OWEN AND X. Y. Z.
From the moment that Owen saw the scrap of short-hand which his brother
and sister brought home from the hills, he had taken to the study of the
art of short-hand writing. Mr. Waugh had directed him to the clergyman
as the person most likely to give him information on the subject, and to
show him specimens. The clergyman acknowledged that the short-hand he
used was not the best yet invented; and that perhaps the best yet
invented might not be nearly so good as some one not yet devised. This
was enough for Owen to know, in order to excite him to enterprize. By
the help of his friends, he got possession of three or four kinds, made
his selection of what he considered the best, and introduced some
important improvements. He tried his success whenever he could find an
opportunity. Many were the curious conversations in the mill which he
took down for his own amusement; and many the sermons which, to his
mother’s amazement, he read over to her, word for word, on the Sunday
evenings, when she had heard them in the mornings. She was fast yielding
to the impression that her son Owen was now nearly as wise as the
clergyman.
In the tract which Owen thrust into his pocket on the alarm of fire
being given, there was an article about short-hand. Mr. Waugh had
accidentally met with it at L——, and had brought it home for Owen. When
farmer Mason’s house and barns were all burnt to the ground, and no more
was to be done for him, Owen came back to the counting-house to study
this paper. Mr. Waugh could not help being amused at the eagerness with
which he devoured the arguments about dashes and dots, as if they had
been tidings of peace or war, or of the greatest political event of the
age. This was not the first time that Mr. Waugh had had occasion to
observe the animation with which scantily-informed persons read what is
accordant with their particular tastes and pursuits. He had seen a
farm-servant, who happened to be able to read, excited for a whole day
about some new way of managing a cow, or the best method of treating a
sheep’s fleece; and a galloon weaver drinking in the news of the
alteration of a farthing a gross in the wages of his manufacture. He had
witnessed the effect of such appropriate communications in rousing the
sluggish, in soothing the irritable, by turning the course of their
thoughts, and in improving the arts of life, by stimulating the powers
of the workmen. He had seen none more eager than Owen.
“Sir,” said Owen, “I wonder whether I may ask if you know who this X. Y.
Z. is?”
“Not I,” replied Mr. Waugh, smiling. “I only know that I found the
article lying on the bookseller’s counter; and that when I made a remark
upon it, Muggridge told me I might bring it for you. If you have
anything to say to X. Y. Z., cannot you say it without knowing who he
is?”
“I—say anything to this person! In print! I should like—I am sure, if he
knew one thing that I could tell him——But, sir, do you really think they
would put in anything of mine, if I sent it?”
“That would much depend on whether they thought it worth putting in. If
you have anything to say as good in the eyes of the editor as what X. Y.
Z. has said, I suppose the editor will be glad to print it: but I hardly
think such a tract as this can pay the writers.”
“I never thought of being paid, sir! Let’s see where this editor is to
be found.”
It was soon settled that as Ambrose would have to go to L—— in the
course of a few days, he might carry a packet from Owen to Muggridge,
the bookseller and stationer, who would forward it, at Mr. Waugh’s
request, to the editor’s office in London. How absorbed was Owen, from
that time, whenever he was not at his business in the mill! How silent
at meals! How careful in making his pens! It would be scarcely fair to
tell how many copies he made of his letter to X. Y. Z., nor how many
beginnings he invented and altered. At last, he had to finish in a great
hurry; for the morning was come when Ambrose must proceed to L, and
there was no telling how long it might be before he would have to go
again.
“Now, Ambrose, you see this package of No. 2 has to go to Keely and
Moss’s.”
“Very well,” said Ambrose, turning it over, as if to fix its dimensions
and appearance in his memory.
“You can’t mistake it, for I have printed the direction instead of
writing it, that you may have no difficulty. See here! ‘Keely and Moss.’
This little parcel you are to drop by the way, at Mrs. King’s, near the
toll-bar. Then, that other great package is for Bristow and Son,—you
know where. And then comes Muggridge’s. This, largest of all, is for
Muggridge; and pray see Mr. Muggridge himself, and give into his own
hands this little brown parcel with Mr. Waugh’s letter outside. What
makes you look so puzzled? It is easy enough to carry these to their
places, is not it?”
“If I can carry in my head which is which. Let’s see: this big one——”
“Read the directions, and you can’t mistake. Why should you burden your
memory when the names are before your eyes?”
