In middle-class life, and in the professions, when a standard or ideal is tacitly set up, to which every member is expected to conform on pain of having himself talked about, and wise heads shaken over him, the quick feelings of the vagabond are not frequently found. Yet, thanks to Nature, who sends her leafage and flowerage up through all kinds of débris, and who takes a blossomy possession of ruined walls and desert places, it is never altogether dead! And of vagabonds, not the least delightful is he who retains poetry and boyish spirits beneath the crust of a profession. Mr. Carlyle commends "central fire," and very properly commends it most when "well covered in." In the case of a professional man, this "central fire" does not manifest itself in wasteful explosiveness, but in secret genial heat, visible in fruits of charity and pleasant humour. The physician who is a humourist commends himself doubly to a sick-bed. His patients are as much indebted for their cure to his smile, his voice, and a certain irresistible healthfulness that surrounds him, as they are to his skill and his prescriptions. The lawyer who is a humourist is a man of ten thousand. How easily the worldly-wise face, puckered over a stiff brief, relaxes into the lines of laughter. He sees many an evil side of human nature, he is familiar with slanders and injustice, all kinds of human bitterness and falsity; but neither his hand nor his heart becomes "imbued with that it works in," and the little admixture of acid, inevitable from his circumstances and mode of life, but heightens the flavour of his humour. But of all humourists of the professional class, I prefer the clergyman, especially if he is well stricken in years, and has been anchored all his life in a country charge. He is none of your loud wits. There is a lady-like delicacy in his mind, a constant sense of his holy office, which warn him off dangerous subjects. This reserve, however, does but improve the quality of his mirth. What his humour loses in boldness, it gains in depth and slyness. And as the good man has seldom the opportunity of making a joke, or of procuring an auditor who can understand one, the dewy glitter of his eyes, as you sit opposite him, and his heartfelt enjoyment of the matter in hand, are worth going a considerable way to witness. It is not, however, in the professions that the vagabond is commonly found. Over these that awful and ubiquitous female, Mrs. Grundy—at once Fate, Nemesis, and Fury—presides. The glare of her eye is professional danger, the pointing of her finger is professional death. When she utters a man's name, he is lost. The true vagabond is to be met with in other walks of life,—among actors, poets, painters. These may grow in any way their nature directs. They are not required to conform to any traditional pattern. With regard to the respectabilities and the "minor morals," the world permits them to be libertines. Besides, it is a temperament peculiarly sensitive, or generous, or enjoying, which at the beginning impels these to their special pursuits; and that temperament, like everything else in the world, strengthens with use, and grows with what it feeds on. We look upon an actor, sitting amongst ordinary men and women, with a certain curiosity,—we regard him as a creature from another planet, almost. His life and his world are quite different from ours. The orchestra, the foot-lights, and the green baize curtain, divide us. He is a monarch half his time—his entrance and his exit proclaimed by flourish of trumpet. He speaks in blank verse, is wont to take his seat at gilded banquets, to drink nothing out of a pasteboard goblet. The actor's world has a history amusing to read, and lines of noble and splendid traditions, stretching back to charming Nelly's time, and earlier. The actor has strange experiences. He sees the other side of the moon. We roar at Grimaldi's funny face: he sees the lines of pain in it. We hear Romeo wish to be "a glove upon that hand that he might touch that cheek:" three minutes afterwards he beholds Romeo refresh himself with a pot of porter. We see the Moor, who "loved not wisely, but too well," smother Desdemona with the nuptial bolster: he sees them sit down to a hot supper. We always think of the actor as on the stage: he always thinks of us as in the boxes. In justice to the poets of the present day, it may be noticed that they have improved on their brethren in Johnson's time, who were, according to Lord Macaulay, hunted by bailiffs and familiar with sponging-houses, and who, when hospitably entertained, were wont to disturb the household of the entertainer by roaring for hot punch at four o'clock in the morning. Since that period the poets have improved in the decencies of life: they wear broadcloth, and settle their tailors' accounts even as other men. At this present moment Her Majesty's poets are perhaps the most respectable of Her Majesty's subjects. They are all teetotallers; if they sin, it is in rhyme, and then only to point a moral. In past days the poet flew from flower to flower, gathering his honey; but he bore a sting, too, as the rude