CHAPTER XX
"Ah, my son!" said the parson, "if I wished to prove the value of religion, would you think I served it much if I took as my motto, 'Religion is power'? Would not that be a base and sordid view of its advantages? And would you not say, He who regards religion as a power intends to abuse it as a priestcraft?"
"Well put!" said Riccabocca.
"Wait a moment—let me think! Ah, I see, Sir!" said Leonard.
PARSON.—"If the cause be holy, do not weigh it in the scales of the market; if its objects be peaceful, do not seek to arm it with the weapons of strife; if it is to be the cement of society, do not vaunt it as the triumph of class against class."
LEONARD (ingenuously).—"You correct me nobly, sir. Knowledge is power, but not in the sense in which I have interpreted the saying."
PARSON.—"Knowledge is one of the powers in the moral world, but one that, in its immediate result, is not always of the most worldly advantage to the possessor. It is one of the slowest, because one of the most durable, of agencies. It may take a thousand years for a thought to come into power; and the thinker who originated it might have died in rags or in chains."
RICCABOCCA.—"Our Italian proverb saith that 'the teacher is like the candle, which lights others in consuming itself.'"
PARSON.—"Therefore he who has the true ambition of knowledge should entertain it for the power of his idea, not for the power it may bestow on himself: it should be lodged in the conscience, and, like the conscience, look for no certain reward on this side the grave. And since knowledge is compatible with good and with evil, would not it be better to say, 'Knowledge is a trust'?"
"You are right, sir," said Leonard, cheerfully; "pray proceed."
PARSON.—"You ask me why we encourage you to KNOW. First, because (as you say yourself in your Essay) knowledge, irrespective of gain, is in itself a delight, and ought to be something far more. Like liberty, like religion, it may be abused; but I have no more right to say that the poor shall be ignorant than I have to say that the rich only shall be free, and that the clergy alone shall learn the truths of redemption. You truly observe in your treatise that knowledge opens to us other excitements than those of the senses, and another life than that of the moment. The difference between us is this,—that you forget that the same refinement which brings us new pleasures exposes us to new pains; the horny hand of the peasant feels not the nettles which sting the fine skin of the scholar. You forget also, that whatever widens the sphere of the desires opens to them also new temptations. Vanity, the desire of applause, pride, the sense of superiority, gnawing discontent where that superiority is not recognized, morbid susceptibility, which comes with all new feelings, the underrating of simple pleasures apart from the intellectual, the chase of the imagination, often unduly stimulated, for things unattainable below,—all these are surely amongst the first temptations that beset the entrance into knowledge." Leonard shaded his face with his hand.
"Hence," continued the parson, benignantly,—"hence, so far from considering that we do all that is needful to accomplish ourselves as men, when we cultivate only the intellect, we should remember that we thereby continually increase the range of our desires, and therefore of our temptations; and we should endeavour, simultaneously, to cultivate both those affections of the heart which prove the ignorant to be God's children no less than the wise, and those moral qualities which have made men great and good when reading and writing were scarcely known: to wit, —patience and fortitude under poverty and distress; humility and beneficence amidst grandeur and wealth, and, in counteraction to that egotism which all superiority, mental or worldly, is apt to inspire, Justice, the father of all the more solid virtues, softened by Charity, which is their loving mother. Thus accompanied, knowledge indeed becomes the magnificent crown of humanity,—not the imperious despot, but the checked and tempered sovereign of the soul."
The parson paused, and Leonard, coming near him, timidly took his hand, with a child's affectionate and grateful impulse.
RICCAROCCA.—"And if, Leonard, you are not satisfied with our parson's excellent definitions, you have only to read what Lord Bacon himself has said upon the true ends of knowledge to comprehend at once how angry the poor great man, whom Mr. Dale treats so harshly, would have been with those who have stinted his elaborate distinctions and provident cautions into that coxcombical little aphorism, and then misconstrued all he designed to prove in favour of the commandment, and authority of learning. For," added the sage, looking up as a man does when he is tasking his memory, "I think it is thus that after saying the greatest error of all is the mistaking or misplacing the end of knowledge, and denouncing the various objects for which it is vulgarly sought,—I think it is thus that Lord Bacon proceeds: 'Knowledge is not a shop for profit or sale, but a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of men's estate.'"
