"Well, to tell the truth, Hal, I didn't write those notices. Bill Jones wrote them. Bill's up to anything. You know every person in England and this country have praised Dante Rosetti, and particularly "Jenny," and religious papers may as well be out of the world as out of fashion,—and so mother she bought a copy for a Christmas present to sister Nell. And I tell you if I didn't get a going over about it!"
"I showed her the article in the Holy Sentinel, but it didn't do a bit of good. She made me promise I wouldn't write it up, and I never have. She said it was a shame. You see mother isn't up to the talk about high art, that's got up now a days about Dante Rosetti and Swinburne, and those. I thought myself that "Jenny" was coming it pretty strong,—and honest now, I never could see the sense in it. But then you see I am not artistic. If a fellow should tell a story of that kind to my sister, I should horsewhip him, and kick him down the front steps. But he dresses it up in poetry, and it lies around on pious people's tables, and nobody dares to say a word because it's "artistic." People are so afraid they shall not be supposed to understand what high art is, that they'll knuckle down under most anything. That's the kind of world we live in. Well! I didn't make the world and I don't govern it. But the world owes me a living, and hang it! it shall give me one. So you go up to Bolton, and leave me to do my work; I've got to write columns, and then tramp out to that confounded water-color exhibition, because I promised Snooks a puff,—I shan't get to bed till twelve or one. I tell you it's steep on a fellow now."
I went up to Bolton, boiling, and bubbling and seething, with the spirit of sixteen reformers in my veins. The scene, as I opened the door, was sufficiently tranquilizing. Bolton sat reading by the side of his shaded study-lamp, with his cat asleep in his lap; the ill-favored dog, before mentioned, was planted by his side, with his nose upturned, surveying him with a fullness of doggish adoration and complacency, which made his rubbishly shop-worn figure quite an affecting item in the picture. Crouched down on the floor in the corner, was a ragged, unkempt, freckled-faced little boy, busy doing a sum on a slate.
"Ah! old fellow," he said, as he looked up and saw me. "Come in; there, there, Snubby," he said to the dog, pushing him gently into his corner; "let the gentleman sit down. You see you find me surrounded by my family," he said. "Wait one minute," he added, turning to the boy in the corner, and taking his slate out of his hand, and running over the sum. "All right, Bill. Now here's your book." He took a volume of the Arabian Nights from the table, and handed it to him, and Bill settled himself on the floor, and was soon lost in "Sinbad the Sailor." He watched him a minute or two, and then looked round at me, with a smile. "I wouldn't be afraid to bet that you might shout in that fellow's ear and he wouldn't hear you, now he is fairly in upon that book. Isn't it worth while to be able to give such perfect bliss in this world at so small an expense? I've lost the power of reading the Arabian Nights, but I comfort my self in seeing this chap."
"Who is he?" said I.
"Oh, he's my washerwoman's boy. Poor fellow. He has hard times. I've set him up in selling newspapers. You see, I try now and then to pick up one grain out of the heap of misery, and put it into the heap of happiness, as John Newton said."
I was still bubbling with the unrest of my spirit, and finally overflowed upon him with the whole history of my day's misadventures, and all the troubled thoughts and burning indignations that I had with reference to it.
"My dear fellow," he said, "take it easy. We have to accept this world as a fait accompli. It takes some time for us to learn how little we can do to help or to hinder. You cannot take a step in the business of life anywhere without meeting just this kind of thing; and one part of the science of living is to learn just what our own responsibility is, and to let other people's alone. The fact is," he said, "the growth of current literature in our times has been so sudden and so enormous that things are in a sort of revolutionary state with regard to it, in which it is very difficult to ascertain the exact right. For example, I am connected with a paper which is simply and purely, at bottom, a financial speculation; its owners must make money. Now, they are not bad men as the world goes—they are well-meaning men—amiable, patriotic, philanthropic—some of them are religious; they, all of them, would rather virtue would prevail than vice, and good than evil; they, all of them, would desire every kind of abuse to be reformed, and every good cause to be forwarded, that could be forwarded without a sacrifice of their main object. As for me, I am not a holder or proprietor. I am simply a servant engaged by these people for a certain sum. If I should sell myself to say what I do not think, or to praise what I consider harmful, to propitiate their favor, I should be a dastard. They understand perfectly that I never do it, and they never ask me to. Meanwhile, they employ persons who will do these things. I am not responsible for it any more than I am for anything else which goes on in the city of New York. I am allowed my choice among notices, and I never write them without saying, to the best of my ability, the exact truth, whether literary or in a moral point of view. Now, that is just my stand, and if it satisfies you, you can take the same."
"But," said I, "It makes me indignant, to have Goldstick talk to me as he did about a great self-denying moral enterprise—why, that man must know he's a liar."
"Do you think so?" said he. "I don't imagine he does. Goldstick has considerable sentiment. It's quite easy to get him excited on moral subjects, and he dearly loves to hear himself talk—he is sincerely interested in a good number of moral reforms, so long as they cost him nothing; and when a man is working his good faculties, he is generally delighted with himself, and it is the most natural thing in the world, to think that there is more of him than there is. I am often put in mind of that enthusiastic young ruler that came to the Saviour, who had kept all the commandments, and seemed determined to be on the high road to saintship. The Saviour just touched him on this financial question, and he wilted in a minute. I consider that to be still the test question, and there are a good many young rulers like him, who don't keep all the commandments."