THE MAIDEN’S LOVER 669
THE PORTENT 670
_II.—“The Omen Coming on.”_
STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE 682
CHAPTER VI.—_Every organism a colony—What is a paradox?—An
organ is an independent individual, and a dependent one—A
branch of coral—A colony of polypes—The Siphonophora—Universal
dependence—Youthful aspirings—Our interest in the youth of
great men—Genius and labour—Cuvier’s college life; his
appearance in youth; his arrival in Paris—Cuvier and
Geoffrey St. Hilaire—Causes of Cuvier’s success—One of his
early ambitions—M. le Baron—Omnia vincit labor—Conclusion._
FRAMLEY PARSONAGE. (With an Illustration.) 691
CHAPTER XVI.—_Mrs. Podgens’ Baby._
” XVII.—_Mrs. Proudie’s Conversazione._
” XVIII.—_The New Minister’s Patronage._
WILLIAM HOGARTH: PAINTER, ENGRAVER, AND PHILOSOPHER. Essays
on the Man, the Work, and the Time 716
_V.—Between London and Sheerness._
AN AUSTRIAN EMPLOYÉ 736
SIR SELF AND WOMANKIND. BY WILLIAM DUTHIE 742
THE POOR MAN’S KITCHEN 745
ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.—NO. 4 755
_On Some late Great Victories._
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THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE.
JUNE, 1860.
London the Stronghold of England.
1. The Commissioners appointed to examine and report upon the state of
our Coast Defences, have recommended the construction of additional
Fortifications at various points, which, it is computed, will involve
an outlay of several millions sterling. The defences of the dockyards
and arsenals are, very properly, to be strengthened so as to enable
them to resist the attacks of steam-ships armed with rifled cannon;
and every assailable part of the coast is to be protected against an
invading force. The defence of London forms no part of the scheme; that
most important topic having been omitted in the Defence Commission. The
reason for such an extraordinary omission need not here be discussed:
suffice it to say that, while the extremities are guarded, the heart of
the country is left exposed.[1] Our first line of defence, the Channel
Fleet, is provided to prevent the sudden descent of a hostile force upon
our shores. Our second line, consisting of forts on various parts of the
coast, will, no doubt, be strengthened by powerful batteries. A third
and innermost line of defences, for the protection of the Capital, the
seat of Government, the centre of the wealth and commerce of the nation,
is wanting. To show how this deficiency may be supplied, speedily, and
economically, and at the same time so effectually as to make London
impregnable and successful invasion hopeless, is the purpose of this
article.
2. If ever an invasion of England be attempted, the point to be aimed
at by the invader will be the capture of London; and for the very
simple reason that _it_ alone would repay the cost and risks of an
attack. If Portsmouth dockyard were destroyed, Devonport would remain;
if both were lost, there would be Chatham; give all three to an enemy,
and we have Pembroke; let him take all four, and England might still
build ships in the Clyde and the Severn and the Mersey by private
enterprise: better, perchance, than in royal dockyards, the gun-boat
failures notwithstanding. An enemy would not be likely to place himself
permanently on Portland Bill, or any other part of England; and certainly
no burning of dockyards, or any other similar contingency, would be
likely to induce England to capitulate and make terms. What might happen
if a conqueror were to get possession of the Bank of England, and appoint
a General of Division Governor _pro tem._, who would make the bank
parlour his head-quarters, and bid his soldiers mount guard over the
bullion-vaults, it is difficult to say. With London in a state of siege,
a Provost-Marshal installed at the Mansion House, a park of artillery
on Tower Hill, the Royal Exchange and Guildhall converted into military
posts, and a foreign soldiery quartered upon the inhabitants, there would
be no “Quotations” of Consols on the Stock Exchange, nor any of the
usual telegrams or leading articles in the newspapers. The Government
would be powerless for anything but “making terms” with the invading
foe; Parliament would be nowhere; martial law alone would prevail; our
glorious old Constitution would be abrogated, and the monarchy itself
might be in jeopardy. The day of England’s disgrace and humiliation might
inaugurate a saturnalia of brutal soldiery; crime and misery, such as
the imagination recoils from conceiving, might desolate our hearths and
homes; and destruction of property to the value of untold millions would
involve paralysis of commerce, death of credit, stoppage of manufactures,
ruin of trade, and the dissolution of every bond of law and society: nay,
even this frightful calamity might be heightened by the horrors of the
sack of London.
3. But, it may be asked, is such a contingency possible? For there are
those who refuse to entertain the idea of an invasion of England ever
being attempted. Rather than contemplate the probable consequences of
a successful invasion, they ridicule the idea of its probability, and
stigmatize as panic-mongers all who regard the possibility of such a
disaster. That the idea of England being invaded is not absurd, we have
the testimony of Wellington himself, and the call upon the nation for
millions of money to prepare against the contingency. And since it is
proved that this country is open to invasion, the impossibility of such
an attempt being successful should be demonstrated so clearly, by the
strength of our defensive preparations, that no foreign foe would dare to
make the attempt.
4. As it is, however, the question whether England could be invaded,
and London taken and sacked, has been frequently discussed by military
engineers on the Continent, and answered by them in the affirmative.[2]
The only difference of opinion that exists is as to the best plan of
proceeding, the amount of forces required, and the places where troops
should be landed. Is it impossible that an enemy, with a fleet nearly
matching our own, and able to embark, at any moment, two or three hundred
thousand troops in four or five divisions, and launch them against the
most assailable parts of our coast, should so lay his plans as to reach
London before we could prevent him? Resolved upon an attempt to occupy
the metropolis, he could make a number of feints and attacks at different
points, with a fair chance of succeeding in one; which would be all that
he would want. A naval action might be fought and lost by England; or, if
not lost, the fleet might be seriously crippled: even whilst the battle
was fighting, or after it was fought, troops might be landed on the coast
at quite another part of the country.
5. We would not infer, from the fact of the fortification of London not
being named in the National Defence Commission, that the Government shut
their eyes to the danger of the metropolis being unprotected; especially
as certain incidents bearing upon the subject are well known to have
occurred, which were calculated to open the eyes of the most passive
and unsuspecting administration. But the remoteness and uncertainty of
the possible peril, combined with a prudent desire to avoid the danger
of creating a panic by implying a doubt of the durability of peace, may
induce even a vigilant executive to postpone precautions which might
denote distrust, until it be too late to adopt them with due effect. If
this be so, the public voice should demand that the heart of England
shall not be left to the chance of an extemporized and therefore
inadequate defence, and that the Capital shall be rendered secure against
an invading force. Such a demand incessantly and resolutely put forward,
would not only strengthen the hands of the Ministry, but supply them with
the needful justification to act, as they are, perhaps, already inclined
to do. Indeed, the fortification of London is a necessary supplement to
the Volunteer force; and the spontaneous offer of our riflemen having
been accepted by the Queen and the Government, it is not likely that
the voice of the nation, if raised to demand fortifications which the
volunteers of the metropolitan districts could defend—and which would
so strengthen our national defences as to render successful invasion
hopeless, by making London an impregnable stronghold—would be unheeded.
For surely no government would refuse a million to insure the safety of
the metropolis and frustrate the aim of an invader, especially as the
protection of the Capital is of paramount importance in any scheme of
National Defences.
6. Again, our fleet might be passed, or even decoyed away, as Nelson’s
was; and then there are about 200 miles of our coast on which an enemy
could land within four days’ march of London. In those short four days
the safety of London would have to be secured, and our work of resistance
to the invader be done. Within that time the enemy must be brought to a
stand. But how is this to be done? Will he be brought up by clouds of
skirmishers, hovering on his flank and rear, and slowly retreating as he
advances his _tirailleurs_? Can we hope, with any number of irregular
riflemen, however perfect may be their practice or superior their
intelligence, so to reduce his numbers and disorganize his ranks, as to
oblige him to pause in his career?—no more than a man would be stopped by
an attack of angry wasps.
7. No! the only stop to an enemy in that hasty rush would be a general
action; and if we give ourselves three days out of the four, which is
little enough, to collect the various component parts of our motley
forces—if we even accomplish this, and are prepared to meet the enemy on
the third day, the action must be fought within one day’s march of London.
8. All honour to the volunteers who have so nobly stepped out at their
country’s call; but on that day—without apprenticeship to their bloody
task, without having ever seen a shot fired in anger—they must match
themselves against veteran legions, led on by well-known and well-tried
leaders, with all their plans of operation ready prepared, and with the
prospect of the sack of the richest city in Europe, and the consummation,
perhaps, of long-nourished plans of revenge.
9. What Englishman would not give all that he had to ensure the victory
on such a day? Who that has a mother, a sister, a wife, or a daughter
living in London, but would make any sacrifice to guard against the
_possibility_ of what might happen, if in that day the issue of this
battle was to be decided against us?
10. Neither confidence in the justice of our cause, nor reliance on the
valour of our defenders, can prevent the mind from growing dizzy at the
thought of what may be the result of that action: for all must depend on
_that_. There would be no time nor space for rallying. _That_ one battle
would decide the fate of England.
11. But this is a fate against which we may guard, with certainty of
success, by adopting precautions which in all cases have been proved to
be sufficient.
12. London’s safety may be secured by the same means by which Wellington
saved his handful of troops in Spain, when Massena was advancing with
his superior army, as it seemed to annihilate him. Napoleon’s order had
gone forth to drive “the leopards” into the sea, and there seemed no
one who could say it might not be done. What made Massena halt in his
advance? Why did he sit down for a whole winter, his army melting away
like snow from off those hills on which it had rested so long? Because
he came in sight of some poor mounds of earth at Torres Vedras,—little
earthen redoubts, thrown up on every vantage ground,—all of which had
been rendered impregnable by the very man whom Massena knew that he had
sufficient strength to crush in the open field; but who, through this
protection, was enabled to brave him, without a moment’s uneasiness, for
a whole winter, during which time he recruited his army by rest and by
supplies from England. The result was the complete discomfiture of the
French army.
13. How was it that, when we had landed in safety in the Crimea, had won
the heights of Alma, and were within two days’ march of Sebastopol, the
victorious forces of France and England were suddenly brought to a stand
and their strength so paralyzed that a year elapsed before we could gain
a mile in advance upon an enemy whom we had in a few hours driven from
his chosen position in the open field?
14. Why in the late campaign in Italy did the French Emperor so suddenly
depart from his programme of “From the Alps to the Adriatic,” and that,
too, after his enemy had proved himself so hopelessly inferior in open
contest? Whatever was the cause of these sudden pauses of great and
conquering armies, it behoves us to know it; for it is this effect which
we desire to produce. We may, and probably shall be taken by surprise;
we may, as has generally happened, get worsted at the commencement: our
volunteers, as well as some of our generals, may require some little
apprenticeships; but if we can only _gain time_,[3] who would for a
moment fear the final result?
15. Let us, then, learn a lesson from these three great examples of
modern warfare. The means we must employ are defensive as well as
offensive resistance, and the science we must call to our aid is
_Fortification_, properly applied to the metropolis, and _entrusted to
our Volunteers_.
16. But before discussing the mode of fortification we will dispose of
the superficial arguments brought against such a means of defence. Of
course there will be the usual cuckoo cry—“Fortifications! why, have not
we strong fortifications at Portsmouth, and Plymouth, and Dover? You
don’t think we can fortify all round the coast? Fortification! What is
the good of building batteries and throwing up earth-works that will be
all out of date and useless in a few years, and at an enormous cost? We
can make better use of our money than that.” And the military man will
come forward and say that our army is small enough as it is, without
locking up a part of it in fortresses which may be masked and passed by;
while the engineer will say we can easily throw up hasty field-works at
the last moment. These objections are really worthless.
17. There is a hazy kind of national prejudice against fortifying,
and especially the metropolis. Yet this was done by the Romans in the
middle ages, and even by the Parliamentarians in defence of liberty
against despotism. In 1642 the very plan now suggested was followed by
Cromwell. Forts were erected at the entrances to the city, and lines and
entrenchments connected them together. The Common Council and other chief
men of the city, with their wives and families, three thousand porters
with their wives, and five thousand shoemakers, six thousand tailors,
and five thousand sailors, all worked in the trenches at different days
in May and June. “Oh, but we have our wooden walls!” Thank God, we have
our wooden walls, and we trust them; but a fleet may be, as it has been,
decoyed out of the Channel; indeed, it is possible that even an English
fleet might meet with a temporary reverse; and in these days of steam,
the time thus gained need not be more than an hour or two to enable
the enemy to get the start of us. To an invading force, the fear of
their retreat being cut off, and being severed from the base of their
operations, would not be thought of. If London is worth attacking, it is
worth running the risk of letting an army be left to its own resources,
or even of being cut off altogether. Our fleet is a great protection,
without doubt; but it does not, and cannot, give that perfect assurance
against a sacking of London which is what we demand. The fleet is a right
thing, but may not be always in the right place.
18. We must have a new and inner line of defence. “Well,” opponents will
say, “we have our great fortresses of Portsmouth and Plymouth, which we
are strengthening at this very time.” Portsmouth and Plymouth are most
valuable, but not directly as defences of the capital: they are virtually
important; but only as naval arsenals, as storehouses, refitting places,
or _points d’affaires_ for our navy. No! we may have as many lines as
we please, but for our last and great efficient line of defence we must
come nearer home. The line, to be well manned, must be short. We must
fortify the point that is most liable to attack. London itself must be
our _Quadrilateral_.
19. The military argument that the construction of fortresses
necessitates the locking up of a great part of our regular troops, was
formerly, no doubt, a strong and valid objection; but it will no longer
hold good: whatever hesitation we may have in trusting untried troops for
the first time in the field, there can be no doubt that we may safely
entrust to them the charge of our fortresses. This is a work, too,
which the intelligence and readiness of resources that we are sure to
find in troops raised from our middle classes, would render volunteers
particularly fitted to perform.
20. If the metropolis were safe, an invader would gain nothing by masking
and passing that position: it being itself the goal to which all his
efforts were tending. _The fortifications of the metropolis would not
lock up our troops: they would have a directly contrary effect._ In the
present state of things, a large covering force _must_ always be employed
in keeping guard over London, and the rest of the kingdom thus be left
comparatively defenceless: but with London fortified, and in the charge
of our volunteers, we could afford to keep almost all our army in the
field.
21. The objection that fortifications are becoming out of date, is
so puerile as scarcely to deserve refutation. We know that, with the
exception of such modifications as have been rendered necessary by
improvements in arms and projectiles, the art of fortification has
scarcely undergone a change for the better since the days of Marshal
Vauban. But are we therefore to reject it until we have a better system?
The percussion musket with which we re-armed all our foot soldiers a few
years ago has been superseded by the Enfield rifle. The Armstrong gun is
rapidly replacing the smooth-bored cannon on our forts and in our ships.
And steam has rendered necessary the reconstruction of our navy. Yet we
don’t leave our soldiers without rifles, our batteries without guns, or
our fleet without steamers, because those we are now constructing may,
(or rather will, most certainly) become out of date in a few years.
22. As we shall show hereafter, the cost of fortifying London could be no
obstacle: it would be an insignificant premium for such an insurance.
