Letter From Pisistratus Caxton To Albert Trevanion, Esq., M.P.
(The confession of a youth who in the Old World finds himself one too many.)
My Dear Mr. Trevanion,—I thank you cordially, and so we do all,
for your reply to my letter informing you of the villanous traps
through which we have passed,—not indeed with whole skins, but
still whole in life and limb,—which, considering that the traps
were three, and the teeth sharp, was more than we could reasonably
expect. We have taken to the wastes, like wise foxes as we are,
and I do not think a bait can be found that will again snare the
fox paternal. As for the fox filial it is different, and I am
about to prove to you that he is burning to redeem the family
disgrace. Ah! my dear Mr. Trevanion, if you are busy with “blue-
books” when this letter reaches you, stop here, and put it aside
for some rare moment of leisure. I am about to open my heart to
you, and ask you, who know the world so well, to aid me in an
escape from those flammantia maenia wherewith I find that world
begirt and enclosed. For look you, sir, you and my father were
right when you both agreed that the mere book-life was not meant
for me. And yet what is not book-life, to a young man who would
make his way through the ordinary and conventional paths to
fortune? All the professions are so book-lined, book-hemmed, book-
choked, that wherever these strong hands of mine stretch towards
action, they find themselves met by octavo ramparts, flanked with
quarto crenellations. For first, this college life, opening to
scholarships, and ending, perchance, as you political economists
would desire, in Malthusian fellowships,—premiums for celibacy,—
consider what manner of thing it is!
Three years, book upon book,—a great Dead Sea before one; three
years long, and all the apples that grow on the shore full of the
ashes of pica and primer! Those three years ended, the fellowship,
it may be, won,—still books, books, if the whole world does not
close at the college gates. Do I, from scholar, effloresce into
literary man, author by profession? Books, books! Do I go into
the law? Books, books! Ars longa, vita brevis, which,
paraphrased, means that it is slow work before one fags one’s way
to a brief! Do I turn doctor? Why, what but books can kill time
until, at the age of forty, a lucky chance may permit me to kill
something else? The Church (for which, indeed, I don’t profess to
be good enough),—that is book-life par excellence, whether,
inglorious and poor, I wander through long lines of divines and
Fathers; or, ambitious of bishoprics, I amend the corruptions, not
of the human heart, but of a Greek text, and through defiles of
scholiasts and commentators win my way to the See. In short,
barring the noble profession of arms,—which you know, after all,
is not precisely the road to fortune,—can you tell me any means by
which one may escape these eternal books, this mental clockwork and
corporeal lethargy? Where can this passion for life that runs riot
through my veins find its vent? Where can these stalwart limbs and
this broad chest grow of value and worth in this hot-bed of
cerebral inflammation and dyspeptic intellect? I know what is in
me; I know I have the qualities that should go with stalwart limbs
and broad chest. I have some plain common-sense, some promptitude
and keenness, some pleasure in hardy danger, some fortitude in
bearing pain,—qualities for which I bless Heaven, for they are
qualities good and useful in private life. But in the forum of
men, in the market of fortune, are they not flocci, nauci, nihili?
In a word, dear sir and friend, in this crowded Old World there is
not the same room that our bold forefathers found for men to walk
about and jostle their neighbors. No; they must sit down like boys
at the form, and work out their tasks, with rounded shoulders and
aching fingers. There has been a pastoral age, and a hunting age,
and a fighting age; now we have arrived at the age sedentary. Men
who sit longest carry all before them,—puny, delicate fellows,
with hands just strong enough to wield a pen, eyes so bleared by
the midnight lamp that they see no joy in that buxom sun (which
draws me forth into the fields, as life draws the living), and
digestive organs worn and macerated by the relentless flagellation
of the brain. Certainly, if this is to be the Reign of Mind, it is
idle to repine, and kick against the pricks; but is it true that
all these qualities of action that are within me are to go for
nothing? If I were rich and happy in mind and circumstance, well
and good; I should shoot, hunt, farm, travel, enjoy life, and snap
my fingers at ambition. If I were so poor and so humbly bred that
I could turn gamekeeper or whipper in, as pauper gentlemen
virtually did of old, well and good too; I should exhaust this
troublesome vitality of mine by nightly battles with poachers, and
leaps over double dikes and stone walls. If I were so depressed of
spirit that I could live without remorse on my father’s small
means, and exclaim, with Claudian, “The earth gives me feasts that
cost nothing,” well and good too; it were a life to suit a
vegetable, or a very minor poet. But as it is,—here I open
another leaf of my heart to you! To say that, being poor, I want
to make a fortune, is to say that I am an Englishman. To attach
ourselves to a thing positive, belongs to our practical race. Even
in our dreams, if we build castles in the air, they are not Castles
of Indolence,—indeed they have very little of the castle about
them, and look much more like Hoare’s Bank, on the east side of
Temple Bar! I desire, then, to make a fortune. But I differ from
my countrymen, first, by desiring only what you rich men would call
but a small fortune; secondly, in wishing that I may not spend my
whole life in that fortune-making. Just see, now, how I am placed.
