')^'kS^:^'^'y^' ^""^ W , the dear simple man looked in, and asked me A SHOCKINGLY RUDE AETICLE. 139 what those long tails of hair were for, that he saw hanging up in the windows. Miss Sticker, poor soul, was on his arm, and heard liirn put the question. I thought I should have dropped. This is, I believe, what you call a digression. I shall let it stop in, however, because it will probably explain to the judicious reader why I carefully avoid the subject — the meagre subject, an ill-natured person might say-^of Miss Sticker's hair. Suppose I pass on to what is more importantly connected with the object of these pages — suppose I describe Miss Sticker's character next. Some extremely sensible man has observed some- where, that a Bore is a person with one idea. Exactly so. Miss Sticker is a person with one idea. Unhappily for society, her notion is, that she is bound by the laws of politeness to join in every con- versation which happens to be proceeding within the range of her ears. She has no ideas, no information, no flow of language, no tact, no power of saying the right word at the right time, even by chance. And yet she will converse, as she calls it. " A gentle- woman, my dear, becomes a mere cipher in society unless she can converse." That is her way of put- ting it ; and I deeply regTct to add, she is one of the few people who preach what they practise. Her course of proceeding is, first, to check the conversa- tion by making a remark which has no kind of rela- 140 SKETCHES OF CHARACTER. — II. tion to tlie topic under discussion. She next stops it altogether by being suddenly at a loss for some par- ticular word which nobody can suggest. At last the word is given up ; another subject is started in de- spair; and the company become warmly interested in it. Just at that moment, Miss Sticker finds the lost word ; screams it out triumphantly in the middle of the talk; and so scatters the second subject to the winds, exactly as she has already scattered the fil'St. The last time I called at my aunt's — I merely mention this by way of example — I found Miss Sticker there, and three delightful men. One was a clergyman of the dear old purple-faced Port- wine school. The other two would have looked military, if one of them had not been an engineer, and the other an editor of a newspaper. We should have had some dehghtful conversation if the Lady- Bore had not been present. In some way, I really forget how, we got to talking about giving credit and paying debts ; and the dear old clergyman, with his twinkling eyes and his jolly voice, treated us to a professional anecdote on the subject. ** Talking about that," he began, "1 married a man the other day for the tliird time. Man in my parish. Capital criclceter when he was young enough to run. ' What's your fee ? ' says he. ' Licensed marriage ? ' says I ; * guinea of course.' — ' I've got to A SHOCKINGLY RUDE ARTICLE. 141 bring you your tithes in tliree weeks, sir,' says lie ; 'give me tick till then.' 'All right,' says I, and married him. In three weeks he comes and pays his tithes like a man. * Now, sir,' says he, ' about tliis marriage-fee, sir? I do hope you'll kindly let me off at half-price, for I have married a bitter bad 'un this time. I've got a half-a-guinea about me, sir, if you'll only j)lease to take it. She isn't worth a farthing more-^— on the word of a man, she isn't, sir ! ' I looked hard in his face, and saw two scratches on it, and took the half-guinea, more out of pity than anything else. Lesson to me, however. Never marry a man on credit again, as long as I live. Cash on all future occasions — cash down, or no marriage ! " Willie he was speaking, I had my eye on Miss Sticker. Thanks to the luncheon which was on the table, she was physically incapable of " conversing " while our reverend friend was telling his humorous little anecdote. Just as he had done, and just as the editor of the newspaper was taking up the subject, she finished her chicken, and turned round from the table. '* Cash down, my dear sii', as you say," continued the editor. " You exactly describe our great prin- ciple of action in the Press. Some of the most extraordinary and amusing things happen with sub- scribers to newspapers " 142 SKETCHES OF CHAKACTEE. — II. " Ah, the Press ! " burst in Miss Sticker, beginning to converse. " What a wonderful engine ! and how grateful we ought to feel when we get the paper so regularly every morning at breakfast. The only question is — at least, many people think so — I mean with regard to the Press, the only question is whether it ought to be " Here Miss Sticker lost the next word, and all the company had to look for it. " With regard to the Press, the only question is, whether it ought to be 0, dear, dear, dear me ! " cried i\Iiss Sticker, lifting both her hands in despair, " what is the word ? " " Cheaper ? " suggested our reverend friend. " Hang it, ma'am ! it can hardly be that, when it is down to a penny already." " no ; not cheaper," said Miss Sticker. "More independent?" inquired the editor. "If you mean that, I defy anybody to find more fearless exposures of corruption " "No, no!" cried Miss Sticker, in an agony of polite confusion. "I didn't mean that. More in- dependent wasn't the word." " Better printed ? " suggested the engineer. " On better paper ? " added my aunt. " It can't be done — if you refer to the cheap press — it can't be done for the money," interposed the editor, irritably. A SHOCKINGLY KUDE AKTICLE. 143 " 0, but that's not it ! " continued Miss Sticker, wringing her bony fingers, with horrid black mittens on them. " I didn't mean to say better printed, or better paper. It was one word I meant, not two. — With regard to the Press," pursued Miss Sticker, re- peating her own ridiculous words carefully, as an aid to memory, ''the only question is, whether it ought to be Bless my heart, how extraordinary ! Well, well, never mind : I'm quite shocked, and ashamed of myself. Pray go on talking, and don't notice me." It was all very well to say. Go on talking ; but the editor's amusing story about subscribers to news- papers, had been, by this time, fatally interrupted. As usual. Miss Sticker had stopped us in full flow. The engineer considerately broke the silence by start- ing another subject. " Here are some wedding-cards on your table," he said, to my aunt, " which I am very glad to see there. The bridegroom is an old friend of mine. His wife is really a beauty. You know how he first became acquainted with her? No? It was quite an ad- venture, I assure you. One evening he was on the Brighton Eailway ; last down train. A lovely girl in the carriage ; our friend Dilberry immensely stru(;k with her. Got her to talk after a long time, with great difficulty. Within half an hour of Brighton, the lovely gui smiles, and says to our fiiend, ' Shall 144 SKETCHES OF CHAEACTER. — II. we be very long now, sir, before we get to Gravesend ? ' Case of confusion at that dreadful London Bridge Terminus. Dilberry explained that she would be at Brighton in half an hour, upon which the lovely girl instantly and properly burst into tears. '0, what shall I do ! 0, what will my friends think ! ' Second flood of tears. — ' Suppose you telegi'aph ? ' says Dil- berry soothingly. — ' 0, but I don't know how ! ' says the lovely girl. Out comes Bilberry's pocket-book. Sly dog ! he saw his way now to finding out who her friends were. * Pray let me write the necessary mes- sage for you,' says Dilberry. ' Who shall I direct to at Gravesend ? ' — ' My father and mother are staying there with some friends,' says the lovely girl. ' I came up with a day-ticket, and I saw a crowd of people when I came back to the station, all going one way, and I was hurried and frightened, and no- body told me, and it was late in the evening, and the bell was ringing, and, Heavens ! what will be- come of me ! ' Third burst of tears. — ' We \Yill tele- graph to your father,' says Dilberry. ^Pray don't distress yourself. Only tell me who your father is.' — ' Thank you ' a thousand times,' says the lovely girl, * my father is '' Anonymous ! " shouts Miss Sticker, producing her lost word with a perfect bm'st of triumph. " How glad I am I remembered it at last ! Bless me, " ex- claims the Lady-Bore, quite unconscious that she has A SHOCKINGLY EUDE AETICLE. 145 brouglit tlie engineer's story to an abrupt conclusion, by giving his distressed damsel an anonymous father ; " Bless me ! what are you all laughing at ? I only meant to say. that the question with regard to the Press was, whether it ought to be anonymous. What in the world is there to laugh at in that ? I really don't see the joke/' And this woman escapes scot-free, while compara- tively innocent men are held up to ridicule, in novel after novel, by dozens at a time! When will the deluded male writers see my sex in its true colours, and describe it accordingly ? When will Miss Sticker take her proper place in the literature of England ? My second Lady-Bore is that hateful creatm-e, ]\Irs. Tincklepaw. Where, over the whole interesting surface of male humanity (including Cannibals) — where is the man to be found whom it would not be scandalous to mention in the same breath with Mrs. Tincklepaw? The great delight of this shocking woman's life, is to squabble with her husband (poor man, he has my warmest sympathy and best good wishes), and then to bring the quarrel away from home with her, and to let it off again at society in general, in a series of short spiteful hints. Mrs. Tincklepaw is the exact opposite of Miss Sticker. She is a very little woman ; she is (and more shame for her, considering how she acts) young enough to VOL. I. L 146 SKETCHES OF CHARACTEE. — II. be Miss Sticker's daughter; and she has a kind of snappish tact in worrying innocent people, under every possible turn of circumstances, which dis- tinguishes her (disgracefully) from the poor feeble- minded Maid-Bore, to whom the reader has been already introduced. Here are some examples — all taken, be it observed, from my own personal obser- vation — of the manner in which Mrs. Tincklepaw contrives to persecute her harmless fellow-creatures wherever she happens to meet with them : Let us say I am out walking, and I happen to meet Mr. and Mrs. Tincklepaw. (By the bye, she never lets her husband out of her sight — he is too necessary to the execution of her schemes of petty torment. And such a noble creature, to be used for so base a purpose ! He stands six feet two, and is additionally distinguished by a glorious and majestic stoutness, which has no sort of connection with the comparatively comic element of fat. His nature, considering what a wife he has got, is inexcusably meek and patient. Instead of answering her, he strokes his magnificent flaxen whiskers, and looks up resignedly at the sky. I sometimes fancy that he stands too high to hear what his dwarf of a wife says. For his sake, poor man, I hope this view of the matter may be the true one.) I am afraid I have contrived to lose myself in a long parenthesis. Where was I ? ! out walking A SHOCKINGLY RUDE ARTICLE. 147 and happening to meet with Mr. and Mrs. Tinckle- paw. She has had a quarrel with her husband at home, and this is how she contrives to let me know it. " Delightful weather, dear, is it not ? " I say, as we shake hands. ^' Charming, indeed," says Mrs. Tincklepaw. " Do you know, love, I am so glad you made that remark to me, and not to Mr. Tincklepaw ? " " Keally ? " I ask. " Pray tell me why ? " *' Because," answers the malicious creature, " if you had said it w^as a fine day to Mr. Tincklepaw, I should have been so afraid of his frowning at you directly, and saying, ' Stuff ! talk of something worth listening to, if you talk at all.' What a love of a bonnet you have got on ! and how Mr. Tincklepaw would have liked to be staying in your house when you were getting ready to-day to go out. He would have waited for you so patiently, dear. He would never have stamped in the passage ; and no such words as, ' Deuce take the woman ! is she going to keep me here all day ? ' would by any possibility have escaped his lips. Don't love ! don't look at the shops, w^iile ]\Ir. Tincklepaw is with us. He might say, 'Oh, bother ! you're always wanting to buy something ! ' I shouldn't like that to happen. Should you, dear ? " Once more. Say I meet Mr. and Mrs. Tinckle- paw at a dinner-party, given in honour of a brid^ and L 2 148 SKETCHES OF CHARACTEE. — II. bridegroom. From the instant wlien she enters the house, Mrs. Tincklepaw never has her eye off the young couple. She looks at them with an expression of heart-broken cmiosity. Whenever they happen to speak to each other, she instantly suspends any conversation in which she is engaged, and listens to them with a mournful eagerness. When the ladies retire, she gets the bride into a corner ; appropriates her to herself for the rest of the evening ; and per- secutes the wretched young woman in this manner : — "May I ask, is this your first dinner, since you came back ? " '^ 0, no ! we have been in town for some weeks." "Indeed? I should really have thought, now, that this was your first dinner." " Should you ? I can't imagine why." "How very odd, when the reason is as plain as possible ! Why, I noticed you all dinner time, eat- ing and drinking what you liked, without looking at your husband for orders. I saw nothing rebellious in your face when you eat all these nice sweet things at dessert. Dear! dear! don't you understand? Do you really mean to say that your husband has not begun yet ? Did he not say, as you di'ove here to day, ' Now, mind, I'm not going to have another night's rest broken, because you always choose to make yourself ill with stuffing creams and sweets, and all that sort of thing ? ' No ! ! ! Mercy on me, A SHOCKINGLY EUDE ARTICLE. 149 what an odd man lie must be ! Perhaps he waits till he gets home again ? 0, come, come, you don't mean to tell me that he doesn't storm at you fright- fully, for having every one of your glasses filled with wine, and then never toucliing a drop of it, but ask- ing for cold water instead, at the very elbow of the master of the house ? If he says, ' Cursed perversity, and want of proper tact ' once, I know he says it a dozen times. And as for treading on your dress in the hall, and then bullying you before the servant, for not holding it up out of his way, it's too common a thing to be mentioned — isn't it ? Did you notice Mr. Tincklepaw particularly ? Ah, you did, and you thought he looked good-natured ? No ! no ! don't say any more ; don't say you know better than to trust to appearances. Please do take leave of all common sense and experience, and pray trust to ap- pearances, without thinking of their invariable deceit- fulness, this once. Do, dear, to oblige me.'' I might fill pages with similar examples of the manners and conversation of this intolerable Lady- Bore. I might add other equally aggravatiug characters, to her character and to Miss Sticker's, without extending my researches an inch beyond the chcle of my own acquaintance. But I am true to my unfeminine resolution to wTite as briefly as if I were a man ; and I feel that I have said enough, abeady, to show that I can prove my case. When a 150 SKETCHES OF CHAEACTER. — 11. woman like me can produce, without the least hesita- tion, or the slightest difficulty, two such instances of Lady-Bores as I have just exhibited, the additional number which she might pick out of her list, after a little mature reflection, may be logically inferred by all impartial readers. In the meantime, let me hope I have succeeded sufficiently well in my present purpose to induce our next great satirist to pause before he, too, attacks his harmless fellow-men, and to make him turn his withering glance in the direction of our sex. Let all rising young gentlemen who are racking their brains in search of originality, take the timely hint which I have given them in these pages. Let us have a new fictitious literature, in which not only the Bores shall be v>-omen, but the villains too. Look at Shake- speare — do, pray, look at Shakespeare. ^\^ho is most in fault, in that shocking business of the murder of King Duncan ? Lady Macbeth, to be sure ! Look at King Lear, with a small family of only three daughters, and two of the three, wretches ; and even the third an aggravating girl, who can't be commonly civil to her own father in the first Act, out of sheer contradiction, because her elder sisters happen to have been civil before her. Look at Desdemona, who falls in love witli a horrid coj)per-coloured foreigner, and then, like a fool, instead of managing him, aggravates him into smothering her. Ah ! A SHOCKINGLY KUDE ARTICLE. 151 Shakespeare was a great man, and knew our sex, and was not afraid to show he knew it. What a blessing it would be, if some of his literary brethren, in modern times, could muster courage enough to follow his example ! I have fifty different things to say, but I shall bring myself to a conclusion by only mentioning one of them. If it would at all contribute towards for- warding the literary reform that 1 advocate, to make a present of the characters of Miss Sticker and Mrs. Tincklepaw, to modern writers of fiction, I shall be delighted to abandon all right of proprietorship in those two odious women. At the same time, I think it fair to explain that when I speak of modern writers, I mean gentlemen-writers only. I wish to say no- thing uncivil to the ladies who compose books, whose effusions may, by the rule of contraries, be exceed- ingly agreeable to male readers ; but I positively for- bid them to lay hands upon my two characters. I am charmed to be of use to the men, in a literary point of view, but I decline altogether to mix myself uj) with the women. There need be no fear of offending them by printing this candid expression of my intentions. Depend on it, they will all declare, on their sides, that they would much rather have nothing to do with me. 152 NOOKS AND COEXEES OF HISTOET. — II. NOOKS AND CORNEES OF HISTORY. II. THE GEEAT (fOEGOTTEN) INVASION. Preamble. It happened some sixty years ago ; it was a French invasion ; and it actually took place in England. Thousands of people are alive at the present moment, who ought to remember it perfectly well. And yet it has been forgotten. In these times, when the French invasion that may come, turns up perpetually, in public and in private, as a subject of discussion — the French invasion that did come, is not honoured with so much as a passing word of notice. The new generation knows nothing about it. The old gene- ration has carelessly forgotten it. This is discredit- able, and it must be set right ; this is a dangerous security, and it must be disturbed ; this is a gap in the Modem History of England, and it must be filled up. THE GREAT (fOEGOTTEN) INVASION. 1 53 Fathers and motliers, read and be reminded; British youths and maidens, read and be informed. Here follows the true history of the great forgotten Invasion of England, at the end of the last century ; divided into scenes and periods, and carefully derived from proved and written facts recorded in Kelly's History of the Wars : I. Of the French Invasion as seen from Ilfracombe. On the twenty-second day of February, in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-seven, the inha- bitants of North Devonshire looked towards the Bristol Channel, and saw the French invasion coming on, in four ships. The Directory of the French Kepublic had been threatening these islands some time previously ; but much talk and little action having characterised the proceedings of that governing body in most other matters, no great apprehension was felt of their really carrying out their expressed intention in relation to this country. The war between the two nations was, at this time, confined to naval opera- tions, in which the English invariably got the better of the French. North Devonshire (as well as the rest of England) was aware of this, and trusted implicitly in our supremacy of the seas. North Devonshire got up on the morning of the twenty- second of February, without a thought of the inva- 154 NOOKS AND COKNERS OF HISTORY.— II. sion ; North Devonshire looked out towards the Bristol Channel, and there — in spite of om^ supremacy of the seas — there the invasion was, as large as life. Of the four ships which the Directory had sent to conquer England, two were frigates and two were smaller vessels. Tliis formidable fleet sailed along, in view of a whole panic-stricken, defenceless coast ; and the place at which it seemed inclined to try the invading experiment first, was Ilfracombe. The com- mander of the expedition brought his ships up before the harbom-, scuttled a few coasting vessels, prepared to destroy the rest, thought better of it, and suddenly turned his four warlike stems on North Devonshire, in the most unaccountable manner. History is silent as to the cause of this abruj^t and singular change of purpose. Did the chief of the invaders act from sheer indecision ? Did he distrust the hotel accom- modation at Ilfracombe ? Had he heard of the clotted cream of Devonshhe, and did he apprehend the bilious disorganisation of the whole army, if they once got within reach of that luscious delicacy ? These are important questions, but no satisfactory answer can be found to them. The motives which animated the commander of the invading Frenchmen, are buried in oblivion : the fact alone remains, that he spared Hfracombe. The last that was seen of him from North Devonshire, he was sailing over ruthlessly to the devoted coast of Wales. THE GEEAT (fOEGOTTEN) INVASION. 155 11. Of the French Invasion as seen by Welshmen in GENERAL. Ill one respect it may be said that Wales was favoured by comparison with North Devonshire. The great fact of the French invasion had burst suddenly on Ilfracombe ; but it only dawned in a gradual manner on the coast of Pembrokeshire. In the course of his cruise across the Bristol Channel, it had apparently occurred to the commander of the expe- dition, that a little diplomatic deception, at the outset, might prove to be of ultimate advantage to him. He decided, therefore, on concealing his true character from the eyes of the Welshmen ; and when his four ships were first made out, from the heights above Saint Bride's Bay, they were all sailing under British colours. There are men in Wales, as in the rest of the world, whom it is impossible to satisfy ; and there were spectators on the heights of Saint Bride's who were not satisfied with the British colours, on this occasion, because they felt doubtful about the ships that bore them. To the eyes of these sceptics all four vessels had an unpleasantly French look, and manoeuvred in an unpleasantly French manner. Wise Welshmen along the coast collected together by twos and threes, and sat down on the heights, and looked out to sea, and shook their heads, and sus- 156 NOOKS AXD COEXEES OF HISTOEY. — II. pected. But tlie majority, as usual, saw nothing extraordinary where nothing extraordinary appeared to be intended ; and the country was not yet alanned ; and the four shijDs sailed on till they doubled Saint David's Head ; and sailed on again, a few miles to the northward ; and then stopped, and came to single anchor in Cardigan Bay. Here, again, another difficult question occurs, which recalcitrant History once more declines to solve. The Frenchmen had hardly been observed to cast their single anchors in Cardigan Bay, before they were also observed to pull them up again, and go on. Why ? The commander of the expedition had doubted already at Ilfracombe — was he doubting again in Cardigan Bay? Or did he merely want time to mature his plans ; and was it a peculiarity of his nature that he always required to come to anchor before he could think at liis ease ? To this mystery, as to the mystery at Ilfracombe, there is no solution ; and here, as there, nothing is certainly kno^vn but that the Frenchman paused — threatened — and then sailed on. III. Of One Welshman in Particular, and of what he saw. He was the only man in Great Britain who saw the invading army land on oiu: native shores — and his name has perished. It is known that he was a Welshman, and that he THE GEEAT (fOEGOTTEN) INVASION. 157 belonged to tlie lower order of the population. He may be still alive — this man, who is connected with a crisis in English History, may be still alive — and nobody has fonnd him out; nobody has taken his photograph ; nobody has written a genial biogra- phical notice of him ; nobody has made him into an Entertainment ; nobody has held a Commemoration of him ; nobody has presented him with a testi- monial, relieved him by a subscription, or addressed him with a speech. In these enlightened times, this brief record can only single him out and individually distinguish him — as the Hero of the Invasion. Such is Fame. The Hero of the Invasion, then, was standing, or sitting — for even on this important point tradition is silent — on the cliffs of the Welsh coast, near Lanonda Church, when he saw the four ships enter the bay below him, and come to anchor — this time, without showing any symptoms of getting under weigh again. The English colours, under which the Expedition had thus far attempted to deceive the population of the coast, were now hauled down, and the threatening flag of France was boldly hoisted iq their stead. This done, the boats were lowered away, were filled with a ferocious soldiery, and w^ere pointed straight for the beach. It is on record that the Hero of the Invasion distinctly saw this ; and it is not on record that he 158 NOOKS AND COENERS OF HISTORY. — 11. ran away. Honour to tlie unknown brave ! Honour to the solitary Welshman who faced the French army ! The boats came on straight to the beach — the ferocious soldiery leapt out on English soil, and swarmed up the cliff, thirsting for the subjugation of the British Isles. The Hero of the Invasion, watch- ing solitary on the cliffs, saw the Frenchmen crawling up below him — tossing their muskets on before them — climbing with the cool calculation of an army of chimney-sweeps — nimble as the monkey, supple as the tiger, stealthy as the cat — hungry for plunder, bloodshed, and Welsh mutton — void of all respect for the Britisli Constitution — an army of Invaders on the Land of the Habeas Corpus ! The Welshman saw that, and vanished. Whether he waited with clenched fist till the head of the foremost Frenchman rose parallel with the cliff-side, or whether he achieved a long start, by letting the army get half-way up the cliff, and then retreating inland to give the alarm — is, like every other cir- cumstance in connection with the Hero of the Invasion, a matter of the profoundest doubt. It is only known that he got away at all, because it is not known that he was taken prisoner. He parts with us here, the shadow of a sJiade, the most impalpable of historical apparitions. Honour, nevertheless, to the crafty brave ! Honour to the solitary Welsh- THE GEE AT (fOKGOTTEN) INVASION. 