Books: The History of Pendennis

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"I am afraid Mr. Foker is a very sad young man," she said, turning round
to Pen.

"He does not look so," Pen answered with a sneer.

"I mean we have heard sad stories about him. Haven't we, mamma? What was
Mr. Poyntz saying here, the other day, about that party at Richmond? O
you naughty creature!" But here, seeing that Harry's countenance assumed
a great expression of alarm, while Pen's wore a look of amusement, she
turned to the latter and said, "I believe you are just as bad: I believe
you would have liked to have been there,--wouldn't you? I know you would:
yes--and so should I."

"Lor, Blanche!" mamma cried.

"Well, I would. I never saw an actress in my life. I would give anything
to know one; for I adore talent. And I adore Richmond, that I do; and I
adore Greenwich, and I say, I should like to go there."

"Why should not we three bachelors," the Major here broke out, gallantly,
and to his nephew's special surprise, "beg these ladies to honour us with
their company at Greenwich? Is Lady Clavering to go on for ever being
hospitable to us, and may we make no return? Speak for yourselves, young
men,--eh, begad! Here is my nephew, with his pockets full of money--his
pockets full, begad! and Mr. Henry Foker, who, as I have heard say, is
pretty well to do in the world,--how is your lovely cousin, Lady Ann, Mr.
Foker?--here are these two young ones,--and they allow an old fellow like
me to speak. Lady Clavering, will you do me the favour to be my guest?
and Miss Blanche shall be Arthur's, if she will be so good."

"Oh, delightful!" cried Blanche.

"I like a bit of fun too," said Lady Clavering; and we will take some day
when Sir Francis----"

"When Sir Francis dines out,--yes, mamma," the daughter said, "it will be
charming."

And a charming day it was. The dinner was ordered at Greenwich, and
Foker, though he did not invite Miss Amory, had some delicious
opportunities of conversation with her during the repast, and afterwards
on the balcony of their room at the hotel, and again during the drive
home in her ladyship's barouche. Pen came down with his uncle, in Sir
Hugh Trumpington's brougham, which the Major borrowed for the occasion.
"I am an old soldier, begad," he said, "and I learned in early life to
make myself comfortable."

And, being an old soldier, he allowed the two young men to pay for the
dinner between them, and all the way home in the brougham he rallied Pen,
about Miss Amory's evident partiality for him: praised her good looks,
spirits, and wit: and again told Pen in the strictest confidence, that
she would be a devilish deal richer than people thought.

CHAPTER XLII

Contains a novel Incident

Some account has been given, in a former part of this story, how Mr. Pen,
during his residence at home, after his defeat at Oxbridge, had occupied
himself with various literary compositions, and amongst other works, had
written the greater part of a novel. This book, written under the
influence of his youthful embarrassments, amatory and pecuniary, was of a
very fierce, gloomy, and passionate sort,--the Byronic despair, the
Wertherian despondency, the mocking bitterness of Mephistopheles of
Faust, were all reproduced and developed in the character of the hero;
for our youth had just been learning the German language, and imitated,
as almost all clever lads do, his favourite poets and writers. Passages
in the volumes once so loved, and now read so seldom, still bear the mark
of the pencil with which he noted them in those days. Tears fell upon the
leaf of the book, perhaps, or blistered the pages of his manuscript as
the passionate young man dashed his thoughts down. If he took up the
books afterwards he had no ability or wish to sprinkle the leaves with
that early dew of former times: his pencil was no longer eager to score
its marks of approval: but as he looked over the pages of his manuscript,
he remembered what had been overflowing feelings which had caused him to
blot it, and the pain which had inspired the line. If the secret history
of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings
noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become
interesting, and dull tales excite the reader! Many a bitter smile passed
over Pen's face as he read his novel, and recalled the time and feelings
which gave it birth. How pompous some of the grand passages appeared; and
how weak were others in which he thought he had expressed his full heart!
This page was imitated from a then favourite author, as he could now
clearly see and confess, though he had believed himself to be writing
originally then. As he mused over certain lines he recollected the place
and hour where he wrote them: the ghost of the dead feeling came back as
he mused, and he blushed to review the faint image. And what meant those
blots on the page? As you come in the desert to a ground where camels'
hoofs are marked in the clay, and traces of withered herbage are yet
visible, you know that water was there once; so the place in Pen's mind
was no longer green, and the fons lacrymarum was dried up.

