Part 4

“No,” said he; “I’ve sworn to have nothing new till I’ve earned the money. Mr. Webb won’t expect to see me very bright, I dare say. When a man writes to beg for employment, it must naturally be supposed that he will be rather seedy about his clothes.” His wife did the best she could for him, and he went out to his breakfast.

Mrs. Webb was not there. Mr. Webb explained that she had already left town. There was no third person at the table, and before his first lamb-chop was eaten, Fred had told the pith of his story. He had a little money left, just enough to pay the doctor who must attend upon his wife, and carry him through the winter; and then he would be absolutely bare. Upon this Mr. Webb asked as to his relatives. “My father has chosen to quarrel with me,” said Fred. “I did not wish to be an attorney, and therefore he has cast me out.” Mr. Webb suggested that a reconciliation might be possible; but when Fred said at once that it was impossible, he did not recur to the subject.

When the host had finished his own breakfast he got up from his chair, and standing on the rug spoke such words of wisdom as were in him. It should be explained that Pickering, in his letter to Mr. Webb, had enclosed a copy of the Braes of Birken, another little poem in verse, and two of the London letters which he had written for the _Salford Reformer_. “Upon my word, Mr. Pickering, I do not know how to help you. I do not, indeed.”

“I am sorry for that, Sir.”

“I have read what you sent me, and am quite ready to acknowledge that there is enough, both in the prose and verse, to justify you in supposing it to be possible that you might hereafter live by literature as a profession; but all who make literature a profession should begin with independent means.”

“That seems to be hard on the profession as well as on the beginner.”

“It is not the less true; and is, indeed, true of most other professions as well. If you had stuck to the law your father would have provided you with the means of living till your profession had become profitable.”

“Is it not true that many hundreds in London live on literature?” said our hero.

“Many hundreds do so, no doubt. They are of two sorts, and you can tell yourself whether you belong to either. There are they who have learned to work in accordance with the directions of others. The great bulk of what comes out to us almost hourly in the shape of newspapers is done by them. Some are very highly paid, many are paid liberally, and a great many are paid scantily. There is that side of the profession, and you say that you have tried it and do not like it. Then there are those who do their work independently; who write either books or articles which find acceptance in magazines.”

“It is that which I would try if the opportunity were given me.”

“But you have to make your own opportunity,” said Mr. Wickham Webb. “It is the necessity of the position that it should be so. What can I do for you?”

“You know the editors of magazines?”

“Granted that I do, can I ask a man to buy what he does not want because he is my friend?”

“You could get your friend to read what I write.”

It ended in Mr. Webb strongly advising Fred Pickering to go back to his father, and in his writing two letters of introduction for him, one to the editor of the _International_, a weekly gazette of mixed literature, and the other to Messrs. Brook and Boothby, publishers in St. James’s Street. Mr. Webb, though he gave the letters open to Fred, read them to him with the view of explaining to him how little and how much they meant. “I do not know that they can do you the slightest service,” said he; “but I give them to you because you ask me. I strongly advise you to go back to your father; but if you are still in town next spring, come and see me again.” Then the interview was over, and Fred returned to his wife, glad to have the letters; but still with a sense of bitterness against Mr. Webb. When one word of encouragement would have made him so happy, might not Mr. Webb have spoken it? Mr. Webb had thought that he had better not speak any such word. And Fred, when he read the letters of introduction over to his wife, found them to be very cold.

“I don’t think I’ll take them,” he said.

But he did take them, of course, on the very next day, and saw Mr. Boothby, the publisher, after waiting for half-an-hour in the shop. He swore to himself that the time was an hour and a half, and became sternly angry at being so treated. It did not occur to him that Mr. Boothby was obliged to attend to his own business, and that he could not put his other visitors under the counter, or into the cupboards, in order to make way for Mr. Pickering. The consequence was that poor Fred was seen at his worst, and that the Boothbyan heart was not much softened towards him. “There are so many men of this kind who want work,” said Mr. Boothby, “and so very little work to give them!”

“It seems to me,” said Pickering, “that the demand for the work is almost unlimited.” As he spoke, he looked at a hole in his boot, and tried to speak in a tone that should show that he was above his boots.

“It may be so,” said Boothby; “but if so, the demands do not run in my way. I will, however, keep Mr. Webb’s note by me, and if I find I can do anything for you, I will. Good-morning.”

Then Mr. Boothby got up from his chair, and Fred Pickering understood that he was told to go away. He was furious in his abuse of Boothby as he described the interview to his wife that evening.

