There & Back

His father came to regard with wonder and admiration the redeeming faculty of his son, whereby he would reinstate in strength and ripe dignity a volume which he would have taken to pieces, and redressed like an age-worn woman in a fashionable gown. So far did his son’s superior taste work upon his, that at length, if he opened a new binding, however sombre, and saw a time-browned paper and old type within, the sight would give him the shock of a discord.

But Tuke was in many things no other than a man of this world, and sorely he doubted if such labour would ever have its counterpoise in money. It paid better, because it was much easier, to reclothe than to restore! to destroy and replace than to renew! When he had watched many times for minutes together his son’s delicate manipulation—in which he patched without pauperizing, and subaided without humiliating—and at last contemplating the finished result, he concluded him possessed of a quite original faculty for book-healing.—“But alas,” he thought, “genius seldom gets beyond board-wages!” It did not occur to him that genius least requires more than board-wages. He encouraged him, nevertheless, though mildly, in the pursuit of this neglected branch of the binding-art.

As the days went on, and their love for their nephew grew with his deserts, the uncle and aunt shrank more and more from the thought, which every year compelled them to think the oftener, that the day was drawing nigh when they must volunteer the confession that he was not their child.

When he was about seventeen, Richard settled down to work with his father, occasionally assisting him, but in general occupied with his own special branch, in which Tuke, through his long connection with book-lovers possessing small cherished libraries, was able to bring him almost as many jobs as he could undertake. The fact that a volume could be so repaired, stimulated the purchase of shabby books; and part of what was saved on the price of a good copy was laid out on the amendment of the poor one. But however much the youth delighted in it, he could not but find the work fidgety and tiring; whence ensued the advantage that he left it the oftener for a ramble, or a solitary hour on the river. He had but few companions, his guardians, wisely or not, being more fastidious about his associates than if he had been their very son. His uncle, of strong socialistic opinions, and wont to dilate on human equality—as if the thing that ought to be, and must one day come, could be furthered by the assertion of its present existence—was, like the holders of even higher theories, not a little apt to forget the practice necessarily involved: this son of a baronet, seeing that he was the son also of his wife’s sister, was not to be brought up like one of the many!

Ugliness in infancy is a promise, though perhaps a doubtful one, of beauty in manhood; and in Richard’s case the promise was fulfilled: hardly a hint was left of the baby-face which had repelled his father. He was now a handsome well-grown youth, with dark-brown hair, dark-green eyes, broad shoulders, and a little stoop which made his aunt uneasy: she would have had him join a volunteer corps, but he declared he had not the time. He accepted her encouragement, however, to forsake his work as often as he felt inclined. He had good health; what was better, a good temper; and what was better still, a willing heart toward his neighbour. A certain over-hanging of his brows was—especially when he contracted them, as, in perplexity or endeavour, he not infrequently did—called a scowl by such as did not love him; but it was of shallow insignificance, and probably the trick of some ancestor.

Before long, his thinking began to take form in verse-making. It matters little to my narrative whether he produced anything of original value or not; utterance aids growth, which is the prime necessity of human as of all other life. Not seldom, bent over his work, he would be evolving some musical fashion of words—with no relaxation, however, of the sharp attention and delicate handling required by the nature of that work. It is the privilege of some kinds of labour, that they are compatible with thoughts of higher things. At the book-keeper’s desk, the clerk must think of nothing but his work; he is chained to it as the galley-slave to his oar; the shoemaker may be poet or mystic, or both; the ploughman may turn a good furrow and a good verse together; Richard could at once use hands and thoughts. It troubled his protectors that they could not send him to college, but they comforted themselves that it would not be too late when he returned to his natural position in society. They had no plan in their minds, no date settled at which to initiate his restoration. All they had determined was, that he must at least be a grown man, capable of looking after his own affairs, when the first step for it was taken.

