It took him small time to pack his bundle. His trunk had been detained a long time ago by a savage old dame for rent; and, knowing that the same gulf yawned ever for all succeeding trunks, he had never replaced it. So, packing his little bundle, I say, and leaving a kind message for his landlady with a fellow-lodger, to the purport that he would come back and pay her as soon as he could, he vanished from his old abode as effectually as if he had gone to another planet.
Loving parents tell us there is nothing so delightful as watching the daily progress of children in learning the alphabet of life. Not that villainous regiment called A B C, which merits execration as the first herald of toil and sorrow to the infantile heart, but that beautiful alphabet of rosy hues and rainbow colors, stamped on leaf, and flower, and fruit, and wave, and hill-side, and which, in conning over, the little eye learns to see, and the ear to hear; and the touch refines itself, and fragrance grows to be an idea; and the little gourmand makes its first essay in luxurious living on peaches and berries. Every little incident here is delightful. But not so pleasant is it to note the later wanderings of human beings in quest of that vague thing—a living. The traveller on the highway of life has grown weary now, and stumbles and plunges ankle-deep in all things disagreeable. He has heard the bird of promise sing so falsely, he knows how little the song is worth—he has grown sad while growing wise; and thus plodded on Martin Tryterlittle.
Some months had passed now since the roof of the institute first sheltered him; and the bread and bones and watery tea of the institute first nourished him; and the boys harassed him, and made fun of him; and twigged his wig, and put nettles in his bed in more than a metaphorical sense. His master had kept him like a toad under a harrow, (to use an inelegant but expressive phrase,) always doing, never done; the salary was yet unsettled, and the duties undefined, when one night the wig claimed a hearing.
"I am growing shabby," said the wig, "and you are no richer."
Not that these words were uttered in an audible tone, but the thought passed to Martin and was comprehended.
"You are growing shabby," sighed Martin, ruthfully gazing, "and I am no richer."
"O master mine!" quoth the wig, "do you see how you are walking on? You are growing poorer, not richer! What is to you all the glory of this concern, when you own not even a nail in the wall? You are just the stone they step on who mount up over you. What do you get for it? O master mine! you are an ass to stay!"
Martin was not inaccessible to reason; he was impressed daily more and more with the good sense of his old friend Horace.
"Et genus et virtus, nisi cum re, vilior algâ est."[168]