159 man wlio faced the Frencli army without being shot, and retired from the French army without being caught ! IV. Of what the Invaders did when they got on shore. The Art of Invasion has its routine, its laws, manners, and customs, Kke other Arts. And the French army acted strictly in accordance with esta- blished precedents. The first thing the first men did, when they got to the top of the cliff, was to strike a light and set fire to the furze-bushes. While national feeling deplores this destraction of property, unpre- judiced History looks on at her ease. Given Invasion as a cause, fire follows, according to all known rules, as an eiifect. If an army of Englishmen had been invading France under similar circumstances, they, on their side, would necessarily have begun by set- ting fire to something; and unprejudiced History would, in that case also, have looked on at her ease. While the furze-bushes were blazing, the remain- der of the invaders — assured by the sight of the flames, of their companions' success so far — was dis- embarking, and swarming up the rocks. When it was finally mustered on the top of the cliff, the army amounted to fourteen hundi'ed men. This was the whole force which the Directory of the French Re- public had thought it desirable to despatch for the 160 NOOKS AND CORNERS OF HISTORY. — II. subjugation of Great Britain. Histoiy, until she is certain of results, will pronounce no opinion on the wisdom of this proceeding. She knows that nothing in politics, is abstractedly rash, cruel, treacherous, or disgraceful — she knows that Success is the sole touch- stone of merit — she knows that the man who fails is contemptible, and the man who succeeds is illus- trious, without any reference to the means used in either case ; to the character of the men ; or to the nature of the motives under which they may have proceeded to action. If the Invasion succeeds. History will applaud it as an act of heroism : if it fails, History will condemn it as an act of folly. It has been said that the Invasion began credit- ably, according to the rules established in all cases of conquering. It continued to follow those rules with the most praiseworthy regularity. Having started with setting something on fire, it went on, in due course, to accomplish the other first objects of all Invasions, thieving and killing — performing much of the former, and Little of the latter. Two rash Welsh- men, who persisted in defending their native leeks, suffered accorchngly : the rest lost nothing but their national victuals, and their national flannel. On this first day of the Invasion, when the army had done marauchng, the results on both sides may be thus summed up. Gains to the French : — good dinners, and protection next the skin. Loss to the THE GREAT (fORGOTTEN) INVASION. 161 English : — mutton, stout Welsh flannel, and two rash countrymen. y. Of the Beitish Defence, and of the way in which the WOMEN contributed TO IT. The appearance of the Frenchmen on the coast, and the loss to the English, mentioned above, pro- duced the results naturally to be expected. The country was alarmed, and started up to defend itself. On the numbers of the invaders being known, and on its being discovered that, though they were with- out field-pieces, they had with them seventy cart- loads of powder and ball, and a quantity of grenades, the principal men in the country bestirred them- selves in setting up the defence. Before nightfall, all the available men who knew anything of the art of fighting were collected. When the ranks were drawn out, the English defence was even more ridiculous in point of numbers than the French attack. It amounted, at a time when we were at war with France, and were supposed to be prepared for any dangers that might threaten — it amounted, including militia, fencibles, and yeomanry cavalry, to just six hundred and sixty men, or, in other words, to less than half the number of the invading French- men. Fortunately for the credit of the nation, the cora- VOL. I. M 162 NOOKS AND COENEES OF HISTOEY. — II. mand of this exceedingly compact force was taken by the princij)al grandee in the neighbourhood. He turned out to be a man of considerable cunning, as well as a man of high rank ; and he was known by the style and title of the Earl of Cawdor. The one cheering circumstance in connection with the heavy responsibility which now rested on the shoulders of the Earl, consisted in this : that he had apparently no cause to dread internal treason as well as foreign invasion. The remarkably inconvenient spot which the French had selected for their land- ing, showed, not only that they themselves knew nothing of the coast, but that none of the inhabit- ants, who might have led them to an easier place of disembarkation, were privy to their pm-pose. So far so good. But still, the great difficulty remained of facing the French with an equality of numbers, and with the appearance, at least, of an equality of discipline. The first of these requisites it was easy to fulfil. There were hosts of colliers and other labourers in the neighbourhood, — big, bold, lusty fel- lo\\ s enough ; but so far as the art of marching and using weapons was concerned, as helpless as a pack of children. The question was, how to make good use of these men for show-purposes, without allowing them fatally to embarrass the proceedings of their trained and disciplined companions. In this emer- gency, Lord Cawdor hit on a grand Idea. He boldly THE GREAT (fORGOTTEN) INVASION. 163 mixed the women up in the business — and it is un- necessary to add, that the business began to prosper from that lucky moment. In those days, the wives of the Welsh labourers wore, what the wives of all classes of the community have been wearing since — red petticoats. It was Lord Cawdor's happy idea to call on these patriot- matrons to sink the question of skirts ; to forego the luxm-ious consideration of warmth ; and to turn the colliers into military men (so far as external appear- ances, viewed at a distance, were concerned), by taking off the wives' red petticoats and putting them over the husbands' shoulders. Where patriot-matrons are concerned, no national appeal is made in vain, and no personal sacrifice is refused. All the women seized their strings, and stepped out of their petti- coats on the spot. What man in that make-shift military but must think of " home and beauty," now that he had the tenderest memento of both to grace his shoulders and jog his memory? In an incon- ceivably short space of time every woman was shiver- ing, and every collier was turned into a soldier. VI. Of how it all ended. Thus recruited. Lord Cawdor marched off to the scene of action ; and the patriot women, deprived of their husbands and their petticoats, retired, it is to be hoped and presumed, to the friendly shelter of M 2 164 NOOKS AND CORNERS OF HISTORY. — II. bed. It was then close on nightfall, if not actaally night; and the disorderly marching of the trans- formed colliers could not be perceived. But, when the British army took up its position, then was the time when the excellent stratagem of Lord Cawdor told at its true worth. By the uncertain light of fires and torches, the French scouts, let them ven- ture as near as they might, could see nothing in detail. A man in a scarlet petticoat looked as soldier-like as a man in a scarlet coat, under those dusky circumstances. All that the enemy could now see were lines on lines of men in red, the famous uniform of the English army. The council of the French braves must have been a perturbed assembly on that memorable night. Be- hind them, was the empty bay — for the four shij)s, after landing the invaders, had set sail again for France, sublimely indifferent to the fate of the four- teen hundred. Before them, there waited in battle array an apparently formidable force of British soldiers. Under them was the hostile English ground on which they were trespassers caught in the fact. Girt about by these serious perils, the discreet commander of the Invasion fell back on those safeguards of caution and deliberation of which he had already given proofs on approaching the English shore. He had doubted at Ilfracombe ; he had doubted again in Cardigan Bay; and now, THE GKEAT (fORGOTTEN) INVASION. 165 ou the eve of the first battle, he doubted for the third time — doubted, and gave in. If History de- clines to receive the French commander as a hero, Philosophy opens her peaceful doors to him, and welcomes him in the character of a wise man. At ten o'clock that night, a flag of truce appeared in the English camp, and a letter was delivered to Lord Cawdor from the prudent chief of the invaders. The letter set forth, with amazing gravity and dig- nity, that the circumstances under which the French troops had landed, having rendered it " unnecessary " to attempt any military operations, the commanding officer did not object to come forward generously and propose ternis of capitulation. Such a message as this was little calculated to impose on any man — far less on the artful nobleman who had invented the stratagem of the red petticoats. Taking a slightly different view of the circumstances, and declining altogether to believe that the French Directory had sent fourteen hundred men over to England to divert the inhabitants by the spectacle of a capitulation, Lord Cawdor returned for answer that he did not feel himself at liberty to treat with the French com- mander, except on the condition of his men sur- rendering as prisoners of war. On receiving this reply, the Frenchman gave an additional proof of that philosophical turn of mind which has been already claimed for him as one of liis merits, by 166 NOOKS AND COENEES OF HISTOEY. — II. politely adopting the course Tvbicli Lord Cawdor suggested. By noon the next day, the French troops were all marched off, prisoners of war — the patriot-matrons had resumed their petticoats — and the short terror of the invasion had happily passed away. The first question that occiuTed to everybody, as soon as the alarm had been dissipated, was, what this extraordinary burlesque of an invasion could possibly mean. It was asserted, in some quarters, that the fourteen hundred Frenchmen had been recruited from those insurgents of La Vendue who had en- listed in the service of the Eepublic, who could not be trusted at home, and who were therefore de- spatched on the first desperate service that might offer itself abroad. Others represented the invading army as a mere gang of galley-slaves and criminals in general, who had been landed on our shores with the double purpose of annoying England and ridding France of a pack of rascals. The commander of the expedition, liowever, disposed of this latter theory by declaring that six hundred of his men were picked veterans from the French army, and by referring, for corroboration of this statement, to his large supplies of powder, ball, and hand-grenades, which would cer- tainly not have been wasted, at a time when military stores were especially precious, on a gang of galley- slaves. THE GKEAT (FOEGOTTEN) INVASION. 167 The truth seems to be, that the French (who were even more densely ignorant of England and English institutions at that time than they are at this) had been so entirely deceived by false reports of the temper and sentiments of our people, as to believe that the mere appearance of the troops of the Ke- public on these Monarchical shores, would be the signal for a revolutionary rising of all the disaffected classes from one end of Great Britain to the other. Viewed merely as materials for kindling the insur- rectionary spark, the fourteen hundred Frenchmen might certainly be considered sufiScient for the pur- pose — providing the Directory of the Kepublic could only have made sure beforehand that the English tinder might be depended on to catch light ! One last event must be recorded before this His- tory can be considered complete. The disasters of the invading army, on shore, were matched, at sea, by the disasters of the vessels that had carried them. Of the four ships which had alarmed the English coast, the two largest (the frigates) were both cap' tured, as they were standing in for Brest Harbour, by Sir Harry Neale. This smart and final correc- tion of the fractious little French invasion was ad- ministered on the ninth of March, seventeen hundred and ninety-seven. 168 NOOKS AXD COEXEES OF HISTOEY. — II. MOEAL. This is the liistory of the Great (Forgotten) Inva- sion. It is short, it is not impressive, it is unques- tionably deficient in serious interest. But there is a Moral to be drawn from it, nevertheless. If we are invaded again, and on a rather larger scale, let us not be so ill-prepared, this next time, as to be obliged to take refuge in our wives' red petticoats. THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC. 169 CUEIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.—I. THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC. Do tlie customers at publishing-liouses, tlie members of book-clubs and circulating libraries, and the pur- chasers and borrowers of newspapers and reviews, compose altogether the great bulk of the reading public of England? There was a time when, if anybody had put this question to me, I, for one, should certainly have answered, Yes. I know better now. So far from composing the bulk of English readers, the public just mentioned represents nothing more than the minority. This startling discovery dawned upon me gradu- ally. I made my first approaches towards it, in walking about London, more especially in the second and third rate neighbourhoods. At such times, when- ever I passed a small stationer's or small tobacconist's shop, I became mechanically conscious of certain publications which invariably occupied the windows. These publications all appeared to be of the same small quarto size ; they seemed to consist merely of a few unbound pages ; each one of them had a pic- 170 CURIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — I. ture on the upper half of the front leaf, and a quan- tity of small print on the under. I noticed just as much as this, for some time, and no more. None of the gentlemen who profess to guide my taste in lite- rary matters, had ever directed my attention towards these mysterious publications. My favourite Eeview is, as I firmly believe, at this very day, unconscious of their existence. My enterprising librarian — who forces all sorts of books on my attention that I don't want to read, because he has bought whole editions of them a great bargain — has never yet tried me with the limp unbound picture-quarto of the small shops. Day after day, and week after week, the mysterious pubKcations haunted my walks, go where I might ; and, still, I was too careless to stop and notice them in detail. I left London and travelled about England. The neglected publications followed me. There they were in every to^vn, large or small. I saw them in fruit-shops, in oyster-shops, in cigar- shops, in lozenge-shops. Villages even — picturesque, strong-smeUing villages — were not free from them. Wherever the speculative daring of one man could open a shop, and the human appetites and necessities of his fellow-mortals could keep it from shutting up again — there, as it appeared to me, the unbound picture-quarto instantly entered, set itself up obtru- sively in the window, and insisted on being looked at by everybody. " Buy me, borrow me, stare at THE UNIvNOWN PUBLIC. 171 me, steal me. Oh, inattentive stranger, do any- thing but pass me by ! " Under this sort of compulsion, it was not long before I began to stop at shop-windows and look attentively at these all-pervading specimens of what was to me a new species of literary production. I made acquaintance with one of them among the deserts of West Cornwall ; with another in a popu- lous thoroughfare of Whilechapel ; with a third in a dreary little lost town at the north of Scotland. I went into a lovely county of South Wales ; the mo- dest railway had not penetrated to it, but the auda- cious picture-quarto had found it out. Who could resist this perpetual, this inevitable, this magnifi- cently unlimited appeal to notice and patronage? From looking in at the windows of the shops, I got on to entering the shops themselves — to buying spe- cimens of this locust-flight of small publications — to making strict examination of them from the first page to the last — and finally, to instituting inquiries about them in all sorts of well-informed quarters. The result has been the discovery of an Unknown Public ; a public to be counted by millions ; the mysterious, the unfathomable, the universal public of the penny-novel- Journals.* * It may be as well to explain that I use tliis awkward compound word in order to mark the distinction between a penny journal and a pemiy newspaper. The "journal" is what I am now writing about. The " newspaper " is an entirely different subject, with which this article has no connection. 172 CUEIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — I. I have five of these journals now before me, repre- sented by one sample copy, bought hap-hazard, of each. There are many more ; but these five repre- sent the successful and well-established members of the literary family. The eldest of them is a stout lad of fifteen years' standing. The youngest is an infant of three months old. All five are sold at the same price of one penny ; all five are published regu- larly once a week ; all five contain about the same quantity of matter. The weekly circulation of the most successful of the five, is now publicly advertised (and, as I am informed, without exaggeration) at half a Million. Taking the other four as attaining alto- gether to a circulation of another half million (which is probably much under the right estimate) we have a sale of a Million weekly for five penny journals. Keckoning only three readers to each copy sold, the result is a 'public of three millions — a public unknown to the literary world ; unknown, as disciples, to the whole body of professed critics; unknown, as cus- tomers, at the great libraries and the great pub- lishing-houses ; unknoAvn, as an audience, to the distinguished English writers of our own time. A reading public of three millions which lies right out of the pale of literary civilisation, is a phenomenon worth examining — a mystery which the sharpest man among us may not find it easy to solve. In the first place, who are the three millions — the Unknown Public — as I have ventured to call them ? THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC. 173 Tlie known reading public — the minority already referred to — are easily discovered and classified. There is the religious public, with booksellers and literature of its own, which includes reviews and newspapers as well as books. There is the public which reads for information, and devotes itself to Histories, Biographies, Essays, Treatises, Voyages and Travels. There is the public which reads for amusement, and patronises the Circulating Libraries and the railway book-stalls. There is, lastly, the public which reads nothing but ncAVspapers. We all know where to lay our hands on the people who represent these various classes. We see the books they like on their tables. We meet them out at dinner, and hear them talk of their favourite authors. W^e know, if we are at all conversant with literary matters, even the very districts of London in which certain classes of people live who are to be depended upon beforehand as the picked readers for certain kinds of books. But what do we know of the enor- mous outlawed majority — of the lost literary tribes — of the prodigious, the overwhelming three millions ? Absolutely nothing. I myself — and I say it to my sorrow — have a very large circle of acquaintance. Ever since I under- took the interesting task of exploring the Unknown Public, I have been trying to discover among my dear friends and my bitter enemies (both alike on 174 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — I. my visiting list), a subscriber to a penny-novel-journal — and I have never yet succeeded in the attempt. I have heard theories started as to the probable ex- istence of penny-novel-journals in kitchen dressers, in the back parlours of Easy Shaving Shops, in the greasy seclusion of the boxes at the small Chop Houses. But I have never yet met with any man, woman, or child who could answer the inquuy, *' Do you subscribe to a penny journal ? " plainly in the affirmative, and who could produce the periodical in question. I have learnt, years ago, to despair of ever meeting with a single woman, after a certain age, who has not had an offer of marriage. I have given up, long since, all idea of ever discovering a man who has himself seen a ghost, as distinguished from that other inevitable man who has had a bosom friend who has unquestionably seen one. These are two among many other aspirations of a wasted life which I have definitely resigned. I have now to add one more to the number of my vanished illusions. In the absence, therefore, of any positive informa- tion on the subject, it is only possible to pursue the present investigation by accepting such negative evi- dence as may help us to guess with more or less accuracy, at the social position, the habits, the tastes, and the average intelligence of the Unkno^vn Public. Arguing carefully by inference, we may hope, in this THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC. 175 matter, to arrive at something like a safe, if not a satisfactory, conclusion. To begin with, it may be fairly assumed — seeing that the staple commodity of each one of the five journals before me, is composed of Stories — that the Unknown Public reads for its amusement more than for its information. Judging by my own experience, I should be in- clined to add, that the Unknown Public looks to quantity rather than quality in spending its penny a-week on literature. In buying my five specimen copies, at five different shops, I purposely approached the individual behind the counter, on each occasion, in the character of a member of the Unknown Public — say, Number Three Million and One — who wished to be guided in laying ouf a penny entirely by the recommendation of the shopkeeper himself I ex- pected, by this course of proceeding, to hear a little popular criticism, and to get at what the conditions of success might be, in a branch of literature which was quite new to me. No such result rewarded my efforts in any case. The dialogue between buyer and seller always took some such practical turn as this: Reader, Number Three Millim and One. — " I want to take in one of the penny journals. Which do you recommend ? " Enterprising Publisher. — " Some likes one, and 176 CURIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — I. some likes another. They're all good pennorths. Seen this one ? " " Yes." " Seen that one ? " " No." " Look what a pennorth ! " " Yes — but about the stories in this one ? Are they as good, now, as the stories in that one ? " " Well, you see, some likes one, and some likes another. Sometimes I sells more of one, and some- times I sells more of another. Take 'em all the year round, and there ain't a pin, as I knows of, to choose between 'em. There's just about as much in one as there is in another. All good pennorths. Bless your soul, just take 'em up and look for yourself! All good pennorths, choose where you like ! " I never got any farther than this, try as I might. And yet, I found the shopkeepers, both men and women, ready enough to talk on other topics. On each occasion, so far from receiving any practical hints that I was interrupting business, I found myself sociably delayed in the shop, after I had made my purchase, as if I had been an old acquaintance. I got all sorts of curious information on all sorts of subjects, — excepting the good pennorth of print in my pocket. Does the reader know the singular facts in connection -^dth Everton Tofifey ? It is like Eau de Cologne. There is only one genuine receipt for THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC. 177 making it, in the world. It has been a family inhe- ritance from remote antiqnity. Yon may go here, there, and everywhere, and buy what yon think is Everton Toffey (or Eau de Cologne) ; but there is only one place in London, as there is only one place in Cologne, at which you can obtain the genuine article. That information was given me at one penny-journal shop. At another, the proprietor explained his new system of Staymaking to me. He offered to provide my wife with something that would support her muscles and not pinch her flesh ' and, what was more, he was not the man to ask for his bill, afterwards, except in the case of giving both of us perfect satisfaction. This man was so talkative and intelligent : he could tell me all about so many other thiQgs besides stays, that I took it for gTanted he could give me the information of which I stood in need. But here again I was disappointed. He had a perfect snow-drift of penny journals all over his counter — he snatched them up by handfuls, and gesticulated ^vith them cheerfully; he smacked and patted them, and brushed them all up in a heap, to express to me that " the whole lot would be worked off by the evening;" but he, too, when I brought him to close quarters, only repeated the one inevit- able form of words : " A good pennorth ; that's all I can say ! Bless your soul, look at any one of them for yourself, and see what a pennorth it is ! " VOL. L N 178 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — I. Having, mferentially, arrived at the two conclu- sions that the UnknoA^n Public reads for amusement, and that it looks to quantity in its reading, rather than to quality, I might have found it difficult to proceed further towards the making of new disco- veries, but for the existence of a very remarkable aid to inquin^, which is common to all the penny-novel- joirrnals alike. The peculiar facilities to which I now refer, are presented in the xlnswers to Correspondents. The page containing these is, beyond all comparison, the most interesting page in the penny journals. There is no earthly subject that it is possible to discuss, no private affair that it is possible to conceive, which the inscrutable Unknown Public will not confide to the Editor in the form of a question, and which the editor ^vill not set himself seriously and resolutely to answer. Hidden under cover of initials, or Christian names, or conventional signatures — such as Sub- scriber, Constant Eeader, and so forth — the editor's correspondents seem, many of them, to judge by the published answers to their questions, utterly imper- vious to the senses of ridicule or shame. Young girls beset by perplexities which are usually supposed to be reserved for a mother's or an elder sister's ear, consult the editor. Married women who have com- mitted little frailties, consult the editor. Male jilts in deadly fear of actions for breach of promise of i THE UNKNO\VN PUBLIC. 