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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7586.txt b/7586.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60afd37 --- /dev/null +++ b/7586.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1418 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook The Caxtons, by Bulwer-Lytton, Part 1 +#15 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: The Caxtons, Part 1 + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: February 2005 [EBook #7586] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on January 1, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAXTONS, BY LYTTON, PART 1 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by Pat Castevens +and David Widger + + + + + +THE CAXTONS + +A FAMILY PICTURE + +By Edward Bulwer Lytton +(LORD LYTTON) + + + +PART I. + + +PREFACE. + + +If it be the good fortune of this work to possess any interest for the +Novel reader, that interest, perhaps, will be but little derived from +the customary elements of fiction. The plot is extremely slight, the +incidents are few, and with the exception of those which involve the +fate of Vivian, such as may be found in the records of ordinary life. + +Regarded as a Novel, this attempt is an experiment somewhat apart from +the previous works of the author. It is the first of his writings in +which Humor has been employed, less for the purpose of satire than in +illustration of amiable characters; it is the first, too, in which man +has been viewed, less in his active relations with the world, than in +his repose at his own hearth,--in a word, the greater part of the canvas +has been devoted to the completion of a simple Family Picture. And +thus, in any appeal to the sympathies of the human heart, the common +household affections occupy the place of those livelier or larger +passions which usually (and not unjustly) arrogate the foreground in +Romantic composition. + +In the Hero whose autobiography connects the different characters and +events of the work, it has been the Author's intention to imply the +influences of Home upon the conduct and career of youth; and in the +ambition which estranges Pisistratus for a time from the sedentary +occupations in which the man of civilized life must usually serve his +apprenticeship to Fortune or to Fame, it is not designed to describe the +fever of Genius conscious of superior powers and aspiring to high +destinies, but the natural tendencies of a fresh and buoyant mind, +rather vigorous than contemplative, and in which the desire of action is +but the symptom of health. + +Pisistratus in this respect (as he himself feels and implies) becomes +the specimen or type of a class the numbers of which are daily +increasing in the inevitable progress of modern civilization. He is one +too many in the midst of the crowd; he is the representative of the +exuberant energies of youth, turning, as with the instinct of nature for +space and development, from the Old World to the New. That which may be +called the interior meaning of the whole is sought to be completed by +the inference that, whatever our wanderings, our happiness will always +be found within a narrow compass, and amidst the objects more +immediately within our reach, but that we are seldom sensible of this +truth (hackneyed though it be in the Schools of all Philosophies) till +our researches have spread over a wider area. To insure the blessing of +repose, we require a brisker excitement than a few turns up and down our +room. Content is like that humor in the crystal, on which Claudian has +lavished the wonder of a child and the fancies of a Poet,-- + + "Vivis gemma tumescit aquis." + + E. B. L. + +October, 1849. + + + + +THE CAXTONS. + + +PART I. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +"Sir--sir, it is a boy!" + +"A boy," said my father, looking up from his book, and evidently much +puzzled: "what is a boy?" + +Now my father did not mean by that interrogatory to challenge +philosophical inquiry, nor to demand of the honest but unenlightened +woman who had just rushed into his study, a solution of that mystery, +physiological and psychological, which has puzzled so many curious +sages, and lies still involved in the question, "What is man?" For as +we need not look further than Dr. Johnson's Dictionary to know that a +boy is "a male child,"--i.e., the male young of man,--so he who would go +to the depth of things, and know scientifically what is a boy, must be +able to ascertain "what is a man." But for aught I know, my father may +have been satisfied with Buffon on that score, or he may have sided with +Monboddo. He may have agreed with Bishop Berkeley; he may have +contented himself with Professor Combe; he may have regarded the genus +spiritually, like Zeno, or materially, like Epicurus. Grant that boy is +the male young of man, and he would have had plenty of definitions to +choose from. He might have said, "Man is a stomach,--ergo, boy a male +young stomach. Man is a brain,--boy a male young brain. Man is a +bundle of habits,--boy a male young bundle of habits. Man is a +machine,--boy a male young machine. Man is a tail-less monkey,--boy a +male young tail-less monkey. Man is a combination of gases,--boy a male +young combination of gases. Man is an appearance,--boy a male young +appearance," etc., etc., and etcetera, ad infinitum! And if none of +these definitions had entirely satisfied my father, I am perfectly +persuaded that he would never have come to Mrs. Primmins for a new one. + +But it so happened that my father was at that moment engaged in the +important consideration whether the Iliad was written by one Homer, or +was rather a collection of sundry ballads, done into Greek by divers +hands, and finally selected, compiled, and reduced into a whole by a +Committee of Taste, under that elegant old tyrant Pisistratus; and the +sudden affirmation, "It is a boy," did not seem to him pertinent to the +thread of the discussion. Therefore he asked, "What is a boy?" vaguely, +and, as it were, taken by surprise. + +"Lord, sir!" said Mrs. Primmins, "what is a boy? Why, the baby!" + +"The baby!" repeated my father, rising. "What, you don't mean to say +that Mrs. Caxton is--eh?" + +"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Primmins, dropping a courtesy; "and as fine a +little rogue as ever I set eyes upon." + +"Poor dear woman," said my father, with great compassion. "So soon, +too--so rapidly," he resumed, in a tone of musing surprise. "Why, it is +but the other day we were married!" + +"Bless my heart, sir," said Mrs. Primmins, much scandalized, "it is ten +months and more." + +"Ten months!" said my father with a sigh. "Ten months! and I have not +finished fifty pages of my refutation of Wolfe's monstrous theory! In +ten months a child! and I'll be bound complete,--hands, feet, eyes, +ears, and nose!