University of Virginia Library

30. XXX.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENTS.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 731EAF. Page 492. In-line Illustration. Image of a woman with her bonnet pushed back around her neck.]

SUCH scenes as these operated
beneficially in drawing
the blind girl's mind away
from the contemplation of
her private sorrows. And
so the river of her life
flowed on; the last great
grief that had fallen into
the waters had sunk below
the surface; the chasm had
closed up, the convulsion of waves had ceased; and although the
rock with its sharp edges still breasted the current of the stream,
it still swept smoothly along, over and around it, mirroring the
grassy banks and green trees of beauty that smiled upon its
windings, and the pure blue sky of infinite love that lay above it,
a deep and peaceful heaven. Leaving Alice, therefore, in the
care of her kind friends at the parsonage, let us glance briefly
at some other friends of hers, whom it is desirable that the
reader should not quite forget.

First, a word about Martin and his literary prospects. These
had improved rapidly during the summer; so that, in the month
of October, — one year from the day he travelled on foot into

Boston, in company with Cheesy and Caleb Thorne and Alice,
with the Beggar of Bagdad on his back, — he found himself one
of the most popular of the young writers then coming into notice.
He had become a favorite with the better class of newspaper
readers, besides making himself a respectable name in the magazines:
his articles were always salable, and nearly all of them,
when published, “went the rounds of the press.” Yet, even with
this success, Martin found his profession hard and precarious.
True, when the inspiration to write seized him strongly, he could
dash off, in a fine frenzy, an article that would pay him from five to
ten dollars a day — sometimes more — for the time occupied in
its composition. But the tide does not always flow: ebb and
low water must have place. Earth does not flower with perpetual
harvests; there must be a seed-time, and a winter of barrenness.
The same law of nature extends from lowest material things even
into the intellectual and moral regions. As with the sea and its
tides, as with the earth and its harvests, so with the mind.
The mechanic may pursue his trade at all times; so there are
some writers who can hammer out their tasks one hour as well as
another; but he who would let the spirit of nature flow through
him into his works must, like the farmer and sailor, be a student
of the stars, a weather-watcher, and a server of seasons and
tides. It took Martin months to learn this truth. He thought
the eagle should fly forever. Sometimes, full of health and
vigor, he would seat himself at his table, — expecting the same
joy of the imagination he felt the day before, to lift him up again
and bear him on its waves, over the stormy difficulties of his
task, — and find the waters stagnant. He could not understand
the phenomenon, at first; and often, when his work was to be
done, he would labor through it drearily, with disgust and pain.
But wisdom and faith came with experience. He learned to rest
content, even when for days his mind lay like a desert, producing
no fruit. Now up in the sunshine, now down in the shadow, like
the side of the earth we live on, — he welcomed the spirit's night
of darkness and rest, as well as its day of thought and light. But
at the same time he could not earn so much money with his pen
as Mr. Drove and Mr. Killings, begrudging what they paid him,
supposed. He somehow gained a livelihood, — nothing more. He
wrote an article, sold it, received his pay, and that was the last
of it.

“You ought to own a good copyright or two,” said his friend,
Mr. Dillistone, of the True Standard, as he complained to
him one day of this state of things. “Why don't you write a
book?”

“In the first place, I cannot very well spare the time,” replied
Martin. “Besides, I am not sure that I could write such a
book as any judicious publisher would be willing to print at a
risk.”

“Go with me, some day,” returned the other, “and I will introduce
you to an acquaintance in the trade. I will see him first,
and call his attention to your miscellaneous articles. Perhaps he
will be glad to make a bargain with you.”

Martin accepted the proposition with eagerness, and a few
days after, he might have been seen leaving the office of the
True Standard, arm-in-arm with the editor.

“Is this your friend's place?” he asked, in surprise, as they
entered the shop of a noted publisher.

“Why not? You will not find a better house to deal with.”

“So I should judge. But,” said Martin, blushing, “this is not
my first visit here. I am almost ashamed to be introduced.”

“You are too sensitive,” replied his friend. “Come along.
The governor is in, I see.”

