Saith Dr. Luther, "When I saw Dr. Gode begin to tell his puddings
hanging in the chimney, I told him he would not live long!"
I wish I had copied that passage from "The Table Talk" in large round
hand, and set it before my father at breakfast, the morn preceding that
fatal eve in which Uncle Jack persuaded him to tell his puddings.
Yet, now I think of it, Uncle Jack hung the puddings in the chimney, but
he did not persuade my father to tell them.
Beyond a vague surmise that half the suspended "tomacula" would furnish
a breakfast to Uncle Jack, and that the youthful appetite of Pisistratus
would despatch the rest, my father did not give a thought to the
nutritious properties of the puddings,--in other words, to the two
thousand pounds which, thanks to Mr. Tibbets, dangled down the chimney.
So far as the Great Work was concerned, my father only cared for its
publication, not its profits. I will not say that he might not hunger
for praise, but I am quite sure that he did not care a button for
pudding. Nevertheless, it was an infaust and sinister augury for Austin
Caxton, the very appearance, the very suspension and danglement of any
puddings whatsoever, right over his ingle-nook, when those puddings were
made by the sleek hands of Uncle Jack! None of the puddings which he,
poor man, had all his life been stringing, whether from his own chimneys
or the chimneys of other people, had turned out to be real puddings,--
they had always been the eidola, the erscheinungen, the phantoms and
semblances of puddings.
I question if Uncle Jack knew much about Democritus of Abdera. But he
was certainly tainted with the philosophy of that fanciful sage. He
peopled the air with images of colossal stature which impressed all his
dreams and divinations, and from whose influences came his very
sensations and thoughts. His whole being, asleep or waking, was thus
but the reflection of great phantom puddings!
As soon as Mr. Tibbets had possessed himself of the two volumes of the
"History of Human Error," he had necessarily established that hold upon
my father which hitherto those lubricate hands of his had failed to
effect. He had found what he had so long sighed for in vain,--his point
d'appui, wherein to fix the Archimedean screw. He fixed it tight in the
"History of Human Error," and moved the Caxtonian world.
A day or two after the conversation recorded in my last chapter, I saw
Uncle Jack coming out of the mahogany doors of my father's banker; and
from that time there seemed no reason why Mr. Tibbets should not visit
his relations on weekdays as well as Sundays. Not a day, indeed, passed
but what he held long conversations with my father. He had much to
report of his interviews with the publishers. In these conversations he
naturally recurred to that grand idea of the "Literary Times," which had
so dazzled my poor father's imagination; and, having heated the iron,
Uncle Jack was too knowing a man not to strike while it was hot.
When I think of the simplicity my wise father exhibited in this crisis
of his life, I must own that I am less moved by pity than admiration for
that poor great-hearted student. We have seen that out of the learned
indolence of twenty years, the ambition which is the instinct of a man
of genius had emerged; the serious preparation of the Great Book for the
perusal of the world had insensibly restored the claims of that noisy
world on the silent individual. And therewith came a noble remorse that
he had hitherto done so little for his species. Was it enough to write
quartos upon the past history of Human Error? Was it not his duty, when
the occasion was fairly presented, to enter upon that present, daily,
hourly war with Error, which is the sworn chivalry of Knowledge? Saint
George did not dissect dead dragons, he fought the live one. And
London, with that magnetic atmosphere which in great capitals fills the
breath of life with stimulating particles, had its share in quickening
the slow pulse of the student. In the country he read but his old
authors, and lived with them through the gone ages. In the city, my
father, during the intervals of repose from the Great Book, and still
more now that the Great Book had come to a pause, inspected the
literature of his own time. It had a prodigious effect upon him. He
was unlike the ordinary run of scholars, and, indeed, of readers, for
that matter, who, in their superstitious homage to the dead, are always
willing enough to sacrifice the living. He did justice to the
marvellous fertility of intellect which characterizes the authorship of
the present age. By the present age, I do not only mean the present
day, I commence with the century. "What," said my father one day in
dispute with Trevanion, "what characterizes the literature of our time
is its human interest. It is true that we do not see scholars
addressing scholars, but men addressing men,--not that scholars are
fewer, but that the reading public is more large. Authors in all ages
address themselves to what interests their readers; the same things do
not interest a vast community which interested half a score of monks or
book-worms. The literary polls was once an oligarchy, it is now a
republic. It is the general brilliancy of the atmosphere which prevents
your noticing the size of any particular star. Do you not see that with
the cultivation of the masses has awakened the Literature of the
affections? Every sentiment finds an expositor, every feeling an
oracle. Like Epimenides, I have been sleeping in a cave; and, waking, I
see those whom I left children are bearded men, and towns have sprung up
in the landscapes which I left as solitary wastes."