23. Fortification is the art of all others that seems at the present
moment fitted to supply our wants. It is the very _complement of our
volunteer movement_. We boast of the talent and intelligence of our
volunteer defenders; and shall we neglect the means of turning that
talent to the best and most profitable account? If our volunteers, from
their superior intelligence, would make the best riflemen, surely these
very qualities fit them in a still higher degree for engineers.
24. Fortification seems as if it were specially contrived for the
benefit of England and Englishmen; for it makes money to do the work of
soldiers. We are the richest country in Europe, with the smallest body
of men under arms. Fortification will render irregular troops as good
as, nay, even better than, regular. Our regular army is but a handful
of men compared with the armies of other great powers; but thanks to
our Volunteers, we are rich in perhaps the finest irregular troops in
the world. Fortification affords the best guarantee against a _coup de
main_; and such a mode of attack is precisely that which we have most
reason to apprehend. Fortification gives the means of gaining time at the
commencement of a campaign; and this of itself is a godsend to the ever
unready Saxon.
25. There is every reason why we should largely avail ourselves of a
science which above all others distinguishes the educated from the
uneducated soldier, the man of intellect from the mere fighting machine.
26. We have shown not only that there is no valid objection to
fortifications, but that they are the best means of defence for us, and
that our metropolis is the point of all others that seems to stand in
need of defence: it is the heart without a breast-plate.
27. We now therefore proceed to the practical application of the
argument. _How_ should London be fortified?
28. In the minds of many may rise visions of an immense bulwark, a kind
of great wall of China, drawn round London, and provided with ditches,
drawbridges, and barred gates; and those who are acquainted with the
customs of continental towns will probably connect them with barriers
and _octrois_, and men examining your luggage and poking among your legs
for contraband articles. On the contrary, now, thanks to our railways,
our long-range guns, and to our volunteers, the fortifications which are
necessary to secure London may be so unobtrusive, and so removed from the
main highways, that no Londoner, save such as know what fortification
really is, would ever realize the fact that they were in any way
connected with its defence.
29. We only want half-a-dozen tolerably large forts, well placed, to
form, as it were, the salient points of our defence. Let the reader
refer to the diagram, and he will see six stars, one on Shooter’s Hill,
one on Norwood Hill to the South of the Crystal Palace, one at or near
Wimbledon, a fourth somewhere near Harrow, then at Mill Hill, and our
last within good range of Enfield Lock. A set of dots (●) then come in
about midway between the five spaces.
[Illustration]
30. Let us now consider the significance of the stars which denote forts:
and first, that on Shooter’s Hill, as the most important.
31. The security of our great arsenal of Woolwich demands (independently
of any plea of metropolitan defence) that this important position should
be occupied by a work of considerable strength. Such a fortress would
answer three purposes, each of them of paramount importance! In the first
place, it would remedy the extremely insecure state, and to an enemy the
most tempting defencelessness, of our greatest military manufactories and
arsenal; secondly, it would, by means of its outworks, effectually bar
the Thames from any gun-boat attack; and thirdly, it would form one of
the angles of our great polygon of positions for the defence of London.
The next of these angles would be at the spur of Norwood Hill; where it
would be necessary to construct a considerable fort. The third permanent
work would come in the immediate vicinity of Wimbledon, where the range
of hills again spurs out to the South; and these three would complete the
salient angles of the southern half of the defence of London. Probably
two works of a like nature would suffice for the northern division; and a
third might be added in the direction of, and perhaps either within range
of, or covering Enfield Lock, the great rifle factory for the Army.
32. These five or six forts should be regular permanent works, and of
sufficient importance to be secure against a _coup de main_: in fact,
to compel an enemy to sit down before them for a siege of greater or
less duration. They should all be armed with heavy long-range guns, and
should besides contain surplus stores of both guns and ammunition for the
armament of other works, to be hereafter described.
33. Such would be all the extent of fortification necessary to be
undertaken at first; but to complete the chain, it would be requisite
that plots of ground should be acquired in suitable positions: generally,
one between each of the permanent forts; and on each of these pieces of
ground should be carefully traced the outline of an earthen work, of
extent and form to suit each particular case.
34. The execution of these works could be undertaken by the garrisons
of the permanent works, which would be relieved from time to time. They
would thus form a series of military industrial schools, in which a large
proportion of our troops might learn the all-important and much-neglected
art, how to use a spade in their own defence. Perhaps some of our
volunteers would not be above taking a few lessons of the same kind. Such
as have formed themselves into engineer corps would of course do so, and
we should thus be able to place another important mode of defence in the
hands of these gentlemen. The outworks of the main forts, indeed, might
be executed by the same means, and they could thus be kept continually
being increased in strength.
35. The secondary earth-works would either be armed at once, upon the
completion of the _enceinte_, or they might be supplied with guns and
ammunition from the main permanent works when occasion might require. In
the latter case, their cost would be very trifling, as it would not be
necessary to construct permanent magazines or stores.
36. These two sets of works having been completed, it would then merely
remain to have the spaces of ground between the several forts carefully
considered, with a view to their occupation by a series of smaller works,
either enclosed or open to the rear. The latter might in this case be
left to be undertaken upon the menace of attack.
37. We should then have London surrounded by a series of strong points of
resistance, consisting of chains of detached works, with large intervals
between them, through which our regular and irregular troops might
advance and retire, and act with a perfect certainty of success.
38. As to the garrisons of the permanent works; we have the Artillery at
Woolwich, who would garrison their own fort at Shooter’s Hill, and thus
be on the spot to assist in the armament of the secondary works.
39. Now that we have given up the idea of employing our troops as police,
we may surely abolish a large proportion of our London barracks, and give
the Guards the benefit of suburban quarters. By this means we should do
much towards improving the health of the troops, and the sale of the
ground on which many of the present barracks are built would go far
towards supplying the cost for the construction of those now proposed.
40. As the presence of a considerable strength of engineers would be
necessary in the construction of the various secondary works, it would be
advisable that one of the large forts should be garrisoned by this force.
This would, perhaps, be best accomplished by the removal of our School
of Military Engineers from Chatham; and it would be most conveniently
located at Wimbledon, where the necessary waste ground could be obtained
for practice in earth-works, while the Thames at Richmond would be
sufficiently close for practice in hydraulic works and in pontooning.
Moreover, the entire force round the metropolis would be able to avail
themselves of this additional means of military education: indeed the
engineers themselves, however learned or scientific they may be, would
be none the worse for being placed within nearer reach of the various
meetings of learned and scientific societies which are always taking
place in the metropolis.
41. Let us now review the positions that we trust we have established. We
have London surrounded by a cordon of detached forts, showing in every
direction an armed front. We have water communication from east to west
of the position, and ample communication by railway and telegraph in all
directions, and to every fort. The leading lines of railway and the river
are everywhere barred, and these very lines put us in communication with
our great camps at Aldershott, Colchester, and Shorncliffe. Within our
circle of forts we have, in material, the whole resources of the nation
in artillery, military stores, small-arms, and ammunition; and as regards
the _personal_, we include the head-quarters of the artillery, our picked
troops, the Guards, the Engineers, the largest companies of Volunteer
corps in the country, and, finally, a population of 8,000,000 from
which to recruit: and with such a position to defend, every man might
be a soldier. We have also the means of obtaining unlimited supplies
of all kinds from the country, and of despatching troops in different
directions: for the idea of investing a position of such extent and
situation could not for a moment be entertained by any army that could be
introduced into this country.
42. With such defences, London might be safely entrusted to the keeping
of a garrison of Volunteers, with but a sprinkling of regulars; so that
the entire Army and Militia would be left free to take the field. Such a
state of things would afford absolute security; for no enemy would then
be mad enough to dream of a descent upon the heart of our empire. With
London safe, and our army thus reinforced by the covering force that
would otherwise be constantly required to defend it, we might, indeed,
laugh at the menace of invasion.
43. What, then, should hinder us from at once putting ourselves beyond
the probability of surprise? In point of inconvenience to the metropolis,
it would be no more than the forts at Dover. The expense would be a mere
nothing to what we are spending every day in less important matters. We
are annually building large barracks for our troops; we have only to
build the next six that we require in these particular positions; so
that, with the exception of those to supply the place of the guards’
barracks, the outlay for barracks may be almost omitted from the
calculation: and in the case of these, their cost would be met by the
sale of their present sites.
44. Again, in calculating the expense, the main works at Shooter’s
Hill may be thrown out; as they must, of necessity, be undertaken for
the defence of Woolwich, and do not come within the category of works
executed solely for the protection of London.
45. What, therefore, remains to be done at once, is to purchase, say,
five plots of ground of fifty acres each, and six plots of thirty acres
each, in all, 430 acres of land: this, considering that some of the
sites are waste land, may possibly be put down at 200_l._ per acre =
86,000_l._ The main works may, perhaps, be estimated at 80,000_l._ each,
or 400,000_l._; so that the entire cost would not exceed half a million
sterling, excluding Woolwich, which must be fortified in any case: an
amount far less than that which the nation is spending ungrudgingly in
constructing iron plated vessels, which, at best, are only experimental,
and may prove failures.
46. A sum of half a million spent on the construction of six large Forts,
would, in the next twelve months, establish a firm and adequate basis for
all future defence. The field-works between the forts might be executed
by the garrisons in them, whilst the smaller earth-works need not be
thrown up until there was an absolute threat, or an imminent danger
of invasion. Surely, the spirit which has evoked the Volunteers, will
provide the funds to make London impregnable, and invasion, therefore,
hopeless.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Such an omission seems hardly credible; but the Commission published
in the _London Gazette_ of 26th August, 1859, recites only that inquiries
are to be made “into the present state, condition, and sufficiency of
the fortifications existing for the defence of our United Kingdom, and
of examining into all works at present in progress for the improvement
thereof, and for considering the most effectual means of rendering the
same complete, especially all such works of defence as are intended for
the protection of our royal arsenals and dockyards in case of any hostile
attack being made by foreign enemies both by sea and land.” Not a word
about the metropolis.
[2] “Mais si soixante mille Français prenaient terre entre Hastings et
Douvres, et qu’une bataille heureuse leur permit de s’avancer jusque sur
les borde de la Medway et de la Tamise, ils pourraient, en vingt-quatre
heures, détruire plusieurs milliards de matériels et de marchandise, et
porter à la fortune de l’Angleterre un coup dont elle aurait peine à se
relever.”—_Extract of Lieut.-Col. Ardent’s (of the Corps du Génie) paper
on “The Defence of the Country south of London,” from papers on subjects
connected with the duties of the corps of Royal Engineers._ 1849.
[3] “If, in 1814, Paris had possessed a citadel capable of holding out
for only eight days, the destinies of the world would have been changed.
If, in 1805, Vienna had been fortified, the battle of Ulm would not have
decided the war. If, in 1806, Berlin had been fortified, the army beaten
at Jena might have rallied there till the Russian army advanced to its
relief. If, in 1808, Madrid had been fortified, the French army, after
the victories of Espenosa, Indela, and Somosierra, could never have
ventured to march upon that capital, leaving the English army in the
neighbourhood of Salamanca in its rear.”—_Alison’s Europe_, c. 37.
Lovel the Widower.
CHAPTER VI.
CECILIA’S SUCCESSOR.
[Illustration]
Monsieur et honore Lecteur! I see, as perfectly as if you were sitting
opposite to me, the scorn depicted on your noble countenance, when you
read my confession that I, Charles Batchelor, Esquire, did burglariously
enter the premises of Edward Drencher, Esquire, M.R.C.S.I. (phew! the
odious pestle-grinder, I never could bear him!) and break open, and read
a certain letter, his property. I may have been wrong, but I am candid.
I tell my misdeeds; some fellows hold their tongues. Besides, my good
man, consider the temptation, and the horrid insight into the paper which
Bedford’s report had already given me. Would _you_ like to be told that
the girl of your heart was playing at fast and loose with it, had none of
her own, or had given hers to another? I don’t want to make a Mrs. Robin
Gray of any woman, and merely because “her mither presses her sair” to
marry her against her will. “If Miss Prior,” thought I, “prefers this
lint-scraper to me, ought I to balk her? He is younger, and stronger,
certainly, than myself. Some people may consider him handsome. (By the
way, what a remarkable thing it is about many women, that, in affairs
of the heart, they don’t seem to care or understand whether a man is a
gentleman or not.) It may be it is my superior fortune and social station
which may induce Elizabeth to waver in her choice between me and my
bleeding, bolusing, toothdrawing rival. If so, and I am only taken from
mercenary considerations, what a pretty chance of subsequent happiness do
either of us stand! Take the vaccinator, girl, if thou preferrest him! I
know what it is to be crossed in love already. It’s hard, but I can bear
it! I ought to know, I must know, I _will_ know what is in that paper!”
So saying, as I pace round and round the table where the letter lies
flickering white under the midnight taper, I stretch out my hand—I seize
the paper—I——well, I own it—there—yes—I took it, and I read it.
[Illustration: LOVEL’S MOTHERS]
Or rather, I may say, I read that part of IT which the bleeder
and blisterer had flung down. It was but a fragment of a letter—a
fragment—oh! how bitter to swallow! A lump of Epsom salt could not
have been more disgusting. It appeared (from Bedford’s statement) that
Æsculapius, on getting into his gig, had allowed this scrap of paper to
whisk out of his pocket—the rest he read, no doubt, under the eyes of
the writer. Very likely, during the perusal, he had taken and squeezed
the false hand which wrote the lines. Very likely the first part of
the _precious document_ contained compliments to him—from the horrible
context I judge so—compliments to that vendor of leeches and bandages,
into whose heart I daresay I wished ten thousand lancets might be stuck,
as I perused the FALSE ONE’S wheedling address to him! So ran the
document. How well every word of it was engraven on my anguished heart.
If page _three_, which I suppose was about the bit of the letter which I
got, was as it was—what must page _one_ and _two_ have been? The dreadful
document began, then, thus:—
“——dear hair in the locket, which I shall _ever_ wear for the sake of
_him who gave it_”—(dear hair! indeed—disgusting carrots! She should have
been ashamed to call it “dear hair”)—“for the sake of him who gave it,
and whose _bad temper_ I shall pardon, because I think, in spite of his
faults, he is a _little fond_ of his poor Lizzie! Ah, Edward! how _could_
you go on so the last time about poor Mr. B.! Can you imagine that I
can ever have more than a filial regard for the kind old gentleman?”
(_Il était question de moi, ma parole d’honneur._ _I_ was the kind old
gentleman!) “I have known him since my childhood. He was intimate in our
family in earlier and happier days; made our house his home; and, I must
say, was most kind to all of us children. If he has vanities, you naughty
boy, is he the only one of his sex who is vain? Can you fancy that such
an old creature (an _old muff_, as you call him, you wicked, satirical
man!) could ever make an impression on my heart? No, sir!” (Aha! So I was
an old muff, was I?) “Though I don’t wish to make _you_ vain too, or that
other people should laugh at you, as you do at poor dear Mr. B., I think,
sir, you need but look _in your glass_ to see that you need not be afraid
of such a rival as _that_. You fancy he is attentive to me? If you looked
only a little angrily at him, he would fly back to London. To-day, when
your _horrid little patient_ did presume to offer to take my hand, when
I boxed his little wicked ears and sent him _spinning_ to the end of the
room—poor Mr. Batch was so _frightened_ that he did not _dare_ to come
into the room, and I saw him peeping behind a statue on the lawn, and he
would not come in until the _servants arrived_. Poor man! We cannot all
of us have courage like _a certain Edward_, who I know is as _bold as a
lion_. Now, sir, you must not be quarrelling with that wretched little
captain for being rude. I have shown him that I can very well _take care
of myself_. I knew the _odious thing_ the first moment I set eyes on him,
though he had forgotten me. Years ago I met him, and I remember he was
equally _rude and tips_——”
Here the letter was torn. Beyond “_tips_” it did not go. But that was
enough, wasn’t it? To this woman I had offered a gentle and manly, I may
say a kind and tender heart—I had offered four hundred a year in funded
property, besides my house in Devonshire Street, Bloomsbury—and she
preferred _Edward_, forsooth, at the sign of the Gallipot: and may ten
thousand pestles smash my brains!