Under ordinary circumstances, I must begin by taking from my father
a large slice of an income that will ill spare paring. According
to my calculation, my parents and my uncle want all they have got,
and the subtraction of the yearly sum on which Pisistratus is to
live till he can live by his own labors, would be so much taken
from the decent comforts of his kindred. If I return to Cambridge,
with all economy, I must thus narrow still more the res angusta
domi; and when Cambridge is over, and I am turned loose upon the
world,—failing, as is likely enough, of the support of a
fellowship,—how many years must I work, or rather, alas! not work,
at the Bar (which, after all, seems my best calling) before I can
in my turn provide for those who, till then, rob themselves for me;
till I have arrived at middle life, and they are old and worn out;
till the chink of the golden bowl sounds but hollow at the ebbing
well? I would wish that, if I can make money, those I love best
may enjoy it while enjoyment is yet left to them; that my father
shall see “The History of Human Error” complete, bound in russia on
his shelves; that my mother shall have the innocent pleasures that
content her, before age steals the light from her happy smile; that
before Roland’s hair is snow-white (alas! the snows there thicken
fast), he shall lean on my arm while we settle together where the
ruin shall be repaired or where left to the owls, and where the
dreary bleak waste around shall laugh with the gleam of corn. For
you know the nature of this Cumberland soil,—you, who possess much
of it, and have won so many fair acres from the wild; you know that
my uncle’s land, now (save a single farm) scarce worth a shilling
an acre, needs but capital to become an estate more lucrative than
ever his ancestors owned. You know that, for you have applied your
capital to the same kind of land, and in doing so, what blessings—
which you scarcely think of in your London library—you have
effected, what mouths you feed, what hands you employ! I have
calculated that my uncle’s moors, which now scarce maintain two or
three shepherds, could, manured by money, maintain two hundred
families by their labor. All this is worth trying for; therefore
Pisistratus wants to make money. Not so much,—he does not require
millions; a few spare thousand pounds would go a long way, and with
a modest capital to begin with, Roland should become a true
squire,—a real landowner, not the mere lord of a desert. Now
then, dear sir, advise me how I may, with such qualities as I
possess, arrive at that capital—ay, and before it is too late—so
that money-making may not last till my grave.
Turning in despair from this civilized world of ours, I have cast
my eyes to a world far older,—and yet more to a world in its giant
childhood. India here, Australia there,—what say you, sir, you
who will see dispassionately those things that float before my eyes
through a golden haze, looming large in the distance? Such is my
confidence in your judgment that you have but to say, “Fool, give
up thine El Dorados and stay at home; stick to the books and the
desk; annihilate that redundance of animal life that is in thee;
grow a mental machine: thy physical gifts are of no avail to thee;
take thy place among the slaves of the Lamp,”—and I will obey
without a murmur. But if I am right; if I have in me attributes
that here find no market; if my repinings are but the instincts of
nature that, out of this decrepit civilization, desire vent for
growth in the young stir of some more rude and vigorous social
system,—then give me, I pray, that advice which may clothe my idea
in some practical and tangible embodiments. Have I made myself
understood?
We take no newspaper here, but occasionally one finds its way from
the parsonage; and I have lately rejoiced at a paragraph that spoke
of your speedy entrance into the Administration as a thing certain.
