 | UNDEVELOPED GENIUS.
A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF P. PILGARLICK
PIGWIGGEN, ESQ. Charcoal sketches, or, Scenes in a metropolis |  |
5. UNDEVELOPED GENIUS.
A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF P. PILGARLICK
PIGWIGGEN, ESQ.
The world has heard much of unwritten music, and
more of unpaid debts; a brace of unsubstantialities, in
which very little faith is reposed. The minor poets
have twangled their lyres about the one, until the sound
has grown wearisome, and until, for the sake of peace and
quietness, we heartily wish that unwritten music were
fairly written down, and published in Willig's or Blake's
best style, even at the risk of hearing it reverberate from
every piano in the city: while iron-visaged creditors—
all creditors are of course hard, both in face and in
heart, or they would not ask for their money—have
chattered of unpaid debts, ever since the flood, with a wet
finger, was uncivil enough to wipe out pre-existing scores,
and extend to each skulking debtor the “benefit of the
act.” But undeveloped genius, which is, in fact, itself
unwritten music, and is very closely allied to unpaid
debts, has, as yet, neither poet, trumpeter, nor biographer.
Gray, indeed, hinted at it in speaking of “village Hampdens,”
“mute inglorious Miltons,” and “Cromwells
guiltless,” which showed him to be man of some discernment,
and possessed of inklings of the truth. But
the general science of mental geology, and through that,
the equally important details of mental mineralogy and
of intellect, and to determine its innate wealth, are as
yet unborn; or, if phrenology be admitted as a branch
of these sciences, are still in uncertain infancy. Undeveloped
genius, therefore, is still undeveloped, and is
likely to remain so, unless this treatise should awaken
some capable and intrepid spirit to prosecute an investigation
at once so momentous and so interesting. If not,
much of it will pass through the world undiscovered and
unsuspected; while the small remainder can manifest
itself in no other way than by the aid of a convulsion,
turning its possessor inside out like a glove; a method,
which the earth itself was ultimately compelled to adopt,
that stupid man might be made to see what treasures
are to be had for the digging.
There are many reasons why genius so often remains
invisible. The owner is frequently unconscious of the
jewel in his possession, and is indebted to chance for
the discovery. Of this, Patrick Henry was a striking
instance. After he had failed as a shopkeeper, and was
compelled to “hoe corn and dig potatoes,” alone on his
little farm, to obtain a meagre subsistence for his family,
he little dreamed that he had that within, which would
enable him to shake the throne of a distant tyrant, and
nerve the arm of struggling patriots. Sometimes, however,
the possessor is conscious of his gift, but it is to
him as the celebrated anchor was to the Dutchman; he
can neither use nor exhibit it. The illustrious Thomas
Erskine, in his first attempt at the bar, made so signal a
failure as to elicit the pity of the good natured, and the
scorn and contempt of the less feeling part of the auditory.
Nothing daunted, however, for he felt undeveloped
genius strong within him, he left the court; muttering,
with more profanity than was proper, but with much
He was right; it was in him; he did get it out, and
rose to be Lord Chancellor of England.
But there are men less fortunate; as gifted as Erskine,
though perhaps in a different way, they swear frequently,
as he did, but they cannot get their genius out. They
feel it, like a rat in a cage, beating against their barring
ribs, in a vain struggle to escape; and thus, with the
materials for building a reputation, and standing high
among the sons of song and eloquence, they pass their
lives in obscurity, regarded by the few who are aware
of their existence, as simpletons—fellows sent upon the
stage solely to fill up the grouping, to applaud their
superiors, to eat, sleep, and die.
P. Pilgarlick Pigwiggen, Esq., as he loves to be
styled, is one of these unfortunate undeveloped gentlemen
about town. The arrangement of his name shows
him to be no common man. Peter P. Pigwiggen would
be nothing, except a hailing title to call him to dinner,
or to insure the safe arrival of dunning letters and tailors'
bills. There is as little character about it as about the
word Towser, the individuality of which has been lost
by indiscriminate application. To all intents and purposes,
he might just as well be addressed as “You Pete
Pigwiggen,” after the tender maternal fashion, in which,
in his youthful days, he was required to quit dabbling in
the gutter, to come home and be spanked. But
P. Pilgarlick Pigwiggen, Esq.
—the aristocracy of birth and genius is all about it. The
very letters seem tasselled and fringed with the cobwebs
of antiquity. The flesh creeps with awe at the sound,
and the atmosphere undergoes a sensible change, as at
the rarefying approach of a supernatural being. It penetrates
the hearer at each perspiratory pore. The dropping
of the antempenultimate in a man's name, and the
substitution of an initial therefor, has an influence which
cannot be defined—an influence peculiary strong in the
case of P. Pilgarlick Pigwiggen—the influence of undeveloped
genius—analogous to that which bent the hazel
rod, in the hand of Dousterswivel, in the ruins of St.
Ruth, and told of undeveloped water.
