CONTAINS A NOVEL INCIDENT.
[Illustration]
Some account has been given in a former part of this story, how Mr.
Pen, during his residence at home, after his defeat at Oxbridge, had
occupied himself with various literary compositions, and among other
works, had written the greater part of a novel. This book, written
under the influence of his youthful embarrassments, amatory and
pecuniary, was of a very fierce, gloomy and passionate sort--the
Byronic despair, the Wertherian despondency, the mocking bitterness of
Mephistopheles of Faust, were all reproduced and developed in the
character of the hero; for our youth had just been learning the German
language, and imitated, as almost all clever lads do, his favorite
poets and writers. Passages in the volumes once so loved, and now read
so seldom, still bear the mark of the pencil with which he noted them
in those days. Tears fell upon the leaf of the book, perhaps, or
blistered the pages of his manuscript as the passionate young man
dashed his thoughts down. If he took up the books afterward, he had no
ability or wish to sprinkle the leaves with that early dew of former
times: his pencil was no longer eager to score its marks of approval:
but as he looked over the pages of his manuscript, he remembered what
had been the overflowing feelings which had caused him to blot it, and
the pain which had inspired the line. If the secret history of books
could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted
down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become
interesting, and dull tales excite the reader! Many a bitter smile
passed over Pen's face as he read his novel, and recalled the time and
feelings which gave it birth. How pompous some of the grand passages
appeared; and how weak others were in which he thought he had
expressed his full heart! This page was imitated from a then favorite
author, as he could now clearly see and confess, though he had
believed himself to be writing originally then. As he mused over
certain lines he recollected the place and hour where he wrote them:
the ghost of the dead feeling came back as he mused, and he blushed to
review the faint image. And what meant those blots on the page? As you
come in the desert to a ground where camels' hoofs are marked in the
clay, and traces of withered herbage are yet visible, you know that
water was there once; so the place in Pen's mind was no longer green,
and the fons lacrymarum was dried up.
He used this simile one morning to Warrington, as the latter sate over
his pipe and book, and Pen, with much gesticulation, according to his
wont when excited, and with a bitter laugh, thumped his manuscript
down on the table, making the tea-things rattle, and the blue milk
dance in the jug. On the previous night he had taken the manuscript
out of a long neglected chest, containing old shooting jackets, old
Oxbridge scribbling books, his old surplice, and battered cap and
gown, and other memorials of youth, school, and home. He read in the
volume in bed until he fell asleep, for the commencement of the tale
was somewhat dull, and he had come home tired from a London
evening party.
"By Jove!" said Pen, thumping down his papers, "when I think that
these were written but very few years ago, I am ashamed of my memory.
I wrote this when I believed myself to be eternally in love with that
little coquette, Miss Amory. I used to carry down verses to her, and
put them into the hollow of a tree, and dedicate them 'Amori.'"
"That was a sweet little play upon words," Warrington remarked, with a
puff "Amory--Amori. It showed profound scholarship. Let us hear a bit
of the rubbish." And he stretched over from his easy chair, and caught
hold of Pen's manuscript with the fire-tongs, which he was just using
in order to put a coal into his pipe. Thus, in possession of the
volume, he began to read out from the "Leaves from the Life-book of
Walter Lorraine."
"'False as thou art beautiful! heartless as thou art fair! mockery of
Passion!' Walter cried, addressing Leonora; 'what evil spirit hath
sent thee to torture me so? O Leonora * * * '"
"Cut that part," cried out Pen, making a dash at the book, which,
however, his comrade would not release. "Well! don't read it out, at
any rate. That's about my other flame, my first--Lady Mirabel that is
now. I saw her last night at Lady Whiston's. She asked me to a party
at her house, and said, that, as old friends, we ought to meet
oftener. She has been seeing me any time these two years in town, and
never thought of inviting me before; but seeing Wenham talking to me,
and Monsieur Dubois, the French literary man, who had a dozen orders
on, and might have passed for a Marshal of France, she condescended to
invite me. The Claverings are to be there on the same evening. Won't
it be exciting to meet one's two flames at the same table?" "Two
flames!--two heaps of burnt-out cinders," Warrington said. "Are both
the beauties in this book?"
