.” I start with the most loyal desire
to be acute and penetrating; I set myself to my task with as honest
a disposition to do my best as ever man did; I say, “Now, Potts, no
self-indulgence, no skulking; here is a knotty problem, here is a case
for your best faculties in their sharpest exercise;” and if any one come
in upon me about ten minutes after this resolve, he will see a man who
could beat Sancho Panza in sleeping!
Of course this tendency has often cost me dearly; I have missed
appointments, forgotten assignations, lost friends through it. My
character, too, has suffered, many deeming me insupportably indolent, a
sluggard quite unfit for any active employment. Others, more mercifully
hinting at some “cerebral cause,” have done me equal damage; but there
happily is an obverse on the medal, and to this somnolency do I ascribe
much of the gentleness and all the romance of my nature. It is your
sleepy man is ever benevolent, he loves ease and quiet for others as for
himself. What he cultivates is the tranquil mood that leads to slumber,
and the calm that sustains it. The very operations of the mind in sleep
are broken, incoherent, undelineated,--just like the waking occupations
of an idle man; they are thoughts that cost so little to manufacture,
that he can afford to be lavish of them. And now--Good-night!