179 marriage, consult the editor. Ladies whose com- plexions are on the wane, and who wish to know the best artificial means of restoring them, consult the editor. Gentlemen who want to dye their hair, and get rid of their corns, consult the editor. Incon- ceivably dense ignorance, inconceivably petty malice, and inconceivably complacent vanity, all consult the editor, and all, wonderful to relate, get serious answers from him. No mortal position is too difficult for this wonderful man ; there is no change of cha- racter as general referee, which he is not prepared to assume on the instant. Now he is a father, now a mother, now a schoolmaster, now a confessor, now a doctor, now a lawyer, now a young lady's confi- dante, now a young gentleman's bosom friend, now a lecturer on morals, and now an authority in cookery^ However, our present business is not with the e^or, but with his readers. As a means of getting at the average intelligence of the Unknown Public — as a means of testing the general amount of educa- tion which they have acquired, and of ascertaining what share of taste and delicacy they have inherited from Nature — these extraordinary Answers to Cor- respondents may fairly be produced in detail, to serve us for a guide. I must premise, tliat I have not maliciously hunted them up out of many num- bers; I have merely looked into my five sample copies of five separate journals, — all, I repeat, bought, N 2 180 CUKIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — I. accidentally, just as tliey liaDpened to catcli my attention in the shop windows. I have not waited for bad sjDecimens, or anxiously watched for good : I have impartially taken my chance. And now, just as impartially, I dip into one journal after another, on the Correspondents' page, exactly as the five happen to lie on my desk. The result is, that I have the pleasure of presenting to those ladies and gentlemen who may honour me with their attention, the following members of the Unknown Public, who are in a condition to speak ^uite unreservedly for themselves : — A reader of a penny-novel-joumal who wants a receipt for gingerbread. A reader who complains of fulness in his throat. Several readers who want cures for grey hair, for warts, for sores on the head,, for nervousness, and for worms. Two readers who have trifled with Woman's Affections, and who want to know if Woman can sue them for breach of pro- mise of marriage. A reader who wants to know what the sacred initials I. H. S. mean, and how to get rid of small-pox marks. Another reader who desires to be informed what an esquu-e is. Another who cannot tell how to pronounce picturesque and acquiescence. Another who requires to be told that chiaroscuro is a term used by painters. Three readers who want to know how to soften ivory, how to get a divorce, and how to make black varnish. THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC. 181 A reader who is not certain what the word Poems means ; not certain that Mazeppa was written by- Lord Byron ; not certain whether there are such things in the world as printed and published Lives of Napoleon Bonaparte. Two afflicted readers, well worthy of a place by themselves, who want a receipt apiece for the cure of knock-knees ; and wlio are referred (it is to be hoped, by a straight-legged editor) to a former answer, addressed to other sufferers, which contains the information they require. Two readers respectively unaware, until the editor has enlightened them, that the author of Kobinson Crusoe was Daniel Defoe, and the author of the Irish Melodies, Thomas Moore. Another reader, a trifle denser, who requires to be told that the histories of Greece and Kome are ancient histories, and the his- tories of France and England modem histories. A reader who wants to know the right hour of the day at which to visit a newly-married couple. A reader who wants a receipt for liquid blacking. A lady reader who expresses her sentiments prettily on crinoline. Another lady reader who wants to know how to make crumpets. Another who has receivecj presents from a gentleman to whom she is not en- gaged, and who wants the editor to tell her whether she is right or wrong. Two lady readers who require lovers, and wish the editor to provide them. Two 182 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATUEE. — I. timid girls, who are respectively afraid of a French invasion and dragon-flies. A Don Juan of a reader who wants the j)i'ivate address of a certain actress. A reader mth a noble ambition who wishes to lecture, and wants to hear of an establishment at which he can buy discourses ready-made. A natty reader, who wants German polish for boots and shoes. A sore-headed reader, who is editorially advised to use soap and warm water. A. virtuous reader, who writes to condemn married women for listening to compliments, and who is informed by an equally virtuous editor that his remarks are neatly expressed. A guilty (female) reader, who confides her frailties to a moral editor, and shocks him. A pale-faced reader, who asks if she shall darken her skin. Another pale-faced reader, who asks if she shall put on rouge. An un- decided reader, who asks if there is any inconsistency in a dancing -mistress being a teacher at a Sunday- school. A bashful reader, who has been four years in love with a lady, and has not yet mentioned it to her. A speculative reader who mshes to know if he can sell lemonade without a hcence. An uncertain reader, who wants to be told whether he had better declare his feelings frankly and honourably at once. An indignant female reader, who reviles all the gentlemen in her neighbourhood because they don't take the ladies out. A scorbutic reader, who wants THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC. 183 to be cured. A pimply reader in tlie same condition. A jilted reader, who writes to know wliat his best revenge may be, and who is advised by a wary editor to try indifference. A domestic reader, who wishes to be told the weight of a newly-born child. An in- quisitive reader, who wants to know if the name of David's mother is mentioned in the Scriptures. Here are ten editorial sentiments on things in general, which are pronounced at the express request of correspondents, and which are therefore likely to be of use in assisting us to form an estimate of the intellectual condition of the Unknown Public : 1. All months are lucky to marry in, when your union is hallowed by love. 2. When you have a sad trick of blushing on being introduced to a young lady, and wdien you want to correct the habit, summon to your aid a manly con- fidence. 3. If you want to write neatly, do not bestow too much ink on occasional strokes. 4. You should not shake hands with a lady on your first introduction to her. 5. You can sell ointment without a patent. 6. A widow should at once and most decidedly discourage the lightest attentions on the part of a married man. 7. A rash and thoughtless girl will scarcely make a steady thoughtful wife. 184 CUEIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — I. 8. We do not object to a moderate quantity of crinoline. 9. A sensible and honourable man never flirts himself, and ever despises flirts of the other sex. 10. A collier will not better his condition by going to Prussia. At the risk of being wearisome, I must once more repeat that these selections from the Answers to Correspondents, incredibly absurd as they may ap- pear, are presented exactly as I find them. Nothing is exaggerated for the sake of a joke; nothing is invented, or misquoted, to serve the purpose of any pet theory of my own. The sample produced of the three million penny readers is left to speak for itself; to give some idea of the social and intellectual materials of which a portion, at least, of the Un- known Public may fairly be presumed to be com- posed. Having so far disposed of this first part of the matter in hand, the second part follows naturally enough of its own accord. We have all of us formed some opinion by this time on the subject of the Public itself : the next thing to do is to find out what that Public reads. I have already said that the staple commodity of the journals appears to be formed of stories. The five specimen copies of the five separate weekly publications now before me, contain, altogether, ten serial stories ; one reprint of a famous novel (to be THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC. 185 hereafter referred to) ; and seven short tales, each of which begins and ends in one number. The remain- ing pages are filled up Avith miscellaneous contri- butions, in Kterature and art, drawn from every conceivable source. Pickings from Punch and Plato ; wood-engravings, representing notorious people and \dews of famous places, which strongly suggest that the original blocks have seen better days in other periodicals; modern and ancient anecdotes ; short memoirs ; scraps of poetry ; choice morsels of general information ; household receipts, riddles, and ex- tracts from moral writers — all appear in the most orderly manner, arranged under separate heads, and cut up neatly into short paragraphs. However, the prominent feature in each journal is the serial story, which is placed, in every case, as the first article, and which is illustrated by the only wood-engraving that appears to have been expressly cut for the pm'pose. To the serial story, therefore, we may fairly devote our chief attention, because it is clearly regarded as the chief attraction of these very singular pubHcations. Two of my specimen-copies contained, respectively, the first chapters of new stories. In the case of the other three, I found the stories in various stages of progress. The first thing that struck me, after reading the separate weekly portions of all five, was their extraordinary sameness. Each portion pur- 186 CURIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — I. ported to be written (and no donbt was written) by a different author, and yet all five might have been produced by the same man. Each part of each successive story, settled down in turn, as I read it, to the same dead level of the smoothest and flattest conventionality. A combination of fierce melodrama and meek domestic sentiment ; short dialogues and paragraphs on the French pattern, with moral English reflections of the sort that occur on the top lines of children's copy-books ; incidents and charac- ters taken from the old exhausted mines of the cu'culating library, and presented as complacently and confidently as if they were original ideas ; descriptions and reflections for the beginning of the number, and a " strong situation," dragged in by the neck and shoulders, for the end — formed the common literary sources from which the five authors drew their weekly supply ; all collecting it by the same means; all carrying it in the same quantities; all pouring it out before the attentive public in the same way. After reading my samples of these stories, I understood why it was that the fictions of the regularly-established writers for the penny jour- nals are never republished. There is, I honestly believe, no man, woman, or child in England, not a member of the Unkno^vn Public, who could be got to read them. The one thing which it is possible to advance in their favour is, that there is apparently THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC. 187 no wickedness in them. There seems to be an intense in-dwelling respectability in their dulness. If they lead to no intellectual result, even of the humblest kind, they may have, at least, this negative advantage, that they can do no harm. If it be objected that I am condemning these stories after having merely read one number of each of them, I have only to ask in return, whether any- body ever waits to go all through a novel before passing an opinion on the goodness or the badness of it ? In the latter case, we throw the story down before we get through it, and that is its condemna- tion. There is room enough for promise, if not for performance, in any one part of any one genuine work of fiction. If I had found the smallest promise in the style, in the dialogue, in the presentation of character, in the arrangement of incident, in any of the five specimens of cheap fiction before me, each one of which extended, on the average, to ten columns of small print, I should have gone on gladly to the next number. But I discovered notliing of the kind ; and I put down my weekly sample, just as an editor, under similar circumstances, puts down a manuscript, after getting through a certain number of pages — or a reader a book. And this sort of writing appeals to a monster audience of at least three millions ! Has a better sort ever been tried ? It has. The former pro- 188 CURIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — I. prietor of one of these penny journals commissioned a thoroughly competent person to translate The Count of Monte Christo for his periodical. He knew that there was hardly a language in the civi- lised world into which that consummate specimen of the rare and difficult art of story-telling had not been translated. In France, in England, in America, in Kussia, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, Alexandre Dumas had held hundreds of thousands of readers breathless. The proprietor of the penny journal naturally thought that he could do as much with the Unkno^m PubKc. Strange to say, the result of this apparently certain experiment was a failm^e. The circulation of the journal in question seriously decreased from the time when the first of living story-tellers became a contributor to it ! The same experiment was tried with the Mysteries of Paris and the Wandering Jew, only to produce the same result. Another penny journal gave Dumas a com- mission to wi'ite a new story, expressly for translation in its columns. The speculation was tried, and once again the insci-utable Unknown PubKc held back the hand of welcome from the spoilt child of a whole world of novel-readers. How is this to be accounted for ? Does a rigid moral sense permeate the Unknown Public from one end of it to the other, and did the productions of the French novelists shock that sense THE UNI^OWN PUBLIC. 189 from the very outset? The page containing the Answers to Correspondents would be enough in itself to dispose of this theory. But there are other and better means of arriving at the truth, which render any further reference to the Correspondents' page unnecessary. Some time since, an eminent novelist (the only living English author, with a literary position, who had, at that time, written for the Unknown Public) produced his new novel in a penny journal. No shadow of a moral objection has ever been urged by any readers against the works pub- lished by the author of It Is Never Too Late To Mend ; but even he, unless I have been greatly mis- informed, failed to make the impression that had been anticipated on the impenetrable Three Millions. The great success of his novel was not obtained in its original serial form, but in its republished form, when it appealed from the Unknown to the Known Public. Clearly, the moral obstacle was not the obstacle which militated against the success of Alex- andre Dumas and Eugene Sue. What was it, then ? Plainly this, as I believe. The Unknown Public is, in a literary sense, hardly beginning, as yet, to learn to read. The members of it are evidently, in the mass, from no fault of theirs, still ignorant of almost everything which is generally known and understood among readers whom circum- stances have placed, socially and intellectually, in 190 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — I. the rank above them. The mere references in Monte Cliristo, The Mysteries of Paris, and White Lies (the scene of this last English fiction having been laid on French ground), to foreign names, titles, manners, and customs, puzzled the Unknown Public on the threshold. Look back at the answers to cor- respondents, and then say, out of fifty subscribers to a penny journal, how many are likely to know, for example, that Mademoiselle means ]\Iiss? Besides the difficulty in appealing to the penny audience caused at the beginning by such simple obstacles as this, there was the great additional difficulty, in the case of all three of the fictions just mentioned, of accustoming untried readers to the delicacies and subtleties of literary art. An immense public has been discovered : the next thing to be done is, in a literary sense, to teach that public how to read. An attempt, to the credit of one of the penny journals, has already been made. I have mentioned, in one place, a reprint of a novel, and later, a remarkable exception to the drearily common-place character of the rest of the stories. In both these cases I refer to one and the same fiction — to the Kenilworth of Sir Walter Scott, which is reprinted as a new serial experiment in a penny journal. Here is the great master of modem fiction appealing, at this time of day, to a new public, and (amazing anomaly !) marching in company with writers who THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC. 191 have the rudiments of their craft still to learn ! To my mind, one result seems certain. If Kenilworth be appreciated by the Unknown Public, then the very best men among living English writers will one of these days be called on, as a matter of necessity, to make their appearance in the pages of the penny journals. Meanwhile, it is perhaps hardly too much to say, that the future of English fiction may rest with this Unknown Public, which is now waiting to be taught the difference between a good book and a bad. It is probably a question of time only. The largest audience for periodical literature, in this age of periodicals, must obey the universal law of progress, and must, sooner or later, learn to discriminate. When that period comes, the readers who rank by millions, will be the readers who give the widest reputations, who return the richest rewards, and who will, therefore, command the service of the best writers of their time. A great, an unparalleled prospect awaits, perhaps, the coming generation of English novelists. To the penny journals of the present time belongs the credit of having discovered a new public. When that public shall discover its need of a great writer, the great writer will have such an audience as has never yet been known.* * Five years have passed since this article was first pubhshcd, and no signs of progress in the Unknown Public have made theii* appear- ance as yet. Patience ! patience ! (September, 18G3). 192 SOCIAL GKIEVANCES. — III. SOCIAL GRIEYANCES.— III. GIVE US EOOm! [The Imperative Request of a Family Man.] The entertainments of the festive season of the year, so far as I am personally concerned, have at last subsided into a temporary lull. I and my family actually have one or two evenings to ourselves, just at present. It is my purpose to take advantage of this interval of leisure to express my sentiments on the subject of evening parties and ladies' dress. Let nobody turn over this page impatiently, alarmed at the prospect of another diatribe against Crinoline. I, for one, am not going to exhibit myself in the character of a writer who vainly opposes one of the existing institutions of this country. The Press, the Pulpit, and the Stage, have been in the habit of considering themselves as three very powerful levers, capable of being used with terrible effect on the inert material of society. All three have tried to jerk that flourishing foreign plant, Crinoline,out of English earth, and have failed to stir so much as a single root of it. All GIVE us room! 193 three have run full tilt against tlie women of England, and have not moved them an inch. Talk of the power of the Press ! — what is it, compared to the power of a French milliner ? The Press has tried to abridge the women's petticoats, and has entirely failed in the attempt. When the right time comes, a French milliner will abridge them at a week's notice. The Pulpit preaches, the Stage ridicules ; and each woman of the congregation or the audience, sits, impertur- bable, in the middle of her balloon, and lets the serious words or the comic words, go in at one ear and come out at the other, precisely as if they were spoken in an unknown tongue. Nothing that I can remember has so effectually crushed the pretensions of the Press, the Pulpit, and the Stage, as the utter failure of their crusade against Crinoline. My present object in writing is likely, I think, to be popular — at least, with the ladies. I do not want to put down Crinoline — I only want to make room for it. Personally, I rather like it — I do, indeed, though I am a man. The fact is, I am a thoroughly well-disciplined husband and father ; and I know the value of it. The only defect in my eldest daughter's otherwise perfect form, lies in her feet and ankles. She is married, so I don't mind mentioning that they are decidedly clumsy. Without Crinoline, they would be seen ; with Crinoline (except when she goes up stairs), nobody has the slightest suspicion of them. VOL. I. o 194 SOCIAL GEIEVANCES. — III. ^Ij wife — pray don't tell her that I ever observed it — my wife used to waddle before the invention of Crino- line. Now^ she swims voluptuously, and knocks down all the light articles of furniture, w^henever she crosses the room, in a manner which, but for the expense of repairs, would be perfectly charming. One of my other single daughters used to be sadly thin, poor girl. Oh, how plump she is now ! Oh, my marriage- able young men, how ravishingly plump she is now ! Long life to the monarchy of Crinoline ! Every mother in this country who has daughters to marry, and who is not cjuite so sure of their unaided per- sonal attractions as she might wish to be, echoes that loyal cry, I am sure, from the bottom of her affec- tionate heart. And the Press actually thinks it can shake our devotion to our Queen Petticoat ? Pooh ! pooh ! But we must have room — we must positively have room for our petticoat at evening parties. We wanted it before Crinoline. We want it ten thou- sand times more, now. I don't know how other parents feel ; but, unless there is some speedy reform in the present system of party-giving — so far as re- gards health, purse, and temper, I am a lost man. Let me make my meaning clear on this pomt by a simple and truthful process. Let me describe how we went to our last party, and how we came back from it. GIVE US eoom! 195 Doctor and Mrs. Crump, of Gloucester Place (I mention names and places to show the respectable character of the party), kindly requested the plea- sure of our company a week ago. We accepted the invitation, and agreed to assemble in my dining-room previous to departure, at the hour of half-past nine. It is unnecessary to say that I and my son-in-law (who is now staying with me on a visit) had the room entirely to ourselves at the appointed time. We waited half-an-hour : both ill-tempered, both longing to be in bed, and both obstinately silent. When the hall-clock struck ten, a sound was heard on the stairs, as if a whole gale of wind had broken into the house, and was advancing to the dining-room to blow us both into empty space. We knew what this meant, and looked at each other, and said, " Here they are ! " The door opened, and Boreas swam in voluptuously, in the shape of my wife, in claret-coloured velvet. She stands five feet nine, and wears — No ! I have never actually counted them. Let me not mislead the public, or do injustice to my wife. Let me rest satisfied with stating her height, and adding that she is a fashionable woman. Her circumference, and the causes of it, may be left to the imagination of the reader. She was followed by four minor winds, blowing dead in our teeth — by my married daughter in Pink Moire Antique ; by my own Juha (single) in Violet o 2 196 SOCIAL GEIEVANCES. — III. Tulle Illusion ; by my own Emily (single) in white lace over glace silk ; by my o^vn Charlotte (single) in blue gauze over glace silk. The four minor winds, and the majestic maternal Boreas, entirely filled the room, and overflowed on to the dining-table. It was a grand sight. My son-in-law and I — a pair of mere black tadpoles — shrank into a corner, and gazed at it helplessly. Our corner was, unfortunately, the farthest from the door. So, when I moved to lead the way to the carriages, I confronted a brilliant intermediate expanse of ninety yards of outer clotliing alone (allowing only eighteen yards each to the ladies). Being old, wily, and respected in the house, I took care to avoid my wife, and succeeded in getting through my daughters. My son-in-law, young, inno- cent, and of secondary position in the family, was not so fortunate. I left him helpless, looking round the corner of his mother-in-law's claret-coloured velvet, with one of his legs lost in his wife's Moire Antique. There is every reason to suppose that he never extricated himself ; for when we got into the carriages he was not to be found ; and, when ulti- mately recovered, he exhibited symptoms of physical and mental exhaustion. I am afraid my son-in-law caught it — I am very much afraid that, during my absence, my son-in-law caught it. We filled — no, we overflowed — two carriages. My GIVE US EOOM ! 