Read Ebook: The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Volume 07 by Lytton Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron

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Ebook has 133 lines and 16528 words, and 3 pages

"And that idea?" said I, despondently.

"That idea," quoth Uncle Jack, recovering himself, "is simply and shortly this. From time immemorial, authors have been the prey of the publishers. Sir, authors have lived in garrets, nay, have been choked in the street by an unexpected crumb of bread, like the man who wrote the play, poor fellow!"

"Otway," said my father. "The story is not true,--no matter."

"Milton, sir, as everybody knows, sold 'Paradise Lost' for ten pounds,-- ten pounds, Sir! In short, instances of a like nature are too numerous to quote.--But the booksellers, sir, they are leviathans; they roll in seas of gold; they subsist upon authors as vampires upon little children. But at last endurance has reached its limit; the fiat has gone forth; the tocsin of liberty has resounded: authors have burst their fetters. And we have just inaugurated the institution of 'The Grand Anti-Publisher Confederate Authors' Society,' by which, Pisistratus, by which, mark you, every author is to be his own publisher; that is, every author who joins the society. No more submission of immortal works to mercenary calculators, to sordid tastes; no more hard bargains and broken hearts; no more crumbs of bread choking great tragic poets in the streets; no more Paradises Lost sold at L10 a- piece! The author brings his book to a select committee appointed for the purpose,--men of delicacy, education, and refinement, authors themselves; they read it, the society publish; and after a modest deduction, which goes towards the funds of the society, the treasurer hands over the profits to the author."

"So that, in fact, uncle, every author who can't find a publisher anywhere else will of course come to the society. The fraternity will be numerous."

"It will indeed."

"And the speculation--ruinous."

"Ruinous, why?"

"Because in all mercantile negotiations it is ruinous to invest capital in supplies which fail of demand. You undertake to publish books that booksellers will not publish: why? Because booksellers can't sell them. It's just probable that you'll not sell them any better than the booksellers. Ergo, the more your business, the larger your deficit; and the more numerous your society, the more disastrous your condition. Q. E. D."

"Pooh! The select committee will decide what books are to be published."

"Then where the deuce is the advantage to the authors? I would as lief submit; my work to a publisher as I would to a select committee of authors. At all events, the publisher is not my rival; and I suspect he is the best judge, after all, of a book,--as an accoucheur ought to be of a baby."

"Upon my word, nephew, you pay a bad compliment to your father's Great Work, which the booksellers will have nothing to do with."

That was artfully said, and I was posed; when Mr. Caxton observed, with an apologetic smile,--

"The fact is, my dear Pisistratus, that I want my book published without diminishing the little fortune I keep for you some day. Uncle Jack starts a society so to publish it. Health and long life to Uncle Jack's society! One can't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Here we three are seated round the open window--after dinner--familiar as in the old happy time--and my mother is talking low, that she may not disturb my father, who seems in thought--

Cr-cr-crrr-cr-cr! I feel it--I have it. Where! What! Where! Knock it down; brush it off! For Heaven's sake, see to it! Crrrr-crrrrr-- there--here--in my hair--in my sleeve--in my ear--cr-cr.

I say solemnly, and on the word of a Christian, that as I sat down to begin this chapter, being somewhat in a brown study, the pen insensibly slipped from my hand, and leaning back in my chair, I fell to gazing in the fire. It is the end of June, and a remarkably cold evening, even for that time of year. And while I was so gazing I felt something crawling just by the nape of the neck, ma'am. Instinctively and mechanically, and still musing, I put my hand there, and drew forth What? That what it is which perplexes me. It was a thing--a dark thing--a much bigger thing than I had expected. And the sight took me so by surprise that I gave my hand a violent shake, and the thing went-- where I know not. The what and the where are the knotty points in the whole question! No sooner had it gone than I was seized with repentance not to have examined it more closely; not to have ascertained what the creature was. It might have been an earwig,--a very large, motherly earwig; an earwig far gone in that way in which earwigs wish to be who love their lords. I have a profound horror of earwigs; I firmly believe that they do get into the ear. That is a subject on which it is useless to argue with me upon philosophical grounds. I have a vivid recollection of a story told me by Mrs. Primmins,--how a lady for many years suffered under the most excruciating headaches; how, as the tombstones say, "physicians were in vain;" how she died; and how her head was opened, and how such a nest of earwigs, ma'am, such a nest! Earwigs are the prolifickest things, and so fond of their offspring! They sit on their eggs like hens, and the young, as soon as they are born, creep under them for protection,--quite touchingly! Imagine such an establishment domesticated at one's tympanum!

