Mathew. Now trust me you have an exceeding fine lodging here, very neat and private.
Boladil. Ay, sir: sit down, I pray you. Master Mathew, in any case possess no gentlemen of our acquaintance with notice of my lodging. Not that I need to care who know it, for the cabin is convenient; but in regard I would not be too popular and generally visited as some are.
BEN JONSON.—Every Man in his Humour.
Returned from their honeymoon, Blanche and Cecil began to look about them, and examine the state of their prospects. Her father had refused, as we have seen, to countenance the match; so that from him neither patronage nor money could be expected. Cecil called upon several of his influential friends, to see if any "gentlemanly situation" was open to his acceptance. I need not say how fruitless were those applications.
Yet "something must be done," he constantly observed. A wife was a responsibility which made him serious; and despairing of—for the present at least—obtaining any consul-ship or government office suitable to his pretensions, he determined to make a name in literature or art. That name would either be the means of enriching him, as an admiring public enriches a favourite, or else would give him a greater "claim" on patrons.
Cecil was vain and ambitious, and from his boyhood upwards had been desirous of creating for himself a reputation equal if not surpassing those whose names he heard sounded in every society. But, although he was very clever and unusually accomplished, he had as yet taken no serious steps towards that lofty object. He wanted that energetic will which must nerve every man who attempts to do great things; "to scorn delights and live laborious days." He was unequal to the perpetually-renewing sacrifice which lies at the bottom of all great achievements in art, literature, or science; the sacrifice, not of one temptation, not of one advantage, but of constant temptations. The artist is as one who, spending day after day in a luxuriant garden, must resist the temptation of culling the flowers that grow to his hand, of fruits that glisten before his eyes, and subduing the natural desire of man for instant fruition, consent to pass by these temptations, and, with spade and hoe, proceed to that work which, after much stedfast labour, much watchful care, will in due season produce fruits and flowers equal to those around him. The delight of seeing his labour crowned with such results; of watching the nursling of his care thus growing up into matchless beauty, is a delight more rapturous than the enjoyment of all the other fruit could have given him. But, nevertheless, that delight is purchased by a sacrifice of present small enjoyments for future pleasures of a higher kind; and the sacrifice of the present to the future is that which ordinary men are perhaps least able to accomplish.
Cecil wanted the animal energy and resolution necessary for empire over himself. Much as he wished for reputation, he could not nerve himself to the labour of creating it. He was conscious of a certain power, and flattered himself that he could at any time succeed, whenever he chose to make an effort. But he could not make the effort. Parties of pleasure could not be refused; pleasant books could not be left unread; concerts and musical societies could not be declined. In short, one way and another, he "never found time" to devote himself to any work. There were so many "calls upon his time;" he had so many engagements; his days were so broken in upon.
Thus had he gone on idling and dreaming; coveting reputation, but shrinking from the means; dissipating his talent in album sketches, fancy portraits, album verses, and drawing-room ballads. His sketches were greatly admired; his verses were in request; his music was sung; and everybody said, "How amazingly clever he is! What he might do, if he chose!"
But now poverty came as a stimulus to exertion. It was now a matter of necessity that he should work; and with cheerful confidence he sketched out the plan of his career.
His first step was to advertise in the Times for board and lodging on moderate terms, as their income was too small for an establishment of their own; and Blanche had never been initiated into the mysteries of housekeeping. To judge from the number of answers he received, one would imagine that a certain class of the English people were bitten with a singular mania—that of taking houses "too large for them," and the consequent desire "to part with the upper portion" to a genteel married couple, or a quiet bachelor. Why will people thus shirk the truth? Why not say at once that they are poor, and want their rent and taxes paid?