Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 368, June 1846

2. In the next place, even if the gratuitous distributions of grain had embraced twenty times the number which they did, nothing can be clearer than that the effect on agriculture is the same, whether cheap foreign grain is imported by the private importer, or bought and distributed by the government. If the home-grower loses his market, it is the same thing to him whether he does so from the effects of private importation or public distribution; whether his formidable competitor is the merchant, who brings the Lybian grain to the Tiber; or the government, which exacts it as a tribute from Sicily or Egypt. The difference is very great to the urban population, whether they receive their foreign grain in return for their own labour, or get it doled out to them from the government store as the price of keeping quiet. But to the rural cultivator it is immaterial, whether destruction comes upon him in the one way or the other. It is the importation of foreign grain which ruins him; and the effect is the same, whether the price paid for is the gold of the capitalist, or the blood of the legions.

ELINOR TRAVIS

A Tale in Three ChaptersChapter the First

It is now forty years since I found myself, for the first time in my life, in the once fashionable city of Bath. I had accompanied thither from London a dear friend from whom I had parted two years before at Oxford; a man as noble as ingenuous, as gentle as he was brave. Few men could boast the advantages enjoyed by Rupert Sinclair. Born of noble blood, of a family whose peerage had been raised upon the foundation of a huge wealth, handsome in person, intellectual, well-informed, enthusiastic and aspiring, he bred a fascination around his existence which it was difficult to resist. I had already graduated when Rupert Sinclair entered Christ Church as a gentleman commoner; I was, moreover, his senior by five years, yet from the moment I saw him until the hour of his decease – with one painful interregnum – we were firm and unflinching friends. He was sent to the university, like others of his rank, to acquire such knowledge of men and books as a temporary residence – and that alone – in an atmosphere of mingled learning and frivolity, is generally supposed to impart. His father looked upon all book knowledge as superfluous, except in a parson or schoolmaster; his lady mother would have been shocked to find him, whether at Oxford or elsewhere, any thing but the gay and fashionable nonentity which her taste and experience had taught her to regard as the perfection of God's fair creation. Lord Railton was a courtier, and affected to be a politician; her ladyship was a woman of fashion. It is surprising to me that, with their views of a nobleman's duties at Oxford, they should have thought it necessary to procure for their son the services of one who had nothing better to offer for his amusement, than the poor learning he had picked up at Eton and elsewhere, to dole out again to the best advantage, for the support of himself and widowed mother. I ought rather to say it was surprising to me then. I have grown wiser since. A tutor was necessary to the position of Lord Railton's son, and it was my happiness to be chosen the instructor of Rupert Sinclair. Every possible pains had been taken to ruin the intellect and impair the moral faculties of the youth. His earliest teachers had been strictly enjoined to give him no tasks which should subject him to the slightest inconvenience, and were forbidden, under pain of dismissal, to ruffle the serenity of his temper, or intercept the slightest movement of his mind, however cross or wayward. Rupert in his very cradle had been taught, both by precept and example, that his equals in rank were his fellow creatures, and that all below him were – creatures, it is true, but the fellows of one another, and not of him and such as he; that the men to whose virtue, discretion, and conduct he was confided – his TEACHERS – were – oh, mockery of mockeries! – his dependents and inferiors, and necessary to him as his nurse or footman, but not a whit more so! Lord Railton was a tyrant, self-willed and imperious by nature, and as cold-blooded and selfish as a superadded artistocratic education could render him. He saw little of his children, whom he terrified when he did see them, and busied himself in this world with little more than the intrigues and plots of the political junto to whom he was bound by a community of interests, rather than affectionately attached. It is my firm belief that miracles have not ceased upon the earth. Invisible angels interpose now, as did the living saints of old, to repair the faults and infirmities of nature, and by a suspension of our ordinary laws to proclaim the might and mercy of the Divinity. How but by a miracle could the character of Rupert Sinclair have belied the natural reasoning of all ordinary mortals, exhibiting the utter annihilation of the intimate connexion of cause and effect, and the independence of the infant soul, when God so wills it, of the machinations of the wicked, and the vicious trifling of the foolish? The good sense of the youth had strengthened and increased under the enervating system which would have destroyed a weaker brain and a less honest heart. I was the tutor of Sinclair, but I suffered him to sketch out his own plan of study. His mother had not failed to forward me the usual instructions respecting the treatment of her darling child; but had she been silent I should not have insisted upon a strict adherence to the college system with one who, neither in the university nor in the world, to which he was about to be summoned, would be tasked to remember or repeat one syllable of his lessons. Great is the temptation to dwell upon these early days of our attachment; for, alas! a pang must wait upon the pen when it traces the last record of a period unclouded by grief. An account of the earliest springtime that promised so fair a summer and harvest, is, it is true, not necessary to the main plot of the drama I have undertaken to write; but one of its chief characters can hardly be thoroughly understood without some reference to his conduct and pursuits previously to the commencement of the action. To say that I was prepossessed in favour of my pupil after my first conversation with him, is to say but little. I was at once surprised, delighted, and charmed. I had expected to receive a spoiled child of fortune; a giddy, self-willed, arrogant, and overbearing boy. I met with one whose demeanour was gentle, modest, and sedate. A childlike simplicity governed his manners; reflection and sound judgment his discourse. Long before the close of my young friend's academical career I had gained his entire confidence – he my heart; and at the close of it, I had not occasion to change one opinion or one sentiment entertained for my charge at the commencement of our friendship; so transparent are the minds of the ingenuous, and of those whom nature shelters from the baleful influences of life. It must, however, be stated, that in the all but perfect specimen of humanity presented to the world in the person of Rupert Sinclair, there existed one flaw to convict it of mortality, and to establish its relation with universal error. The simplicity spoken of as characteristic of the man, degenerated into weakness; faith in the goodness of his fellow-creatures into glaring credulity. It is a singular fact, and one that must be accounted for by those who have made the Mind an especial study, that whilst no man was quicker in detecting the slightest indication of his own imperfection in another, no one could be less conscious of its existence in himself, or less alive to imposition, the moment it was practised under his own eye, and against his own good-nature. How many times, during his residence in Oxford, Rupert Sinclair became the victim of the unprincipled and the sharper, I will not venture to say, prepared as I am to assert that no discovery of falsehood and imposture ever convinced him of the folly of his benevolence, or of the worthlessness of the objects upon whom his favours had been showered. The world is said to be divided into two classes; into those who suspect all men until they are proved honest, and those who believe all men honest until they are proved to be false. The name of Rupert Sinclair might be written in neither category. He not only believed the world to be good prior to experience, but he denied it to be bad, let experience succeed as it might in convicting it of evil.