--and not like this poor Infant of Mind," and my father +pathetically placed his hand on the treatise, "of which nothing is +formed and shaped, not even the first joint of the little finger! Why, +my wife is a precious woman! Well, keep her quiet. Heaven preserve +her, and send me strength--to support this blessing!" + +"But your honor will look at the baby? Come, sir!" and Mrs. Primmins +laid hold of my father's sleeve coaxingly. + +"Look at it,--to be sure," said my father, kindly; "look at it, +certainly: it is but fair to poor Mrs. Caxton, after taking so much +trouble, dear soul!" + +Therewith my father, drawing his dressing-robe round him in more stately +folds, followed Mrs. Primmins upstairs into a room very carefully +darkened. + +"How are you, my dear?" said my father, with compassionate tenderness, +as he groped his way to the bed. + +A faint voice muttered: "Better now, and so happy!" And at the same +moment Mrs. Primmins pulled my father away, lifted a coverlid from a +small cradle, and holding a candle within an inch of an undeveloped +nose, cried emphatically, "There--bless it!" + +"Of course, ma'am, I bless it," said my father, rather peevishly. "It +is my duty to bless it--Bless It! And this, then, is the way we come +into the world!--red, very red,--blushing for all the follies we are +destined to commit." + +My father sat down on the nurse's chair, the women grouped round him. +He continued to gaze on the contents of the cradle, and at length said, +musingly, "And Homer was once like this!" + +At this moment--and no wonder, considering the propinquity of the candle +to his visual organs--Homer's infant likeness commenced the first +untutored melodies of nature. + +"Homer improved greatly in singing as he grew older," observed Mr. +Squills, the accoucheur, who was engaged in some mysteries in a corner +of the room. + +My father stopped his ears. "Little things can make a great noise," +said he, philosophically; "and the smaller the thing; the greater noise +it can make." + +So saying, he crept on tiptoe to the bed, and clasping the pale hand +held out to him, whispered some words that no doubt charmed and soothed +the ear that heard them, for that pale hand was suddenly drawn from his +own and thrown tenderly round his neck. The sound of a gentle kiss was +heard through the stillness. + +"Mr. Caxton, sir," cried Mr. Squills, in rebuke, "you agitate my +patient; you must retire." + +My father raised his mild face, looked round apologetically, brushed his +eyes with the back of his hand, stole to the door, and vanished. + +"I think," said a kind gossip seated at the other side of my mother's +bed, "I think, my dear, that Mr. Caxton might have shown more joy,--more +natural feeling, I may say,--at the sight of the baby: and Such a baby! +But all men are just the same, my dear,--brutes,--all brutes, depend +upon it!" + +"Poor Austin!" sighed my mother, feebly; "how little you understand +him!" + +"And now I shall clear the room," said Mr. Squills. "Go to sleep, Mrs. +Caxton." + +"Mr. Squills," exclaimed my mother, and the bed-curtains trembled, "pray +see that Mr. Caxton does not set himself on fire. And, Mr. Squills, +tell him not to be vexed and miss me,--I shall be down very soon,--sha' +n't I?" + +"If you keep yourself easy, you will, ma'am." + +"Pray, say so. And, Primmins--" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Every one, I fear, is neglecting your master. Be sure," and my +mother's lips approached close to Mrs. Primmins' ear, "be sure that you- +-air his nightcap yourself." + +"Tender creatures those women," soliloquized Mr. Squills as, after +clearing the room of all present save Mrs. Primmins and the nurse, he +took his way towards my father's study. Encountering the footman in the +passage, "John," said he, "take supper into your master's room, and make +us some punch, will you,--stiffish!" + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +"Mr. Caxton, how on earth did you ever come to marry?" asked Mr. +Squills, abruptly, with his feet on the hob, while stirring up his +punch. + +That was a home question, which many men might reasonably resent; but my +father scarcely knew what resentment was. + +"Squills," said he, turning round from his books, and laying one finger +on the surgeon's arm confidentially,--"Squills," said he, "I myself +should be glad to know how I came to be married." + +Mr. Squills was a jovial, good-hearted man,--stout, fat, and with fine +teeth, that made his laugh pleasant to look at as well as to hear. Mr. +Squills, moreover, was a bit of a philosopher in his way,--studied human +nature in curing its diseases; and was accustomed to say that Mr. Caxton +was a better book in himself than all he had in his library. Mr. +Squills laughed, and rubbed his hands. + +My father resumed thoughtfully, and in the tone of one who moralizes:-- + +"There are three great events in life, sir,--birth, marriage, and death. +None know how they are born, few know how they die; but I suspect that +many can account for the intermediate phenomenon--I cannot." + +"It was not for money, it must have been for love," observed Mr. +Squills; "and your young wife is as pretty as she is good." + +"Ha!" said my father, "I remember." + +"Do you, sir?" exclaimed Squills, highly amused. "How was it?" + +My father, as was often the case with him, protracted his reply, and +then seemed rather to commune with himself than to answer Mr. Squills. + +"The kindest, the best of men," he murmured,--"Abyssus Eruditionis. And +to think that he bestowed on me the only fortune he had to leave, +instead of to his own flesh and blood, Jack and Kitty,--all, at least, +that I could grasp, deficiente manu, of his Latin, his Greek, his +Orientals. What do I not owe to him?" + +"To whom?" asked Squills. "Good Lord! what's the man talking about?" + +"Yes, sir," said my father, rousing himself, "such was Giles Tibbets, M. +A., Sol Scientiarum, tutor to the humble scholar you address, and father +to poor Kitty. He left me his Elzevirs; he left me also his orphan +daughter." + +"Oh! as a wife--" + +"No, as a ward. So she came to live in my house. I am sure there was +no harm in it. But my neighbors said there was, and the widow Weltraum +told me the girl's character would suffer. What could I do?