"Both or something like them," Pen said. "Leonora, who marries the
duke, is the Fotheringay. I drew the duke from Magnus Charters, with
whom I was at Oxbridge; it's a little like him; and Miss Amory is
Neaera. By gad, Warrington, I did love that first woman! I thought of
her as I walked home from Lady Whiston's in the moonlight; and the
whole early scenes came back to me as if they had been yesterday. And
when I got home I pulled out the story which I wrote about her and the
other three years ago: do you know, outrageous as it is, it has some
good stuff in it, and if Bungay won't publish it, I think Bacon will."
"That's the way of poets," said Warrington. "They fall in love, jilt,
or are jilted; they suffer, and they cry out that they suffer more
than any other mortals: and when they have experienced feelings
enough, they note them down in a book, and take the book to market.
All poets are humbugs, all literary men are humbugs; directly a man
begins to sell his feelings for money he's a humbug. If a poet gets a
pain in his side from too good a dinner, he bellows Ai, Ai, louder
than Prometheus."
"I suppose a poet has greater sensibility than another man," said Pen,
with some spirit. "That is what makes him a poet. I suppose that he
sees and feels more keenly: it is that which makes him speak of what
he feels and sees. You speak eagerly enough in your leading articles
when you espy a false argument in an opponent, or detect a quack in
the House. Paley, who does not care for any thing else in the world,
will talk for an hour about a question of law. Give another the
privilege which you take yourself, and the free use of his faculty,
and let him be what nature has made him. Why should not a man sell his
sentimental thoughts as well as you your political ideas, or Paley his
legal knowledge? Each alike is a matter of experience and practice. It
is not money which causes you to perceive a fallacy, or Paley to argue
a point; but a natural or acquired aptitude for that kind of truth:
and a poet sets down his thoughts and experiences upon paper as a
painter does a landscape or a face upon canvas, to the best of his
ability, and according to his particular gift. If ever I think I have
the stuff in me to write an epic, by Jove, I will try. If I only feel
that I am good enough to crack a joke or tell a story, I will
do that."
"Not a bad speech, young one," Warrington said, "but that does not
prevent all poets from being humbugs."
"What--Homer, Aeschylus, Shakspeare, and all?"
"Their names are not to be breathed in the same sentence with you
pigmies," Mr. Warrington said; "there are men and men, sir."
"Well, Shakspeare was a man who wrote for money, just as you and I
do," Pen answered, at which Warrington confounded his impudence, and
resumed his pipe and his manuscript.
There was not the slightest doubt then that this document contained a
great deal of Pen's personal experiences, and that "Leaves from the
Life-book of Walter Lorraine" would never have been written but for
Arthur Pendennis's own private griefs, passions, and follies. As we
have become acquainted with these in the first volume of his
biography, it will not be necessary to make large extracts from the
novel of "Walter Lorraine," in which the young gentleman had depicted
such of them as he thought were likely to interest the reader, or were
suitable for the purposes of his story.
Now, though he had kept it in his box for nearly half of the period
during which, according to the Horatian maxim, a work of art ought to
lie ripening (a maxim, the truth of which may, by the way, be
questioned altogether), Mr. Pen had not buried his novel for this
time, in order that the work might improve, but because he did not
know where else to bestow it, or had no particular desire to see it. A
man who thinks of putting away a composition for ten years before he
shall give it to the world, or exercise his own maturer judgment upon
it, had best be very sure of the original strength and durability of
the work; otherwise, on withdrawing it from its crypt, he may find
that, like small wine, it has lost what flavor it once had, and is
only tasteless when opened. There are works of all tastes and smacks,
the small and the strong, those that improve by age, and those that
won't bear keeping at all, but are pleasant at the first draught, when
they refresh and sparkle.
Now Pen had never any notion, even in the time of his youthful
inexperience and fervor of imagination, that the story he was writing
was a masterpiece of composition, or that he was the equal of the
great authors whom he admired; and when he now reviewed his little
performance, he was keenly enough alive to its faults, and pretty
modest regarding its merits. It was not very good, he thought; but it
was as good as most books of the kind that had the run of circulating
libraries and the career of the season. He had critically examined
more than one fashionable novel by the authors of the day then
popular, and he thought that his intellect was as good as theirs, and
that he could write the English language as well as those ladies or
gentlemen; and as he now ran over his early performance, he was
pleased to find here and there passages exhibiting both fancy and
vigor, and traits, if not of genius, of genuine passion and feeling.