You may fancy what a night I had after reading that scrap. I promise
you I did not sleep much. I heard the hours toll as I kept vigil. I lay
amidst shattered capitals, broken shafts of the tumbled palace which
I had built in imagination—oh! how bright and stately! I sate amongst
the ruins of my own happiness, surrounded by the murdered corpses of
innocent-visioned domestic joys. Tick—tock! Moment after moment I heard
on the clock the clinking footsteps of wakeful grief. I fell into a doze
towards morning, and dreamed that I was dancing with Glorvina, when I
woke with a start, finding Bedford arrived with my shaving water, and
opening the shutters. When he saw my haggard face he wagged his head.
“You _have_ read it, I see, sir,” says he.
“Yes, Dick,” groaned I, out of bed, “I have swallowed it.” And I laughed
I may say a fiendish laugh. “And now I have taken it, not poppy nor
mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups in his shop (hang him) will be able
to medicine me to sleep for some time to come!”
“She has no heart, sir. I don’t think she cares for t’other chap much,”
groans the gloomy butler. “She can’t, after having known _us_”—and my
companion in grief, laying down my hot-water jug, retreats.
I did not cut any part of myself with my razor. I shaved quite calmly.
I went to the family at breakfast. My impression is I was sarcastic and
witty. I smiled most kindly at Miss Prior when she came in. Nobody could
have seen from my outward behaviour that anything was wrong within. I
was an apple. Could you inspect the worm at my core! No, no. Somebody, I
think old Baker, complimented me on my good looks. I was a smiling lake.
Could you see on my placid surface, amongst my sheeny water-lilies, that
a corpse was lying under my cool depths? “A bit of devilled chicken?”
“No, thank you. By the way, Lovel, I think I must go to town to-day.”
“You’ll come back to dinner, of course?” “Well—no.” “Oh, stuff! You
promised me to-day and to-morrow. Robinson, Brown, and Jones are coming
to-morrow, and you must be here to meet them.” Thus we prattle on. I
answer, I smile, I say, “Yes, if you please, another cup,” or, “Be so
good as to hand the muffin,” or what not. But I am dead. I feel as if
I am under ground, and buried. Life, and tea, and clatter, and muffins
are going on, of course; and daisies spring, and the sun shines on the
grass whilst I am under it. Ah, dear me! it’s very cruel: it’s very, very
lonely: it’s very odd! I don’t belong to the world any more. I have done
with it. I am shelved away. But my spirit returns and flitters through
the world, which it has no longer anything to do with: and my ghost,
as it were, comes and smiles at my own tombstone. Here lies Charles
Batchelor, the Unloved One. Oh! alone, alone, alone! Why, Fate! didst
ordain that I should be companionless? Tell me where the Wandering Jew
is, that I may go and sit with him. Is there any place at a lighthouse
vacant? Who knows where is the Island of Juan Fernandez? Engage me a ship
and take me there at once. Mr. R. Crusoe, I think. My dear Robinson, have
the kindness to hand me over your goatskin cap, breeches, and umbrella.
Go home, and leave _me_ here. Would you know who is the solitariest man
on earth? That man am I. Was that cutlet which I ate at breakfast anon,
was that lamb which frisked on the mead last week (beyond yon wall where
the unconscious cucumber lay basking which was to form his sauce)—I
say, was that lamb made so tender, that I might eat him? And my heart,
then? Poor heart! wert thou so softly constituted only that women might
stab thee? So I am a Muff, am I? And she will always wear a lock of his
“dear hair,” will she? Ha! ha! The men on the omnibus looked askance
as they saw me laugh. They thought it was from Hanwell, not Putney, I
was escaping. Escape? Who can escape? I went into London. I went to
the Clubs. Jawkins, of course, was there; and my impression is that he
talked as usual. I took another omnibus, and went back to Putney. “I
will go back and revisit my grave,” I thought. It is said that ghosts
loiter about their former haunts a good deal when they are first dead;
flit wistfully among their old friends and companions, and I daresay,
expect to hear a plenty of conversation and friendly tearful remark about
themselves. But suppose they return, and find nobody talking of them
at all? Or suppose, Hamlet (Père, and Royal Dane) comes back and finds
Claudius and Gertrude very comfortable over a piece of cold meat, or what
not? Is the late gentleman’s present position as a ghost a very pleasant
one? Crow, Cocks! Quick, Sun-dawn! Open, Trap-door! _Allons_: it’s best
to pop underground again. So I am a Muff, am I? What a curious thing that
walk up the hill to the house was! What a different place Shrublands
was yesterday to what it is to-day! Has the sun lost its light, and the
flowers their bloom, and the joke its sparkle, and the dish its savour?
Why, bless my soul! what is Lizzy herself—only an ordinary woman—freckled
certainly—incorrigibly dull, and without a scintillation of humour: and
you mean to say, Charles Batchelor, that your heart once beat about
_that_ woman? Under the intercepted letter of that cold assassin, my
heart had fallen down dead, irretrievably dead. I remember, _àpropos_ of
the occasion of my first death, that perpetrated by Glorvina—on my second
visit to Dublin—with what a strange sensation I walked under some trees
in the Phœnix Park beneath which it had been my custom to meet my False
One Number 1. There were the trees—there were the birds singing—there was
the bench on which we used to sit—the same, but how different! The trees
had a different foliage, exquisite amaranthine; the birds sang a song
paradisaical; the bench was a bank of roses and fresh flowers, which
young Love twined in fragrant chaplets around the statue of Glorvina.
Roses and fresh flowers? Rheumatisms and flannel-waistcoats, you silly
old man! Foliage and Song? O namby-pamby driveller! A statue?—a doll,
thou twaddling old dullard!—a doll with carmine cheeks, and a heart
stuffed with bran——I say, on the night preceding that ride to and from
Putney, I had undergone death—in that omnibus I had been carried over
to t’other side of the Stygian Shore. I returned but as a passionless
ghost, remembering my life-days, but not feeling any more. Love was
dead, Elizabeth! Why, the doctor came, and partook freely of lunch,
and I was not angry. Yesterday I called him names, and hated him, and
was jealous of him. To-day I felt no rivalship; and no envy at his
success; and no desire to supplant him. No—I swear—not the slightest
wish to make Elizabeth mine if she would. I might have cared for her
yesterday—yesterday I had a heart. Psha! my good sir or madam. You sit
by me at dinner. Perhaps you are handsome, and use your eyes. Ogle away.
Don’t balk yourself, pray. But if you fancy I care a threepenny-piece
about you—or for your eyes—or for your bonny brown hair—or for your
sentimental remarks, sidelong warbled—or for your praise to (not of)
my face—or for your satire behind my back—ah me!—how mistaken you are!
_Peine perdue, ma chère dame!_ The digestive organs are still in good
working order—but the heart? _Caret._
I was perfectly civil to Mr. Drencher, and, indeed, wonder to think how
in my irritation I had allowed myself to apply (mentally) any sort of
disagreeable phrases to a most excellent and deserving and good-looking
young man, who is beloved by the poor, and has won the just confidence of
an extensive circle of patients. I made no sort of remark to Miss Prior,
except about the weather and the flowers in the garden. I was bland,
easy, rather pleasant, not too high-spirited, you understand.—No: I vow
you could not have seen a nerve wince, or the slightest alteration in my
demeanour. I helped the two old dowagers; I listened to their twaddle; I
gaily wiped up with my napkin three-quarters of a glass of sherry which
Popham flung over my trowsers. I would defy you to know that I had gone
through the ticklish operation of an excision of the heart a few hours
previously. Heart—pooh! I saw Miss Prior’s lip quiver. Without a word
between us, she knew perfectly well that all was over as regarded her
late humble servant. _She_ winced once or twice. While Drencher was busy
with his plate, the grey eyes cast towards me interjectional looks of
puzzled entreaty. _She_, I say, winced; and I give you my word I did
not care a fig whether she was sorry, or pleased, or happy, or going to
be hung. And I can’t give a better proof of my utter indifference about
the matter, than the fact that I wrote two or three copies of verses
descriptive of my despair. They appeared, you may perhaps remember,
in one of the annuals of those days, and were generally attributed to
one of the most sentimental of our young poets. I remember the reviews
said they were “replete with emotion,” “full of passionate and earnest
feeling,” and so forth. Feeling, indeed!—ha! ha! “Passionate outbursts
of a grief-stricken heart!”—Passionate scrapings of a fiddlestick, my
good friend. “Lonely,” of course, rhymes with “only,” and “gushes” with
“blushes,” and “despair” with “hair,” and so on. Despair is perfectly
compatible with a good dinner, I promise you. Hair is false: hearts are
false. Grapes may be sour, but claret is good, my masters. Do you suppose
I am going to cry my eyes out, because Chloe’s are turned upon Strephon?
If you find any whimpering in mine, may they never wink at a bee’s-wing
again.
When the doctor rose presently, saying he would go and see the gardener’s
child, who was ill, and casting longing looks at Miss Prior, I assure you
I did not feel a tittle of jealousy, though Miss Bessy actually followed
Mr. Drencher into the lawn, under the pretext of calling back Miss Cissy,
who had run thither without her bonnet.
“Now, Lady Baker, which was right? you or I?” asks bonny Mrs. Bonnington,
wagging her head towards the lawn where this couple of innocents were
disporting.
“You thought there was an affair between Miss Prior and the medical
gentleman,” I say, smiling. “It was no secret, Mrs. Bonnington?”
“Yes, but there were others who were a little smitten in that quarter
too,” says Lady Baker, and she in turn wags _her_ old head towards me.
“You mean me?” I answer, as innocent as a new-born babe. “I am a burnt
child, Lady Baker; I have been at the fire, and am already thoroughly
done, thank you. One of your charming sex jilted me some years ago; and
once is quite enough, I am much obliged to you.”
This I said, not because it was true; in fact, it was the reverse of
truth; but if I choose to lie about my own affairs, pray, why not? And
though a strictly truth-telling man generally, when I do lie, I promise
you, I do it boldly and well.
“If, as I gather from Mrs. Bonnington, Mr. Drencher and Miss Prior like
each other, I wish my old friend joy. I wish Mr. Drencher joy with all my
heart. The match seems to me excellent. He is a deserving, a clever, and
a handsome young fellow; and I am sure, ladies, you can bear witness to
_her_ goodness, after all you have known of her.”
“My dear Batchelor,” says Mrs. Bonnington, still smiling and winking, “I
don’t believe one single word you say—not one single word!” And she looks
infinitely pleased as she speaks.
“Oh!” cries Lady Baker, “my good Mrs. Bonnington, you are always
match-making—don’t contradict me. You know you thought——”
“Oh, please don’t,” cries Mrs. B.
“I will. She thought, Mr. Batchelor, she actually thought that our son,
that my Cecilia’s husband, was smitten by the governess. I should like
to have seen him dare!” and her flashing eyes turn towards the late Mrs.
Lovel’s portrait, with its faded simper leering over the harp. “The idea
that any woman could succeed that angel indeed!”
“Indeed, I don’t envy her,” I said.
“You don’t mean, Batchelor, that my Frederick would not make any woman
happy?” cries the Bonnington. “He is only seven-and-thirty, very young
for his age, and the most affectionate of creatures. I’m surprised, and
it’s most cruel, and most unkind of you, to say that you don’t envy any
woman that marries my boy!”
“My dear good Mrs. Bonnington, you quite misapprehend me,” I remark.
“Why, when his late wife was alive,” goes on Mrs. B. sobbing, “you
know with what admirable sweetness and gentleness he bore her—her—bad
temper—excuse me, Lady Baker!”
“Oh, pray, abuse my departed angel!” cries the Baker; “say that your son
should marry and forget her—say that those darlings should be made to
forget their mother. She was a woman of birth, and a woman of breeding,
and a woman of family, and the Bakers came in with the Conqueror, Mrs.
Bonnington——”
“I think I heard of one in the court of Pharaoh,” I interposed.
“And to say that a Baker is not worthy of a Lovel is _pretty_ news
indeed! Do you hear _that_, Clarence?”
“Hear what, ma’am?” says Clarence, who enters at this juncture. “You’re
speakin’ loud enough—though blesht if I hear two sh-shyllables.”
“You wretched boy, you have been smoking!”
“Shmoking—haven’t I?” says Clarence with a laugh; “and I’ve been at the
Five Bells, and I’ve been having a game of billiards with an old friend
of mine,” and he lurches towards a decanter.
“Ah! don’t drink any more, my child!” cries the mother.
“I’m as sober as a judge, I tell you. You leave so precious little in the
bottle at dinner, that I must get it when I can, mustn’t I, Batchelor,
old boy? We had a row yesterday, hadn’t we? No, it was sugar-baker. I’m
not angry—you’re not angry. Bear no malish. Here’s your health, old boy!”
The unhappy gentleman drank his bumper of sherry, and, tossing his hair
off his head, said—“Where’s the governess—where’s Bessy Bellenden? Who’s
that kickin’ me under the table, I say?”
“Where is who?” asks his mother.
“Bessy Bellenden—the governess—that’s her real name. Known her these ten
years. Used to dansh at Prinsh’s Theatre. Remember her in the corps de
ballet. Ushed to go behind the shenes. Dooshid pretty girl!” maunders
out the tipsy youth; and as the unconscious subject of his mischievous
talk enters the room, again he cries out, “Come and sit by me, Bessy
Bellenden, I say!”
The matrons rose with looks of horror in their faces. “A ballet dancer!”
cries Mrs. Bonnington. “A ballet dancer!” echoes Lady Baker. “Young
woman, is this true?”
“The Bulbul and the Roshe—hay?” laughs the captain. “Don’t you remember
you and Fosbery in blue and shpangles? Always all right, though,
Bellenden was. Fosbery washn’t: but Bellenden was. Give you every credit
for that, Bellenden. Boxsh my earsh. Bear no malish—no—no—malish! Get
some more sherry, you—whatsh your name—Bedford, butler—and I’ll pay you
the money I owe you;” and he laughs his wild laugh, utterly unconscious
of the effect he is producing. Bedford stands staring at him as pale as
death. Poor Miss Prior is as white as marble. Wrath, terror, and wonder
are in the countenances of the dowagers. It is an awful scene!
“Mr. Batchelor knows that it was to help my family I did it,” says the
poor governess.
“Yes, by George! and nobody can say a word against her,” bursts in Dick
Bedford, with a sob; “and she is as honest as any woman here!”