Ambrose showed that he could spell out the names, and suggested that, if
he should be at a loss, he might ask each person to whom he delivered a
package to help him to make out where the next was to go. He would try
to be sure to make no mistake about the little parcel and the letter for
Mr. Muggridge, and would not come home without a line of acknowledgment
from that important personage himself.
Owen was so evidently fidgety during his brother’s absence, that his
friend Mr. Waugh thought it right to remind him that his fate did not
altogether depend on the parcel being safely delivered. There were so
few printed vehicles for what such multitudes of people have to say,
that a very great number must be disappointed in their wish to be heard.
He owned that this was very hard; he held that printed speech should be
as free as the words of men’s mouths, and as copious as it was possible
to make it. He had reason to desire this; and he suffered not a little
from the arrangements which prevented the possibility of its taking
place.
“Because more paper would be wanted then, you mean, sir. I fancy,
indeed, we might make a fine business of it; if those troublesome
excisemen were out of our way. There is no saying how low you might
bring the price of your paper if it were not for them.”
“For them, and for the law which gives them their office. The duty in
itself, though the worst part of the grievance, is bad enough,—from
thirty to two hundred per cent., and actually lower on the fine paper,
used by the few, than on the coarse, which would be used by the many if
it were not for the tax. It is the coarse which pays the two hundred per
cent., and the fine that pays thirty. It is bad enough that this duty
amounts to more than three times the wages of all the workpeople
employed in the manufacture.”
“Do you really believe that to be the case, sir?”
“It is pretty clearly made out, I fancy. There are within a few of 800
paper-mills in the kingdom; and about 25,000 individuals employed about
the article; and the value of the paper annually produced is between a
million and a million and a half. The duty levied on this is about
770,000_l._;—a most enormous amount. The wages of the workpeople can
bear no kind of proportion to it. How much more paper we should make if
this burden was removed, so as to allow, as far as it goes, of freedom
of printed speech, one may barely imagine; or, if it is beyond our
imaginations, there is a person in my mill who can tell us. You know the
Frenchwoman there. She will inform you how cheaply her countrymen and
countrywomen can have their say through the press. The direct
interference of the government with the liberty of the press is, you
know, altogether a different question. Setting this aside, there is a
wonderful difference in the facilities enjoyed by the French and English
for the diffusion of their knowledge and opinions.”
“Then I suppose others besides their paper-makers are better off than we
for being without the duty. There must be far more printing to do; and
that would occupy, besides the printers, more type-founders and
ink-makers; and then booksellers and stationers and binders and
engravers; then again, more carpenters and mill-wrights, and workmen of
every kind employed in making the machinery and materials. It must cause
a vast difference between that country and this, where we see a want of
books on the one hand, and a want of work on the other.”
“Ay; your brother Ambrose and half-a-dozen more, standing by the hour
together before a placarded wall, for want of something better to read;
and scores of rag-sorters and vat-men applying to me for work which I
should be glad to give them if the paper-duty was off. It is really
grievous to think how few are employed in the diffusion of knowledge,
compared with the numbers who are occupied to much less useful purpose.
Look here. This is a list made out upon the best authority. See the
proportion which employments bear to one another here. On the one side—
_Literature_; on the other—_what_?
Printers 342 Publicans 61,231
Paper-makers 164
Bookbinders 599
Booksellers 327
Stationers, (mostly 797
booksellers)
Copper-plate Printers 663
(including calico)
Printsellers 593
———
25,485
So, if we exclude the calico-printers, (who do not seem to have much to
do with literature) we have not so many as 25,000 persons employed in
literature, while we have above 61,000 who sell beer. If we add the
gin-shops to the number, what will be the proportion?”
“I find, sir, that in Manchester they have 1000 gin-shops, and not so
much as one daily paper.”
“It is the fact. And as long as members go into parliament to uphold
such a state of things, while they raise an outcry against beer-shops,
none such shall have a vote of mine. Which means, that I shall not vote
for Mr. Arruther, if there should be an election; as I hear there will
be.”
Owen thought that gentlemen who upheld the paper-duty in parliament
might spare themselves the trouble of canvassing the paper-makers. He
understood that Mr. Arruther was one who had a terrible dread of the
people knowing too much.
“He would scarcely speak to you, Owen, if he knew you were trying to get
a letter of your own into print. Well: don’t set your mind too much upon
it, and I wish you success with all my heart. If we should see this
letter of yours next week, I am sure we may trust you not to neglect
your business for the sake of becoming a mere scribbler in small
publications. I think you will be careful never to take up your pen but
when you really have something to say.”