It was exactly two years after Sinclair quitted Oxford, that I received a letter from him, requesting me to meet him in London as soon after the receipt of his letter as my engagements would permit. The long vacation had again commenced. Rupert was no longer a student, or, to speak more correctly, books had now become the solace and recreation of his leisure hours, rather than the business of his life. To please his fond and very foolish mother, he had accepted a commission in the Guards. The small ambition of Lady Railton was consummated the moment her noble boy appeared in her drawing-room "en grande tenue;" as for the peer, he was too absorbed in his own diplomacy to interfere with that of her ladyship, in whose knowledge of the world and sound discretion he placed unbounded faith. I attended to the summons of Sinclair without delay. Upon arriving in London I went to his hotel, and found him recovering from a fit of illness which at one period had threatened his life, but of which he had as yet kept his family in ignorance. He had been recommended by his physicians to try the waters and mild temperature of Bath; and he was willing to obey them, provided I would become his companion. My time was my own, and I loved Sinclair too well to throw an obstacle in his way, had not the offer itself been temptation enough to one who had passed so many months of physical inactivity, without one holiday, in the dusty gloominess of college rooms. In the course of two days our preparations were made, and we quitted London.

A week glided by in happy idleness. The invalid, compelled to keep his room for many hours of the day, was thrown upon his resources, and upon such as I could command for his amusement. The past is always a pleasant subject of discourse where the speakers are young, and the past is a day of sunshine, still lingering and warm. The days we had seen were bright enough, and to speak of them was to bring them back in all their recent freshness. Rupert was twenty-one, and he wondered at the ingratitude of man that called this world a scene of strife and misery. I was twenty-six, and as yet without a calamity. I had never known my father; and I had maintained my mother in comfort for many years. I had yet to part with her.

Another week, and the invalid was convalescent. The walks were extended and the prescriptions torn up. Invitations came and were accepted. A distant relative of Lady Railton was in Bath. Sinclair visited her, and was the next day a guest at her table. There was another guest there. Her name was Elinor Travis.

Twenty times, on the day I speak of, had Sinclair resolved not to keep his engagement, but to send an apology to Mrs Twisleton, and to return to London on the following morning. He had become tired, he said, of idleness, and the frivolities that surrounded us. One word of encouragement from me, and Sinclair would not have dined with Mrs Twisleton, would not have met with her who gave the colouring to his future life, would not have blasted every – but I must not anticipate.