“Pray, who told you to put your oar in?” cries the tipsy captain.
“And you knew that this person was on the stage, and you introduced her
into my son’s family? Oh, Mr. Batchelor, Mr. Batchelor, I didn’t think it
of you! Don’t speak to me, Miss!” cries the flurried Bonnington.
“You brought this woman to the children of my adored Cecilia?” calls out
the other dowager. “Serpent, leave the room! Pack your trunks, viper!
and quit the house this instant. Don’t touch her, Cissy. Come to me, my
blessing. Go away, you horrid wretch!”
“She ain’t a horrid wretch; and when I was ill she was very good to us,”
breaks in Pop, with a roar of tears: “and you shan’t go, Miss Prior—my
dear, pretty Miss Prior. You shan’t go!” and the child rushes up to the
governess, and covers her neck with tears and kisses.
“Leave her, Popham, my darling blessing!—leave that woman!” cries Lady
Baker.
“I won’t, you old beast!—and she sha-a-ant go. And I wish you was
dead—and, my dear, you shan’t go, and Pa shan’t let you!”—shouts the boy.
“O, Popham, if Miss Prior has been naughty, Miss Prior must go!” says
Cecilia, tossing up her head.
“Spoken like my daughter’s child!” cries Lady Baker: and little Cissy,
having flung her little stone, looks as if she had performed a very
virtuous action.
“God bless you, Master Pop,—you are a trump, you are!” says Mr. Bedford.
“Yes, that I am, Bedford; and she shan’t go, shall she?” cries the boy.
But Bessy stooped down sadly, and kissed him. “Yes, I must, dear,” she
said.
“Don’t touch him! Come away, sir! Come away from her this moment!”
shrieked the two mothers.
“I nursed him through the scarlet fever, when his own mother would not
come near him,” says Elizabeth, gently.
“I’m blest if she didn’t,” sobs Bedford—“and—bub—bub—bless you, Master
Pop!”
“That child is wicked enough, and headstrong enough, and rude enough
already!” exclaims Lady Baker. “I desire, young woman, you will not
pollute him farther!”
“That’s a hard word to say to an honest woman, ma’am,” says Bedford.
“Pray, miss, are you engaged to the butler, too?” hisses out the dowager.
“There’s very little the matter with Maxwell’s child—only teeth. What on
earth has happened? My dear Lizzy—my dear Miss Prior—what is it?” cries
the doctor, who enters from the garden at this juncture.
“Nothing has happened, only this young woman has appeared in a new
_character_,” says Lady Baker. “My son has just informed us that Miss
Prior danced upon the stage, Mr. Drencher; and if you think such a person
is a fit companion for your mothers and sisters, who attend a place of
Christian worship, I believe—I wish you joy.”
“Is this—is this—true?” asks the doctor, with a look of bewilderment.
“Yes, it is true,” sighs the girl.
“And you never told me, Elizabeth?” groans the doctor.
“She’s as honest as any woman here,” calls out Bedford. “She gave all the
money to her family.”
“It wasn’t fair not to tell me. It wasn’t fair,” sobs the doctor. And he
gives her a ghastly parting look, and turns his back.
“I say, you—Hi! What-d’-you-call-’em? Sawbones!” shrieks out Captain
Clarence. “Come back, I say. She’s all right, I say. Upon my honour, now,
she’s all right.”
“Miss P. shouldn’t have kept this from me. My mother and sisters are
dissenters, and very strict. I couldn’t ask a party into my family who
has been—who has been——I wish you good morning,” says the doctor, and
stalks away.
“And now, will you please to get your things ready and go, too,”
continues Lady Baker. “My dear Mrs. Bonnington, you think——”
“Certainly, certainly, she must go!” cries Mrs. Bonnington.
“Don’t go till Lovel comes home, Miss. _These_ ain’t your mistresses.
Lady Baker don’t pay your salary. If you go, I go, too. There!” calls out
Bedford, and mumbles something in her ear about the end of the world.
“You go, too; and a good riddance, you insolent brute!” exclaims the
dowager.
“O, Captain Clarence! you have made a pretty morning’s work,” I say.
“I don’t know what the doose all the sherry—all the shinty’s about,”
says the captain, playing with the empty decanter. “Gal’s a very good
gal—pretty gal. If she choosesh dansh shport her family, why the doosh
shouldn’t she dansh shport a family?”
“That is exactly what I recommend this person to do,” says Lady Baker,
tossing up her head. “And now I will thank you to leave the room. Do you
hear?”
As poor Elizabeth obeyed this order, Bedford darted after her; and I know
ere she had gone five steps he had offered her his savings and everything
he had. She might have had mine yesterday. But she had deceived me. She
had played fast and loose with me. She had misled me about this doctor. I
could trust her no more. My love of yesterday was dead, I say. That vase
was broke, which never could be mended. She knew all was over between us.
She did not once look at me as she left the room.
The two dowagers—one of them, I think, a little alarmed at her
victory—left the house, and for once went away in the same barouche. The
young maniac who had been the cause of the mischief staggered away, I
know not whither.
About four o’clock, poor little Pinhorn, the child’s maid, came to me,
well nigh choking with tears, as she handed me a letter. “She’s goin’
away—and she saved both them children’s lives, she did. And she’ve wrote
to you, sir. And Bedford’s a-goin’. And I’ll give warnin’, I will,
too!” And the weeping handmaiden retires, leaving me, perhaps somewhat
frightened, with the letter in my hand.
“Dear Sir,” she said—“I may write you a line of thanks and farewell. I
shall go to my mother. I shall soon find another place. Poor Bedford, who
has a generous heart, told me that he had given you a letter of mine to
Mr. D. I saw this morning that you knew everything. I can only say now
that for all your long kindnesses and friendship to my family I am always
your sincere and grateful—E. P.”
Yes: that was all. I think she _was_ grateful. But she had not been
candid with me, nor with the poor surgeon. I had no anger: far from it:
a great deal of regard and goodwill, nay admiration, for the intrepid
girl who had played a long, hard part very cheerfully and bravely. But
my foolish little flicker of love had blazed up and gone out in a day;
I knew that she never could care for me. In that dismal, wakeful night,
after reading the letter, I had thought her character and story over, and
seen to what a life of artifice and dissimulation necessity had compelled
her. I did not blame her. In such circumstances, with such a family, how
could she be frank and open? Poor thing! poor thing! Do we know anybody?
Ah! dear me, we are most of us very lonely in the world. You who have
any who love you, cling to them, and thank God. I went into the hall
towards evening: her poor trunks and packages were there, and the little
nurserymaid weeping over them. The sight unmanned me; and I believe I
cried myself. Poor Elizabeth! And with these small chests you recommence
your life’s lonely voyage! I gave the girl a couple of sovereigns. She
sobbed a God bless me! and burst out crying more desperately than ever.
Thou hast a kind heart, little Pinhorn!
* * * * *
“‘Miss Prior—to be called for.’ Whose trunks are these?” says Lovel,
coming from the city. The dowagers drove up at the same moment.
“Didn’t you see us from the omnibus, Frederick?” cries her ladyship,
coaxingly. “We followed behind you all the way!”
“We were in the barouche, my dear,” remarks Mrs. Bonnington, rather
nervously.
“Whose trunks are these?—what’s the matter?—and what’s the girl crying
for?” asks Lovel.
“Miss Prior is a-going away,” sobs Pinhorn.
“Miss Prior going? Is this your doing, my Lady Baker?—or yours, mother?”
the master of the house says, sternly.
“She is going, my love, because she cannot stay in this family,” says
mamma.
“That woman is no fit companion for my angel’s children, Frederick!”
cries Lady B.
“That person has deceived us all, my love!” says mamma.
“Deceived?—how? Deceived whom?” continues Mr. Lovel, more and more hotly.
“Clarence, love! come down, dear! Tell Mr. Lovel everything. Come down
and tell him this moment,” cries Lady Baker to her son, who at this
moment appears on the corridor which was round the hall.
“What’s the row now, pray?” And Captain Clarence descends, breaking his
shins over poor Elizabeth’s trunks, and calling down on them his usual
maledictions.
“Tell Mr. Lovel, where you saw that—that person, Clarence! Now, sir,
listen to my Cecilia’s brother!”
“Saw her—saw her, in blue and spangles, in the _Rose and the Bulbul_, at
the Prince’s Theatre—and a doosed nice-looking girl she was too!”—says
the captain.
“There, sir!”
“There, Frederick!” cry the matrons in a breath.
“And what then?” asks Lovel.
“Mercy! you ask, What then, Frederick? Do you know what a theatre
is? Tell Frederick what a theatre is, Mr. Batchelor, and that my
grandchildren must not be educated by——”
“My grandchildren—my Cecilia’s children,” shrieks the other, “must not be
poll-luted by——”
“Silence!” I say. “Have you a word against her—have you, pray, Baker?”
“No. ’Gad! I never said a word against her,” says the captain. “No, hang
me, you know—but——”
“But suppose I knew the fact the whole time?” asks Lovel, with rather
a blush on his cheek. “Suppose I knew that she danced to give her
family bread? Suppose I knew that she toiled and laboured to support
her parents, and brothers, and sisters? Suppose I know that out of her
pittance she has continued to support them? Suppose I know that she
watched my own children through fever and danger? For these reasons I
must turn her out of doors, must I? No, by Heaven!—No!—Elizabeth!—Miss
Prior!—Come down!—Come here, I beg you!”
The governess arrayed as for departure at this moment appeared on the
corridor running round the hall. As Lovel continued to speak very loud
and resolute, she came down looking deadly pale.
Still much excited, the widower went up to her and took her hand. “Dear
Miss Prior!” he said—“dear Elizabeth! you have been the best friend of
me and mine. You tended my wife in illness, you took care of my children
in fever and danger. You have been an admirable sister, daughter in your
own family—and for this, and for these benefits conferred upon us, my
relatives—my mother-in-law—would drive you out of my doors! It shall not
be!—by Heavens, it shall not be!”
You should have seen little Bedford sitting on the governess’s box,
shaking his fist, and crying “Hurrah!” as his master spoke. By this time
the loud voices and the altercation in the hall had brought a half-dozen
of servants from their quarters into the hall. “Go away, all of you!”
shouts Lovel; and the domestic _posse_ retires, Bedford being the last to
retreat, and nodding approval at his master as he backs out of the room.
“You are very good, and kind, and generous, sir,” says the pale
Elizabeth, putting a handkerchief to her eyes. “But without the
confidence of these ladies, I must not stay, Mr. Lovel. God bless you for
your goodness to me. I must, if you please, return to my mother.”
The worthy gentleman looked fiercely round at the two elder women, and
again seizing the governess’s hand, said—“Elizabeth! dear Elizabeth! I
implore you not to go! If you love the children——”
“Oh, sir!” (A cambric veil covers Miss Prior’s emotion, and the
expression of her face, on this ejaculation.)
“If you love the children,” gasps out the widower, “stay with them. If
you have a regard for—for their father”—(Timanthes, where is thy pocket
handkerchief?)—“remain in this house, with such a title as none can
question. Be the mistress of it.”
“His mistress—and before me!” screams Lady Baker. “Mrs. Bonnington, this
depravity is monstrous!”
“Be my wife! dear Elizabeth,” the widower continues. “Continue to watch
over the children, who shall be motherless no more.”
“Frederick! Frederick! haven’t they got _us_?” shrieks one of the old
ladies.
“Oh, my poor dear Lady Baker!” says Mrs. Bonnington.
“Oh, my poor dear Mrs. Bonnington!” says Lady Baker.
“Frederick, listen to your mother,” implores Mrs. Bonnington.
“To your mothers!” sobs Lady Baker.
And they both go down on their knees, and I heard a boohoo of a guffaw
behind the green-baized servants’ door, where I have no doubt Mons.
Bedford was posted.
“Ah! Batchelor, dear Batchelor, speak to him!” cries good Mrs. Bonny. “We
are praying this child, Batchelor—this child whom you used to know at
College, and when he was a good, gentle, obedient boy. You have influence
with my poor Frederick. Exert it for his heart-broken mother’s sake; and
you shall have my bubble-uble-essings, you shall.”
“My dear good lady,” I exclaim—not liking to see the kind soul in grief.
“Send for Doctor Straightwaist! Order him to pause in his madness,” cries
Baker; “or it is I, Cecilia’s mother, the mother of that murdered angel,
that shall go mad.”
“Angel! _Allons_, I say. Since his widowhood, you have never given the
poor fellow any peace. You have been for ever quarrelling with him.
You took possession of his house; bullied his servants, spoiled his
children—you did, Lady Baker.”
“Sir,” cries her ladyship, “you are a low, presuming, vulgar man!
Clarence, beat this rude man!”
“Nay,” I say, “there must be no more quarrelling to-day. And I am sure
Captain Baker will not molest me. Miss Prior, I am delighted that my
old friend should have found a woman of good sense, good conduct, good
temper—a woman who has had many trials, and borne them with very great
patience, to take charge of him, and make him happy. I congratulate you
both. Miss Prior has borne poverty so well that I am certain she will
bear good fortune, for it _is_ good fortune to become the wife of such a
loyal, honest, kindly gentleman as Frederick Lovel.”
After such a speech as that, I think I may say, _liberavi animam_.
Not one word of complaint, you see, not a hint about “Edward,” not a
single sarcasm, though I might have launched some terrific shots out of
my quiver, and have made Lovel and his bride-elect writhe before me.
But what is the need of spoiling sport? Shall I growl out of my sulky
manger, because my comrade gets the meat? Eat it, happy dog! and be
thankful. Would not that bone have choked me if I had tried it? Besides,
I am accustomed to disappointment. Other fellows get the prizes which
I try for. I am used to run second in the dreary race of love. Second?
Psha! Third, Fourth. _Que sçais-je?_ There was the Bombay captain in
Bess’s early days. There was Edward. Here is Frederick. Go to, Charles
Batchelor; repine not at fortune; but be content to be Batchelor still.
My sister has children. I will be an uncle, a parent to them. Isn’t
Edward of the scarlet whiskers distanced? Has not poor Dick Bedford
lost the race—poor Dick, who never had a chance, and is the best of us
all? Besides, what fun it is to see Lady Baker deposed: think of Mrs.
Prior coming in and reigning over her! The purple-faced old fury of a
Baker, never will she bully, and rage, and trample more. She must pack
up her traps, and be off. I know she must. I _can_ congratulate Lovel,
sincerely, and that’s the fact.
And here at this very moment, and as if to add to the comicality of the
scene, who should appear but mother-in-law No. 2, Mrs. Prior, with her
blue-coat boy and two or three of her children, who had been invited, or
had invited themselves, to drink tea with Lovel’s young ones, as their
custom was whenever they could procure an invitation. Master Prior had
a fine “copy” under his arm, which he came to show to his patron Lovel.
His mamma, entirely ignorant of what had happened, came fawning in with
her old poke-bonnet, her old pocket, that vast depository of all sorts
of stores, her old umbrella, and her usual dreary smirk. She made her
obeisance to the matrons,—she led up her blue-coat boy to Mr. Lovel, in
whose office she hoped to find a clerk’s place for her lad, on whose very
coat and waistcoat she had designs whilst they were yet on his back: and
she straightway began business with the dowagers—
“My lady, I hope your ladyship is quite well?” (a curtsey.) “Dear, kind
Mrs. Bonnington! I came to pay my duty to you, mum. This is Louisa, my
lady, the great girl for whom your ladyship so kindly promised the gown.
