University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

With tipsy determination, Cavendish insisted
upon going home, and, after a good deal of parleying,
Cavendish, Willoughby, and Emory went one
way; Kentuck and Emory, Kentuck especially,
making a great noise, turning over boxes, and
striking his rattan against the awning-posts and
houses, and Cavendish remonstrating with them on
the loss of character, and the filthiness of the watch-house.
Bradshaw, arm in arm with Selman, proceeded
to his office, where we first introduced him
to our readers. They soon reached the office,
stirred up the fire and seated themselves before it.

“Bradshaw,” said Selman, “I don't know what
to make of you, or how to consider you:—I was
a going to speak to you on this subject before we
went to the party, but you spoke of the Perrys in
such a manner, and you seemed to think every one
must like the girls for their money and for nothing
else, that—”

“My dear fellow,” interrupted Bradshaw, “don't
think of that: my only motive was a little innocent
quizzing, and a wish to see how the fair lady stood
in your good graces—as I had every reason to believe
you stood well in hers.”

“Do you think so?” eagerly inquired Selman.
“Why, I'll tell you what it is—just how she
treats me—and I'll be blowed, if I can tell how
I stand with her—sometimes I think very well,
and then again her conduct is such that I'm a
great mind to cut and run. The first part of this
evening you saw how she treated me. Well, sir,
before the evening was over, she laid me flat as a
flounder.”

Here Bradshaw could scarcely suppress a smile.
“But, my dear fellow, you don't woo rightly. I
could quote to you whole stanzas of Byron, if you
were not so much opposed to quotation, the tenor
of which is to show that confidence wins women,
and not too many sighs.”

“Sometimes I am very confident; but I don't
know how to take her, and when to be confident.”

“Why, you must be always confident.”

“But, to tell you the truth, Bradshaw, I can't.
I used to think that I could; but the moment my
feelings became engaged, away with all confidence—and
then she acts so inconsistently. Sometimes
when I call to see her she is all smiles, and
evidently prefers me to all the company; at least
the fellows say so when we leave there together:
then, at other times, she will be very pleasant in
the beginning of the evening, or until company
comes, and then, by gad, I'm of no more consequence
than a pet kitten, playing with her knitting-ball.”

“Have you ever made a declaration?”

“Never, directly. I have often broadly hinted
one; but, when I do, she commences singing, or

asks me some foolish question about that booby
Bates, or the ball. The other evening she was
making a fancy basket with shells, after a good
deal of twistification,” continued Selman, blushing
at the memory, “I began the subject, and
she commenced playing with the shells; when
I got near the point, she asked me to snuff the
lights, and worked at her basket as if life and
death depended upon it. I swore to myself then,
and I'll keep it—if ever she's my wife I'll pay
her for it.”

“First catch the fish, before you cook it, says
the renowned Mrs. Glass,” observed Bradshaw.

“I suppose you think it's a kittle of fish,” said
Selman, rather snappishly; and, looking at Bradshaw,
keenly, he continued, “Bradshaw, I begin
to think you have a notion of her yourself.”

At this, Bradshaw burst into an uncontrollable
fit of laughter. Selman made castles in the ashes
for a moment or two with his rattan, and then
jumping up, he exclaimed, angrily, “Mr. Bradshaw,
I did not think you would treat me treacherously,
and insult me in your own office into the
bargain.”

“Selman, it's a case with you, by the little god
of love. I'd no idea you were in for it so deeply.
My dear fellow, believe me, I would not
wound your feelings for the world;—as there is
honour in man, and changeability in woman, I
have no more thought of addressing Miss Penelope
than I have of making a declaration to the
moon—I never had: besides, if I had, or if any
one else had, in my opinion they have no chance

whatever, as I really believe she has a great regard
for my friend”—

“What friend?”

“Henry Selman.”

“Do you truly think so, Bradshaw?”

“I do, though it may be just such a fancy as
the Judge accuses me of entertaining of Glassman.”