197 wife and her married daughter in one, and I, myself, on the box — the front seat being very properly wanted for the velvet and the Moire Antique. In the second carriage were my three girls — crushed, as they indignantly informed me, crushed out of all shape (didn't I tell you, just now, how plump one of them was ?) by the miserably-inefficient accommoda- tion which the vehicle offered to them. They told my son-in-law, as he meekly mounted to the box, that they would take care not to marry a man like him, at any rate ! I have not the least idea what he had done to provoke them. The worthy creature gets a great deal of scolding in the house, without any assignable cause for it. Do my daughters re- sent his official knowledge, as a husband, of the secret of their sister's ugly feet? Oh, dear me, I hope not — I sincerely hope not ! At ten minutes past ten we drove to the hospitable abode of Doctor and Mrs. Crump. The women of my family were then perfectly dressed in the finest materials. There was not a flaw in any part of the costume of any one of the party. This is a great deal to say of ninety yards of clothing, without men- tioning the streams of ribbon, and the dense thickets of flowery bushes that wantoned gracefully all over their heads and half-down their backs — nevertheless, I can say it. At forty minutes past fom*, the next morning, we 198 SOCIAL GRIEVANCES. — III. were all assembled once more in my dining-room, to light our bed-room candles. Judging by costume only, I should not have known one of my daughters again — no, not one of them ! The Tulle Illusion, was illusion no longer. My daughter's gorgeous substratum of Gros de Naples bulged through it in half a dozen places. The Pink Moire Antique was torn into a draggle-tailed pink train. The white lace was in tatters, and the blue gauze was in shreds. " A charming party ! " cried my daughters in me- lodious chorus, as I surveyed this scene of ruin. Charming, indeed ! If I had dressed up my four girls, and sent them to Greenwich Fair, with strict orders to get drunk and assault the police, and if they had carefully followed my directions, could they have come home to me in a much worse condition than the condition in which I see them now ? Could any man, not acquainted with the present monstrous system of party-giving, look at my four young women, and believe that they had been spending the evening under the eyes of their parents, at a respect- able house ? If the party had been at a linendraper's, I could understand the object of this wanton destruc- tion of property. But Doctor Crump is not interested in making me buy new gowns. What have I done to him that he should ask me and my family to his house, and all but tear my children's gowns off their GIVE US KOOM ! 199 backs, in return for our friendly readiness to accept his invitation ? But my daughters danced all the evening, and these little accidents will happen in private ball- rooms. Indeed ? I did not dance, my wife did not dance, my son-in-law did not dance. Have we escaped injury on that account ? Decidedly not. Velvet is not an easy thing to tear, so I have no rents to deplore in my wife's dress. But I apprehend that a spoonful of trifle does not reach its destination properly, when it is deposited in a lady's lap ; and I altogether deny that there is any necessary connec- tion between the charms of society, and the wearing of crushed macaroons, adhesively dotted over the back part of a respectable matron's dress. I picked three off my wife's gown, as she swam out of the dining-room, on her way up-stairs ; and I am informed that two new breadths will be wanted in front, in consequence of her lap having been turned into a plate for trifle. As for my son-in-law, his trousers are saturated with spilt champagne ; and he took, in my presence, nearly a handful of flabby lobster salad out of the cavity between his shirt-front and his waistcoat. For myself, I have had my elbow in a game-pie, and I see with disgust a slimy path of extinct custard, meandering down the left-hand lappel of my coat. Altogether, this party, on the lowest calculation, casts me in damages to the 200 SOCIAL GEIEVANCES. — III. tune of ten pounds, eighteen shillings, and six- pence.* In damages for spoilt garments only. I have still to find out what the results may be of the suffocating heat in the rooms, and the freezing draughts in the passages, and on the stairs — I have still to face the possible doctor's bills for treating our influenzas and our rheumatisms. And to what cause is all this de- struction and discomfort attributable ? Plainly and simply, to this. When Doctor and Mrs. Crump issued their invitations, they followed the example of the rest of the world, and asked to their house five times as many people as their rooms would comfort- ably hold. Hence, jostling, bumping, and tearing among the dancers, and jostling, bumping, and spill- ing in the supper-room. Hence, a scene of bar- barous crowding and confusion, in which the suc- cessful dancers are the heaviest and rudest cou23les in the company, and the successful gTiests at the supper-table, the people who have the least regard * For the information of ignorant young men, who are beginning life, I subjoin the lamentable particulars of this calculation : — £. s. d. A Tulle Illusion spoilt 200 Kepairing gathers of Moire Antique 5 Cheap white lace dress spoilt 3 Do. ■ blue gauze do. 16 Two new breadths of velvet for Mama . . . . 4 Cleaning my son-in-law's trousers 2 6 Cleaning my own coat 050 Total 10 IS 6 GIVE US EOOM ! 201 for the restraints of politeness and tiie wants of their neighbours. Is there no remedy for this great social nuisance ? for a nuisance it certainly is. There is a remedy in every district in London, in the shape of a spacious and comfortable public room, which may be had for the hiring. The rooms to which I allude are never used for doubtful purposes. They are mainly devoted to Lectures, Concerts, and Meetings. When used for a private object, they might be kept private by giving each guest a card to present at the door, just as cards are presented at the opera. The expense of the hmng, when set against the expense of preparing a private house for a party, and the expense of the injuries which crowding causes, would prove to be next to nothing. The supper might be sent into the large room as it is sent into the small house. And w^hat benefit would be gained by all this ? The first and greatest of all benefits, in such cases — room. Koom for the dancers to exercise their art in perfect comfort ; room for the spectators to move about and talk to each other at their ease ; room for the mu- sicians in a comfortable gallery ; room for eating and drinking ; room for agreeable equal ventilation. In one word, all the acknowledged advantages of a public ball, with all the pleasant social freedom of a private entertainment. And what hinders the adopting of this sensible 202 SOCIAL GRIEVANCES. — III. reform? Nothing but the domestic vanity of my beloved comitrymen. I suggested the hiring of a room, the other day, to an excellent friend of mine, who thought of giving a party, and ^vho inhumanly contemplated asking at least a hundred people into his trumpery little ten- roomed house. He absolutely shuddered when I mentioned my idea : all his insular prejudices bristled up in an instant. " If I can't receive my friends under my own roof, on my own hearth, sir, and in my own home, I won't receive them at all. Take a room indeed! Do you call that an Englishman's hospitality ? I don't." It was quite useless to sug- gest to this gentleman that an Englishman's hospi- tality, or any man's hospitality, is unworthy of the name unless it fulfils the first great requisite of making his guests comfortable. We don't take that far-fetched view of the case in this domestic country. We stand on our own floor (no matter whether it is only twelve feet square or not) ; we make a fine show in our houses (no matter whether they are large enough for the purpose or not); never mind the women's dresses ; never mind the dancers being in perpetual collision ; never mind the supper being a comfortless, barbarous scramble; never mind the ventilation alternating between unbearable heat and unbearable cold — an Englishman's house is his castle, even when you can't get up his staircase, and can't GIVE US ROOM ! 203 turn round in his rooms. If I lived in the Black Hole at Calcutta, sir, I would see my friends there because I lived there, and would turn up my nose at the finest marble palace in the whole city, because it was a palace that could be had for the hiring ! And yet the innovation on a senseless established custom wdiich I now propose, is not without prece- dent, even in this country. When I was a young man, I, and some of my friends, used to give a Bachelors' Ball, once a-year. We hired a respect- able public room for the purpose. Nobody ever had admission to our entertainment who was not perfectly fit to be asked into any gentleman's house. Nobody wanted room to dance in; nobody's dress was in- jured ; nobody was uncomfortable at supper. Our ball was looked forward to, every year, by the young ladies, as the especial dance of the season at wliich they were sure to enjoy themselves. They talked rapturously of the charming music, and the brilliant lighting, and the pretty decorations, and the nice supper. Old ladies and gentlemen used to beg piteously that they might not be left out on account of their years. People of all ages and tastes found something to please them at the Bachelors' Ball, and never had a recollection, in connection with it, which was not of the happiest nature. What prevents us, now we are married, from following the sensible pro- ceeding of our younger days ? The stupid assumption 204 SOCIAL GEIEVAl^CES. — III. that my house must be big enough to hold all my friends comfortably, because it is my house. I did not reason in that way, when I had lodgings, al- though my bachelor sitting-room was, within a few feet each way, as large as my householder's drawing- room at the present time. However, I have really some hopes of seeing the sensible reform, which I have ventured to propose, practically and generally carried out, before I die. Not because I advocate it, not because it is in itself essentially reasonable ; but merely because the course of Time is likely, before long, to leave obstinate Pre- judice no choice of alternatives and no power of re- sistance. Party-giving is on the increase, pai*ty-goers are on the increase, petticoats are on the increase^ — but private houses remain exactly as they were. It is evidently only a question of time. The guests already overflow on to the staircase. Give us a ten years' increase of the population, and they will over- flow into the street. When the door of the English- man's nonsensical castle cannot be shut, on account of the number of his guests who are squeezed out to the threshold, then lie will concede to necessity what he will not now concede to any strength of reasoning, or to any gentleness of persuasion. The only cogent argument with obstinate people is Main Force — and Time, in the case now under consideration, is sooner or later sure to employ it. PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 205 CUEIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.— II, PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR, PAINTED BY HIS PUBLISHER. I. The Author was born a Frenchman, and died in the year 1850. Over the whole continent of Europe, wherever the literature of France has penetrated, his readers are numbered by tens of thousands. Women of all ranks and orders have singled him out, long since, as the marked man, among modern writers of fiction, who most profoundly knows and most subtly appreciates their sex in its strength and in its weakness. Men, whose critical judgment is widely and worthily respected, have de- clared that he is the deepest and truest observer of human nature whom France has produced since the time of Moliere. Unquestionably, he ranks as one of the few great geniuses who appear by ones and twos, in century after century of authorship, and who leave their mark ineffaceably on the literature of their age. And yet, in spite of this widely-extended 206 CUEIOSITTES OF LITEEATUKE. — II. continental fame, and this indisputable right and title to enjoy it, there is probably no civilised country in the Old World in which he is so little known as in England. Among all the readers — a large class in these islands — who are, from various causes, unaccus- tomed to study French literature in its native lan- guage, there are probably very many who have never even heard of the name of Hoxoee de Balzac. Unaccountable as it may appear at first sight, the reason why the illustrious author of Eugenie Grande t, Le Pere Goriot. and La Eecherche de I'Absolu, hap- pens to be so little known to the general public of England is, on the surface of it, easy enough to dis- cover. Balzac is little known, because he has been little translated. An English version of Eugenie Grandet was advertised, lately, as one of a cheap series of novels. And the present writer has some indistinct recollection of meeting, many years since, with a translation of La Peau de Chagrin. But so far as he knows, excepting the instances of these two books, not one other work, out of the whole number of ninety-seven fictions, long and short, which pro- ceeded fi'om the same fertile pen, has been offered to our own readers in our OAvn language. Immense help has been given in this country to the reputa- tions of Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Eugene Sue : no help whatever, or next to none, has been given to Balzac — although he is regarded in France POETEAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 207 (and riglitly regarded, in some respects) as a writer of iiction superior to all tliree. Many causes, too numerous to be elaborately traced witliin the compass of a single article, liave probably contributed to produce tliis singular instance of literary neglect. It is not to be denied, for ex- ample, tliat serious difficulties stand in the way of translating Balzac, wliich are caused by bis own peculiarities of style and treatment. His French is not the clear, graceful, neatly-turned French of Voltaire and Kousseau. It is a strong, harsh, solidly vigorous language of his own ; now flashing into the most exquisite felicities of expression, and now again involved in an obscurity which only the closest atten- tion can hope to penetrate. A special man, not hurried for time, and not easily brought to the end of his patience, might give the English equivalent of Balzac with admirable eflect. But ordinary trans- lating of him by average workmen would only lead, through the means of feeble parody, to the result of utter failure.* * Tliis sentence has unfortunately proved prophetic. Cheap trans- lations of Le Pere Goriot and La Kecherche de I'Absolu were pub- lished soon after the present article appeared in print, with extracts from the opinions here expressed on Balzac's writings appended by way of advertisement. Critical remonstrance in relation to such pro- ductions as these would be remonstrance thrown away. It will be enough to say here, by way of warning to the reader, that the experi- ment of rendering the French of Balzac into its fair English equiva- lent still remains to be tried. . 208 CURIOSITIES OF LITEEATURE. — II. The difficulties, again, caused by his style of treat- ment are not to be lightly estimated, in considering the question of presenting this author to our own general public. The peculiarity of Balzac's literary execution is, that he never compromises the subtleties and delicacies of Art for any consideration of tempo- rary effect. The framework in which his idea is set, is always wrought with a loving minuteness which leaves nothing out. Everything wliich, in this writer's mind, can even remotely illustrate the characters that he depicts, must be elaborately conveyed to the minds of his readers before the characters themselves start into action. This quality of minute finish, of reiterated refining, which is one of Balzac's great merits, so far as foreign audiences are concerned, is another of the hindrances, so far as an English audi- ence is concerned, in the way of translating him. Allowing all due weight to the force of these obstacles; and further admitting that Balzac lays himself open to grave objection (on the part of that unhappily large section of the English public which obstinately protests against the truth wherever the truth is painful), as a writer who sternly insists on presenting the dreary aspects of human life, literally, exactly, nakedly, as he finds them — making these allowances, and many more if more be needful — it is still impossible not to regret, for the sake of readers themselves, that worthy- English versions of the best PORTKAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 209 works of this great writer are not added to the national library of translated literature. Towards the latter part of his career, Balzac's own taste in selection of subject seems to have become vitiated. His later novels, consummately excellent as some of them were in a literary sense, are assuredly, in a moral sense, not to be defended against the grave accusation of being needlessly and even horribly re- pulsive. But no objections of this sort apply to the majority of the works which he produced when he was in the prime of his life and his faculties. The, conception of the character of " Eugenie Grandet " is one of the purest, tenderest, and most beautiful things in the whole range of fiction ; and the execution of it is even worthy of the idea. If the translation abeady accomplished of this book be only creditably executed, it may be left to speak for itself. But there are other fictions of the writer which deserve the same privilege, and which have not yet obtained it. "La Kecherche de I'Absolu," — a family picture which, for truth, delicacy, and pathos, has been sur- passed by no novelist of any nation or any time ; a literary achievement in which a new and an im- perishable character (the exquisitely beautiful cha- racter of the wife) has been added to the great gallery of fiction — remains still unknown to the general public of England. "Le Pere Goriot" — which, though it unveils some of the hidden corrup- VOL. I. P 210 CURIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — II. tions of Parisian life, unveils them nobly in the inter- ests of that highest morality belonging to no one nation and no one sect — "Le Pere Goriot," which stands first and foremost among all the writer's works, which has drawn the tears of thousands from the purest sources, has its appeal still left to make to the sympathies of English readers. Other shorter stories, scattered about the " Scenes de la Vie Privee," the " Scenes de la Yie de Province," and the " Scenes de la Vie Parisienne," are as completely unknown to a certain circle of readers in this country, and as unquestionably deserve careful and competent trans- lation, as the longer and more elaborate productions of Balzac's inexhaustible pen. Eeckoning these shorter stories, there are at least a dozen of his highest achievements in fiction which might be safely rendered into English : wliich might form a series by themselves ; and which no sensible English- woman could read and be, either intellectually or morally, the worse for them. Thus much, in the way of necessary preliminary comment on the works of this author, and on their present position in reference to the English public. Readers who may be sufficiently interested in the subject to desire to know something next about the man liimself, may now derive this information from a singular, and even from a unique som-ce. The Life of Balzac has beeL lately written by his publisher, of PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 211 all the people in tlie world ! This is a phenomenon in itself; and the oddity of it is still furtlier increased by the fact that the publisher was brought to the brink of ruin by the author, that he mentions this circumstance in writing his life, and that it does not detract one iota from his evidently sincere admira- tion for the great man Avitli whom he was once so disastrously connected in business. Here is surely an original book, in an age when originality grows harder and harder to meet with — a book containing disclosures which will perplex and dismay every admirer of Balzac who cannot separate the man from his works — a book which presents one of the most singular records of human eccentricity, so far as the hero of it is concerned, and of human credulity so far as the biographer is concerned, which has probably ever been published for the amusement and bewilder- ment of the reading world. The title of this singular work is, " Portrait Intime De Balzac: sa Yie, son Humem- et son Caractere. Par Edmond Werdet, son ancien Libraire-Editeur." Before, however, we allow Monsieur Werdet to relate his own personal experience of the celebrated writer, it will be advisable to introduce the subject by giving an outline of the struggles, the privations, and the disappointments which marked the early life of Balzac, and which, doubtless, influenced his after character for the worse. These particulars are given p 2 212 CUEIOSITIES OF LITEEATURE. — II. by Mons'eur Werdet in the form of an episode, and are principally derived, on his part, from information afforded by the author's sister. Honord de Balzac was bom in the city of Tours, on the sixteenth of May, seventeen hundred and ninety-nine. His parents were people of rank and position in the w^orld. His father held a legal ap- pointment in the council-chamber of Louis the six- teenth. His mother was the daughter of one of the directors of the j^ublic hospitals of Paris. She was much younger than her husband, and brought him a rich dowiy. Honore was her first-born ; and he re- tained throughout life his first feeling of childish reverence for his mother. That mother suffered the unspeakable affliction of seeing her illustrious son taken from her by death at the age of fifty years. Balzac breathed his last in the kind arms Avhich had first caressed him on the day of his birth. His father, fi'om whom he evidently inherited much of the eccentricity of his character, is described as a compound of Montaigne, Babelais, and Uncle Toby — a man in manners, conversation, and disposi- tion generally, of the quaintly original sort. On the breaking out of the llevolution, he lost his court situation, and obtained a place in the commissariat department of the army of the North. This appoint- ment he held for some years. It was of the greater POETEAIT OF AN AUTHOR, 213 importance to him, in consequence of the change for the worse produced in tlie pecuniary circumstances of the family by the convulsion of the Revolution. At the age of seven years Balzac was sent to the college of Yendome ; and for seven years more there he remained. This period of his life was never a pleasant one in his remembrance. The reduced cir- cumstances of his family exposed him to much sordid persecution and ridicule from the other boys ; and he got on but little better with the masters. They re- ported him as idle and incapable — or, in other words, as ready enough to devour all sorts of books on his own desultory plan, but hopelessly obstinate in resist- ing the educational discipline of the school. This time of his life he has reproduced in one of the strangest and the most mystical of all his novels, " La Vie Intellectuelle de Louis Lambert." On reaching the critical age of fourteen, his intel- lect appears to have suffered under a species of eclipse, which occurred very suddenly and mysteri- ously, and the cause of which neither his masters nor the medical men were able to explain. He himself always declared in after-life, with a touch of liis father's quaintness, that his brain had been attacked by " a congestion of ideas." Whatever the cause might be, the effect was so serious that the progress of his education had to be stopped ; and his removal from the colle^fe followed as a matter of course. 