["But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession"—[that is, for most of those objects which are meant by the ordinary titers of the saying, "Knowledge is power"]—"and seldom sincerely to give a true account of these gifts of reason to the benefit and use of men, as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down, with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit or sale,—and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of men's estate."—Advancement of Learning, Book I.]
PARSON (remorsefully).—"Are those Lord Bacon's words? I am very sorry I spoke so uncharitably of his life. I must examine it again. I may find excuses for it now that I could not when I first formed my judgment. I was then a raw lad at Oxford. But I see, Leonard, there is still something on your mind."
LEONARD.—"It is true, sir: I would but ask whether it is not by knowledge that we arrive at the qualities and virtues you so well describe, but which you seem to consider as coming to us through channels apart from knowledge?"
PARSON.—"If you mean by the word 'knowledge' something very different from what you express in your Essay—and which those contending for mental instruction, irrespective of religion and ethics, appear also to convey by the word—you are right; but, remember, we have already agreed that by the word' knowledge' we mean culture purely intellectual."
LEONARD.—"That is true,—we so understood it."
PARSON.—"Thus, when this great Lord Bacon erred, you may say that he erred from want of knowledge,—the knowledge which moralists and preachers would convey. But Lord Bacon had read all that moralists and preachers could say on such matters; and he certainly did not err from want of intellectual cultivation. Let me here, my child, invite you to observe, that He who knew most of our human hearts and our immortal destinies did not insist on this intellectual culture as essential to the virtues that form our well-being here, and conduce to our salvation hereafter. Had it been essential, the All-wise One would not have selected humble fishermen for the teachers of His doctrine, instead of culling His disciples from Roman portico or Athenian academe. And this, which distinguishes so remarkably the Gospel from the ethics of heathen philosophy, wherein knowledge is declared to be necessary to virtue, is a proof how slight was the heathen sage's insight into the nature of mankind, when compared with the Saviour's; for hard indeed would it be to men, whether high or low, rich or poor, if science and learning, or contemplative philosophy, were the sole avenues to peace and redemption; since, in this state of ordeal requiring active duties, very few in any age, whether they be high or low, rich or poor, ever are or can be devoted to pursuits merely mental. Christ does not represent Heaven as a college for the learned. Therefore the rules of the Celestial Legislator are rendered clear to the simplest understanding as to the deepest."
RICCABOCCA.—-"And that which Plato and Zeno, Pythagoras and Socrates could not do, was done by men whose ignorance would have been a by-word in the schools of the Greek. The gods of the vulgar were dethroned; the face of the world was changed! This thought may make us allow, indeed, that there are agencies more powerful than mere knowledge, and ask, after all, what is the mission which knowledge should achieve?"
PARSON.—"The Sacred Book tells us even that; for after establishing the truth that, for the multitude, knowledge is not essential to happiness and good, it accords still to knowledge its sublime part in the revelation prepared and announced. When an instrument of more than ordinary intelligence was required for a purpose divine; when the Gospel, recorded by the simple, was to be explained by the acute, enforced by the energetic, carried home to the doubts of the Gentile, the Supreme Will joined to the zeal of the earlier apostles the learning and genius of Saint Paul,—not holier than the others, calling himself the least, yet labouring more abundantly than they all, making himself all things unto all men, so that some might be saved. The ignorant may be saved no less surely than the wise; but here comes the wise man who helps to save. And how the fulness and animation of this grand Presence, of this indomitable Energy, seem to vivify the toil, and to speed the work! 'In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils amongst false brethren.' Behold, my son! does not Heaven here seem to reveal the true type of Knowledge,—a sleepless activity, a pervading agency, a dauntless heroism, an all-supporting faith?—a power, a power indeed; a power apart from the aggrandizement of self; a power that brings to him who owns and transmits it but 'weariness and painfulness; in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness,'—but a power distinct from the mere circumstance of the man, rushing from him as rays from the sun; borne through the air, and clothing it with light, piercing under earth, and calling forth the harvest. Worship not knowledge, worship not the sun, O my child! Let the sun but proclaim the Creator; let the knowledge but illumine the worship!"