--Oh, yes, I +recollect all now! I married her, that my old friend's child might have +a roof to her head, and come to no harm. You see I was forced to do her +that injury; for, after all, poor young creature, it was a sad lot for +her. A dull bookworm like me,--cochlea vitam agens, Mr. Squills,-- +leading the life of a snail! But my shell was all I could offer to my +poor friend's orphan." + +"Mr. Caxton, I honor you," said Squills, emphatically, jumping up, and +spilling half a tumblerful of scalding punch over my father's legs. +"You have a heart, sir; and I understand why your wife loves you. You +seem a cold man, but you have tears in your eyes at this moment." + +"I dare say I have," said my father, rubbing his shins; "it was +boiling!" + +"And your son will be a comfort to you both," said Mr. Squills, +reseating himself, and, in his friendly emotion, wholly abstracted from +all consciousness of the suffering he had inflicted; "he will be a dove +of peace to your ark." + +"I don't doubt it," said my father, ruefully; "only those doves, when +they are small, are a very noisy sort of birds--non talium avium cantos +somnum reducent. However, it might have been worse. Leda had twins." + +"So had Mrs. Barnabas last week," rejoined the accoucheur. "Who knows +what may be in store for you yet? Here's a health to Master Caxton, and +lots of brothers and sisters to him." + +"Brothers and sisters! I am sure Mrs. Caxton will never think of such a +thing, sir," said my father, almost indignantly; "she's much too good a +wife to behave so. Once in a way it is all very well; but twice--and as +it is, not a paper in its place, nor a pen mended the last three days: +I, too, who can only write cuspide duriuscula,--and the baker coming +twice to me for his bill, too! The Ilithyiae, are troublesome deities, +Mr. Squills." + +"Who are the Ilithyiae?" asked the accoucheur. + +"You ought to know," answered my father, smiling,--"the female daemons +who presided over the Neogilos, or New-born. They take the name from +Juno. See Homer, Book XI. By the by, will my Neogilos be brought up +like Hector, or Astyanax--videlicet, nourished by its mother, or by a +nurse?" + +"Which do you prefer, Mr. Caxton?" asked Mr. Squills, breaking the sugar +in his tumbler. "In this I always deem it my duty to consult the wishes +of the gentleman." + +"A nurse by all means, then," said my father. "And let her carry him +upo kolpo, next to her bosom. I know all that has been said about +mothers nursing their own infants, Mr. Squills; but poor Kitty is so +sensitive that I think a stout, healthy peasant woman will be the best +for the boy's future nerves, and his mother's nerves, present and future +too. Heigh-ho! I shall miss the dear woman very much. When will she +be up, Mr. Squills?" + +"Oh, in less than a fortnight!" + +"And then the Neogilos shall go to school,--upo kolpo,--the nurse with +him, and all will be right again," said my father, with a look of sly, +mysterious humor which was peculiar to him. + +"School! when he's just born?" + +"Can't begin too soon," said my father, positively; "that's Helvetius' +opinion, and it is mine too!" + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +That I was a very wonderful child, I take for granted; but nevertheless +it was not of my own knowledge that I came into possession of the +circumstances set down in my former chapters. But my father's conduct +on the occasion of my birth made a notable impression upon all who +witnessed it; and Mr. Squills and Mrs. Primmins have related the facts +to me sufficiently often to make me as well acquainted with them as +those worthy witnesses themselves. I fancy I see my father before me, +in his dark-gray dressing-gown, and with his odd, half-sly, half- +innocent twitch of the mouth, and peculiar puzzling look, from two +quiet, abstracted, indolently handsome eyes, at the moment he agreed +with Helvetius on the propriety of sending me to school as soon as I was +born. Nobody knew exactly what to make of my father,--his wife +excepted. The people of Abdera sent for Hippocrates to cure the +supposed insanity of Democritus, "who at that time," saith Hippocrates, +dryly, "was seriously engaged in philosophy." That same people of +Abdera would certainly have found very alarming symptoms of madness in +my poor father; for, like Democritus, "he esteemed as nothing the +things, great or small, in which the rest of the world were employed." +Accordingly, some set him down as a sage, some as a fool. The +neighboring clergy respected him as a scholar, "breathing libraries;" +the ladies despised him as an absent pedant who had no more gallantry +than a stock or a stone. The poor loved him for his charities, but +laughed at him as a weak sort of man, easily taken in. Yet the squires +and farmers found that, in their own matters of rural business, he had +always a fund of curious information to impart; and whoever, young or +old, gentle or simple, learned or ignorant, asked his advice, it was +given with not more humility than wisdom. In the common affairs of life +he seemed incapable of acting for himself; he left all to my mother; or, +if taken unawares, was pretty sure to be the dupe. But in those very +affairs, if another consulted him, his eye brightened, his brow cleared, +the desire of serving made him a new being,--cautious, profound, +practical. Too lazy or too languid where only his own interests were at +stake, touch his benevolence, and all the wheels of the clock-work felt +the impetus of the master-spring. No wonder that, to others, the nut of +such a character was hard to crack! But in the eyes of my poor mother, +Augustine (familiarly Austin) Caxton was the best and the greatest of +human beings; and she ought to have known him well, for she studied him +with her whole heart, knew every trick of his face, and, nine times out +of ten, divined what he was going to say before he opened his lips. Yet +certainly