This, too, was Warrington's verdict, when that severe critic, after
half-an-hour's perusal of the manuscript, and the consumption of a
couple of pipes of tobacco, laid Pen's book down, yawning
portentously. "I can't read any more of that balderdash now," he said;
"but it seems to me there is some good stuff in it, Pen, my boy.
There's a certain greenness and freshness in it which I like, somehow.
The bloom disappears off the face of poetry after you begin to shave.
You can't get up that naturalness and artless rosy tint in after days.
Your cheeks are pale, and have got faded by exposure to evening
parties, and you are obliged to take curling-irons, and macassar, and
the deuce knows what to your whiskers; they curl ambrosially, and you
are very grand and genteel, and so forth; but, ah! Pen, the spring
time was the best."
"What the deuce have my whiskers to do with the subject in hand?" Pen
said (who, perhaps, may have been nettled by Warrington's allusion
to those ornaments, which, to say the truth, the young man coaxed, and
curled, and oiled, and purfumed, and petted, in rather an
absurd manner).
"Do you think we can do any thing with 'Walter Lorraine?' Shall we
take him to the publishers, or make an _auto-da-fe_ of him?"
"I don't see what is the good of incremation," Warrington said,
"though I have a great mind to put him into the fire, to punish your
atrocious humbug and hypocrisy. Shall I burn him indeed? You have much
too great a value for him to hurt a hair of his head."
[Illustration]
"Have I? Here goes," said Pen, and "Walter Lorraine" went off the
table, and was flung on to the coals. But the fire having done its
duty of boiling the young man's breakfast-kettle, had given up work
for the day, and had gone out, as Pen knew very well; and Warrington,
with a scornful smile, once more took up the manuscript with the tongs
from out of the harmless cinders.
"O, Pen, what a humbug you are!" Warrington said; "and, what is worst
of all, sir, a clumsy humbug. I saw you look to see that the fire was
out before you sent 'Walter Lorraine' behind the bars. No, we won't
burn him: we will carry him to the Egyptians, and sell him. We will
exchange him away for money, yea, for silver and gold, and for beef
and for liquors, and for tobacco and for raiment. This youth will
fetch some price in the market; for he is a comely lad, though not
over strong; but we will fatten him up, and give him the bath, and
curl his hair, and we will sell him for a hundred piastres to Bacon or
to Bungay. The rubbish is salable enough, sir; and my advice to you is
this: the next time you go home for a holiday, take 'Walter Lorraine'
in your carpet-bag--give him a more modern air, prune away, though
sparingly, some of the green passages, and add a little comedy, and
cheerfulness, and satire, and that sort of thing, and then we'll take
him to market, and sell him. The book is not a wonder of wonders, but
it will do very well."
"Do you think so, Warrington?" said Pen, delighted; for this was great
praise from his cynical friend.
"You silly young fool! I think it's uncommonly clever," Warrington
said in a kind voice. "So do you, sir." And with the manuscript which
he held in his hand he playfully struck Pen on the cheek. That part of
Pen's countenance turned as red as it had ever done in the earliest
days of his blushes: he grasped the other's hand and said, "Thank you,
Warrington," with all his might; and then he retired to his own room
with his book, and passed the greater part of the day upon his bed
re-reading it: and he did as Warrington had advised, and altered not a
little, and added a great deal, until at length he had fashioned
"Walter Lorraine" pretty much into the shape in which, as the
respected novel-reader knows, it subsequently appeared.
While he was at work upon this performance, the good-natured
Warrington artfully inspired the two gentlemen who "read" for Messrs.
Bacon and Bungay with the greatest curiosity regarding, "Walter
Lorraine," and pointed out the peculiar merits of its distinguished
author. It was at the period when the novel, called "The Fashionable,"
was in vogue among us; and Warrington did not fail to point out, as
before, how Pen was a man of the very first fashion himself, and
received at the houses of some of the greatest personages in the land.