“Oh, people say you've a great deal of penetration.
Miss Penelope says so herself.”

Bradshaw smiled as he went to the source of
the compliment, thinking we never believe so
sincerely in another's penetration, as when it flatters
our hopes. Who cannot then be a Solomon,
at least in the estimation of one person?

“What makes you think she likes me, though?”
asked Selman.

“O! a thousand circumstances—the manner in
which she treats you, for instance. I don't pretend
to know much about the sex; yet, you know,
we all form theories on the subject. I've thought
of them enough, Heaven knows; though, as Sterne
says, to make another quotation, `I love all the
sex so much that I never could fix my affection
upon one.' I've had a great deal of sickness
in my life, and I've been very much thrown
among women. I have tried to read them as I
try to read men; but this is between you and me
and your rattan. The human heart is the great
book, Selman: I am convinced, if we could only
read it rightly,” (Bradshaw continued, speaking
in a kind of soliloquy, as if in his own thoughts
he had forgotten his companion's presence,) “it

is the key to the inner temple, where the crown
of success is kept; get this knowledge of the
world, this key, and you may pass into the temple
and crown yourself. I don't know—I sometimes
think the more a man studies it, the more
he is perplexed. It is genius—a gift. A man
must be born with bumps that way, as a phrenologist
would say. It is intuition—an instinct; but this
instinct may be made acuter by practice. What
would I not give,” said Bradshaw, opening a
book, and reading aloud several lines from it, “to
read mankind as I can read that book—to have
their hearts in my hands,”—and then throwing
the book roughly from him, as if he was angry
with himself at betraying a train of feeling which
Selman's compliment to his penetration, at which
he had but a moment before smiled, had called
up, he said, “I suspect you yield too much to
her.”

“Yield to her! Why, I always yield to her!”

“You do, hey! Well, there's such a thing, I
know, as stooping to conquer, but you must not
stoop too low.”

“How, then?”

“Why, Selman, I've never been in love; therefore
I don't know how low I should stoop if I
were—but this is my theory on the subject. I fear
that those who can theorize best in love, as well
as in other matters, practise worst. However, if
I were in your place, and could so far master my
feelings, I would go more into general society; to
be admired by many women is, perhaps, the best
way of securing the love of one. I would not be

too humble. I would give my heart away, as if
I valued the gift; not as if I meant to steal another,
but as if I expected a fair exchange and no
robbery—though an exchange which it was my
fondest, my most cherished hope to make; which
should be received with gratitude, and treasured
with love, and held far dearer to me than aught
else in the world. When a man is deeply in love,
he has a hard task to win his mistress, unless the
flame were simultaneously inspired. He has so
much in his own emotions to contend with—hope,
distrust, jealousy—that he cannot adapt himself
to her, and practise those consummate arts by
which women are won. He is so much possessed
with his own feelings, that he forgets to watch
hers: and, besides, we judge others' feelings from
our own, so often, that we are always forming erroneous
opinions of them, particularly in the affairs
of the heart. This is the reason why a man
of the world is always more successful in love
than other men. He has self-control. He studies
the character and learns the feelings of his
lady-love, and with Protean power he adapts himself
to her. Othello, the Moor—the blackamoor—
bore himself proudly, yet he “took the pliant
hour;” and do you doubt he had been looking out
for it with a soldier's watchfulness? Richard the
Third bore himself daringly, even in the depth of
his humility: when he knelt, he stooped to conquer;
but it was the stooping of the eagle, who
is sure of the dove. I always thought there was
something unnatural in this play, that the gentle
Lady Anne should be won, at her husband's funeral,
by his murderer. But see Booth in the tyrant,
and you think it natural—he plays so cunningly.
Hudibras is a caricature; but, though it
be, it is rather too true a picture of the class of
lovers who are not the successful ones.”

“Bradshaw, these are but fictitious illustrations.
You were speaking of men of the world being the
most successful. Othello was no man of the world;
Hudibras was in his wooing, for he sought the
jointure. Othello was successful; Hudibras not—
Hudibras! he's no illustration at all of any thing
but a low, poor devil, who was drawn to be laughed
at.”