He used this simile one morning to Warrington, as the latter sate over
his pipe and book, and Pen, with much gesticulation according to his wont
when excited, and with a bitter laugh, thumped his manuscript down on the
table, making the tea-things rattle, and, the blue milk dance in the jug.
On the previous night he had taken the manuscript out of a long-neglected
chest, containing old shooting jackets, old Oxbridge scribbling-books,
his old surplice, and battered cap and gown, and other memorials of
youth, school, and home. He read in the volume in bed until he fell
asleep, for the commencement of the tale was somewhat dull, and he had
come home tired from a London evening party.

"By Jove!" said Pen, thumping down his papers, "when I think that these
were written but very few years ago, I am ashamed of my memory. I wrote
this when I believed myself be eternally in love with that little
coquette, Miss Amory. I used to carry down verses to her, and put them
into the hollow of a tree, and dedicate them 'Amori.'"

"That was a sweet little play upon words," Warrington remarked, with a
puff "Amory--Amori. It showed proof of scholarship. Let us hear a bit of
the rubbish." And he stretched over from his easy-chair, and caught hold
of Pen's manuscript with the fire-tongs, which he was just using in order
to put a coal into his pipe. Thus, in possession of the volume, he began
to read out from the 'Leaves from the Life-book of Walter Lorraine.'

"'False as thou art beautiful! heartless as thou art fair! mockery of
Passion!' Walter cried, addressing Leonora; 'what evil spirit hath sent
thee to torture me so? O Leonora.----'"

"Cut that part," cried out Pen, making a dash at the book, which,
however, his comrade would not release. "Well! don't read it out at any
rate. That's about my other flame, my first--Lady Mirabel that is now. I
saw her last night at Lady Whiston's. She asked me to a party at her
house, and said that, as old friends, we ought to meet oftener. She has
been seeing me any time these two years in town, and never thought of
inviting me before; but seeing Wenham talking to me, and Monsieur Dubois,
the French literary man, who had a dozen orders on, and might have passed
for a Marshal of France, she condescended to invite me. The Claverings
are to be there on the same evening. Won't it be exciting to meet one's
two flames at the same table?"

"Two flames!--two heaps of burnt-out cinders," Warrington said. "Are both
the beauties in this book?"

"Both, or something like them," Pen said. "Leonora, who marries the Duke,
is the Fotheringay. I drew the Duke from Magnus Charters, with whom I was
at Oxford; it's a little like him; and Miss Amory is Neaera. By gad, that
first woman! I thought of her as I walked home from Lady Whiston's in the
moonlight; and the whole early scenes came back to me as if they had been
yesterday. And when I got home, I pulled out the story which I wrote
about her and the other three years ago: do you know, outrageous as it
is, it has some good stuff in it, and if Bungay won't publish it, I think
Bacon will."

"That's the way of poets," said Warrington. "They fall in love, jilt, or
are jilted; they suffer and they cry out that they suffer more than any
other mortals: and when they have experienced feelings enough they note
them down in a book, and take the book to market. All poets are humbugs,
all literary men are humbugs; directly a man begins to sell his feelings
for money he's a humbug. If a poet gets a pain in his side from too good
a dinner, he bellows Ai Ai louder than Prometheus."

"I suppose a poet has a greater sensibility than another man," said Pen,
with some spirit. "That is what makes him a poet. I suppose that he sees
and feels more keenly: it is that which makes him speak, of what he feels
and sees. You speak eagerly enough in your leading articles when you espy
a false argument in an opponent, or detect a quack in the House. Paley,
who does not care for anything else in the world, will talk for an hour
about a question of law. Give another the privilege which you take
yourself, and the free use of his faculty, and let him be what nature has
made him. Why should not a man sell his sentimental thoughts as well as
you your political ideas, or Paley his legal knowledge? Each alike is a
matter of experience and practice. It is not money which causes you to
perceive a fallacy, or Paley to argue a point; but a natural or acquired
aptitude for that kind of truth: and a poet sets down his thoughts and
experiences upon paper as a painter does a landscape or a face upon
canvas, to the best of his ability, and according to his particular gift.
If ever I think I have the stuff in me to write an epic, by Jove I will
try If I only feel that I am good enough to crack a joke or tell a story,
I will do that."

"Not a bad speech, young one," Warrington said, but that does not prevent
all poets from being humbugs."

"What--Homer, Aeschylus, Shakspeare and all?"

"Their names are not to be breathed in the same sense with you pigmies,"
Mr. Warrington said: "there are men and men, sir."

"Well, Shakspeare was a man who wrote for money, just as you and I do,"
Pen answered, at which Warrington confounded his impudence, and resumed
his pipe and his manuscript.