214 CUEIOSITIES OF LITEEATURE. — II. Time, care, quiet, and breathing his native air, gradually restored him to himself ; and he was ulti- mately enabled to complete his studies at two private schools. Here again, however, he did nothing to distinguish himself among his fellow-pupils. He read incessantly, and preserved the fruits of his reading mth marvellous power of memory ; but the school- teaching, which did well enough for ordinary boys, was exactly the species of teacliing from which the essentially original mind of Balzac recoiled in dis- gust. • All that he felt and did at this period has been carefully reproduced by his own pen in the earlier pages of " Le Lys dans la Yallee." Badly as he got on at school, he managed to im- bibe a sufficient quantity of conventional learning to entitle him, at the age of eighteen, to his degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was destined for the law ; and after attending the legal lectures in the various Institutions of Paris, he passed his examination by the time he was twenty, and then entered a notary's office in the capacity of clerk. There were two other clerks to keep him company, who hated the drudgery of the law as heartily as he hated it himself. One of them was the future author of "The Mysteries of Paris," Eugene Sue ; the other was the famous critic, Jules Janin. After he had been engaged in this office, and in another, for more than three years, a legal friend, POETRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 215 who was under great obligations to Balzac the father, offered to give up his business as a notary to Balzac the son. To the great scandal of the family, Honor^ resolutely refused the offer — for the one sufficient reason that he had determined to be the greatest wiiter in France. His relations began by laughing at him, and ended by growing angry with him. But nothing moved Honore. His vanity was of the calm, settled sort ; and his own conviction that his business in life was simply to be a famous man, proved too strong to be shaken by anybody. While he and his family were at war on this point, a change for the worse occurred in the elder Balzac's official circumstances. He was superannuated. The diminution of income thus produced was followed by a pecuniary catastrophe. He had embarked almost the whole of his own little remaining property and his wife's in two speculations ; and they both failed. No resource was now left him but to retire to a small country house in the neighbourhood of Paris, which he had purchased in his prosperous days, and to live there as well as might be on the wreck of his lost fortune. Honore, sticking fast to the hopeless busi- ness of becoming a great man, was, by his own desire, left alone in a Paris garret, with an allowance of five pounds English a month, which was all the kind father could spare to feed, clothe, and lodge the ^vrong"headed son. 216 CUEIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — II. And now, without a literary friend to help him in all Paris ; alone in his wretched attic, with his deal- table and his truckle-bed, his dog's-eared books, his bescrawled papers, his wild vanity, and his ravenous hunger for fame, Balzac stripped resolutely for the great fight. He was then twenty-three years old — a sturdy fellow to look at, with a big, jovial face, and a strong square forehead, topped by a very untidy and superfluous allowance of long tangled hair. His only difficulty at starting was what to begin upon. After consuming many lonely months in sketching out comedies, operas, and novels, he finally obeyed the one disastrous rule which seems to admit of no exception in the early lives of men of letters, and fixed the whole bent of his industry and his genius on the production of a tragedy. After infinite pains and long laboui', the great work was completed. The subject was Cromwell ; and the treatment, in Balzac's hands, appears to have been so inconceivably bad, that even his own family — to say nothing of other judicious friends — told him in the plainest terms, when he read it to them, that he had perpetrated a signal failure. Modest men might have been dis- couraged by this. Balzac took his manuscript back to his garret, standing higher in liis own estimation than ever. "I will give up being a great dramatist," he told his parents at parting, " and I will be a great novelist instead." The vanity of the man expressed POETRAIT OF AN AUTHOE. 217 itself with tins sublime disregard of ridicule all through his life. It was a precious quality to him — it is surely (however unquestionably offensive it may be to our friends) a precious quality to all of us. What man ever yet did anything great, without begin- ning with a profound belief in his own untried powers ? Confident as ever, therefore, in his own resources, Balzac now took up the pen once more —this time, in the character of a novelist. But another and a serious check awaited him at the outset. Fifteen months of solitude, privation, and reckless hard Avriting — months which are recorded in the pages of " La Peau de Chagrin " with a fearful and pathetic truth, drawn straight from the bitterest of all experi- ences, the experience of studious poverty — had re- duced him to a condition of bodily weakness which made all present exertion of his mental powders simply hopeless, and which obliged him to take refuge — a worn-out, wasted man, at the age of twenty-three — in his father's quiet little country house. Here, under his mother's care, his exhausted energies slowly revived; and here, in the first days of his convalescence, he returned, with the grim resolution of despair, to working out the old dream in the garret, to resuming the old hopeless business of making himself a great man. It was under his father's roof, during the time of his slow recovery, that the youthful fictions of Balzac 218 CUEIOSITIES OF LITEEATURE. — II. were produced. The strength of his behef in his OTvn resources and his own future, gave him also the strength, in relation to these first efforts, to rise above his own vanity, and to see plainly that he had not yet learnt to do himself full justice. His early novels bore on their title-pages a variety of feigned names, for the starving, struggling author was too proud to acknowledge them, so long as they failed to satisfy his own conception of what his own powers could accomplish. These first efforts — now included in the Belgian editions of his collected works, and comprising among them two stories, " Jane la Pale " and " Le Vicaire des Ardennes," which show unques- tionable dawnings of the genius of a great wi'iter — were originally published by the lower and more rapacious order of booksellers, and did as Httle towards increasing his means as towards establishing his reputation. Still, he forced his way slowly and resolutely through poverty, obscurity, and disappoint- ment, nearer and nearer to the promised land which no eye saw but his own — a greater man, by far, at this hard period of his adversity than at the more trying after-time of his prosperity and his fame. One by one, the heavy years rolled on till he was a man of thirty; and then the great prize which he had so long toiled for, dropped within his reach at last. In the year eighteen hundred and twenty-nine, the famous " Physiologic du Mariage " was published ; PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 219 and the starveling of the Paris garret became a name and a power in French literature. In England, this book would have been univer- sally condemned as an unpardonable exposure of the most sacred secrets of domestic life. It unveils the whole social side of Marriage in its innermost recesses, and exhibits it alternately in its bright and dark aspects with a marvellous minuteness of observation, a profound knowledge of human nature, and a daring eccentricity of style and arrangement which amply justify the extraordinary success of the book on its first appearance in France. It may be more than questionable, judging from the English point of view, whether such a subject should ever have been selected for any other than the most serious, rever- ent, and forbearing treatment. Setting this objec- tion aside, however, in consideration of the French point of view, it cannot be denied that tlie merits of the " Physiology of Marriage," as a piece of writing, were by no means over-estimated by the public to which it was addressed. In a literary sense, the book would have done credit to a man in the matu- rity of his powers. As the work of a mnn whose intellectual life was only beginning, it was such an achievement as is not often recorded in the history of modern literature. This first triumph of the future novelist — obtained, curiously enough, by a book which was not a novel 220 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — II. — failed to smooth the Avay onward and upward for Balzac as speedily and pleasantly as might have been supposed. He had another stumble on that hard road of his, before he fairly started on the career of success. Soon after the publication of " The Physiology of Marriage," an unlucky idea of strength- ening his resources by trading in literature, as well as by writing books, seems to have occiuTcd to him. He tried bookselling and printing; proved himself to be, in both cases, probably the very worst man of business who ever lived and breathed in this world ; failed in the most hopeless way, wdth the most extra- ordinary rapidity ; and so learnt at last, by the cruel teaching of experience, that his one fair chance of getting money lay in sticking fast to his pen for the rest of his days. In the next ten years of his life that pen produced the noble series of fictions w^hich influenced French hterature far and wide, and w^hich will last in public remembrance long after the miserable errors and inconsistencies of the writer's personal character are forgotten. This was the period w^hen Balzac was in the full enjoyment of his matured intellectual powers and his enviable public celebrity; and this was also the golden time when his publisher and biographer first became acquainted with him. Now, therefore, Monsieur AVerdet may be encouraged to come forward and take the post of honour as narrator of the strange story that is still POKTEAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 221 to be told ; for now he is placed in tlie fit position to addi-ess himself intelligibly, as well as amusingly, to an English audience. The story opens with the starting of Monsieur Werdet as a publisher in Paris, on his own account. The modest capital at his command amounted to just one hundred and twenty pounds English ; and his leading idea, on beginning business, was to become the publisher of Balzac. He had already entered into transactions, on a large scale, with his favourite author, in the character of agent for a publishing-liouse of liigh standing. He had been very well received, on that first occa- sion, as a man representing undeniable capital and a great commercial position. On the second occasion, however, of his representing nobody but himself, and nothing but the smallest of existing capitals, he very wisely secured the protection of an intimate friend of Balzac's, to introduce him as favourably as might be, for the second time. Accompanied by this gen- tleman, whose name was Monsieur Barbier, and car- rying his capital in his pocket-book, the embryo publisher nervously presented himself in the sanctum sanctorum of the great man. Monsieur Barbier having carefully explained the business on which they came, Balzac addressed him- self, with an indescribable suavity and grandeur of manner, to anxious Monsiem* Werdet. 222 CUEIOITIES OF LITERATURE. — II. " Just SO," said the eminent man. " You are doubtless possessed, sir, of considerable capital ? You are probably aware that no man can hoj)e to publish for ME who is not prepared to assert himself magni- ficently in the matter of cash ? I sell high — high — very high. And, not to deceive you — for I am inca- pable of suppressing the truth — I am a man who requires to be dealt with on the principle of con- siderable advances. Proceed, sir — I am prepared to listen to you." But Monsieur Werdet was too cautious to j)roceed without strengthening his position before starting. He entrenched himself instantly behind his pocket- book. One by one, the notes of the Bank of France, which formed the poor publisher's small capital, were drawn out of their snug hiding-place. Monsieur Werdet produced six of them, representing five hundred francs each (or, as before mentioned, a hundred and twenty pounds sterling), arranged them neatly and impressively in a circle on the table, and then cast himself on the author's mercy in an agitated voice, and in these words : " Sir ! behold my capital. There lies my whole fortune. It is yours in exchange for any book you please to write for me " At that point, to the horror and astonishment of Monsieur Werdet, his further progress was cut short PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 223 by roars of laughter — formidable roars, as he himself expressly states — bursting from the lungs of the highly diverted Balzac. " What astonisliing simplicity ! " exclaimed the great man. "Do you actually believe, sir, that I — De Balzac — can so entirely forget what is due to myself as to sell you any conceivable species of fiction which is the product of my pen, for the sum of three thousand francs? You have come here. Monsieur Werdet, to address an offer to me, without preparing yourself by previous reflection. If I felt so disposed, I should have every right to consider your conduct as unbecoming in the highest degree. But I don't feel so. disposed. On the contrary, I can even allow your honest ignorance, your innocent confidence, to excuse you in my estimation. Don't be alarmed, sir. Consider yourself excused to a certain extent." Between disappointment, indignation, and aston- ishment. Monsieur Werdet was struck dumb. His friend. Monsieur Barbier, therefore spoke for him, urging every possible consideration ; and finally pro- posing that Balzac, if lie was determined not to write a new story for three thousand francs, should at least sell one edition of an old one for that sum. Monsieur Barbier 's arguments were admirably put : they lasted a long time ; and when they had come to an end, they received this reply : " Gentlemen ! " cried Balzac, pushing back his 224 CUEIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — II. long hair from liis heated temples, and taking a fresh dij) of ink, " you have wasted an hour of my Time in talking of trifles. I rate the pecuniary loss thus occasioned to me at two hundred francs. My time is my capital. I must Avork. Gentlemen ! leave me." Having expressed himself in these hos- pitable terms, the great man immediately resumed the process of composition. Monsieur Werdet, natm^ally and properly indig- nant, immediately left the room. He was overtaken, after he had proceeded a little rlistance in the street, by his friend Barbier, who had remained behind to remonstrate. " You have every reason to be offended," said Barbier. " His conduct is inexcusable. But pray don't suppose that your negotiation is broken off. I know him better than you do ; and I tell you that you have nailed Balzac. He wants money, and before three days are over your head he will return your visit." " If he does," replied Werdet, " I'll pitch him out of window." " No, you won't," said Barbier. " In the first place, it is an extremely uncivil proceeding to pitch a man out of window ; and, as a naturally polite gentleman, you are incapable of committing a breach of good manners. In the second place, rude as he has been to you, Balzac is not the less a man of PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 225 genius ; and, as such, he is just the man of whom you, as a publisher, stand in need. Wait patiently ; and in a day or two you will see him, or hear from him again." Barbier was right. Three days afterwards, the following satisfactory communication was received by Monsieur Werdet : — " My brain, sir, was so prodigiously preoccupied by work uncongenial to my fancy, when you visited me the other day, that I was incapable of comprehend- ing otherwise than imperfectly what it was that you wanted of me. " To-day, my brain is not preoccupied. Do me the favour to come and see me at four o'clock. " A thousand civilities. " De Balzac." Monsieur Werdet viewed this singular note in the light of a fresh impertinence. On consideration, however, he acknowledged it, and curtly added that important business would prevent his accepting the appointment proposed to him. In two days more, friend Barbier came with a second invitation from the great man. But Monsieur Werdet steadily refused it. " Balzac has already been playing his game with me," he said. " Now it is my turn to play my game with Balzac. I mean to keep him waiting four days longer." VOL. I. Q 226 CUEIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — II. At the end of tliat time, Monsieur Werdet once more entered the sanctum sanctorum. On this second occasion, Balzac^s graceful politeness was indescribable. He deplored the rarity of intelligent publishers. He declared his deep sense of the importance of an intelligent publisher's appearance on the literary horizon. He expressed himself as quite enchanted to be now enabled to remark that appearance, to welcome it, and even to deal with it. Polite as he was by nature. Monsieur Werdet had no chance this time against Monsieur de Balzac. In the race of civility the publisher was now nowhere, and the author made all the running. The interview, thus happily begun, terminated in a most agreeable transaction on both sides. Balzac cheerfully locked up the six bank notes in his strong-box. Werdet, as cheerfully, retired with a written agreement in his empty pocket-book, autho- rising him to publish the second edition of " Le i\Iedecin de Campagne " — hardly, it may be remarked in parenthesis, one of the best to select of the novels of Balzac. 11. Once started in business as the happy proprietor and hopeful publisher of the second edition of *'Le Medecin de Campagne," Monsieur Werdet was too wise a man not to avail himself of the only ceiiain means of success in modern times. He puffed mag- PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 227 nificently. Every newspaper in Paris was inundated with a deluge of advertisements, announcing tlie fortlicoming work in terms of eulogy such as the wonderstruck reader had never met with before. The result, aided by Balzac's celebrity, was a pheno- menon in the commercial history of French lite- rature, at that time. Every copy of the second edition of *' Le Medecin de Campagne " was sold in eight days. This success established Monsiem- Werdet's repu- tation. Young authors crowded to him with their manuscripts, all declaring piteously that they wrote in the style of Balzac. But Monsieur Werdet flew at higher game. He received the imitators politely, and even published for one or two of them ; but the high business aspirations which now glowed within him were all concentrated on the great original. He had conceived the sublime idea of becoming Balzac's sole publisher ; of buying up all his copy- rights held by other houses, and of issuing all his new works that were yet to be written. Balzac himself welcomed this proposal with superb indul- gence. " Walter Scott," he said in his grandest way, " had only one publisher — Archibald Constable. Work out your idea. I authorise it ; I support it. I will be Scott, and you shall be Constable ! " Fned by the prodigious future thus disclosed to him, Monsieur Werdet assumed forthwith the cha- Q 2 228 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — II. racter of a French Constable ; and opened negotia- tions with no less than six publishers who held among them the much-deshed copyrights. His o^vti enthusiasm did something for him ; his excellent previous character in the trade, and his remarkable success at starting, did much more. The houses he dealt with took his bills in all directions, without troubling him for security. After innumerable inter- views and immense exercise of diplomacy, he raised himself at last to the pinnacle of his ambition — he became sole proprietor and publisher of the works of Balzac. The next question — a sordid, but, unhappily, a necessary question also — was how to turn this pre- cious acquisition to the best pecuniary accoimt. Some of the works, such as " La Physiologie du JMariage," and " La Peau de Chagrin," had produced, and were still producing, large sums. Others, on the contrary, such as the " Contes Philosophiques " (which were a little too profound for the public) and " Louis Lam- bert " (which was intended to popularise the mysticism of Swedenborg), had not yet succeeded in paying their expenses. Estimating his speculation by what he liad in hand, ]\ronsieur Werdet had not much chance of seeing his way speedily to quick returns. Esti- mating it, however, by what was coming in the future, that is to say, by the promised privilege of issuing all the writer's contemplated works, he had PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 229 every reason to look hap2:iily and hopefully at his commercial prospects. At this crisis of tlie narra- tive, when the publisher's credit and fortune de- pended wholly on the pen of one man, the history of that man's habits of literary composition assumes a special interest and importance. Monsieur Werdet's description of Balzac at his writing-desk, presents by no means the least extraordinary of the many sin- gular revelations which compose the story of the author's life. When he had once made up his mind to produce a new book, Balzac's first proceeding was to think it out thoroughly before he put pen to paper. He was not satisfied with possessing himself of the main idea only ; he followed it mentally into its minutest ramifications, devoting to the process just that amount of patient hard labour and self-sacrifice which no inferior writer ever has the common sense or the courage to bestow on his work. With his note-book ready in his hand, Balzac studied his scenes and characters straight from life. General knowledge of what he wanted to describe was not enough for this determined realist. If he found himself in the least at fault, he would not hesitate to take a long journey merely to ensure trutli to nature in describing the street of a countiy town, or in painting some minor peculiarity of rustic character. In Paris he was perpetually about the streets, perpetually penetrating 230 CURIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — II. into all classes of society, to study the 1mm an nature about liim in its minutest varieties. Day by day, and week by week, his note-book and his brains were hard at work together, before he thought of sitting down to his desk to begin. AVlien he had finally amassed his materials in this laborious manner, he at last retired to his study ; and from that time, till his book had gone to press, society saw him no more. His house-door was now closed to everybody, except the publisher and the printer; and his cos- tume was changed to a loose white robe, of the sort which is worn by tlie Dominican monks. This singular ^\Titing-dress was fastened round the waist by a chain of Venetian gold, to which hung little pKers and scissors of the same precious metal. Wliite Turkish trousers, and red-morocco slippers, embroi- dered with gold, covered his legs and feet. On the day when he sat down to his desk, tlie light of heaven was shut out, and he worked by the light of candles in superb silver sconces. Even letters were not allowed to reach him. They were all thrown, as they came, into a japan vase, and not opened, no matter how important they might be, till his work was all over. He rose to begin writing at two in the morning, continued, with extraordinary rapidity, till six ; then took his warm bath, and stopped in it, thinking, for an hour or more. At eight o'clock his POKTEAIT OF AN AUTHOE. 231 seiTant brouglit him up a cup of coffee. Before nine his publisher was admitted to carry away what he had done. From nine till noon he wrote on again, always at the top of his speed. At noon he break- fasted on eggs, with a glass of water and a second cup of coffee. From one o'clock to six he returned to work. At six he dined lightly, only allowing himself one glass of wine. From seven to eight he received his publisher again : and at eight o'clock he went to bed. This life he led, w^hile he was writing his books, for two months together, without inter- mission. Its effect on his health was such that, when he appeared once more among his friends, he looked, in the popular phrase, like his own ghost. Chance acquaintances would hardly have known him again. It must not be supposed that this life of resolute seclusion and fierce hard toil ended with the com- pletion of the first draught of his manuscript. At the point where, in the instances of most men, the serious part of the work would have come to an end, it had only begun for Balzac. In spite of all the preliminary studying and think- ing, when his pen had scrambled its way straight through to the end of the book, the leaves were all turned back again, and the first manuscript was altered into a second with inconceivable patience and care. Innumerable corrections and interlinings, to 232 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATUEE. — II. begin with, led in the end to transpositions and expansions which metamorphosed the entire work. Happy thoughts were picked out of the beginning of the manuscript, and inserted where they might have a better effect at the end. Others at the end would be moved to the beginning, or the middle. In one place, chapters would be expanded to three or four times their original length ; in another, abridged to a few paragraphs ; in a third, taken out altogether, or shifted to new positions. With all this mass of alterations in every page, the manuscript was at last ready for the printer. Even to the experienced eyes in the printing-office, it was now all but illegible. The deciphering it, and setting it up in a moderately correct form, cost an amount of patience and pains which wearied out all the best men in the office, one after another, before the first series of proofs could be submitted to the author's eye. When these were at last complete, they were sent in on large slips, and the indefatigable Balzac immediately set to work to rewrite the whole book for the third time ! He now covered with fresh corrections, fresh alter- ations, fresh expansions of this passage, and fresh abridgments of that, not only the margins of the proofs all round, but even the little intervals of white space between the paragraphs. Lines crossing each other in indescribable confusion, were supposed to show the bewildered printer the various places at PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 233 whicli the multitude of new insertions were to be slipped in. Illegible as Balzac's original manuscripts were, his corrected proofs were more hopelessly puzzling still. The picked men in the office, to whom alone they could be entrusted, shuddered at the very name of Balzac, and relieved each other at intervals of an hour, beyond which time no one printer could be got to continue at work on the universally execrated and universally unintelligible proofs. The " revises " — that is to say, the proofs embodying the new altera- tions — were next pulled to pieces in their turn. Two, three, and sometimes four, separate sets of them were required before the author's leave could be got to send the perpetually rewritten book to press, at last, and so have done with it. He was literally the terror of all printers and editors ; and he himself described his process of work as a misfortune, to be the more deplored, because it was, in his case, an intellectual necessity. " I toil sixteen hours out of the twenty- four," he said, " over the elaboration of my unhappy style ; and I am never satisfied, myself, when all is done." Looking back to the school-days of Balzac, when his mind suffered under the sudden and mysterious shock which has already been described in its place ; remembering that his father's character was notorious for its eccentricity ; observing the prodigious toil, the torture almost, of mind which the act of literary pro- 234 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATUEE. — II. duction