Ethel Churchill/Chapter 93
CHAPTER XVII
A SECRETARYSHIP.
Alas! and must this be the fate
That all too often will await
The gifted hand, which shall awake
The poet's lute? and, for its sake,
All but its own sweet self resign,
Thou loved lute, to be only thine!
For what is genius, but deep feeling,
Wakening to glorious revealing?
And what is feeling, but to be
Alive to every misery?
"I fear," said Mr. Courtenaye, as he entered Walter Maynard's room, "that you must almost have forgotten me; but I have not been well, indeed: to-morrow, I am going down to the country; but I could not leave London without coming to see you, and I have something, I hope agreeable, to say."
Walter received his visitor with obvious pleasure. He had, for some time, been fancying that Mr. Courtenaye neglected him; he was shy, sensitive, and had of late been suffering under those tortures
"The poor alone can know,
The proud alone can feel;"
and at such a time how we exaggerate any slight! and neglect, that, by the gay and prosperous, is not even noticed, appears a grievous wrong to poverty and depression.
Norbourne just glanced round the room; but that single glance took in a whole history of privation and discomfort. The windows were dark with dust; and rain, scarce dried on the seat of one, showed that it had been inadvertently left open. The lamp, on the table, had burnt into the socket: Walter had been writing all night, and the daylight had stolen on him so gradually, that he had neglected to extinguish the companion of his task. It was now noon, and a cup of half-drank coffee stood beside him; but it was cold, the remains of the evening before. There were no books,—he had parted with the few that he had, but a quantity of papers were scattered about. The slanting sunbeams kindled the thick air; long lines of dusky and tremulous golden atoms mocked the gloom which surrounded them; and Norbourne, as he breathed the thick atmosphere, did not wonder that Walter even coughed with difficulty.
"As busy," said he, "and are you as enthusiastic, as ever?"
"Ah, no!" exclaimed Walter; "I no longer believe in
'Wonders wrought by single hand!'"
"And yet," replied Norbourne, "all great discoveries have been the result of single endeavour. We owe the Iliad, America, and the Protestant faith, to individual effort!"
"The instances you have quoted," replied the other, "are certainly very encouraging! Homer past a life in blindness and beggary; Columbus, in vain solicitation and feverish disappointment; and Luther's was spent in struggle, imprisonment, and danger. The benefactors of mankind are so at their own expense!"
"This is very different," cried Courtenaye, "from your early creed; then you held the onward-looking hope, and the internal consciousness, to be the noblest incentives, and he best rewards, of high endeavour."
"Then," replied the other, "I believed and hoped; now, alas! there are times when I do neither. I would give worlds to recall my early eagerness of composition, and my reliance on the mind's influence."
"You cannot doubt that influence," interrupted Norbourne: "from our veriest infancy we feed upon the thoughts of the dead; even your own strong and original mind has been cultivated by others. I never enter a library without being grateful to those whose moral existence has formed my own. Our sages, our poets, have left a world behind, formed of all that is good, beautiful, and true in our own. Not a life but owes to them some of its happiest hours; they are our favourites, our old, familiar friends."
"How happy," said Maynard, "would one half the praise and the honour lavished on an author after his death have made him during his lifetime! Let the grave close over the hand that has laboured through feverish midnights,—over the warm heart that beat so painfully; let the ear be closed to that applause which was its sweetest music;—and then how lavish we grow of all that was before so harshly denied! Then the marble is carved with eulogium; then the life is written; and thousands are lavish of pity and sympathy: every thing is given when it is too late to give anything!"
"But you, my dear Walter,"interrupted his friend, "are a successful writer;
'Your works are charming, for they sell;
and you are yourself a welcome guest, flattered!"
"You have used the right word," interrupted the young poet, colouring; "I am flattered, because flattery is a sort of commerce, and I give more than I get. My works sell; but look at the amount of labour, and calculate how poor is the recompense! half that toil, half that talent, given to any other pursuit, would have ensured wealth. Then, as to society, what do I gain by my admission there? First, my spirits, which I need for my own pursuits, are exhausted in the effort to amuse; and, secondly, I have the opportunity of contrasting idleness and luxury with the toil and privation of my own lot."
"Then, dear Walter," said Courtenaye, "why not accept my uncle's offer?"
"Nay," exclaimed the other, "to sell my mind, appears to me only renewing the old bargain with the devil, selling your soul!"
"I never did, and never shall, urge the subject upon you," answered his companion; "but I have another proposal to make to you, which involves no sacrifice of political opinion. Sir George Kingston is in want of a secretary, and caught eagerly at my mention of you. Between ourselves, I suspect the office will be a sinecure; but Sir George affects literature, and will prove a most liberal patron, were it only for the air of the thing."
"And you have been thinking of me, and planning for my benefit; while, shall I confess, that I have been reproaching you in my secret heart with having forgotten me!" exclaimed Walter, to whose impetuous feelings confession was a relief.
"If you knew," resumed the other, "how my last few weeks have been spent, you would not blame, but pity me. My dear Walter, there is a wretchedness that shuns even its nearest friend: but let us talk of yourself. I have made your going to Sir George a sufficient favour, and taken upon myself all the needful arrangements. Your salary is high; you are to have apartments in the house; and to be the autocrat of the library, where, I shrewdly suspect, your reign will be undisturbed."
"How kind you are!" whispered his listener.
"And now, will you dress?" said Courtenaye; "for I have promised to take you to breakfast with Sir George. He is impatient to secure you, and we are to be in Spring Gardens by two o'clock. He will expect us; for I am, what he calls, 'disgracefully punctual!'"