 | CHAPTER III. A volume from the life of Herbert Barclay |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
A YOUNG sailor gliding down the current
which bears him to the untried sea, was
never more gay of heart than was Herbert,
embarked now on the stream of amusement.
Inasmuch as our simile adopts the common
likening of human existence to the ocean, it is
defective; for what is called a life of pleasure
is too shallow to float a burden heavy enough
to withstand a storm. We shall therefore
change it, and compare such a life to an artificial
lake, or rather, pond, fed from small,
and not the purest sources; not deep enough
to swell majestically in unison with the tempest,
although the frivolous admire its ripples,
and the weak may be drowned under them;
pretty at a distance, but from its stagnant
surface exhaling a treacherous miasma.
Herbert walked in the streets in the morning;
was almost daily a guest at dinner companies;
and passed most of his evenings at
balls, or other less numerous assemblages,
called conversational or musical.
The manner in which he spent his time
caused no dissatisfaction to his uncle.
Mr. Barclay had studied and practised life
thoroughly. Every day of his own—and he
was past fifty—had been a day of instruction.
At his outset, he had had many external difficulties
to contend against, and his feelings
had added others. He married early: this
made his struggle in the world the more arduous,
and his disappointments the more oppressive.
His friends said it was an imprudent
act:—not once, in his hardest moments,
when poverty seemed to dog him like an
enemy, smiting his toilsome endeavors with
barrenness, did he himself regret it. He
now would say:—that marriage in young
people is seldom of itself imprudent,—the
pairing of couples is often unfortunate,—
mate that would make him better and happier,
could each find out the one designed by
nature for himself, and that the better a man
is, the larger is the number that would
suit him; that elderly people who never have
been married, are the only ones who should
not marry. Worldly parents who looked
upon marriage as something to be weighed
and measured like an article of commerce,
expectant old bachelors and maids; and some
others, wondered how a man of Mr. Barclay's
sense could entertain so absurd a theory on
this subject. He applied it to both sexes.
Few men can properly be called men of
much experience; for experience implies
great variety and great quantity of trials.—
The trials of most men are limited in both
respects; not from absence of opportunity,
but from want of capability. Many are too
timid, many too indolent, many too selfish, to
involve themselves in a diversified activity:
some have not the strength of feeling to engage
enough to support them if they desire to do
so: thus some suffer much and learn little;
while others, from coldness of nature, suffer
little, but deceive themselves with the conceit
that they learn much. How few are those
who explore the physical varieties of the
earth's surface. It is the same with the
world of mind—the world of feeling and of
thought. It, too, surrounds every one; but
how partial is the knowledge that each obtains
of it. The hopes, the fears, the pleasures,
the daily ongoings and peculiar existence
of the great mass of their neighbors,
are as little known or cared for by most men,
as are the vegetable and mineral peculiarities
of an adjacent territory. Many are the inhabitants
of the plain who have never been
awed by the thunder of the cataract; not less
is the number of those who have never thrilled
with fellow-feeling for a passion-rent heart:
the grand spectacle of mountain piled on
mountain stretching up miles through the
external sight, than is the deep inward sense
of uncalculating benevolence, exalting him,
who feels it, far above the little egoism of common
life: the misery of social destitution is unknown
to as many, as the intense fearfulness
of the wrecking storm. Hence, the minds of
few men expand with age. They grow skilful
in performing the routine of life, as the journeyman
mechanic does at his trade; but, few
attain by experience even to knowledge parallel
to that of the master mechanic, and, still
fewer, to the deep insight into principles,
and the comprehensive view of proportions,
which distinguish and delight and elevate the
artist.
Mr. Barclay was one of the latter. In
early life, his young impulses had been given
a scope that would peril the moral being of
most men: indulgence had strengthened, not
weakened his. As contention brings out
truth where there is power to perceive it, the
contest of his higher against the solicitations
his innate excellence. He, at first,
when his life had taken a more steady course,
looked back with shuddering at the escapes
he seemed to have made; but he afterwards
obtained a clearer view of himself, and became
satisfied that he had never been in danger
of ruin. He even went so far as to believe,
that had not accidental connexions led
to the circumstances and engagements and
acts which now formed the frame work, as it
were, of his life, innate desires and dispositions
would have produced others similar to
them in character; thus ascribing not only
the direction of his career, but even much
of what is called accidental, to his internal
nature instead of to external associations.—
This was a particular conclusion in regard to
himself. He did not state it as a general
truth; he believed it, however, to be much
more frequently and strongly applicable than
it is commonly thought.
He had often shared with riotous companions
flooding tide of young passion had swept him
into the dark caves where vice creeps that it
may not see its own shadow. But he emerged
again: satiety brought a deeper pain than
transient disgust; and the vigorous growth
of his moral and intellectual nature, cast out
the taint that poisons the core of many. He
had stood on the precipice to which indulgence
leads, and had looked into the abysses
that yawn around it: the sights he had seen
and the pangs he had felt, revealed to him
fearful but pregnant secrets. He had fathomed
the depths of animalism without being engulphed
by it, and had thus the experience
without the forfeits of its victims.
Those who escape—whether they avoid or
resist, or, yielding, pass unwithered and unweakened
through the temptations to licentious
enjoyment in youth, are awaited for
when they engage more actively and responsibly
in life, by other dangers, less obvious,
and less dreaded because undiscerned, but
their well-being from the untempered gratification
of animal desires;—the dangers of
selfishness. The half knowledge which deliberately
distrusts, is as fatal as the self-abandonment
of passion. The prudence which
seeks safety by narrowing the outward avenues
of the heart, is as destructive of happiness,
as the dissipation which wastes the
fresh treasures of feeling. These dangers
Mr. Barclay escaped as securely as he did
the first. Through failure and success he
passed uncorrupted Disappointment did not
sour him: the treachery of a few did not
pervert his judgment: from adversity he
learnt charity as well as prudence: prosperity
brought him no triumphs. Collision
with his fellows polished without hardening
him. His sympathy with human nature
enlarged with his knowledge of it.—
His trials not only purified his own heart;
they taught him tolerance of the errings of
others. He did not learn the existence and
or from the happy few who daily practise
it: he discerned its germs even through
the rank growth of iniquity.
