Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851

About eight o'clock the same evening, when the baker's new pie-shop was crammed to overflowing, and the principal was below superintending the production of a new batch, in walks the widow's friend in the costume of a kennel-raker, and elbowing his way to the counter dabs down upon it a brace of huge dead cats, vociferating at the same time to the astonished damsel in attendance, "Tell your master, my dear, as how them two makes six-and-thirty this week, and say I'll bring t'other four to-morrer arternoon!" With that he swaggered out and went his way. So powerful was the prejudice against cat-mutton among the population of that neighborhood, that the shop was clear in an instant, and the floor was seen covered with hastily-abandoned specimens of every variety of segments of a circle. The spirit-shop at the corner of the street experienced an unusually large demand for "gees" of brandy, and interjectional ejaculations not purely grammatical were not merely audible, but visible, too, in the district. It is averred that the ingenious expedient of the widow's friend, founded as it was upon a profound knowledge of human prejudices, had the desired effect of restoring "the balance of trade." The widow recovered her commerce; the resentful baker was done as brown as if he had been shut up in his own oven; and the friend who brought about this measure of justice received the hand of the lady as a reward for his interference.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 12

Book VI. – INITIAL CHAPTER

"Life," said my father, in his most dogmatical tone, "is a certain quantity in time, which may be regarded in two ways – 1st, as life Integral; 2d, as life Fractional. Life integral is that complete whole, expressive of a certain value, large or small, which each man possesses in himself. Life fractional is that same whole seized upon and invaded by other people, and subdivided among them. They who get a large slice of it say, 'a very valuable life this!' those who get but a small handful say, 'so, so, nothing very great!' those who get none of it in the scramble exclaim, 'Good for nothing!'"

"I don't understand a word you are saying," growled Captain Roland.

My father surveyed his brother with compassion – "I will make it all clear even to your understanding. When I sit down by myself in my study, having carefully locked the door on all of you, alone with my books and thoughts, I am in full possession of my integral life. I am totus, teres, atque rotundus– a whole human being – equivalent in value we will say, for the sake of illustration, to a fixed round sum – £100, for example. But when I come forth into the common apartment, each of those to whom I am of any worth whatsoever, puts his fingers into the bag that contains me, and takes out of me what he wants. Kitty requires me to pay a bill; Pisistratus to save him the time and trouble of looking into a score or two of books; the children to tell them stories, or play at hide and seek; the carp for bread-crumbs; and so on throughout the circle to which I have incautiously given myself up for plunder and subdivision. The £100 which I represented in my study is now parceled out; I am worth £40 or £50 to Kitty, £20 to Pisistratus, and perhaps 30s. to the carp. This is life fractional. And I cease to be an integral till once more returning to my study, and again closing the door on all existence but my own. Meanwhile, it is perfectly clear that, to those who, whether I am in the study, or whether I am in the common sitting-room, get nothing at all out of me, I am not worth a farthing. It must be wholly indifferent to a native of Kamtschatka whether Austin Caxton be or be not rased out of the great account-book of human beings.

"Hence," continued my father – "hence, it follows that the more fractional a life be —id est, the greater the number of persons among whom it can be subdivided – why, the more there are to say, 'a very valuable life that!' Thus, the leader of a political party, a conqueror, a king, an author who is amusing hundreds or thousands, or millions, has a greater number of persons whom his worth interests and affects than a Saint Simon Stylites could have when he perched himself at the top of a column; although, regarded each in himself, Saint Simon, in his grand mortification of flesh, in the idea that he thereby pleased his Divine Benefactor, might represent a larger sum of moral value per se than Bonaparte or Voltaire."

Pisistratus. – "Perfectly clear, sir, but I don't see what it has to do with My Novel."