The good man, overcome by his own earnestness, paused; his head drooped on the young student's breast, and all three were long silent.
CHAPTER XXI
Whatever ridicule may be thrown upon Mr. Dale's dissertations by the wit of the enlightened, they had a considerable, and I think a beneficial, effect upon Leonard Fairfield,—an effect which may perhaps create less surprise, when the reader remembers that Leonard was unaccustomed to argument, and still retained many of the prejudices natural to his rustic breeding. Nay, he actually thought it possible that, as both Riccabocca and Mr. Dale were more than double his age, and had had opportunities not only of reading twice as many books, but of gathering up experience in wider ranges of life,—he actually, I say, thought it possible that they might be better acquainted with the properties and distinctions of knowledge than himself. At all events, the parson's words were so far well-timed, that they produced in Leonard very much of that state of mind which Mr. Dale desired to effect, before communicating to him the startling intelligence that he was to visit relations whom he had never seen, of whom he had heard but little, and that it was at least possible that the result of that visit might be to open to him greater facilities for instruction, and a higher degree in life.
Without some such preparation, I fear that Leonard would have gone forth into the world with an exaggerated notion of his own acquirements, and with a notion yet more exaggerated as to the kind of power that such knowledge as he possessed would obtain for itself. As it was, when Mr. Dale broke to him the news of the experimental journey before him, cautioning him against being over sanguine, Leonard received the intelligence with a serious meekness, and thoughts that were nobly solemn.
When the door closed on his visitors, he remained for some moments motionless, and in deep meditation; then he unclosed the door and stole forth. The night was already far advanced, the heavens were luminous with all the host of stars. "I think," said the student, referring, in later life, to that crisis in his destiny,—"I think it was then, as I stood alone, yet surrounded by worlds so numberless, that I first felt the distinction between mind and soul."
"Tell me," said Riccabocca, as he parted company with Mr. Dale, "whether you would have given to Frank Hazeldean, on entering life, the same lecture on the limits and ends of knowledge which you have bestowed on Leonard Fairfield?"
"My friend," quoth the parson, with a touch of human conceit, "I have ridden on horseback, and I know that some horses should be guided by the bridle, and some should be urged by the spur."
"/Cospetto!/" said Riccabocca, "you contrive to put every experience of yours to some use,—even your journey on Mr. Hazeldean's pad. And I now see why, in this little world of a village, you have picked up so general an acquaintance with life."
"Did you ever read White's' Natural History of Selborne'?"
"No."
"Do so, and you will find that you need not go far to learn the habits of birds, and know the difference between a swallow and a swift. Learn the difference in a village, and you know the difference wherever swallows and swifts skim the air."
"Swallows and swifts!—true; but men—"
"Are with us all the year round,—which is more than we can say of swallows and swifts."
"Mr. Dale," said Riccabocca, taking off his hat with great formality, "if ever again I find myself in a dilemma, I will come to you instead of to Machiavelli."
"Ah!" cried the parson, "if I could but have a calm hour's talk with you on the errors of the Papal relig—"
Riccabocca was off like a shot.
CHAPTER XXII
The next day Mr. Dale had a long conversation with Mrs. Fairfield. At first he found some difficulty in getting over her pride, and inducing her to accept overtures from parents who had so long slighted both Leonard and herself. And it would have been in vain to have put before the good woman the worldly advantages which such overtures implied. But when Mr. Dale said, almost sternly, "Your parents are old, your father infirm; their least wish should be as binding to you as their command," the widow bowed her head, and said,—
"God bless them, sir, I was very sinful 'Honour your father and mother.' I'm no schollard, but I know the Commandments. Let Lenny go. But he'll soon forget me, and mayhap he'll learn to be ashamed of me."