“I know it; but it is the justness of the ridicule
that makes us laugh. There is human nature in
it, as there is human nature in Shakespeare's lowest
clowns: the lover, for instance, of sweet Anne Page
—`if she had been a boy, he wouldn't have had
her, though he had married her.' Whatever is in
us, in common with such characters—and we all
have something in us, in common with them—we
must suppress. Othello's manliness made Desdemona
forget his visage,—for the dangers he had
passed, she loved him; he loved her because she
pitied them. She clung to his manly nature
for support, as the beautiful honey-suckle of
the woods clings to the generous oak. So with
Lucy Ashton and Ravenswood, in `The Bride of
Lamermoor.' Scott is next to Shakspeare in the
knowledge of the human heart. Think of Marmion
and his page. In which of Scott's poems is
it, I forget, `The Lady of the Lake' or `Rokeby,'
that the lover woos the heroine, and with such

sweet verses! She followed his request, and twined
the cypress wreath for him. Look at `Don Juan,'
—Byron's best production,—the best of the age, in
spite of its licentiousness. Look at `Sardanapalus,'
the luxurious Sardanapalus, whom Ionian Myrrha
loves; she speaks of having `fallen in her own
thoughts by loving this soft stranger.' She does
not love him for his softness, but for the manliness
and bravery that shine through it, like the lightning
in a summer's eve. You reply to me that this
is all poetry, and that these instances are rare, and,
in the common-place world, we don't meet with
them. I know it. In the common-place world we
seldom meet with love, either.”

In these conversations, our readers observe that
Bradshaw commences with reference to Selman;
but that his feelings lead him to express his own
thoughts and opinions, with scarcely a consciousness,
on his part, of what originated the conversation.
Our readers must also remember that the
evening had been, to him, one of various excitement,
intellectual and animal—that his frame was
delicate, and his passions inflammable, to the highest
degree.

“Ah! but, Bradshaw, give me living instances.”

“What, do you mean of men who have lived?
Look at Julius Cæsar, the greatest man that ever
lived—so say Lord Bacon and Lord Byron, the lord
of philosophers and the lord of poets. He dared as
much, to win Cleopatra, as he did when he crossed
the Rubicon; he stayed in dalliance with her, until
he nearly lost his life. He won a woman, as he
won a victory, by daring to win. He had the quality

which Napoleon so well, metaphorically, exprssed,
and which, no doubt, he thought his own
quality—`The iron hand, with the velvet glove.'
Just so was it with Mirabeau: `Wait till I shake
my boar's head at them,' he used to say, when he
heard the hootings of the Jacobins. To a lady who
had fallen in love with him, from hearing of him,
he wrote, in reply to an inquiry as to his personal
appearance, `Fancy a tiger who has had the small-pox;
but,' he used to say, `you have no idea of
the beauty of my deformity.' In spite of all his
vices, he succeeded with men and women. How?
By energy, energy, energy! If I were a heathen,
I would build a temple to energy—enshrine
the god there, and worship him. But, understand
me, I would cover the iron hand with
the velvet glove. Not until it was absolutely necessary,
should any pressure be felt, but the soft,
persuasive one, that would lead. But, when it
was necessary, I would grasp with the power of
Hercules, though it were the Nemean lion; but,
mark me, I would not wear the lion's skin as a garment:
it is what Hercules did, I know—but it is
what the ass did, also. So many asses bray, now-a-days,
from the lion's covering, that the world almost
always suspect, when they see the covering,
that the ass is under it.”

“What has this to do with love?” asked Selman.

