Old Friends Part 8

Ah, stop and think, and hear me before it is too late. A word; I do not know-a word of mine may be listened to, though I have no right to speak.

But something forces me to speak, and to implore you to remember that it is not for Pleasure we live, but for Duty. We must break the dearest ties if they do not bind us to the stake-the stake of all we owe to all!

You will understand, you will forgive me, will you not? You will forgive another woman whom your beauty and sadness have won to admire and love you. You _will_ break these ties, will you not, and be free, for only in Renunciation is there freedom? He _must not_ come again, you will tell him that he must not.-Yours always,

DOROTHEA CASAUBON.

XVI.

_From Euphues to Sir Amyas Leigh_, _Kt._

This little controversy on the value of the herb tobacco pa.s.sed between the renowned Euphues and that early but a.s.siduous smoker, Sir Amyas Leigh, well known to readers of "Westward Ho."

(He dissuadeth him from drinking the smoke of the Indian weed.)

SIR AMYAS,-Take it not unkindly that a traveller (though less wide a wanderer than thou) dissuadeth thee from a new-found novelty-the wanton misuse, or rather the misuseful wantonness, of the Indian herb. It is a blind goose that knoweth not a fox from a fern-bush, and a strange temerity that mistaketh smoke for provender. The sow, when she is sick, eateth the sea-crab and is immediately recovered: why, then, should man, being whole and sound, haste to that which maketh many sick? The lobster flieth not in the air, nor doth the salamander wanton in the water; wherefore, then, will man betake him for nourishment or solace to the fire? Vesuvius bringeth not forth speech from his mouth, but man, like a volcano, will utter smoke. There is great difference between the table and the chimney; but thou art for making both alike. Though the Rose be sweet, yet will it prove less fragrant if it be wreathed about the skunk; and so an ill weed from the land where that beast hath its habitation defileth a courteous knight. Consider, if this practice delights thee, that the apples of Sodom are outwardly fair but inwardly full of ashes; the box-tree is always green, but his seed is poison. Mithridate must be taken inwardly, not spread on plasters. Of his nature smoke goeth upward and outward; why wilt thou make it go inward and downward? The manners of the Cannibal fit not the Englishman; and this thy poison is unlike Love, which maimeth every part before it kill the Liver, whereas tobacco doth vex the Liver before it harmeth any other part. Excuse this my boldness, and forswear thy weed, an thou lovest

EUPHUES.

_From Sir Amyas Leigh to Euphues_.

Whereas thou bringest in a rabble of reasons to convince me, I will answer thee in thine own kind. Thou art like those that proffer a man physic before he be sick, and, because his pleasure is not theirs, call him foolish that is but early advised. Nature maketh nothing without an end: the eye to see with, the ear to hear, the herb tobacco to be smoked.

As wine strengtheneth and meat maketh full, tobacco maketh the heart at rest. Helen gave Nepenthe to them that sorrowed, and Heaven hath made this weed for such as lack comfort. Tobacco is the hungry man's food, the wakeful man's sleep, the weary man's rest, the old man's defence against melancholy, the busy man's repose, the talkative man's muzzle, the lonely man's companion. Indeed, there was nothing but this one thing wanting to man, of those that earth can give; wherefore, having found it, let him so use as not abusing it, as now I am about doing.-Thy servant,

AMYAS LEIGH.

XVII.

_From Mr. Paul Rondelet to the Very Rev. Dean Maitland_. {139}

That Dean Maitland should have taken the political line indicated in Mr.

Rondelet's letter will amaze no reader of 'The Silence of Dean Maitland.'

That Mr. Paul Rondelet flew from his penny paper to a Paradise meet for him is a matter of congratulation to all but his creditors. He really is now in the only true Monastery of Thelema, and is simply dressed in an eye-gla.s.s and a cincture of panda.n.u.s flowers. The natives worship him, and he is the First aesthetic Beach-comber.

Te-a-Iti, The Pacific.