"There I will trust him," said the parson; and he contrived easily to reassure and soothe her.
It was not till all this was settled that Mr. Dale drew forth an unsealed letter, which Mr. Richard Avenel, taking his hint, had given to him, as from Leonard's grandparents, and said, "This is for you, and it contains an inclosure of some value."
"Will you read it, sir? As I said before, I'm no schollard."
"But Leonard is, and he will read it to you."
When Leonard returned home that evening, Mrs. Fairfield showed him the letter. It ran thus:—
DEAR JANE,—Mr. Dale will tell you that we wish Leonard to come to us. We are glad to hear you are well. We forward, by Mr. Dale, a bank-note for L50, which comes from Richard, your brother. So no more at present from your affectionate parents,
JOHN AND MARGARET AVENEL
The letter was in a stiff female scrawl, and Leonard observed that two or three mistakes in spelling had been corrected, either in another pen or in a different hand.
"Dear brother Dick, how good in him!" cried the widow. When I saw there was money, I thought it must be him. How I should like to see Dick again! But I s'pose he's still in Amerikay. Well, well, this will buy clothes for you."
"No; you must keep it all, Mother, and put it in the Savings Bank."
"I 'm not quite so silly as that," cried Mrs. Fairfield, with contempt; and she put the L50 into a cracked teapot.
"It must not stay there when I 'm gone. You may be robbed, Mother."
"Dear me, dear me, that's true. What shall I do with it? What do I want with it, too? Dear me! I wish they hadn't sent it. I sha' n't sleep in peace. You must e'en put it in your own pouch, and button it up tight, boy."
Lenny smiled, and took the note; but he took it to Mr. Dale, and begged him to put it into the Savings Bank for his mother.
The day following he went to take leave of his master, of Jackeymo, of the fountain, the garden. But after he had gone through the first of these adieus with Jackeymo—who, poor man, indulged in all the lively gesticulations of grief which make half the eloquence of his countrymen, and then, absolutely blubbering, hurried away—Leonard himself was so affected that he could not proceed at once to the house, but stood beside the fountain, trying hard to keep back his tears.
"You, Leonard—and you are going!" said a soft voice; and the tears fell faster than ever, for he recognized the voice of Violante.
"Do not cry," continued the child, with a kind of tender gravity. "You are going, but Papa says it would be selfish in us to grieve, for it is for your good; and we should be glad. But I am selfish, Leonard, and I do grieve. I shall miss you sadly."
"You, young lady,—you miss me?"
"Yes; but I do not cry, Leonard, for I envy you, and I wish I were a boy:
I wish I could do as you."
The girl clasped her hands, and reared her slight form, with a kind of passionate dignity.
"Do as me, and part from all those you love!"
"But to serve those you love. One day you will come back to your mother's cottage, and say, 'I have conquered fortune.' Oh that I could go forth and return, as you will! But my father has no country, and his only child is a useless girl."
As Violante spoke, Leonard had dried his tears: her emotion distracted him from his own.
"Oh," continued Violante, again raising her head loftily, "what it is to be a man! A woman sighs, 'I wish,' but a man should say, 'I will.'"
Occasionally before Leonard had noted fitful flashes of a nature grand and heroic in the Italian child, especially of late,—flashes the more remarkable from the contrast to a form most exquisitely feminine, and to a sweetness of temper which made even her pride gentle. But now it seemed as if the child spoke with the command of a queen,—almost with the inspiration of a Muse. A strange and new sense of courage entered within him.
"May I remember these words!" he murmured, half audibly.
The girl turned and surveyed him with eyes brighter for their moisture. She then extended her hand to him, with a quick movement, and as he bent over it, with a grace taught to him by genuine emotion, she said, "And if you do, then, girl and child as I am, I shall think I have aided a brave heart in the great strife for honour!"