“Why, a great deal: if Milton—I don't justify
his tyranny—had been a kneeling lover, think you
he ever would have been knelt to by his wife?
What did Miss Chaworth care for Byron, when he
was an unknown, `poor, lame boy,' as she called

him. We all know how much she cared for him
afterwards, when Byron had bearded his critics,
and, in spite of them, reached the pinnacle. She
sought to see him then, though wedded, mind you,
to the very man for whom she rejected `the lame
boy.' I know every man can't be a Byron, or a
Milton; but we are not fools, Selman, and we
must win our way. Mind what I tell you; the
way to win is not by yielding in the crowd and
press of men: if you yield, you will be trodden on;
if you push on, men will think that the prize is
yours—the timid will give up at once, and the stout
of heart quail, if your heart be only stouter than
theirs. But you must not brag, sir; the courage
must be in the eye and the voice, in the self-possession
of the head and the heart. Think of the
disinherited knight, at the tournament at Ashby;
he entered the list without any one to say `God
speed you;' he strikes the shield of Brian de Bois
Guilbert, till it rings again; he meets the proudest
of the templars, and hurls him to the dust. This
is fiction—yes! but it is glorious fiction. Read the
eight volumes of Plutarch's lives: they are filled
with such fiction. Read the history of Richelieu, of
De Retz, of Mirabeau, of the Man of Destiny. Read
the history of England's great ones: of Marlborough,
of Wolsey, of Milton, of Shakspeare, of
Chatham, (Jove! how he hurled defiance at Walpole,)
of Sheridan, of Erskine, (how he came out
in his first effort,) and Curran, (how he braved the
minions of office,)—think of these men: they entered
the lists on the theatre of the wide world,
like the disinherited knight, and, when the odds
pressed hard upon them, fortune came to their rescue—as
she will always come to the rescue of the
valiant, like the black sluggard to the rescue of
Ivanhoe. Look at our own country: at Washington,
at our more than Demosthenes, Patrick Henry,
(what self-sustainment there was about him,
even in the depth of obscurity and poverty,) and
at Roger Sherman, and a host of others, who gather
in our history as our stars increase and cluster
in our banner. Yes,” said Bradshaw, rising and
walking up and down the room, “these men, and
such like them, are the `gods of my idolatry.'
Some one remarks, Dr. Channing, I believe, that
the reason why we admire even the Father of all
Evil, the Satan of Milton, is because of the energy
he exhibits, and the firmness with which, amidst
the `burning marl,' he sustained himself. We cannot
but admire this trait of character, though in a
fiend—how much more in god-like men! And if
they be fallen men, and display this trait, it is a
proof that all of their original brightness has not
fled—ay, it is the power with which they often
win back their original brightness. This world, sir,
is like the hackneyed fable of Hercules and the
wagoner: he called on Hercules for help, but the
god told him to help himself first, to put his shoulder
to the wheel, and then to pray. If you would
reach the high places in this world—if you would
get out of the slough, you must help yourself, and
then the world will play Hercules and help you—
but not till then. But, come, let us to bed—'tis
after three. Turn in there, Selman, and may all
the dreams that hover round the fortunate lover,
be yours.”

“First catch the fish, though, as you say,” exclaimed
Selman.

“I know that,” replied Bradshaw; “but, sir,
if you do not bait your hook, and throw it into
the waters, how will you ever catch your fish?
You have had a nibble, a glorious nibble, at any
rate, Selman; and that, you know, is the premonitory
symptom of a bite;—and may the biter be
bit—I don't mean in the vulgar sense of the proverb:
I mean, may she be caught.”

Long after Selman's head was upon his pillow
in an undisturbed and dreamless sleep, in spite of
Miss Penelope, Bradshaw was up, with his books
before him, not in study, but in a state of restlessness.
For a few moments he would glance
over the life of Cæsar, Themistocles, Napoleon,
or Chatham, or look into a poem, or stir his fire,
or sit in abstraction and gaze upon the various
forms which the burning coal assumed. An observer
of his countenance would soon have discovered
in him the throes and excitement of a
deep ambition—an ambition self-sustained and
determined, yet restless and anxious for action—
a character formed in common mould—one, who,
even in his most wayward moments, felt a fixedness
of purpose, that longed, at least, to try its
energies in another field than that of the imagination.