John Tuke was one of those who acknowledge in some measure the claims of their neighbour, but assert ignorance of any one who must be worshipped. And in truth, the God presented to him by his teachers was one with little claim on human devotion. The religious system brought to bear on his youth had operated but feebly on his conscience, and not at all on his affections. It had, however, so wrought upon his apprehensions, that, when afterward persuaded there was no ground for agonizing anticipation, he welcomed the conviction as in itself a redemption for all men; “for, surely,” he argued, “fear is the worst of evils!” The very approach of such a relief predisposed him to receive whatever teaching might follow from the same source; and soon he believed himself satisfied that the notion of religion—of duty toward an unseen maker—was but an old-wives’-fable; and that, as to the hereafter, a mere cessation of consciousness was the only reasonable expectation. The testimony of his senses, although negative, he accepted as stronger on that side than any amount of what could, he said, be but the purest assertion on the other. Why should he heed an old book? why one more than another? The world was around him: some things he must believe; other things no man could! One thing was clear: every man was bound to give his neighbour fair-play! He would press nothing upon Richard as to God or no God! he would not be dogmatic! he only wanted to make a man of him! And was he not so far successful? argued John. Was not Richard growing up a diligent, honest fellow, loving books, and leading a good life; whereas, had he been left to his father, he could not have escaped being arrogant and unjust, despising the poor of his own flesh, and caring only to please himself! In the midst of such superior causes of satisfaction, it also pleased Tuke to reflect that the trade he had taught his nephew was a clean one, which, while it rendered him superior to any shrewd trick fortune might play him, would not make his hands unlike those of a gentleman.

His aunt, however, kept wishing that Richard were better “set up,” and looked more like his grandfather the blacksmith, whose trade she could not help regarding as manlier than that of her husband. Hence she had long cherished the desire that he should spend some time with her father. But John would not hear of it. He would get working at the forge, he said, and ruin his hands for the delicate art in which he was now unapproachable.

For in certain less socialistic moods, John would insist on regarding bookbinding, in all and any of its branches, not as a trade, but an art.

CHAPTER V. THE MANSONS

At school, Richard had been friendly with a boy of gentle nature, not many years older than himself. The boy had stood his friend in more than one difficulty, and Richard heartily loved him. But he had suddenly disappeared from the school, and so from Richard’s ken: for years he had not seen him. One evening, as he was carrying home a book, he met this Arthur Manson, looking worn and sad. He would have avoided Richard, but he stopped him, and presently the old friendship was dominant. Arthur told him his story. He had had to leave school because of the sudden cessation, from what cause he did not know, of a certain annuity his mother had till then enjoyed—rendering it imperative that he should earn his own living, and contribute to her support, for although she still had a little money, it was not nearly enough. His sister was at work with a dressmaker, but as yet earning next to nothing. His mother was a lady, he said, and had never done any work. He was himself in a counting-house in the City, with a salary of forty pounds. He told him where they lived, and Richard promised to go and see him, which he did the next Sunday.

His friend’s mother lived in a little house of two floors, one of a long row lately built. The furniture was much too large, and it was difficult to move in the tiny drawing-room. It showed a feeble attempt at decoration, which made it look the poorer. Accustomed to his mother’s care of her things, Richard perceived a difference: these were much finer but neglected, and looked as if they felt it. At their evening meal, however, the tea was good, and the bread and butter were of the best.

The mother was a handsome middle-aged woman—not so old, Richard somehow imagined, as she looked. She was stout and florid, with plenty of black, rather coarse hair, and seemed to Richard to have the carriage of a lady, but not speech equal to her manners. She was polite to him, but not apparently interested in her son’s friend. Yet several times he found her gazing at him with an expression that puzzled him. He had, however, too clear a conscience to be troubled by any scrutiny. All the evening Arthur’s face wore the same look of depression, and Richard wondered what could be amiss. He learned afterward that the mother was so self-indulgent, and took so little care to make the money go as far as it could, that he had not merely to toil from morning to night at uncongenial labour, but could never have the least recreation, and was always too tired when he came home to understand any book he attempted to read. Richard learned also that he had no greatcoat, and went to the City in the winter with only a shabby comforter in addition to the clothes he had worn all the summer. But it was not Arthur who told him this.