She lingered a moment, smiled as if to herself, and then, gliding away, was lost amongst the trees.
After a long pause, in which Leonard recovered slowly from the surprise and agitation into which Violante had thrown his spirits—previously excited as they were—he went, murmuring to himself, towards the house. But Riccabocca was from home. Leonard turned mechanically to the terrace, and busied himself with the flowers; but the dark eyes of Violante shone on his thoughts, and her voice rang in his ear.
At length Riccabocca appeared on the road, attended by a labourer, who carried something indistinct under his arm. The Italian beckoned to Leonard to follow him into the parlour, and after conversing with him kindly, and at some length, and packing up, as it were, a considerable provision of wisdom in the portable shape of aphorisms and proverbs, the sage left him alone for a few moments. Riccabocca then returned with his wife, and bearing a small knapsack:—
"It is not much we can do for you, Leonard, and money is the worst gift in the world for a keepsake; but my wife and I have put our heads together to furnish you with a little outfit. Giacomo, who was in our secret, assures us that the clothes will fit; and stole, I fancy, a coat of yours, to have the right measure. Put them on when you go to your relations: it is astonishing what a difference it makes in the ideas people form of us, according as our coats are cut one way or another. I should not be presentable in London thus; and nothing is more true than that a tailor is often the making of a man."
"The shirts, too, are very good holland," said Mrs. Riccabocca, about to open the knapsack.
"Never mind details, my dear," cried the wise man; "shirts are comprehended in the general principle of clothes. And, Leonard, as a remembrance somewhat more personal, accept this, which I have worn many a year when time was a thing of importance to me, and nobler fates than mine hung on a moment. We missed the moment, or abused it; and here I am a waif on a foreign shore. Methinks I have done with Time."
The exile, as he thus spoke, placed in Leonard's reluctant hands a watch that would have delighted an antiquary, and shocked a dandy. It was exceedingly thick, having an outer case of enamel and an inner one of gold. The hands and the figures of the hours had originally been formed of brilliants; but the brilliants had long since vanished. Still, even thus bereft, the watch was much more in character with the giver than the receiver, and was as little suited to Leonard as would have been the red silk umbrella.
"It is old-fashioned," said Mrs. Riccabocca; "but it goes better than any clock in the county. I really think it will last to the end of the world."
"/Carissima mia!/" cried the doctor, "I thought I had convinced you that the world is by no means come to its last legs."
"Oh, I did not mean anything, Alphonso," said Mrs. Riccabocca, colouring.
"And that is all we do mean when we talk about that of which we can know nothing," said the doctor, less gallantly than usual, for he resented that epithet of "old-fashioned," as applied to the watch.
Leonard, we see, had been silent all this time; he could not speak,— literally and truly, he could not speak. How he got out of his embarrassment and how he got out of the room, he never explained to my satisfaction. But a few minutes afterwards, he was seen hurrying down the road very briskly.
Riccabocca and his wife stood at the window gazing after him.
"There is a depth in that boy's heart," said the sage, "which might float an argosy."
"Poor dear boy! I think we have put everything into the knapsack that he can possibly want," said good Mrs. Riccabocca, musingly.
THE DOCTOR (continuing his soliloquy).—"They are strong, but they are not immediately apparent."
MRS. RICCABOCCA (resuming hers).—"They are at the bottom of the knapsack."
THE DOCTOR.—"They will stand long wear and tear."
MRS. RICCABOCCA.—"A year, at least, with proper care at the wash."
THE DOCTOR (startled).—"Care at the wash! What on earth are you talking of, ma'am?"
MRS. RICCABOCCA (mildly).—"The shirts, to be sure, my love! And you?"
THE DOCTOR (with a heavy sigh).—"The feelings, ma'am!" Then, after a pause, taking his wife's hand affectionately, "But you did quite right to think of the shirts: Mr. Dale said very truly—"
MRS. RICCABOCCA.—"What?"
THE DOCTOR.—"That there was a great deal in common between us—even when I think of feelings, and you but of—shirts!"