seems to have cost him all through life, it is impossible not to arrive at the conclusion, that, in his case, there must have been a fatal incompleteness somewhere in the mysterious intellectual machine. ]\[agnificently as it was endow^ed, the balance of faculties in his mind seems to have been even more than ordinarily imperfect. On this theory, his un- paralleled difficulties in expressing himself as a writer, and his errors, inconsistencies, and meannesses of character as a man, become, at least, not wholly unintelligible. On any other theory, all explanation both of his personal life and his literary life apj)ears to be simply impossible. Such was the perilous pen on wliich Monsieur Werdet's prospects in life all depended. If Balzac failed to perform his engagements punctually, or if his health broke down under his severe literary exertions, the commercial decease of his unfortunate publisher followed either disaster, purely as a matter of course. At the outset, however, the posture of affairs looked encouragingly enough. On its completion in the EevTie de Paris, " Le Lys dans la Vallee " was repub- lished by Monsieur Werdet, who had secured his interest in the work by a timely advance of six thousand francs. Of this novel (the most highly valued in France of all the writer's fictions), but two PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 235 hundred copies of the first edition were left unsold within two hours after its publication. This un- paralleled success kept Monsieur Werdet's head above water, and encouraged him to hope great things from the next novel " Sei-aphita"), which was also begun, periodically, in the Eevue de Paris. Before it was finished, however, Balzac and the editor of the Eeview quarrelled. The long-suffering publisher was obliged to step in and pay the author's forfeit- money, obtaining the incomplete novel in return, and with it Balzac's promise to finish the work off-hand. Months passed, however, and not a page of manuscript was produced. One morning, at eight o'clock, to Monsieur Werdet's horror and astonishment, Balzac burst in on him in a condition of sublime despair, to announce that he and his genius had to all appearance parted company for ever. " My brain is empty ! " cried the great man. " My imagination is dried up ! Hundreds of cups of coffee and two warm baths a day have done nothing for me. Werdet, I am a lost man ! " The publisher thought of his empty cash-box, and was petrified. The author proceeded : " 1 must travel ! " he exclaimed, distractedly. " My genius has run away from me — I must pursue it over mountains and valleys. Werdet! I must catch my genius up ! " Poor Monsieur Werdet faintly suggested a little 236 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — II. turn in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris — some- thing equivalent to a nice airy ride to Hampstead on the top of an omnibus. But Balzac's runaway genius had, in the estimation of its bereaved proprietor, got as far as Vienna already ; and he coolly announced his intention of travelling after it to the Austrian capital. " And who is to finish ' Seraphita ' ? " inquired the unhappy publisher. " My illustrious friend, you are ruining me ! " " On the contrary," remarked Balzac, persuasively, "I am making your fortune. At Vienna, I shall find my genius. At Vienna I shall finish * Seraphita,' and a new book besides. At Vienna, I shall meet with an angelic woman who admires me — she per- mits me to call her * Carissima ' — she has written to invite me to Vienna — I ought, I must, I will, accept the invitation." Here an ordinary acquaintance would have had an excellent opportunity of sapng something smart. But poor Monsieur Werdet was not in a position to be witty ; and, moreover, he knew but too well what was coming next. All he ventured to say was : " But I am afraid you have no money." " You can raise some," replied his illustrious friend. " Borrow — deposit stock in trade — get me two thou- sand francs. Everything else I can do for myself. Werdet, I will hu-e a postchaise — I will dine with POETRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 237 my dear sister — I will set oiF after dinner — I will not be later than eight o'clock — click clack ! " And the great man executed an admirable imitation of the cracking of a postilion's whip. There was no resom-ce for Monsieur Werdet but to throw the good money after the bad. He raised the two thousand francs ; and away went Balzac to catch his runaway genius, to bask in the society of a female angel, and to coin money in the form of manuscripts. Eighteen days afterwards a perfumed letter from the author reached the publisher. He had caught his genius at Vienna; he had been magnificently received by the aristocracy ; he had finished " Sera- phita," and nearly completed the other book ; his angelic friend, Carissima, already loved Werdet from Balzac's description of him ; Balzac himself was Werdet's friend till death ; Werdet was his Archibald Constable ; Werdet should see him again in fifteen days ; Werdet should ride in his carriage in the Bois de Boulogne, and meet Balzac riding in his camagQ, and see the enemies of both parties looking on at the magnificent spectacle and bursting with spite. Finally, Werdet would have the goodness to remark (in a postscript) that Balzac had provided himself with another little advance of fifteen hundred francs, received from Bothschild in Vienna, and had given in exchange a bill at ten days' sight on his excellent publisher, on his admirable and devoted Archibald Constable. 238 CURIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — II. While Monsieur Werdet was still prostrate under the effect of this audacious postscript, a clerk entered his office with the identical bill. It was drawn at one day's sight instead of ten ; and the money was wanted immediately. The pubhsher was the most long-suffering of men ; but there were limits even to his patient endurance. He took Balzac's letter with him, and went at once to the office of the Parisian Eothschild. The great financier received him kindly ; admitted that there must have been some mistake ; granted the ten days' grace ; and dismissed his visitor with this excellent and sententious piece of adAdce : " I recommend you to mind what you are about, sir, with jMonsieur de Balzac. He is a highly in- consequent man." It was too late for Monsieur Werdet to mind what he was about. He had no choice but to lose his credit, or pay at the end of the ten days. He paid ; and ten days later, Balzac returned, considerately bringing with him some charming little Viennese curiosities for his esteemed pubhsher. Monsieur Werdet expressed his acknowledgments; and then politely inquired for the conclusion of " Seraphita," and the manuscript of the new novel. Not a single line of either had been committed to paper. The farce (undoubtedly a most disgraceful per- formance, so far as Balzac was concerned) Avas not PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 239 played out even yet. The publisher's reproaches seem at last to have awakened the author to some- thing remotely resembling a sense of shame. He promised that " Seraphita," which had been waiting at press a whole year, should be finished in one night. There were just two sheets of sixteen pages each to write. They might have been completed either at the author's house or at the publisher's, which was close to the printer's. But, no — it was not in Balzac's character to miss the smallest chance of producing a sensation anywhere. His last caprice was a determina- tion to astonish the printers. Twenty-five compositors were called together at eleven at night, a truckle-bed and table were set up for the author — or, to speak more correctly, for the literary mountebank — in the workshop ; Balzac arrived, in a high state of in- spiration, to stagger the sleepy journeymen by show- ing them how fast he could write ; and the two sheets were completed magnificently on the spot. By way of fit and proper climax to this ridiculous exhibition of literary quackery, it is only necessary to add, that, on Balzac's own confession, the two concluding sheets of " Seraphita " had been mentally composed, and carefully committed to memory, two years before he affected to write them impromptu in the printer's office. It seems impossible to deny that the man who could act in this outrageously puerile manner must have been simply mad. But what becomes of 240 CUEIOSITIES OF LITEEATURE. — II. the imputation when we remember that this very madman has produced books which, for depth of thought and marvellous knowledge of human nature, are counted deservedly among the glories of French literature, and which were never more living and more lasting works than they are at this moment ? " Seraphita " was published three days after the author's absurd exhibition of himself at the printer's office. In this novel, as in its predecessor — " Louis Lambert " — Balzac left his own firm ground of reality, and soared, on the wings of Swedenborg, into an atmosphere of transcendental obscurity impervious to all ordinary eyes. What the book meant, the editor of the periodical in which part of it originally appeared, never could explain. Monsieur Werdet, who pub- lished it, confesses that he was in the same mystified condition; and the present writer, who has vainly attempted to read it through, desires to add, in this place, his own modest acknowledgment of inability to enlighten English readers in the smallest degree on the subject of " Seraphita." Luckily for Monsieur Werdet, the author's reputation stood so high with the public, that the book sold prodigiously, merely because it was a book by Balzac. The proceeds of the sale, and the profits derived from new echtions of the old novels, kept the sinking publisher from abso- lute submersion ; and might even have brought him safely to land, but for the ever-increasing dead weight POKTEAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 241 of the author's perpetual borrowings, on the security of forthcoming works which he never produced. No commercial success, no generous self-sacrifice, could keep pace with the demands of Balzac's in- satiate vanity and love of show, at this period of his life. He had two establishments, to begin with ; both splendidly furnished, and one adorned with a valuable gallery of pictures. He had liis box at the French Opera, and his box at the Italian Opera. He had a chariot and horses, and an establishment of men servants. The panels of the carriage were deco- rated with the arms, and the bodies of the footmen were adorned with the liveries, of the noble family of D'Entragues, to which Balzac persisted in declaring that he was allied, although he never could produce the smallest proof in support of the statement. When he could add no more to the sumptuous magni- ficence of his houses, his dinners, his carriage, and his servants ; when he had filled his rooms with every species of expensive knick-knack; when he had lavished money on all the known extravagances which extravagant Paris can supply to the sj^endthrift's inventory, he hit on the enthely new idea of pro- viding himself with such a walking-stick as the world had never yet beheld. His first proceeding was to procure a splendid cane, which was sent to the jeweller's, and was grandly topped by a huge gold knob. The inside of VOL. I. R 242 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. — IL tlie knob was occupied by a lock of hair presented to the author by an unknown lady admirer. The outside was studded with all the jew^els he had bought, and with all the jewels he had received as presents. With this cane, nearly as big as a drum- major's staff, and all a-blaze at the top with rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires, Balzac exhibited himself, in a rapture of satisfied vanity, at the theatres and in the public promenades. The cane became as celebrated in Paris as the author. Ma- dame de Girardin wrote a sparkling little book all about the wonderful walking-stick. Balzac was in the seventh heaven of happiness; Balzac's friends were either disgusted or diverted, according to their tempers. One unfortunate man alone suffered the inevitable penalty of this insane extravagance : need it be added that his name was Werdet ? The end of the connexion between the author and the publisher was now fast approaching. All en- treaties or reproaches addressed to Balzac failed in producing the slightest resalt. Even confinement in a sponging-house, when creditors discovered, in course of time, that they could wait no longer, passed unheeded as a warning. Balzac only borrowed more money the moment the key was turned on him, gave a magnificent dinner in prison, and left the poor publisher, as usual, to pay the bill. He was extri- cated from the sponging-house before he had been PORTKAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 243 there quite three clays; and, in that time, he had spent over twenty guineas on luxuries which he had not a farthing of his own to purchase. It is useless, it is even exasperating, to go on accumulating in- stances of this sort of mad and cruel prodigality : let us advance rapidly to the end. One morning, Mon- sieur Werdet balanced accounts with his author, from the beginning, and found, in spite of the large profits produced by the majority of the works, that fifty- eight thousand francs were (to use his own expres- sion) paralysed in his hands by the life Balzac per- sisted in leading ; and that fifty- eight thousand more might soon be in the same condition, if he had pos- sessed them to advance. A rich publisher might have contrived to keep his footing in such a crisis as this, and to deal, for the time to come, on purely commercial grounds. But Monsieur Werdet was a poor man ; he had relied on Balzac's verbal promises when he ought to have exacted his written engage- ments ; and he had no means of appealing to the author's love of money by dazzling prospects of bank- notes awaiting him in the futm^e, if he chose honestly to earn his right to them. In short, there was but one alternative left, the alternative of giving up the whole purpose and ambition of the bookseller's life, and resolutely breaking off his ruinous connexion with Balzac. Keduced to this situation, driven to bay by the R 2 244 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATUEE. — II. prospect of engagements falling due wliicli he had no apparent means of meeting, Monsieur Werdet answered the next application for an advance by a flat refusal, and followed up that unexampled act of self-defence by speaking his mind at last, in no measured terms, to his illustrious friend. Balzac turned crimson with suppressed anger, and left the room. A series of business formalities followed, initiated by Balzac, with the yiew of breaking off the connexion between his publisher and himself, now that he found there was no more money to be had ; Monsieur Werdet being, on his side, perfectly ready to " sign, seal, and deliver " as soon as his claims were properly satisfied in due form of law. Balzac had now but one means of meeting his liabilities. His personal reputation was gone ; biit his literary reputation remained as high as ever, and he soon found a publisher, with large capital at command, who was ready to treat for his copyrights. Monsiem- Werdet had no resom-ce but to sell, or be bankrupt. He parted with all the valuable copy- rights for a sum of sixty thousand and odd francs, which sufficed to meet his most pressing engagements. Some of the less popular and less valuable books he kept, to help him, if possible, through his daily and personal liabilities. As for gaining any absolute profit, or even holding his position as a publisher, the bare idea of seeming either advantage was dis- PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 245 missed as an idle dream. The purpose for which he had toiled so hard and suffered so patiently was sacrificed for ever, and he w^as reduced to beginning life again as a country traveller for a prosperous pub- lishing house. So far as his main object in existence was concerned, Balzac had plainly and literally ruined him. It is impossible to part with Monsieur Werdet, imprudent and credulous as he appears to have been, without a strong feeling of sympathy, which becomes strengthened to something like posi- tive admiration when we discover that he cherished, in after life, no unfriendly sentiments towards the man w ho had treated him so shamefully ; and when we find him, in the Memoir now^ under notice, still trying hard to make the best of Balzac's conduct, and still writing of him in terms of affection and esteem to the very end of the book. The remainder of Balzac's life was, in substance, merely the lamentable repetition of the personal faults and follies, and the literary merits and tri- umphs, wliich have already found their record in these pages. The extremes of idle vanity and un- principled extravagance still alternated, to the last, with the extremes of hard mental labour and amaz- ing mental productiveness. Though he found new victims among new men, he never again met with so generous and forbearing a friend as the poor pub- lisher whose fortunes he liad destroyed. The women, 246 CURIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — II. whose impulses in his favour were kept alive by their admiration of his books, clung to their spoilt darling to the last — one of their number even stepping for- ward to save him from a debtors' prison, at the heavy sacrifice of paying the whole demand against him out of her own purse. In all cases of this sort, even where men were concerned as well as women, his personal means of attraction, when he chose to exert them, strengthened immensely his literary claims on the sympathy and good-will of others. He appears to have possessed in the highest degree those powers of fascination which are quite inde- pendent of mere beauty of face and form, and which are perversely and inexplicably bestowed in the most lavish abundance on the most unprincipled of man- kind. Poor Monsieur Werdet can only account for half his own acts of- indiscretion, by declaring that his eminent friend wheedled him into committing them. Other and wiser men kept out of Balzac's way, through sheer distrust of themselves. Virtuous friends who tried hard to reform him, retreated from his presence, declaring that the reprobate whom they had gone to convert had all but upset their moral balance in a morning's conversation. An eminent literary gentleman, who went to spend the day with him to talk over a proposed work, rushed out of the house after a two hours' interview, exclaiming piteously, " The man's imagination is in a state of delirium — PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 247 his talk has set my brain in a whirl — he would have driven me mad if I had spent the day with him ! " If men were influenced in this way, it is not won- derful that women (whose self-esteem was delicately flattered by the prominent and fascinating position which they hold in all his books) should have wor- shipped a man who publicly and privately worshipped them. His personal appearance would have recalled to English minds the popular idea of Friar Tuck — he was the very model of the conventional fat, sturdy, red-faced, jolly monk. But he had the eye of a man of genius, and the tongue of a certain infernal personage, who may be broadly hinted at, but who must on no account be j^lainly named. The Balzac candlestick might be clumsy enough ; but when once the Balzac candle was lit, the moths flew into it, only too readily, from all points of the compass. The last important act of his life was, in a worldly point of view, one of the wisest things he ever did. The lady who had invited him to Vienna, and whom he called Carissima, was the wife of a wealthy Kus- sian nobleman. On the death of her husband, she practically asserted her admiration of her favourite author by offering him her hand and fortune. Balzac accepted both ; and returned to Paris (from which respect for his creditors had latterly kept him absent) 248 CURIOSITIES OF LITEEATUEE. — II. a married man, and an enviable member of tlie wealtby class of society. A splendid future now opened before liim — but it opened too late. Arrived at the end of liis old course, he just saw the new career beyond him, and dropped on the threshold of it. The strong constitution which he had remorse- lessly wasted for more than twenty years past, gave way at length, at the very time when his social chances looked most brightly. Three months after his marriage, Honore de Balzac died, after unspeak- able suffering, of disease of the heart. He was then but fifty years of age. His fond, proud, heart-broken old mother held him in her arms. On that loving bosom he had drawn his first breath. On that loving bosom the weary head sank to rest again, when the wild, wayward, miserable, glorious life was over. The sensation produced in Paris by his death was something akin to the sensation produced in London by the death of Byron. Mr. Carlyle has admirably said that there is something touching in the loyalty of men to their Sovereign Man. That loyalty most tenderly declared itself when Balzac was no more. Men of all ranks and parties, who had been shocked by his want of principle and disgusted by his inor- dinate vanity while he was alive, now accepted uni- versally the atonement of his untimely death, and remembered nothing but the loss that had happened PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR. 249 to tlie literature of France. A great writer was no more ; and a great people rose with one accord to take liim reverently and gloriously to his grave. The French Institute, the University, the scientific societies, the Association of Dramatic Authors, the Schools of Law and Medicine, sent their representa- tives to walk in the funeral procession. English readers, American readers, German readers, and Kussian readers, swelled the immense assembly of Frenchmen that followed the coffin. Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas were among the mourners who supported the pall. The first of these two celebrated men pronounced the funeral oration over Balzac's grave, and eloquently characterised the whole series of the dead writer's works as forming, in truth, but one grand book, the text-book of contemporary civil- isation. With that just and generous tribute to the genius of Balzac, offered by the most illustrious of his literary rivals, these few pages may fitly and gracefully come to an end. Of the miserable frailties of the man, enough has been recorded to serve the first of all interests, the interest of truth. The better and nobler part of him calls for no further comment at any writer's hands. It remains to us in his works, and it speaks with deathless eloquence for itself. 250 FKAGMENTS OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. — II. FRAGMENTS OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.— II. MY BLACK MIRROR. Has everybody heard of Doctor Dee, the magician, and of the black speculum or mirror of cannel coal, in which he could see at will everything in the wide world, and many things beyond it? If so, I may introduce myself to my readers in the easiest manner possible. Although I cannot claim to be a descend- ant of Doctor Dee, I profess the occult art to the extent of keeping a black mirror, made exactly after the model of that possessed by the old astrologer. My speculum, like his, is constructed of an oval piece of cannel coal, highly polished, and set on a wooden back with a handle to hold it by. Nothing can be simpler than its appearance ; nothing more marvellous than its capacities — provided always that the person using it be a true adept. Any man who disbelieves nothing is a true adept. Let him get a piece of cannel coal, polish it highly, clean it before MY BLACK MIEROR. 251 use with a white cambric handkerchief, retire to a private sitting-room, invoke the name of Doctor Dee, shut both eyes for a moment, and open them again suddenly on the black mirror. If he does not see any- thing he likes, after that — past, present, or future — then let him depend on it there is some speck or flaw of incredulity in his nature ; and the sad termination of his career may be considered certain. Sooner or later, he will end in being nothing but a rational man. I, who have not one morsel of rationality about me ; I, who am as true an adept as if I had lived in the good old times (" the Ages of Faith," as another adept has very properly called them) find unceasing interest and occupation in my black mirror. For everything I want to know, and for everything I want to do, I consult it. This very day, for instance (being in the position of most of the other inhabit- ants of London, at the present season), I am thinking of soon going out of town. My time for being away is so limited, and my wanderings have extended, at home and abroad, in so many directions, that I can hardly hope to visit any really beautiful scenes, or gather any really mteresting experiences that are absolutely new to me. I must go to some place that I have visited before ; and I must, in common regard to my own holiday interests, take care that it is a place where I have already thoroughly enjoyed my- 252 FRAGMEXTS OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. — II. self, without a single drawback to my pleasure that is worth mentioning. Under these circumstances, if I were a mere ra- tional man, what should I do ? Weary my memory to help me to decide on a destination, by giving me my past travelling recollections in one long pano- rama — although I can tell by experience that of all my faculties memory is the least serviceable at the very time when I most want to employ it. As a true adept, I know better than to give myself any useless trouble of tliis sort. I retire to my private sitting- room, take up my black mu-ror, mention what I want — and, behold! on the surface of the cannel coal the image of my former travels passes before me, in a succession of dream-scenes. I revive my past experiences, and I make my present choice out of them, by the evidence of my own eyes ; and I may add, by that of my o^YD. ears also — for the figures in my magic landscapes move and speak ! Shall I go on the continent again ? Yes. To what part of it ? Suppose I revisit Austrian Italy, for the sake of renewing my familiarity with certain views, buildings, and pictures which once delighted me ? But let me first ascertain whether I had any serious drawbacks to complain of on making acquaintance with that part of the world. Black mirror ! show me my first evening in Austrian Italy. A cloud rises on the magic surface — rests on it a MY BLACK MIRROE. 