The girl was a graceful little creature, with the same sad look her brother had, but not the same depression. She seemed more delicate, and less capable of labour; yet her hours were longer than his, and her confinement greater. Alice had to sit the whole day plying her needle, while Arthur was occasionally sent out to collect money. But her mistress was a kind-hearted woman, and not having a fashionable clientèle, had not yet become indifferent to the well-being of her work-women. She even paid a crippled girl a trifle for reading to them, stipulating only that she should read fast, for she found the rate of their working greatly influenced by the rate of the reading. Life, if harder, was therefore not quite so uninteresting to Alice as to Arthur, and that might be why she seemed to have more vitality. Like her mother she had a quantity of hair, as dark as hers, but finer; dark eyes, not without meaning; irregular but very pleasing and delicate features; and an unusually white rather than pale complexion, with a sort of sallow glow under the diaphanous skin. There was not a little piquancy in the expression of her countenance, and Richard felt it strangely attractive.

The youths found they had still tastes in common, although Arthur had neither time nor strength to follow them. Richard spoke of some book he had been reading. Arthur was interested, but Alice so much that Richard offered to lend it her: it was the first time she had heard a book spoken of in such a tone—one of suppressed feeling, almost veneration.

The mother did not join in their talk, and left them soon—her daughter said to go to church.

“She always goes by herself,” Alice added. “She sees we are too tired to go.”

They sat a long time with no light but that of the fire. Arthur seemed to gather courage, and confessed the hopeless monotony of his life. He complained of no privation, only of want of interest in his work.

“Do you like your work?” he asked Richard.

“Indeed I do!” Richard answered. “I would sooner handle an old book than a bunch of bank-notes!”

“I don’t doubt it,” returned Arthur. “To me your workshop seems a paradise.”

“Why don’t you take up the trade, then? Come to us and I will teach you. I do not think my father would object.”

“I learn nothing where I am!” continued Arthur.

“Our boat is not over-manned,” resumed Richard. “Say you will come, and I will speak to my father.”

“I wish I could! But how are we to live while I am learning?—No; I must grind away till—”

He stopped short, and gave a sigh.

“Till when, Arty?” asked his sister.

“Till death set me free,” he answered.

“You wouldn’t leave me behind, Arty!” said Alice; and rising, she put her arm round his neck.

“I wouldn’t if I could help it,” he replied.

“It’s a cowardly thing to want to die,” said Richard.

“I think so sometimes.”

“There’s your mother!”

“Yes,” responded Arthur, but without emotion.

“And how should I get on without you, Arty?” said his sister.

“Not very well, Ally. But it wouldn’t be for long. We should soon meet.”

“Who told you that?” said Richard almost rudely.

“Don’t you think we shall know each other afterwards?” asked Arthur, with an expression of weary rather than sad surprise.

“I would be a little surer of it before I talked so coolly of leaving a sister like that! I only wish I had one to care for!”

A faint flush rose on the pale face of the girl, and as swiftly faded.

“Do you think, then, that this life is only a dream?” she said, looking up at Richard with something in her great eyes that he did not understand.

“Anyhow,” he answered, “I would bear a good deal rather than run the risk of going so fast asleep as to stop dreaming it. A man can die any time,” he continued, “but he can’t dream when he pleases! I would wait! One can’t tell when things may take a turn! There are many chances on the cards!”

“That’s true,” replied Arthur; but plainly the very chances were a weariness to him.

“If Arthur had enough to eat, and time to read, and a little amusement, he would be as brave as you are, Mr. Tuke!” said Alice. “—But you can’t mean to say there will be no more of anything for us after this world! To think I should never see Arty again, would make me die before my time! I should be so miserable I would hardly care to keep him as long as I might. We must die some day, and what odds whether it be a few days sooner, or a few days later, if we’re never going to meet again?”