Mr. Caxton. – "Every thing. Your novel, if it is to be a full and comprehensive survey of the 'quicquid agunt homines' (which it ought to be, considering the length and breadth to which I foresee, from the slow development of your story, you meditate extending and expanding it), will embrace the two views of existence, the integral and the fractional. You have shown us the former in Leonard, when he is sitting in his mother's cottage, or resting from his work by the little fount in Riccabocca's garden. And in harmony with that view of his life, you have surrounded him with comparative integrals, only subdivided by the tender hands of their immediate families and neighbors – your Squires and Parsons, your Italian Exile and his Jemima. With all these, life is more or less the life Natural, and this is always more or less the life integral. Then comes the life Artificial, which is always more or less the life fractional. In the life Natural wherein we are swayed but by our own native impulses and desires, subservient only to the great silent law of virtue (which has pervaded the universe since it swung out of chaos), a man is of worth from what he is in himself – Newton was as worthy before the apple fell from the tree as when all Europe applauded the discoverer of the Principle of Gravity. But in the life Artificial we are only of worth inasmuch as we affect others. And, relative to that life, Newton rose in value, more than a million per cent. when down fell the apple from which ultimately sprang up his discovery. In order to keep civilization going, and spread over the world the light of human intellect, we have certain desires within us, ever swelling beyond the ease and independence which belong to us as integrals. Cold man as Newton might be (he once took a lady's hand in his own, Kitty, and used her fore-finger for his tobacco-stopper; great philosopher!) – cold as he might be, he was yet moved into giving his discoveries to the world, and that from motives very little differing in their quality from the motives that make Dr. Squills communicate articles to the Phrenological Journal upon the skulls of Bushmen and wombats. For it is the property of light to travel. When a man has light in him, forth it must go. But the first passage of Genius from its integral state (in which it has been reposing on its own wealth) into the fractional, is usually through a hard and vulgar pathway. It leaves behind it the reveries of solitude, that self-contemplating rest which may be called the Visionary, and enters suddenly into the state that may be called the Positive and Actual. There, it sees the operations of money on the outer life – sees all the ruder and commoner springs of action – sees ambition without nobleness – love without romance – is bustled about, and ordered, and trampled, and cowed – in short, it passes an apprenticeship with some Richard Avenel, and does not yet detect what good and what grandeur, what addition even to the true poetry of the social universe, fractional existences like Richard Avenel's bestow; for the pillars that support society are like those of the Court of the Hebrew Tabernacle – they are of brass it is true, but they are filleted with silver. From such intermediate state Genius is expelled and driven on in its way, and would have been so in this ease had Mrs. Fairfield (who is but the representative of the homely natural affections, strongest ever in true genius – for light is warm) never crushed Mr. Avenel's moss-rose on her sisterly bosom. Now, forth from this passage and defile of transition into the larger world, must Genius go on, working out its natural destiny amidst things and forms the most artificial. Passions that move and influence the world are at work around it. Often lost sight of itself, its very absence is a silent contrast to the agencies present. Merged and vanished for a while amidst the Practical World, yet we ourselves feel all the while that it is there; is at work amidst the workings around it. This practical world that effaces it, rose out of some genius that has gone before; and so each man of genius, though we never come across him, as his operations proceed in places remote from our thoroughfares, is yet influencing the practical world that ignores him, forever and ever. That is genius! We can't describe it in books – we can only hint and suggest it, by the accessaries which we artfully heap about it. The entrance of a true Probationer into the terrible ordeal of Practical Life is like that into the miraculous cavern by which, legend informs us, St. Patrick converted Ireland."

Blanche. – "What is that legend? I never heard of it."

Mr. Caxton. – "My dear, you will find it in a thin folio at the right on entering my study, written by Thomas Messingham, and called 'Florilegium Insulæ Sanctorum,' &c. The account therein is confirmed by the relation of an honest soldier, one Louis Ennius, who had actually entered the cavern. In short, the truth of the legend is undeniable, unless you mean to say, which I can't for a moment suppose, that Louis Ennius was a liar. Thus it runs: 'St. Patrick, finding that the Irish pagans were incredulous as to his pathetic assurances of the pains and torments destined to those who did not expiate their sins in this world, prayed for a miracle to convince them. His prayer was heard; and a certain cavern, so small that a man could not stand up therein at his ease, was suddenly converted into a Purgatory, comprehending tortures sufficient to convince the most incredulous. One unacquainted with human nature might conjecture that few would be disposed to venture voluntarily into such a place; – on the contrary, pilgrims came in crowds. Now, all who entered from vain curiosity, or with souls unprepared, perished miserably; but those who entered with deep and earnest faith, conscious of their faults, and if bold, yet humble, not only came out safe and sound, but purified, as if from the waters of a second baptism.' See Savage and Johnson, at night in Fleet-street; – and who shall doubt the truth of St. Patrick's Purgatory!" Therewith my father sighed – closed his Lucian, which had lain open on the table, and would read nothing but "good books" for the rest of the evening.

