Romance and Reality (Landon)/Chapter 45
CHAPTER XXI.
"As our life is very short, so it is very miserable.**
"How few men in the world are prosperous! What an infinite number of slaves and beggars, of persecuted and oppressed people, fill all corners of the earth with groans, and heaven itself with weeping prayers and sad remembrances!***
"Our days are full of sorrow and anguish, dishonoured and made unhappy with many sins, amazed with fears, full of cares, divided with curiosities and contradictory interests, made airy and impertinent with varieties, abused with ignorance and prodigious errors, made ridiculous with a thousand weaknesses, worn away with labours, laden with diseases, daily vexed with dangers and temptations, and in love with misery."
Jeremy Taylor.
Justice has never been done to the merits of a wet day in summer—one of those days of wind and rain which fills the air with fragrance, for every full-blown flower has its sweet life fairly crushed out; when there is a good excuse for a fire—a fire being one of those luxuries for which, in England, we always expect a reason; when it is cold enough to make warmth pleasant, yet without freezing one side while the other is burning. It was just such a day as this when Lorraine went to take a farewell dinner with Mr. Morland. Alternate showers of rain-drops or rose-leaves had been blown in gusts against the windows all the morning; but now the curtains were drawn, a warm red blaze came from the bright fire, and a softer and clearer light from the lamp, whose pure pale transparency is so prettily and fancifully compared by an American writer*[1] to a gigantic pearl illuminated. A mahogany table, like a dark mirror, was drawn close to the fire—Mr. Morland had an old-fashioned predilection for its polished surface; on it stood three or four rich cut-glass decanters, "breathing of the sweet South," and a dark slender bottle, common enough in shape, but round which lingered the fragrance of burgundy. Two large arm-chairs were drawn on each side the fire-place, in which sat Mr. Morland and his guest.
Mr. Morland.—"After all, I do not so much regret the delay this occasions in your entrance into public life—you are still too young.
Edward Lorraine.—"Are you not now speaking rather after the fashion of common prejudice? I am young, it is true; but I have outlived the pleasures of youth. I"
Mr. Morland.—"But not its feelings. You are still credulous of good—still enthusiastic of impossibilities; you believe that the world may be set right—nay, that you are one of those predestined to assist in so doing."
Edward Lorraine.—"I will not deny that I do think there is great room for improvement, and that very likely I am deceived in my own self-estimate—a common mistake, even with the most experienced; still, I am not prepared to admit, that a cause can be injured by the devotion and industry given to it by even the humblest individual."
Mr. Morland.—"I was thinking more of yourself. Have you not felt Mr. Delawarr's conduct very severely?"
Edward Lorraine.—"I have: I put my own personal interests quite out of the question; but I cannot forgive a man that I so respected and admired, for being the one to show me that my respect and my admiration were given to an acted part—not the real character."
Mr. Morland.—"Your own are my best arguments. Truly, you seem well prepared for the disappointment, the falsehood, which will meet you at every turn of your future career. Mr. Delawarr has taken a step imperative to his own interests, and for which most convincing reasons may be assigned. I never knew any debatable point not maintained on both sides by unanswerable arguments; and yet you are angry that he has not thrown every advantage aside to enact your beau-idéal of patriotic excellence.
Edward Lorraine.—"At this rate, then, your own interests only are to describe your circle of action?"
Mr. Morland.—"Not exactly; they must be a little rounded at the extremities, where they come in contact with those of others."
Edward Lorraine.—"Then you would have had me act in direct opposition to all I have been accustomed to regard as good and admirable, and accepted Mr. Delawarr's offers?"
Mr. Morland.—"Not exactly; the young man who acts in early life contrary to his feelings, will, in after years, act contrary to his principles of right. I only wish you to draw from it a moral of instability—to see the necessity, if you mean to carry your theories into action, of arming yourself with the indifference of experience."
Edward Lorraine.—"We should, then, never act, if we were so indifferent to the result."
Mr. Morland.—"And all the better for yourself if you never enter the gladiatorial arena of public life: you will sacrifice time, health, and talents; you will be paragraphed—probably pelted; you will die of an inflammation, or a consumption; and leave it a debatable point to historians, what was the extent of the injury you did your country."
Edward Lorraine.—"Nothing is so fortunate for mankind as its diversity of opinion: if we all thought alike—with you, for example—there would at once be an end to all mutual assistance and improvement."
Mr. Morland.—"Do not be alarmed; there are plenty of restless spirits who will always be happy to take upon them all the affairs of the world. Atlas was only an ingenious allegory."
