I seemed to myself to have made a leap in life when I returned to school. I no longer felt as a boy. Uncle Jack, out of his own purse, had presented me with my first pair of Wellington boots; my mother had been coaxed into allowing me a small tail to jackets hitherto tail-less; my collars, which had been wont, spaniel-like, to flap and fall about my neck, now, terrier-wise, stood erect and rampant, encompassed with a circumvallation of whalebone, buckram, and black silk. I was, in truth, nearly seventeen, and I gave myself the airs of a man. Now, be it observed that that crisis in adolescent existence wherein we first pass from Master Sisty into Mr. Pisistratus, or Pisistratus Caxton, Esq.; wherein we arrogate, and with tacit concession from our elders, the long-envied title of young man,—always seems a sudden and imprompt upshooting and elevation. We do not mark the gradual preparations thereto; we remember only one distinct period, in which all the signs and symptoms burst and effloresced together,—Wellington boots, coat-tail, cravat, down on the upper lip, thoughts on razors, reveries on young ladies, and a new kind of sense of poetry.
I began now to read steadily, to understand what I did read, and to cast some anxious looks towards the future, with vague notions that I had a place to win in the world, and that nothing is to be won without perseverance and labor; and so I went on till I was seventeen and at the head of the school, when I received the two letters I subjoin.
1.—FROM AUGUSTINE CAXTON, Esq.
My Dear Son,—I have informed Dr. Herman that you will not return
to him after the approaching holidays. You are old enough now to
look forward to the embraces of our beloved Alma Mater, and I think
studious enough to hope for the honors she bestows on her worthier
sons. You are already entered at Trinity,—and in fancy I see my
youth return to me in your image. I see you wandering where the
Cam steals its way through those noble gardens; and, confusing you
with myself, I recall the old dreams that haunted me when the
chiming bells swung over the placid waters. Verum secretumque
Mouseion, quam multa dictatis, quam multa invenitis! There at that
illustrious college, unless the race has indeed degenerated, you
will measure yourself with young giants. You will see those who,
in the Law, the Church, the State, or the still cloisters of
Learning, are destined to become the eminent leaders of your age.
To rank amongst them you are not forbidden to aspire; he who in
youth “can scorn delights, and love laborious days,” should pitch
high his ambition.
Your Uncle Jack says he has done wonders with his newspaper; though
Mr. Rollick grumbles, and declares that it is full of theories, and
that it puzzles the farmers. Uncle Jack, in reply, contends that
he creates an audience, not addresses one, and sighs that his
genius is thrown away in a provincial town. In fact, he really is
a very clever man, and might do much in London, I dare say. He
often comes over to dine and sleep, returning the next morning.
His energy is wonderful—and contagious. Can you imagine that he
has actually stirred up the flame of my vanity, by constantly
poking at the bars? Metaphor apart, I find myself collecting all
my notes and commonplaces, and wondering to see how easily they
fall into method, and take shape in chapters and books. I cannot
help smiling when I add, that I fancy I am going to become an
author; and smiling more when I think that your Uncle Jack should
have provoked me into so egregious an ambition. However, I have
read some passages of my book to your mother, and she says, “it is
vastly fine,” which is encouraging. Your mother has great good
sense, though I don’t mean to say that she has much learning,—
which is a wonder, considering that Pic de la Mirandola was nothing
to her father. Yet he died, dear great man, and never printed a
line; while I—positively I blush to think of my temerity! Adieu,
my son; make the best of the time that remains with you at the
Philhellenic. A full mind is the true Pantheism, plena Jovis. It
is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice
can obtain a lodging. When she knocks at your door, my son, be
able to say, “No room for your ladyship; pass on.” Your
affectionate father,
A. CAXTON.
2.—FROM Mrs. CAXTON.
My Dearest Sisty,—You are coming home! My heart is so full of
that thought that it seems to me as if I could not write anything
else. Dear child, you are coming home; you have done with school,
you have done with strangers,—you are our own, all our own son
again! You are mine again, as you were in the cradle, the nursery,
and the garden, Sisty, when we used to throw daisies at each other!
You will laugh at me so when I tell you that as soon as I heard you
were coming home for good, I crept away from the room, and went to
my drawer where I keep, you know, all my treasures. There was your
little cap that I worked myself, and your poor little nankeen
jacket that you were so proud to throw off—oh! and many other
relies of you when you were little Sisty, and I was not the cold,
formal “Mother” you call me now, but dear “Mamma.” I kissed them,
Sisty, and said, “My little child is coming back to me again!” So
foolish was I, I forgot all the long years that have passed, and
fancied I could carry you again in my arms, and that I should again
coax you to say “God bless papa.” Well, well! I write now between
laughing and crying. You cannot be what you were, but you are
still my own dear son,—your father’s son; dearer to me than all
the world,—except that father.
I am so glad, too, that you will come so soon,—come while your
father is really warm with his book, and while you can encourage
and keep him to it. For why should he not be great and famous?
Why should not all admire him as we do? You know how proud of him
I always was; but I do so long to let the world know why I was so
proud. And yet, after all, it is not only because he is so wise
and learned, but because he is so good, and has such a large, noble
heart. But the heart must appear in the book too, as well as the
learning. For though it is full of things I don’t understand,
every now and then there is something I do understand,—that seems
as if that heart spoke out to all the world.
Your uncle has undertaken to get it published, and your father is
going up to town with him about it, as soon as the first volume is
finished.
All are quite well except poor Mrs. Jones, who has the ague very
bad indeed; Primmins has made her wear a charm for it, and Mrs.
Jones actually declares she is already much better. One can’t deny
that there may be a great deal in such things, though it seems
quite against the reason. Indeed your father says, “Why not? A
charm must be accompanied by a strong wish on the part of the
charmer that it may succeed,—and what is magnetism but a wish?” I
don’t quite comprehend this; but, like all your father says, it has
more than meets the eye, I am quite sure.
Only three weeks to the holidays, and then no more school, Sisty,—
no more school! I shall have your room all done, freshly, and made
so pretty; they are coming about it to-morrow.
The duck is quite well, and I really don’t think it is quite as
lame as it was.
God bless you, dear, dear child. Your affectionate happy mother.
K.C.
The interval between these letters and the morning on which I was to return home seemed to me like one of those long, restless, yet half-dreamy days which in some infant malady I had passed in a sick-bed. I went through my task-work mechanically, composed a Greek ode in farewell to the Philhellenic, which Dr. Herman pronounced a chef d’oeuvre, and my father, to whom I sent it in triumph, returned a letter of false English with it, that parodied all my Hellenic barbarisms by imitating them in my mother-tongue. However, I swallowed the leek, and consoled myself with the pleasing recollection that, after spending six years in learning to write bad Greek, I should never have any further occasion to avail myself of so precious an accomplishment.
And so came the last day. Then alone, and in a kind of delighted melancholy, I revisited each of the old haunts,—the robbers’ cave we had dug one winter, and maintained, six of us, against all the police of the little kingdom; the place near the pales where I had fought my first battle; the old beech-stump on which I sat to read letters from home! With my knife, rich in six blades (besides a cork-screw, a pen-picker, and a button-hook), I carved my name in large capitals over my desk. Then night came, and the bell rang, and we went to our rooms. And I opened the window and looked out. I saw all the stars, and wondered which was mine,—which should light to fame and fortune the manhood about to commence. Hope and Ambition were high within me; and yet, behind them stood Melancholy. Ah! who amongst you, readers, can now summon back all those thoughts, sweet and sad,—all that untold, half-conscious regret for the past,—all those vague longings for the future, which made a poet of the dullest on the last night before leaving boyhood and school forever?
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