CHAPTER II

On their escape from the prison to which Mr. Avenel had condemned them, Leonard and his mother found their way to a small public-house that lay at a little distance from the town, and on the outskirts of the high-road. With his arm round his mother's waist, Leonard supported her steps, and soothed her excitement. In fact, the poor woman's nerves were greatly shaken, and she felt an uneasy remorse at the injury her intrusion had inflicted on the young man's worldly prospects. As the shrewd reader has guessed already, that infamous Tinker was the prime agent of evil in this critical turn in the affairs of his quondam customer. For, on his return to his haunts around Hazeldean and the Casino, the Tinker had hastened to apprise Mrs. Fairfield of his interview with Leonard, and on finding that she was not aware that the boy was under the roof of his uncle, the pestilent vagabond (perhaps from spite against Mr. Avenel, or perhaps from that pure love of mischief by which metaphysical critics explain the character of Iago, and which certainly formed a main element in the idiosyncrasy of Mr. Sprott) had so impressed on the widow's mind the haughty demeanor of the uncle and the refined costume of the nephew, that Mrs. Fairfield had been seized with a bitter and insupportable jealousy. There was an intention to rob her of her boy! – he was to be made too fine for her. His silence was now accounted for. This sort of jealousy, always more or less a feminine quality, is often very strong among the poor; and it was the more strong in Mrs. Fairfield, because, lone woman that she was, the boy was all in all to her. And though she was reconciled to the loss of his presence, nothing could reconcile her to the thought that his affections should be weaned from her. Moreover, there were in her mind certain impressions, of the justice of which the reader may better judge hereafter, as to the gratitude – more than ordinarily filial – which Leonard owed to her. In short, she did not like, as she phrased it, "to be shaken off;" and after a sleepless night she resolved to judge for herself, much moved thereto by the malicious suggestions to that effect made by Mr. Sprott, who mightily enjoyed the idea of mortifying the gentleman by whom he had been so disrespectfully threatened with the treadmill. The widow felt angry with Parson Dale, and with the Riccaboccas: she thought they were in the plot against her; she communicated, therefore, her intention to none – and off she set, performing the journey partly on the top of the coach, partly on foot. No wonder that she was dusty, poor woman.

"And, oh! boy!" said she, half-sobbing; "when I got through the lodge-gates, came on the lawn, and saw all that power o' fine folk – I said to myself, says I – (for I felt fritted) – I'll just have a look at him and go back. But, ah, Lenny, when I saw thee, looking so handsome – and when thee turned and cried 'Mother,' my heart was just ready to leap out o' my mouth – and so I could not help hugging thee, if I had died for it. And thou wert so kind, that I forgot all Mr. Sprott had said about Dick's pride, or thought he had just told a fib about that, as he had wanted me to believe a fib about thee. Then Dick came up – and I had not seen him for so many years – and we come o' the same father and mother; and so – and so – " The widow's sobs here fairly choked her. "Ah," she said, after giving vent to her passion, and throwing her arms round Leonard's neck, as they sate in the little sanded parlor of the public-house – "ah, and I've brought thee to this. Go back, go back, boy, and never mind me."

With some difficulty Leonard pacified poor Mrs. Fairfield, and got her to retire to bed; for she was, indeed, thoroughly exhausted. He then stepped forth into the road, musingly. All the stars were out; and Youth, in its troubles, instinctively looks up to the stars. Folding his arms, Leonard gazed on the heavens, and his lips murmured.

From this trance, for so it might be called, he was awakened by a voice in a decidedly London accent; and, turning hastily round, saw Mr. Avenel's very gentlemanlike butler. Leonard's first idea was that his uncle had repented, and sent in search of him. But the butler seemed as much surprised at the rencounter as himself: that personage, indeed, the fatigues of the day being over, was accompanying one of Mr. Gunter's waiters to the public-house (at which the latter had secured his lodging), having discovered an old friend in the waiter, and proposing to regale himself with a cheerful glass, and – (that of course) – abuse of his present situation.

"Mr. Fairfield!" exclaimed the butler, while the waiter walked discreetly on.