I write to you before you are a minister, and you see what I seek
is not in the way of official patronage. A niche in an office,—
oh, to me that were worse than all! Yet I did labor hard with you,
but,—that was different. I write to you thus frankly, knowing
your warm, noble heart, and as if you were my father. Allow me to
add my humble but earnest congratulations on Miss Trevanion’s
approaching marriage with one worthy, if not of her, at least of
her station. I do so as becomes one whom you have allowed to
retain the right to pray for the happiness of you and yours. My
dear Mr. Trevanion, this is a long letter, and I dare not even read
it over, lest, if I do, I should not send it. Take it with all its
faults, and judge of it with that kindness with which you have
judged ever,
Your grateful and devoted servant,
Pisistratus Caxton.
Letter From Albert Trevanion, Esq., M. P., To Pisistratus Caxton.
Library of the House of Commons, Tuesday Night.
My Dear Pisistratus, ———- is up; we are in for it for two mortal
hours! I take flight to the library, and devote those hours to
you. Don’t be conceited, but that picture of yourself which you
have placed before me has struck me with all the force of an
original. The state of mind which you describe so vividly must be
a very common one in our era of civilization, yet I have never
before seen it made so prominent and life-like. You have been in
my thoughts all day. Yes, how many young men must there be like
you, in this Old World, able, intelligent, active, and persevering
enough, yet not adapted for success in any of our conventional
professions,—“mute, inglorious Raleighs.” Your letter, young
artist, is an illustration of the philosophy of colonizing. I
comprehend better, after reading it, the old Greek colonization,—
the sending out, not only the paupers, the refuse of an over-
populated state, but a large proportion of a better class, fellows
full of pith and sap and exuberant vitality, like yourself,
blending, in those wise cleruchioe, a certain portion of the
aristocratic with the more democratic element; not turning a rabble
loose upon a new soil, but planting in the foreign allotments all
the rudiments of a harmonious state, analogous to that in the
mother country; not only getting rid of hungry, craving mouths, but
furnishing vent for a waste surplus of intelligence and courage,
which at home is really not needed, and more often comes to ill
than to good,—here only menaces our artificial embankments, but
there, carried off in an aqueduct, might give life to a desert.
For my part, in my ideal of colonization I should like that each
exportation of human beings had, as of old, its leaders and
chiefs,—not so appointed from the mere quality of rank (often,
indeed, taken from the humbler classes), but still men to whom a
certain degree of education should give promptitude, quickness,
adaptability; men in whom their followers can confide. The Greeks
understood that. Nay, as the colony makes progress, as its
principal town rises into the dignity of a capital,—a polis that
needs a polity,—I sometimes think it might be wise to go still
further, and not only transplant to it a high standard of
civilization, but draw it more closely into connection with the
parent state, and render the passage of spare intellect, education,
and civility, to and fro, more facile, by drafting off thither the
spare scions of royalty itself. I know that many of my more
“liberal” friends would pooh-pooh this notion; but I am sure that
the colony altogether, when arrived to a state that would bear the
importation, would thrive all the better for it. And when the day
shall come (as to all healthful colonies it must come sooner or
later) in which the settlement has grown an independent state, we
may thereby have laid the seeds of a constitution and a
civilization similar to our own, with self-developed forms of
monarchy and aristocracy, though of a simpler growth than old
societies accept, and not left a strange, motley chaos of
struggling democracy—an uncouth, livid giant, at which the
Frankenstein may well tremble, not because it is a giant, but
because it is a giant half completed. (1) Depend on it, the New
World will be friendly or hostile to the Old, not in proportion to
the kinship of race, but in proportion to the similarity of manners
and institutions,—a mighty truth to which we colonizers have been
blind.
Passing from these more distant speculations to this positive
present before us, you see already, from what I have said, that I
sympathize with your aspirations; that I construe them as you would
have me: looking to your nature and to your objects, I give you my
advice in a word,—Emigrate!
My advice is, however, founded on one hypothesis; namely, that you
are perfectly sincere,—you will be contented with a rough life,
and with a moderate fortune at the end of your probation. Don’t
dream of emigrating if you want to make a million, or the tenth of
a million. Don’t dream of emigrating unless you can enjoy its
hardships,—to bear them is not enough!