Thence the reader may perceive the causes of the change which had come
over my father. As Robert Hall says, I think of Dr. Kippis. "He had
laid so many books at the top of his head that the brains could not
move." But the electricity had now penetrated the heart, and the
quickened vigor of that noble organ enabled the brain to stir.
Meanwhile, I leave my father to these influences, and to the continuous
conversations of Uncle Jack, and proceed with the thread of my own
egotism.
Thanks to Mr. Trevanion, my habits were not those which favor
friendships with the idle, but I formed some acquaintances amongst young
men a few years older than myself, who held subordinate situations in
the public offices, or were keeping their terms for the Bar. There was
no want of ability amongst these gentlemen, but they had not yet settled
into the stern prose of life. Their busy hours only made them more
disposed to enjoy the hours of relaxation. And when we got together, a
very gay, light-hearted set we were! We had neither money enough to be
very extravagant, nor leisure enough to be very dissipated; but we
amused ourselves notwithstanding. My new friends were wonderfully
erudite in all matters connected with the theatres. From an opera to a
ballet, from "Hamlet" to the last farce from the French, they had the
literature of the stage at the finger-ends of their straw-colored
gloves. They had a pretty large acquaintance with actors and actresses,
and were perfect Walpoladi in the minor scandals of the day. To do them
justice, however, they were not indifferent to the more masculine
knowledge necessary in "this wrong world." They talked as familiarly of
the real actors of life as of the sham ones. They could adjust to a
hair the rival pretensions of contending statesmen. They did not
profess to be deep in the mysteries of foreign cabinets (with the
exception of one young gentleman connected with the Foreign Office, who
prided himself on knowing exactly what the Russians meant to do with
India--when they got it); but, to make amends, the majority of them had
penetrated the closest secrets of our own. It is true that, according
to a proper subdivision of labor, each took some particular member of
the government for his special observation; just as the most skilful
surgeons, however profoundly versed in the general structure of our
frame, rest their anatomical fame on the light they throw on particular
parts of it,--one man taking the brain, another the duodenum, a third
the spinal cord, while a fourth, perhaps, is a master of all the
symptoms indicated by a pensile finger. Accordingly, one of my friends
appropriated to himself the Home Department; another the Colonies; and a
third, whom we all regarded as a future Talleyrand (or a De Retz at
least), had devoted himself to the special study of Sir Robert Peel, and
knew, by the way in which that profound and inscrutable statesman threw
open his coat, every thought that was passing in his breast! Whether
lawyers or officials, they all had a great idea of themselves,--high
notions of what they were to be, rather than what they were to do, some
day. As the king of modern fine gentlemen said to himself, in
paraphrase of Voltaire, "They had letters in their pockets addressed to
Posterity,--which the chances were, however, that they might forget to
deliver." Somewhat "priggish" most of them might be; but, on the whole,
they were far more interesting than mere idle men of pleasure. There
was about them, as features of a general family likeness, a redundant
activity of life, a gay exuberance of ambition, a light-hearted
earnestness when at work, a schoolboy's enjoyment of the hours of play.
A great contrast to these young men was Sir Sedley Beaudesert, who was
pointedly kind to me, and whose bachelor's house was always open to me
after noon: Sir Sedley was visible to no one but his valet before that
hour. A perfect bachelor's house it was, too, with its windows opening
on the Park, and sofas nicked into the windows, on which you might loll
at your ease, like the philosopher in Lucretius,--
"Despicere unde queas alios, passimque videre Errare,"--
and see the gay crowds ride to and fro Rotten Row, without the fatigue
of joining them, especially if the wind was in the east.