“The best way is not to think about it,” returned Richard. “Why should you? Look at the butterflies! They take what comes, and don’t grumble at their sunshine because there’s only one day of it.”

“But when there’s no sunshine that day?” suggested Alice.

“Well, when they lie crumpled in the rain, they’re none the worse that they didn’t think about it beforehand! We must make the best of what we have!”

“It’s not worth making the best of,” cried Alice indignantly, “if that’s all!”

My reader may well wonder at Richard: how could he be a lover of our best literature and talk as he did? or rather, talking as he did, how could he love it? But he had come to love it while yet under the influence of what his aunt taught him, poor as was her teaching. Then his heart and imagination were more in the ascendency. Now he had begun to admire the intellectual qualities of that literature more, and its imaginative less; for he had begun to think truth attainable through the forces of the brain, sole and supreme.

In matters of conduct, John Tuke and his wife were well agreed; in matters of opinion, they differed greatly. Jane went to church regularly, listened without interest, and accepted without question; had her husband gone, he would have listened with the interest of utter dissent. When Jane learned that her husband no longer “believed in the Bible,” she was seized with terror lest he should die without repentance and be lost. Thereupon followed fear for herself: was not an atheist a horribly wicked man?—and she could not feel that John was horribly wicked! She tried her hardest, but could not; and concluded therefore that his unbelief must be affecting her. She prayed him to say nothing against the Bible to Richard—at least before he arrived at years of discretion. This John promised; but subtle effluences are subtle influences.

John Tuke did right so far as he knew—at least he thought he did—and refused to believe in any kind of God; Jane did right, she thought, as far as she knew—and never imagined God cared about her: let him who has a mind to it, show the value of the difference!

Tuke was a thinking man;—that is, set a going in any direction that interested him, he could take a few steps forward without assistance. But he could start in no direction of himself. At a small club to which he belonged, he had been brought in contact with certain ideas new to him, and finding himself able to grasp them, felt at once as if they must be true. Certain other ideas, new to him, coming self-suggested in their train, he began immediately to imagine himself a thinker, able to generate notions to which the people around him were unequal. He began to grow self-confident, and so to despise. Taking courage then to deny things he had never believed, had only not thought about, and finding he thereby gave offence, he chose to imagine himself a martyr for the truth. He did not see that a denial involving no assertion, cannot witness to any truth; nor did he perceive that denial in his case meant nothing more than non-acceptance of things asserted. Had he put his position logically, it would have been this: I never knew such things; I do not like the notion of them; therefore I deny them: they do not exist. But no man really denies a thing which he knows only by the words that stand for it. When John Tuke denied the God in his notion, he denied only a God that could have no existence.

A man will be judged, however, by his truth toward what he professes to believe; and John was far truer to his perception of the duty of man to man than are ninety-nine out of the hundred of so-called Christians to the things they profess to believe. How many men would be immeasurably better, if they would but truly believe, that is, act upon, the smallest part of what they untruly profess to believe, even if they cast aside all the rest. John cast aside an allegiance to God which had never been more than a mockery, and set about delivering his race from the fear of a person who did not exist. For, true enough, there was no God of the kind John denied; only, what if, in delivering his kind from the tyranny of a false God, he aided in hiding from them the love of a true God—of a God that did and ought to exist? There are other passions besides fear, and precious as fear is hateful. If there be a God and one has never sought him, it will be small consolation to remember that he could not get proof of his existence. Is a child not to seek his father, because he cannot prove he is alive?

The aunt continued to take the boy to church, and expose him, for it was little more she did, to a teaching she could not herself either supply or supplement. It was the business of the church to teach Christianity! her part was to accept it, and bring the child where he also might listen and accept! But what she accepted as Christianity, is another question; and whether the acceptance of anything makes a Christian, is another still.