There was not the slightest doubt then that this document contained a
great deal of Pen's personal experiences, and that 'Leaves from the
Life-book of Walter Lorraine' would never have been written but for
Arthur Pendennis's own private griefs, passions, and follies. As we have
become acquainted with these in the first volume of his biography, it
will not be necessary to make large extracts from the novel of 'Walter
Lorraine,' in which the young gentleman had depicted such of them as he
thought were likely to interest the reader, or were suitable for the
purpose of his story.

Now, though he had kept it in his box for nearly half of the period
during which, according to the Horatian maxim, a work of art ought to lie
ripening (a maxim, the truth of which may, by the way, be questioned
altogether), Mr. Pen had not buried his novel for this time, in order
that the work might improve, but because he did not know where else to
bestow it, or had no particular desire to see it. A man who thinks of
putting away a composition for ten years before he shall give it to the
world, or exercise his own maturer judgment upon it, had best be very
sure of the original strength and durability of the work; otherwise on
withdrawing it from its crypt he may find, that like small wine it has
lost what flavour it once had, and is only tasteless when opened. There
are works of all tastes and smacks, the small and the strong, those that
improve by age, and those that won't bear keeping at all, but are
pleasant at the first draught, when they refresh and sparkle.

Now Pen had never any notion, even in the time of his youthful
inexperience and fervour of imagination, that the story he was writing
was a masterpiece of composition, or that he was the equal of the great
authors whom he admired; and when he now reviewed his little performance,
he was keenly enough alive to its faults, and pretty modest regarding its
merits. It was not very good, he thought; but it was as good as most
books of the kind that had the run of circulating libraries and the
career of the season. He had critically examined more than one
fashionable novel by the authors of the day then popular, and he thought
that his intellect was as good as theirs and that he could write the
English language as well as those ladies or gentlemen; and as he now ran
over his early performance, he was pleased to find here and there
passages exhibiting both fancy and vigour, and traits, if not of genius,
of genuine passion and feeling. This, too, was Warrington's verdict, when
that severe critic, after half an hour's perusal of the manuscript, and
the consumption of a couple of pipes of tobacco, laid Pen's book down,
yawning portentously. "I can't read any more of that balderdash now," he
said; "but it seems to me there is some good stuff in it, Pen, my boy.
There's a certain greenness and freshness in it which I like somehow. The
bloom disappears off the face of poetry after you begin to shave. You
can't get up that naturalness and artless rosy tint in after days. Your
cheeks are pale, and have got faded by exposure to evening parties,
and you are obliged to take curling-irons, and macassar, and the
deuce-knows-what to your whiskers; they curl ambrosially, and you are
very grand and genteel, and so forth; but, ah! Pen, the spring-time was
the best."

"What the deuce have my whiskers to do with the subject in hand?" Pen
said (who, perhaps, may have been nettled by Warrington's allusion to
those ornaments, which, to say the truth, the young man coaxed, and
curled, and oiled, and perfumed, and petted, in rather an absurd manner).
"Do you think we can do anything with 'Walter Lorraine'? Shall we take
him to the publishers, or make an auto-da-fe of him?"

"I don't see what is the good of incremation," Warrington said, "though I
have a great mind to put him into the fire, to punish your atrocious
humbug and hypocrisy. Shall I burn him indeed? You have much too great a
value for him to hurt a hair of his head."

"Have I? Here goes," said Pen, and 'Walter Lorraine' went off the table,
and was flung on to the coals. But the fire having done its duty of
boiling the young man's breakfast-kettle, had given up work for the day,
and had gone out, as Pen knew very well; Warrington with a scornful mile,
once more took up the manuscript with the tongs from out of the
harmless cinders.

"Oh, Pen, what a humbug you are!" Warrington said; "and what is worst of
all, sir, a clumsy humbug. I saw you look to see that the fire was out
before you sent 'Walter Lorraine' behind the bars. No, we won't burn him:
we will carry him to the Egyptians, and sell him. We will exchange him
away for money, yea, for silver and gold, and for beef and for liquors,
and for tobacco and for raiment. This youth will fetch some price in the
market; for he is a comely lad, though not over strong; but we will
fatten him up and give him the bath, and curl his hair, and we will sell
him for a hundred piasters to Bacon or to Bungay. The rubbish is saleable
enough, sir; and my advice to you is this: the next time you go home for
a holiday, take 'Walter Lorraine' in your carpet-bag--give him a more
modern air, prune away, though sparingly, some of the green passages, and
add a little comedy, and cheerfulness, and satire, and that sort of
thing, and then we'll take him to market, and sell him. The book is not a
wonder of wonders, but it will do very well."

