‘High is our calling, friend! Creative Art,
Whether the instrument of words she use,
Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,
Demands the service of a mind and heart,
Though sensitive, yet in their weakest part
Heroically fashioned—to infuse
Faith in the whispers of the lonely muse,
While the whole world seems adverse to desert.’
Wordsworth.
ome of the fondest illusions of our student-life and companionship were based on literary fame. The only individuals, of the male gender, who then seemed to us (indiscriminate and mutual lovers of literature) worthy of admiration and sympathy, were authors. Our ideal of felicity was the consciousness of distributing ideas of vital significance, and causing multitudes to share a sentiment born in a lonely heart. The most real and permanent sway of which man is capable we imagined that of ruling and cheering the minds of others through the medium of literature. Our herbals were made up of flowers from the graves of authors; their signatures were our only autographs. The visions that haunted us were little else than a boundless panorama that displayed scenes in their lives. We used continually to see, in fancy, Petrarch beside a fountain, under a laurel, with the sweet penseroso-look visible in his portraits; Dante in the corridor of a monastery, his palm laid on a friar’s breast, and his stern features softened as he craved the only blessing life retained for him—peace; rustic Burns, with his dark eye proudly meeting the curious stare of an Edinburgh coterie; Camœns breasting the waves with the Lusiad between his teeth; Johnson appalling Boswell with his emphatic ‘Sir;’ Milton—his head like that of a saint encircled with rays—seated at the organ; Shakspeare walking serenely, and with a benign and majestic countenance, beside the Avon; Steele jocosely presiding at table with liveried bailiffs to pass the dishes; the bright face of Pope looming up from his deformed body in the cool twilight of a grotto; Voltaire’s sneer withering an auditor through a cloud of snuff; Molière reading his new comedy to the old woman; Landor standing in the ilex path of a Tuscan villa; Savage asleep on a bulk at midnight, in one of the London parks; Dryden seated in oracular dignity in his coffee-house arm-chair; Metastasio comparing notes with a handsome prima donna at Vienna; Alfieri with a magnificent steed in the midst of the Alps; Swift stealing an interview with Miss Johnson, or chuckling over a chapter of Gulliver; the funeral pyre of Shelley lighting up a solitary crag on the shores of the Mediterranean; and Byron, with marble brow and rolling eye, guiding the helm of a storm-tossed boat on the Lake of Geneva! Such were a few only of the tableaux that haunted our imagination. We echoed heartily Akenside’s protest against the sermon on Glory:
‘Come, then, tell me, sage divine,
Is it an offence to own
That our bosoms e’er incline
Towards immortal glory’s throne?
For with me nor pomp nor pleasure,
Bourbon’s might, Braganza’s treasure,
So can fancy’s dream rejoice,
So conciliate reason’s choice,
As one approving word of her impartial voice.
‘If to spurn at noble praise
Be the passport to thy heaven;
Follow thou those gloomy ways;
No such law to me was given;
Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me,
Faring like my friends before me;
Nor a holier place desire
Than Timoleon’s arms acquire,
And Tully’s curule chair, and Milton’s golden lyre.’
In our passion for native authors we revered the memory of Brockden Brown, and detected in his romantic studies the germs of the supernatural school of fiction; we nearly suffocated ourselves in the crowded gallery of the old church at Cambridge, listening to Sprague’s Phi Beta Kappa poem; and often watched the spiritual figure of the ‘Idle Man,’ and gazed on the white locks of our venerable painter, with his ‘Monaldi’ and ‘Paint King’ vividly remembered. We wearied an old friend of Brainard’s by making him repeat anecdotes of the poet; and have spent hours in the French coffee-house which Halleck once frequented, eliciting from him criticisms, anecdotes, or recitations of Campbell. New Haven people that came in our way were obliged to tell all they could remember of the vagaries of Percival, and the elegant hospitality of Hillhouse. We have followed Judge Hopkinson through the rectangular streets of his native metropolis, with the tune of Hail, Columbia! humming in our ears; and kept a curious eye on Howard Payne through a whole evening party, fondly cognizant of Sweet Home. Beaumont and Fletcher were our Damon and Pythias. The memorable occurrence of our childhood was the advent of a new Waverley novel, and of our youth a fresh Edinburgh Review. We loved plum-colour because poor Goldy was vain of his coat of that hue; and champagne, partly because Schiller used to drink it when writing; we saved orange-peel because the author of The Rambler liked it; and put ourselves on a course of tar-water, in imitation of Berkeley. Roast pig had a double relish for us after we had read Elia’s dissertation thereon. We associated goldfish and china jars with Gray, skulls with Dr. Young, the leap of a sturgeon in the Hudson with Drake’s ‘Culprit Fay,’ pine-trees with Ossian, stained-glass windows with Keats (who set one in an immortal verse), fortifications with Uncle Toby, literary breakfasts with Rogers, waterfowl with Bryant, foundlings with Rousseau, letter-writing with Madame de Sévigné, bread and butter with the author of Werther, daisies with Burns, and primroses with Wordsworth. Mrs. Thrale’s acceptance of Piozzi was a serious trouble to our minds; and whether ‘little Burney’ would be happy after her marriage with the noble emigré was a problem that made us really anxious until the second part of her Diary was procurable and relieved our solicitude. An unpatriotic antipathy to the Pilgrim Fathers was quelled by the melodious pæan of Mrs. Hemans; and we kept vigils before a portrait of Mrs. Norton, at an artist’s studio, with a chivalric desire to avenge her wrongs.