The simple and kind-hearted Percy Popjoy was brought to bear upon
Mrs. Bungay, whom he informed that his friend Pendennis was occupied
upon a work of the most exciting nature; a work that the whole town
would run after, full of wit, genius, satire, pathos, and every
conceivable good quality. We have said before, that Bungay knew no
more about novels than he did about Hebrew or Algebra, and neither
read nor understood any of the books which he published and paid for;
but he took his opinions from his professional advisers and from Mrs.
B., and, evidently with a view to a commercial transaction, asked
Pendennis and Warrington to dinner again. Bacon, when he found that
Bungay was about to treat, of course, began to be anxious and curious,
and desired to out-bid his rival. Was any thing settled between Mr.
Pendennis and the odious house "over the way" about the new book? Mr.
Hack, the confidential reader, was told to make inquiries, and see if
any thing was to be done, and the result of the inquiries of that
diplomatist, was, that one morning, Bacon himself toiled up the
staircase of Lamb-court, and to the door on which the names of Mr.
Warrington, and Mr. Pendennis were painted.
For a gentleman of fashion as poor Pen was represented to be, it must
be confessed, that the apartments he and his friend occupied, were not
very suitable. The ragged carpet had grown only more ragged during the
two years of joint occupancy: a constant odor of tobacco perfumed the
sitting-room: Bacon tumbled over the laundress's buckets in the
passage through which he had to pass; Warrington's shooting jacket was
as shattered at the elbows as usual; and the chair which Bacon was
requested to take on entering, broke down with the publisher.
Warrington burst out laughing, said that Bacon had got the game chair,
and bawled out to Pen to fetch a sound one from his bedroom. And
seeing the publisher looking round the dingy room with an air of
profound pity and wonder, asked him whether he didn't think the
apartments were elegant, and if he would like, for Mrs. Bacon's
drawing-room, any of the articles of furniture? Mr. Warrington's
character as a humorist, was known to Mr. Bacon: "I never can make
that chap out," the publisher was heard to say, "or tell whether he is
in earnest or only chaffing."
It is very possible that Mr. Bacon would have set the two gentlemen
down as impostors altogether, but that there chanced to be on the
breakfast-table certain cards of invitation which the post of the
morning had brought in for Pen, and which happened to come from some
very exalted personages of the _beau-monde_, into which our young man
had his introduction. Looking down upon these, Bacon saw that the
Marchioness of Steyne would be at home to Mr. Arthur Pendennis upon a
given day, and that another lady of distinction proposed to have
dancing at her house upon a certain future evening. Warrington saw the
admiring publisher eying these documents. "Ah," said he, with an air
of simplicity, "Pendennis is one of the most affable young men I ever
knew, Mr. Bacon. Here is a young fellow that dines with all the great
men in London, and yet he'll take his mutton-chop with you and me
quite contentedly. There's nothing like the affability of the old
English gentleman."
"O, no, nothing," said Mr. Bacon.
"And you wonder why he should go on living up three pair of stairs
with me, don't you, now? Well, it _is_ a queer taste. But we are fond
of each other; and as I can't afford to live in a grand house, he
comes and stays in these rickety old chambers with me. He's a man that
can afford to live any where."
"I fancy it don't cost him much _here_," thought Mr. Bacon; and the
object of these praises presently entered the room from his adjacent
sleeping apartment.
Then Mr. Bacon began to speak upon the subject of his visit; said he
heard that Mr. Pendennis had a manuscript novel; professed himself
anxious to have a sight of that work, and had no doubt that they could
come to terms respecting it. What would be his price for it? would he
give Bacon the refusal of it? he would find our house a liberal house,
and so forth. The delighted Pen assumed an air of indifference, and
said that he was already in treaty with Bungay, and could give no
definite answer. This piqued the other into such liberal, though vague
offers, that Pen began to fancy Eldorado was opening to him, and that
his fortune was made from that day.