The editor of the _International_ he could not get to see; but he got a note from him. The editor sent his compliments, and would be glad to read the article to which Mr. W. W---- had alluded. As Mr. W. W---- had alluded to no article, Fred saw that the editor was not inclined to take much trouble on his behalf. Nevertheless, an article should be sent. An article was written to which Fred gave six weeks of hard work, and which contained an elaborate criticism on the Samson Agonistes. Fred’s object was to prove that Milton had felt himself to be a superior Samson--blind, indeed, in the flesh, as Samson was blind, but not blind in the spirit, as was Samson when he crushed the Philistines. The poet had crushed his Philistines with all his intellectual eyes about him. Then there was a good deal said about the Philistines of those days as compared with the other Philistines, in all of which Fred thought that he took much higher ground than certain other writers in magazines on the same subject. The editor sent back his compliments, and said that the _International_ never admitted reviews of old books.

“Insensate idiot!” said Fred, tearing the note asunder, and then tearing his own hair, on both sides of his head. “And these are the men who make the world of letters! Idiot!--thick-headed idiot!”

“I suppose he has not read it,” said Mary.

“Then why hasn’t he read it? Why doesn’t he do the work for which he is paid? If he has not read it, he is a thief as well as an idiot.”

Poor Fred had not thought much of his chance from the _International_ when he first got the editor’s note; but as he had worked at his Samson he had become very fond of it, and golden dreams had fallen on him, and he had dared to whisper to himself words of wondrous praise which might be forthcoming, and to tell himself of enquiries after the unknown author of the great article about the Philistines. As he had thought of this, and as the dreams and the whispers had come to him, he had rewritten his essay from the beginning, making it grander, bigger, more eloquent than before. He became very eloquent about the Philistines, and mixed with his eloquence some sarcasm which could not, he thought, be without effect even in dull-brained, heavy-livered London. Yes; he had dared to hope. And then his essay--such an essay as this--was sent back to him with a notice that the _International_ did not insert reviews of old books. Hideous, brainless, meaningless idiot! Fred in his fury tore his article into a hundred fragments; and poor Mary was employed, during the whole of the next week, in making another copy of it from the original blotted sheets, which had luckily been preserved.

“Pearls before swine!” Fred said to himself, as he slowly made his way up to the library of the Museum on the last day of that week.

That was in the end of October. He had not then earned a single shilling for many months, and the nearer prospect of that starvation of which he had once spoken so cheerily was becoming awfully frightful to him. He had said that there were worse fates than to starve. Now, as he looked at his wife, and thought of the baby that was to be added to them, and counted the waning heap of sovereigns, he began to doubt whether there was in truth anything worse than to starve. And now, too, idleness made his life more wretched to him than it had ever been. He could not bring himself to work when it seemed to him that his work was to have no result; literally none.

“Had you not better write to your father?” said Mary.

He made no reply, but went out and walked up and down Museum Street.

He had been much disgusted by the treatment he had received from Mr. Boothby, the publisher; but in November he brought himself to write to Mr. Boothby, and ask him whether some employment could not be found.

“You will perhaps remember Mr. Wickham Webb’s letter,” wrote Fred, “and the interview which I had with you last July.”

His wife had wished him to speak more civilly, and to refer to the pleasure of the interview. But Fred had declined to condescend so far. There were still left to them some thirty pounds.

A fortnight afterwards, when December had come, he got a reply from Mr. Boothby, in which he was asked to call at a certain hour at the shop in St. James’s Street. This he did, and saw the great man again. The great man asked him whether he could make an index to an historical work. Fred of course replied that he could do that--that or anything else. He could make the index; or, if need was, write the historical work itself. That, no doubt, was his feeling. Ten pounds would be paid for the index if it was approved. Fred was made to understand that payment was to depend altogether on approval of the work. Fred took away the sheets confided to him without any doubt as to the ultimate approval. It would be odd indeed if he could not make an index.

“That young man will never do any good,” said Mr Boothby to his foreman, as Fred took his departure. “He thinks he can do everything, and I doubt very much whether he can do anything as it should be done.”

Fred worked very hard at the index, and the baby was born to him as he was doing it. A fortnight, however, finished the index, and if he could earn money at the rate of ten pounds a fortnight he might still live. So he took his index to St. James’s Street, and left it for approval. He was told by the foreman that if he would call again in a week’s time he should hear the result. Of course he called on that day week. The work had not yet been examined, and he must call again after three days. He did call again; and Mr. Boothby told him that his index was utterly useless,--that, in fact, it was not an index at all.

“You couldn’t have looked at any other index, I think,” said Mr. Boothby.

“Of course you need not take it,” said Fred; “but I believe it to be as good an index as was ever made.”

Mr. Boothby, getting up from his chair, declared that there was nothing more to be said. The gentleman for whom the work had been done begged that Mr. Pickering should receive five pounds for his labour,--which unfortunately had been thus thrown away. And in saying this Mr. Boothby tendered a five-pound note to Fred. Fred pushed the note away from him, and left the room with a tear in his eye. Mr. Boothby saw the tear, and ten pounds was sent to Fred on the next day, with the gentleman’s compliments. Fred sent the ten pounds back. There was still a shot in the locker, and he could not as yet take money for work that he had not done.