Australia is the land for you, as you seem to surmise. Australia
is the land for two classes of emigrants: first, the man who has
nothing but his wits, and plenty of them; secondly, the man who has
a small capital, and who is contented to spend ten years in
trebling it. I assume that you belong to the latter class. Take
out L3,000, and before you are thirty years old you may return with
L10,000 or L12,000. If that satisfies you, think seriously of
Australia. By coach, tomorrow, I will send you down all the best
books and reports on the subject; and I will get you what detailed
information I can from the Colonial Office. Having read these, and
thought over them dispassionately, spend some months yet among the
sheep-walks of Cumberland; learn all you can from all the shepherds
you can find,—from Thyrsis to Menalcas. Do more; fit yourself in
every way for a life in the Bush, where the philosophy of the
division of labor is not yet arrived at. Learn to turn your hand
to everything. Be something of a smith, something of a carpenter
—do the best you can with the fewest tools; make yourself an
excellent shot; break in all the wild horses and ponies you can
borrow and beg. Even if you want to do none of these things when
in your settlement, the having learned to do them will fit you for
many other things not now foreseen. De-fine-gentlemanize yourself
from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot, and become
the greater aristocrat for so doing; for he is more than an
aristocrat, he is a king, who suffices in all things for himself,—
who is his own master, because he wants no valetaille. I think
Seneca has expressed that thought before me; and I would quote the
passage, but the book, I fear, is not in the library of the House
of Commons. But now (cheers, by Jove! I suppose —— is down. Ah!
it is so; and C—- is up, and that cheer followed a sharp hit at me.
How I wish I were your age, and going to Australia with you!)—But
now—to resume my suspended period—but now to the important
point,—capital. You must take that, unless you go as a shepherd,
and then good-by to the idea of L10,000 in ten years. So, you see,
it appears at the first blush that you must still come to your
father; but, you will say, with this difference, that you borrow
the capital with every chance of repaying it instead of frittering
away the income year after year till you are eight and thirty or
forty at least. Still, Pisistratus, you don’t, in this, gain your
object at a leap; and my dear old friend ought not to lose his son
and his money too. You say you write to me as to your own father.
You know I hate professions; and if you did not mean what you say,
you have offended me mortally. As a father, then, I take a
father’s rights, and speak plainly. A friend of mine, Mr. Bolding,
a clergyman, has a son,—a wild fellow, who is likely to get into
all sorts of scrapes in England, but with plenty of good in him
notwithstanding, frank, bold, not wanting in talent, but rather in
prudence, easily tempted and led away into extravagance. He would
make a capital colonist (no such temptations in the Bush!) if tied
to a youth like you. Now I propose, with your leave, that his
father shall advance him L1,500, which shall not, however, be
placed in his hands, but in yours, as head partner in the firm.
You, on your side, shall advance the same sum of L1,500, which you
shall borrow from me for three years without interest. At the end
of that time interest shall commence; and the capital, with the
interest on the said first three years, shall be repaid to me, or
my executors, on your return. After you have been a year or two in
the Bush, and felt your way, and learned your business, you may
then safely borrow L1,500 more from your father; and, in the mean
while, you and your partner will have had together the full sum of
L3,000 to commence with. You see in this proposal I make you no
gift, and I run no risk even by your death. If you die insolvent,
I will promise to come on your father, poor fellow; for small joy
and small care will he have then in what may be left of his
fortune. There—I have said all; and I will never forgive you if
you reject an aid that will serve you so much and cost me so
little.
I accept your congratulations on Fanny’s engagement with Lord
Castleton. When you return from Australia you will still be a
young man, she (though about your own years) almost a middle-aged
woman, with her head full of pomps and vanities. All girls have a
short period of girlhood in common; but when they enter womanhood,
the woman becomes the woman of her class. As for me, and the
office assigned to me by report, you know what I said when we
parted, and—But here J—— comes, and tells me that “I am expected
to speak, and answer N——, who is just up, brimful of malice,”—the
House crowded, and hungering for personalities. So I, the man of
the Old World, gird up my loins, and leave you, with a sigh, to the
fresh youth of the New
“Ne tibi sit duros acuisse in proelia dentes.”
Yours affectionately,
Albert Trevanion.
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