General Travis and his family were amongst the most fashionable of the gay multitude then resident at Bath. They lived in first-rate style, and gathered about them all who aspired to a position in that upper world peopled pre-eminently by the "ton." The general was reputed a man of enormous wealth, and his banker's book procured for him the respect that was denied him in Debrett. The general was the father of two children – daughters – Elinor and Adela. His wife was also living. They were all, according to report, essentially dashing people. So much I knew of them at the period of Sinclair's first acquaintance with the ill-fated Elinor.

After dining with Mrs Twisleton, Sinclair altered his mind. His departure was delayed. Within a day or two he was again invited to Mrs Twisleton's, and again he met the general and his family. Well, there was nothing to excite suspicion in all this! Sinclair said nothing; no observation escaped me. I concluded that a few days would put an end to the new interest that had been raised, and that we should return to London as quietly as we had left it. I was grievously mistaken.

Since our arrival in Bath we had been early risers, and our habits generally somewhat primitive. Suddenly Sinclair took it into his head to walk without me for an hour or so before breakfast. He invariably looked flushed and confused on his return. At least I thought so. I was puzzled, but still said nothing.

I had been favoured by Mrs Twisleton with one or two invitations to dinner, but had never cared to accept them. I resolved, should opportunity again offer, to accompany Sinclair to this lady's house. Whilst waiting, somewhat impatiently and in vain, for another invitation from Mrs Twisleton, a grand ball was announced at General Travis's, and Sinclair was in the number of the favoured guests. He was requested to bring his friend. "His friend" did not refuse.

There were in truth grandeur, profusion, and style sufficient in the entertainments of that evening. No additional outlay could have added to the sumptuous provision that was made for the gratification and delight of every sense. Eye and ear were ravished by the luxuries set before them, and the grosser appetites were not forgotten. What Indian wealth! What princely hospitality! Well might the general be esteemed the most royal of entertainers. Nobility lost none of its prerogative in mixing in such a scene as this, upon which an emperor might have descended with no dishonour to his ermine. I experienced for a time the full power of the enchantment, and acknowledged, against my will, the sovereign dominion of Mammon. I was presented to my hostess and the general. The former was a woman of fifty or thereabouts, delicately formed, pale, and somewhat sickly-looking; there were traces of feminine beauty on her countenance, but, such as they were, retreating rapidly before disease or care, or some ailment hidden from the looker-on. She seemed more like a gentle handmaiden than the mistress of the happy feast. The general was of another race of beings. He stood six feet two, but his extreme height was modified by the admirable proportions of his frame. He was firmly built, and but for a certain unsatisfactory expression in his countenance, might have been considered one of the handsomest men of his day. This expression it is not easy to describe. It proceeded from his eye, and seemed to communicate with all his features, leaving the stamp of low cunning upon every one. The eye was large and grey, and very restless; always in motion; always attempting to convey more than the inner man would answer for, or the observer take for granted. It had a volubility of expression like his tongue, and both bespoke their owner no efficient actor.

"You look magnificent to-night," said Sinclair, addressing the general after my introduction.

"So, so, with slender opportunities!" said the general. "See us in London, my young friend. No place in the world like London for the exercise of a man's genius – a woman's it should be said, to-night, for Elinor is the presiding genius here. Have you ever seen these flowers? Pretty, eh? Her handiwork."

Sinclair trifled for a moment with an exquisite specimen of artificial flowers, adorning an alabaster vase; but he gave no answer.

"Have you seen her to-night?" continued the general.

"Not yet."

"She's with the Indian Yahoo, no doubt. He arrived this afternoon, and she will give him no rest. She has engaged him for the first four quadrilles, that she may hear the natural history of the Chimpanzee without interruption, which her cousin has promised to relate to her at the first convenient opportunity."

"Her cousin has arrived then?" asked Sinclair, turning slightly pale.

"This very day. Our information is quite correct. His mother, the Begum, is dead, and has left him enough in jewels to purchase an empire. The specie found in chests is immense. A lucky dog, with that brown face of his! If it were as black as soot, he might command a duchess. Elinor and he are first cousins, and are much attached, although they haven't seen each other for years."

As the general spoke, music struck up, and a movement in our immediate neighbourhood announced the approach of dancers. Amongst them was a young and lovely woman. Her arm was in that of a small man, with a copper-coloured face and disgusting features. His beautiful partner, more beautiful by the contrast, looked proud of her prize, which, if I correctly interpreted the admiring gaze of the assembly, was coveted for one reason or another by every dowager and unmarried woman in the room. I felt an instinctive longing to smother the Yahoo.