How much of Christianity a child may or may not learn by going to church, it is impossible to say; but certainly Richard did not learn anything that drew his heart to Jesus of Nazareth, or caught him in any heavenly breeze, or even the smallest of celestial whirlwinds! He learned nothing even that made unwelcome such remarks as his father would now and then let fall concerning the clergy and the way they followed their trade; while the grin, full of conscious superiority, with which he unconsciously accompanied them, found its reflection in the honourable but not yet humble mind, beginning to be aware of its own faculty, and not aware that the religion presented in his aunt’s church, a religion neither honourable nor elevating, was but the dullest travesty of the religion of St. Paul. Richard had, besides, read several books which, had his uncle been careful of the promise he had given his wife, he would have intentionally removed instead of unintentionally leaving about.

In the position Richard had just taken toward his new friends, he was not a little influenced by the desire to show himself untrammelled by prevailing notions, and capable of thinking for himself; but this was far from all that made him speak as he did. Many young fellows are as ready to deny as Richard, but not many feel as strongly that life rests upon what we know, that knowledge must pass into action. The denial of every falsehood under the sun would not generate one throb of life.

Richard told his adoptive parents where he had been, and asked if he might invite his new friends for the next Sunday. They made no objection, and when Arthur and Alice came, received them kindly. Richard took Arthur to the shop, and showed him the job he was engaged upon at the time, lauding his department as affording more satisfaction than mere binding.

“For,” he said, “the thing that is not, may continue not to be; but the thing that is, should be as it was meant to be. Where it is not such, there is an evil that wants remedy. It may be that the sole remedy is binding, but that involves destruction, therefore is a poor thing beside renovation.”

The argument came from a well of human pity in himself, deeper than Richard knew. But both the pity he felt and the truth in what he said came from a source eternal of which he yet knew nothing.

“It would be much easier,” continued Richard, “to make that volume look new, but how much more delightful to send it out with a revived assertion of its ancient self!”

Some natures have a better chance of disclosing the original in them, that they have not been to college, and set to think in other people’s grooves, instead of those grooves that were scored in themselves long before the glacial era.

“For my part,” said Arthur, “I feel like a book that needs to be fresh printed, not to say fresh bound! I don’t feel why I am what I am. I would part with it all, except just being the same man!”

While the youths were having their talk, Alice was in Jane’s bedroom, undergoing an examination, the end and object of which it was impossible she should suspect. Caught by a certain look in her sweet face, reminding her of a look that was anything but sweet, Jane had set herself to learn from her what she might as to her people and history.

“Is your father alive, my dear?” she asked, with her keen black eyes on Alice’s face.

That grew red, and for a moment the girl did not answer. Jane pursued her catechizing.

“What was his trade or profession?” she inquired.

The girl said nothing, and the merciless questioner went on.

“Tell me something about him, dear. Do you remember him? Or did he die when you were quite a child?”

“I do not remember him,” answered Alice. “I do not know if I ever saw him.”

“Did your mother never tell you what he was like?”

“She told me once he was very handsome—the handsomest man she ever saw—but cruel—so cruel! she said.—I don’t want to talk about him, please, ma’am!” concluded Alice, the tears running down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, my dear, to hurt you, but I’m not doing it from curiosity. You have a look so like a man I once knew,—and your brother has something of the same!—that in fact I am bound to learn what I can about you.”

“What sort was the man we put you in mind of?” asked Alice, with a feeble attempt at a smile. “Not a very bad man, I hope!”

“Well, not very good—as you ask me.—He was what people call a gentleman!”

“Was that all?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought he was a nobleman!”

“Oh!—well, he wasn’t that; he was a baronet.”

Alice gave a little cry.

“Do tell me something about him,” she said. “What do you know about him?”

“More than I choose to tell. We will forget him now, if you please!”

There was in her voice a tone of displeasure, which Alice took to be with herself. She was in consequence both troubled and perplexed. Neither made any more inquiries. Jane took her guest back to the sitting-room.