And this is my little girl, Mrs. Bonnington, mum, please; and this is my
big Blue. Go and speak to dear, kind Mr. Lovel, Gus, our dear good friend
and protector,—the son and son-in-law of these dear ladies. Look, sir,
he has brought his copy to show you; and it’s creditable to a boy of his
age, isn’t it, Mr. Batchelor? You can say, who know so well what writing
is, and my kind services to you, sir,—and—Elizabeth, Lizzie, my dear!
where’s your spectacles, you—you——”
Here she stopped, and looking alarmed at the group, at the boxes, at
the blushing Lovel, at the pale countenance of the governess, “Gracious
goodness!” she said, “what has happened? Tell me, Lizzy, what is it?”
“Is this collusion, pray?” says ruffled Mrs. Bonnington.
“Collusion, dear Mrs. Bonnington?”
“Or insolence?” bawls out my lady Baker.
“Insolence, your ladyship? What—what is it? What are these boxes—Lizzy’s
boxes? Ah!” the mother broke out with a scream, “you’ve not sent the poor
girl away? Oh! my poor child—my poor children!”
“The Prince’s Theatre has come out, Mrs. Prior,” here, said I.
The mother clasps her meagre hands. “It wasn’t the darling’s fault. It
was to help her poor father in poverty. It was I who forced her to it.
O ladies! ladies!—don’t take the bread out of the mouth of these poor
orphans!”—and genuine tears rained down her yellow cheeks.
“Enough of this,” says Mr. Lovel, haughtily. “Mrs. Prior, your daughter
is not going away. Elizabeth has promised to stay with me, and never to
leave me—as governess no longer, but as—” and here he takes Miss Prior’s
hand.
“His wife! Is this—is this true, Lizzy?” gasped the mother.
“Yes, mamma,” meekly said Miss Elizabeth Prior.
At this the old woman flung down her umbrella, and uttering a fine
scream, folds Elizabeth in her arms, and then runs up to Lovel; “My
son!” my son! says she (Lovel’s face was not bad, I promise you, at this
salutation and salute). “Come here, children!—come, Augustus, Fanny,
Louisa, kiss your dear brother, children! And where are yours, Lizzy?
Where are Pop and Cissy? Go and look for your little nephew and niece,
dears: Pop and Cissy in the schoolroom, or in the garden, dears. They
will be your nephew and niece now. Go and fetch them, I say.”
As the young Priors filed off, Mrs. Prior turned to the two other
matrons, and spoke to them with much dignity: “Most hot weather, your
ladyship, I’m sure! Mr. Bonnington must find it very hot for preaching,
Mrs. Bonnington! Lor! There’s that little wretch beating my Johnny on the
stairs. Have done, Pop, sir! How ever shall we make those children agree,
Elizabeth?”
Quick, come to me, some skillful delineator of the British dowager, and
draw me the countenances of Lady Baker and Mrs. Bonnington!
“I call this a jolly game, don’t you, Batchelor, old boy?” remarks the
captain to me. “Lady Baker, my dear, I guess your ladyship’s nose is out
of joint.”
“O Cecilia—Cecilia! Don’t you shudder in your grave?” cries Lady B. “Call
my people, Clarence—call Bulkeley—call my maid! Let me go, I say, from
this house of horror!” and the old lady dashed into the drawing room,
where she uttered, I know not what, incoherent shrieks and appeals before
that calm, glazed, simpering portrait of the departed Cecilia.
Now this is a truth, for which I call Lovel, his lady, Mrs. Bonnington
and Captain Clarence Baker, as witnesses. Well, then, whilst Lady B. was
adjuring the portrait, it is a fact that a string of Cecilia’s harp—which
has always been standing in the corner of the room under its shroud of
Cordovan leather—a string, I say, of Cecilia’s harp cracked, and went off
with a loud _bong_, which struck terror into all beholders. Lady Baker’s
agitation at the incident was awful; I do not like to describe it—not
having any wish to say anything tragic in this narrative—though that
I _can_ write tragedy, plays of mine (of which envious managers never
could be got to see the merit) I think will prove, when they appear in my
posthumous works.
Baker has always averred that at the moment when the harp-string broke,
her heart broke too. But as she lived for many years, and may be alive
now for what I know; and as she borrowed money repeatedly from Lovel—he
must be acquitted of the charge which she constantly brings against
him of hastening her own death, and murdering his first wife Cecilia.
“The harp that once in Tara’s Halls” used to make such a piteous feeble
thrumming, has been carted off I know not whither; and Cecilia’s
portrait, though it has been removed from the post of honour (where,
you conceive, under present circumstances it would hardly be _àpropos_)
occupies a very reputable position in the pink room up-stairs, which that
poor young Clarence inhabited during my visit to Shrublands.
All the house has been altered. There’s a fine organ in the hall, on
which Elizabeth performs sacred music very finely. As for _my_ old room,
it would trouble you to smoke _there_ under the present government. It is
a library now, with many fine and authentic pictures of the Lovel family
hanging up in it, the English branch of the house with the wolf crest,
and _Gare à la louve_ for the motto, and a grand posthumous portrait of a
Portuguese officer (Gandish), Elizabeth’s late father.
As for dear old Mrs. Bonnington, she, you may be sure, would be easily
reconciled to any live mortal who was kind to her, and any plan which
should make her son happy; and Elizabeth has quite won her over. Mrs.
Prior, on the deposition of the other dowagers, no doubt expected to
reign at Shrublands, but in this object I am not very sorry to say was
disappointed. Indeed, I was not a little amused, upon the very first day
of her intended reign—that eventful one of which we have been describing
the incidents—to see how calmly and gracefully Bessy pulled the throne
from under her, on which the old lady was clambering.
Mrs. P. knew the house very well, and everything which it contained; and
when Lady Baker drove off with her son and her suite of domestics, Prior
dashed through the vacant apartments, gleaning what had been left in the
flurry of departure—a scarlet feather out of the dowager’s room, a shirt
stud and a bottle of hair-oil, the captain’s property. “And now they are
gone, and as you can’t be alone with him, my dear, I must be with you,”
says she, coming down to her daughter.
“Of course, mamma, I must be with you,” says obedient Elizabeth.
“And there is the pink room, and the blue room, and the yellow room for
the boys—and the chintz boudoir for me—I can put them all away, oh, so
comfortably!”
“I can come and share Louisa’s room, mamma,” says Bessy. “It will not be
proper for me to stay here at all—until afterwards, you know. Or I can
go to my uncle at St. Boniface. Don’t you think that will be best, eh,
Frederick?”
“Whatever you wish, my dear Lizzy!” says Lovel.
“And I daresay there will be some little alterations made in the house.
You talked, you know, of painting, Mr. Lovel; and the children can go to
their grandmamma Bonnington. And on our return when the alterations are
made we shall always be delighted to see _you_, Mr. Batchelor—our kindest
old friend. Shall we not, a—Frederick?”
“Always, always,” said Frederick.
“Come, children, come to your teas,” calls out Mrs. P., in a resolute
voice.
“Dear Pop, I’m not going away—that is, only for a few days, dear,” says
Bessy, kissing the boy; “and you will love me, won’t you?”
“All right,” says the boy. But Cissy said, when the same appeal was made
to her: “I shall love my dear mamma!” and makes her new mother-in-law a
very polite curtsey.
“I think you had better put off those men you expect to dinner to-morrow,
Fred?” I say to Lovel.
“I think I had, Batch,” says the gentleman.
“Or you can dine with them at the club, you know?” remarks Elizabeth.
“Yes, Bessy.”
“And when the children have had their tea I will go with mamma. My boxes
are ready, you know,” says arch Bessy.
“And you will stay, and dine with Mr. Lovel, won’t you, Mr. Batchelor?”
asks the lady.
It was the dreariest dinner I ever had in my life. No undertaker could be
more gloomy than Bedford, as he served us. We tried to talk politics and
literature. We drank too much, purposely. Nothing would do. “Hang me, if
I can stand this, Lovel,” I said, as we sat mum over our third bottle.
“I will go back, and sleep at my chambers. I was not a little soft upon
her myself, that’s the truth. Here’s her health, and happiness to both of
you, with all my heart.” And we drained a great bumper apiece, and I left
him. He was very happy I should go.
Bedford stood at the gate, as the little pony-carriage came for me in the
dusk. “God bless you, sir,” says he. “I can’t stand it; I shall go too.”
And he rubbed his hands over his eyes.
He married Mary Pinhorn, and they have emigrated to Melbourne; whence he
sent me, three years ago, an affectionate letter, and a smart gold pin
from the diggings.
A month afterwards, a cab might have been seen driving from the Temple to
Hanover Square: and a month and a day after that drive, an advertisement
might have been read in the _Post_ and _Times_: “Married, on Thursday,
10th, at St. George’s, Hanover Square, by the Reverend the Master of St.
Boniface College, Oxbridge, uncle of the bride, Frederick Lovel, Esquire,
of Shrublands, Roehampton, to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late
Captain Montagu Prior, K.S.F.”
We may hear of LOVEL MARRIED some other day, but here is an end of LOVEL
THE WIDOWER. _Valete et plaudite_, you good people, who have witnessed
the little comedy. Down with the curtain; cover up the boxes; pop out the
gas-lights. Ho! cab. Take us home, and let us have some tea, and go to
bed. Good night, my little players. We have been merry together, and we
part with soft hearts and somewhat rueful countenances, don’t we?
The Maiden’s Lover.
“Woo me not with sighs and tears,
“Woo me not with vows,” she said,
“Tell me not of doubts and fears;
“Deeds, not glowing words, I wed.
“Passion-pale I see thee stand;
“Let Love speak, but not in sighs—
“Passion but unnerves the hand,
“Drains the heart to wet the eyes.
“Who would win me must have won
“Rule right royal o’er his heart;
“Wholly true, from sun to sun,
“So he’ll love me not in part.
“Who would win me, must have found,
“For his deep and manly love,
“Other vent than empty sound—
“Vows protest but do not prove.
“Nobly as old legends tell,
“Rode the knight from land to land,
“Sin and wrong before him fell,
“Conquer’d by his stalwart hand.
“Glorious legends, were they true!
“Make them true if me you’d win;
“Win for me and thee a new
“Triumph over death and sin.
“If thou languish at my side,
“I shall mock thee in my scorn;
“Up, be doing—so thy bride
“On I pass till Death’s dark morn.
“If around thy spirit gather
“Rust of sloth and lustful ease,
“Though I love thee, I would rather
“Thou wert dying on my knees.”
Swift he turned—that flashing face
Woke a new-born love to life;
Then he knew her, all her grace:
Won her nobly for his Wife.
C. U. D.
The Portent.
II.—“THE OMEN COMING ON.”[4]
I was set down at the great gate of Hilton Hall, in which I was to reside
for some indefinite period as tutor to the children of Lord Hilton. I
walked up the broad avenue, through the final arch of which, as through
a huge Gothic window, I saw the hall in the distance. Everything was
rich, lovely, and fairylike about me. Accustomed to the scanty flowers
and diminutive wood of my own country, I looked upon all around me with a
feeling of majestic plenty, which I can recall at will, but which I have
never experienced again. Beyond the trees which formed the avenue, I saw
a shrubbery, composed entirely of flowering plants, almost all strange
to me. Issuing from the avenue, I found myself amid open, wide, lawny
spaces, in which the flower-beds lay like islands of colour. A statue on
a pedestal, the only white thing in the surrounding green of the lawn
and the avenue, caught my eye. I had seen scarcely any sculpture; and
this, attracting my attention by a favourite contrast of colour, retained
it by its own beauty. It was a Dryad, or some nymph of the woods, who
looked as if she had just glided from the solitude of the trees behind,
and had sprung upon the pedestal to look wonderingly around her. A few
large brown leaves lay beneath it, left there, no doubt, by the eddying
around its base of some wind that had torn them from the trees behind.
As I gazed, absorbed in a new pleasure, a drop of rain upon my face made
me look up. From a gray fleecy cloud, with sun-whitened border, lo! a
light, gracious, plentiful rain was falling. A rainbow sprang across the
sky, and the statue stood within the rainbow. At the same moment, from
the base of the pedestal, rose a figure in white, graceful as the Dryad
above, and neither running, nor appearing to walk with rapid steps,
glided swiftly past me at a few paces’ distance, fleet as a ghost; and,
keeping in a straight line for the main entrance of the Hall, entered and
vanished. All that I saw of her was, that she was young, very pale, and
dressed in white.
I followed in the direction of the mansion, which was large, and of
several styles and ages. One wing appeared especially ancient. It seemed
neglected and out of repair, and had in consequence a desolate, almost
sepulchral look, heightened by a number of large cypresses growing along
its line. I went up to the central door and knocked. It was opened by a
grave elderly butler. I passed under its flat arch, as if into the midst
of the waiting events of my story. As I glanced around the hall, my
consciousness was suddenly saturated, if I may be allowed the expression,
with that strange feeling—known to every one, and yet so strange—that
I had seen it before; that, in fact, I knew it perfectly. But what was
yet more strange, and far more uncommon, was, that, although the feeling
with regard to the hall faded and vanished instantly, and although I
could not in the least surmise the appearance of any of the regions into
which I was about to be ushered, I yet followed the butler with a kind of
indefinable expectation of seeing something which I had seen before; and
every room or passage in that mansion affected me, on entering it for the
first time, with the same sensation of previous acquaintance which I had
experienced with regard to the hall. This sensation, in every case, died
away at once, leaving that portion as strange both to eyes and mind as it
might naturally be expected to look to one who had never before crossed
the threshold of the hall. I was received by the housekeeper, a little
prim benevolent old lady, with colourless face and antique head-dress,
who led me to the room which had been prepared for me. To my surprise,
I found a large wood fire burning on the hearth; but the feeling of the
place revealed at once the necessity for it; and I scarcely needed to be
informed that the room, which was upon the ground floor, and looked out
upon a little solitary grass-grown and ivy-mantled court, had not been
used for years, and required to be thus prepared for an inmate. The look
of ancient mystery about it, was to me incomparably more attractive than
any elegance or comfort of an ordinary kind. My bedroom was a few paces
down a passage to the right.
Left alone, I proceeded to make a more critical survey of my room. It
was large and low, panelled in oak throughout, which was black with age,
and worm-eaten in many parts—otherwise entire. Both the windows looked
into the little court or yard before mentioned. All the heavier furniture
of the room was likewise of black oak, but the chairs and couches were
covered with faded tapestry and tarnished gilding, and seemed to be the
superannuated members of the general household of seats. I could give an
individual description of each variety, for every atom in that room large
enough to be possessed of discernible shape or colour seems branded into
my brain. If I happen to have the least feverishness upon me, the moment
I fell asleep, I am in that room.