By the end of January Fred had retreated with his wife and child to the shelter of a single small bed-room. Hitherto there had been a sitting-room and a bed-room; but now there were but five pounds between him and that starvation which he had once almost coveted, and every shilling must be strained to the utmost. His wife’s confinement had cost him much of his money, and she was still ill. Things were going very badly with him, and among all the things that were bad with him, his own idleness was probably the worst. When starvation was so near to him, he could not seat himself in the Museum library and read to any good purpose. And, indeed, he had no purpose. Milton was nothing to him now, as his lingering shillings became few, and still fewer. He could only sit brooding over his misfortunes, and cursing his fate. And every day, as he sat eating his scraps of food over the morsel of fire in his wife’s bed-room, she would implore him to pocket his pride and write to his father.

“He would do something for us, so that baby should not die,” Mary said to him. Then he went into Museum Street, and bethought himself whether it would not be a manly thing for him to cut his throat. At any rate there would be much relief in such a proceeding.

One day as he was sitting over the fire while his wife still lay in bed, the servant of the house brought up word that a gentleman wanted to see him. “A gentleman! what gentleman?” The girl could not say who was the gentleman, so Fred went down to receive his visitor at the door of the house. He met an old man of perhaps seventy years of age, dressed in black, who with much politeness asked him whether he was Mr. Frederick Pickering. Fred declared himself to be that unfortunate man, and explained that he had no apartment in which to be seen. “My wife is in bed up stairs, ill; and there is not a room in the house to which I can ask you.” So the old gentleman and Fred walked up Museum Street and had their conversation on the pavement. “I am Mr. Burnaby, for whose book you made an index,” said the old man.

Mr. Burnaby was an author well-known in those days, and Fred, in the midst of his misfortunes, felt that he was honoured by the visit.

“I was sorry that my index did not suit you,” said Fred.

“It did not suit at all,” said Mr. Burnaby. “Indeed it was no index. An index should comprise no more than words and figures. Your index conveyed opinions, and almost criticism.”

“If you suffered inconvenience, I regret it much,” said Fred. “I was punished at any rate by my lost labour.”

“I do not wish you to be punished at all,” said Mr. Burnaby, “and therefore I have come to you with the price in my hand. I am quite sure that you worked hard to do your best.” Then Mr. Burnaby’s fingers went into his waistcoat pocket, and returned with a crumpled note.

“Certainly not, Mr. Burnaby,” said Fred. “I can take nothing that I have not earned.”

“Now my dear young friend, listen to me. I know that you are poor.”

“I am very poor.”

“And I am rich.”

“That has nothing to do with it. Can you put me in the way of earning anything by literature? I will accept any such kindness as that at your hand; but nothing else.”

“I cannot. I have no means of doing so.”

“You know so many authors and so many publishers.”

“Though I knew all the authors and all the publishers, what can I do? Excuse me if I say that you have not served the apprenticeship that is necessary.”

“And do all authors serve apprenticeships?”

“Certainly not. And it may be that you will rise to wealth and fame without apprenticeship;--but if so you must do it without help.”

After that they walked silently together half the length of the street before Fred spoke again. “You mean,” said he, “that a man must be either a genius or a journeyman.”

“Yes, Mr. Pickering; that, or something like it, is what I mean.”

Fred told Mr. Burnaby his whole story, walking up and down Museum Street,--even to that early assurance given to his young bride that there were worse things in the world than starvation. And then Mr. Burnaby asked him what were his present intentions. “I suppose we shall try it,” said Pickering with a forced laugh.

“Try what?” said Mr. Burnaby.

“Starvation,” said Fred.

“What! with your baby,--with your wife and baby? Come; you must take my ten-pound note at any rate. And while you are spending it write home to your father. Heaven and earth! is a man to be ashamed to tell his father that he has been wrong?” When Fred said that his father was a stern man, and one whose heart would not be melted into softness at the tale of a baby’s sufferings, Mr. Burnaby went on to say that the attempt should at any rate be made. “There can be no doubt what duty requires of you, Mr. Pickering. And, upon my word, I do not see what other step you can take. You are not, I suppose, prepared to send your wife and child to the poor-house.” Then Fred Pickering burst into tears, and Mr. Burnaby left him at the corner of Great Russell Street, after cramming the ten-pound note into his hand.

To send his wife and child to the poor-house! In all his misery that idea had never before presented itself to Fred Pickering. He had thought of starvation, or rather of some high-toned extremity of destitution, which might be borne with an admirable and perhaps sublime magnanimity. But how was a man to bear with magnanimity a poor-house jacket, and the union mode of hair-cutting? It is not easy for a man with a wife and baby to starve in this country, unless he be one to whom starvation has come very gradually. Fred saw it all now. The police would come to him, and take his wife and baby away into the workhouse, and he would follow them. It might be that this was worse than starvation, but it lacked all that melodramatic grandeur to which he had looked forward almost with satisfaction.