Edward Lorraine.—"This infinite variety in men's minds —the innate superiority of some, the equally innate inferiority of others—has always seemed to me the great argument against the system of universal equality. There is no natural Agrarian law. Distinctions, from that universally admitted claim of a child to the acquisitions of a parent, become hereditary; they must first have been personal."
Mr. Morland.—"Of all the vain theories that philosophers ever set afloat is that of equality—especially mental. One man spends years in thoughtful study, and Columbus sets forth and discovers America; another man passes the same period, and then the learned doctor sends an elaborate essay to a society, stating that the last ten years of his life have been devoted to a laborious comparison of geese and turkies, which has produced in his mind the conviction that the goose is a calumniated bird, the turkey being infinitely more stupid."* [2]
Edward Lorraine.—"A complete caricature on ornithological research; but do you know, I have often thought the pursuits of science the most satisfactory of all to the pursuer. The scientific man is better able to measure his progress than the literary man, and is less liable to the fluctuations of opinion."
Mr. Morland.—"Generally speaking, though they are even a more irritable race. The subject on which we centre our whole attention acquires an undue importance. Devotion to one single object necessarily narrows the mind. The indifference of others is matter of angry surprise; and the benefactor of mankind would often fain become its tyrant. We are violent in proportion to our self-exaggeration."
Edward Lorraine.—"After all, philosophy consists in making allowances, and they, by the by, are made from affection and feeling, never from reason."
Mr. Morland.—"As if we ever exercised our reason on our own account."
Edward Lorraine.—"Oh, yes, a little—sometimes when too late."
Mr. Morland.—"The phrases 'literary seclusion '—'the charms of books and solitude'—what poetical licences they are! The fine arts, like Mother Carey's chickens, appear in stormy weather. Look, for example, at the artists of Italy's most gifted epoch—they kept a sword by their pallet, painted in light armour, and dressed their own dinners lest they should be poisoned."
Edward Lorraine.—"At present we avoid warfare—'the good swords rust;' but we are not more peaceably disposed than our ancestors—look at the gauntlet to be run by a successful author. Ingenuity is racked for abuse, and language for its expression: every body takes his success as a personal affront. I think the late invention of steel pens quite characteristic of the age."
Mr. Morland.—"I am most entertained at the egotism of our modern school, of periodical literature especially. Now, egotism may be divided into two classes; that of our feelings, which may come home to some one or other of its readers, as all feelings are general; and that of action, which cannot interest, as actions are not general, but individual. One editor politely informs his readers how much he eats, another how much he drinks, a third is eloquent on the merits of his coffee; and here is a little penny publication, whose conductor occupies two pages out of four, in stating that he dips a pearl pen into a silver inkstand, and writes in a satin dressing-gown."
Edward Lorraine.—"Blackwood laid the first foundations of the eating and drinking school. The novelty of the plan could only he equalled by the humour of the execution. But in literature people ought not to be allowed to follow a fashion. A new idea is no sooner started, now-a-days, than it is run even to death. I think the good old Elizabethan plan of monopolies should be revived in favour of literature. An eminent author, in our time, is a species of mental Alexander; he erects a vast empire, out of which fifty small powers parcel little kingdoms and minor principalities."
Mr. Morland.—"Your notion of an author's property in his own works is similar in spirit to the old French marquise in Marmontel, who prefers a husband to a lover, because 'I could then go with my contract in my hand and give un bon soufflet to any one who endeavoured to take him from me.'"
Edward Lorraine.—"How full of wit, point, and, what is best expressed by a phrase of their own, such exquisite tournure, some of the short French stories possess! Hook is, I think, the only English author who possesses their analysis of action—that bird's-eye view of motive, and the neat keen style whose every second sentence is an epigram: he is Rochefoucault illustrated; and he unites, too, with his vein of satire, the more creative powers, the deeper tones of feeling, that mark our English writers."
Mr. Morland.—"I give him credit for one very original merit. Do you remember Charles Summerford's letter in Maxwell?—it is the only love-letter I ever read without thinking it absurd. It is equally passionate and natural."
Edward Lorraine.—"What is the reason, that in repeating the expressions of lovers they always seem exaggerated, though, perhaps, we have used the same expressions ourselves?—surely memory ought to recall their truth."
Mr. Morland.—"And so it would, if those expressions were still used to or by ourselves. They only appear to be exaggerated from being put in the third person. It is curious how much people take for granted in these affairs of the heart."