Leonard looked, and said nothing. The butler began to think that some apology was due for leaving his plate and his pantry, and that he might as well secure Leonard's propitiatory influence with his master —

"Please, sir," said he, touching his hat, "I was just a-showing Mr. Giles the way to the Blue Bells, where he puts up for the night. I hope my master will not be offended. If you are a-going back, sir, would you kindly mention it?"

"I am not going back, Jarvis," answered Leonard, after a pause; "I am leaving Mr. Avenel's house, to accompany my mother; rather suddenly. I should be very much obliged to you if you would bring some things of mine to me at the Blue Bells. I will give you the list, if you will step back with me to the inn."

Without waiting for a reply, Leonard then turned toward the inn, and made his humble inventory; item, the clothes he had brought with him from the Casino; item, the knapsack that had contained them; item, a few books ditto; item, Dr. Riccabocca's watch; item, sundry MSS., on which the young student now built all his hopes of fame and fortune. This list he put into Mr. Jarvis's hand.

"Sir," said the butler, twirling the paper between his finger and thumb, "you are not a-going for long, I hope;" and as he thought of the scene on the lawn, the report of which had vaguely reached his ears, he looked on the face of the young man, who had always been "civil spoken to him," with as much curiosity and as much compassion as so apathetic and princely a personage could experience in matters affecting a family less aristocratic than he had hitherto condescended to serve.

"Yes," said Leonard, simply and briefly; "and your master will no doubt excuse you for rendering me this service."

Mr. Jarvis postponed for the present his glass and chat with the waiter, and went back at once to Mr. Avenel. That gentleman, still seated in his library, had not been aware of the butler's absence; and when Mr. Jarvis entered and told him that he had met Mr. Fairfield, and, communicating the commission with which he was intrusted, asked leave to execute it, Mr. Avenel felt the man's inquisitive eye was on him, and conceived new wrath against Leonard for a new humiliation to his pride. It was awkward to give no explanation of his nephew's departure, still more awkward to explain.

After a short pause, Mr. Avenel said sullenly, "My nephew is going away on business for some time – do what he tells you;" and then turned his back, and lighted his cigar.

"That beast of a boy," said he, soliloquizing, "either means this as an affront, or an overture; if an affront, he is, indeed, well got rid of; if an overture, he will soon make a more respectful and proper one. After all, I can't have too little of relations till I have fairly secured Mrs. M'Catchly. An Honorable! I wonder if that makes me an Honorable too? This cursed Debrett contains no practical information on these points."

The next morning, the clothes and the watch with which Mr. Avenel had presented Leonard were returned, with a note meant to express gratitude, but certainly written with very little knowledge of the world, and so full of that somewhat over-resentful pride which had in earlier life made Leonard fly from Hazeldean, and refuse all apology to Randal, that it is not to be wondered at that Mr. Avenel's last remorseful feelings evaporated in ire. "I hope he will starve!" said the uncle, vindictively.

CHAPTER III

"Listen to me, my dear mother," said Leonard the next morning, as with his knapsack on his shoulder and Mrs. Fairfield on his arm, he walked along the high road; "I do assure you, from my heart, that I do not regret the loss of favors which I see plainly would have crushed out of me the very sense of independence. But do not fear for me; I have education and energy – I shall do well for myself, trust me. No; I can not, it is true, go back to our cottage – I can not be a gardener again. Don't ask me – I should be discontented, miserable. But I will go up to London! That's the place to make a fortune and a name: I will make both. O yes, trust me, I will. You shall soon be proud of your Leonard; and then we will always live together – always! Don't cry."

"But what can you do in Lunnon – such a big place, Lenny?"

"What! Every year does not some lad leave our village, and go and seek his fortune, taking with him but health and strong hands? I have these, and I have more: I have brains, and thoughts, and hopes, that – again I say, No, no – never fear for me!"

The boy threw back his head proudly; there was something sublime in his young trust in the future.

"Well – But you will write to Mr. Dale, or to me? I will get Mr. Dale, or the good Mounseer (now I know they were not agin me) to read your letters."

"I will, indeed!"

"And, boy, you have nothing in your pockets. We have paid Dick; these, at least, are my own, after paying the coach fare." And she would thrust a sovereign and some shillings into Leonard's waistcoat pocket.