I shall not mention what was the sum of money which Mr. Arthur
Pendennis finally received for the first edition of his novel of
"Walter Lorraine," lest other young literary aspirants should expect
to be as lucky as he was, and unprofessional persons forsake their own
callings, whatever they may be, for the sake of supplying the world
with novels, whereof there is already a sufficiency. Let no young
people be misled and rush fatally into romance-writing: for one book
which succeeds let them remember the many that fail, I do not say
deservedly or otherwise, and wholesomely abstain: or if they venture,
at least let then do so at their own peril. As for those who have
already written novels, this warning is not addressed, of course, to
them. Let them take their wares to market; let them apply to Bacon and
Bungay, and all the publishers in the Row, or the metropolis, and may
they be happy in their ventures. This world is so wide, and the tastes
of mankind happily so various, that there is always a chance for every
man, and he may win the prize by his genius or by his good fortune.
But what is the chance of success or failure; of obtaining popularity,
or of holding it, when achieved? One man goes over the ice, which
bears him, and a score who follow flounder in. In fine, Mr.
Pendennis's was an exceptional case, and applies to himself only: and
I assert solemnly, and will to the last maintain, that it is one thing
to write a novel, and another to get money for it.
By merit, then, or good fortune, or the skillful playing off of Bungay
against Bacon which Warrington performed (and which an amateur
novelist is quite welcome to try upon any two publishers in the
trade), Pen's novel was actually sold for a certain sum of money to
one of the two eminent patrons of letters whom we have introduced to
our readers. The sum was so considerable that Pen thought of opening
an account at a banker's, or of keeping a cab and horse, or of
descending into the first floor of Lamb-court into newly furnished
apartments, or of migrating to the fashionable end of the town.
Major Pendennis advised the latter move strongly; he opened his eyes
with wonder when he heard of the good luck that had befallen Pen; and
which the latter, as soon as it occurred, hastened eagerly to
communicate to his uncle. The major was almost angry that Pen should
have earned so much money. "Who the doose reads this kind of thing?"
he thought to himself, when he heard of the bargain which Pen had
made. "_I_ never read your novels and rubbish. Except Paul de Kock,
who certainly makes me laugh, I don't think I've looked into a book of
the sort these thirty years. 'Gad! Pen's a lucky fellow. I should
think he might write one of these in a month now--say a month--that's
twelve in a year. Dammy, he may go on spinning this nonsense for the
next four or five years, and make a fortune. In the mean time, I
should wish him to live properly, take respectable apartments, and
keep a brougham." And on this simple calculation it was that the major
counseled Pen.
Arthur, laughing, told Warrington what his uncle's advice had been;
but he luckily had a much more reasonable counselor than the old
gentleman, in the person of his friend, and in his own conscience,
which said to him, "Be grateful for this piece of good fortune; don't
plunge into any extravagancies. Pay back Laura!" And he wrote a letter
to her, in which he told her his thanks and his regard; and inclosed
to her such an installment of his debt as nearly wiped it off. The
widow and Laura herself might well be affected by the letter. It was
written with genuine tenderness and modesty; and old Dr. Portman, when
he read a passage in the letter, in which Pen, with an honest heart
full of gratitude, humbly thanked Heaven for his present prosperity,
and for sending him such dear and kind friends to support him in his
ill-fortune,--when Doctor Portman read this portion of the letter,
his voice faltered, and his eyes twinkled behind his spectacles. And
when he had quite finished reading the same, and had taken his glasses
off his nose, and had folded up the paper and given it back to the
widow, I am constrained to say, that after holding Mrs. Pendennis's
hand for a minute, the doctor drew that lady toward him and fairly
kissed her: at which salute, of course, Helen burst out crying on the
doctor's shoulder, for her heart was too full to give any other reply:
and the doctor, blushing a great deal after his feat, led the lady,
with a bow, to the sofa, on which he seated himself by her; and he
mumbled out, in a low voice, some words of a Great Poet whom he loved
very much, and who describes how in the days of his prosperity he had
made "the widow's heart to sing for joy."
"The letter does the boy very great honor, very great honor, my dear,"
he said, patting it as it lay on Helen's knee--"and I think we have
all reason to be thankful for it--very thankful. I need not tell you
in what quarter, my dear, for you are a sainted woman: yes, Laura, my
love, your mother is a sainted woman. And Mrs. Pendennis, ma'am, I
shall order a copy of the book for myself, and another at the
Book club."
