There is no denying it, I have led a life of far more than ordinary
happiness. The white squares in the checker of my existence have
certainly equalled the black ones, and it is not every man can say as
much. I suspect I owe a great share of this enjoyment to temperament,
to a disposition not so much remarkable for opposing difficulties as for
deriving all the possible pleasure from any fortunate conjuncture. This
gift I know I possess. I am not one of those strong natures which,
by their intrinsic force, are ever impressing their own image on the
society they live in. I am a weak, frail, yielding creature, but my very
pliancy has given me many a partnership in emotions which, with a more
rugged temperament, I had not partaken of. When one has wept over a
friend's misfortunes and awakes to the consciousness that no ill has
befallen himself, he feels as some great millionnaire might feel who
has bestowed a thousand pounds in charity and yet knows he is never
the poorer. With the proud consciousness of this fresh title to men's
admiration, he has the secret satisfaction of knowing that he will
go clothed in purple as before, and fare to-day as sumptuously as
yesterday. Do you, most generous of readers, call this selfishness?
It is the very reverse. It is the grand culminating point of human
sympathy.
I have a great deal more to say about myself. It is a theme I am really
fond of, but I am not exactly sure that you are like-minded, or that
this is the fittest place for it. I return to events.
It was on a bright, breezy morning of the early autumn that a heavy old
German travelling-carriage,--a wagon!--rattled over the uneven pavement
of Kalbbratonstadt, and soon gaining one of the long forest alleys,
rolled noiselessly over the smooth sward. Within sat an elderly lady
with a due allowance of air-cushions, toy-terriers, and guide-books; in
the rumble were a man and a maid; and in the cabriolet in front were a
pale but placid girl, with large gray eyes and long lashes, and he who
now writes these lines beside her. They who had only known me a few
months back as a freshman of Trinity would not have recognized me now,
as I sat with a long-peaked travelling-cap, a courier's belt and bag at
my side, and the opening promise of a small furry moustache on my
upper lip; not to say that I had got up a sort of supercilious air of
contemptuous pity for the foreigner, which I had observed to be much in
favor with the English abroad. It cost me dear to do this, and nothing
but the consciousness that it was one of the requirements of my station
could have made me assume it, for in my heart of hearts, I revelled
in enjoyment of all around me. I liked the soft breezy balmy air, the
mellow beech wood, the grassy turf overgrown with violets, the wild
notes of the frightened wood-pigeon, the very tramp-tramp of the massive
horses, with their scarlet tassels and their jingling bells; all pleased
and interested me. Not to speak of her, who, at my side, felt a very
child's delight at every novelty of the way.
“What would I have said to any one who, only a fortnight ago, had
promised me such happiness as this?” said I to my companion, as we drove
along, while the light branches rustled pleasantly over the roof of the
carriage, darkening the shade around us, or occasionally deluging us
with the leaves as we passed.
“And are you then so very happy?” asked she, with a pleasant smile.
“Can you doubt it? or rather is it that, as the emotion does not extend
to yourself, you _do_ doubt it?”
“Oh, as for me,” cried she, joyfully, “it is very different. I have
never travelled till now--seen nothing, actually nothing. The veriest
commonplaces of the road, the peasants' costumes, their wayside
cottages, the little shrines they kneel at, are all objects of
picturesque interest to me, and I am ready to exclaim at each moment,
'Oh! why cannot we stop here? shall we ever see anything so beautiful
again as this?'”
“And hearing you talk thus, you can ask me am I so very happy!” said I,
reproachfully.
“What I meant was, is it not stupid to have no companion of your own
turn of mind, none with whom you could talk, without condescending to
a tone beneath you, just as certain stories are reduced to words of one
syllable for little children?”
“Mademoiselle is given to sarcasm, I see,” said I, half peevishly.
“Nothing of the kind,” said she, blushing slightly. “It was in perfect
good faith. I wished you a more suitable companion. Indeed, after what I
had heard from his Excellency about you, I was terrified at the thought
of my own insufficiency.”