So saw Martin also. It was the same polite publisher to whom
he had first submitted the manuscript of the Beggar of Bagdad.
With what distinctness the old scenes recurred to his mind! He
wondered if he whose careless words, all in the way of business,
had fallen like a blight upon the flower of his hope, remembered
that epoch! It appeared not. The publisher gave no sign of
recognizing the unsuccessful aspirant. He had probably forgotten
his anxious face the moment it disappeared from his counting-room
under the cloud of disappointment that overshadowed it.
With him the affair had been a mere item in the day's record;
with the young author it was a point in experience prominent as
Mount Washington among New England hills.

“I have read some of your articles,” said the man of books,
“and have no doubt, judging from what you have done, that
you have the ability to undertake something of greater magnitude,
with no less success.”

“I need not say,” replied Martin, “that it would afford me
great pleasure to prove you a true prophet.”

“Well, sir, you may have the opportunity, one of these days.
And I will say this much to encourage you,” added the gracious
publisher, — “that I never yet erred far wide in my estimate of
what a writer can do.” He touched Martin's shoulder significantly.
“I have n't been ten years in the trade for nothing. I 'm no
scholar; I graduated in a red school-house on the forks of the
road, and could n't tell you Greek from Latin, nor Latin from
algebra; but when you come to commonsense and business, you
may find my word worth a trifle. When I say you have the
ability, I don't mean that you can make speeches like Webster, or

give us great scientific works, like Doctor this or Professor
that; but that you can write a book that our friend here can
read to his family, and that I can sell.”

Martin acknowledged the compliment with a blush, a bow and
a smile.

“What we want in books is nature, nature, nature,” the publisher
went on. “You have that. There is no wild romance, no
sentimental extravagance, in your style.”

“I have endeavored to steer as clear of that as possible,”
replied Martin, with a smile. He thought of the Beggar of Bagdad.
“I have had experience enough to teach me that in literature
we cannot give our pictures of life and the human heart too
much of the atmosphere and coloring of reality. True, we must
idealize; but all our elements must be drawn from nature, and
reproduced with fidelity.”

“With a moral tone,” suggested the other.

“I think literature should not be frivolous. It should be
made to meet the needs of society,” said Martin. “With so
much evil in the world to be overcome with good, — with so much
ignorance, wrong and slavery of every kind, to be combated, even
in this land of boasted light and liberty, — a writer should not
trifle. But I do not believe much in set morals; attached to fictions
they may be precious as gold, yet a freight of such is death
to the muse. I think, when an author's heart is pure, it will
breathe purity into his books. If we look at life from a high
point of view, and make our pictures true, the very essence of
morality will enter into them, though we should paint vice
itself.”

“I like your ideas,” observed the publisher. “Now, if you
choose to prepare a small volume in the course of the winter,

I will publish it for you in the spring. Call in any day next
week, and I will give you some hints that will be useful to
you.”

Surprise and gratification made Martin's eyes glisten. Yet he
could not help saying that he was afraid the publisher might
regret the confidence he saw fit to place in him.

“I have no fears on that score,” responded the latter. “Only
make a book to suit yourself, and I shall be suited.”

“If I suit myself, it will be for the first time,” cried Martin.
“I have never yet done anything that seemed to me worthy.
Often, before I sit down to write, the ideal before me thrills me
with its beauty; but when I come to create tangible forms, it
escapes out of them by some subtlety I am not master of, and
immediately reäppears in another shape, so beautiful and so grand,
that I take shame to myself for my poor efforts to grasp it.
What I will write is always noble; what I have written is shallow
and feeble. I think now I can write you a good book — but
if I think it a good one when it is finished, beware of it. I wrote
a romance once; it was my first attempt at prose, and I succeeded
so much better than I expected that I thought it a fine
production.”

“I have no doubt but it was very respectable,” said the publisher,
with a flattering smile. (He had most assuredly forgotten
the Beggar of Bagdad!)

“It was mere trash,” returned Martin, with a humorous
twinkle of the eye. “If you had ever seen it, you would say so.
I have never been quite so vain of anything since.”