But to avoid digression, or rather to return from a ramble
in the fields of nomenclature, P. Pilgarlick Pigwiggen
is an undeveloped genius—a wasted man; his talents
are like money in a strong box, returning no interest. He
is, in truth, a species of Byron in the egg: but unable to
chip the shell, his genius remains unhatched. The
chicken moves and faintly chirps within, but no one sees
it, no one heeds it. Peter feels the high aspirations and
the mysterious imaginings of poesy circling about the
interior of his cranium; but there they stay. When he
attempts to give them utterance, he finds that nature forgot
to bore out the passage which carries thought to the
tongue and to the finger ends; and as art has not yet
found out the method of tunnelling or of driving a drift
into the brain, to remedy such defects, and act as a general
jail delivery to the prisoners of the mind, his divine
conceptions continue pent in their osseous cell. In vain
does Pigwiggen sigh for a splitting headache—one that
shall ope the sutures, and set his fancies free. In vain
does he shave his forehead and turn down his shirt collar,
in hope of finding the poetic vomitory, and of leaving
of gin to raise the steam so high that it may burst
imagination's boiler, and suffer a few drops of it to
escape; in vain does he sit up late o' nights, using all
the cigars he can lay his hands on, to smoke out the
secret. 'Tis useless all. No sooner has he spread the
paper, and seized the pen to give bodily shape to airy
dreams, than a dull dead blank succeeds. As if a flourish
of the quill were the crowing of a “rooster,” the dainty
Ariels of his imagination vanish. The feather drops
from his checked fingers, the paper remains unstained,
and P. Pilgarlick Pigwiggen is still an undeveloped
genius.
Originally a grocer's boy, Peter early felt he had a
soul above soap and candles, and he so diligently nourished
it with his master's sugar, figs, and brandy, that
early one morning he was unceremoniously dismissed
with something more substantial than a flea in his ear.
His subsequent life was passed in various callings; but
call as loudly as they would, our hero paid little attention
to their voice. He had an eagle's longings, and with an
inclination to stare the sun out of countenance, it was
not to be expected that he would stoop to be a barn-yard
fowl. Working when he could not help it; at times
pursuing check speculations at the theatre doors, by
way of turning an honest penny, and now and then
gaining entrance by crooked means, to feed his faculties
with a view of the performances, he likewise pursued
his studies through all the ballads in the market, until
qualified to read the pages of Moore and Byron.
Glowing with ambition, he sometimes pined to see
the poet's corner of our weekly periodicals graced
with his effusions. But though murder may out, his
undeveloped genius would not. Execution fell so far
rejected.
Deep, but unsatisfactory, were the reflections which
thence arose in the breast of Pigwiggen.
“How is it,” said he—“how is it I can't level down
my expressions to the comprehension of the vulgar, or
level up the vulgar to a comprehension of my expressions?
How is it I can't get the spigot out, so my
verses will run clear? I know what I mean myself, but
nobody else does, and the impudent editors say it's wasting
room to print what nobody understands. I've plenty
of genius—lots of it, for I often want to cut my throat,
and would have done it long ago, only it hurts. I'm
chock full of genius and running over; for I hate all sorts
of work myself, and all sorts of people mean enough to
do it. I hate going to bed, and I hate getting up. My
conduct is very eccentric and singular. I have the miserable
melancholics all the time, and I'm pretty nearly
always as cross as thunder, which is a sure sign.
Genius is as tender as a skinned cat, and flies into a
passion whenever you touch it. When I condescend to
unbuzzum myself, for a little sympathy, to folks of ornery
intellect—and caparisoned to me, I know very few
people that ar'n't ornery as to brains—and pour forth
the feelings indigginus to a poetic soul, which is always
biling, they ludicrate my sitiation, and say they don't
know what the deuse I'm driving at. Isn't genius always
served o' this fashion in the earth, as Hamlet, the boy
after my own heart, says? And when the slights of the
world, and of the printers, set me in a fine frenzy, and
my soul swells and swells, till it almost tears the shirt
off my buzzum, and even fractures my dickey—when it
expansuates and elevates me above the common herd,
they laugh again, and tell me not to be pompious. The
the fate of genius—it is his'n, or rather I should say,
her'n—to go through life with little sympathization and
less cash. Life's a field of blackberry and raspberry
bushes. Mean people squat down and pick the fruit,
no matter how they black their fingers; while genius,
proud and perpendicular, strides fiercely on, and gets
nothing but scratches and holes tore in its trousers.
These things are the fate of genius, and when you see
'em, there is genius too, although the editors won't publish
its articles. These things are its premonitories, its
janissaries, its cohorts, and its consorts.
“But yet, though in flames in my interiors, I can't
get it out. If I catch a subject, while I am looking at it,
I can't find words to put it in; and when I let go, to hunt
for words, the subject is off like a shot. Sometimes I
have plenty of words, but then there is either no ideas,
or else there is such a waterworks and cataract of them,
that when I catch one, the others knock it out of my
fingers. My genius is good, but my mind is not sufficiently
manured by 'ears.”