But the creature was certainly larger than an earwig. It might have been one of that genus in the family of Forficulidce called Labidoura,-- monsters whose antennae have thirty joints! There is a species of this creature in England--but to the great grief of naturalists, and to the great honor of Providence, very rarely found--infinitely larger than the common earwig, or Forfaculida auriculana. Could it have been an early hornet? It had certainly a black head and great feelers. I have a greater horror of hornets, if possible, than I have of earwigs. Two hornets will kill a man, and three a carriage-horse sixteen hands high. However, the creature was gone. Yes, but where? Where had I so rashly thrown it? It might have got into a fold of my dressing-gown or into my slippers, or, in short, anywhere, in the various recesses for earwigs and hornets which a gentleman's habiliments afford. I satisfy myself at last as far as I can, seeing that I am not alone in the room, that it is not upon me. I look upon the carpet, the rug, the chair under the fender. It is non inventus. I barbarously hope it is frizzing behind that great black coal in the grate. I pluck up courage; I prudently remove to the other end of the room. I take up my pen, I begin my chapter,--very nicely, too, I think upon the whole. I am just getting into my subject, when--cr-cr-er-cr-er--crawl--crawl--crawl--creep-- creep--creep. Exactly, my dear ma'am, in the same place it was before! Oh, by the Powers! I forgot all my scientific regrets at not having scrutinized its genus before, whether Forfaculida or Labidoura. I made a desperate lunge with both hands,--something between thrust and cut, ma'am. The beast is gone. Yes, but, again, where? I say that where is a very horrible question. Having come twice, in spite of all my precautions--and exactly on the same spot, too--it shows a confirmed disposition to habituate itself to its quarters, to effect a parochial settlement upon me; there is something awful and preternatural in it. I assure you that there is not a part of me that has not gone cr-cr-cr!-- that has not crept, crawled, and forficulated ever since; and I put it to you what sort of a chapter I can make after such a--My good little girl, will you just take the candle and look carefully under the table? that's a dear! Yes, my love, very black indeed, with two horns, and inclined to be corpulent. Gentlemen and ladies who have cultivated an acquaintance with the Phcenician language are aware that Beelzebub, examined etymologically and entomologically, is nothing more nor less than Baalzebub, "the Jupiter-fly," an emblem of the Destroying Attribute, which attribute, indeed, is found in all the insect tribes more or less. Wherefore, as--Mr. Payne Knight, in his "Inquiry into Symbolical Languages," hath observed, the Egyptian priests shaved their whole bodies, even to their eyebrows, lest unaware they should harbor any of the minor Zebubs of the great Baal. If I were the least bit more persuaded that that black cr-cr were about me still, and that the sacrifice of my eyebrows would deprive him of shelter, by the souls of the Ptolemies I would,--and I will too! Icing the bell, my little dear! John, my--my cigar-box! There is not a cr in the world that can abide the fumes of the havana! Pshaw! sir, I am not the only man who lets his first thoughts upon cold steel end, like this chapter, in--Pff--pff-- pff!

Everything in this world is of use, even a black thing crawling over the nape of one's neck! Grim unknown, I shall make of thee--a simile!

I think, ma'am, you will allow that if an incident such as I have described had befallen yourself, and you had a proper and lady-like horror of earwigs , and also of early hornets,--and indeed of all unknown things of the insect tribe with black heads and two great horns, or feelers, or forceps, just by your ear,--I think, ma'am, you will allow that you would find it difficult to settle back to your former placidity of mood and innocent stitch-work. You would feel a something that grated on your nerves and cr'd-cr'd "all over you like," as the children say. And the worst is, that you would be ashamed to say it. You would feel obliged to look pleased and join in the conversation, and not fidget too much, nor always be shaking your flounces and looking into a dark corner of your apron. Thus it is with many other things in life besides black insects. One has a secret care, an abstraction, a something between the memory and the feeling, of a dark crawling cr which one has never dared to analyze. So I sat by my another, trying to smile and talk as in the old time, but longing to move about, and look around, and escape to my own solitude, and take the clothes off my mind, and see what it was that had so troubled and terrified me; for trouble and terror were upon me. And my mother, who was always inquisitive enough in all that concerned her darling Anachronism, was especially inquisitive that evening. She made me say where I had been, and what I had done, and how I had spent my time; and Fanny Trevanion , oh, she must know exactly what I thought of Fanny Trevanion!

