Yet I Pity The Man Who Does
Not Delight In The Genius That Created M. Bergeret.
A well-known author said to me the other day, he did not
believe that Thackeray himself would be popular were he
writing now for the first time - not because of his freedom,
but because the public taste has altered.
No present age can
predict immortality for the works of its day; yet to say that
what is intrinsically good is good for all time is but a
truism. The misfortune is that much of the best in
literature shares the fate of the best of ancient monuments
and noble cities; the cumulative rubbish of ages buries their
splendours, till we know not where to find them. The day may
come when the most valuable service of the man of letters
will be to unearth the lost treasures and display them,
rather than add his grain of dust to the ever-increasing
middens.
Is Carlyle forgotten yet, I wonder? How much did my
contemporaries owe to him in their youth? How readily we
followed a leader so sure of himself, so certain of his own
evangel. What an aid to strength to be assured that the true
hero is the morally strong man. One does not criticise what
one loves; one didn't look too closely into the doctrine
that, might is right, for somehow he managed to persuade us
that right makes the might - that the strong man is the man
who, for the most part, does act rightly. He is not over-
patient with human frailty, to be sure, and is apt, as
Herbert Spencer found, to fling about his scorn rather
recklessly. One fancies sometimes that he has more respect
for a genuine bad man than for a sham good one. In fact, his
'Eternal Verities' come pretty much to the same as Darwin's
'Law of the advancement of all organic bodies'; 'let the
strong live, and the weakest die.' He had no objection to
seeing 'the young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brothers, or
ants making slaves.' But he atones for all this by his
hatred of cant and hypocrisy. It is for his manliness that
we love him, for his honesty, for his indifference to any
mortal's approval save that of Thomas Carlyle. He convinces
us that right thinking is good, but that right doing is much
better. And so it is that he does honour to men of action
like his beloved Oliver, and Fritz, - neither of them
paragons of wisdom or of goodness, but men of doughty deeds.
Just about this time I narrowly missed a longed-for chance of
meeting this hero of my PENATES. Lady Ashburton - Carlyle's
Lady Ashburton - knowing my admiration, kindly invited me to
The Grange, while he was there. The house was full - mainly
of ministers or ex-ministers, - Cornewall Lewis, Sir Charles
Wood, Sir James Graham, Albany Fonblanque, Mr. Ellice, and
Charles Buller - Carlyle's only pupil; but the great man
himself had left an hour before I got there. I often met him
afterwards, but never to make his acquaintance. Of course, I
knew nothing of his special friendship for Lady Ashburton,
which we are told was not altogether shared by Mrs. Carlyle;
but I well remember the interest which Lady Ashburton seemed
to take in his praise, how my enthusiasm seemed to please
her, and how Carlyle and his works were topics she was never
tired of discussing.
The South Western line to Alresford was not then made, and I
had to post part of the way from London to The Grange. My
chaise companion was a man very well known in 'Society'; and
though not remarkably popular, was not altogether
undistinguished, as the following little tale will attest.
Frederick Byng, one of the Torrington branch of the Byngs,
was chiefly famous for his sobriquet 'The Poodle'; this he
owed to no special merit of his own, but simply to the
accident of his thick curly head of hair. Some, who spoke
feelingly of the man, used to declare that he had fulfilled
the promises of his youth. What happened to him then may
perhaps justify the opinion.
The young Poodle was addicted to practical jokes - as usual,
more amusing to the player than to the playee. One of his
victims happened to be Beau Brummell, who, except when he
bade 'George ring the bell,' was as perfect a model of
deportment as the great Mr. Turveydrop himself. His studied
decorum possibly provoked the playfulness of the young puppy;
and amongst other attempts to disturb the Beau's complacency,
Master Byng ran a pin into the calf of that gentleman's leg,
and then he ran away. A few days later Mr. Brummell, who had
carefully dissembled his wrath, invited the unwary youth to
breakfast, telling him that he was leaving town, and had a
present which his young friend might have, if he chose to
fetch it. The boy kept the appointment, and the Beau his
promise. After an excellent breakfast, Brummell took a whip
from his cupboard, and gave it to the Poodle in a way the
young dog was not likely to forget.
The happiest of my days then, and perhaps of my life, were
spent at Mr. Ellice's Highland Lodge, at Glenquoich. For
sport of all kinds it was and is difficult to surpass. The
hills of the deer forest are amongst the highest in Scotland;
the scenery of its lake and glens, especially the descent to
Loch Hourne, is unequalled. Here were to be met many of the
most notable men and women of the time. And as the house was
twenty miles from the nearest post-town, and that in turn two
days from London, visitors ceased to be strangers before they
left. In the eighteen years during which this was my autumn
home, I had the good fortune to meet numbers of distinguished
people of whom I could now record nothing interesting but
their names.
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