Pigwiggen, waiting it may be till sufficiently “manured”
to note his thoughts, was seen one fine morning
not long since, at the corner of the street, with a melancholy,
abstracted air, the general character of his
appearance. His garments were of a rusty black, much
the worse for wear. His coat was buttoned up to the
throat, probably for a reason more cogent than that of
showing the moulding of his chest, and a black handkerchief
enveloped his neck. Not a particle of white
was to be seen about him; not that we mean to infer
that his “sark” would not have answered to its name, if
the muster roll of his attire had been called, for we scorn
to speak of a citizen's domestic relations, and, until the
every man has as many shirts as backs. Peter's cheeks
were pale and hollow; his eyes sunken, and neither
soap nor razor had kissed his lips for a week. His
hands were in his pockets—they had the accommodation
all to themselves—nothing else was there.
“Is your name Peter P. Pigwiggen?” inquired a
man, with a stick, which he grasped in the middle.
“My name is P. Pilgarlick Pigwiggen, if you please,
my good friend,” replied our hero, with a flush of indignation
at being miscalled.
“You'll do,” was the nonchalant response; and “the
man with a stick” drew forth a parallelogram of paper,
curiously inscribed with characters, partly written and
partly printed, of which the words, “The commonwealth
greeting,” were strikingly visible; “you'll do, Mr. P.
Pilgarlick Pigwiggen Peter. That's a capias ad respondendum,
the English of which is, you're cotched because
you can't pay; only they put it in Greek, so's not to
hurt a gentleman's feelings, and make him feel flat afore
the company. I can't say much for the manners of the
big courts, but the way the law's polite and a squire's
office is genteel, when the thing is under a hundred
dollars, is cautionary.”
There was little to be said. Peter yielded at once.
His landlady, with little respect for the incipient Byron,
had turned him out that morning, and had likewise sent
“the man with a stick” to arrest the course of undeveloped
genius. Peter walked before, and he of the “taking
way” strolled leisurely behind.
“It's the fate of genius, squire. The money is owed.
But how can I help it? I can't live without eating and
be suicide, severe beyond circumflexion.”
“Well, you know, you must either pay or go to jail.”
`Now, squire, as a friend—I can't pay, and I don't
admire jail—as a friend, now.”
“Got any bail?—No!—what's your trade—what name
is it?”
“Poesy,” was the laconic, but dignified reply.
“Pusey?—Yes, I remember Pusey. You're in the
shoe-cleaning line, somewhere in Fourth street. Pusey,
boots and shoes cleaned here. Getting whiter, ar'n't
you? I thought Pusey was a little darker in the countenance.”
“P-o-e-s-y!” roared Peter, spelling the word at the
top of his voice; “I'm a poet.”
“Well, Posy, I suppose you don't write for nothing.
Why didn't you pay your landlady out of what you
received for your books, Posy?”
“My genius ain't developed. I haven't written any
thing yet. Only wait till my mind is manured, so I can
catch the idea, and I'll pay off all old scores.”
“'Twont do, Posy. I don't understand it at all.
You must go and find a little undeveloped bail, or I
must send you to prison. The officer will go with you.
But stay; there's Mr. Grubson in the corner—perhaps
he will bail you.”
Grubson looked unpromising. He had fallen asleep,
and the flies hummed about his sulky copper-coloured
visage, laughing at his unconscious drowsy efforts to
drive them away. He was aroused by Pilgarlick, who
insinuatingly preferred the request.
“I'll see you hanged first,” replied Mr. Grubson; “I
goes bail for nobody. I'm undeveloped myself on that
in the world, but the most of people's cheats.”
“You see, Posy, the development won't answer.
You must try out of doors. The officer will go with
you.”
“Squire, as a friend, excuse me,” said Pilgarlick.
“But the truth of the matter is this. I'm delicate about
being seen in the street with a constable. I'm principled
against it. The reputation which I'm going to get might
be injured by it. Wouldn't it be pretty much the same
thing, if Mr. Grubson was to go with the officer, and get
me a little bail?”
“I'm delicate myself,” growled Grubson; “I'm principled
again that too. Every man walk about on his own
'sponsibility; every man bail his own boat. You might
jist as well ask me to swallow your physic, or take your
thrashings.”
Alas! Pilgarlick knew that his boat was past bailing.
Few are the friends of genius in any of its stages—very
few are they when it is undeveloped. He, therefore,
consented to sojourn in “Arch west of Broad,” until the
whitewashing process could be performed, on condition
he were taken there by the “alley way;” for he still
looks ahead to the day, when a hot-pressed volume shall
be published by the leading booksellers, entitled Poems,
by P. Pilgarlick Pigwiggen, Esq.
| UNDEVELOPED GENIUS.
A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF P. PILGARLICK
PIGWIGGEN, ESQ. Charcoal sketches, or, Scenes in a metropolis | |