Edward Lorraine.—"Nothing, in matters of sentiment, seems too difficult for credit."
Mr. Morland.—"We easily believe in the feelings ourselves inspire; but, instead of a reason, I will tell you a story. I had a housekeeper who had two lovers—one the favoured, to whom she was engaged. After a while she learnt he had a wife and two children at Paisley; this led to a dismissal. She went into hysterics, and spoilt my soup for a week, at the end of which she consoled herself with the other. Just as she was on the point of marriage, it came out that the wife and two children was an invention of the intended, to drive his more successful rival from the field. She made excellent gravies, and, as I took an interest in her fate, I remonstrated on the folly of marrying a man who had acted so basely—'but you see, sir—if you please—it was all for love of me,'—and she actually did marry him."
Edward Lorraine.—"I am thoroughly convinced a little extravagance rather recommends a lover to his mistress. All women are naturally romantic. Perhaps the even tenor of their lives makes them peculiarly enjoy excitement. One unaccountable action would do more for you than all the flattery that the court of Louis the Fourteenth ever embodied in a phrase."
Mr. Morland.—"You are theoretic, my young friend; rely upon it, that no general rule ever held good in love."
Edward Lorraine.—"No general rule ever held good in any thing. Imagination is to love what gas is to the balloon—that which raises it from earth."
Mr. Morland.—"And we know the usual fate of such aërial adventures—a fall to earth, which, if it does not unfit us, at least disinclines us from any more such 'skiey enterprises.' And what, after all, are our greatest efforts in life but ascents in a balloon?—and then descents, which either leave us in the dust—a ludicrous spectacle to the bystander; or else, by good luck, we have broken a limb, and the accident becomes terrible, so that we are pitied, instead of laughed at. Not much difference between the two."
Edward Lorraine.—"Is there nothing in being loved—nothing in being admired—nothing in those benefits which one individual may confer on his whole race?"
Mr. Morland.—"Love is followed by disappointment, admiration by mortification, and obligation by ingratitude."
Edward Lorraine.—"What, then, are those watchwords of the heart—patriotism and philanthropy—mere sounds signifying nothing?"
Mr. Morland.—"Just so, when reduced to practice. I do not say with Sir Robert Walpole, that every man has his price; but I do say, that every man has his motive. One man wants money, the next power, the third title; a fourth desires place for its distinction, a fifth for its influence; a sixth desires popular applause; a seventh piques himself upon his eloquence, and will display it; an eighth upon his judgment, to which he will have you defer; a ninth is governed by his wife; a tenth adopts the opinions of his club; the eleventh those of a favourite author; the twelfth acts upon some old prejudice which he calls a principle. There are a round dozen of motives for you. Now, you do not call any of these patriotism?"
Edward Lorraine.—"One would think you were a believer in the old classical fable of the golden, the silver, the brazen, and the iron ages; and that we were living in the harsh and heavy days of the last."
Mr. Morland.—"I believe one half, which is quite enough to believe of any thing. I deny that the silver and golden ages ever existed; but allow the actual existence of the brass and the iron."
Edward Lorraine.—"I desire to be loved—passionately, entirely, and lastingly loved. I desire active, high, and honourable distinction. If I thought as you think, I should at once enter La Trappe; or, like the Caliph Vathek, build a palace for the five senses."
Mr. Morland.—"And find discontent and weariness in either. I see you, Edward, young, ardent, and heroic, full of genius and ambition; and I see in you just another sacrifice to that terrible necessity which men call Destiny. One by one your generous beliefs will sharpen into incredulity—your warm feelings turn to poison, or to a void; their empire divided between bitterness and exhaustion. Where is the good you exalted?—a scoff even to yourself; where is the love that you trusted?—like the reed on which you leant, it has entered into your side, and even if the wound cease to bleed, it is only because it has hardened into a scar; where is the praise you desired?—gone to another, or if still yours, you know its emptiness and its falsehood. You loathe others; but you look within yourself, and see their counterpart. All do not think this, because many do not think at all; but all feel it, though they do not analyse their feelings."
It was now late: slowly, and somewhat sadly, Edward rose, and bade his friend good night—he said it somewhat more affectionately than usual. He knew him to be an old and a disappointed man, and he deemed rightly, that to argue with such a mood was to pain, not to convince. Yet, as he rode home, more than once the reins dropped on his horse's neck, and he thought mournfully, "are such things sooth?" I know not. I own I think they are. I have this very moment laid down the most eloquent, the most beautiful avowal of belief in a happier and better doctrine. Let me quote the very words.
