Part 109 (2/2)
CHAPTER XVI.
A full and happy hour pa.s.sed away in Harley's questions and Leonard's answers,--the dialogue that naturally ensued between the two, on the first interview after an absence of years so eventful to the younger man.
The history of Leonard during this interval was almost solely internal, the struggle of intellect with its own difficulties, the wanderings of imagination through its own adventurous worlds.
The first aim of Norreys, in preparing the mind of his pupil for its vocation, had been to establish the equilibrium of its powers, to calm into harmony the elements rudely shaken by the trials and pa.s.sions of the old hard outer life.
The theory of Norreys was briefly this: The education of a superior human being is but the development of ideas in one for the benefit of others. To this end, attention should be directed,--1st, To the value of the ideas collected; 2dly, To their discipline; 3dly, To their expression. For the first, acquirement is necessary; for the second, discipline; for the third, art. The first comprehends knowledge purely intellectual, whether derived from observation, memory, reflection, books, or men, Aristotle or Fleet Street. The second demands training, not only intellectual, but moral; the purifying and exaltation of motives; the formation of habits; in which method is but a part of a divine and harmonious symmetry, a union of intellect and conscience.
Ideas of value, stored by the first process; marshalled into force, and placed under guidance, by the second,--it is the result of the third, to place them before the world in the most attractive or commanding form.
This may be done by actions no less than words; but the adaptation of means to end, the pa.s.sage of ideas from the brain of one man into the lives and souls of all, no less in action than in books, requires study.
Action has its art as well as literature. Here Norreys had but to deal with the calling of the scholar, the formation of the writer, and so to guide the perceptions towards those varieties in the sublime and beautiful, the just combination of which is at once CREATION. Man himself is but a combination of elements. He who combines in nature, creates in art. Such, very succinctly and inadequately expressed, was the system upon which Norreys proceeded to regulate and perfect the great native powers of his pupil; and though the reader may perhaps say that no system laid down by another can either form genius or dictate to its results, yet probably nine-tenths at least of those in whom we recognize the luminaries of our race have pa.s.sed, unconsciously to themselves (for self-education is rarely conscious of its phases), through each of these processes. And no one who pauses to reflect will deny, that according to this theory, ill.u.s.trated by a man of vast experience, profound knowledge, and exquisite taste, the struggles of genius would be infinitely lessened, its vision cleared and strengthened, and the distance between effort and success notably abridged.
Norreys, however, was far too deep a reasoner to fall into the error of modern teachers, who suppose that education can dispense with labour. No mind becomes muscular without rude and early exercise. Labour should be strenuous, but in right directions. All that we can do for it is to save the waste of time in blundering into needless toils.
The master had thus first employed his neophyte in arranging and compiling materials for a great critical work in which Norreys himself was engaged. In this stage of scholastic preparation, Leonard was necessarily led to the acquisition of languages, for which he had great apt.i.tude; the foundations of a large and comprehensive erudition were solidly constructed. He traced by the ploughshare the walls of the destined city. Habits of accuracy and of generalization became formed insensibly; and that precious faculty which seizes, amidst acc.u.mulated materials, those that serve the object for which they are explored,--that faculty which quadruples all force, by concentrating it on one point,--once roused into action, gave purpose to every toil and quickness to each perception. But Norreys did not confine his pupil solely to the mute world of a library; he introduced him to some of the first minds in arts, science, and letters, and active life. ”These,”
said he, ”are the living ideas of the present, out of which books for the future will be written: study them; and here, as in the volumes of the past, diligently ama.s.s and deliberately compile.”
By degrees Norreys led on that young ardent mind from the selection of ideas to their aesthetic a.n.a.lysis,--from compilation to criticism; but criticism severe, close, and logical,--a reason for each word of praise or of blame. Led in this stage of his career to examine into the laws of beauty, a new light broke upon his mind; from amidst the ma.s.ses of marble he had piled around him rose the vision of the statue.
And so, suddenly, one day Norreys said to him, ”I need a compiler no longer,--maintain yourself by your own creations.” And Leonard wrote, and a work flowered up from the seed deep buried, and the soil well cleared to the rays of the sun and the healthful influence of expanded air.
That first work did not penetrate to a very wide circle of readers, not from any perceptible fault of its own--there is luck in these things; the first anonymous work of an original genius is rarely at once eminently successful. But the more experienced recognized the promise of the book. Publishers, who have an instinct in the discovery of available talent, which often forestalls the appreciation of the public, volunteered liberal offers. ”Be fully successful this time,” said Norreys; ”think not of models nor of style. Strike at once at the common human heart,--throw away the corks, swim out boldly. One word more,--never write a page till you have walked from your room to Temple Bar, and, mingling with men, and reading the human face, learn why great poets have mostly pa.s.sed their lives in cities.”
Thus Leonard wrote again, and woke one morning to find himself famous.
So far as the chances of all professions dependent on health will permit, present independence, and, with foresight and economy, the prospects of future competence were secured.
”And, indeed,” said Leonard, concluding a longer but a simpler narrative than is here told,--”indeed, there is some chance that I may obtain at once a sum that will leave me free for the rest of my life to select my own subjects, and write without care for remuneration. This is what I call the true (and, perhaps, alas! the rare) independence of him who devotes himself to letters. Norreys, having seen my boyish plan for the improvement of certain machinery in the steam engine, insisted on my giving much time to mechanics. The study that once pleased me so greatly now seemed dull; but I went into it with good heart; and the result is, that I have improved so far on my original idea, that my scheme has met the approbation of one of our most scientific engineers: and I am a.s.sured that the patent for it will be purchased of me upon terms which I am ashamed to name to you, so disproportioned do they seem to the value of so simple a discovery. Meanwhile, I am already rich enough to have realized the two dreams of my heart,--to make a home in the cottage where I had last seen you and Helen--I mean Miss Digby; and to invite to that home her who had sheltered my infancy.”
”Your mother, where is she? Let me see her.”
Leonard ran out to call the widow, but to his surprise and vexation learned that she had quitted the house before L'Estrange arrived.
He came back, perplexed how to explain what seemed ungracious and ungrateful, and spoke with hesitating lip and flushed cheek of the widow's natural timidity and sense of her own homely station. ”And so overpowered is she,” added Leonard, ”by the recollection of all that we owe to you, that she never hears your name without agitation or tears, and trembled like a leaf at the thought of seeing you.”
”Ha!” said Harley, with visible emotion. ”Is it so?” And he bent down, shading his face with his hand. ”And,” he renewed, after a pause, but not looking up--”and you ascribe this fear of seeing me, this agitation at my name, solely to an exaggerated sense of--of the circ.u.mstances attending my acquaintance with yourself?”
”And, perhaps, to a sort of shame that the mother of one you have made her proud of is but a peasant.”
”That is all?” said Harley, earnestly, now looking up and fixing eyes in which stood tears upon Leonard's ingenuous brow.
”Oh, my dear Lord, what else can it be? Do not judge her harshly.”
L'Estrange arose abruptly, pressed Leonard's hand, muttered something not audible, and then drawing his young friend's arm in his, led him into the garden, and turned the conversation back to its former topics.
Leonard's heart yearned to ask after Helen, and yet something withheld him from doing so, till, seeing Harley did not volunteer to speak of her, he could not resist his impulse. ”And Helen--Miss Digby--is she much changed?”
”Changed, no--yes; very much.”
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