idiosyncrasy or local influences; it grew out of a consciousness of
personal obligation. Mrs. Radcliffe, Miss Porter, and Maturin were the
clandestine intimates of childhood; the English poets became the
confidants of youthful sentiment, which met but a cool reception from
those by whom we were surrounded; and when judgment was enough matured to
discriminate the charms of style, a new world opened under the guidance of
Mackenzie and Sterne, Lady Montagu and Sir Thomas Browne. Books are
endeared, like people, by the force of circumstances; ideal tendencies, a
spirit of inquiry, a thirst for sympathy, will often drive minds whose
environment is uncongenial to seek therein what is elsewhere denied; and
when in early life this resource becomes habitual, it is not surprising
that a deep personal feeling should be gradually engendered, and that we
should come to regard favourite authors as the most reliable and dearest
of our companions; and this without an inkling of pedantry or a title to
scholarship, but from a thoroughly human impulse intellectually
vindicating itself. To such a pitch did the feeling once possess us that
we resented any imputation cast upon our chosen authors as if they were
actual friends. We honoured the critic that defended Bacon from the charge
of meanness, and longed to applaud his prowess; we disliked to admit the
evidence that Johnson was dogmatic, and ascribed his arrogance to a kind
of excusable horse-play; we contended that Thomson was not lazy, but
encouraged ease to escape ambition; we grew very warm if any one really
believed Shelley an atheist, and argued that his faith transcended that of
the majority of so-called Christians; we never would admit that Sterne was
heartless, or Moore a toady. We could have embraced Dr. Madden after
reading his _Infirmities of Genius_, and thought the most brave of
Sidney's deeds his _Defence of Poesy_. How we longed to go a-fishing with
Walton, to walk in Cowley's garden, to see Roscoe's library, to hear
Coleridge talk, to feel the grasp of Burns's hand, to drink whisky with
John Wilson, to pat Scott's dogs, to go to the theatre with Lamb, to
listen to D'Israeli the elder's anecdotes, to look on the lakes of
Westmoreland at the side of Wordsworth, and to ride through 'our village'
in Miss Mitford's pony chaise!
The first time we saw an author was an epoch. It was in a church. Some one
whispered, just as the sermon began, that a lady in the next pew was the
writer of a moral tale then rated high in our little circle. We did
nothing the rest of the service but watch and speculate upon this, to us,
wonderful personage. We were disappointed at her every-day look and
attire; there was no fine frenzy in eye or gesture; there she sat, for all
the world like any other lady--mild, quiet, and attentive. We were
somewhat consoled by noting the extreme paleness of her complexion, and a
kind of abstraction in her gaze. Her habiliments were dark and faded; in
fact, as we afterward discovered, she was poor, and her book had been
printed by subscription. Thenceforth, for a long time, we imagined all
female authors were dressed in black, looked pensive, and had no colour.
This illusion, however, was banished, some years later, when we were taken
to a literary _soirée_ where all the female authors were fat, dressed in a
variety of colours, and, instead of being melancholy, had an overwhelming
vivacity that made us realize how the type had changed. By degrees we
became enlightened, and our authormania cooled. In the first place, we
were shocked by seeing a pathetic writer, whose universal tribute was
tears, in a flashy vest; then we encountered a psychologist, whose forte
was sublimity, enacting the part of a mendicant; it was our misfortune to
conduct a bard, whose highly-imaginative strain had often roused our
aspirations, home from a party in a state of inebriety; one author we were
prepared to love turned out a disagreeable egotist; another wearied us by
the exactions of his vanity; a third repelled by intense affectation, and
a fourth by the bitterness of his comments; one, who had written only the
most refined sentiment, proved, upon acquaintance, an acute Yankee; one,
who had sung the beauty of nature, we found to be an inveterate dandy; and
another, whose expressed ideas betokened excess of delicacy, grossly
violated the ordinary instincts of gentle blood.
On one of our earliest visits to ------, the illusive charm attached to
the idea of a female author became, indeed, changed to a horror from which
we have never wholly recovered. We were requested to escort a lady to what
we understood was an ordinary social gathering. After entering a rather
small and somewhat obscure drawing-room, saluting the hostess, and taking
the proffered seat, we were struck with the formal arrangement of the
company. They formed an unbroken row along the walls of the room, except
at one end, at which stood a table surmounted by an astral lamp; and in an
arm-chair beside it, in studied attitude, like one _poséd_ for a
daguerreotype, sat a woman of masculine proportions, coarse features, and
hair between yellow and red, which fell in unkempt masses down each side
of her broad face. She was clad in white muslin of an antiquated fashion.