there were deeps in his nature which the plummet of her tender +woman's wit had never sounded; and certainly it sometimes happened that, +even in his most domestic colloquialisms, my mother was in doubt whether +he was the simple, straightforward person he was mostly taken for. +There was, indeed, a kind of suppressed, subtle irony about him, too +unsubstantial to be popularly called humor, but dimly implying some sort +of jest, which he kept all to himself; and this was only noticeable when +he said something that sounded very grave, or appeared to the grave very +silly and irrational. + +That I did not go to school--at least to what Mr. Squills understood by +the word "school"--quite so soon as intended, I need scarcely observe. +In fact, my mother managed so well--my nursery, by means of double +doors, was so placed out of hearing--that my father, for the most part, +was privileged, if he pleased, to forget my existence. He was once +vaguely recalled to it on the occasion of my christening. Now, my +father was a shy man, and he particularly hated all ceremonies and +public spectacles. He became uneasily aware that a great ceremony, in +which he might be called upon to play a prominent part, was at hand. +Abstracted as he was, and conveniently deaf at times, he had heard such +significant whispers about "taking advantage of the bishop's being in +the neighborhood," and "twelve new jelly-glasses being absolutely +wanted," as to assure him that some deadly festivity was in the wind. +And when the question of godmother and godfather was fairly put to hire, +coupled with the remark that this was a fine opportunity to return the +civilities of the neighborhood, he felt that a strong effort at escape +was the only thing left. Accordingly, having, seemingly without +listening, heard the clay fixed and seen, as they thought, without +observing, the chintz chairs in the best drawing-room uncovered (my dear +mother was the tidiest woman in the world), my father suddenly +discovered that there was to be a great book-sale, twenty miles off, +which would last four days, and attend it he must. My mother sighed; +but she never contradicted my father, even when he was wrong, as he +certainly was in this case. She only dropped a timid intimation that +she feared "it would look odd, and the world might misconstrue my +father's absence,--had not she better put off the christening?" + +"My dear," answered my father, "it will be my duty, by and by, to +christen the boy,--a duty not done in a day. At present, I have no +doubt that the bishop will do very well without me. Let the day stand, +or if you put it off, upon my word and honor I believe that the wicked +auctioneer will put off the book-sale also. Of one thing I am quite +sure, that the sale and the christening will take place at the same +time." There was no getting over this; but I am certain my dear mother +had much less heart than before in uncovering the chintz chairs in the +best drawing-room. Five years later this would not have happened. My +mother would have kissed my father and said, "Stay," and he would have +stayed. But she was then very young and timid; and he, wild man, not of +the woods, but the cloisters, not yet civilized into the tractabilities +of home. In short, the post-chaise was ordered and the carpetbag +packed. + +"My love," said my mother, the night before this Hegira, looking up from +her work, "my love, there is one thing you have quite forgot to settle,- +-I beg pardon for disturbing you, but it is important!--baby's name: +sha' n't we call him Augustine?" + +"Augustine," said my father, dreamily,--"why that name's mine." + +"And you would like your boy's to be the same?" + +"No," said my father, rousing himself. "Nobody would know which was +which. I should catch myself learning the Latin accidence, or playing +at marbles. I should never know my own identity, and Mrs. Primmins +would be giving me pap." + +My mother smiled; and putting her hand, which was a very pretty one, on +my father's shoulder, and looking at him tenderly, she said: "There's no +fear of mistaking you for any other, even your son, dearest. Still, if +you prefer another name, what shall it be?" + +"Samuel," said my father. "Dr. Parr's name is Samuel." + +"La, my love! Samuel is the ugliest name--" + +My father did not hear the exclamation; he was again deep in his books. +Presently he started up: "Barnes says Homer is Solomon. Read Omeros +backward, in the Hebrew manner--" + +"Yes, my love," interrupted my mother. "But baby's Christian name?" + +"Omeros--Soreino--Solemo--Solomo!" + +"Solomo,--shocking!" said my mother. + +"Shocking indeed," echoed my father; "an outrage to common-sense." +Then, after glancing again over his books, he broke out musingly: "But, +after all, it is nonsense to suppose that Homer was not settled till his +time." + +"Whose?" asked my mother, mechanically. My father lifted up his finger. + +My mother continued, after a short pause., "Arthur is a pretty name. +Then there 's William--Henry--Charles Robert. What shall it be, love?" + +"Pisistratus!" said my father (who had hung fire till then), in a tone +of contempt,--"Pisistratus, indeed!" + +"Pisistratus! a very fine name," said my mother, joyfully,--"Pisistratus +Caxton. Thank you, my love: Pisistratus it shall be." + +"Do you contradict me? Do you side with Wolfe and Heyne and that +pragmatical fellow Vico? Do you mean to say that the Rhapsodists--" + +"No, indeed," interrupted my mother. "My dear, you frighten me." + +My father sighed, and threw himself back in his chair. My mother took +courage and resumed. + +"Pisistratus is a long name too! Still, one could call him Sisty." + +"Siste, Viator," muttered my father; "that's trite!" + +"No, Sisty by itself--short. Thank you, my dear." + +Four days afterwards, on his return from the book-sale, to my father's +inexpressible bewilderment, he was informed that Pisistratus was +growing the very image of him." + +When at length the good man was made thoroughly aware of the fact that +his son and heir boasted a name so memorable in history as that borne by +the enslaver of Athens and the disputed arranger of Homer,--and it was +asserted to be a name that he himself had suggested,--he was as angry as +so mild a man could be. "But it is infamous!" he exclaimed. +"Pisistratus christened! Pisistratus, who lived six hundred