The publisher bowed his visitors out of his shop, and Martin
went away arm-in-arm with his friend, as he had come.

“I tell you,” said he, warmly, “I left this goodly place one

year ago with different feelings. I had aimed my arrow at the
sun of fame, and came here to find that it had struck into the flat
mud of utter failure.”

“You cannot aim too high,” answered the practical Dillistone;
“but, sir, you must serve your time, and earn your credit-marks.”

“And sit like patience on a monument, smiling at delay, if literary
success is your ambition,” added Martin.

And here we will leave him, in the flush of a fresh and hopeful
purpose, and turn our eyes to other actors in this irregular
drama.

Cheesy, meanwhile, is growing — a little in wisdom, and a
good deal in inches. In other respects, too, he has changed somewhat
since the day when he walked into Boston with Martin. If
taller, he is less plump; his voice has lost much of its coarseness,
and his cheeks much of their color; and his speech, if
slightly improved in elegance, has acquired that quality at the
expense of its vernacular freshness and force. He sports a ratan,
and shaves; and, one year from the date of his inauguration in
Sniffenden and Co.'s, he burst upon the world, in all the morning
glory of a smart suit of clothes. This fair sunrise of gentility
cometh not altogether unexpectedly. The early dawn thereof —
the first faint streaks — appeared in the timid turning-up of his
shirt-collar, the more careful tie of his neckerchief, and the oiling
of his hair. Then came the crimson glow of a stylish hat and
polished boots; and, lastly, the full-blown aurora of plaid pants
and a snobbish coat. Here let not the prudent reader look grave,
and hint of extravagance. None but the initiated know how
cheaply our incipient dandies may be clad. The cost of Cheesy's
entire outfit, hat and cane inclusive, did not exceed twenty-five

dollars; and where, in all literature, do you read of a hero bedizened
at so reasonable a rate?

With other accomplishments, Cheesy has learned to smoke;
and often, in the evening, you may see him standing in the door-way
of some public building, with his hat tipped jauntily one side,
puffing his penny cigar, and ogling the crowd. He has acquired
a swagger, and displays a pinchbeck fob-chain of showy proportions.
Yet admire him at a distance; examine not closely; criticize
not. Remember, the butterfly is but just hatched, and, if
there linger yet traces of the worm, let fall the mantle of charity
and cover them. Regard not our hero's foul teeth and sallow
linen. As he progresses in fortune and knowledge of the world,
you shall see him patronize the dentist, and send large bundles to
his washerwoman, in place of the one poor shirt and pair of socks,
her present weekly allowance.

These external developments of manliness are not unaccompanied
with a degree of self-confidence. Mature reflection convinces
Cheesy that, thus apparelled and equipped, he falleth not far
below the average excellence of gentlemen. True, at the first
turning up of his dickey he sneaked out of his boarding-house, as
if ashamed, and turned it down, disheartened, a dozen times
during the day. His other personal improvements were adopted
with not less modesty. His fob-chain he at first carried half the
time in his pocket, out of sight; and when his new suit came, he
put it on with fear and trembling, and blushed and grinned with
conscious awkwardness all one miserably-happy Sabbath. But
now habit has bred in him a feeling of easiness in his finery,
verging upon pride. Let him not be censured. As a well-dressed
man, he meets with different treatment in society from that which
kept him so long an underling. Sol Civett, at the store, no

longer disdains to make a companion of him. The sleek Jenks,
at the boarding-house, whom he formerly regarded with awe, has
become his good friend, and they frequently leave the house
together, after breakfast or dinner. How Cheesy's heart bounded
with pride and pleasure, when that genteel fellow first cried out
to him from the door, “Dabney, are you ready?” with a
familiarity of manner equivalent to a recognition of equality!
Mrs. Quilby begins suddenly to show him respect; he is handsomely
used when he enters the parlor; and the gay Miss Cynthia
Banks, discovering his good looks and other merits, pays her
addresses to him over the backgammon-board, and in sly chitchats
in the corner. The good-natured Cargess, whose admiration
for that young lady is coëval with her advent in High-street,
falls into a state of gloom; he alone looks darkly upon Cheesy;
but our young Adonis chuckles delightedly, knowing that he is
an object of jealousy. What wonder that his head is a little
turned?