hand that touched him could testily. He freely gathers his honey as of old, but the satiric sting has been taken away. He lives at peace with all men—his brethren excepted. About the true poet still there is something of the ancient spirit,—the old "flash and outbreak of the fiery mind,"—the old enthusiasm and dash of humourous eccentricity. But he is fast disappearing from the catalogue of vagabonds—fast getting commonplace, I fear. Many people suspect him of dulness. Besides, such a crowd of well-meaning, amiable, most respectable men have broken down of late years the pales of Parnassus, and become squatters on the sacred mount, that the claim of poets to be a peculiar people is getting disallowed. Never in this world's history were they so numerous; and although some people deny that they are poets, few are cantankerous enough or intrepid enough to assert that they are vagabonds. The painter is the most agreeable of vagabonds. His art is a pleasant one: it demands some little manual exertion, and it takes him at times into the open air. It is pleasant, too, in this, that lines and colours are so much more palpable than words, and the appeal of his work to his practised eye has some satisfaction in it. He knows what he is about. He does not altogether lose his critical sense, as the poet does, when familiarity stales his subject, and takes the splendour out of his images. Moreover, his work is more profitable than the poet's. I suppose there are just as few great painters at the present day as there are great poets; yet the yearly receipts of the artists of England far exceed the receipts of the singers. A picture can usually be painted in less time than a poem can be written. A second-rate picture has a certain market value,—its frame is at least something. A second-rate poem is utterly worthless, and no one will buy it on account of its binding. A picture is your own exclusive property: it is a costly article of furniture. You hang it on your walls, to be admired by all the world. Pictures represent wealth: the possession of them is a luxury. The portrait-painter is of all men the most beloved. You sit to him willingly, and put on your best looks. You are inclined to be pleased with his work, on account of the strong prepossession you entertain for his subject. To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation. It is an admirable excuse for egotism. You would not discourse on the falcon-like curve which distinguishes your nose, or the sweet serenity of your reposing lips, or the mildness of the eye that spreads a light over your countenance, in the presence of a fellow-creature for the whole world; yet you do not hesitate to express the most favourable opinion of the features starting out on you from the wet canvas. The interest the painter takes in his task flatters you. And when the sittings are over, and you behold yourself hanging on your own wall, looking as it you could direct kingdoms or lead armies, you feel grateful to the artist. He ministers to your self-love, and you pay him his hire without wincing. Your heart warms towards him as it would towards a poet who addresses you in an ode of panegyric, the kindling terms of which—a little astonishing to your friends—you believe in your heart of hearts to be the simple truth, and, in the matter of expression, not over-coloured in the very least. The portrait-painter has a shrewd eye for character, and is usually the best anecdote-monger in the world. His craft brings him into contact with many faces, and he learns to compare them curiously, and to extract their meanings. He can interpret wrinkles; he can look through the eyes into the man; he can read a whole foregone history in the lines about the mouth. Besides, from the good understanding which usually exists between the artist and his sitter, the latter is inclined somewhat to unbosom himself; little things leak out in conversation, not much in themselves, but pregnant enough to the painter's sense, who pieces them together, and constitutes a tolerably definite image. The man who paints your face knows you better than your intimate friends do, and has a clearer knowledge of your amiable weaknesses, and of the secret motives which influence your conduct, than you oftentimes have yourself. A good portrait is a kind of biography, and neither painter nor biographer can carry out his task satisfactorily unless he be admitted behind the scenes. I think that the landscape painter, who has acquired sufficient mastery in his art to satisfy his own critical sense, and who is appreciated enough to find purchasers, and thereby to keep the wolf from the door, must be of all mankind the happiest. Other men live in cities, bound down to some settled task and order of life; but he is a nomad, and wherever he goes "Beauty pitches her tents before him." He is smitten by a passionate love for Nature, and is privileged to follow her into her solitary haunts and recesses. Nature is his mistress, and he is continually making declarations of his love. When one thinks of ordinary occupations, how one envies him, flecking his oak-tree boll with sunlight, tinging