years +before Christ was born! Good heavens, madam! you have made me the +father of an Anachronism." + +My mother burst into tears. But the evil was irremediable. An +anachronism I was, and an anachronism I must continue to the end of the +chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +"Of course, sir, you will begin soon to educate your son yourself?" said +Mr. Squills. + +"Of course, sir," said my father, "you have read Martinus Scriblerus?" + +"I don't understand you, Mr. Caxton." + +"Then you have not read Aiartinus Scriblerus, Mr. Squills!" + +"Consider that I have read it; and what then?" + +"Why, then, Squills," said my father, familiarly, "you son would know +that though a scholar is often a fool, he is never a fool so supreme, so +superlative, as when he is defacing the first unsullied page of the +human history by entering into it the commonplaces of his own pedantry. +A scholar, sir,--at least one like me,--is of all persons the most unfit +to teach young children. A mother, sir,--a simple, natural, loving +mother,--is the infant's true guide to knowledge." + +"Egad! Mr. Caxton,--in spite of Helvetius, whom you quoted the night the +boy was born,--egad! I believe you are right." + +"I am sure of it," said my father,--"at least as sure as a poor mortal +can be of anything. I agree with Helvetius, the child should be +educated from its birth; but how? There is the rub: send him to school +forthwith! Certainly, he is at school already with the two great +teachers,--Nature and Love. Observe, that childhood and genius have the +same master-organ in common,--inquisitiveness. Let childhood have its +way, and as it began where genius begins, it may find what genius finds. +A certain Greek writer tells us of some man who, in order to save his +bees a troublesome flight to Hymettus, cut their wings, and placed +before them the finest flowers he could select. The poor bees made no +honey. Now, sir, if I were to teach my boy, I should be cutting his +wings and giving him the flowers he should find himself. Let us leave +Nature alone for the present, and Nature's loving proxy, the watchful +mother." + +Therewith my father pointed to his heir sprawling on the grass and +plucking daisies on the lawn, while the young mother's voice rose +merrily, laughing at the child's glee. + +"I shall make but a poor bill out of your nursery, I see," said Mr. +Squills. + +Agreeably to these doctrines, strange in so learned a father, I thrived +and flourished, and learned to spell, and make pot-hooks, under the +joint care of my mother and Dame Primmins. This last was one of an old +race fast dying away,--the race of old, faithful servants; the race of +old, tale-telling nurses. She had reared my mother before me; but her +affection put out new flowers for the new generation. She was a +Devonshire woman; and Devonshire women, especially those who have passed +their youth near the sea-coast, are generally superstitious. She had a +wonderful budget of fables. Before I was six years old, I was erudite +in that primitive literature in which the legends of all nations are +traced to a common fountain,--Puss in Boots, Tom Thumb, Fortunio, +Fortunatus, Jack the Giant-Killer; tales, like proverbs, equally +familiar, under different versions, to the infant worshippers of Budh +and the hardier children of Thor. I may say, without vanity, that in an +examination in those venerable classics I could have taken honors! + +My dear mother had some little misgivings as to the solid benefit to be +derived from such fantastic erudition, and timidly consulted my father +thereon. + +"My love," answered my father, in that tone of voice which always +puzzled even my mother to be sure whether he was in jest or earnest, "in +all these fables certain philosophers could easily discover symbolic +significations of the highest morality. I have myself written a +treatise to prove that Puss in Boots is an allegory upon the progress of +the human understanding, having its origin in the mystical schools of +the Egyptian priests, and evidently an illustration of the worship +rendered at Thebes and Memphis to those feline quadrupeds of which they +make both religious symbols and elaborate mummies." + +"My dear Austin," said my mother, opening her blue eyes, "you don't +think that Sisty will discover all those fine things in Puss in Boots!" + +"My dear Kitty," answered my father, "you don't think, when you were +good enough to take up with me, that you found in me all the fine things +I have learned from books. You knew me only as a harmless creature who +was happy enough to please your fancy. By and by you discovered that I +was no worse for all the quartos that have transmigrated into ideas +within me,--ideas that are mysteries even to myself. If Sisty, as you +call the child (plague on that unlucky anachronism! which you do well to +abbreviate into a dissyllable),--if Sisty can't discover all the wisdom +of Egypt in Puss in Boots, what then? Puss in Boots is harmless, and it +pleases his fancy. All that wakes curiosity is wisdom, if innocent; all +that pleases the fancy now, turns hereafter to love or to knowledge. +And so, my dear, go back to the nursery." + +But I should wrong thee, O best of fathers! if I suffered the reader to +suppose that because thou didst seem so indifferent to my birth, and so +careless as to my early teaching, therefore thou wert, at heart, +indifferent to thy troublesome Neogilos. As I grew older, I became more +sensibly aware that a father's eye was upon me. I distinctly remember +one incident, that seems to me, in looking back, a crisis in my infant +life, as the first tangible link between my own heart and that calm +great soul. + +My father was seated on the lawn before the house, his straw hat over +his eyes (it was summer), and his book on his lap. Suddenly a beautiful +delf blue-and-white flower-pot, which had been set on the window-sill of +an upper story, fell to the ground with a crash, and the fragments +spluttered up round my father's legs. Sublime in his studies as +Archimedes in the siege, he continued to read,--Impavidum ferient +ruince! + +"Dear, dear!" cried my mother, who was at work in the porch, "my poor +flower-pot that I prized so much! Who could have done this? Primmins, +Primmins!" + +Mrs. Primmins popped her head out of the fatal window, nodded to the +summons, and came down