“And pray what _did_ he say of me?” asked I, in a flutter of delight.
“Are you very fond of flattery?”
“Immensely!”
“Is it not possible that praise of you could be so exaggerated as to
make you feel ashamed?”
“I should say, perfectly impossible; that is, to a mind regulated as
mine, over-elation could never happen. Tell me, therefore, what he
said?”
“I can't remember one-half of it; he remarked how few men in the
career--I conclude he meant diplomacy--could compare with you; that
you had such just views about the state of Europe, such an accurate
appreciation of publie men. I can't say how many opportunities you
mustn't have had, and what valuable uses you have not put them to. In
a word, I felt that I was about to travel with a great statesman and a
consummate man of the world, and was-terrified accordingly.”
“And now that the delusion is dispelled, how do you feel?”
“But is it dispelled? Am I not shocked with my own temerity in daring to
talk thus lightly with one so learned?”
“If so,” said I, “you conceal your embarrassment wonderfully.”
And then we both laughed; but I am not quite sure it was at the same
joke.
“Do you know where you are going?” said I, taking out a travelling-map
as a means of diverting our conversation into some higher channel.
“Not in the least”
“Nor care?”
“Nor care.”
“Well, I must say, it is a most independent frame of mind. Perhaps you
could extend this fine philosophy, and add, 'Nor with whom!'”
I was not at all conscious of what an impertinence I had uttered till
it was out; nor, indeed, even then, till I remarked that her cheek had
become scarlet, and her eyes double as dark as their wont.
“Yes,” said she, “there is one condition for which I should certainly
stipulate,--not to travel with any one who could needlessly offend me.”
I could have cried with shame; I could have held my hand in the flame of
a fire to expiate my rude speech. And so I told her; while I assured her
at the same time, with marvellous consistency, that it was not rude at
all; that it was entirely misconception on her part; that _nous autres
diplomates_--Heaven forgive me the lying assumption!--had a way of
saying little smartnesses that don't mean much; that we often made our
coin ring on the table, though it turned out bad money when it came to
be looked at; that Talleyrand did it, and Walewsky did it, and I did
it,--we all did it!
Now, there was one most unlucky feature in all this. It was only a few
minutes before this passage occurred, that I said to myself, “Potts,
here is one whose frank, fresh, generous nature claims all your respect
and devotion. No nonsense of your being this, that, and t'other here. Be
truthful and be honest; neither pretend to be man of fortune nor man
of fashion; own fairly to her by what chance you adventured upon this
strange life; tell her, in a word, you are the son of Potts,--Potts the
'pothecary,--and neither a hero nor a plenipotentiary!”
I have no doubt, most amiable of readers, that nothing can seem possibly
more easy than to have done all this. You deem it the natural and
ordinary course; just as, foi instance, a merchant in good credit and
repute would feel no repugnance to calling all his creditors together to
inspect his books, and see that, though apparently solvent, he was, in
truth, utterly bankrupt. And yet there is some difficulty in doing this.
Does not the law of England expressly declare that no man need criminate
himself? Who accuses you, then, Potts? And then I bethought me of the
worthy old alderman, who, on learning that “Robinson Crusoe” was a
fiction, exclaimed, “It may be so; but I have lost the greatest pleasure
of my life in hearing it.” What a profound philosophy was there in that
simple avowal! With what illusions are we not cheered on through life!
how unreal the joys that delight and the triumphs that elate us; for we
are all hypochondriacs, and are as often cured with bread pills as
with bold remedies. “Yes,” thought I, “this young girl is happy in the
thought that her companion is a person of rank, station, and influence;
she feels a sort of self-elation in being associated with one endowed
with all worldly advantages. Shall I rob her of this illusion? Shall I
rudely deprive her of what imparts a charm to her existence, and gives a
sort of romantic interest to her daily life? Harsh and needless would be
the cruelty!”
While I thus argued with myself, she had opened her guide-book, and was
eagerly reading away about the road we were travelling. “We are to halt
at Bömerstein, are we not?” asked she.