And all this while my father seemed in thought; and so, with my arm over my mother's chair, and my hand in hers, I answered my mother's questions, sometimes by a stammer, sometimes by a violent effort at volubility; when at some interrogatory that went tingling right to my heart I turned uneasily, and there were my father's eyes fixed on mine, fixed as they had been when, and none knew why, I pined and languished, and my father said, "He must go to school;" fixed with quiet, watchful tenderness. Ah, no! his thoughts had not been on the Great Work; he had been deep in the pages of that less worthy one for which he had yet more an author's paternal care. I met those eyes and yearned to throw myself on his heart and tell him all. Tell him what? Ma'am, I no more knew what to tell him than I know what that black thing was which has so worried me all this blessed evening!

"Pisistratus," said my father, softly, "I fear you have forgotten the saffron bag."

"No, indeed, sir," said I, smiling.

"He," resumed my father, "he who wears the saffron bag has more cheerful, settled spirits than you seem to have, my poor boy."

"My dear Austin, his spirits are very good, I think," said my mother, anxiously.

My father shook his head; then he took two or three turns about the room.

"Shall I ring for candles, sir? It is getting dark; you will wish to read."

"No, Pisistratus, it is you who shall read; and this hour of twilight best suits the book I am about to open to you."

So saying, he drew a chair between me and my mother and seated himself gravely, looking down a long time in silence, then turning his eyes to each of us alternately.

"My dear wife," said he, at length, almost solemnly, "I am going to speak of myself as I was before I knew you."

Even in the twilight I saw that my mother's countenance changed.

"You have respected my secrets, Katherine, tenderly, honestly. Now the time is come when I can tell them to you and to our son."

MY FATHER'S FIRST LOVE.

"I lost my mother early; my father--a good man, but who was so indolent that he rarely stirred from his chair, and who often passed whole days without speaking, like an Indian dervish--left Roland and myself to educate ourselves much according to our own tastes. Roland shot and hunted and fished, read all the poetry and books of chivalry to be found in my father's collection, which was rich in such matters, and made a great many copies of the old pedigree,--the only thing in which my father ever evinced much vital interest. Early in life I conceived a passion for graver studios, and by good luck I found a tutor in Mr. Tibbets, who, but for his modesty, Kitty, would have rivalled Porson. He was a second Budaeus for industry,--and, by the way, he said exactly the same thing that Budmus did, namely, 'That the only lost day in his life was that in which he was married; for on that day he had only had six hours for reading'! Under such a master I could not fail to be a scholar. I came from the university with such distinction as led me to look sanguinely on my career in the world.

"I returned to my father's quiet rectory to pause and consider what path I should take to faire. The rectory was just at the foot of the hill, on the brow of which were the ruins of the castle Roland has since purchased. And though I did not feel for the ruins the same romantic veneration as my dear brother , I yet loved to climb the hill, book in hand, and built my castles in the air midst the wrecks of that which time had shattered on the earth.

"Now, on hearing my name Lord Rainsforth took my hand cordially, and leading me to his daughter, said, 'Think, Ellinor, how fortunate!--this is the Mr. Caxton whom your brother so often spoke of.'

"In short, my dear Pisistratus, the ice was broken, the acquaintance made; and Lord Rainsforth, saying he was come to atone for his long absence from the county, and to reside at Compton the greater part of the year, pressed me to visit him. I did so. Lord Raipsforth's liking to me increased; I went there often."

My father paused, and seeing my mother had fixed her eyes upon him with a sort of mournful earnestness, and had pressed her hands very tightly together, he bent down and kissed her forehead.

"Lady Ellinor shared her father's tastes and habits of thought . Lord Rainsforth talked to me of my career. It was a time when the French Revolution had made statesmen look round with some anxiety to strengthen the existing order of things, by alliance with all in the rising generation who evinced such ability as might influence their contemporaries.

"Everything seemed possible to me then. I read some months. I began to see my way even in that short time,--began to comprehend what would be the difficulties before me, and to feel there was that within me which could master them. I took a holiday and returned to Cumberland. I found Roland there on my return. Always of a roving, adventurous temper, though he had not then entered the army, he had, for more than two years, been wandering over Great Britain and Ireland on foot. It was a young knight-errant whom I embraced, and who overwhelmed me with reproaches that I should be reading for the law. There had never been a lawyer in the family! It was about that time, I think, that I petrified him with the discovery of the printer! I knew not exactly wherefore, whether from jealousy, fear, foreboding, but it certainly was a pain that seized me when I learned from Roland that he had become intimate at Compton Hall. Roland and Lord Rainsforth had met at the house of a neighboring gentleman, and Lord Rainsforth had welcomed his acquaintance, at first, perhaps, for my sake, afterwards for his own.

"I could not for the life of me," continued my father, "ask Roland if he admired Ellinor; but when I found that he did not put that question to me, I trembled!