We noticed that the guests cast looks, partly of curiosity, partly of
uneasiness, upon this Herculean female, who rolled her eyes occasionally,
and smiled on us all with a kind of complacent pity. We ventured, amidst
the silence, to ask our neighbour the name of the gigantic unknown. She
appeared extremely surprised at the very natural question. 'Why, don't you
know? We're invited here to meet her, and, I assure you, it is a rare
privilege. That is Mrs. Jones, the celebrated author of the _Affianced
One_!' At this moment a brisk little woman in the corner, with accents
slightly tremulous, and a manner intended to be very _nonchalant_, broke
the uncomfortable hush of the room. 'My dear Mrs. Jones,' said she, 'as
one of your earliest and most fervent admirers, allow me to inquire if
your health does not suffer from the intense state of feeling in which you
evidently write?' The Amazonian novelist sighed--it was funny to see that
operation on so large a scale,--and then, in a voice so like the rougher
sex that we began to think she was a man in disguise, replied: 'When I
reach the catastrophe of my stories, it is not uncommon for me to faint
dead away; and, as I always write in a room by myself, it has happened
more than once that I have been found stretched, miserable and cold, on
the floor, with a pen grasped in my fingers, and the carpet littered with
manuscript blotted with tears!' The Siddonian pathos of this announcement
sent a thrill round the circle; glances of admiration and pity were thrown
upon the self-immolated victim at the shrine of letters, and other
inquiries were adventured, which elicited equally impressive replies,
until the psychological throes of authorship--particularly in the female
gender--assumed the aspect of an experience combined of epilepsy and
nightmare. The tragic egotism of these revelations at length overcame our
patience; and, leaving our fair companion to another's escort, we slipped
out of the room. A thunder-storm had arisen; the rain was pouring down in
torrents; upon the door-steps we encountered a very pale, thin, little
man, with an umbrella under his arm and a pair of overshoes in his hands.
As we passed, he addressed us in a very meek and frightened voice:
'Please, sirs, is there a party here?' 'Yes.' 'Please, sirs, is the
celebrated Mrs. Jones here?' 'Yes.' 'Please, sirs, do you think I could
step into the entry? I'm Mr. Jones!'
Hastening to our lodgings in another metropolis at twilight, we passed a
dwarf standing on a threshold, who leaped down and caught us by the arm,
eagerly pronouncing our name, and requesting a moment's interview. He led
the way to a little room lighted by a single candle, closed the door, and,
with a quivering impatience of gesture, introduced himself. We remembered
his name at once. He was the author of a feeble imitation of Pope. We
never beheld such an ogre. His little green eyes, ape-like limbs, and
expression indicative of sensitiveness and conceit, in that lone and dusky
cabinet, were appalling. From a cupboard he took down what we supposed to
be a ledger, and, placing it on the table, gave an emphatic slap to the
worn brown cover. 'There,' said he, 'is garnered the labour of years. I
have heard of your enthusiasm for authors, and I will read you specimens
of a poem destined to see the light a twelvemonth hence. Listen!' It was
an epic in blank verse--dreary, monotonous, and verbose. His recitation
was like the refrain of a bull-frog; it grated on the ear and made the
nerves shrink. The candle burned thick; the air seemed mephitic, and in a
little while we were oppressed and fevered as by a glamour cast over our
brain; we looked toward the door and moved uneasily; the green eye was
cast fiercely up from the page, and the tone of the deformed became
malicious. We had heard of his vindictive spirit, and felt as if in the
cave of an imp spellbound and helpless. The complacent hardihood with
which he read on made us inwardly frantic. We thought of the fair being
who waited for us at a neighbouring fireside, of the free air we had
quitted, and we writhed under the infliction. Hours passed; a numb,
half-unconscious sense of misery stole over us, and still the little demon
glared and spouted. 'Words, words, words'--how detestable seemed they
then! At last, in a fit of desperation, we clapped our hand to our
forehead, and murmuring something about a congestive tendency, sprang up,
ran through the hall and out at the door, and looking back, after hurrying
on a few yards, beheld the dwarf, with his enormous book clasped to his
heart, gazing after us with the implacable look of a disappointed savage.
Literature is no more regulated by accident than nature; lucky hits and
the tricks of pencraft are as temporary as all other artificial
expedients. The authors truly remembered and loved are _men_ in the best
sense of the term; the human, the individual informs and stamps their
books with an image or an effluence not born of will or mere ingenuity,
but emanating from the soul; and this is the quality that endears and
perpetuates their fame. Hence Goldsmith is beloved, Milton reverenced, and
the grave of Burns a 'Mecca of the mind.' At the commencement of the last
century there appeared in the _London Gazette_ the offer of a reward of
fifty pounds for the discovery of a certain person thus described: 'A
middle-sized, spare man, about forty years of age, of a brown complexion
and dark brown hair, though he wears a wig, having a hooked nose, a sharp
chin, gray eyes, and a large mouth.' This was Daniel Defoe, the victim of
partisan injustice, for whose rights every schoolboy would fight now, out
of sheer gratitude to the author of _Robinson Crusoe_. Let the writers who
debase authorship into a perversion of history, a sickly medium for
egotistical rhetoric, a gross theft of antecedent labours, a base vehicle
for spite, or a mechanical knack of book-making, realize that they are
foredoomed to contempt, and that character is as little disguised by types
as by costume. The genuine author is recognized at once; his integrity is
self-evident.