And now the time has arrived for the achievement of a triumph
which has all along been with him a darling object of ambition.
It is something to win the admiration of strangers; but to
astonish old friends, to dazzle eyes that were once familiar with
your mean condition, to appear radiant and splendid in scenes
that knew your poverty, that is the one sweet thing in the universe.
So at least thinks Cheesy. He accordingly gets leave of
absence at the store, buys him a new shirt, puts it on, and flashes
like a meteor upon his native village. Shade of Brummel! how
his bosom swells, as he alights on the tavern steps! It is a
cold day, late in autumn, and the human flies which sun themselves
under the old piazza in pleasant weather have disappeared,
much to our hero's disappointment; but on entering the bar-room,

he finds them there, gathered about the stove, talking and chewing
tobacco. A sublime idea strikes him. Pursing up his
face with a look of conscious importance, and flourishing his ratan,
he walks up to the bar.

“Landlord, ye got any good cigars?”

“Mr. Dabney! how do you do?” cries the surprised
Boniface.

To be thus addressed, is too much for Cheesy's dignity. He
chuckles perceptibly.

“Did n't ye know me? How 's — hi! hi! hi! — how 's all
the folks? Got any Golden Lions? How are these Principes?”

“Fair, I guess. Where have you been, all this time?”

“Been in Boston. — I 'll take two of these.” And Cheesy rattles
his change upon the counter.

By this time he has become known to the company. Some
greet him with eager curiosity; but the general sensation is not quite
what he expected. He does not much like the manner in which
Jacobs, the jockey, leers and winks; and the indifference of others,
who do not move in their seats, but keep on talking the same as
when he entered, casts a shade upon the glory of his triumph.
He rallies, however, when Mr. Perkins, the blacksmith, — a man
of character in the community, — comes forward, shakes hands
with him, and calls him Mr. Dabney.

“You 've been doing pretty well, have n't you?”

“Well, — pretty well, I guess,” chuckles Cheesy.

“What business?” asks the sedate smith.

“Hulsale store — Sniffenden & Company. One o' the most
extensive 'stablishments in Boston — doing a prosperous business,”
adds Cheesy, with a dash of the high-flown.

“You get a pretty good salary, don't you?”

“First-rate! quite a lucrative situation.”

“An't you cold?” — The grave blacksmith gives such a queer
glance at Cheesy's dress! — “You shiver. Come up to the stove,
and warm you.”

“O, I an't cold. I 'd a worn my overcoat, though, if I 'd
known we was going to have such a chilly spell. Pretty high
temperature out here, compared with what we enjoy in Boston.”

“It is colder there, is it?”

“O, no, a good deal warmer.

“Then the temperature here is lower than it is there,” observes
the smith, with imperturbable gravity; “I suppose that 's what
you meant to say.”

“No — yes — that is,” stammers Cheesy, confused, and suspicious
of quizzing, — “it 's some colder here. I guess I 'll run
over and see Cole, the shoemaker. I wonder if he 's got any new
ghost-stories?”

He makes several memorable calls, — talking largely, smoking,
squirting through his teeth, and whipping his trousers with his
ratan, wherever he goes. He patronizes his ancient mates, some
of whom, in turn, lionize him, while others, possessing envious
hearts and shallow minds, affect a cynical manner, and appear
incredulous to the famous tales he tells of his Boston adventures.
All are glad to follow in his train, however; and, thus attended,
it is his delight to march up and down in sight of his step-mother's
house. She calls to him from the door, “Cheseboro'!
Cheseboro'!” in the same voice as of old, with a vein of surprise
and admiration in it, and comes out after him; but, blind and
deaf to her appeals, he returns, with tantalizing independence, to
the tavern, where he has taken lodgings for the night.

Flushed with triumph, Cheesy, at a late hour, retires to his bed,
flings himself about, sleeplessly, for an hour or more, muttering to
himself and chuckling audibly, and finally falls into a dreamy
sleep. On awaking, late in the morning, he hears a knocking
at his door, and, hastily drawing on his pants, slips back the
bolt. The door flies open, and in stalks — his step-mother!