When the bell rang for dinner, I found my way, though with difficulty,
to the drawing-room, where were assembled Lady Hilton, a girl of about
thirteen, and the two boys, my pupils. Lady Hilton would have been
pleasant, could she have been as natural as she wished to appear. She
received me with some degree of kindness; but the half-cordiality of
her manner towards me was evidently founded on the impassableness of
the gulf between us. I knew at once that we should never be friends;
that she would never come down from the lofty tableland upon which she
walked; and that if, after being years in the house, I should happen to
be dying, she would send the housekeeper to me. All right, no doubt; I
only say that it was so. She introduced to me my pupils; fine, open-eyed,
manly English boys, with something a little overbearing in their manner,
which speedily disappeared in relation to me. They have so little to do
with my tale, that I shall scarcely have occasion to mention them again.
Lord Hilton was not at home. Lady Hilton led the way to the dining-room;
the elder boy gave his arm to his sister, and I was about to follow with
the younger; when from one of the deep bay windows glided out, still in
white, the same figure which had passed me upon the lawn. I started, and
drew back. With a slight bow, she preceded me, and followed the others
down the great staircase. Seated at table, I had leisure to make my
observations upon them all; but I must say most of my glances found their
way to the lady who, twice that day, had affected me like an apparition.
Alas! what was she ever to me but an apparition! What is time, but the
airy ocean in which ghosts come and go! She was about twenty years of
age, rather above the middle height, somewhat slight in form, with a
complexion rather white than pale; her face being only less white than
the deep marbly whiteness of her most lovely arms. Her eyes were large,
and full of liquid night—a night throbbing with the light of invisible
stars. Her hair seemed raven-black, and in quantity profuse. Lady Hilton
called her Lady Alice; and she never addressed Lady Hilton but in the
same ceremonious style.
I afterwards learned from the old housekeeper—who was very friendly,
and used to sit with me sometimes of an evening when I invited her—that
Lady Alice’s position in the family was a very peculiar one. Distantly
connected with Lord Hilton’s family on the mother’s side, she was the
daughter of the late Lord Glendarroch, and step-daughter to Lady Hilton,
who had become Lady Hilton within a year after Lord Glendarroch’s death.
Lady Alice, then quite a child, had accompanied her step-mother, to whom
she was moderately attached, and who, perhaps, from the peculiarities of
Lady Alice’s mind and disposition, had been allowed to retain undisputed
possession of her. Probably, however, she had no near relatives, else
the fortune reported to be at her disposal would most likely have roused
contending claims to the right of guardianship. Although in many respects
very kindly treated by her step-mother, the peculiarities to which I
have already referred tended to an isolation from the family engagements
and pleasures. Lady Alice had no accomplishments, and never could be
taught any. She could neither sing, nor play, nor draw, nor dance. As for
languages, she could neither spell, nor even read aloud, her own. Yet she
seemed to delight in reading to herself, though, for the most part, what
Mrs. Wilson characterized as very odd books. I knew her voice, when she
spoke, had a quite indescribable music in it; and her habitual motion was
more like a rhythmical gliding than an ordinary walk. Mrs. Wilson hinted
at other and even more serious peculiarities, which she either could
not, or would not describe; always shaking her head gravely and sadly,
and becoming quite silent when I pressed her for further explanation;
so that, at last, I gave up all attempts to arrive at an understanding
of the mystery, at least by her means. I could not, however, avoid
speculating on the subject myself. One thing soon became evident to me:
that she was considered by her family to be not merely deficient in the
power of intellectual acquirement, but to be—intellectually considered—in
a quite abnormal condition. Of this, however, I could see no signs:
though there was a peculiarity, almost oddity in some of her remarks,
which was evidently not only misunderstood, but misinterpreted with
relation to her mental state. Such remarks Lady Hilton generally answered
by an elongation of the lips intended to represent a smile. To me, they
appeared to indicate a nature closely allied to genius, if not identical
with it—a power of regarding things from an original point of view, which
perhaps was the more unfettered in its operation from the fact that it
was impossible for her to look at them in the ordinary commonplace way.
It seemed to me sometimes as if her point of observation was outside of
the sphere within which the thing observed took place; and as if what
she said had sometimes a relation to things and thoughts and mental
conditions familiar to her, but at which not even a definite guess could
be made by me. With such utterances as these, however, I am compelled
to acknowledge, now and then others mingled, silly enough for any
drawing-room young lady; but they seemed to be accepted as proofs that
she was not altogether out of her right mind. She was gentle and loving
to her brothers and sister, and they seemed reasonably fond of her.
Taking my leave for the night, after making arrangements for commencing
my instruction in the morning, I returned to my own room, intent upon
completing with more minuteness the survey I had commenced in the
morning: several cupboards in the wall, and one or two doors, apparently
of closets, had especially attracted my attention. The fire had sunk low,
and lay smouldering beneath the white ashes, like the life of the world
beneath the snow, or the heart of a man beneath cold and gray thoughts.
The room, instead of being brightened, when I lighted the candles which
stood upon the table, looked blacker than before, for the light revealed
its essential blackness.
Casting my eyes around me as I stood with my back to the hearth (on
which, for mere companionship sake, I had heaped fresh wood), a slight
shudder thrilled through all my frame. I felt as if, did it last a
moment longer, I should be sufficiently detached from the body to become
aware of a presence besides my own in the room; but happily for me it
ceased before it reached that point; and I, recovering my courage,
remained ignorant of the causes of my threatened fear, if any there were,
other than the nature of the room itself. With a candle in one hand, I
proceeded to open the various cupboards and closets. I found nothing
remarkable in any of them. The latter were quite empty, except the last
I came to, which had a piece of very old elaborate tapestry hanging at
the back of it. Lifting this up, I perceived at first nothing more than
a panelled wall, corresponding to those which formed the room; but on
looking more closely, I soon discovered that the back of the closet was,
or had been, a door. There was nothing unusual in this, especially in
such an old house; but it roused in me a strong curiosity to know what
was behind it. I found that it was secured only by an ordinary bolt, the
handle which had withdrawn it having been removed. Soothing my conscience
with the reflection that I had a right to know what doors communicated
with my room, I soon succeeded, by the help of my deer-knife, in forcing
back the rusty bolt; and though from the stiffness of the hinges I
dreaded a crack, they yielded at last. The opening door revealed a large
waste hall, empty utterly, save of dust and cobwebs which festooned it
in all quarters. The now familiar feeling, that I had seen it before,
filled my mind in the first moment of seeing it, and passed away the
next. A broad right-angled staircase of oak, with massive banisters, no
doubt once brilliantly polished, rose from the middle of the hall. Of
course this could not have originally belonged to the ancient wing which
I had observed on my first approach to the hall, being much more modern;
but I was convinced, from the observations I had made with regard to
the situation of my room, that I was bordering upon, if not within, the
oldest portion of the pile. In sudden horror, lest I should hear a light
footfall upon the awful stair, I withdrew hurriedly, and having secured
both the doors, betook myself to my bedroom; in whose dingy four-post
bed, reminding me of a hearse with its carving and plumes, I was soon
ensconced amidst the snowiest linen, with the sweetest and cleanest odour
of lavender. In spite of novelty, antiquity, speculation, and dread,
I was soon fast asleep; becoming thereby a fitter inhabitant of such
regions than when I moved about with restless and disturbing curiosity
in the midst of their ancient and death-like repose. I made no use of my
discovered door for some time; not even although, in talking about the
building to Lady Hilton, I found that I was at perfect liberty to ramble
over the deserted portions as I pleased. I scarcely ever saw Lady Alice,
except at dinner, or by accidental meeting in the grounds and passages of
the house; and then she took the slightest possible notice of me—whether
from pride or shyness, I could not tell.
I found the boys teachable, and therefore my occupation was pleasant.
Their sister frequently came to me for help, as there happened to be just
then an interregnum of governesses: soon she settled into a regular pupil.
In a few weeks, Lord Hilton returned. Though my room was so far from
the great hall, I heard the clank of his spurs on its pavement. I
trembled; for it suggested the sound of the broken shoe. But I shook
off the influence in a moment, heartily ashamed of its power over me.
Soon I became familiar enough both with the sound and its cause; for his
lordship rarely went anywhere except on horseback, and was booted and
spurred from morning till night. He received me with some appearance of
interest, which instantly stiffened and froze. He began to shake hands
with me as if he meant it, but immediately dropped my hand, as if it
had stung him. His nobility was of that sort which always seems to
stand in need of repair. Like a weakly constitution, it required keeping
up, and his lordship could not be said to neglect it; for he seemed
to find his principal employment in administering to his pride almost
continuous doses of obsequiousness. His rank, like a coat made for some
large ancestor, hung loose upon him; and he was always trying to persuade
himself that it was an excellent fit, but ever with an unacknowledged
misgiving. This misgiving might have done him good, had he not met it
with constantly revived efforts at looking that which he feared he was
not. Yet this man, so far from being weak throughout, was capable of the
utmost persistency in carrying out any scheme he had once devised. But
enough of him for the present: I seldom came into contact with him.
I found many books to my mind in the neglected library of the hall. One
night, I was sitting in my own room, devouring an old romance. It was
late; my fire blazed brightly, but the candles were nearly burnt out,
and I grew rather sleepy over the volume, romance as it was. Suddenly
I found myself springing to my feet, and listening with an agony of
intension. Whether I had heard anything, I could not tell; but it was in
my soul as if I had. Yes: I was sure of it. Far away—somewhere in the
great labyrinthine pile, I heard a voice, a faint cry. Without a moment’s
reflection, as if urged by instinct, or some unfelt but operative
attraction, I flew to the closet door, entered, lifted the tapestry,
unfastened the inner door, and stood in the great echoing hall, amid the
touches, light and ghostly, of the crowds of airy cobwebs set in motion
by the storm of my sudden entrance.
A soiled moonbeam fell on the floor, and filled the place around it
with an ancient, dream-like light, which seemed to work strangely on
my brain,—filling it, too, as if it were but a sleepy deserted house,
haunted by old dreams and memories. Recollecting myself, I re-entered
my room, but the candles were both flickering in the sockets, and I was
compelled to trust to the moonlight for guidance. I easily reached the
foot of the staircase, and began to ascend: not a board creaked, not a
banister shook—the whole seemed as solid as rock. I was compelled to
grope, for here was no moonlight—only the light, through one window,
of the moonlit sky and air. Finding at last no more stairs to ascend,
I groped my way on, in some trepidation, I confess; for how should I
find my way back? But then the worst result likely to ensue was, that I
should have to spend the night without knowing where; for with the first
glimmer of morning, I should be able to return to my room. At length,
after wandering about, in and out of rooms, my hand fell on the latch of
a door, on opening which, I entered a long corridor, with many windows
on one side. Broad strips of moonlight lay slantingly across the narrow
floor, with regular intervals of shade.
I started, and my heart grew thick, for I thought I saw a movement
somewhere—I could neither tell where, nor of what: I only seemed to have
been aware of motion. I stood in the first shadow, and gazed, but saw
nothing. I sped across the stream of light to the next shadow, and stood
again, looking with fearful fixedness of gaze towards the far end of the
corridor. Suddenly a white form glimmered and vanished. I crossed to the
next shadow—again a glimmer and a vanishing, but nearer. Nerving myself
with all my strength, I ceased my stealthy motion, and went straight
forward, slowly but steadily. A tall form, apparently of a woman, dressed
in a long white loose robe, emerged into one of the streams of light,
threw its arms over its head, gave a wild cry—which, notwithstanding its
wildness and force, sounded as if muffled by many intervening folds,
either of matter or space—and fell at full length along the moonlight
track. In the midst of the thrill of agony which shook me at the cry, as
a sudden wind thrills from head to foot the leaves of a tree, I rushed
forward, and kneeling beside the prostrate figure, soon discovered
that, however unearthly the scream which had preceded her fall, it was,
in reality, the Lady Alice. Again I trembled, but the tremor was not
the same as that which preceded. I saw the fact in a moment: the Lady
Alice was a somnambulist. Startled by the noise of my advance, she had
awaked; and the usual terror and fainting had followed. She was cold
and motionless as death. What was to be done? If I called aloud, the
probability was that no one would hear me; or if any one should hear,—but
I need not follow the train of thoughts that passed through my mind, as
I fruitlessly tried to recover the poor girl. Suffice it to say, that I
shrank most painfully, both for her sake and my own, from being found, by
common-minded domestics, in such a situation, in the dead of the night.
While I knelt by her side, hesitating as to what I should do, a horror,
as from the presence of death suddenly recognized—akin to that feeling
which a child experiences when he looks up and sees that his mother,
to whom he thought he had been talking for minutes past, is not in the
room—fell upon me. I thought she must be dead. At the same moment, I
heard, or seemed to hear (how should I know?) the rapid gallop of a
horse, and the clank of a loose shoe.
In an agony of fear, which yet I cannot consider cowardice, I caught her
up in my arms, and as one carries a sleeping child, sped with her towards
that end of the corridor whence I had come. Her head hung back over my
arm, and her hair, which had got loose, trailed on the ground. As I
fled, I trampled upon it and stumbled. She moaned, and I shuddered. That
instant the gallop ceased. Somewhat relieved, I lifted her up across my
shoulder, and carried her more easily. How I found my way to the stairs
I cannot tell. I know that I groped about for some time, like one in a
dream with a ghost in his arms; but at last I reached it, and descending,
entered my room, laid her upon one of the old couches, secured the
doors, and began to breathe—and think. The first thing that suggested
itself was, to try to make her warm—she was so ice-cold. I covered her
with my plaid and my dressing-gown, pulled the couch near the fire, and
considered what to do next.
But while I hesitated, Nature had her own way, and Lady Alice opened her
eyes with a deep-drawn sigh. Never shall I forget the look of mingled
bewilderment, alarm, and shame, with which her great dark eyes met mine.
In a moment her expression changed to anger. Her eyes flashed; a cloud of
roseate wrath grew in her face, till it glowed with the opaque red of a
camellia; and she all but started from the couch to her feet. Apparently,
however, she discovered the unsuitableness of her dress, for she checked
her impetuosity, and remained leaning on her elbow. After a moment’s
pause, in which, overcome by her anger, her beauty, and my own confusion,
I knelt before her, unable to speak, or to withdraw my eye from hers, she
began to question me like a queen, and I to reply like a culprit.
“How did I come here?”
“I carried you.”
Then, with a curling lip—
“Where did you find me, pray?”
“Somewhere in the old house, in a long corridor.”
“What right had you to be there?”
“I heard a cry, and was compelled to go to it.”
“’Tis impossible. I see. Your prying and my infirmity have brought this
disgrace upon me.”
She burst into tears. Then, anger reviving, she went on through her sobs:
“Why did you not leave me where I suppose I fell? You had done enough to
injure me by discovering my weakness, without rudely breaking my trance,
and, after that, taking advantage of the consequences to bring me here.”
Now I found words. “Lady Alice, how could I leave you lying in the
moonlight? Before the sun rose, the terrible moon might have distorted
your beautiful face.”
“Be silent, sir. What have you to do with my face?”
“And the wind, Lady Alice, was blowing through the corridor windows, keen
and cold, as if it were sister-spirit of the keen and cold moonlight. How
could I leave you?”
“You could have called assistance.”
“I knew not whom I should rouse, if any one. And forgive me, Lady
Alice, if I erred in thinking you would rather command the silence of
a gentleman to whom an evil accident had revealed your secret, than be
exposed to the domestics whom a call for help might have gathered round
us.”
