“Well, is it not a pity?”
“Sir,” quoth the Librarian, taking snuff, “that is not a fair question to put to me, who have passed my life in reading books, and cherishing a humane compassion for those who are compelled to write them. But permit me to ask whether a very clever man, himself a voluminous writer, has not composed a popular work called the ‘Calamities of Authors’?—did you ever know any writer who has composed a work on the ‘Felicities of Authors’? Do you think, from your own experience, that you could write such a work yourself?”
“Rhetorically, yes; conscientiously, no. But let us hope that the calamities of authors lead to the felicities of readers.”
Thus talking we arrived at the Librarian’s own private sanctuary, a small study at the end of the library, looking on the wilder part of the park. Pointing to doors on the opposite side of a corridor, he said, “Those lead to Sir Percival’s private apartments—they are placed in the Belvidere Tower, the highest room of which he devotes to his scientific pursuits; and those pursuits occupy him at this moment, for he expects a visit very shortly from a celebrated Swedish philosopher, with whom he has opened a correspondence.”
I left the Librarian to his books, and took my way into the drawing-room. There I found only Clara Thornhill, seated by the window, and with a mournful shade on her countenance, which habitually was cheerful and sunny. I attributed the shade to the guilty Henry, and my conjecture proved right; for after some small-talk on various matters, I found myself suddenly admitted into her innocent confidence. Henry was unhappy! Unreasonable man! A time had been when Henry had declared that the supremest happiness of earth would be to call Clara his! Such happiness then seemed out of his reach; Clara’s parents were ambitious, and Henry had no fortune but “his honour and his sword.” Percival Tracey, Deus ex machinâ, had stepped in—propitiated Clara’s parents by handsome settlements. Henry’s happiness was apparently secured. Percival had bestowed on him an independent income, had sought to domicile him in his own neighbourhood by the offer of a charming cottage which Tracey had built by the sea-side as an occasional winter residence for himself; had proposed to find him occupation as a magistrate—nay, as a commanding officer of gallant volunteers—in vain—
“He was all for deeds of arms;
Honour called him to the field.”
The trophies of Miltiades would not suffer him to sleep.
Henry had been moving heaven and earth to get removed into a regiment which was ordered abroad, not exactly for what we call a war, but for one of those smaller sacrifices of human life which are always going on somewhere or other in distant corners of our empire, and make less figure in our annals than they do in our estimates. Such trivial enterprises might at least prepare his genius and expedite his promotion.
“Mox in reluctantes dracones,” &c.