"Do you think so, Warrington?" said Pen, delighted, for this was great
praise from his cynical friend.

"You silly young fool! I think it's uncommonly clever," Warrington said
in a kind voice. "So do you, sir." And with the manuscript which he held
in his hand he playfully struck Pen on the cheek. That part of Pen's
countenance turned as red as it had ever done in the earliest days of his
blushes: he grasped the other's hand and said, "Thank you, Warrington,"
with all his might: and then he retired to his own room with his book,
and passed the greater part of the day upon his bed re-reading it; and he
did as Warrington had advised, and altered not a little, and added a
great deal, until at length he had fashioned 'Walter Lorraine' pretty
much into the shape in which, as the respected novel-reader knows, it
subsequently appeared.

Whilst he was at work upon this performance, the good-natured Warrington
artfully inspired the two gentlemen who "read" for Messrs. Bacon and
Bungay with the greatest curiosity regarding 'Walter Lorraine,' and
pointed out the peculiar merits of its distinguished author. It was at
the period when the novel, called 'The Fashionable,' was in vogue among
us; and Warrington did not fail to point out, as before, how Pen was a
man of the very first fashion himself, and received at the houses of some
of the greatest personages in the land. The simple and kind-hearted Percy
Popjoy was brought to bear upon Mrs. Bungay, whom he informed that his
friend Pendennis was occupied upon a work of the most exciting nature; a
work that the whole town would run after, full of wit, genius, satire,
pathos, and every conceivable good quality. We have said before, that
Bungay knew no more about novels than he did about Hebrew or Algebra, and
neither read nor understood any of the books which he published and paid
for; but he took his opinions from his professional advisers and from
Mrs. B., and, evidently with a view to a commercial transaction, asked
Pendennis and Warrington to dinner again.

Bacon, when he found that Bungay was about to treat, of course, began to
be anxious and curious, and desired to outbid his rival. Was anything
settled between Mr. Pendennis and the odious house "over the way" about
the new book? Mr. Hack, the confidential reader, was told to make
inquiries, and see if any thing was to be done, and the result of the
inquiries of that diplomatist was, that one morning, Bacon himself toiled
up the staircase of Lamb Court and to the door on which the names of Mr.
Warrington, and Mr. Pendennis, were painted.

For a gentleman of fashion as poor Pen was represented to be, it must
be confessed, that the apartments he and his friend occupied were not
very suitable. The ragged carpet had grown only more ragged during the
two years of joint occupancy: a constant odour of tobacco perfumed the
sitting-room: Bacon tumbled over the laundress's buckets in the passage
through which he had to pass; Warrington's shooting-jacket was as
tattered at the elbows as usual; and the chair which Bacon was requested
to take on entering, broke down with the publisher. Warrington burst out
laughing, said that Bacon had got the game chair, and bawled out to Pen
to fetch a sound one from his bedroom. And seeing the publisher looking
round the dingy room with an air of profound pity and wonder, asked him
whether he didn't think the apartments were elegant, and if he would
like, for Mrs. Bacon's drawing-room, any of the articles of furniture?
Mr. Warrington's character as a humourist was known to Mr. Bacon: "I
never can make that chap out," the publisher was heard to say, "or tell
whether he is in earnest or only chaffing."

It is very possible that Mr. Bacon would have set the two gentlemen
down as impostors altogether, but that there chanced to be on the
breakfast-table certain cards of invitation which the post of the morning
had brought in for Pen, and which happened to come from some very exalted
personage of the beau-monde, into which our young man had his
introduction. Looking down upon these, Bacon saw that the Marchioness of
Steyne would be at home to Mr. Arthur Pendennis upon a given day, and
that another lady of distinction proposed to have dancing at her house
upon a certain future evening. Warrington saw the admiring publisher
eyeing these documents. "Ah," said he, with an air of simplicity,
"Pendennis is one of the most affable young men I ever knew, Mr. Bacon.
Here is a young fellow that dines with all the men in London, and yet
he'll take his mutton-chop with you and me quite contentedly. There's
nothing like the affability of the old English gentleman."

"Oh no, nothing," said Mr. Bacon.

"And you wonder why he should go on living up three pair of stairs with
me, don't you now? Well, it is a queer taste. But we are fond of each
other; and as I can't afford to live in a great house, he comes and stays
in these rickety old chambers with me. He's a man that can afford to live
anywhere."

"I fancy it don't cost him much here," thought Mr. Bacon, and the object
of these praises presently entered the room from his adjacent sleeping
apartment.