There was no affectation of costliness about the rooms, but a wonderful
accumulation of comfort. Every patent chair that proffered a variety in
the art of lounging found its place there; and near every chair a little
table, on which you might deposit your book or your coffee-cup, without
the trouble of moving more than your hand. In winter, nothing warmer
than the quilted curtains and Axminster carpets can be conceived; in
summer, nothing airier and cooler than the muslin draperies and the
Indian mattings. And I defy a man to know to what perfection dinner may
be brought, unless he had dined with Sir Sedley Beaudesert. Certainly,
if that distinguished personage had but been an egotist, he had been the
happiest of men. But, unfortunately for him, he was singularly amiable
and kind-hearted. He had the bonne digestion, but not the other
requisite for worldly felicity,--the mauvais cceur. He felt a sincere
pity for every one else who lived in rooms without patent chairs and
little coffee-tables, whose windows did not look on the Park, with sofas
niched into their recesses. As Henry IV. wished every man to have his
pot au feu, so Sir Sedley Beaudesert, if he could have had his way,
would have every man served with an early cucumber for his fish, and a
caraffe of iced water by the side of his bread and cheese. He thus
evinced on politics a naive simplicity which delightfully contrasted his
acuteness on matters of taste. I remember his saying, in a discussion
on the Beer Bill, "The poor ought not to be allowed to drink beer, it is
so particularly rheumatic! The best drink in hard work is dry
champagne,--not vtousseux; I found that out when I used to shoot on the
moors."
Indolent as Sir Sedley was, he had contrived to open an extraordinary
number of drains on his wealth.
First, as a landed proprietor there was no end to applications from
distressed farmers, aged poor, benefit societies, and poachers he had
thrown out of employment by giving up his preserves to please his
tenants.
Next, as a man of pleasure the whole race of womankind had legitimate
demands on him. From a distressed duchess whose picture lay perdu under
a secret spring of his snuff-box, to a decayed laundress to whom he
might have paid a compliment on the perfect involutions of a frill, it
was quite sufficient to be a daughter of Eve to establish a just claim
on Sir Sedley's inheritance from Adam.
Again, as an amateur of art and a respectful servant of every muse, all
whom the public had failed to patronize,--painter, actor, poet,
musician,--turned, like dying sunflowers to the sun, towards the pitying
smile of Sir Sedley Beaudesert. Add to these the general miscellaneous
multitude who "had heard of Sir Sedley's high character for
benevolence," and one may well suppose what a very costly reputation he
had set up. In fact, though Sir Sedley could not spend on what might
fairly be called "himself" a fifth part of his very handsome income, I
have no doubt that he found it difficult to make both ends meet at the
close of the year. That he did so, he owed perhaps to two rules which
his philosophy had peremptorily adopted. He never made debts, and he
never gambled. For both these admirable aberrations from the ordinary
routine of fine gentlemen I believe he was indebted to the softness of
his disposition. He had a great compassion for a wretch who was dunned.
"Poor fellow!" he would say, "it must be so painful to him to pass his
life in saying 'No.'" So little did he know about that class of
promisers,--as if a man dunned ever said 'No'! As Beau Brummell, when
asked if he was fond of vegetables, owned that he had once eat a pea, so
Sir Sedley Beaudesert owned that he had once played high at piquet. "I
was so unlucky as to win," said he, referring to that indiscretion, "and
I shall never forget the anguish on the face of the man who paid me.
Unless I could always lose, it would be a perfect purgatory to play."
Now nothing could be more different in their kinds of benevolence than
Sir Sedley and Mr. Trevanion. Mr. Trevanion had a great contempt for
individual charity. He rarely put his hand into his purse,--he drew a
great check on his bankers. Was a congregation without a church, or a
village without a school, or a river without a bridge, Mr. Trevanion set
to work on calculations, found out the exact sum required by an
algebraic x--y, and paid it as he would have paid his butcher. It must
be owned that the distress of a man whom he allowed to be deserving, did
not appeal to him in vain. But it is astonishing how little he spent in
that way; for it was hard indeed to convince Mr. Trevanion that a
deserving man ever was in such distress as to want charity.