with rose the cloud of the morning in which the lark is hid, making the sea's swift fringe of foaming lace outspread itself on the level sands, in which the pebbles gleam forever wet. The landscape painter's memory is inhabited by the fairest visions,—dawn burning on the splintered peaks that the eagles know, while the valleys beneath are yet filled with uncertain light; the bright blue morn stretching over miles of moor and mountain; the slow up-gathering of the bellied thunder-cloud; summer lakes, and cattle knee-deep in them; rustic bridges forever crossed by old women in scarlet cloaks; old-fashioned waggons resting on the scrubby common, the waggoner lazy and wayworn, the dog couched on the ground, its tongue hanging out in the heat; boats drawn up on the shore at sunset; the fisher's children looking seawards, the red light full on their dresses and faces; farther back, a clump of cottages, with bait-baskets about the door, and the smoke of the evening meal coiling up into the coloured air. These things are forever with him. Beauty, which is a luxury to other men, is his daily food. Happy vagabond, who lives the whole summer through in the light of his mistress's face, and who does nothing the whole winter except recall the splendour of her smiles!
The vagabond, as I have explained and sketched him, is not a man to tremble at, or avoid as if he wore contagion in his touch. He is upright, generous, innocent, is conscientious in the performance of his duties; and if a little eccentric and fond of the open air, he is full of good nature and mirthful charity. He may not make money so rapidly as you do, but I cannot help thinking that he enjoys life a great deal more. The quick feeling of life, the exuberance or animal spirits which break out in the traveller, the sportsman, the poet, the painter, should be more generally diffused. We should be all the better and all the happier for it. Life ought to be freer, heartier, more enjoyable than it is at present. If the professional fetter must be worn, let it be worn as lightly as possible. It should never be permitted to canker the limbs. We are a free people,—we have an unshackled press,—we have an open platform, and can say our say upon it, no king or despot making us afraid. We send representatives to Parliament; the franchise is always going to be extended. All this is very fine, and we do well to glory in our privileges as Britons. But, although we enjoy greater political freedom than any other people, we are the victims of a petty social tyranny. We are our own despots,—we tremble at a neighbour's whisper. A man may say what he likes on a public platform,—he may publish whatever opinion he chooses,—but he dare not wear a peculiar fashion of hat on the street. Eccentricity is an outlaw. Public opinion blows like the east wind, blighting bud and blossom on the human bough. As a consequence of all this, society is losing picturesqueness and variety,—we are all growing up after one pattern. In other matters than architecture past time may be represented by the wonderful ridge of the Old Town of Edinburgh, where everything is individual and characteristic: the present time by the streets and squares of the New Town, where everything is gray, cold, and respectable; where every house is the other's alter ego. It is true that life is healthier in the formal square than in the piled-up picturesqueness of the Canongate,—quite true that sanitary conditions are better observed,—that pure water flows through every tenement like blood through a human body,—that daylight has free access, and that the apartments are larger and higher in the roof. But every gain is purchased at the expense of some loss; and it is best to combine, if possible, the excellences of the old and the new. By all means retain the modern breadth of light, and range of space; by all means have water plentiful, and bed-chambers ventilated,—but at the same time have some little freak of fancy without,—some ornament about the door, some device about the window,—something to break the cold, gray, stony uniformity; or, to leave metaphor, which is always dangerous ground,—for I really don't wish to advocate Ruskinism and the Gothic,—it would be better to have, along with our modern enlightenment, our higher tastes and purer habits, a greater individuality of thought and manner; better, while retaining all that we have gained, that harmless eccentricity should be respected,—that every man should be allowed to grow in his own way, so long as he does not infringe on the rights of his neighbour, or insolently thrust himself between him and the sun. A little more air and light should be let in upon life. I should think the world has stood long enough under the drill of Adjutant Fashion. It is hard work; the posture is wearisome, and Fashion is an awful martinet, and has a quick eye, and comes down mercilessly on the unfortunate wight who cannot square his toes to the approved pattern, or who appears upon parade with a darn in his coat, or with a shoulder-belt insufficiently pipe-clayed. It is killing work. Suppose we try "standing at ease" for a little!