This enthusiasm for authors was not altogether the result of a literary idiosyncrasy or local influences; it grew out of a consciousness of personal obligation. Mrs. Radcliffe, Miss Porter, and Maturin were the clandestine intimates of childhood; the English poets became the confidants of youthful sentiment, which met but a cool reception from those by whom we were surrounded; and when judgment was enough matured to discriminate the charms of style, a new world opened under the guidance of Mackenzie and Sterne, Lady Montagu and Sir Thomas Browne. Books are endeared, like people, by the force of circumstances; ideal tendencies, a spirit of inquiry, a thirst for sympathy, will often drive minds whose environment is uncongenial to seek therein what is elsewhere denied; and when in early life this resource becomes habitual, it is not surprising that a deep personal feeling should be gradually engendered, and that we should come to regard favourite authors as the most reliable and dearest of our companions; and this without an inkling of pedantry or a title to scholarship, but from a thoroughly human impulse intellectually vindicating itself. To such a pitch did the feeling once possess us that we resented any imputation cast upon our chosen authors as if they were actual friends. We honoured the critic that defended Bacon from the charge of meanness, and longed to applaud his prowess; we disliked to admit the evidence that Johnson was dogmatic, and ascribed his arrogance to a kind of excusable horse-play; we contended that Thomson was not lazy, but encouraged ease to escape ambition; we grew very warm if any one really believed Shelley an atheist, and argued that his faith transcended that of the majority of so-called Christians; we never would admit that Sterne was heartless, or Moore a toady. We could have embraced Dr. Madden after reading his Infirmities of Genius, and thought the most brave of Sidney’s deeds his Defence of Poesy. How we longed to go a-fishing with Walton, to walk in Cowley’s garden, to see Roscoe’s library, to hear Coleridge talk, to feel the grasp of Burns’s hand, to drink whisky with John Wilson, to pat Scott’s dogs, to go to the theatre with Lamb, to listen to D’Israeli the elder’s anecdotes, to look on the lakes of Westmoreland at the side of Wordsworth, and to ride through ‘our village’ in Miss Mitford’s pony chaise!
The first time we saw an author was an epoch. It was in a church. Some one whispered, just as the sermon began, that a lady in the next pew was the writer of a moral tale then rated high in our little circle. We did nothing the rest of the service but watch and speculate upon this, to us, wonderful personage. We were disappointed at her every-day look and attire; there was no fine frenzy in eye or gesture; there she sat, for all the world like any other lady—mild, quiet, and attentive. We were somewhat consoled by noting the extreme paleness of her complexion, and a kind of abstraction in her gaze. Her habiliments were dark and faded; in fact, as we afterward discovered, she was poor, and her book had been printed by subscription. Thenceforth, for a long time, we imagined all female authors were dressed in black, looked pensive, and had no colour. This illusion, however, was banished, some years later, when we were taken to a literary soirée where all the female authors were fat, dressed in a variety of colours, and, instead of being melancholy, had an overwhelming vivacity that made us realize how the type had changed. By degrees we became enlightened, and our authormania cooled. In the first place, we were shocked by seeing a pathetic writer, whose universal tribute was tears, in a flashy vest; then we encountered a psychologist, whose forte was sublimity, enacting the part of a mendicant; it was our misfortune to conduct a bard, whose highly-imaginative strain had often roused our aspirations, home from a party in a state of inebriety; one author we were prepared to love turned out a disagreeable egotist; another wearied us by the exactions of his vanity; a third repelled by intense affectation, and a fourth by the bitterness of his comments; one, who had written only the most refined sentiment, proved, upon acquaintance, an acute Yankee; one, who had sung the beauty of nature, we found to be an inveterate dandy; and another, whose expressed ideas betokened excess of delicacy, grossly violated the ordinary instincts of gentle blood.