DEAR MAITLAND,-As my old friend and tutor at Lothian, you ask me to join the Oxford Home Rule a.s.sociation. Excuse my delay in answering. Your letter was sent to that detested and long-deserted newspaper office in Fleet Street, and from Fleet Street to Te-a-Iti; thank Heaven! it is a long way. Were I at home, and still endeavouring to sway the ma.s.ses, I might possibly accept your invitation. I dislike crowds, and I dislike shouting; but if shout I must, like you I would choose to chime in with the dingier and the larger and the more violent a.s.sembly. But, having perceived that the ma.s.ses were very perceptibly learning to sway themselves, I have retired to Te-a-Iti. You have read "Epipsychidion,"

my dear Dean? And, in your time, no doubt you have loved? {140} Well, this is the Isle of Love, described, as in a dream, by the rapt fancy of Sh.e.l.ley. Urged, perhaps, by a reminiscence of the Great Aryan wave of migration, I have moved westward to this Paradise. Like Obermann, I hide my head "from the wild tempest of the age," but in a much dearer place than "chalets near the Alpine snow." Long ago I said, to one who would not listen, that "all the religions of the world are based on false foundations, resting on the Family, and fatally unsound." Here the Family, in our sense, has not been developed. Here no rules trammel the best and therefore the most evanescent of our affections. And as for Religion, it is based upon Me, on Rondelet of Lothian. Here n.o.body asks me why or how I am "superior." The artless natives at once perceived the fact, recognised me as a G.o.d, and worship me (do not shudder, my good Dean) with floral services. In Te-a-Iti (vain to look for it on the map!) I have found my place-a place far from the babel of your brutal politics, a place where I am addressed in liquid accents of adoration.

You may ask whether I endeavour to raise the islanders to my own level?

It is the last thing that I would attempt. Culture they do not need: their dainty hieratic precisions of ritual are a sufficient culture in themselves. As I said once before, "it is an absurdity to speak of married people being one." Here we are an indefinite number; and no jealousy, no ambitious exclusiveness, mars the happiness of all. This is the Higher Life about which we used ignorantly to talk. Here the gross temporal necessities are satisfied with a breadfruit, a roasted fish, and a few panda.n.u.s flowers. The rest is all climate and the affections.

Conceive, my dear Dean, the undisturbed felicity of life without newspapers! Empires may fall, perhaps have fallen, since I left Fleet Street; Alan Dunlop may be a ditcher in good earnest on an estate no longer his; but here we fleet the time carelessly, as in the golden world. And you ask me to join a raucous political a.s.sociation for an object you detest in your heart, merely because you want to swim with the turbid democratic current! You are an historian, Maitland: did you ever know this policy succeed? Did you ever know the respectables prosper when they allied themselves with the vulgar? Ah, keep out of your second-hand revolutions. Keep your hands clean, whether you keep your head on your shoulders or not. You will never, I fear, be Bishop of Wink.u.m, with all your historical handbooks and all your Oxford Liberalism.

But I am losing my temper, for the first time since I discovered Te-a-Iti. This must not be.-Yours regretfully,

PAUL RONDELET.

P.S.-Don't give any one my address; some of these Oxford harpies are still unappeased. The only European I have seen was not an University man. He was a popular Scotch novelist, and carried Shorter Catechisms, which he distributed to my flock. I only hope he won't make "copy" out of me and my situation.

P. R.

XVIII.

_From Harold Skimpole_, _Esq._, _to the Rev. Charles Honeyman_, _M.A._

These letters tell their own tale of Genius and Virtue indigent and in chains. The eloquence of a Honeyman, the accomplishments of a Skimpole, lead only to Cursitor Street.

Coavins's, Cursitor Street, May 1.