253 little while — slowly disappears. My eyes are fixed on the cannel coal. I see nothing, hear nothing of the world about me. The first of the magic scenes grows visible. I behold it, as in a dream. Away with the ignorant Present. I am in Italy again. The darkness is just coming on. I see myself looking out of the side wdndow of a carriage. The hollow roll of the wheels has changed to a sharp rattle, and we have entered a town. We cross a vast square, illuminated by two lamps and a glim- mer of reflected light from a coffee-shop window. We get on into a long street, with heavy stone arcades for foot-passengers to walk under. Every- thing looks dark and confused; grim visions of cloaked men flit by, all smoking ; sin-ill female voices rise above the clatter of our wheels, then subside again in a moment. We stop. The bells on the horses' necks ring their last tiny peal for the night. A greasy hand opens the carriage-door, and helps me down the steps. I am under an archway, with blank darkness before me, with a smiling man holding a flaming tallow candle by my side, with street spectators silently looking on behind me. They wear high-crowned hats and brown cloaks, mysteriously muffling them up to the chin. Bri- gands, evidently. Pass, Scene ! I am a peaceable man, and I don't like the suspicion of a stiletto, even in a dream. 251 FEAGMEXTS OF PEESONAL EXPEEIEXCE. — II. Show me my sitting-room. Where did I dine, and how, on my first evening in Austrian Italy ? I am in the presence of two cheerful waiters, with two flaring candles. One is lighting lamps ; the other is setting brushwood and logs in a blaze in a perfect cavern of a hearth. AA here am I, now that there is plenty of light to see by ? Apparently in a banqueting-hall, fifty feet long by forty wide. This is my private sitting-room, and I am to eat my little bit of dinner in it all alone. Let me look about observantly, while the meal is preparing. Above me is an arched painted ceiling,, all alive with Cupids rolling about on clouds, and scattering per- petual roses on the heads of travellers beneath. Ai'ound me are classical landscapes of the school which treats the spectator to umbrella-shaped trees> calm green oceans, and foregrounds rampant with dancing goddesses. Beneath me is something elastic to tread upon, smelling very like old straw, which indeed it is, covered with a thin drugget. This is humanely intended to protect me against the cold of the stone or brick floor, and is a concession to Eng- lish prejudices on the subject of comfort. May I be grateful for it, and take no unfriendly notice of the fleas, though they are crawling up my legs from the straw and the drugget already ! What do I see next? Dinner on table. Drab- coloured soup, whicli will take a gi'eat deal of thick- MY BLACK MIRROR. 255 ening with grated Parmesan cheese, and five dishes all round it. Trout fried in oil, rolled beef steeped in succulent brown gravy, roast chicken with water- cresses, square pastry cakes with mince-meat inside them, fried potatoes — all excellent. This is really good Italian cookery : it is more fanciful than the English and more solid than the French. It is not greasy, and none of the fried dishes taste m the slightest degree of lamp oil. The wine is good, too — effervescent, smacking of the Muscatel grape, and only eighteen-pence a bottle. The second course more than sustains the character of the first. Small browned birds that look like larks, their plump breasts clothed succulently with a counterpane of fat bacon, their tender backs reposing on beds of savoury toast, — stewed pigeon, — a sponge-cake pudding, — baked pears. Where could one find a better dinner or a pleasanter waiter to serve at table? He is neither servile nor familiar, and is always ready to occupy any superfluous attention I have to spare with all the small talk that is in him. He has, in fact, but one fault, and that consists in liis very vexatious and unaccountable manner of varying the language in which he communicates with me. I speak French and Italian, and he can speak French also as well as his own tongue. I naturally, however, choose Italian on first addressing him, because it is his native language. He understands 256 FRAGMENTS OF PEESONAL EXPEEIENCE. — II. what I say to him perfectly, but he answers me in French. I bethink myself, upon this, that he may be wishing, like the rest of us, to show off any little morsel of learning that he has picked up, or that he may fancy I understand French better than I do Italian, and may be politely anxious to make our colloquy as easy as possible to me. Accordingly I humour liim, and change to French when I next speak. No sooner are the words out of my mouth than, with inexplicable perversity, he answers me in Italian. All through the dinner I try hard to make him talk the same language that I do, yet, excepting now and then a few insignificant phrases, I never succeed. What is the meaning of his playing this game of philological see-saw with me? Do the people here actually carry the national politeness so far as to flatter the stranger by according him an undisturbed monopoly of the language in which he chooses to talk to them ? I cannot explain it, and dessert surprises me in the midst of my perplexities. Four dishes again ! Parmesan cheese, macaroons, pears, and green figs. With these and another bottle of the effervescent wine, how brightly the evening will pass away by the blazing wood iu-e ! Surely, I cannot do better than go to Austrian Italy again, after having met with such a first welcome to the country as this. Shall I put down the cannel coal, and determine without any more ado on paying a second MY BLACK MIKROK. 257 visit to the land that is cheered by my comfortable inn ? No, not too liastily. Let me try the effect of one or two more scenes from my past travelling ex- perience in this particular division of the Italian peninsula before I decide. Black Mirror 1 how did I end my evening at the comfortable inn ? The cloud passes again, heavily and thickly this time, over the surface of the muTor — clears away slowly — shows me myself dozing luxuiiously by the red embers with an empty bottle at my side. A suddenly-opening door wakes me up ; the landlord of the inn approaches, places a long, official-looking book on the table, and hands me pen and ink. I inquire peevishly what I am wanted to write at that time of night, when I am just digesting my dinner. The landlord answers respectfully that I am required to give the police a full, true, and particular account of myself. I approach the table, thinking this demand rather absurd, for my passport is already in the hands of the authorities. However, as I am in a despotic country, I keep my thoughts to myself, open a blank page in the official-looking book, see that it is divided into columns, with printed headings, and find that I no more understand what they mean than I understand an assessed tax-paper at home, to w^hich by-the-bye, the blank page bears a striking general resemblance. The headings are technical official VOL. I. s 258 FRAGMENTS OF PEESONAL EXPERIENCE. — II. words, which I now meet with as parts of Italian speech for the first time. I am obliged to appeal to the polite landlord, and, by his assistance, I get gradually to un- derstand what it is the Austrian 23olice want of me. The police requne to know, before they will let me go on peaceably to-morrow, first, What my name is in full ? (Answered easily enough.) Second, What is my nation ? (British, and delighted to cast it in the teeth of continental tyrants.) Third, Where was I born ? (In London — parish of Marylebone — and I wish my native vestry knew how the Austrian autho- rities were using me.) Fourth, where do I live ? (In London, again — and I have half a mind to write to the Times about this nuisance before I go to bed.) Fifth, how old am I? (My age is what it has been for the last seven years, and what it will re- main till further notice — twenty-five exactly.) What next ? By all that is inquisitive, here are the police wanting to know (Sixth) whether I am married or single ! Landlord, what is the Italian for Bachelor ? " Write Nubile, signor." Nubile ? That means Marriageable. Permit me to remark, my good sir, that this is a woman's definition of a bachelor — not a man's. No matter, let it pass. What next? (0 distrustful despots! what next?) Seventh, What is my condition? (First-rate condition, to be sure, — full of rolled beef, toasted larks, and effervescent wine. Condition ! What do they mean by that ? MY BLACK MIRROR. 259 Profession, is it ? I have not got one. Wliat sliall I write ? " Write Proprietor, signer." Very well ; but I don't know that I am proprietor of anything except the clothes I stand up in : even my trunk was borrowed of a friend.) Eighth, Where do I come from ? Ninth, Where am I going to ? Tenth, When did I get my passport ? Eleventh, Where did I get my passport ? Twelfth, Wlio gave me my passport ? Was there ever such a monstrous string of questions to address to a harmless, idle man, who only wants to potter about Italy quietly in a postchaise ! Do they catch Mazzini, landlord, with all these pre- cautions ? No : they only catch me. There ! there ! take your Travellers' Book back to the police. Surely, such unfounded distrust of my character as the production of that volume at my dinner-table implies, forms a serious drawback to the pleasure of travelling in Austrian Italy. Shall I give up at once all idea of going there, in my own innocent character, again ? No ; let me be deliberate in ar- riving at a decision, — let me patiently try the experi- ment of looking at one more scene from the past. Black Mirror ! hoAV did I travel in Austrian Italy after I had paid my bill in the morning, and had left my comfortable inn ? The new dream-scene shows me evening again. I have joined another English traveller in taking a vehicle that they call a caleche. It is a frowsy kind s 2 260 FEAGMENTS OF PERSONAL EXPEEIENCE. — II. of sedan-chair on wheels, with greasy leather curtains and cushions. In the days of its prosperity and youth it might have been a state- coach, and might have carried Sir Robert Walpole to court, or the Abbe Dubois to a supper with the Regent Orleans. It is driven by a tall, cadaverous, ruffianly postilion, with his clothes all in rags, and without a spark of mercy for his miserable horses. It smells badly, looks badly, goes badly ; and jerks, and cracks, and totters as if it would break down altogether — when it is suddenly stopped on a rough stone pavement in front of a lonely post-house, just as the sun is sinking and the night is setting in. The postmaster comes out to superintend the har- nessing of fresh horses. He is tipsy, familiar, and confidential ; he first apostrophises the caleche with contemptuous curses, then takes me myste- riously aside, and declares that the whole high road onward to our morning's destination swarms with thieves. It seems, then, that the Austrian police reserve all their vigilance for innocent tra- vellers, and leave local rogues entirely unmolested. I make this reflection, and ask the postmaster what he recommends us to do for the protection of our portmanteaus, which are tied on to the roof of the caleche. He answers that unless we take special precautions, the thieves will get up behind, on our crazy foot-board, and wiU cut the trunks off the top i MY BLACK MIEROE. 261 of our frowsy travelling-carriage, under cover of the night, while we are quietly seated inside, seeing and suspecting nothing. We instantly express our readi- ness to take any precautions that any one may be kind enough to suggest. The postmaster winks, lays his finger archly on the side of his nose, and gives an unintelligible order in the patois of the district. Before I have time to ask what he is going to do, every idler about the posthouse who can climb, scales the summit of the caleche, and every idler who can- not, stands roaring and gesticulating below with a lighted candle in his hand. While the hubbub is at its loudest, a rival travel- ling carriage suddenly drives into the midst of us, in the shape of a huge barrel-organ on wheels, and bursts out awfully in the darkness with the grand march in Semhamide, played with the utmost fury of the drum, cymbal, and trumpet-stops. The noise is so bewildering that my travelling companion and I take refuge inside our carriage, and shut our eyes, and stop our ears, and abandon ourselves to despair. After a time, our elbows are jogged, and a string a-piece is given to us through each window. We are informed in shouts, accompanied fiercely by the grand march, that the strings are fastened to our portmanteaus above ; that we are to keep the loose ends round our forefingers all night ; and that the moment we feel a tug, we may be quite certain the 262 FEAGMENTS OF PEESONAL EXPEEIENCE. — II. thieves are at work, and may feel justified in stop- ping the carriage and fighting for our baggage with- out any more ado. Under these agreeable auspices, we start again, with our strings round our forefingers. We feel like men about to ring the bell — or like men engaged in deep sea-fishing — or like men on the point of pulling the string of a shower-bath. Fifty times at least, during the next stage, each of us is certain that he feels a tug, and pops his head agi- tatedly out of window, and sees absolutely nothing, and falls back again exhausted with excitement in a corner of the caleche. All through the night this wear and tear of our nerves goes on ; and all through the night (thanks, probably, to the ceaseless popping of our heads out of the windows) not the ghost of a thief comes near us. We begin, at last, almost to feel that it would be a relief to be robbed — almost to doubt the policy of resisting any mercifully-larcenous hands stretched forth to rescue us from the incubus of our own baggage. The morning dawn finds us languid and haggard, with the accursed portmanteau strings dangling unregarded in the bottom of the caleche. And this is taking our pleasure ! This is an incident of travel in Austrian Italy! Faithful Black Mirror, accept my thanks. The warning of the two last dream-scenes that you have shown me shall not be disregarded. Whatever other direction I may take when I go out of town for the present MY BLACK MIKEOE. 263 season, one road at least I know that I shall avoid — the road that leads to Austrian Italy. Shall I keep on the northern side of the Aljos, and travel a little, let us say, in German-Switzerland? Black Mirror ! how did I get on when I was last in that country ? Did I like my introductory experi- ence at my first inn ? The vision changes, and takes me again to the out- side of a house of public entertainment ; a great white, clean, smooth-fronted, opulent-looking hotel — a very different building from my dingy, cavernous Italian inn. At the street-door stands the landlord. He is a little, lean, rosy man, dressed all in black, and looking like a master undertaker. I observe that he neither steps forwards nor smiles when I get out of the carriage and ask for a bedroom. He gives me the shortest possible answer, growls guttural instruc- tions to a waiter, then looks out into the street again and, before I have so much as turned my ba(;k on him, forgets my existence immediately. The vision changes again, and takes me inside the hotel. I am following a waiter up-stairs — the man looks unaffect- edly sorry to see me. In the bedroom corridor we find a chambermaid asleep with her head on a table She is woke up ; opens a door with a groan, and scowls at me reproachfully when I say that the room will do. I descend to dinner. Two waiters attend on me, under protest, and look as if they were on the 264 FRAGMENTS OF PEESONAL EXPERIENCE. — II. point of giving warning every time I require them to change my plate. At the second course the landlord comes in, and stands and stares at me intently and silently with his hands in his pockets. This may be his way of seeing that my dinner is well served ; but it looks much more like his way of seeing that I do not abstract any spoons from his table. I become irritated by the boorish staring and frowning of everybody about me, and express myself strongly on the subject of my reception at the hotel to an English traveller dinino- near me. The English traveller is one of those exasperating men who are always ready to put up with injuries, and he coolly accounts for the behaviour of which I complain, by telling me that it is the result of the blunt honesty of the natives, who cannot pretend to take an interest in me which they do not really feel. What do I care about the feelings of the stolid land- lord and the sulky waiters ? I require the comfort- ing outward show from them — the inward substance is not of the smallest consequence to me. When I travel in civilised countries, I want such a reception at my inn as shall genially amuse and gently tickle all the region round about my organ of self-esteem. Blunt honesty which is too offensively truthful to pretend to be glad to see me, shows no corresponding integrity — as my own experience in- forms me at this very hotel — about the capacities of MY BLACK MIRROK. 265 its wine-bottles, but gives me a pint and charges me for a quart in the bill, like the rest of the world. Blunt honesty, although it is too brutally sincere to look civilly distressed and sympathetic when I say that I am tired after my journey, does not hesitate to warm up, and present before me as newly dressed, a Methuselah of a duck that has been cooked several times over, several days ago, and paid for, though * not eaten, by my travelling predecessors. Blunt honesty fleeces me according to every estabhshed predatory law of the landlord's code, yet shrinks from the amiable duplicity of fawning affectionately before me all the way up stairs when I first present myself to be swindled. Away with such detestable sincerity as this ! Away with the honesty which brutalises a landlord's manners without reforming his bottles or his bills ! Away wdth my German- Swiss hotel, and the extortionate cynic who keeps it ! Let others pay tribute if they will to that boor in innkeeper's clotliing, the colour of my money he shall never see again. Suppose I avoid German-Switzerland, and try Switzerland Proper ? Mirror I how did I travel when I last found myself on the Swiss side of the Alps ? The new vision removes me even from the most distant view of an hotel of any kind, and places me in a wild mountain country where the end of a rough 266 FRAGMENTS OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. — II. road is lost in the dry bed of a torrent. I am seated in a queer little box on wheels, called a Char, di-awn by a mule and a mare, and driven by a jovial coach- man in a blue blouse. I have hardly time to look down alarmedly at tlie dry bed of the torrent, before the Char plunges into it. Eapidly and recklessly we thump along over rocks and stones, acclivities and declivities that would shake down the stoutest English travelling-carriage, knock up the best-bred English horses, nonplus the most knowing English coachman. Jovial Blue Blouse, singing Hke a night- ingale, drives a-head regardless of every obstacle — the mule and mare tear along as if the journey was the great enjoyment of the day to them — the Char cracks, rends, sways, bumps, and totters, but scorns, as becomes a hardy little mountain vehicle, to over- turn or come to pieces. When we are not among the rocks we are rolling and heaving in sloughs of black mud and sand, like a Dutch herring-boat in a ground-swell. It is all one to Blue Blouse and the mule and mare. They are just as ready to drag through sloughs as to jolt over rocks; and when we do come occasionally to a bit of unencumbered ground, they always indemnify themselves for past hardship and fatigue by galloping like mad. As for my own sensations in the character of passenger in the Char, they are not, physically speaking, of the pleasantest possible kind. I can only keep myself MY BLACK MIEEOE. 267 inside my vehicle by dint of holding tight with both hands by anything I can find to grasp at; and I am so shaken thronghout my whole anatomy that my very jaws clatter again, and my feet play a per- petual tattoo on the bottom of the Char. Did I hit on no method of travelling more composed and deli- berate than this, I wonder, when I was last in Switz- erland ? Must I make ujd my mind to be half-shaken to pieces if I am bold enough to venture on going there again? The surface of the Black Mirror is once more clouded over. It clears, and the vision is now of a path along the side of a precipice. A mule is fol- lowing tlie path, and I am the adventurous traveller who is astride on the beast's back. The first obser- vation that occurs to me in my new position is, that mules thoroughly deserve their reputation for obsti- nacy, and that, in regard to the particular animal on which I am riding, the less I interfere with him and the more I conduct myself as if I was a pack- saddle on his back, the better Ave are sure to get on together. Carrying pack-saddles is his main business in life ; and though he saw me get on his back, he persists in treating me as if I was a bale of goods, by walking on the extreme edge of the precipice, so as not to run any risk of rubbing his load against the safe, or mountain, side of the path. In this and in other 268 FRAGMENTS OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. — II. things I find that he is the victim of routine, and the slave of habit. He has a way of stopping short, placing himself in a slanting position, and falling into a profound meditation at some of the most awkward turns in the wild mountain-roads. I imagine at first that he may be halting in this abrupt and inconvenient manner to take breath; but then he never exerts himself so as to tax his lungs in the smallest degree, and he stops on the most unreasonably irregular principles, sometimes twice in ten minutes, — some- times not more than twice in two hours — evidently just as his new idea^ happen to absorb his attention or not. It is part of his exasperating character at these times, always to become immersed in re- flection where the muleteer's staff has not room to reach him with the smallest effect ; and where, load- ing him with blows being out of the question, loading him ^vith abusive language is the only other available process for getting him on. I find that he generally turns out to be susceptible to the influence of in- jurious epithets after he has heard himself insulted five or six times. Once, his obdurate nature gives way, even at the third appeal. He has just stopped with me on his back, to amuse himself, at a dangerous part of the road, with a little hard thinking in a stee2:)ly slanting position ; and it becomes therefore urgently necessary to abuse him into proceeding forthwith. First, the muleteer calls him a Serpent MY BLACK MIEEOR. 269 — he never stirs an inch. Secondly, the muleteer calls him a Frog — he goes on imperturbably with his meditation. Thirdly, the muleteer roars out in- dignantly, Ah sacre nom d'un Butor ! (which, inter- preted by the help of my Anglo-French dictionary, means apparently. Ah, sacred name of a Muddle- head !) ; and at this extraordinary adjuration the beast instantly jerks up his nose, shakes his ears, and goes on his way indignantly. Mule-riding, under these circumstances, is cer- tainly an adventurous and amusing method of travel- . ling, and well worth trying for once in a way ; but I am not at all sure that I should enjoy a second experience of it, and I have my doubts on this ac- count — to say nothing of my dread of a second jolt- ing journey in a Char — about the propriety of under- taking another journey to Switzerland during the pre- sent sultry season. It will be wisest, perhaps, to try the effect of a new scene from the past, representing some former visit to some other locality, before I venture on arriving at a decision. I have rejected Austrian Italy and German Switzerland, and I am doubtful about Switzerland Proper. Suppose I do my duty as a patriot, and give the attractions of my own country a fair chance of appealing to any past influences of the agreeable kind, which they may have exercised over me ? Black Mirror ! when I 270 FRAGMENTS OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. — II. was last a tourist at home, how did I travel about from place to place ? The cloud on the magic surface rises slowly and grandly, like the lifting of a fog at sea, and discloses a tiny drawing-room, with a skylight mndow, and a rose-coloured curtain drawn over it to keep out the sun. A bright book-shelf runs all round this little fairy chamber, just below the ceiling, where the cornice would be in loftier rooms. Sofas extend along the wall on either side, and mahogany cup- boards full of good things ensconce themselves snugly in the four corners. The table is brightened with nosegays; the mantel-shelf has a smart railing all round it ; and the looking-glass above is just large enough to reflect becomingly the face and shoulders of any lady who will give herself the trouble of looking into it. The present inhabitants of the room are three gentlemen with novels and newspapers in theh hands, taking their ease in blouses, dressing- gowns, and slippers. They are reposing on the sofas with fruit and wine within easy reach — and one of the party looks to me very much like the enviable possessor of the Black Mirror. They exhibit a spectacle of luxury w^hich would make an ancient Spartan shudder with disgust; and, in an adjoining apartment, their band is attending on them, in the shape of a musical box which is just now playing the last scene in Lucia di Lammermoor. MY BLACK MIREOR. 