We may be sure that the widow and Laura walked out to meet the mail
which brought them their copy of Pen's precious novel, as soon as that
work was printed and ready for delivery to the public; and that they
read it to each other: and that they also read it privately and
separately, for when the widow came out of her room in her
dressing-gown at one o'clock in the morning with volume two, which she
had finished, she found Laura devouring volume three in bed. Laura did
not say much about the book, but Helen pronounced that it was a
happy mixture of Shakspeare, and Byron, and Walter Scott, and was
quite certain that her son was the greatest genius, as he was the best
son, in the world.
Did Laura not think about the book and the author, although she said
so little? At least she thought about Arthur Pendennis. Kind as his
tone was, it vexed her. She did not like his eagerness to repay that
money. She would rather that her brother had taken her gift as she
intended it; and was pained that there should be money calculations
between them. His letters from London, written with the good-natured
wish to amuse his mother, were full of descriptions of the famous
people and the entertainments, and magnificence of the great city.
Every body was flattering him and spoiling him, she was sure. Was he
not looking to some great marriage, with that cunning uncle for a
Mentor (between whom and Laura there was always an antipathy), that
inveterate worldling, whose whole thoughts were bent upon pleasure,
and rank, and fortune? He never alluded to--to old times, when he
spoke of her. He had forgotten them and her, perhaps: had he not
forgotten other things and people?
These thoughts may have passed in Miss Laura's mind, though she did
not, she could not, confide them to Helen. She had one more secret,
too, from that lady, which she could not divulge, perhaps, because she
knew how the widow would have rejoiced to know it. This regarded an
event which had occurred during that visit to Lady Rockminster, which
Laura had paid in the last Christmas holidays: when Pen was at home
with his mother, and when Mr. Pynsent, supposed to be so cold and so
ambitious, had formally offered his hand to Miss Bell. No one except
herself and her admirer knew of this proposal: or that Pynsent had
been rejected by her, and probably the reasons she gave to the
mortified young man himself, were not those which actuated her
refusal, or those which she chose to acknowledge to herself. "I
never," she told Pynsent, "can accept such an offer as that which you
make me, which you own is unknown to your family, as I am sure it
would be unwelcome to them. The difference of rank between us is too
great. You are very kind to me here--too good and kind, dear Mr.
Pynsent--but I am little better than a dependent."
"A dependent! who ever so thought of you? You are the equal of all the
world," Pynsent broke out.
"I am a dependent at home, too," Laura said, sweetly, "and indeed I
would not be otherwise. Left early a poor orphan, I have found the
kindest and tenderest of mothers, and I have vowed never to leave her
--never. Pray do not speak of this again--here, under your relative's
roof, or elsewhere. It is impossible."
"If Lady Rockminster asks you herself, will you listen to her?"
Pynsent cried, eagerly.
"No," Laura said. "I beg you never to speak of this any more. I must
go away if you do;" and with this she left him.
Pynsent never asked for Lady Rockminster's intercession; he knew how
vain it was to look for that: and he never spoke again on that subject
to Laura or to any person.
When at length the famous novel appeared, it not only met with
applause from more impartial critics than Mrs. Pendennis, but, luckily
for Pen, it suited the taste of the public, and obtained a quick and
considerable popularity. Before two months were over, Pen had the
satisfaction and surprise of seeing the second edition of "Walter
Lorraine," advertised in the newspapers; and enjoyed the pleasure of
reading and sending home the critiques of various literary journals
and reviewers upon his book. Their censure did not much affect him;
for the good-natured young man was disposed to accept with
considerable humility the dispraise of others. Nor did their praise
elate him overmuch; for, like most honest persons, he had his own
opinion about his own performance, and when a critic praised him in
the wrong place, he was hurt rather than pleased by the compliment.
But if a review of his work was very laudatory, it was a great
pleasure to him to send it home to his mother at Fairoaks, and to
think of the joy which it would give there. There are some natures,
and perhaps, as we have said, Pendennis's was one, which are improved
and softened by prosperity and kindness, as there are men of other
dispositions, who become arrogant and graceless under good fortune.
Happy he who can endure one or the other with modesty and good-humor!
Lucky he who has been educated to bear his fate, whatsoever it may be,
by an early example of uprightness, and a childish training in honor!