On one of our earliest visits to ———, the illusive charm attached to the idea of a female author became, indeed, changed to a horror from which we have never wholly recovered. We were requested to escort a lady to what we understood was an ordinary social gathering. After entering a rather small and somewhat obscure drawing-room, saluting the hostess, and taking the proffered seat, we were struck with the formal arrangement of the company. They formed an unbroken row along the walls of the room, except at one end, at which stood a table surmounted by an astral lamp; and in an arm-chair beside it, in studied attitude, like one poséd for a daguerreotype, sat a woman of masculine proportions, coarse features, and hair between yellow and red, which fell in unkempt masses down each side of her broad face. She was clad in white muslin of an antiquated fashion. We noticed that the guests cast looks, partly of curiosity, partly of uneasiness, upon this Herculean female, who rolled her eyes occasionally, and smiled on us all with a kind of complacent pity. We ventured, amidst the silence, to ask our neighbour the name of the gigantic unknown. She appeared extremely surprised at the very natural question. ‘Why, don’t you know? We’re invited here to meet her, and, I assure you, it is a rare privilege. That is Mrs. Jones, the celebrated author of the Affianced One!’ At this moment a brisk little woman in the corner, with accents slightly tremulous, and a manner intended to be very nonchalant, broke the uncomfortable hush of the room. ‘My dear Mrs. Jones,’ said she, ‘as one of your earliest and most fervent admirers, allow me to inquire if your health does not suffer from the intense state of feeling in which you evidently write?’ The Amazonian novelist sighed—it was funny to see that operation on so large a scale,—and then, in a voice so like the rougher sex that we began to think she was a man in disguise, replied: ‘When I reach the catastrophe of my stories, it is not uncommon for me to faint dead away; and, as I always write in a room by myself, it has happened more than once that I have been found stretched, miserable and cold, on the floor, with a pen grasped in my fingers, and the carpet littered with manuscript blotted with tears!’ The Siddonian pathos of this announcement sent a thrill round the circle; glances of admiration and pity were thrown upon the self-immolated victim at the shrine of letters, and other inquiries were adventured, which elicited equally impressive replies, until the psychological throes of authorship—particularly in the female gender—assumed the aspect of an experience combined of epilepsy and nightmare. The tragic egotism of these revelations at length overcame our patience; and, leaving our fair companion to another’s escort, we slipped out of the room. A thunder-storm had arisen; the rain was pouring down in torrents; upon the door-steps we encountered a very pale, thin, little man, with an umbrella under his arm and a pair of overshoes in his hands. As we passed, he addressed us in a very meek and frightened voice: ‘Please, sirs, is there a party here?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Please, sirs, is the celebrated Mrs. Jones here?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Please, sirs, do you think I could step into the entry? I’m Mr. Jones!’
Hastening to our lodgings in another metropolis at twilight, we passed a dwarf standing on a threshold, who leaped down and caught us by the arm, eagerly pronouncing our name, and requesting a moment’s interview. He led the way to a little room lighted by a single candle, closed the door, and, with a quivering impatience of gesture, introduced himself. We remembered his name at once. He was the author of a feeble imitation of Pope. We never beheld such an ogre. His little green eyes, ape-like limbs, and expression indicative of sensitiveness and conceit, in that lone and dusky cabinet, were appalling. From a cupboard he took down what we supposed to be a ledger, and, placing it on the table, gave an emphatic slap to the worn brown cover. ‘There,’ said he, ‘is garnered the labour of years. I have heard of your enthusiasm for authors, and I will read you specimens of a poem destined to see the light a twelvemonth hence. Listen!’ It was an epic in blank verse—dreary, monotonous, and verbose. His recitation was like the refrain of a bull-frog; it grated on the ear and made the nerves shrink. The candle burned thick; the air seemed mephitic, and in a little while we were oppressed and fevered as by a glamour cast over our brain; we looked toward the door and moved uneasily; the green eye was cast fiercely up from the page, and the tone of the deformed became malicious. We had heard of his vindictive spirit, and felt as if in the cave of an imp spellbound and helpless. The complacent hardihood with which he read on made us inwardly frantic. We thought of the fair being who waited for us at a neighbouring fireside, of the free air we had quitted, and we writhed under the infliction. Hours passed; a numb, half-unconscious sense of misery stole over us, and still the little demon glared and spouted. ‘Words, words, words’—how detestable seemed they then! At last, in a fit of desperation, we clapped our hand to our forehead, and murmuring something about a congestive tendency, sprang up, ran through the hall and out at the door, and looking back, after hurrying on a few yards, beheld the dwarf, with his enormous book clasped to his heart, gazing after us with the implacable look of a disappointed savage.
Literature is no more regulated by accident than nature; lucky hits and the tricks of pencraft are as temporary as all other artificial expedients. The authors truly remembered and loved are men in the best sense of the term; the human, the individual informs and stamps their books with an image or an effluence not born of will or mere ingenuity, but emanating from the soul; and this is the quality that endears and perpetuates their fame. Hence Goldsmith is beloved, Milton reverenced, and the grave of Burns a ‘Mecca of the mind.’ At the commencement of the last century there appeared in the London Gazette the offer of a reward of fifty pounds for the discovery of a certain person thus described: ‘A middle-sized, spare man, about forty years of age, of a brown complexion and dark brown hair, though he wears a wig, having a hooked nose, a sharp chin, gray eyes, and a large mouth.’ This was Daniel Defoe, the victim of partisan injustice, for whose rights every schoolboy would fight now, out of sheer gratitude to the author of Robinson Crusoe. Let the writers who debase authorship into a perversion of history, a sickly medium for egotistical rhetoric, a gross theft of antecedent labours, a base vehicle for spite, or a mechanical knack of book-making, realize that they are foredoomed to contempt, and that character is as little disguised by types as by costume. The genuine author is recognized at once; his integrity is self-evident.