It was sunset on the Arno. Far down the river, over mountain ranges where
snow yet lingered, a warm tint, half rose and half amethyst, glowed along
the horizon; beside the low parapet that bordered the street people were
loitering back from their afternoon promenade at the Cascine: here a
priest, there a soldier, now an Englishman on horseback, and then a
bearded artist; sometimes an oval-faced _contadina_, the broad brim of
whose finely-woven straw hat flapped over his eyes of mellow jet; and
again a trig nurse, with Saxon ringlets, dragging a petulant urchin along;
and over all these groups and figures was shed the beautiful smile of
parting day; and by them, under graceful bridges, flowed the turbid
stream, its volume doubled by the spring freshets. I surveyed the panorama
from an overhanging balcony, where I stood awaiting the appearance of a
friend upon whom I had called. Hearing a movement behind, I stepped back
into the _salon_, and found a middle-aged gentleman seated on a divan near
the window. We exchanged salutations and began to converse. He alluded, in
unexceptionable English, to the beauty of the hour. 'I came here from
Geneva,' he said. 'There I work--in Italy I recreate; and it is wonderful
how this country ministers to intellectual repose, even by the very
associations it excites. We feel a dream-like relation with the past, and
enter readily, for a time, into the _dolce-farniente_ spirit of the
people; and then return to task-work invigorated and with new zest.' There
was a bland, self-possessed, and paternal look about this chance
acquaintance that insensibly won my confidence and respect. He was the
image of a wise and serene maturity. His ample brow, his strong physique,
his affable manner, and kindly eye, suggested experience, intelligence,
and benignity. I was certain that he was a philosopher of some kind, and
fancied him an optimist; but the utter absence of pretension and the
simple candour of his address gave no hint of a man of renown.
Accordingly, I soon found myself engaged in a most pleasant, and to me
instructive colloquy. Following up the hint he had thrown out, I spoke of
the difficulty of combining mental toil with health--reverting in my own
mind to our American race of scholars, a majority of whom are confirmed
invalids. 'Ah!' said he, 'there is vast error on this subject. Be assured
that we were intended for intellectual labour, and that there is a way of
making it subservient to health. I will tell you a few rules founded on
experience. Vary the kind of work--let it be research one hour, meditation
another; collation to-day, and revision to-morrow. Do this on system; give
the first part of the day to the hardest study, the afternoon to exercise,
and the evening to social intercourse; let the mind be tasked when the
brain is most vigorous--that is, after sleep; and woo the latter blessing,
not in the feverish hour of thought and emotion, but after the gentle
exercise of the mind, which comes from pastime and friendliness.' I looked
at the hale, contented face of the speaker, about whom no sign of nervous
irritability or exhaustion was discoverable, and asked myself what
experience of mental toil could have led him to such inferences. He looked
like a temperate country gentleman, or unambitious and well-to-do citizen.
He then spoke of the changes he observed upon each successive visit to
Italy, of the climate of Switzerland, and the society of Geneva; then he
referred to America, divining at once that it was my country, and
exhibiting entire familiarity with all that had been accomplished there in
literature. He betrayed a keen sense of enjoyment, recognized a genial
influence in the scene before us, and gradually infected me with that
agreeable feeling only to be derived from what poor Cowper used to call
'comfortable people.' I led him to speak of his own method of life, which
was one of the most philosophical order. He considered occasional travel
and prudent habits the best _hygiène_ for a man of sedentary pursuits; and
the great secret both of health and successful industry the absolute
yielding up of one's consciousness to the business and the diversion of
the hour--never permitting the one to infringe in the least degree upon
the other. I felt an instinctive respect toward him, but at the same time
entirely at home in his company; the gentleman and the scholar appeared to
me admirably fused in, without overlaying, the man. Presently the friend
we mutually expected came in, and introduced me to Sismondi. I was fresh
from his _Italian Republics_ and _Literature of the South of Europe_, and
he realized my ideal of a humane and earnest historian.