in a trice, pale and breathless. + +"Oh!" said my mother, Mournfully, "I would rather have lost all the +plants in the greenhouse in the great blight last May,--I would rather +the best tea-set were broken! The poor geranium I reared myself, and +the dear, dear flower-pot which Mr. Caxton bought for me my last +birthday! That naughty child must have done this!" + +Mrs. Primmins was dreadfully afraid of my father,--why, I know not, +except that very talkative social persons are usually afraid of very +silent shy ones. She cast a hasty glance at her master, who was +beginning to evince signs of attention, and cried promptly, "No, ma'am, +it was not the dear boy, bless his flesh, it was I!" + +"You? How could you be so careless? and you knew how I prized them +both. Oh, Primmins!" Primmins began to sob. + +"Don't tell fibs, nursey," said a small, shrill voice; and Master Sisty, +coming out of the house as bold as brass, continued rapidly--"don't +scold Primmins, mamma: it was I who pushed out the flower-pot." + +"Hush!" said nurse, more frightened than ever, and looking aghast +towards my father, who had very deliberately taken off his hat, and was +regarding the scene with serious eyes wide awake. "Hush! And if he did +break it, ma'am, it was quite an accident; he was standing so, and he +never meant it. Did you, Master Sisty? Speak!" this in a whisper, "or +Pa will be so angry." + +"Well," said my mother, "I suppose it was an accident; take care in +future, my child. You are sorry, I see, to have grieved me. There's a +kiss; don't fret." + +"No, mamma, you must not kiss me; I don't deserve it. I pushed out the +flower-pot on purpose." + +"Ha! and why?" said my father, walking up. + +Mrs. Primmins trembled like a leaf. + +"For fun!" said I, hanging my head,--"just to see how you'd look, papa; +and that's the truth of it. Now beat me, do beat me!" + +My father threw his book fifty yards off, stooped down, and caught me to +his breast. "Boy," he said, "you have done wrong: you shall repair it +by remembering all your life that your father blessed God for giving him +a son who spoke truth in spite of fear! Oh! Mrs. Primmins, the next +fable of this kind you try to teach him, and we part forever!" + +From that time I first date the hour when I felt that I loved my father, +and knew that he loved me; from that time, too, he began to converse +with me. He would no longer, if he met me in the garden, pass by with a +smile and nod; he would stop, put his book in his pocket, and though his +talk was often above my comprehension, still somehow I felt happier and +better, and less of an infant, when I thought over it, and tried to +puzzle out the meaning; for he had away of suggesting, not teaching, +putting things into my head, and then leaving them to work out their own +problems. I remember a special instance with respect to that same +flower-pot and geranium. Mr. Squills, who was a bachelor, and well-to- +do in the world, often made me little presents. Not long after the +event I have narrated, he gave me one far exceeding in value those +usually bestowed on children,--it was a beautiful large domino-box in +cut ivory, painted and gilt. This domino-box was my delight. I was +never weary of playing, at dominos with Mrs. Primmins, and I slept with +the box under my pillow. + +"Ah!" said my father one day, when he found me ranging the ivory +parallelograms in the parlor, "ah! you like that better than all your +playthings, eh?" + +"Oh, yes, papa!" + +"You would be very sorry if your mamma were to throw that box out of the +window and break it for fun." I looked beseechingly at my father, and +made no answer. + +"But perhaps you would be very glad," he resumed, "if suddenly one of +those good fairies you read of could change the domino-box into a +beautiful geranium in a beautiful blue-and-white flower-pot, and you +could have the pleasure of putting it on your mamma's window-sill." + +"Indeed I would!" said I, half-crying. + +"My dear boy, I believe you; but good wishes don't mend bad actions: +good actions mend bad actions." + +So saying, he shut the door and went out. I cannot tell you how puzzled +I was to make out what my father meant by his aphorism. But I know that +I played at dominos no more that day. The next morning my father found +me seated by myself under a tree in the garden; he paused, and looked at +me with his grave bright eyes very steadily. + +"My boy," said he, "I am going to walk to--,"a town about two miles off: +"will you come? And, by the by, fetch your domino-box. I should like +to show it to a person there." I ran in for the box, and, not a little +proud of walking with my father upon the high-road, we set out. + +"Papa," said I by the way, "there are no fairies now." + +"What then, my child?" + +"Why, how then can my domino-box be changed into a geranium and a blue- +and-white flower-pot?" + +"My dear," said my father, leaning his hand on my shoulder, "everybody +who is in earnest to be good, carries two fairies about with him,--one +here," and he touched my heart, "and one here," and he touched my +forehead. + +"I don't understand, papa." + +"I can wait till you do, Pisistratus. What a name!" + +My father stopped at a nursery gardener's, and after looking over the +flowers, paused before a large double geranium. "Ah! this is finer than +that which your mamma was so fond of. What is the cost, sir?" + +"Only 7s. 6d.," said the gardener. + +My father buttoned up his pocket. "I can't afford it to-day," said he, +gently, and we walked out. + +On entering the town, we stopped again at a china warehouse. "Have you +a flower-pot like that I bought some months ago? Ah! here is one, +marked 3s. 6d. Yes, that is the price. Well; when your mamma's +birthday comes again, we must buy her another. That is some months to +wait. And we can wait, Master Sisty. For truth, that blooms all the +year round, is better than a poor geranium; and a word that is never +broken, is better than a piece of delf." + +My head, which had drooped before, rose again; but the rush of joy at my +heart almost stifled me. + +"I have called to pay your little bill," said my father, entering the +shop of one of those fancy stationers common in country towns, and who +sell all kinds of pretty toys and knick-knacks. "And by the way," he +added, as the smiling shopman looked over his books for the entry, "I +think my little boy here can show you a much handsomer specimen of +French workmanship than that work-box which you enticed Mrs. Caxton into +raffling for, last winter. Show your domino-box, my dear." + +I produced my treasure, and the shopman was liberal in his +commendations. "It is always well, my boy, to know what a thing is +worth, in case one wishes to part with it. If my young gentleman gets +tired of his plaything, what will you give him for it?" + +"Why, sir," said the shopman, "I fear we could not afford to give more +than eighteen shillings for it, unless the young gentleman took some of +these pretty things in exchange." + +"Eighteen shillings!" said my father; "you would give that sum! Well, +my boy, whenever you do grow tired of your box, you have my leave to +sell it." + +My father paid his bill and went out. I lingered behind a few moments, +and joined him at the end of the street. + +"Papa, papa," I cried, clapping my hands, "we can buy the geranium; we +can buy the flower-pot." And I pulled a handful of silver from my +pockets. + +"Did I not say right?" said my father, passing his handkerchief over his +eyes. "You have found the two fairies!" + +Oh! how proud, how overjoyed I was when, after placing vase and flower +on the window-sill, I plucked my mother by the gown and made her follow +me to the spot. + +"It is his doing and his money!" said my father; "good actions have +mended the bad." + +"What!" cried my mother, when she had learned all; "and your poor +domino-box that you were so fond of! We will go back to-morrow and buy +it back, if it costs us double." + +"Shall we buy it back, Pisistratus?" asked my father. + +"Oh, no--no--no! It would spoil all," I cried, burying my face on my +father's breast. + +"My wife," said my father, solemnly, "this is my first lesson to our +child,--the sanctity and the happiness of self-sacrifice; undo not what +it should teach to his dying day." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +When I was between my seventh and my eighth year, a change came over me, +which may perhaps be familiar to the notice of those parents who boast +the anxious blessing of an only child. The ordinary vivacity of +childhood forsook me; I became quiet, sedate, and thoughtful. The +absence of play-fellows of my own age, the companionship of mature +minds, alternated only by complete solitude, gave something precocious, +whether to my imagination or my reason. The wild fables muttered to me +by the old nurse in the summer twilight or over the winter's hearth,-- +the effort made by my struggling intellect to comprehend the grave, +sweet wisdom of my father's suggested lessons,--tended to feed a passion +for revery, in which all my faculties strained and struggled, as in the +dreams that come when sleep is nearest waking. I had learned to read +with ease, and to write with some fluency, and I already began to +imitate, to reproduce. Strange tales akin to those I had gleaned from +fairy-land, rude songs modelled from such verse-books as fell into my +hands, began to mar the contents of marble-covered pages designed for +the less ambitious purposes of round text and multiplication. My mind +was yet more disturbed by the intensity of my home affections. My love +for both my parents had in it something morbid and painful. I often +wept to think how little I could do for those I loved so well. My +fondest fancies built up imaginary difficulties for them, which my arm +was to smooth. These feelings, thus cherished, made my nerves over- +susceptible and acute. Nature began to affect me powerfully; and, from +that affection rose a restless curiosity to analyze the charms that so +mysteriously moved me to joy or awe, to smiles or tears. I got my +father to explain to me the elements of astronomy; I extracted from +Squills, who was an ardent botanist, some of the mysteries in the life +of flowers. But music became my darling passion. My mother (though the +daughter of a great scholar,--a scholar at whose name my father raised +his hat if it happened to be on his head) possessed, I must own it +fairly, less book-learning than many a humble tradesman's daughter can +boast in this more enlightened generation; but she had some natural +gifts which had ripened, Heaven knows how! into womanly accomplishments. +She drew with some elegance, and painted flowers to exquisite +perfection. She played on more than one instrument with more than +boarding-school skill; and though she sang in no language but her own, +few could hear her sweet voice without being deeply touched. Her music, +her songs, had a wondrous effect on me. Thus, altogether, a kind of +dreamy yet delightful melancholy seized upon my whole being; and this +was the more remarkable because contrary to my early temperament, which +was bold, active, and hilarious. The change in my character began to +act upon my form. From a robust and vigorous infant, I grew into a pale +and slender boy. I began to ail and mope. Mr. Squills was called in. + +"Tonics!" said Mr. Squills; "and don't let him sit over his book. Send +him out in the air; make him play. Come here, my boy: these organs are +growing too large;" and Mr. Squills, who was a phrenologist, placed his +hand on my forehead. "Gad, sir, here's an ideality for you; and, bless +my soul, what a, constructiveness!" + +My father pushed aside his papers, and walked to and fro the room with +his hands behind him; but he did not say a word till Mr. Squills was +gone. + +"My dear," then said he to my mother, on whose breast I was leaning my +aching ideality--"my dear, Pisistratus must go to school in good +earnest." + +"Bless me, Austin!--at his age?" + +"He is nearly eight years old." + +"But he is so forward." + +"It is for that reason he must go to school." + +"I don't quite understand you, my love. I know he is getting past me; +but you who are so clever--" + +My father took my mother's hand: "We can teach him nothing now, Kitty. +We send him to school to be taught--" + +"By some schoolmaster who knows much less than you do--" + +"By little schoolboys, who will make him a boy again," said my father, +almost sadly. "My dear, you remember that when our Kentish gardener +planted those filbert-trees, and when they were in their third year, and +you began to calculate on what they would bring in, you went out one +morning, and found he had cut them down to the ground. You were vexed, +and asked why. What did the gardener say? 