"No: man must either believe in the perfectibility of his species, or virtue and the love of others are but a heated and objectless enthusiasm.***To the man who finds it possible to entertain this hope, how different an aspect the world wears! Casting his glance forward, how wondrous a light rests upon the future! the farther he extends his vision, the brighter the light. Animated by a hope more sublime than wishes bounded to earth ever before inspired, he feels armed with the courage to oppose surrounding prejudice, and the warfare of hostile customs. No sectarian advantage, no petty benefit, is before him; he sees but the regeneration of mankind. It is with this object that he links his ambition—that he unites his efforts and his name! From the disease, and the famine, and the toil around, his spirit bursts into prophecy, and dwells among future ages; even if in error, he luxuriates through life in the largest benevolence, and dies—if a visionary—the visionary of the grandest dream."*[3]
Alas! I do not—I cannot think with the writer. My own experience—my whole observation forbid it. The worst sufferings of human nature are those which no law can reach—no form of government control. What code can soothe the burning pain of disease, or rouse its languor? What code can alleviate the bitterness of death, dry the tears of the mourner, and force the grave to give up the loved and the lost? What form of laws can control the affections, those busy ministers of sorrows? Can they console them when unrequited—alter them when misplaced—or recall them when departed for ever? Alas! they are of no avail. Can the law blunt the cutting edge of ridicule, or soften the bitter words of unkindness? Can the law give us grace, wit, beauty, or prevent our feeling their want, or envying their more fortunate possessors? All the law can do, is to give us hard bread, which we must earn with our toil, and then steep with our tears. Yet more, the law can guard our life—life! that possession which, of all others, man values the least; but it can give nothing that endears, or exalts it—nothing that confers on it either a value or a charm. The first records of our young world were those of tears and blood; its last records will be those of tears and blood also. I hear of the progress of civilisation, and I marvel how it can be called happiness. We discovered America, and that word is now synonymous with a brave, enlightened, and free nation; but to make way for that prosperity, a whole people have perished from the face of the earth. Our ships have gone through the silent seas, and a new continent rose before their prows in fertility and beauty. We have emptied on it our prisons—and the untrodden wood echoes to the oath and the axe of the convict.
Or, to come home again. The wealth of the world, its power, its intelligence, pours into London. We have the enjoyments of riches and of mind—our sciences and fine arts take every day some step to perfection; but none of these are happiness. Wealth, that mighty source of heart-burnings, who shall distribute it? To take from industry is to give a premium to idleness. And yet how hard, that one man should possess millions, while to another a penny is a welcome gift! How are we to help this? "Is it my fault," the rich man may say, "that I, or my father, or my grandfather, have been more prudent or more fortunate than you or yours? If you take that which is mine to-day, where is your security but that another may take it from you again to-morrow?" And yet poverty—how bitter it is! first its disgrace, and then its want. I never, even in an advertisement praying for that charity which is too often denied, read the words "who have known better days," without a sympathy even to pain. And yet what statute can guard against extravagance, improvidence, or idleness? And even this property—the hinge on which all our social institutions turn, for whose sake we both make and break laws—does that give happiness? Ask the sick, the sad, or the dying, though their home be the palace, and their clothing the purple.
Then we have intellectual enjoyments, the works of genius, those of the fine arts. There was Mr. Canning, the eloquent and the patriotic, died, not three years ago, of a fevered mind and a worn-out body—worn out by the scoff, the obstacle, the vain excitement, the exhausting exertion. Genius—was Byron, whose life was divided between disappointment and resentment, was he happy? What is Genius but an altar richly wrought in fine gold, and placed in the most sacred and glorious part of the marble temple? but there the living victim is offered in sacrifice, and the wreath of flowers left to wither. The fine arts, they which add so much to the adornment of their time—it is a sad page in life in which their annals are written. How few among the statues which stand in grace and power, till they seem the incarnation of the diviner part of our nature—how few among the pictures which shed their dream-like beauty on our walls—how few of these but are the fruit of lives passed in toil, in want, in the heart-burning of hope whose fulfilment comes not, and of cares that eat away the very soul! Look at the many diseases to which skill is of no avail—look at the many crimes, and crimes committed, too, by the educated, who have been trained from their youth upwards in good. Or look only within your own heart, and see there the germ of every sin and every sorrow;—and then tell me of the perfectibility or the happiness of humanity. In another world, "the wicked may cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest;" but not in a world like ours—the weak, the erring, and the fallen. We forget we are living under a curse; and who can recall that curse save the God who pronounced it?