271 Hark ! what sounds are those raingling with the notes of Donizetti's lovely music — now rising over it sublimely, now dying away under it, gently and more gently still ? Our sweet opera air shall come to its close, our music shall play for its shoi^t destined time and then be silent again ; but those more glorious sounds shall go on with us day and night, shall still swell and sink inexhaustibly, long after we and all who know and love and remember us have passed from this earth for ever. It is the wash of the waves that now travels along with us grandly wherever we go. We are at sea in a schooner yacht, and are taking our pleasure along the southern shores of the English coast. Yes, this to every man who can be certain of his own stomach, this is the true luxury of travelling, the true secret for thoroughly enjoying all the attractions of moving about from place to place. Wherever we now go, we carry our elegant and comfortable home along w^itli us. We can stop where we like, see what we like, and always come back to our favourite corner on the sofa, always carry on our favourite occupations and amusements, and still be travelling, still be getting forward to new scenes all the time. Here is no hurrying to accommodate yourself to other people's hours for starting, no scrambling for places, no wearisome watchfulness over baggage. Here are no anxieties 272 FRAGMENTS OF PEESOXAL EXPEEIENCE. — II. about strange beds, — for have we not eacb of lis our own sweet little cabin to nestle in at night ? — no agitating dependence at the dinner hour upon the vagaries of strange cooks — for have we not our own sumptuous larder always to return to, our own accomplished and faithful culinary artist always waiting to minister to our special tastes ? We can walk and sleep, stand up or lie down just as we please, in our floating travelling-carriage. We can make our own road, and trespass nowhere. The bores we dread, the letters we don't want to answer, cannot follow and annoy us. We are the freest tra- vellers under Heaven ; and we find something to interest and attract us through every hour of the day. The ships we meet, the trimming of our sails, the varying of the weather, the everlasting innumer- able changes of the ocean, afford constant occupation for eye and ear. Sick, indeed, must that libellous traveller have been who first called the sea mono- tonous — sick to death, and perhaps, born brother also to that other traveller of evil renown, the first man who journeyed from Dan to Beersheba, and found all barren. Eest then awhile unemployed, my faithful Black Mirror ! The last scene you have shown me is sufficient to answer the purpose for which I took you up. Towards what point of the compass I may turn after leaving London is more than I can tell ; MY BLACK MIRKOE. 273 but this I know, tliat my next post-horses shall be the winds, my next stages coast-towns, my next road over the open waves. I will be a sea-traveller once more, and will put off resuming my land journeyings until the arrival of that most obliging of all con- venient periods of time — a future opportunity. VOL. I. 27-i SKETCHES OF CHARACTER.— III. SKETCHES OF CHARACTER.— III. MRS. BADGE RY. [Drawn from the Life. By a Gentlemau with No Sensibilities.] Is there any law in England wliicli will protect me from Mrs. Badgery? I am a bachelor, and Mrs. Badgery is a widow. Don't suppose she wants to marry me ! She wants nothing of the sort. She has not attempted to many me ; she would not think of marrying me, even if I asked her. Understand, if you please, at the outset, that my giievance in relation to this widow lady is a grievance of an entirely new kind. Let me begin again. I am a bachelor of a certain age. I have a large circle of acquaintance ; but I solemnly declare that the late Mr. Badgery was never numbered on the list of my friends. I never heard of him in my life ; I never knew that he had left a relict ; I never set eyes on Mrs. Badgery until one fatal morning when I went to see if the fixtures were all right in my new house. My new house is in the suburbs of London. I MRS. BADGERY. 275 loolved at it, liked it, took it. Three times I visited it before I sent my furniture in. Once with a friend, once with a surveyor, once by myself, to throw a sharp eye, as I have already intimated, over the fixtures. The tliird visit marked the fatal occasion on which I first saw Mrs. Badgery. A deep interest attaches to this event, and I shall go into details in describing it. I rang at the bell of the garden-door. The old woman appointed to keep the house answered it I directly saw something strange and confused in her face and manner. Some men would have pondered a little and questioned her. I am by nature impe- tuous and a rusher at conclusions. " Drunk," I said to myself, and walked on into the house perfectly satisfied. I looked into the front parlour. Grate all right, curtain-pole all right, gas chandelier all right. I looked into the back parlour — ditto, ditto, ditto, as we men of business say. I mounted the stairs. Blind on back window right ? Yes ; blind on back window right. I opened the door of the front drawing-room — and there, sitting in the middle of the bare floor, was a large woman on a little camp- stool ! She was dressed in the deepest mourning ; her face was hidden by the tliickest crape veil I ever saw ; and she was groaning softly to herself in the desolate solitude of my new unfurnished house. T 2 276 SKETCHES OF CHARACTER. — III. WHiat did I do ? Do ! I bounced back into the landing as if I had been shot, uttering the national exclamation of terror and astoinshment : "Hullo!" (And here I particularly beg, in parenthesis, that the printer will follow my spelling of the word, and not put Hillo, or Halloa, instead, both of which are senseless compromises which represent no sound that ever yet issued from an Englishman's lips.) I said, " Hullo ! " and then I turned round fiercely upon the old woman who kept the house, and said "Hullo !" again. She understood the irresistible appeal that I had made to her feelings, and cui'tseyed, and looked towards the drawing-room, and humbly hoped that I was not startled or put out. I asked who the crape- covered woman on the camp-stool was, and what she wanted there. Before the old woman could answer, the soft groaning in the drawing-room ceased, and a muffled voice, speaking from behind the crape veil, addressed me reproachfully, and said : " I am the widow of the late Mr. Badgery." What do you think I said in answer? Exactly the words which, I flatter myself, any other sensible man in my situation would have said. And what words were they ? These two : "Oh, indeed?" "Mr. Badgery and myself were the last tenants who inhabited this house," continued the muffled MKS. BADGERY. 277 voice. " Mr. Badgery died here." The voice ceased, and the soft groans began again. It was perhaps not necessary to answer this ; but I did answer it. How ? In two words again : "Did he?" "Our house has been long empty," resumed the voice, choked by sobs. " Our establishment has been broken up. Being left in reduced circum- stances, I now live in a cottage near ; but it is not home to me. This is home. However long I live, wherever I go, whatever changes may happen to this beloved house, nothing can ever prevent me from looking on it as my home. I came here, sir, with Mr. Badgery after our honeymoon. All the brief happiness of my life was once contained within these four walls. Every dear remembrance that I fondly cherish is shut up in these sacred rooms." Again the voice ceased, and again the soft groans echoed round my empty walls, and oozed out past me down my uncarpeted staircase. I reflected. Mrs. Badgery's brief happiness and dear remembrances were not included in the list of fixtures. Why could she not take them away with her ? Why should she leave them Kttered about in the way of my furnitui^e ? I was just thinking how I could put this view of the case strongly to Mrs. Bad- gery, when she suddenly left off groaning, and addressed me once more. 278 SKETCHES OF CHARACTER. — III. " While this house has been empty," she said, " I have been in the habit of looking in from time to time, and renewing my tender associations with the place. I have lived, as it were, in the sacred memories of Mr. Badgery and of the past, which these dear, these priceless rooms call up, dismantled and dusty as they are at the present moment. It has been my practice to give a remuneration to the attendant for any slight trouble that I might occa- sion " '•'Only sixpence, sir," whispered the old woman, close at my ear. "And to ask nothing in return," continued Mrs. Badgery, "but the permission to bring my camp- stool with me, and to meditate on Mr. Badgery in the empty rooms, with every one of which some happy thought, or eloquent word, or tender action of his, is everlastingly associated. I came here on my usual errand to-day. I am discovered, I presume, by the new proprietor of the house — discovered, I am quite ready to admit, as an intruder. I am willing to go, if you wish it after hearing my expla- nation. My heart is full, sir ; I am quite incapable of contending with you. You would hardly think it, but I am sitting on the spot once occupied by our ottoman. I am looking towards the window in which my flower-stand once stood. In this very place, Mr. Badgery first sat down and clasped me to his MRS. BADGERY. 279 heart, when we came back from our honeymoon trip. ' Matilda,' he said, * your drawing-room has been expensively papered, carpeted, and furnished for a month ; but it has only been adorned, love, since you entered it.' If you have no sympathy, sir, for such remembrances as these ; if you see nothing pitiable in my position, taken in connection with my presence here ; if you cannot enter into my feelings, and thoroughly understand that this is not a house, but a Shrine — you have only to say so, and I am quite willing to go." She spoke with the air of a martyr — a martyr to my insensibility. If she had been the proprietor and I had been the intruder, she could not have been more mournfully magnanimous. All this time, too, she never raised her veil — she never has raised it, in my presence, from that time to this, I have no idea whether she is young or old, dark or fair, handsome or ugly : my impression is, that she is in every respect a finished and perfect Gorgon ; but I have no basis of fact on which I can support that horrible idea. A moving mass of crape, and a muffled voice — that, if you drive me to it, is all I know, in a personal point of view, of Mrs. Badgery. " Ever since my irreparable loss, this has been the shrine of my pilgrimage, and the altar of my wor- ship," proceeded the voice. "One man may call himself a landlord, and say that he will let it; 280 SKETCHES OF CHARACTER. — III. anotlier man may call himself a tenant, and say that he will take it. I don't blame either of those two men ; I don't wish to intrude on either of those two men ; I only tell them that this is my home ; that my heart is still in possession, and that no mortal laws, landlords, or tenants can ever turn it out. If you don't understand this, sir ; if the hoHest feelings that do honour to our common nature have no parti- cular sanctity in your estimation, pray do not scruple to say so ; pray tell me to go." " I don't wish to do anything uncivil, ma'am," said I. " But I am a single man, and I am not sen- timental." (Mrs. Badgery groaned.) " Nobody told me I was coming into a Shrine when I took this house ; nobody warned me, when I first went over it that there was a Heart in possession. I regret to have disturbed your meditations, and I am sorry to hear that Mr. Badgery is dead. That is all I have to say about it ; and now, with your kind permission, I wdU do myseK the honour of washing you good morning, and will go up-stairs to look after the fixtures on the second floor." Could I have given a gentler hint than this? Could I have spoken more compassionately to a woman whom I sincerely believe to be old and ugly ? Where is the man to be found who can lay his hand on his heart, and honestly say that he ever really pitied the sorrows of a Gorgon ? Se -ich thiough the MKS. BADGEKY. 281 whole surface of the globe, and you will discover human phenomena of all sorts ; but you will not find that man. To resume. I made her a bow, and left her on the camp-stool, in the middle of the drawing-room floor, exactly as I had found her. I ascended to the second floor, walked into the back room first, and inspected the grate. It appeared to be a little out of repair, so I stooped down to look at it closer. AVhile I was kneeling over the bars, I was violently startled by the fall of one large drop of Warm Water, from a great height, exactly in the middle of a bald place, which has been widening a great deal of late years on the top of my head. I turned on my knees, and looked round. Heaven and earth ! the crape-covered woman had followed me up-stairs — the source from which the drop of warm water had fallen was Mrs. Badgery's eye ! " I wish you could contrive not to cry over the top of my head, ma'am," I remarked. My patience was becoming exhausted, and I spoke with consider- able asperity. The curly-headed youth of the present age may not be able to sympathise with my feelings on this occasion ; but my bald bretlnren know, as well as I do, that the most unpardonable of all liberties is a liberty taken with the unguarded top of the human head. Mrs. Badgery did not seem to hear me. When she 282 SKETCHES OF CHARACTEE.— III. had dropped the tear, she was standing exactly over me, looking down at the grate ; and she never stirred an inch after I had spoken. " Don't cry over my head, ma'am," I repeated, more irritably than before. " This was his dressing-room," said Mrs. Badgery, indulging in muffled soliloquy. " He was singularly particular about his shaving-water. He always liked to have it in a little tin pot, and he invariably de- sired that it might be placed on this hob." She groaned again, and tapped one side of the grate with the leg of her camp-stool. If I had been a woman, or if j\Irs. Badgery had been a man, I should now have proceeded to ex- tremities, and should have vindicated my right to my own house by an appeal to physical force. Under existing circumstances, all that I could do was to express my indignation by a glance. The glance produced not the slightest result — and no wonder. Who can look at a woman with any effect, through a crape veil ? I retreated into the second-floor front room, and instantly shut the door after me. The next moment I heard the inistliug of the crape garments outside, and the muffled voice of 3Irs. Badgery poured lamentably through the keyhole. " Do you mean to make that your bed-room ? " asked the voice on the other side of the door. " Oh, don't, don't make that your bed-room ! I am going MRS. BADGERY. 283 away directly — ^but, oh pray, pray let tliat one room be sacred ! Don't sleep there ! If you can possibly help it, don't sleep there ! " I opened the window, and loolved up and down tlie road. If I had seen a pohceman within hail I should certainly have called him in. No such person was visible. I shut the window again, and warned Mrs. Badger y, through the door, in my sternest tones, not to interfere with my domestic arrangements. "I mean to have my own iron bedstead put up here," I said. "And what is more, I mean to sleep here. And what is more, I mean to snore here ! " Severe, I think, that last sentence ? It completely crushed Mrs. Badgery for the moment. I heard the crape garments rustling away from the door ; I heard the muffled groans going slowly and solemnly down the stairs again. In due course of time I also descended to the ground-floor. Had Mrs. Badgery really left the premises ? I looked into the front parlour — empty. Back parlour — empty. Any other room on the ground-floor ? Yes ; a long room at the end of the 23assage. The door was closed. I opened it cau- tiously, and peeped in. A faint scream, and a smack of two distractedly-clasped hands saluted my appearance. There she was, again on the camp-stool, again sitting exactly in the middle of the floor. "Don't, don't look in, in that way!" cried Mi-s. 284 SKETCHES OF CHARACTEE. — III. Badgeiy, wringing her hands. "I could bear it in any other room, but I can't bear it in this. Every Monday morning I looked out the things for the wash in this room. He was difficult to please about his linen ; the washerwoman never put starch enough into his collars to satisfy him. Oh, how often and often has he popped his head in here, as you popped yours just now ; and said, in his amusing way, * More starch ! ' Oh, how di'oll he always was — how very, very droll in this dear little back room ! " I said nothing. The situation had now got beyond words. I stood with the door in my hand, looking down the passage towards the garden, and waiting doggedly for Mrs. Badgery to go out. My plan succeeded. She rose, sighed, shut up the camp- stool, stalked along the passage, paused on the hall mat, said to herself, " Sweet, sweet spot ! " descended the steps, groaned along the gravel-walk, and dis- appeared from view at last through the garden- door. " Let her in again at your peril," said I to the woman who kept the house. She curtseyed and trembled. I left the premises, satisfied with my own conduct under very trying circumstances; de- lusively convinced also that I had done with Mrs. Badgery. The next day I sent in the furniture. The most unprotected object on the face of this earth is a house MRS. BADGERY. 285 when the furniture is going in. The doors must be kept open; and employ as many servants as you may, nobody can be depended on as a domestic sentry so long as the van is at the gate. The con- fusion of " moving in " demoralises the steadiest dis- position, and there is no such thing as a properly- guarded post from the top of the house to the bottom. How the invasion was managed, how the surprise was effected, I know not ; but it is certainly the fact, that when my furniture went in, the inevit- able Mrs. Badgery went in along with it. I have some very choice engravings, after the old masters; and I was first awakened to a conscious- ness of Mrs. Badgery's presence in the house, wliile I was hanging up my proof impression of Titian's Venus over the front parlour fire-place. " Not there ! " cried the muffled voice imploringly. '^ His portrait used to hang there. Oh, what a print — what a dread- ful, dreadful print to put where Jiis dear portrait used to be ! " I turned round in a fury. There she was, still muffled up in crape, still carrying her abominable camp-stool. Before I could say a word in remon- strance, six men in green baize aprons staggered in with my sideboard, and Mrs. Badgery suddenly dis- appeared. Had they trampled her under foot, or crushed her in the doorway? Though not an in- human man by nature, I asked myself those ques- 286 SKETCHES OF CHAEACTER. — III. tions quite composedly. No very long time elapsed before they were practically answered in the nega- tive by the reappearance of Mrs. Badgery herself, in a perfectly unruffled condition of chronic grief. In the course of the day I had my toes trodden on, I was knocked about by my own furniture, the six men in baize aprons dropped all sorts of small articles over me in going up and do^vn stairs ; but Mrs. Badgery escaped unscathed. Every time I thought she had been turned out of the house she proved, on the contrary, to be groaning close beliind me. She wept over Mr. Badgery's memory in every room, perfectly undisturbed to the last, by the chaotic confusion of moving in. I am not sure, but I think she brought a tin box of sandwiches with her, and celebrated a tearful pic-nic of her own in the groves of my front garden. I say I am not sure of this; but I am positively certain that I never entirely got rid of her all day ; and I know to my cost that she insisted on making me as well ac- quainted with Mr. Badgery's favourite notions and habits as I am with my own. It may interest the reader if I report that my taste in carpets is not equal to Mr. Badgery's ; that my ideas on the sub- ject of servants' wages are not so generous as Mr. Badgery's; and that I ignorantly persisted in placing a sofa in the position which Mr. Badgery, in his time, considered to be particularly fitted fur an arm- MRS. BADGERY. 287 chair. I could go nowhere, look nowhere, do nothing, say nothing, all that day, without bringing the widowed incubus in the crape garments down upon me immediately. I tried civil remonstrances, I tried rude speeches, I tried sulky silence — nothing had the least effect on her. The memory of Mr. Badgeiy was the shield of proof with which she warded off my fiercest attacks. Not till the last article of fur- niture had been moved in, did I lose sight of her ; and even then she had not really left the house. One of my six men in green baize aprons routed her out of the back-garden area, where she was telling my servants, with floods of tears, of Mr, Badgery's virtuous strictness with his housemaid in the matter of followers. My admirable man in green baize courageously saw her out, and shut the garden-door after her. I gave liim half-a-crown on the spot ; and if anything happens to him, I am ready to make the future prosperity of liis fatherless family my own peculiar care. The next day was Sunday ; and I attended morn- ing service at my new parish church. A popular preacher had been announced, and the building was crowded. I advanced a little way up the nave, and looked to my right, and saw no room. Before I could look to my left, I felt a hand laid persuasively on my arm. I turned round — and there was Mrs. Badgery, with her pew-door open, solemnly 288 SKETCHES OF CHAEACTER.— III. beckoDing me in. The crowd had closed up behind me ; the eyes of a dozen members of the congrega- tion, at least, were fixed on me. I had no choice but to save appearances, and accept the dreadful invitation. There was a vacant place next to the door of the pew. I tried to drop into it, but Mrs. Badgery stopped me. ^^ His seat," she whispered, and signed to me to place myself on the other side of her. It is unnecessary to say that I had to climb over a hassock, and that I knocked down all Mrs. Badgery's devotional books before I succeeded in passing between her and the front of the pew. She cried uninterruptedly through the service ; composed herself when it was over ; and began to tell me what Mr. Badgery's opinions had been on points of abstract theology. Fortunately there was great confusion and crowding at the door of the church ; and I escaped, at the hazard of my life, by running round the back of the carriages. I passed the interval between the services alone in the fields, being deterred from going home by the fear that Mrs. Badgery might have got there before me. Monday came. I positively ordered my serv^ants to let no lady in deep mourning pass inside the garden-door, without first consulting me. After that, feeling tolerably secure, I occupied myself in arrang- ing my books and prints. I had not pursued this employment much more MRS. BADGERY. 289 than an hour, when one of the servants burst excit- ably into the room, and informed me that a lady in deep mourning had been taken faint, just outside my door, and had requested leave to come in and sit down for a few moments, I ran down the garden- path to bolt the door, and arrived just in time to see it violently pushed open by an officious and sym- pathising crowd. They drew away on either side as they saw me. There she was, leaning on the gi-ocer's shoulder, with the butcher's boy in attendance, carry- ing her camp-stool ! Leaving my servants to do wliat they liked with lier, I ran back and locked my- self up in my bedi'oom. When she evacuated the premises, some hours afterwards, I received a mes- sage of apology, informing me that this particular Monday was the sad aimiversary of her wedding-day, and that she had been taken faint, in consequence, at the sight of her lost husband's house. Tuesday forenoon passed away happily, without any new invasion. After lunch, I thought I would go out and take a walk. My garden-door has a sort of peep-hole in it, covered with a v^dre grating. As I got close to this grating, I thought I saw something mysteriously dark on the outer side of it. I bent my head down to look through, and instantly found my- self face to face with the crape veil. " Sweet, sweet spot ! " said the muffled voice, speaking straight into my eyes through the grating. The usual groans fol- VOL. I. U 290 SKETCHES OF CHARACTER. — III. lowed, and the name of Mr. Badgery was plaintively pronounced before I could recover myself sufficiently to retreat to the house. Wednesday is the day on which I am writing this narrative. It is not twelve o'clock yet, and there is every probability that some new form of sentimental persecution is in store for me before the evening. Thus far, these lines contain a perfectly true state- ment of Mrs. Badgery's conduct towards me since I entered on the possession of my house and her shrine. What am I to do ? — that is the point I wish to insist on — what am I to do ? How am I to get away from the memory of Mr. Badgery, and the unappeasable grief of his disconsolate widow ? Any other species of invasion it is possible to resist ; but how is a man placed in my unhappy and unparalleled circum- stances to defend himself? I can't keep a dog ready to fly at Mrs. Badgery. I can't charge her at a police-court with being oppressively fond of the house in which her husband died. I can't set man- traps for a woman, or prosecute a weeping widow as a trespasser and a nuisance. I am helplessly involved in the unrelaxing folds of Mrs. Badgery's crape veil. Surely there was no exaggeration in my language when I said that I was a sufferer under a perfectly new grievance ! Can anybody advise me ? Has anybody had even the remotest experience of the peculiar form of persecution which I am now endur- MRS. BADGERY. 291 ing ? If nobody has, is there any legal gentleman in the United Kingdom who can answer the all- important question which appears at the head of this narrative? I began by asking that question because it was uppermost in my mind. It is upper- most in my mind still, and I therefore beg leave to conclude appropriately by asking it again : Is there any law in England which will protect me from Mrs. Badgery ? END OF VOL. I. LONDON : 1 EIKTED BY "VV. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STIIEET, AND CHAKING CROSS. /: m^:r^^ fm^'' m.:J^. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 3 0112 041683837 1 '^%f^h. ^<^ Mi^^!l.!i BBATT.TfJ^n^H^ fli i.)^'^*^7 t4