On my return to The Lamb, I found that my uncle was in a soft sleep;
and after an evening visit from the surgeon, and his assurance that
the fever was fast subsiding, and all cause for alarm was gone, I
thought it necessary to go back to Trevanion's house, and explain the
reason for my night's absence. But the family had not returned from
the country. Trevanion himself came up for a few hours in the
afternoon, and seemed to feel much for my poor uncle's illness.
Though, as usual, very busy, he accompanied me to The Lamb, to see my
father, and cheer him up. Roland still continued to mend, as the
surgeon phrased it; and as we went back to St James's Square,
Trevanion had the consideration to release me from my oar in his
galley, for the next few days. My mind, relieved from my anxiety for
Roland, now turned to my new friend. It had not been without an object
that I had questioned the young man as to his knowledge of French.
Trevanion had a large correspondence in foreign countries, which was
carried on in that language, and here I could be but of little help to
him. He himself, though he spoke and wrote French with fluency and
grammatical correctness, wanted that intimate knowledge of the most
delicate and diplomatic of all languages to satisfy his classical
purism. For Trevanion was a terrible _word-weigher_. His taste was the
plague of my life and his own. His prepared speeches (or rather
perorations) were the most finished pieces of cold diction that could
be conceived under the marble portico of the Stoics,--so filed and
turned, trimmed and tamed, that they never admitted a sentence that
could warm the heart,--or one that could offend the ear. He had so
great a horror of a vulgarism that, like Canning, he would have made a
periphrasis of a couple of lines to avoid using the word 'cat.' It was
only in extempore speaking that a ray of his real genius could
indiscreetly betray itself. One may judge what labour such a
super-refinement of taste would inflict upon a man writing in a
language not his own to some distinguished statesman, or some literary
institution,--knowing that language just well enough to recognise all
the native elegances he failed to attain. Trevanion, at that very
moment, was employed upon a statistical document, intended as a
communication to a Society at Copenhagen, of which he was an honorary
member. It had been for three weeks the torment of the whole house,
especially of poor Fanny, (whose French was the best at our joint
disposal.) But Trevanion had found her phraseology too mincing, too
effeminate, too much that of the _boudoir_. Here, then, was an
opportunity to introduce my new friend, and test the capacities that I
fancied he possessed. I therefore, though with some hesitation, led
the subject to "Remarks on the Mineral Treasures of Great Britain and
Ireland," (such was the title of the work intended to enlighten the
_savans_ of Denmark;) and, by certain ingenious circumlocutions, known
to all able applicants, I introduced my acquaintance with a young
gentleman who possessed the most familiar and intimate knowledge of
French, and who might be of use in revising the manuscript. I knew
enough of Trevanion, to feel that I could not reveal the circumstances
under which I had formed that acquaintance, for he was much too
practical a man not to have been frightened out of his wits at the
idea of submitting so classical a performance to so disreputable a
scapegrace. As it was, however, Trevanion, whose mind at that moment
was full of a thousand other things, caught at my suggestion, with
very little cross-questioning on the subject, and, before he left
London, consigned the manuscript to my charge.
"My friend is poor," said I timidly.
"Oh! as to that," cried Trevanion hastily, "if it is a matter of
charity, I put my purse in your hands; but don't put my manuscript in
his! If it is a matter of business, it is another affair, and I must
judge of his work before I can say how much it is worth--perhaps
nothing!"
So ungracious was this excellent man in his very virtues!
"Nay," said I, "it _is_ a matter of business, and so we will consider
it."
"In that case," said Trevanion, concluding the matter, and buttoning
his pockets, "if I dislike his work, _nothing_; if I like it, twenty
guineas. Where are the evening papers?" and in another moment the
member of parliament had forgotten the statist, and was pishing and
tutting over the _Globe_ or the _Sun_.
On Thursday, my uncle was well enough to be moved into our house; and
on the same evening, I went forth to keep my appointment with the
stranger. The clock struck nine as we met. The palm of punctuality
might be divided between us. He had profited by the interval, since
our last meeting, to repair the more obvious deficiencies of his
wardrobe; and though there was something still wild, dissolute,
outlandish, about his whole appearance, yet in the elastic energy of
his step, and the resolute assurance of his bearing, there was that
which Nature gives to her own aristocracy,--for, as far as my
observation goes, what has been called the "grand air" (and which is
wholly distinct from the polish of manner, or the urbane grace of high
breeding,) is always accompanied, and perhaps produced, by two
qualities--courage, and the desire of command. It is more common to a
half-savage nature than one wholly civilised. The Arab has it, so has
the American Indian; and I suspect it was more frequent among the
knights and barons of the middle ages than it is among the polished
gentlemen of the modern drawing-room.
We shook hands, and walked on a few moments in silence; at length thus
commenced the STRANGER,--
"You have found it more difficult, I fear, than you imagined, to make
the empty sack stand upright. Considering that at least one third of
those born to work cannot find it, why should I?"
PISISTRATUS.--I am hard-hearted enough to believe that work never
fails to those who seek it in good earnest. It was said of some man,
famous for keeping his word, that "if he had promised you an acorn,
and all the oaks in England failed to produce one, he would have sent
to Norway for an acorn." If I wanted work, and there was none to be
had in the Old World, I would find my way to the New. But, to the
point: I _have_ found something for you, which I do not think your
taste will oppose, and which may open to you the means of an
honourable independence. But I cannot well explain it in the streets,
where shall we go?