After some resistance, he was forced to consent.

"And there's a sixpence with a hole in it. Don't part with that, Lenny; it will bring thee good luck."

Thus talking, they gained the inn where the three roads met, and from which a coach went direct to the Casino. And here, without entering the inn, they sate on the green sward by the hedge-row, waiting the arrival of the coach. Mrs. Fairfield was much subdued in spirits, and there was evidently on her mind something uneasy – some struggle with her conscience. She not only upbraided herself for her rash visit; but she kept talking of her dead Mark. And what would he say of her, if he could see her in heaven?

"It was so selfish in me, Lenny."

"Pooh, pooh! Has not a mother a right to her child?"

"Ay, ay, ay!" cried Mrs. Fairfield. "I do love you as a child – my own child. But if I was not your mother after all, Lenny, and cost you all this – oh, what would you say of me then?"

"Not my own mother!" said Leonard, laughing, as he kissed her. "Well, I don't know what I should say then differently from what I say now – that you who brought me up, and nursed and cherished me, had a right to my home and my heart, wherever I was."

"Bless thee!" cried Mrs. Fairfield, as she pressed him to her heart. "But it weighs here – it weighs" – she said, starting up.

At that instant the coach appeared, and Leonard ran forward to inquire if there was an outside place. Then there was a short bustle while the horses were being changed; and Mrs. Fairfield was lifted up to the roof of the vehicle. So all further private conversation between her and Leonard ceased. But as the coach whirled away, and she waved her hand to the boy, who stood on the road-side gazing after her, she still murmured – "It weighs here – it weighs – !"

CHAPTER IV

Leonard walked sturdily on in the high-road to the Great City. The day was calm and sunlit, but with a gentle breeze from gray hills at the distance; and with each mile that he passed, his step seemed to grow more firm, and his front more elate. Oh! it is such joy in youth to be alone with one's day-dreams. And youth feels so glorious a vigor in the sense of its own strength, though the world be before and – against it! Removed from that chilling counting-house – from the imperious will of a patron and master – all friendless, but all independent – the young adventurer felt a new being – felt his grand nature as Man. And on the Man rushed the genius long interdicted – and thrust aside – rushing back, with the first breath of adversity to console – no! the Man needed not consolation – to kindle, to animate, to rejoice! If there is a being in the world worthy of our envy, after we have grown wise philosophers of the fireside, it is not the palled voluptuary, nor the care-worn statesman, nor even the great prince of arts and letters, already crowned with the laurel, whose leaves are as fit for poison as for garlands; it is the young child of adventure and hope. Ay, and the emptier his purse, ten to one but the richer his heart, and the wider the domains which his fancy enjoys as he goes on with kingly step to the Future.

Not till toward the evening did our adventurer slacken his pace, and think of rest and refreshment. There, then, lay before him, on either side the road, those wide patches of uninclosed land, which in England often denote the entrance to a village. Presently one or two neat cottages came in sight – then a small farm-house, with its yard and barns. And some way further yet, he saw the sign swinging before an inn of some pretensions – the sort of inn often found on a long stage between two great towns, commonly called "The Half-way House." But the inn stood back from the road, having its own separate sward in front, whereon were a great beech tree (from which the sign extended) and a rustic arbor – so that, to gain the inn, the coaches that stopped there took a sweep from the main thoroughfare. Between our pedestrian and the inn there stood naked and alone, on the common land, a church; our ancestors never would have chosen that site for it; therefore it was a modern church – modern Gothic – handsome to an eye not versed in the attributes of ecclesiastical architecture – very barbarous to an eye that was. Somehow or other the church looked cold, and raw, and uninviting. It looked a church for show – much too big for the scattered hamlet – and void of all the venerable associations which give their peculiar and unspeakable atmosphere of piety to the churches in which succeeding generations have knelt and worshiped. Leonard paused and surveyed the edifice with an unlearned but poetical gaze – it dissatisfied him. And he was yet pondering why, when a young girl passed slowly before him, her eyes fixed on the ground, opened the little gate that led into the church-yard, and vanished. He did not see the child's face; but there was something in her movements so utterly listless, forlorn, and sad, that his heart was touched. What did she there? He approached the low wall with a noiseless step, and looked over it wistfully.