"We went to Compton together, speaking little by the way. We stayed there some days."

My father here thrust his hand into his waistcoat. All men have their little ways, which denote much; and when my father thrust his hand into his waistcoat, it was always a sign of some mental effort,--he was going to prove or to argue, to moralize or to preach. Therefore, though I was listening before with all my ears, I believe I had, speaking magnetically and mesmerically, an extra pair of ears, a new sense supplied to me, when my father put his hand into his waistcoat.

"There is not a mystical creation, type, symbol, or poetical invention for meanings abtruse, recondite, and incomprehensible which is not represented by the female gender," said my father, having his hand quite buried in his waistcoat. "For instance, the Sphinx and Isis, whose veil no man had ever lifted, were both ladies, Kitty! And so was Persephone, who must be always either in heaven or hell; and Hecate, who was one thing by night and another by day. The Sibyls were females, and so were the Gorgons, the Harpies, the Furies, the Fates, and the Teutonic Valkyrs, Nornies, and Hela herself; in short, all representations of ideas obscure, inscrutable, and portentous, are nouns feminine."

Heaven bless my father! Augustine Caxton was himself again! I began to fear that the story had slipped away from him, lost in that labyrinth of learning. But luckily, as he paused for breath, his look fell on those limpid blue eyes of my mother, and that honest open brow of hers, which had certainly nothing in common with Sphinxes, Fates, Furies, or Valkyrs; and whether his heart smote him, or his reason made him own that he had fallen into a very disingenuous and unsound train of assertion, I know not, but his front relaxed, and with a smile he resumed: "Ellinor was the last person in the world to deceive any one willingly. Did she deceive me and Roland, that we both, though not conceited men, fancied that, if we had dared to speak openly of love, we had not so dared in vain; or do you think, Kitty, that a woman really can love two or three, or half a dozen, at a time?"

"Impossible!" cried my mother. "And as for this Lady Ellinor, I am shocked at her--I don't know what to call it!"

"Nor I either, my dear," said my father, slowly taking his hand from his waistcoat, as if the effort were too much for him, and the problem were insoluble. "But this, begging your pardon, I do think, that before a young woman does really, truly, and cordially centre her affections on one object, she suffers fancy, imagination, the desire of power, curiosity, or Heaven knows what, to stimulate, even to her own mind, pale reflections of the luminary not yet risen,--parhelia that precede the sun. Don't judge of Roland as you see him now, Pisistratus,--grim, and gray, and formal: imagine a nature soaring high amongst daring thoughts, or exuberant with the nameless poetry of youthful life, with a frame matchless for bounding elasticity, an eye bright with haughty fire, a heart from which noble sentiments sprang like sparks from an anvil. Lady Ellinor had an ardent, inquisitive imagination. This bold, fiery nature must have moved her interest. On the other hand, she had an instructed, full, and eager mind. Am I vain if I say, now after the lapse of so many years, that in my mind her intellect felt companionship? When a woman loves and marries and settles, why then she becomes a one whole, a completed being. But a girl like Ellinor has in her many women. Various herself, all varieties please her. I do believe that if either of us had spoken the word boldly, Lady Ellinor would have shrunk back to her own heart, examined it, tasked it, and given a frank and generous answer; and he who had spoken first might have had the better chance not to receive a 'No.' But neither of us spoke. And perhaps she was rather curious to know if she had made an impression, than anxious to create it. It was not that she willingly deceived us, but her whole atmosphere was delusion. Mists come before the sunrise. However this be, Roland and I were not long in detecting each other. And hence arose, first coldness, then jealousy, then quarrel."

"Oh, my father, your love must have been indeed powerful to have made a breach between the hearts of two such brothers!"

"Yes," said my father, "it was amidst the old ruins of the castle, there where I had first seen Ellinor, that, winding my arm round Roland's neck as I found--him seated amongst the weeds and stones, his face buried in his hands,--it was there that I said, "Brother, we both love this woman! My nature is the calmer of the two, I shall feel the loss less. Brother, shake hands! and God speed you, for I go!"

"Austin!" murmured my mother, sinking her head on my father's breast.

"And therewith we quarrelled. For it was Roland who insisted, while the tears rolled down his eyes and he stamped his foot on the ground, that he was the intruder, the interloper; that he had no hope; that he had been a fool and a madman; and that it was for him to go! Now, while we were disputing, and words began to run high, my father's old servant entered the desolate place with a note from Lady Ellinor to me, asking for the loan of some book I had praised. Roland saw the handwriting, and while I turned the note over and over irresolutely, before I broke the seal, he vanished.

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