“Why, Cheseboro'!” she exclaims, smilingly, “where did you
come from? Where have you been?”

With all his bravado, Cheesy has been apprehensive of Mrs.
Dabney's resentment ever since he set foot in the village; and her
apparition at the door took his breath away and drove the color
from his cheeks; but, gathering courage from her amicable manner,
he now faces her with spirit. He tells her he is in one of the
biggest stores in Boston, and is making his fortune.

“And why did n't you come and see me, my dear boy?” Mrs.
Dabney asks, fawningly. “I kep' thinking you would come, and
set up for you till the clock struck ten.”

Cheesy, tying his cravat, mutters that he did n't suppose
she would care to see him; he only came out for a breath of air.

“But you 're coming to see me 'fore you go back, an't ye?”

“I 'd know; guess not; they can't do without me at the store
longer 'n to-day, and I 've got to hurry back,” says Cheesy,
polishing his hat with his sleeve.

Her flattery availeth not. Cheesy is stiff; Cheesy is inexorable.
Her fondness does but inspire him with the greater audacity
to play his lofty part.

“Come, dearie,” she pleads, “don't be offish; don't show an
Ingin sperit, now. I 'm willing you should be for yourself, and
I 'm glad you 're doing well; but I want you to appear a little
like my Cheseboro'. You han't kissed me. Well, you can be
proud and selfish, if you like. Do you ever see Mr. Mer'vale?”

“Yes, to be sure!” Cheesy arranges his fob-chain with an air
of indifference. “Me and him 's great friends.”

“Be ye, though? Well, he 's treated me very handsome, I
must say: I never expected anything like the present he made
me. I should be glad enough to see him. How did you come
acrost him in Boston?”

This is too much for Cheesy's gravity. He says, explosively,
that he trotted into Boston by Martin's side.

“I want to know! I thought of that; but in his letter he
sends `love to Cheesy,' just as if he expected you was to home, all
the time. If it don't beat all!”

Cheesy roars with laughter. Thus warmed and thawed, he
finds it difficult to reäscend the cold ice-banks of strangeness, from
which he at first talked down to his step-mother. He becomes
sociable in spite of himself, and promises to visit her after breakfast.
So she goes away well pleased with her dear son. But, on
reflection, his old resentment returns, and he is ashamed of having
been allured, like a silly snail, out of the hard shell of his reserve.
Besides, he has bragged to his mates of this his sublime revenge;
and shall it be said of him, when he is gone, that he lacked pluck?
“Not by a jug-full!” exclaims Cheesy to himself. Hence it happens
that, when the good woman, beginning to wax impatient at
the young gentleman's delay, heareth a wagon, she looketh eagerly
out; it is the railroad carryall, and, lo! Cheesy riding ostentatiously
with the driver, too busily engaged in conversation with
that functionary to turn his face towards her house! The bitterness
of that sight shall rankle in her bosom forever. Cheesy is
revenged!

Other triumphs await him. Lacking the courage to go openly
and call on his Uncle Jesse's family, he attires himself carefully

on Sunday, and walks up and down in the street by which his
aunt and cousin pass on their way to church. How he palpitates
and glows when, attended by a magnificent young dandy, they
come out of the house, and meet him with no sign of recognition!
But he has been seen; and, at a second rencontre, Sophronia and
her mother regard him with looks of interest, which ripen gradually
into intelligence. He is passing by with stoical indifference,
when they stop him, and he is honored with an introduction to Mr.
Tiplilly, who is very friendly. But Cheesy is excited, and, spite
of his goodly outside, his aunt and cousin find him simply amusing;
and it is this quality which procures for him, from the gay
Sophronia, an invitation to call at the house. This is one triumph;
but a greater than this is in reserve; it comes to pass
when he is presented to his cruel uncle! Mr. Dabney's ill humor
on the occasion is by no means flattering; but Cheesy has shown
him that he can get on in the world without his patronage; and,
long after, he delights himself with the inward assurance that
the old miser must have observed his fob-chain.