Owen was internally much surprised that Mr. Waugh had encouraged him in
his enterprize; for no one had a stronger horror than Mr. Waugh of the
effect of what he called “low publications” on the minds of his
work-people. The whole question lay in what Mr. Waugh considered to be
“low publications.” If he had meant low in price, it was hardly likely
that he would have brought this tract for Owen: but, as few publications
then happened to be low in price without being low in principle and
spirit, Owen’s surprise was natural.
One night of the following week, he came home with a bright countenance;
and with a trembling hand, he laid down before his mother, as she sat at
work at her table, a pamphlet, very like the tract she had seen him
poring over for so many evenings. He judged rightly that though she
could not read, she would like to see the page where O. E. was printed.
Long did she look at those black marks; and now, for the first time,
nurse Ede learned two letters of the alphabet. From that day, she never
passed the placarded wall in the village without picking out by her eye
all the great O-s and E-s in the bills there pasted up. She had now some
idea that her son’s letter must be altered by being in print. She had
heard it very often already, (without understanding much more about it
the last time than the first;) but she had now a humble request to
proffer,—to hear it again.
“If you are not tired of reading it, my dear boy; and then, when you
have done, I think it is not too late for me to put on my bonnet, and go
and show it to the clergyman. But I am afraid you will be tired of
reading it, my dear?”
There never was a more unfounded apprehension. It was not to be denied
that Owen had read it very often; but he did not yet feel himself tired.
There was no pretence, however, for his mother’s going to the clergyman.
Owen had met him; and had made bold to stop him, and show him what had
happened.
When all the compliments, hearty, if not altogether enlightened, had
been paid; when Ambrose had relaxed in his stare upon his accomplished
brother; and nurse had dried her few tears and resumed her needle, and
all reasonable hope had been expressed that Mildred would not be long in
coming home, the happy young writer began to look forward to the next
week, when there would or would not be an answer from X. Y. Z. He had
already consulted Mr. Waugh on the probability of there being any answer
at all, if there was not next week. Mr. Waugh had little doubt of there
being some reply; Owen’s remarks being made in an amicable spirit, and
very courteously expressed; and if no reply should be ready by the next
week, he thought there would at least be a promise of one. Owen counted
the days as anxiously as in the times of his childhood, when
Christmas-day and the fair-day were in prospect. He would have been much
ashamed that even his mother should know how glad he was every night to
think that another day was gone; and yet, perhaps, if the truth had been
revealed, his mother was little less childish than himself.
The reply appeared, on the earliest possible day; as courteous as Owen’s
own; not altogether agreeing with him, but modestly asking for further
explanation on two or three knotty points.—Who was happier than Owen?
His immediate success raised his ambition and his hopes to a height
which he had before reached only in imagination. He would write an
answer immediately; and when that was done, he would compose a work on
short-hand, giving an account of his own studies, and the improvements
he believed he had introduced into the art, with all the many ideas
which during his studies had gathered round the subject. A stray notion
or two about a universal language of written signs had entered his head.
He would pursue the idea, and try whether he could not do something
which would make him useful out of the limits of his native village. But
how was he to find the money to get a book printed? his careful mother
asked.—This he believed would be no difficulty: indeed, he hoped he
should make a great deal of money by it. He would show the probability.
In trying to do so, he proved something else,—that he had already
thought enough on the subject to have made inquiries as to the cost of
printing,—had actually seen a printer’s bill. He told his mother that
the paper for such a pamphlet as he meditated would cost 6_l._,
supposing five hundred copies to be printed. The printing would cost
about 14_l._; not more, for he should take care not to have any
alterations to make after it was once gone to press. This would be
20_l._; and the stitching would cost a few shillings more; and the
advertising the same, he supposed. Say, twenty guineas the whole. Then
if these five hundred copies sold for half-a-crown a-piece, there would
be 62_l._ 10_s._ to come in; above 40_l._ profit,—out of which he would
pay the bookseller for his trouble, and there would be a fine sum left
over; and he would tell his mother what he would do with it. He would——
She promised that she would hear all he had to say on this head when he
should bring Mr. Waugh’s assurance that he was likely to gain 40_l._ to
divide between himself and the bookseller, by writing a little book.
Meantime, she thought it too good a prospect to be a likely one; and
could not believe but that everybody would be writing books, if this was
the way money might be made by such a lad as her Owen.
Owen thought it a little unreasonable in his mother to doubt him, when
he offered her actually a calculation of the expenses he had fully
ascertained, and when she had nothing to bring against his figures but
an impression of her own. However, he would send his rejoinder to the
editor, as before, and think the matter over again before he said
anything to Mr. Waugh.