“Well,” said Mary to him, when he returned to her bedside, “who was it? Has he told you of anything? Has he brought you anything to do?”

“He has given me that,” said Fred, throwing the bank-note on to the bed, “--out of charity! I may as well go out into the streets and beg now. All the pride has gone out of me.” Then he sat over the fire crying, and there he sat for hours.

“Fred,” said his wife to him, “if you do not write to your father to-morrow I will write.”

He went again to every person connected in the slightest degree with literature of whom he had the smallest knowledge; to Mr. Roderick Billings, to the teacher who had instructed him in shorthand-writing, to all those whom he had ever seen among the newspapers, to the editor of the _International_, and to Mr. Boothby. Four different visits he made to Mr. Boothby, in spite of his previous anger, but it was all to no purpose. No one could find him employment for which he was suited. He wrote to Mr. Wickham Webb, and Mr. Wickham Webb sent him a five-pound note. His heart was, I think, more broken by his inability to refuse charity than by anything else that had occurred to him.

His wife had threatened to write to his father, but she had not carried her threat into execution. It is not by such means that a young wife overcomes her husband. He had looked sternly at her when she had so spoken, and she had known that she could not bring herself to do such a thing without his permission. But when she fell ill, wanting the means of nourishment for her child, and in her illness begged of him to implore succour from his father for her baby when she should be gone, then his pride gave way, and he sat down and wrote his letter. When he went to his ink-bottle it was dry. It was nearly two months since he had made any attempt at working in that profession to which he had intended to devote himself.

He wrote to his father, drinking to the dregs the bitter cup of broken pride. It always seems to me that the prodigal son who returned to his father after feeding with the swine suffered but little mortification in his repentant submission. He does, indeed, own his unworthiness, but the calf is killed so speedily that the pathos of the young man’s position is lost in the hilarity of the festival. Had he been compelled to announce his coming by post; had he been driven to beg permission to return, and been forced to wait for a reply, his punishment, I think, would have been more severe. To Fred Pickering the punishment was very severe, and indeed for him no fatted calf was killed at last. He received without delay a very cold letter from his father, in which he was told that his father would consider the matter. In the meanwhile thirty shillings a week should be allowed him. At the end of a fortnight he received a further letter, in which he was informed that if he would return to Manchester he would be taken in at the attorney’s office which he had left. He must not, however, hope to become himself an attorney; he must look forward to be a paid attorney’s clerk, and in the meantime his father would continue to allow him thirty shillings a week. “In the present position of affairs,” said his father, “I do not feel that anything would be gained by our seeing each other.” The calf which was thus killed for poor Fred Pickering was certainly by no means a fatted calf.

Of course he had to do as he was directed. He took his wife and baby back to Manchester, and returned with sad eyes and weary feet to the old office which he had in former days not only hated but despised. Then he had been gallant and gay among the other young men, thinking himself to be too good for the society of those around him; now he was the lowest of the low, if not the humblest of the humble.

He told his whole story by letters to Mr. Burnaby, and received some comfort from the kindness of that gentleman’s replies. “I still mean,” he said, in one of those letters, “to return some day to my old aspirations; but I will endeavour first to learn my trade as a journeyman of literature.”

THE TWO GENERALS.

THE TWO GENERALS.

Christmas of 1860 is now three years past, and the civil war which was then being commenced in America is still raging without any apparent sign of an end.[A] The prophets of that time who prophesied the worst never foretold anything so black as this. On that Christmas-day, Major Anderson, who then held the command of the forts in Charleston harbour on the part of the United States Government, removed his men and stores from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, thinking that he might hold the one, though not both, against any attack from the people of Charleston, whose state, that of South Carolina, had seceded five days previously. That was in truth the beginning of the war, though at that time Mr. Lincoln was not yet president. He became so on the 4th of March, 1861, and on the 15th April following Fort Sumter was evacuated by Major Anderson, on the part of the United States Government, under fire from the people of Charleston. So little bloody however, was that affair, that no one was killed in the assault; though one poor fellow perished in the saluting fire with which the retreating officer was complimented as he retired with the so called honours of war. During the three years that have since passed, the combatants have better learned the use of their weapons of war. No one can now laugh at them for their bloodless battles. Never have the shores of any stream been so bathed in blood, as have the shores of those Virginian rivers whose names have lately become familiar to us. None of those old death-doomed generals of Europe, whom we have learned to hate for the cold-blooded energy of their trade,--Tilly, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederic, or Napoleon,--none of these ever left so many carcasses to the kites as have the Johnsons, Jacksons, and Hookers of the American armies, who come and go so fast that they are almost forgotten before the armies they have led have melted into clay.