That Trevanion, nevertheless, did infinitely more real good than Sir
Sedley, I believe; but he did it as a mental operation,--by no means as
an impulse from the heart. I am sorry to say that the main difference
was this,--distress always seemed to accumulate round Sir Sedley, and
vanish from the presence of Trevanion. Where the last came, with his
busy, active, searching mind, energy woke, improvement sprang up. Where
the first came, with his warm, kind heart, a kind of torpor spread under
its rays; people lay down and basked in the liberal sunshine. Nature in
one broke forth like a brisk, sturdy winter; in the other like a lazy
Italian summer. Winter is an excellent invigorator, no doubt, but we
all love summer better.
Now, it is a proof how lovable Sir Sedley was, that I loved him, and yet
was jealous of him. Of all the satellites round my fair Cynthia, Fanny
Trevanion, I dreaded most this amiable luminary. It was in vain for me
to say, with the insolence of youth, that Sir Sedley Beaudesert was of
the same age as Fanny's father; to see them together, he might have
passed for Trevanion's son. No one amongst the younger generation was
half so handsome as Sedley Beaudesert. He might be eclipsed at first
sight by the showy effect of more redundant locks and more brilliant
bloom; but he had but to speak, to smile, in order to throw a whole
cohort of dandies into the shade. It was the expression of his
countenance that was so bewitching; there was something so kindly in its
easy candor, its benign good-nature. And he understood women so well!
He flattered their foibles so insensibly; he commanded their affection
with so gracious a dignity. Above all, what with his accomplishments,
his peculiar reputation, his long celibacy, and the soft melancholy of
his sentiments, he always contrived to interest them. There was not a
charming woman by whom this charming man did not seem just on the point
of being caught! It was like the sight of a splendid trout in a
transparent stream, sailing pensively to and fro your fly, in a willand-
a-won't sort of a way. Such a trout! it would be a thousand pities to
leave him, when evidently so well disposed! That trout, fair maid or
gentle widow, would have kept youwhipping the stream and dragging the
fly--from morning to dewy eve. Certainly I don't wish worse to my
bitterest foe of five and twenty than such a rival as Sedley Beaudesert
at seven and forty.
Fanny, indeed, perplexed me horribly. Sometimes I fancied she liked me;
but the fancy scarce thrilled me with delight before it vanished in the
frost of a careless look or the cold beam of a sarcastic laugh. Spoiled
darling of the world as she was, she seemed so innocent in her exuberant
happiness that one forgot all her faults in that atmosphere of joy which
she diffused around her. And despite her pretty insolence, she had so
kind a woman's heart below the surface! When she once saw that she had
pained you, she was so soft, so winning, so humble, till she had healed
the wound. But then, if she saw she had pleased you too much, the
little witch was never easy till she had plagued you again. As heiress
to so rich a father, or rather perhaps mother (for the fortune came from
Lady Ellinor), she was naturally surrounded with admirers not wholly
disinterested. She did right to plague them; but Me! Poor boy that I
was, why should I seem more disinterested than others; how should she
perceive all that lay hid in my young deep heart? Was I not in all--
worldly pretensions the least worthy of her admirers, and might I not
seem, therefore, the most mercenary,--I, who never thought of her
fortune, or if that thought did come across me, it was to make me start
and turn pale? And then it vanished at her first glance, as a ghost
from the dawn. How hard it is to convince youth, that sees all the
world of the future before it, and covers that future with golden
palaces, of the inequalities of life! In my fantastic and sublime
romance I looked out into that Great Beyond, saw myself orator,
statesman, minister, ambassador,--Heaven knows what,--laying laurels,
which I mistook for rent-rolls, at Fanny's feet.
Whatever Fanny might have discovered as to the state of my heart, it
seemed an abyss not worth prying into by either Trevanion or Lady
Ellinor. The first, indeed, as may be supposed, was too busy to think
of such trifles. And Lady Ellinor treated me as a mere boy,--almost
like a boy of her own, she was so kind to me. But she did not notice
much the things that lay immediately around her. In brilliant
conversation with poets, wits, and statesmen, in sympathy with the toils
of her husband or proud schemes for his aggrandizement, Lady Ellinor
lived a life of excitement. Those large, eager, shining eyes of hers,
bright with some feverish discontent, looked far abroad, as if for new
worlds to conquer; the world at her feet escaped from her vision. She
loved her daughter, she was proud of her, trusted in her with a superb
repose; she did not watch over her. Lady Ellinor stood alone on a
mountain and amidst a cloud.