Then Mr. Bacon began to speak upon the subject of his visit; said he
heard that Mr. Pendennis had a manuscript novel; professed himself
anxious to have a sight of that work, and had no doubt that they could
come to terms respecting it. What would be his price for it? would he
give Bacon the refusal of it? he would find our house a liberal house,
and so forth. The delighted Pen assumed an air of indifference, and said
that he was already in treaty with Bungay, and could give no definite
answer. This piqued the other into such liberal, though vague offers,
that Pen began to fancy Eldorado was opening to him, and that his fortune
was made from that day.

I shall not mention what was the sum of money which Mr. Arthur Pendennis
finally received for the first edition of his novel of 'Walter Lorraine,'
lest other young literary aspirants should expect to be as lucky as he
was, and unprofessional persons forsake their own callings, whatever they
may be, for the sake of supplying the world with novels, whereof there is
already a sufficiency. Let no young people be misled and rush fatally
into romance-writing: for one book which succeeds let them remember the
many that fail, I do not say deservedly or otherwise, and wholesomely
abstain or if they venture, at least let them do so at their own peril.
As for those who have already written novels, this warning is not
addressed, of course, to them. Let them take their wares to market; let
them apply to Bacon and Bungay, and all the publishers in the Row, or the
metropolis, and may they be happy in their ventures. This world is so
wide, and the tastes of mankind happily so various, that there is always
a chance for every man, and he may win the prize by his genius or by his
good fortune. But what is the chance of success or failure; of obtaining
popularity, or of holding it when achieved? One man goes over the ice,
which bears him, and a score who follow flounder in. In fine, Mr.
Pendennis's was an exceptional case, and applies to himself only and I
assert solemnly, and will to the last maintain, that it is one thing to
write a novel, and another to get money for it.

By merit, then, or good fortune, or the skilful playing off of Bungay
against Bacon which Warrington performed (and which an amateur novelist
is quite welcome to try upon any two publishers in the trade), Pen's
novel was actually sold for a certain sum of money to one of the two
eminent patrons of letters whom we have introduced to our readers. The
sum was so considerable that Pen thought of opening an account at a
banker's, or of keeping a cab and horse, or of descending into the first
floor of Lamb Court into newly furnished apartments, or of migrating to
the fashionable end of the town.

Major Pendennis advised the latter move strongly; he opened his eyes with
wonder when he heard of the good luck that had befallen Pen; and which
the latter, as soon as it occurred, hastened eagerly to communicate to
his uncle. The Major was almost angry that Pen should have earned so much
money. "Who the doose reads this kind of thing?" he thought to himself
when he heard of the bargain which Pen had made. "I never read your
novels and rubbish. Except Paul de Kock, who certainly makes me laugh, I
don't think I've looked into a book of the sort these thirty years. Gad!
Pen's a lucky fellow. I should think he might write one of these in a
month now,--say a month,--that's twelve in a year. Dammy, he may go on
spinning this nonsense for the next four to five years, and make a
fortune. In the meantime I should wish him to live properly, take
respectable apartments, and keep a brougham." And on this simple
calculation it was that the Major counselled Pen.

Arthur, laughing, told Warrington what his uncle's advice had been but he
luckily had a much more reasonable counsellor than the old gentleman in
the person of his friend, and in his own conscience, which said to him,
"Be grateful for this piece of good fortune; don't plunge into any
extravagancies. Pay back Laura!" And he wrote a letter to her, in which
he told her his thanks and his regard; and enclosed to her such an
instalment of his debt as nearly wiped it off. The widow and Laura
herself might well be affected by the letter. It was written with genuine
tenderness and modesty; and old Dr. Portman when he read a passage in the
letter, in which Pen, with an honest heart full of gratitude, humbly
thanked Heaven for his present prosperity, and for sending him such dear
and kind friends to support him in his ill fortune,--when Doctor Portman
read this portion of the letter, his voice faltered, and his eyes
twinkled behind his spectacles, and when he had quite finished reading
the same, and had taken his glasses off his nose, and had folded up the
paper and given it back to the widow, I am constrained to say, that
after holding Mrs. Pendennis's hand for a minute, the Doctor drew that
lady towards him and fairly kissed her: at which salute, of course,
Helen burst out crying on the Doctor's shoulder, for her heart was too
full to give any other reply: and the Doctor blushing at great deal after
his feat, led the lady, with a bow, to the sofa, on which he seated
himself by her; and he mumbled out, in a low voice, some words of a Great
Poet whom he loved very much, and who describes how in the days of his
prosperity he had made "the widow's heart to sing for joy."