LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.
No. XVI.—TO YOUTHFULNESS.
You are much misunderstood. For it is supposed that those who in this world bear your stamp upon them are to be recognised without trouble by the mere calculation of their years of life. No notion can be further from the truth. Mere absence of wrinkles, the presence or colour of the hair on the head, the elasticity of limbs, these do not of themselves, I protest, testify to youthfulness. I knew a lad of twenty, who, in the judgment of the world, was young. In mine he was one of the hoariest as he was one of the least scrupulous of men. No veteran that I ever met could have put him up to any trick, or added any experience to his store. He seemed to have a marvellous and intuitive experience of the ways of life, and of the tricks of men. No shady society came amiss to him. He gambled, in his way, as coolly, and with as careful a precision, as Barry Lyndon; he met the keen frequenters of the betting-ring on equal terms, and contrived, amid that vortex to keep his head above water. He had a faultless taste in wine—he knew a good cigar by an instinct. It is hardly necessary to add that, with all these accomplishments, he held and expressed the meanest opinion of human nature in general. Not even Sir ROBERT WALPOLE could have more cynically estimated the price at which men might be bought. As for women, this precocious paragon despised them, and women, as is their wont, repaid him by admiration, and, here and there, by genuine affection. I shudder to think how he might have developed in the course of years. It happened, however, that a shipwreck—a form of disaster against which cynicism and precocity afford no protection—removed him from the world before he had come of age. Now, to call this infant young, would have been a mockery. To all outward appearance, indeed, he was a boy, but his mind was that of a selfish and used-up roué of sixty, without illusions, and without hope.
Let me pass to a more pleasant subject, and one with which you, my dear boy, are more closely connected. I refer to my old friend. General VANGARD, the kindest and best-natured man that ever drew half-pay. Seventy years have passed over his head, and turned his hair to silver, but his heart remains pure gold without alloy. In vain do his whiskers and moustache attempt to give a touch of fierceness to his face. The kindly eyes smile it away in a moment. He stands six feet and an inch, his back his broad, his step springy; he carries his head erect on his massive shoulders with a leonine air of good-humoured defiance. To hear him greet you, to feel his hand-shake, is to get a lesson in geniality. I never knew a man who had so whole-hearted a contempt for insincerity and affectation. It was only the other day that I saw little TOM TITTERTON, of the Diplomatic Service, introduced to him. TOM is a devil of a fellow in Society. He warbles little songs of his own composition at afternoon teas, he insinuates himself into the elderly affections of stony-hearted dowagers, he can lead a cotillon to perfection, and is universally acknowledged as an authority on gloves and handkerchiefs. It was at a shooting-party that he and the General met. The little fellow advanced simpering, and raised a limp and dangling hand to about the height of his eyes. The General had extended his in his usual bluff and unceremonious manner. Naturally enough the hands failed to meet. A puzzled look came over the General's face. In a moment, however, he had grasped the situation, and TITTERTON's hand, and shaken the latter with a ferocious heartiness. "OW!" screamed TOM. It was a short exclamation, but a world of agony was concentrated into it. "The old bear has spoilt my shooting for the day," said TITTERTON to me afterwards, as he missed his tenth partridge. That very evening, I remember, there was a great discussion in the smoking-room on the subject of wrestling. One of the party, a burly youth of twenty-six, boasted somewhat loudly of the tricks that a Cornishman had lately taught him. For a long time the General sat silently puffing his cigar, but at length the would-be wrestler said something that roused him. "Would you mind showing me how that's done?" he said; "I seem to remember something about it, but it was done differently in my time. No doubt your notion's an improvement." Nothing loth the burly one stood up. I don't quite know what happened. The General seemed to stoop with outstretched hands and then raise himself with a spring as he met his opponent. A large body hurtled through the air, and in a moment the younger man was lying flat on the carpet amidst the shouts of the company. "It's the old 'flying mare' my boy," said the General to me, "a very useful dodge. I learnt it fifty years ago."
In the company of young men the General is at his very best. He knows all their little weaknesses, and chaffs them with delightful point and humour, though he would not, for all the world, give them pain. It is a pleasant sight to see the old fellow with a party of his young friends, poking sly fun at them, laughing with them, taking all their jests in good part, and thoroughly enjoying himself. He can walk most of them off their legs still, can row with them on the broad reaches of the Thames, and keep his form with the best of them; he can hold his gun straight at driven birds, and revel like a boy in a rattling run to hounds across country. All the youngsters respect him by instinct, and love the cheery old fellow, whose heart is as soft as his muscles are hard. They talk to him as to an elder brother, come to him for his advice, and, which is perhaps even more strange, like it, and follow it. Withal, the General is the most modest of men. In his youth he was a mighty man of war. It was only the other day that I heard (not from his own lips, you may be sure) the thrilling stories of his hand-to-hand conflict with two gigantic Russians in the fog of Inkermann, and of his rescue of a wounded Sergeant at the attack in the Redan. With women, old or young, the General uses an old-fashioned and chivalrous courtesy, as far removed from latter-day smartness as was BAYARD from BOULANGER. The younger ones adore him. They all seem to be his nieces, for they all call him Uncle JOHN.
A year or two ago the General fell ill, and the doctors shook their heads. It was touching to see the concern of all his young friends. CHARLIE CHIRPER, a gay little butterfly of a fellow, who never seemed to treat life as anything but a huge joke, became gloomy with anxiety. Twice every day he called to make inquiries, and, as the bulletins got worse, CHARLIE became visibly thinner. I saw him at the Club one evening, sitting moodily in a corner. "What's up, CHARLIE?" I said to him. "You look as if you'd been refused by an heiress." "The Old General's worse to-day," said CHARLIE, simply. "They're very anxious about him. No, dash it all!" he went on, "it's too bad. I can't bear to think of it. Such an old ripper as the General! Why must they take him? Why can't they take a useless chap like me, who never did anyone any good?" And the unaccustomed tears came into the lad's eyes as he turned his head away. But the old General battled through, and, thank Heaven, I can still write of him in the present tense.
Yours as always, my dear boy,
DIOGENES ROBINSON.