He did so, feeling pretty well satisfied that his second letter, (into
which he put some nicely-turned expressions of esteem and admiration for
his unknown correspondent) would bring X. Y. Z. and himself to a perfect
agreement: and anxious beyond measure for an answer to a query which he
proposed in his turn,—a query, upon the reply to which hung he could
scarcely say how much that was all-important to the art of short-hand
writing. But next week no tract arrived, though it had been positively
ordered; and twice over, to prevent mistake. It was so evident that poor
Owen was internally fretting and fuming, though outwardly no more than
grave, that Mr. Waugh kindly found it necessary to send Ambrose to L——,
and even to Muggridge’s shop.
“Perhaps, sir,” said the young writer, “you would be kind enough to send
one line to Mr. Muggridge; and then he would write an answer, if there
should be any accident, instead of sending a message which Ambrose might
mistake, not knowing much about book matters.
Ambrose brought back a written answer,—an answer fatal for the time to
Owen’s hopes. The tract was not to be had this week, nor at any future
time. It was suppressed. The publisher had been informed that if he went
on to issue it without putting a fourpenny stamp upon it, he would be
prosecuted. The publisher could not afford to sell it, if every copy
must cost him four-pence in addition to the other necessary expenses;
and still less could he afford to be prosecuted. The tract was
suppressed.
“Well, well; that is all right enough,” observed Mr. Waugh. “The laws
must be obeyed, and I am sure I should have been the last person to
bring the publication to Arneside if I had dreamed of its being illegal.
I am sorry for you, Owen; but the laws must be obeyed.”
Owen could not bear this; and he went home the first minute he could.
His mother was full of concern, and utterly unable to understand how the
case stood. She could not help having some hope that the tract would
come down, after all, sooner or later; and that Owen would surprise her
by bringing it in his hand some day.
No: no hope of such an event! Here was an end of everything. A most
useful intercourse between minds which would now become once more
strangers was interrupted. The improvement of a useful art was stopped.
There was no saying what might not have arisen out of this
correspondence,—how much that would have been advantageous to the
individuals and to society was now lost through the interference of
these Stamp Commissioners. If they had let the publication go on so
long, raising hopes and justifying expectations, they might——Owen could
not finish what he was saying. He had supposed himself beyond the age of
tears; but he now found himself mistaken. He put his hand before his
eyes, and wept nearly as heartily as a girl when the spirit of her pet
lamb is passing away.
This reverse had the effect of improving Owen’s eloquence. He grew very
fond of conversing both with the clergyman and with Mr. Waugh on the
impolicy and iniquity of restraining the intercourse of minds in
society, for the sake of a few taxes, so paltry in their amount as to
seem to crave to be drawn from some material or another of bodily food
rather than from the intellectual nourishment which is as much the
unbounded inheritance of every one that is born into the world as his
personal freedom.
All who knew Owen were surprised at the extraordinary improvement he
seemed to have made within a short time, in countenance and manner, as
much as in his conversation. It became a common remark among the
neighbours, that there must be a proud feeling in nurse Ede’s mind
whenever she saw her manly and intelligent-looking son passing through
the village, with a gait and a glance so unlike those of his former
school-companions, who seemed to have fallen back into a pretty close
resemblance to those who had never learned their A, B, C. Some of Owen’s
sayings spread, and were admired more than if they had arrived from an
unknown distant quarter. When the housewife lighted her evening lamp,
her husband told how Owen had said that it was bad enough to tax the
light that visits the eyes, but infinitely worse to tax the light that
should illumine the immortal mind; and the paper-makers quoted him over
their work, saying that no taxation is so injurious as that of the raw
material; and that books are the raw material of science and art. For
Owen’s sake all were glad, for that of the village all were sorry, when
it was made known that Mr. Waugh had resolved to part with his young
friend, in order to give him opportunity for further improvement and
advancement than could be within his reach at Arneside, and had procured
him a good situation in Mr. Muggridge’s establishment at L——.
Nurse spoke not a word in the way of objection. Such an idea as her
boy’s leaving his native village had never occurred to her; but she bore
the surprise and consequent separation very firmly. She happily felt a
secret hope that Ambrose would now rise into Owen’s place at the mill,
and in the society of Arneside; and really, when she saw how he was
getting on, in quickness and in the power of reading, she began to
believe that it was not yet too late for Ambrose to become a great man.