It is impossible to say how much the development of Cheesy
has depended upon his acquaintance with the Grayle family.
It was in the old book-keeper's house that he was first
brought out. The companionship of the children, the kindness of
the parents, and Uncle Joe's familiarity, served to wear off his
bashfulness, and inspire him with self-reliance; but, more than all,
his admiration of Ellen, together with the sad stories the remorseful
carpenter told of his youthful gallantry and extravagance of
dress, gave an impulse to his social ambition. And now, in the
day of his prosperity, he remembers his old friends. He turns from
the smiles of the gay Miss Banks to catch a ray from the beaming
countenance of Ellen; and he prefers honest Uncle Joe to the

genteel Jenks. Although the family has in the mean time seen
sore trouble, he has stood by them manfully. When poor Clara
was brought home, and laid upon a bed from which she never
rose up more; when Mrs. Grayle appeared quite broken-hearted,
and her husband was more cast down than ever; when a shadow
rested on Ellen, and the children's mirth was hushed in the general
distress, and Uncle Joe's “merry quips were o'er,” for a
season; when George Leviston, who could in no manner be prevailed
upon to see the wreck of her he once had loved, came every
day to the door, to hear how she was, and to bring such trifles as
he thought might conduce to her happiness or comfort; — then
Cheesy proved faithful — then Cheesy, with all his little faults
of cowardice and vanity, felt some honest throbs of heart that did
him credit. And when Clara sank in the dread gulf of the past,
and the waves of time closed over her forever, and the home she
had dishonored was filled with mourning, the sympathy he showed
won for him a deeper love, a more sincere respect, than all the
tinsel foppery of the world could have purchased. But the
wounds of the heart heal fast; and once more, when the blustering
wintry nights have come again, Cheesy meets a cheerful
circle at Mr. Grayle's, where Uncle Joe's good humor floweth as
of old.

“My sakes!” says the carpenter, turning the full moon of his
countenance upon Cheesy and Benjie, “how these jolly evenin's
remind me of my younger days, when I used to take delight
in seein' theatre-plays! I don't know what wickedness I
have n't been up to, in my time! Take warnin' by me, boys,
and beware of theatres. There was no end to the tricks I
used to invent for raisin' the money to buy tickets, and gett'n' off
when night come, unbeknown to the boss. I boarded with him;

and, I tell ye, I sometimes had to work it pretty shrewd. But
generally all day I was lottin' on goin' to the theatre in the
evenin'; and when I 'd got my mind sot on anything, I never
liked to be disappinted. I 'm ashamed to think o' them 'ere
tricks, Benjie,” adds Uncle Joe, with solemn self-reproach, “and
you can't conceive the horror I feel when I remember what the
plays was I was so fond of!”

Yet the jovial carpenter will give ample details of those tricks,
for the delight of the boys, and excite their imagination by glowing
accounts of those wicked plays. In this manner it comes about
that Cheesy must gratify a certain curiosity that burns within
him to see the foot-lights of a theatre. His first play is Jack
Sheppard. It opens a new era in his existence. The hero's daring
adventures thrill him with intense excitement, and in the
whirl and giddiness of the hour he resolves, first, to become a
highwayman; next, to go upon the stage, and be an actor; and,
finally, to learn grammar and spelling, in order to write a powerful
drama, founded upon Alphiddi and Lillifoo, in the Beggar of
Bagdad — the hero to be a robber, instead of a mendicant. Aside
from these schemes, the entertainment results in a wild passion
for play-going, and for a time Cheesy spends all his meagre earnings
in that sport. He falls in with companions who teach him
that drinking is no less a gentlemanly accomplishment than smoking.
He learns the sublime meaning of a treat. And so, like
many another ingenuous youth, led first by curiosity and vanity,
then by passion, he travels dangerous ways, over the treacherous
quagmire of death. But let us hope that, like Uncle Joe, he may
live to see the folly of his course, and, turning short around,
become as sober and honest a citizen — yea, and as portly — as
the pious carpenter.