Could we know by what strange circumstances a man's genius became
prepared for practical success, we should discover that the most
serviceable items in his education were never entered in the bills
which his father paid for it.
At the end of the very first lesson George Morley saw that all the
elocution masters to whose skill he had been consigned were blunderers in
comparison with the basketmaker.
Waife did not puzzle him with scientific theories. All that the great
comedian required of him was to observe and to imitate. Observation,
imitation, lo! the groundwork of all art! the primal elements of all
genius! Not there, indeed to halt, but there ever to commence. What
remains to carry on the intellect to mastery? Two steps,--to reflect,
to reproduce. Observation, imitation, reflection, reproduction. In
these stands a mind complete and consummate, fit to cope with all labour,
achieve all success.
At the end of the first lesson George Morley felt that his cure was
possible. Making an appointment for the next day at the same place, he
came thither stealthily and so on day by day. At the end of a week he
felt that the cure was nearly certain; at the end of a month the cure was
self-evident. He should live to preach the Word. True, that he
practised incessantly in private. Not a moment in his waking hours that
the one thought, one object, was absent from his mind! True, that with
all his patience, all his toil, the obstacle was yet serious, might never
be entirely overcome. Nervous hurry, rapidity of action, vehemence of
feeling, brought back, might at unguarded moments always bring back, the
gasping breath, the emptied lungs, the struggling utterance. But the
relapse, rarer and rarer now with each trial, would be at last scarce a
drawback. "Nay," quoth Waife, "instead of a drawback, become but an
orator, and you will convert a defect into a beauty."
Thus justly sanguine of the accomplishment of his life's chosen object,
the scholar's gratitude to Waife was unspeakable. And seeing the man
daily at last in his own cottage,--Sophy's health restored to her cheeks,
smiles to her lip, and cheered at her light fancy-work beside her
grandsire's elbow-chair, with fairy legends instilling perhaps golden
truths,--seeing Waife thus, the scholar mingled with gratitude a strange
tenderness of respect. He knew nought of the vagrant's past, his reason
might admit that in a position of life so at variance with the gifts
natural and acquired of the singular basketmaker, there was something
mysterious and suspicious. But he blushed to think that he had ever
ascribed to a flawed or wandering intellect the eccentricities of
glorious Humour,--abetted an attempt to separate an old age so innocent
and genial from a childhood so fostered and so fostering. And sure I am
that if the whole world had risen up to point the finger of scorn at the
one-eyed cripple, George Morley--the well-born gentleman, the refined
scholar, the spotless Churchman--would have given him his arm to lean
upon, and walked by his side unashamed.