To the knowledge he imbibed from active
intercourse with men, he added that which
is acquired from a secondary source—from
books, those imperishable mirrors which reflect
the being of man in all its conditions. He
had received the usual quantity and kind of
expensive instruction, and at the age of eighteen
had taken a degree at one of the most
frequented colleges. He soon discovered
that he had learnt very little at the latter, although
he graduated with honor. He was
immediately put to study law, and at twenty-one
was admitted to practice. His father
designed, now, that he should travel for two
years in Europe. In this design, however,
his own wishes and plans did not concur.—
He married,—suddenly, it appeared to his
family and friends, who learnt his attachment
and engagement only a few days before the
his wife he had met for the first time about
six months before in the hovel of a poor
family.
The impression of her character, which the
circumstances of this meeting were calculated
to make on a mind like his, was deepened by
the force of beauty. They soon knew and
loved each other. She was an only child,
and, by the recent death of her mother, an
orphan, with a small income, the greater part
of which she paid for living in the house of
a coarse uncle. Her first meeting with Mr.
Barclay was the dawn of a new existence to
her,—not of the transient illumination merely,
which suddenly brightens the opening path of
manhood and womanhood, when the strongest
passion of nature reveals itself, quickening
the whole being, and sometimes leaving the
soul the darker for its devouring energy;—
but, of the lasting brightness which flows
from the union of kindred hearts, and flows
as long as the union lasts. The vulgarity and
her. Family afflictions during the life of her
parents, had humbled her mind. Intercourse
with Mr. Barclay moved its deep sources:
her clear genial nature expanded like a drooping
rich flower, long deprived of the sunshine
and moisture designed to evolve its beauty.
For several years Mr. Barclay struggled
with adverse circumstances. Soon after his
marriage, his father suffered by a law suit
a heavy loss of fortune, by which his allowance
was reduced to a trifling sum. He
was faithful in the execution of whatever
business was entrusted to him, and his talents
were acknowledged; but the initiatory
drudgery of a profession was hateful to him,
and he gave much of his time to engagements
which, although they demonstrated his value
as a citizen, repelled rather than attracted
clients; he was, too, more liberal in gifts of
private charity and public spirit than suited
his limited means. He had reached his
twenty-eighth year, when his father died.—
event, added to his wife's small income and
his earnings, was a competency, and, with
their moderate habits and wishes, it was more.
Of his new means, and the liberty he acquired
with them, he made a use that to most persons
seemed eccentric, and to many imprudent.
He travelled for several years.
Since he had become a man, he had been,
in the enlarged sense of the word, a student;
investigating science and literature to satisfy
the craving of his mind. He sought in books
to learn the nature of man and of the physical
elements that surround him. He read—not
to be informed of the opinions of men; but
to obtain knowledge of their feelings and capacities,
and the practical results of these: he
interrogated nature to admire her beauties
and learn her resources. A natural part of
the course of study into which his mental
wants thus led him, was travel. He traveled
to observe the modification of humanity in its
divisions into nations, and, like Pythagoras,
communities. After devoting some
time to visiting portions of his own country
that he had not yet seen, he spent four years
in Europe, sojourning in capitals and traversing
those parts that are most interesting from
the character and doings of the inhabitants, of
the picturesqueness of the scenery. With
cheerfulness on his return home, he resumed,
after so long an interruption, the practice of
his profession. Instead of repining at the
necessity of recommencing labor, he set himself
down to it contentedly, grateful that circumstances
had permitted him to give such a
scope to his curiosity. That had been satisfied.
His mind had been fully and richly fed.
Most profitably as well as delightfully he had
spent nearly the whole of his patrimony, and
he now gave his time to supplying the want
of it with more zeal than he had labored in
the beginning of his career, and with a prospect
of success which his enlarged and matured
powers, supported by industry, rendered
this prospect, when, a relation of his wife
dying, left her, unexpectedly, a sum which
much more than replaced the diminution of
his own fortune. Upon this, he abandoned
his profession, and bought in the neighborbood
of the city a small tract of woodland
where he created the residence already described.
To a young man of worth, it was a privilege
and a happiness, to be the inmate of Mr
Barclay's house. Herbert valued his situation,
although it was only later, in retrospection,
that he fully appreciated its advantages.
Mr. Barclay had a bright confidence in life,—
a happy, joint, result of temperament and
reflection; he thought well of his nephew's
capacity and disposition; he had himself run
the round of superficial amusement which now
engrossed his nephew's time; Herbert was
under his daily observation and influence: the
result of all which was, that he even took pleasure
in observing this temporary dissipation,
being disturbed by any apprehensions of consequences.
The thought that he might misplace
his affections and marry unsuitably,
crossed Mr. Barclay's mind; but this was a
thought that could not but suggest itself to
any one interested in any young person in any
circumstances; and he was too wise to permit
himself to be disquieted by general fears.
Mr. Barclay's warm concern and liberality
won the affection of Herbert as entirely as his
general kindness and fine intelligence commanded
his respect. It was a pleasure to the
nephew to be communicative with his uncle
respecting himself—his feelings and conduct,
as well as his opinions; and so lenient did he
find him, that instead of apprehending blame,
Herbert had recourse to him for palliation in
times of self-reproach.
| CHAPTER III. A volume from the life of Herbert Barclay | |