She half raised herself again, in anger.
“A secret with you, sir!”
“But, besides, Lady Alice,” I cried, springing to my feet, in distress,
“I heard the horse with the clanking shoe, and I caught you up in terror
and fled with you, almost before I knew what I did. And I hear it now—I
hear it now!”
The angry glow faded from her face, and the paleness grew almost ghastly
with dismay.
“Do you hear it!” she said, throwing back the coverings I had laid over
her, and rising from the couch. “I do not.”
She stood listening, with wide distended eyes, as if _they_ were the
gates by which such sounds could enter.
“I do not hear it,” she said, after a pause; “it must be gone now.” Then,
turning towards me, she laid her hand on my arm, and looked at me. Her
black hair, disordered and entangled, wandered all over her white robe
down to her knees. Her face was paler than ever, and she fixed her dark
eyes on mine, so wide open that I could see the white all round the
unusually large iris.
“Did you hear it? No one ever heard it before but me. I must forgive
you—you could not help it. I will trust you too. Help me to my room.”
Without a word of reply, I took my plaid and wrapped it about her;
prevailed upon her to put on a pair of slippers which I had never worn;
and, opening the doors, led her out of the room, aided by the light of my
bedroom candle.
“How is this? Why do you take me this way! I do not know this part of the
house in the least.”
“This is the way I brought you in, Lady Alice; and I can promise to find
your way no farther than to the spot where I found you. Indeed, I shall
have some difficulty even in that, for I groped my way there for the
first time this night or morning—whichever it may be.”
“It is past midnight, but not morning yet,” she replied; “I always know
by my sensations. But there is another way from your room, of course?”
“There is; but we should have to pass the housekeeper’s door, and she
sleeps but lightly.”
“Are we near the housekeeper’s room? Perhaps I could walk alone. I fear
it would surprise none of the household to see, or even to meet me. They
would say—‘It is only Lady Alice.’ Yet I cannot tell you how I shrink
from being seen by them. No—I will try the way I came, if you do not mind
accompanying me.”
This conversation passed between us in hurried words, and in a low
tone. It was scarcely finished when we found ourselves at the foot of
the staircase. Lady Alice trembled a good deal, and drew my plaid close
around her. We ascended, and with little difficulty found the corridor.
When we left it, she was, as I had expected, rather bewildered as to the
right direction; but at last, after looking into several of the rooms,
empty all, except for stray articles of ancient furniture, she said, as
she entered one, and, taking the candle out of my hand, held it above her
head—
“Ah, yes! I am right at last; this is the haunted room: I know my way
now.”
By the dim light I caught only a darkling glimpse of a large room,
apparently quite furnished; but how, except from the general feeling of
antiquity and mustiness, I could not tell. Little did I think then what
memories—sorrowful and old now as the ghosts that along with them haunt
that old chamber, but no more faded than they—would ere long find their
being and take their abode in that ancient room, to forsake it never,
never more—the ghosts and the memories flitting together through the
spectral moonlight, and weaving strange mystic dances in and out of the
storied windows and the tapestried walls. At the door of this room she
expressed her wish to leave me, asking me to follow to the spot where
she should put down the light, that I might take it back; adding—“I hope
you are not afraid of being left so near the haunted room.” Then, with
a smile that made me strong enough to meet all the ghosts in or out of
Hades, she turned, went on a few paces, and disappeared. The light,
however, remained; and, advancing, I found the candle, with my plaid and
slippers, deposited on the third or fourth step down a short flight, in a
passage at right angles to that she had left. I took them up, made my way
back to my room, lay down on the couch on which she had lain so shortly
before, and neither went to bed nor slept that night. Before the morning
I had fully entered that phase of individual development commonly called
_love_; of which the real nature is as great a mystery to me now, as at
any period previous to its evolution in myself.
I will not linger on the weary fortnight that passed before I even saw
her again. I could teach, but not learn. My duties were not irksome
to me, because they kept me near her; but my thoughts were beyond my
control. It was not love only, but anxiety also, lest she were ill from
the adventures of that night, that caused my distress. As the days went
on, and no chance word about her reached me, I felt the soul within me
beginning to droop. In vain, at night, I tried to read, in my own room.
Nothing could fix my attention. I read and re-read the same page again
and again; but although I seemed to understand every word and phrase
as I read, I found when I had reached the close of the paragraph, that
there lingered in my mind no ghost of the idea embodied in the words. It
was just what one experiences in attempting to read when half-asleep. I
tried Euclid, and fared a little better with that. A very simple equation
I found I could manage, but when I attempted a more complex one—one in
which a little imagination, or something bordering upon it, was necessary
to find out the undefined object for which to substitute the unknown
symbol, that it might be dealt with by thought—I found that the necessary
power of concentrating was itself a missing factor.
But it is foolish to dwell upon an individual variety of an almost
universal stage in the life-fever.
One night, as I sat in my room, I found, as usual, that it was impossible
to read; and throwing the book aside, relapsed into that sphere of
thought which now filled my soul, having for its centre the Lady Alice.
I recalled her form as she lay on the couch, and a longing to see her,
almost unbearable, arose within me.
“Would to heaven,” I said to myself, “that will were power!”
In the confluence of idleness, distraction, and vehement desire, I found
myself, before I knew what I was about, concentrating and intensifying
within me, until it almost rose to a command, the operative volition
(if I may be allowed the phrase) that Lady Alice should come to me.
Suddenly I trembled at the sense of a new power which sprang into being
within me. I had not foreseen it, when I gave way to such extravagant
and apparently helpless wishes. I now actually awaited the fulfilment of
my desire, but in a condition ill fitted to receive it; for the effort
had already exhausted me to such a degree, that every nerve seemed in a
conscious tremor. Nor had I to wait long. I heard no sound of approach.
The closet-door in my room folded back, and in glided, open-eyed, but
sightless, pale as death, and clad in white, ghostly-pure and saint-like,
the Lady Alice. I shuddered from head to foot at what I had done. She was
more terrible to me in that moment, than any pale-eyed ghost could have
been. She passed me, walking round the table at which I was seated, went
to the couch, laid herself upon it, a little on one side, with her face
towards me, and gradually closed her eyes. She lay in something deeper
than sleep, and yet not death. I rose, and once more knelt beside her,
but dared not touch her. In what far realms of mysterious life might the
lovely soul be straying? Thoughts unutterable rose in me, culminated, and
sank like the stars of heaven, as I gazed on the present symbol of an
absent life—a life that I loved by means of the symbol; a symbol that I
loved because of the life. How long she lay thus, how long I gazed upon
her thus, I do not know.
Gradually, but without my being able to distinguish the gradations of
the change, her countenance altered to that of one who sleeps. But the
change did not end there. The slightest possible colour tinged her lips,
and deepened to a pale rose; then her cheek seemed to share in the hue,
then her brow and her neck, as the cloud the farthest from the sunset yet
acknowledges the rosy atmosphere. I watched, as it were, the dawn of a
soul on the horizon of the material. As I watched, the first approaches
of its far-off flight were manifest; and I saw it come nearer and nearer,
till its great, silent, speeding pinions were folded, and it looked
forth, a calm, beautiful, infinite woman, from the face and form sleeping
beside me. But the world without entering, ruffled its calmness, dimmed
its beauty, and dashed its sky with the streaks of earthly vapours. I
knew that she was awake for some moments before she opened her eyes. When
at last those depths of darkness disclosed themselves, slowly uplifting
their white cloudy portals, the same consternation she had manifested on
the former occasion, followed by yet greater anger, was the consequence.
“Yet again! Am I your slave, because I am weak?” She rose in the majesty
of wrath, and moved towards the door.
“Lady Alice, I have not touched you. Yet I am to blame, though not as you
think. Could I help longing to see you? And if the longing passed, ere I
was aware, into a will that you should come, and you obeyed it, forgive
me.”
I hid my face in my hands, overcome by conflicting emotions. A kind of
stupor came over me. When, recovering, I lifted my head, she was standing
by the closet-door.
“I have waited,” she said, “only to make one request of you.”
“Do not utter it, Lady Alice. I know what it is; and I give you my word
and solemn promise that I will never do so again.” She thanked me, smiled
most sweetly, and vanished.
What nights I had after this, in watching and striving lest unawares I
should be led to the exercise of my new power! I allowed myself to think
of her as much as I pleased in the daytime, or at least as much as I
dared; for when occupied with my pupils, I dreaded lest any abstraction
should even hint that I had a thought to conceal. I knew that I could
not hurt her then; for that only in the night did she enter that state
of existence in which my will could exercise authority over her. But at
night—at night—when I knew she lay there, and might be lying here; when
but a thought would bring her, and that thought was fluttering its wings,
ready to wake from the dreams of my heart; then the struggle was fearful.
“Bring her yet once, and tell her all—tell her how madly, hopelessly you
love her—she will forgive you,” said a voice within me; but I heard it
as the voice of the tempter, and kept down the thought which might have
grown to the will.
FOOTNOTES
[4] _Hamlet_, Act 1, Scene i.
Studies in Animal Life.
“Authentic tidings of invisible things;—
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power,
And central peace subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation.”—THE EXCURSION.
CHAPTER VI.
Every organism a colony—What is a paradox?—An organ is
an independent individual, and a dependent one—A branch
of coral—A colony of polypes—The Siphonophora—Universal
dependence—Youthful aspirings—Our interest in the youth
of great men—Genius and labour—Cuvier’s college life; his
appearance in youth; his arrival in Paris—Cuvier and Geoffrey
St. Hilaire—Causes of Cuvier’s success—One of his early
ambitions—M. le Baron—_Omnia vincit labor_—Conclusion.
That an animal Organism is made up of several distinct organs, and these
the more numerous in proportion to the rank of the animal in the scale
of beings, is one of those familiar facts which have their significance
concealed from us by familiarity. But it is only necessary to express
this fact in language slightly altered, and to say that an animal
Organism is made up of several distinct _individuals_, and our attention
is at once arrested. Doubtless, it has a paradoxical air to say so; but
Natural History is full of paradoxes; and you are aware that a paradox
is far from being necessarily an absurdity, as some inaccurate writers
would lead us to suppose: the word meaning simply, “contrary to what is
thought,”—a meaning by no means equivalent to “contrary to what is the
fact.” It is paradoxical to call an animal an aggregate of individuals;
but it is so because our thoughts are not very precise on the subject of
individuality—one of the many abstractions which remain extremely vague.
To justify this application of the word individual to every distinct
organ would be difficult in ordinary speech, but in philosophy there is
ample warrant for it.
An organ, in the physiological sense, is an _instrument_ whereby certain
functions are performed. In the morphological sense, it arises in a
_differentiation_, or setting apart, of a particular portion of the body
for the performance of particular functions—a group of cells, instead of
being an exact repetition of all the other cells, takes on a difference
and becomes distinguished from the rest as an organ.[5]
Combining these two meanings, we have the third, or philosophical sense
of the word, which indicates that every organ is an individual existence,
dependent more or less upon other organs for its maintenance and
activity, yet biologically distinct. I do not mean that the heart will
live independent of the body—at least, not for long, although it does
continue to live and manifest its vital activity for some time after the
animal’s death; and, in the cold-blooded animals, even after removal from
the body. Nor do I mean that the legs of an animal will manifest vivacity
after amputation; although even the legs of a man are not dead for some
time after amputation; and the parts of some of the lower animals are
often vigorously independent. Thus I have had the long tentacles of a
_Terebella_ (a marine worm) living and wriggling for a whole week after
amputation.[6] In speaking of the independence of an organ, I must be
understood to mean a very dependent independence: because, strictly
speaking, absolute independence is nowhere to be found; and, in the
case of an organ, it is of course dependent on other organs for the
securing, preparing, and distributing of its necessary nutriment. The
tentacles of my _Terebella_ could find no nutriment, and they perished
from the want of it, as the _Terebella_ itself would have perished under
like circumstances. The frog’s heart now beating on our table with such
regular systole and diastole, as if it were pumping the blood through the
living animal, gradually uses up all its force; and since this force is
not replaced, the beatings gradually cease. A current of electricity will
awaken its activity, for a time; but, at last, every stimulus will fail
to elicit a response. The heart will then be dead, and decomposition will
begin.
Dependent, therefore, every organ must be on some other organs. Let us
see how it is also independent; and for this purpose we glance, as usual,
at the simpler forms of Life to make the lesson easier. Here is a branch
of coral, which you know to be in its living state a colony of polypes.
Each of these multitudinous polypes is an individual, and each exactly
resembles the other. But the whole colony has one nutritive fluid in
common. They are all actively engaged in securing food, and the labours
of each enrich all. It is animal Socialism of the purest kind—there
are no rich and no poor, neither are there any idlers. Formerly, the
coral-branch was regarded as one animal—an individual; and a tree was
and is commonly regarded as one plant—an individual. But no zoologist
now is unaware of the fact that each polype on the branch is a distinct
individual, in spite of its connections with the rest; and philosophic
botanists are agreed that the tree is a colony of individual plants—not
one plant.
[Illustration: Fig. 20.
CAMPANULARIA (Magnified, and Natural Size).]
Let us pass from the coral to the stem of some other polype, say a
Campanularia. Here is the representation of such a stem, of the natural
size, and beside it a tiny twig much magnified. You observe the ordinary
polype issuing from one of the capsules, and expanding its coronal
of tentacles in the water. The food it secures will pass along the
digestive tract to each of the other capsules. Under the microscope,
you may watch this oscillation of the food. But your eye detects a
noticeable difference between this polype in its capsule, and the six
semi-transparent masses in the second capsule: although the two capsules
are obviously identical, they are not the same: a _differentiation_ has
taken place. Perhaps you think that six polypes are here crowding into
one capsule? Error! If you watch with patience, or if you are impatient
yet tolerably dexterous, you may press these six masses out, and then
will observe them swim away, so many tiny jelly-fish. Not polypes at all,
but jelly-fish, are in this capsule: and these in due time will produce
polypes, like that one now waving its tentacles.
Having made this observation, it will naturally occur to you that the
polype stem which bore such different capsules as are represented
by these two, may perhaps be called a colony, but it is a colony of
different individuals. While they have all one skeleton in common,
nutrition in common, and respiration in common, they have at least one
differentiation, or setting apart for a particular purpose, and that is,
the reproductive capsule. This is an individual, as much as any of the
others, but it is an individual that does nothing for the general good;
it takes upon itself the care of the race, and becomes an “organ” for
the community; the others feed it, and it is absolved from the labour of
nutrition, as much as the arm or the brain of a man are.
From this case, let us pass to the group of jelly-fish called
_Siphonophora_ (siphonbearers) by naturalists, and we shall see this
union of very different individualities into one inseparable colony still
more strikingly exhibited: there are distinct individuals to feed the
colony, individuals to float it through the water, individuals to act
as feelers, and to keep certain parts distended with fluid, and finally
reproductive individuals. All these are identical in origin, and differ
only by slight differentiations.[7] Here we have obviously an approach to
the more complex organism in which various distinct organs perform the
several functions; only no one calls the Organism a colony.