'To prevent their bearing +too soon.' There is no want of fruitfulness here: put back the hour of +produce, that the plant may last." + +"Let me go to school," said I, lifting my languid head and smiling on my +father. I understood him at once, and it was as if the voice of my life +itself answered him. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +A year after the resolution thus come to, I was at home for the +holidays. + +"I hope," said my mother, "that they are doing Sisty justice. I do +think he is not nearly so quick a child as he was before he went to +school. I wish you would examine him, Austin." + +"I have examined him, my dear. It is just as I expected; and I am quite +satisfied." + +"What! you really think he has come on?" said my mother, joyfully. + +"He does not care a button for botany now," said Mr. Squills. + +"And he used to be so fond of music, dear boy!" observed my mother, with +a sigh. "Good gracious, what noise is that?" + +"Your son's pop-gun against the window," said my father. "It is lucky +it is only the window; it would have made a less deafening noise, +though, if it had been Mr. Squills's head, as it was yesterday morning." + +"The left ear," observed Squills; "and a very sharp blow it was too. +Yet you are satisfied, Mr. Caxton?" + +"Yes; I think the boy is now as great a blockhead as most boys of his +age are," observed my father with great complacency. + +"Dear me, Austin,--a great blockhead?" + +"What else did he go to school for?" asked my father. + +And observing a certain dismay in the face of his female audience, and a +certain surprise in that of his male, he rose and stood on the hearth, +with one hand in his waistcoat, as was his wont when about to +philosophize in more detail than was usual to him. + +"Mr. Squills," said he, "you have had great experience in families." + +"As good a practice as any in the county," said Mr. Squills, proudly; +"more than I can manage. I shall advertise for a partner." + +"And," resumed my father, "you must have observed almost invariably that +in every family there is what father, mother, uncle, and aunt pronounce +to be one wonderful child." + +"One at least," said Mr. Squills, smiling. + +"It is easy," continued my father, "to say this is parental partiality; +but it is not so. Examine that child as a stranger, and it will startle +yourself. You stand amazed at its eager curiosity, its quick +comprehension, its ready wit, its delicate perception. Often, too, you +will find some faculty strikingly developed. The child will have a turn +for mechanics, perhaps, and make you a model of a steamboat; or it will +have an ear tuned to verse, and will write you a poem like that it has +got by heart from 'The Speaker;' or it will take to botany (like +Pisistratus), with the old maid its aunt; or it will play a march on its +sister's pianoforte. In short, even you, Squills, will declare that it +is really a wonderful child." + +"Upon my word," said Mr. Squills, thoughtfully, "there's a great deal of +truth in what you say. Little Tom Dobbs is a wonderful child; so is +Frank Stepington--and as for Johnny Styles, I must bring him here for +you to hear him prattle on Natural History, and see how well he handles +his pretty little microscope." + +"Heaven forbid!" said my father. "And now let me proceed. These +thaumata, or wonders, last till when, Mr. Squills?--last till the boy +goes to school; and then, somehow or other, the thaumata vanish into +thin air, like ghosts at the cockcrow. A year after the prodigy has +been at the academy, father and mother, uncle and aunt, plague you no +more with his doings and sayings: the extraordinary infant has become a +very ordinary little boy. Is it not so, Mr. Squills?" + +"Indeed you are right, sir. How did you come to be so observant? You +never seem to--" + +"Hush!" interrupted my father; and then, looking fondly at my mother's +anxious face, he said soothingly: "Be comforted; this is wisely +ordained, and it is for the best." + +"It must be the fault of the school," said my mother, shaking her head. + +"It is the necessity of the school, and its virtue, my Kate. Let any +one of these wonderful children--wonderful as you thought Sisty himself- +-stay at home, and you will see its head grow bigger and bigger, and its +body thinner and thinner--eh, Mr. Squills?--till the mind take all +nourishment from the frame, and the frame, in turn, stint or make sickly +the mind. You see that noble oak from the window. If the Chinese had +brought it up, it would have been a tree in miniature at five years old, +and at a hundred, you would have set it in a flowerpot on your table, no +bigger than it was at five,--a curiosity for its maturity at one age; a +show for its diminutiveness at the other. No! the ordeal for talent is +school; restore the stunted mannikin to the growing child, and then let +the child, if it can, healthily, hardily, naturally, work its slow way +up into greatness. If greatness be denied it, it will at least be a +man; and that is better than to be a little Johnny Styles all its life,- +-an oak in a pill-box." + +At that moment I rushed into the room, glowing and panting, health on my +cheek, vigor in my limbs, all childhood at my heart. "Oh, mamma, I have +got up the kite--so high Come and see. Do come, papa!" + +"Certainly," said my father; "only don't cry so loud,--kites make no +noise in rising; yet, you see how they soar above the world. Come, +Kate. Where is my hat? Ah!--thank you, my boy." + +"Kitty," said my father, looking at the kite, which, attached by its +string to the peg I had stuck into the ground, rested calm in the sky, +"never fear but what our kite shall fly as high; only, the human soul +has stronger instincts to mount upward than a few sheets of paper on a +framework of lath. But observe that to prevent its being lost in the +freedom of space,--we must attach it lightly to earth; and observe +again, my dear, that the higher it soars, the more string we must give +it." + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAXTONS, BY LYTTON, PART 1 *** + +********* This file should be named 7586.txt or 7586.zip ********** + +This eBook was produced by Pat Castevens +and David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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