“Yes,” said I, “we rest there for the night. It is one of those little
villages of which a German writer has given us a striking picture.”
“Auerstadt,” broke she in.
“So you have read him? You read German?”
“Yes, tolerably; that is, well enough for Schiller and Uhland, but not
well enough for Jean Paul and Goethe.”
“Never mind; trust me for a guide; you shall now venture upon both.”
“But how will you be able to give up time valuable as yours to such
teachings? Would it be fair of me, besides, to steal hours that ought to
be devoted to your country?”
Though I had not the slightest imaginable ground to suspect any secret
sarcasm in this speech, my guilty conscience made me feel it as a
perfect torture. “She knows me,” thought I, “and this sneer at my
pretended importance is intended to overwhelm me.”
“As to my country's claims,” said I, haughtily, “I make light of them.
All that I have seen of life only shows the shallowness of what is
called the public service. I am resolved to leave it, and forever.”
“And for what?”
“A life of retirement,--obscurity if you will.”
“It is what I should do if I were a man.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes. I have often reflected over the delight I have felt in walking
through some man's demesne, revelling in the enjoyment of its leafy
solitude, its dreary shade, its sunlit vistas, and I have thought, 'If
all these things, not one of which are mine, can bring such pleasure
to my heart, why should I not adopt the same philosophy in life, and
be satisfied with enjoying without possessing? A very humble lot would
suffice for one, nothing but great success could achieve the other.'”
“What becomes, then, of that great stimulus to good they call labor?”
“Oh, I should labor, too. I 'd work at whatever I was equal to. I 'd
sew, and knit, and till my garden, and be as useful as possible.”
“And I would write,” said I, enthusiastically, as though I were plotting
out my share in this garden of Eden. “I would write all sorts of things:
reviews, and histories, and stories, and short poems, and, last of all,
the 'Confessions of Algernon Sydney Potts.'”
“Oh, what a shocking title! How could such names have met together? That
shocking epithet Potts would vulgarize it all!”
“I really cannot agree with you,” said I, angrily. “Without,” said she,
“you meant it for a sort of quiz; and that Potts was to be a creature of
absurdity and folly, a pretender and a snob.”
I felt as if I was choking with passion; but I tried to laugh, and say,
“Yes, of course.”
“That would be good fun enough,” went she on. “I 'd like, if I could,
to contribute to that. You should invent the situations, and leave me
occasionally to supply the reflective part.”
“It would be charming; quite delightful.”
“Shall we do it, then-? Let us try it, by all means. We might begin by
imagining Potts in search of this, that, or t'other,--love, happiness,
solitude, climate, scenery, anything, in short. Let us fancy him on a
journey, try and personate him; that would be the real way. Do you, for
instance, be Potts, and I 'll be his sister Susan. It will be the best
fun in the world, as we go along, to see everything, note everything,
and discuss everything Potts-wise.”
“It would be too ridiculous, too absurd,” said I, sick with anger.
“Not a bit; we are travelling with our old grandmother, we are making
the tour of Europe, and keeping our journal. Every evening we compare
notes of what we have seen. Pray do so; I 'm quite wild to try it.”
“Really,” said I, gravely, “it is a sort of trifling I should find it
very difficult to descend to. I see no reason, besides, to associate the
name of Potts with what you are pleased to call snobbery!”
“Could you help it? Could you, with all the best will in the world,
make Potts a man of distinction? Would n't he, in spite of you, be low,
vulgar, inquisitive, and obtrusive? Wouldn't you find him thrusting
himself forward, twenty times a day, into positions he had no right to?
Would n't the creature be a butt and a dupe--”
“Shall I own,” burst I in, “that it gives me no exalted idea of your
taste, if I find that you select for ridicule a person on the mere
showing that his name is a monosyllable? And, once for all, I repudiate
all share in the scheme, and beg that I may not hear more of it.”
I turned away as I said this. She resumed her book, and we spoke no more
to each other till we reached our halting-place for the night.