STRANGER (_after some hesitation_.)--I have a lodging near here, which
I need not blush to take you to--I mean, that it is not among rogues
and castaways.
PISISTRATUS (_much pleased, and taking the stranger's arm_.) Come,
then.
Pisistratus and the stranger pass over Waterloo Bridge, and pause
before a small house of respectable appearance. Stranger admits them
both with a latch-key--leads the way to the third story--strikes a
light, and does the honours to a small chamber, clean and orderly.
Pisistratus explains the task to be done, and opens the manuscript.
The stranger draws his chair deliberately towards the light, and runs
his eye rapidly over the pages. Pisistratus trembles to see him pause
before a long array of figures and calculations. Certainly it does not
look inviting; but, pshaw! it is scarcely a part of the task, which
limits itself to the mere correction of words.
STRANGER (_briefly_.)--There must be a mistake here. Stay!--I
see,--[He turns back a few pages, and corrects with rapid precision an
error in a somewhat complicated and abstruse calculation.]
PISISTRATUS (_surprised_.)--You seem a notable arithmetician.
STRANGER.--Did I not tell you that I was skilful in all games of
mingled skill and chance? It requires an arithmetical head for that: a
first-rate card-player is a financier spoilt. I am certain that you
could never find a man fortunate on the turf, or at the gaming-table,
who had not an excellent head for figures. Well, this French is good
enough apparently: there are but a few idioms, here and there, that,
strictly speaking, are more English than French. But the whole is a
work scarce worth paying for!
PISISTRATUS.--The work of the head fetches a price not proportioned to
the quantity, but the quality. When shall I call for this?
STRANGER.--To-morrow. [And he puts the manuscript away in a drawer.]
We then conversed on various matters for nearly an hour; and my
impression of this young man's natural ability was confirmed and
heightened. But it was an ability as wrong and perverse in its
directions or instincts as a French novelist's. He seemed to have, to
a high degree, the harder portion of the reasoning faculty, but to be
almost wholly without that arch beautifier of character, that sweet
purifier of mere intellect--_the imagination_. For, though we are too
much taught to be on our guard against imagination, I hold it, with
Captain Roland, to be the divinest kind of reason we possess, and the
one that leads us the least astray. In youth, indeed, it occasions
errors, but they are not of a sordid or debasing nature. Newton says
that one final effect of the comets is to recruit the seas and the
planets by a condensation of the vapours and exhalations therein; and
so even the erratic flashes of an imagination really healthful and
vigorous deepen our knowledge and brighten our lights; they recruit
our seas and our stars. Of such flashes my new friend was as innocent
as the sternest matter-of-fact person could desire. Fancies he had in
profusion, and very bad ones; but of imagination not a _scintilla_!
His mind was one of those which live in a prison of logic, and cannot,
or will not, see beyond the bars: such a nature is at once positive
and sceptical. This boy had thought proper to decide at once on the
numberless complexities of the social world from his own harsh
experience. With him the whole system was a war and a cheat. If the
universe were entirely composed of knaves, he would be sure to have
made his way. Now this bias of mind, alike shrewd and unamiable, might
be safe enough if accompanied by a lethargic temper; but it threatened
to become terrible and dangerous in one who, in default of
imagination, possessed abundance of passion: and this was the case
with the young outcast. Passion, in him, comprehended many of the
worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not
contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of
wealth, but the cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural
advantages of this poor boy--his beauty, his readiness, the daring
spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere--had raised
his constitutional self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his
very claims to admiration into prejudices against him. Irascible,
envious, arrogant--bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient
angles were all varnished over with a cold repellant cynicism, his
passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed in him no moral
susceptibility; and, what was more remarkable in a proud nature,
little or nothing of the true point of honour. He had, to a morbid
excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no
apparent wish for fame, or esteem, or the love of his species; only
the hard wish to succeed, not shine, not serve,--succeed, that he
might have the right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit,
and enjoy the pleasures which the redundant nervous life in him seemed
to crave. Such were the more patent attributes of a character that,
ominous as it was, yet interested me, and yet appeared to me
redeemable,--nay, to have in it the rude elements of a certain
greatness. Ought we not to make something great out of a youth under
twenty who has, in the highest degree, quickness to conceive and
courage to execute? On the other hand, all faculties that can make
greatness contain those that can attain goodness. In the savage
Scandinavian, or the ruthless Frank, lay the germs of a Sidney or a
Bayard. What would the best of us be, if he were suddenly placed at
war with the whole world? And this fierce spirit _was_ at war with the
whole world--a war self-sought, perhaps, but it was war not the less.
You must surround the savage with peace, if you want the virtues of
peace.
I cannot say that it was in a single interview and conference that I
came to these convictions; but I am rather summing up the impressions
which I received as I saw more of this person, whose destiny I had
presumed to take under my charge.
In going away, I said, "But, at all events, you have a name in your
lodgings: whom am I to ask for when I call to-morrow?"
"Oh, you may know my name now," said he, smiling: "it is
Vivian--Francis Vivian."