MY DEAR HONEYMAN,-It is May-day, when even the chimney-sweeper, developing the pleasant unconscious poetry of his nature, forgets the flues, wreathes the flowers, and persuades himself that he is Jack-in-the-Green. Jack who? Was he Jack Sprat, or the young swain who mated with Jill! Who knows? The chimney-sweeper has all I ask, all that the b.u.t.terflies possess, all that Common-sense and Business and Society deny to Harold Skimpole. He lives, he is free, he is "in the green!" I am in Coavins's! In Cursitor Street I cannot hear the streams warble, the birds chant, the music roll through the stately fane, let us say, of Lady Whittlesea's. Coavins's (as Coavins's man says) is "a 'ouse;" but how unlike, for example, the hospitable home of our friend Jarndyce! I can sketch Coavins's, but I cannot alter it: I can set it to music, on Coavins's piano; but how melancholy are the jingling strains of that dilapidated instrument! At Jarndyce's house, when I am there, I am in possession of it: here Coavins's is in possession of me-of the person of Harold Skimpole.

And why am I here? Why am I far from landscape, music, conversation?

Why, merely because I will follow neither Fame nor Fortune nor Faith.

They call to us in the market-place, but I will not dance. Fame blows her trumpet, and offers her shilling (the Queen's). Faith peals her bells, and asks for _my_ shilling. Fortune rattles her banking-scales.

They call, and the world joins the waltz; but I will not march with them.

"Go after glory, commerce, creeds," I cry; "only let Harold Skimpole live!" {146} The world pursues the jangling music; but in my ear sound the pipes of Pan, the voices of the river and the wood.

Yet I cannot be in the playground, whither they invite me. Harold Skimpole is fettered-by what? By items! I regret my incapacity for details. It may be the tinker or the tailor at whose suit I am detained.

I am certain it is not at that of the soldier, or the sailor, or the ploughboy, or the thief. But, for the apothecary-why, yes-it _may_ be the apothecary! In the dawn of life I loved-who has not?-I wedded. I set about surrounding myself with rosy cheeks. These cheeks grow pallid.

I call for the aid of Science-Science sends in her bill! "To the Mixture as Before," so much to "the Tonic," so much. The cheeks are rosy again.

I pour forth the blessings of a father's heart; but there stands Science inexorable, with her bill, her items. I vainly point out that the mixture has played its part, the tonic has played _its_ part; and that, in the nature of things, the transaction is ended. The bill is unappeasable. I forget the details; a certain number of pieces of yellow and white dross are spoken of. Ah, I see it is fifteen and some odd shillings and coppers. Let us say twenty.

My dear Honeyman, you who, as I hear, are about to follow the flutes of Aphrodite into a temple where Hymen gilds the horns of the victims {147}-you, I am sure, will hurry to my rescue. You may not have the specie actually in your coffers; but with your prospects, surely you can sign something, or make over something, or back something, say a _post obit_ or _post vincula_, or employ some other instrument? Excuse my inexperience; or, I should say, excuse my congenital inability to profit by experience, now considerable, of _difficulties_-and of friendship.

Let not the sun of May-day go down on Harold Skimpole in Coavins's!-Yours ever,

H. S.

P.S.-A youthful myrmidon of Coavins's will wait for a reply. Shall we say, while we are about it, Twenty-five?

_From the Rev. Charles Honeyman to Harold Skimpole_, _Esq._

Cursitor Street, May 1.

MY DEAR SKIMPOLE,-How would I have joyed, had Providence placed it within my power to relieve your distress! But it cannot be. Like the Carthaginian Queen of whom we read in happier days at dear old Borhambury, I may say that I am _haud ignarus mali_. But, alas! the very evils in which I am not unlearned, make it impossible for me to add _miseris succurrere disco_! Rather am I myself in need of succour. You, my dear Harold, have fallen among thieves; I may too truly add that in this I am your neighbour. The dens in which we are lodged are contiguous; we are separated only by the bars. Your note was sent on hither from my rooms in Walpole Street. Since we met I have known the utmost that woman's perfidy and the rich man's contumely can inflict.