Quite in contrast with this tranquil and robust votary of letters was the
appearance and manner of Silvio Pellico. No one who has ever read the
chronicle of his imprisonments can forget the gentle and aspiring nature
just blooming into poetic development, which, by the relentless fiat of
Austrian tyranny, was cut off in a moment from home, intelligent
companionship, and graceful activity, and subjected to the loneliness,
privation, and torments of long and solitary confinement; nor is the
spirit in which he met the bitter reverse less memorable than its tragic
detail--recorded with so much simplicity, and borne with such loving
faith. When I arrived in Turin he was still an object of espionage, and it
was needful to seek him with caution. Agreeably to instructions previously
received, I went to a _café_ near the Strada Alfieri, just at nightfall,
and watched for the arrival of an _abbé_ remarkable for his manly beauty.
I handed him the card of a mutual friend, and made known my wishes. The
next day he conducted me through several arcades, and by many a group of
noble-looking Piedmontese soldiers, to a gateway, thence up a long flight
of steps to a door, at which he gave a significant knock. In a few moments
it was quietly opened. He whispered to the old _serva_, and we tarried in
an ante-chamber until a diminutive figure in black appeared, who received
me with a pensive kindliness that, to one acquainted with _Le Mie
Prigioni_, was fraught with pathos. I beheld in the pallor of that mild
face and expanded brow, and the purblind eyes, the blight of a dungeon.
His manner was subdued and nervous, and his very tones melancholy. I was
unprepared to find, after years of liberty, the effects of his experience
so visible, and felt almost guilty of profane curiosity in having thus
intruded upon his cherished seclusion. I had known other victims of the
same infernal tyranny; but they were men of sterner mould, who had
resisted their cruel fate by the force of will rather than the patience of
resignation. Pellico's very delicacy of organization barbed the arrows of
persecution; and when at length he was released, loneliness, hope
deferred, and mental torture had crushed the energy of his nature. The
sweetness of his autobiography was but the fragrance of the trampled
flower--too unelastic ever again to rise up in its early beauty. A smile
lighted up his brooding expression when I told him of the deep sympathy
his book had excited in America, and he grasped my hand with momentary
ardour; but the man too plainly reflected the martyr. The stifling air he
breathed under the leads of Venice and the damps of his Spielberg cell
seemed yet to weigh upon his soul; no glimmer of the patriotic fire which
beams from Francesca da Rimini, no ray of the vivacious observation that
beguiled his solitude and quickened his pen, redeemed the hopeless air of
the captive poet; the shadow of the power he had braved yet lay on his
form and face; and only the solace of filial love and the consolations of
religion gave hope to his existence.
That is but a vulgar idea of authorship which estimates its worth by the
caprices of fashion or the prestige of immediate success. Like art, its
value is intrinsic. There are books, as there are pictures, which do not
catch the thoughtless eye; and yet are the gems of the virtuoso, the
oracles of the philosopher, and the consolations of the poet. We love
authors, as we love individuals, according to our latent affinities; and
the extent of the popular appreciation is no more a standard to us than
the world's estimate of our friend, whose nature we have tested by
faithful companionship and sympathetic intercourse. He who has not the
mental independence to be loyal to his own intellectual benefactors is as
much a heathen as one who repudiates his natural kin. Indeed, an honest
soul clings more tenaciously to neglected merit in authors as in men;
there is a chivalry of taste as of manners. Doubtless Lamb's zest for the
old English dramatists, Addison's admiration of Milton's poetry, and
Carlyle's devotion to German favourites, were all the more earnest and
keen because they were ignored by their neighbours. In the library, an
original mind is conscious of special and comparatively obscure friends;
as the lover of nature has his pet flower, and the lover of art his
favourite old master. It is well to obey these decided idiosyncrasies.
They point, like the divining-rod, to hidden streams peculiarly adapted to
our refreshment. I knew an old merchant that read no book except Boswell's
_Johnson_, and a black and hump-backed cook whose only imaginative feast
was the _Arabian Nights_.
No one really can, indeed, love authors as a class without a catholic
taste. If thus equipped, how inexhaustible the field! He is independent of
the world. Is he retrospective in mood? Plutarch will array before him a
procession of heroes and sages. Does he yearn for conviviality? Fielding
will take him to a jolly tavern. Is he eager for intellectual communion?
Landor is at hand with a choice of 'imaginary conversations.' Would he
exercise causality? Bishop Butler will put to the test his power of
reasoning. Is he in need of a little gossip by way of recreation? Horace
Walpole will amuse by the hour. Is the society of a sensible woman wanted?
Call in Maria Edgeworth or Jane Austin. Is the bitterness of a jilted
lover in his heart? _Locksley Hall_ will relieve it. Would he stroll in
the forest? Evelyn or Bryant will take him there in a moment. By the
sea-shore? Crabbe and Byron are sympathetic guides. Are his thoughts
comprehensive and inclined for the generalities of literature? Open De
Staël or Hallam.