The individuals composing one of these Siphonophora are so manifestly
analogous to organs, that their individuality may, perhaps, be disputed,
the more so as they do not live separately. But the gradations of
separation are very fine. You would never hesitate to call a bee, or an
ant, an individual, yet no bee or ant could exist if separated from its
colony. So great is “the physiological division of labour,” which has
taken place among these insects, that one cannot get food, another cannot
feed itself, but it will fight for the community; another cannot work,
but it will breed for the community; another cannot breed, but it will
work. Each of these is little more than _separated_ organs of the great
insect-Organism; as the heart, stomach, and brain are _united_ organs of
the human-Organism. Remove one of these insects from the community, and
it will soon perish, for its life is bound up with the whole.
And so it is everywhere; the dependence is universal:—
“Nothing in this world is single;
All things, by a law divine,
In one another’s being mingle.”
We are dependent on the air, the earth, the sunlight, the flowers, the
plants, the animals, and all created things, directly or indirectly.
Nor is the moral dependence less than the physical. We cannot isolate
ourselves if we would. The thoughts of others, the sympathies of others,
the needs of others,—these too make up our life; without these we should
quickly perish.
It was a dream of the youth Cuvier, that a History of Nature might
be written which would systematically display this universal
interdependence. I know few parts of biography so interesting as those
which show us great men in their early aspirings, when dreams of
achievements vaster than the world has seen, fill their souls with energy
to achieve the something they do afterwards achieve. It is, unhappily,
too often but the ambition of youth we have to contemplate; and yet
the knowledge that after-life brought with it less of hope, less of
devotion, and less of generous self-sacrifice, renders these early days
doubly interesting. Let the abatement of high hopes come when it may,
the existence of an aspiration is itself important. I have been lately
reading over again the letters of Cuvier when an obscure youth, and they
have given me quite a new feeling with regard to him.
There is a good reason why novels always end with the marriage of the
hero and heroine: our interest is always more excited by the struggles,
than by the results of victory. So long as the lovers are unhappy, or
apart, and are eager to vanquish obstacles, our sympathy is active; but
no sooner are they happy, than we begin to look elsewhere, for other
strugglers on whom to bestow our interest. It is the same with biography.
We follow the hero through the early years of struggle with intense
interest, and as long as he remains unsuccessful, baffled by rivals or
neglected by the world, we stand by him and want him to succeed; but the
day after he is recognized by the world our sympathy begins to slacken.
It is this which gives Cuvier’s _Letters to Pfaff_[8] their charm. I
confess that, M. le Baron Cuvier, administrator, politician, academician,
professor, dictator, has always had but a very tepid interest for me;
probably because his career early became a continuous success, and
Europe heaped rewards upon him; whereas, his unsuccessful rival,
Geoffroy St. Hilaire, claims my sympathy to the close. If, however, M.
le Baron is a somewhat dim figure in my biographical gallery, it is
far otherwise with the youth Cuvier, as seen in his letters; and, as
at this present moment there is nothing under our Microscope which can
seduce us from the pleasant volume, suppose we let our “Studies” take a
biographical direction.
“Genius,” says Carlyle, “means transcendent capacity for taking trouble,
first of all.” There are many young gentlemen devoutly persuaded of
their own genius, and yet candidly avowing their imperfect capacity
for taking trouble, who will vehemently protest against this doctrine.
Without discussing it here, let us say that genius, or no genius, success
of any value is only to be purchased by immense labour; and in science,
assuredly, no one will expect success without first paying this price.
In Cuvier’s history may be seen what “capacity for taking trouble” was
required before his success could be achieved; and this gives these
_Lettres à Pfaff_ a moral as well as an interest.
It was in the Rittersaal of the Academia Carolina of Stuttgardt
that Pfaff, the once famous supporter of Volta, and in 1787, the
fellow-student of Cuvier, first became personally acquainted with him.
Although they had been three years together at the same university, the
classification of students there adopted had prevented any personal
acquaintance. Pupils were admitted at the age of nine, and commenced
their studies with the classic languages. Thence they passed to the
philosophical class, and from that they went to one of the four
faculties: Law, Medicine, Administration, and Military Science. Each
faculty, of course, was kept distinct; and as Pfaff was studying
philosophy at the time Cuvier was occupied with the administrative
sciences, they never met, the more so as the dormitories and hours
of recreation were different. The academy was organized on military
principles. The three hundred students were divided into six classes,
two of which comprised the nobles, and the other four the bourgeoisie.
Each of these classes had its own dormitory, and was placed under the
charge of a captain, a lieutenant, and two inferior officers. These six
classes in which the students were entered according to their age, size,
and time of admission, were kept separate in their recreations, as in
their studies. But those of the students who particularly distinguished
themselves in the public examinations were raised to the rank of knights,
and had a dormitory to themselves, besides dining at the same table with
the young princes who were then studying at the university. Pfaff and
Cuvier were raised to this dignity at the same time, and here commenced
their friendship.
What a charm there is in school friendships, when youth is not less eager
to communicate its plans and hopes, than to believe in the plans and
hopes of others; when studies are pursued in common, opinions frankly
interchanged, and the superiority of a friend is gladly acknowledged,
even becoming a source of pride, instead of being, as in after years, a
thorn in the side of friendship! This charm was felt by Cuvier and Pfaff,
and a small circle of fellow-students who particularly devoted themselves
to Natural History. They formed themselves into a society, of which
Cuvier drew up the statutes and became the president. They read memoirs,
and discussed discoveries with all the gravity of older societies, and
even published, among themselves, a sort of _Comptes Rendus_. They made
botanical, entomological, and geological excursions; and, still further
to stimulate their zeal, Cuvier instituted an Order of Merit, painting
himself the medallion: it represented a star, with the portrait of
Linnæus in the centre, and between the rays various treasures of the
animal and vegetable world. And do you think these boys were not proud
when their president awarded them this medal for some happy observation
of a new species, or some well-considered essay on a scientific question?
At this period Cuvier’s outward appearance was as unlike M. le Baron, as
the grub is unlike the butterfly. Absorbed in his multifarious studies,
he was careless about disguising the want of elegance in his aspect. His
face was pale, very thin, and long, covered with freckles, and encircled
by a shock of red hair. His physiognomy was severe and melancholy. He
never played at any of the boys’ games, and seemed as insensible of all
that was going on around him as a somnambulist. His eye seemed turned
inwards; his thoughts moved amid problems and abstractions. Nothing
could exceed the insatiable ardour of his intellect. Besides his special
administrative studies, he gave himself to Botany, Zoology, Philosophy,
Mathematics, and the history of literature. No work was too voluminous,
or too heavy for him. He was reading all day long, and a great part
of the night. “I remember well,” says Pfaff, “how he used to sit by
my bedside going regularly through Bayle’s Dictionary. Falling asleep
over my own book, I used to awake, after an hour or two, and find him
motionless as a statue, bent over Bayle.” It was during these years that
he laid the basis of that extensive erudition which distinguished his
works in after life, and which is truly remarkable when we reflect that
Cuvier was not in the least a bookworm, but was one of the most active
_workers_, drawing his knowledge of details from direct inspection
whenever it was possible, and not from the reports of others. It was
here also that he preluded to his success as a professor, astonishing
his friends and colleagues by the clearness of his exposition, which he
rendered still more striking by his wonderful mastery with the pencil.
One may safely say that there are few talents which are not available in
Natural History; a talent for drawing is pre-eminently useful, since it
not only enables a man to preserve observations of fugitive appearances,
but sharpens his faculty of observation by the exercise it gives.
Cuvier’s facile pencil was always employed: if he had nothing to draw
for his own memoirs, or those of his colleagues, he amused himself with
drawing insects as presents to the young ladies of his acquaintance—an
entomologist’s gallantry, which never became more sentimental.
In 1788, that is in his nineteenth year, Cuvier quitted Stuttgardt,
and became tutor in a nobleman’s family in Normandy, where he remained
till 1795, when he was discovered by the Abbé Tessier, who wrote to
Parmentier, “I have just found a pearl in the dunghill of Normandy;” to
Jussieu he wrote—“Remember it was I who gave Delambre to the academy; in
another department this also will be a Delambre.” Geoffroy St. Hilaire,
already professor at the Jardin des Plantes, though younger than Cuvier,
was shown some of Cuvier’s manuscripts, which filled him with such
enthusiasm that he wrote to him, “Come and fill the place of Linnæus
here; come and be another legislator of natural history.” Cuvier came,
and Geoffroy stood aside to let his great rival be seen.
Goethe, as I have elsewhere remarked, has noticed the curious coincidence
of the three great zoologists successively opening to their rivals the
path to distinction: Buffon called Daubenton to aid him; Daubenton called
Geoffroy; and Geoffroy called Cuvier. Goethe further notices that there
was the same radical opposition in the tendencies of Buffon and Daubenton
as in those of Geoffroy and Cuvier—the opposition of the synthetical
and the analytical mind. Yet this opposition did not prevent mutual
esteem and lasting regard. Geoffroy and Cuvier were both young, and
had in common ambition, love of science, and the freshness of unformed
convictions. For, alas! it is unhappily too true, that just as the free
communicativeness of youth gives place to the jealous reserve of manhood,
and the youth who would only be too pleased to tell all his thoughts and
all his discoveries to a companion, would in after years let his dearest
friend first see a discovery in an official publication; so, likewise,
in the early days of immature speculation, before convictions have
crystalized enough to present their sharp angles of opposition, friends
may discuss and interchange ideas without temper. Geoffroy and Cuvier
knew no jealousy then. In after years it was otherwise.
Geoffroy had a position—he shared it with his friend; he had books
and collections—they were open to his rival; he had a lodging in the
museum—it was shared between them. Daubenton, older and more worldly
wise, warned Geoffroy against this zeal in fostering a formidable rival;
and one day placed before him a copy of Lafontaine open at the fable
of _The Bitch and her Neighbour_. But Geoffroy was not to be daunted,
and probably felt himself strong enough to hold his own. And so the
two happy, active youths pursued their studies together, wrote memoirs
conjointly, discussed, dissected, speculated together, and “never sat
down to breakfast without having made a fresh discovery,” as Cuvier said,
truly enough, for to them every step taken was a discovery.
Cuvier became almost immediately famous on his arrival at Paris, and his
career henceforward was one uninterrupted success. Those who wish to gain
some insight into the causes of this success should read the letters to
Pfaff, which indicate the passionate patience of his studies during the
years 1788-1795, passed in obscurity on the Norman coast. Every animal
he can lay hands on is dissected with the greatest care, and drawings
are made of every detail of interest. Every work that is published of
any note in his way is read, analyzed, and commented on. Lavoisier’s new
system of chemistry finds in him an ardent disciple. Kielmeyer’s lectures
open new vistas to him. The marvels of marine life, in those days so
little thought of, he studies with persevering minuteness, and with
admirable success. He dissects the cuttlefish, and makes his drawings of
it with its own ink. He notes minute characters with the patience of a
species-monger, whose sole ambition is to affix his name to some trifling
variation of a common form; yet with this minuteness of detail he unites
the largeness of view necessary to a comparative anatomist.
“Your reflections on the differences between animals and plants,” he
writes, “in the passage to which I previously referred, will be the
more agreeable to me because I am at present working out a new plan of
a general natural history. I think we ought carefully to seek out the
relation of all existences with the rest of nature, and above all, to
show their part in the economy of the great All. In this work I should
desire that the investigator should start from the simplest things, such
as air and water, and after having spoken of their influence on the
whole, he should pass gradually to the compound minerals, from these
to plants, and so on; and that at each stage he should ascertain the
exact degree of composition, or, which is the same thing, the number of
properties it presents over and above those of the preceding stage, the
necessary effects of these properties, and their usefulness in creation.
Such a work is yet to be executed. The two works of Aristotle, _De
Historia Animalium_, and _De Partibus Animalium_, which I admire more
each time that I read them, contain a part of what I desire, namely, the
comparison of species, and many of the general results. It is, indeed,
the first scientific essay at a natural history. For this reason it
is necessarily incomplete, contains many inaccuracies, and is too far
removed from a knowledge of physical laws.” He passes on from Aristotle
to Pliny, Theophrastus, Discorides, Aldovrandus, Gesner, Gaspar Bauhin,
and Ray, rapidly sketching the history of natural history as a science;
and concluding with this criticism on these attempts at a nomenclature
which neglected real science:—“These are the dictionaries of natural
history; but when will the _language_ be spoken?”
No one who reads these letters attentively, will be surprised at the
young Cuvier’s taking eminent rank among the men of science in France;
and Pfaff, on arriving in Paris six years afterwards, found his old
fellow-student had become “a personage.” The change in Cuvier’s
appearance was very striking. He was then at his maturity, and might
pass for a handsome man. His shock of red hair was now cut and trimmed
in Parisian style; his countenance beamed with health and satisfaction;
his expression was lively and engaging; and although the slight tinge of
melancholy which was natural to him had not wholly disappeared, yet the
fire and vivacity of his genius overcame it. His dress was that of the
fashion of the day, not without a little affectation. Yet his life was
simple, and wholly devoted to science. He had a lodging in the Jardin des
Plantes, and was waited on by an old housekeeper, like any other simple
professor.
On Pfaff’s subsequent visit, things were changed. Instead of the old
housekeeper, the door was opened by a lackey in grand livery. Instead of
asking for “Citizen Cuvier,” he inquired for Monsieur Cuvier; whereupon,
the lackey politely asked, whether he wished to see M. le Baron Cuvier,
or M. Fréderic, his brother? “I soon found where I was,” continues
Pfaff. “It was the baron, separated from me by that immense interval of
thirty years, and by those high dignities which an empire offers to the
ambition of men.” He found the baron almost exclusively interested in
politics, and scarcely giving a thought to science. The “preparations”
and “injections” which Pfaff had brought with him from Germany, as a
present to Cuvier, were scarcely looked at, and were set aside with an
indifferent “that’s good,” and “very fine;” much to Pfaff’s distress, who
doubtless thought the fate of the Martignac ministry an extremely small
subject of interest compared with these injections of the lymphatics.
But it is not my purpose to paint Cuvier in his later years. It is to the
studies of his youth that I would call your attention, to read there,
once again, the important lesson that nothing of any solid value can be
achieved without entire devotion. Nothing is earned without sweat of the
brow. Even the artist must labour intensely. What is called “inspiration”
will create no works, but only irradiate works with felicitous flashes;
and even inspiration mostly comes in moments of exaltation produced by
intense work of the mind. In science, incessant and enlightened labour is
necessary, even to the smallest success. Labour is not all; but without
it, genius is nothing.
With this homily, dear reader, may be closed our FIRST SERIES of Studies;
to be resumed hereafter, let me hope, with as much willingness on your
part as desire to interest you on mine.
FOOTNOTES
[5] See on this point what was said in our first Chapter, No. I. p. 67.
[6] _Seaside Studies_, 2nd edit. p. 59, _sq._
[7] Compare LEUCKART: _Ueber den Polymorphismus der Individuen_.
GEGENBAUR: _Grundzüge der Vergleichende Anatomie_; and HUXLEY’s splendid
monograph on the _Oceanic Hydrozoa_, published by the Ray Society.
[8] _Lettres de Georges Cuvier à C. M. Pfaff_, 1788-92. Traduites de
l’Allemand, par Louis Marchant, 1858.
Framley Parsonage.