Few men knew life so thoroughly in every condition, and under every aspect, as the first Napoleon, and he invariably asked, when inquiring into the fitness of a man for a great command, “Is he lucky?” To my own thinking, it would be as truthful to declare that there was no element of luck in whist, as to say there was no such thing as luck in life. Now, all the “prudentia” in the world will not give a man four by honors; and though a good player may make a better fight with a bad hand than an indifferent performer, there is that amount of badness occasionally dealt out that no skill can compensate; and do what he may, he must lose the game.
Now, I am by no means about to set up as a model of prudence, industry, or perseverance; as little can I lay claim to anything like natural ability or cleverness. I am essentially common-place,—one of those men taken “ex medio acervo” of humanity, whose best boast is that they form the staple of the race, and are the majority in all nations.
There is a very pleasant passage in Lockhart's Life of Scott. I cannot lay my hand on it, and may spoil it in the attempt to quote, but the purport is, that one day when Lockhart had used the word “vulgar” in criticising the manners of some people they had been discussing, Sir Walter rebuked him for the mistaken sense he had ascribed to the expression. Vulgar, said he, is only common, and common means general; and what is the general habit and usage of mankind has its base and foundation in a feeling and sentiment that we must not lightly censure. It is, at all events, human.
I wish I could give the text of the passage, for I see how lamentably I have rendered it, but this was the meaning it conveyed to me, and I own I have very often thought over it with comfort and with gratitude.
If the great thinkers—the men of lofty intellects and high-soaring faculties—were but to know how, in vindicating the claims of every-day people to respect and regard, in shielding them from the sneers of smart men and the quips of witty men, they were doing a great and noble work, for which millions of people like myself would bless them, I am certain we should find many more such kindly utterances as that of the great Sir Walter.
I ask pardon for my digression, so selfish as it is, and return to my narrative.
After that famous “fiasco” I made in Ireland, I—as the cant phrase has it—got dark for some time. My temper, which at first sustained me under any amount of banter and ridicule, had begun to give way, and I avoided my relations, who certainly never took any peculiar pains to treat me with delicacy, or had the slightest hesitation in making me a butt for very coarse jokes and very contemptible drollery.
I tried a number of things,—that is, I begun them. I begun to read for the law; I begun a novel; I begun to attend divinity lectures; I got a clerkship in a public office, as supernumerary; I was employed as traveller to a house in the wooden-clock trade; I was secretary to an Association for the Protection of Domestic Cats, and wrote the prospectus for the “Cats' Home:” but it's no use entering into details. I failed in all; and to such an extent of notoriety had my ill-fortune now attained, that the very mention of my name in connection with a new project would have sentenced it at once to ruin.
Over and over again have I heard my “friends,” when whispering together over some new scheme, mutter, “Of course Paul is to have nothing to do with it,” “Take care that Paul Gosslett is n't in it,” and such-like intimations, that gave me the sensation of being a sort of moral leper, whose mere presence was a calamity. The sense of being deemed universally an unlucky fellow is one of the most depressing things imaginable,—to feel that your presence is accounted an evil agency,—and that your co-operation foreshadows failure,—goes a considerable way towards accomplishing the prediction announced.
Though my uncle's stereotyped recommendation to become a coal-heaver was not exactly to my taste, I had serious thoughts of buying a sack, and by a little private practice discovering whether the profession might not in the end become endurable. I was fairly at my wits'-end for a livelihood; and the depression and misery my presence occasioned wherever I went reacted on myself, and almost drove me to desperation.