Inexpressibly lovely looked Elinor Travis, as she gracefully led off the merry dance. She had reached her twentieth year, and was in the full glory of her womanhood. Tall, yet exquisitely moulded, she left nothing for fancy to desire or imagination to create. Her dark and animated eye sparkled with living joy, and her perfect features were illuminated by its fire. I had never before beheld a creature so richly endowed with natural gifts; one who united in her person so much grace, sculpture, and expression; and yet, strange to say, the feeling all inspired was the very opposite to that which might have been expected. The consciousness of beauty was too definitely written upon that brow. That melting eye had inherited too much of the worldliness that played about the eager vision of her sire. Maidenly modesty and retirement were wanting to elevate and dignify mere voluptuousness. I was repulsed rather than attracted by a form, which, had it been more feminine, might have served for an angel; and as it was, was not sufficiently divine for a mortal woman. Such was my first impression, formed almost upon the instant. It never was removed.

Sinclair and I looked on. The spirits of Elinor were exuberant. She laboured as it seemed, under more than ordinary excitement. She laughed and chatted with her tawny partner with a delight which it was impossible for such a copper monster to create. The gaiety of the lady had but one effect upon her partner. At short intervals he opened his jaws and exhibited his teeth to the company. Having rivalled a hyena in the hideousness of his grin, he closed the jaws and hid his molars. Far different was the effect upon another. It took but a very little time to discover that Rupert Sinclair had not been proof against the charms of this darling of nature. His heart had felt her witchery, and his spirit was enchained – not utterly and irretrievably, I fondly trusted, for I knew his worth, and could not willingly entrust him to such doubtful keeping. Elinor Travis was not the wife for Rupert Sinclair. Thanks to the Yahoo, my fears at first were not alarming; still it was vexatious enough to behold the pain with which Sinclair evidently regarded the good fortune of the Indian, and the complacency with which the monster received the favour of one of the loveliest of her sex. Once during the dance, the change of the figure brought the lady within a few feet of Sinclair. Her back was towards him, but, as if aware of his vicinity, she turned round and cast the lustre of her full eye upon him. She smiled, and archly nodded. Rupert shook like a leaf; the colour mounted to his cheek, and his heart beat almost audibly. I grew alarmed. My faith in the Yahoo was shaken, and I trembled for my friend. The position of the dancers was again reversed. Elinor faced us. Her eye once more was fixed upon Rupert, but this time, as I believed, exulting in triumph. Could it be possible that she was aware of her influence, and that she inhumanly trifled with this man's affection? What meant that ardent gaze and that triumphant smile? As the general had informed us, so it happened. The Yahoo danced four quadrilles with Elinor, and then vouchsafed the loan of his blackness to other ladies for the rest of the evening. Miss Travis being at liberty, I proposed to Rupert an adjournment to our hotel. The gentleman, in answer, started up and secured the hand of Elinor for the next dance. His chair at my side was filled on the instant by the general himself. I listened and replied to the questions of the latter as well as I could, watching every movement, step, and gesture of the young sorcerer and her victim.

"Your friend, Mr Wilson, is not so gay as usual. What has happened?"

"Nothing."

"You return to London, I believe, in" —

The general paused.

"Mr Sinclair's leave of absence," I answered, "will soon expire."

"A gentle-spirited man, Mr Wilson. He does you credit."

"He owes me little, general," I answered. "Providence has been bountiful to him."

"Strange! And his father, they say, is as great a brute."

"Lord Railton," I said, "is not so amiable as his son."

"Proud and overbearing! But a magnificent rent-roll though! His son does not appear a man of the world. Vastly good-natured, but he wants fire and character."

"Mr Sinclair does not do himself justice," I replied. "There is more in him than meets the eye."

"You are a scholar, Mr Wilson," suddenly exclaimed the general, "and can appreciate a literary curiosity. Do me the favour to accompany me to my study. I have a Greek manuscript which I picked up in Samaria, and which they tell me is invaluable."

Before I could reply, the general was on his legs, and conducting me to his room. The dance was still proceeding.

"I am a simple man, sir," said the general when we reached the apartment, "and very moderate in my desires. We are often called avaricious when we are simply prudent. I despise wealth but for the sake of my children. There," he exclaimed suddenly, showing me a jewel-case – "there's stuff that would buy up Bath."

"Indeed!"

"What do you imagine this to be, Mr Wilson?" next inquired the general, holding up a folded letter.

"I cannot guess!" said I.

"An offer of a peerage. Why should I accept it? I have no son, and am without personal ambition. The world do not give men credit for such self-denial. You are a constant visitor at Sackville Park, I presume?"

"No, in truth. I have been there but once."

"Lady Railton doats upon her son, I believe?"

"A very fond mother," I replied.

The general eyed me suspiciously, and went no further; but he produced forthwith his manuscript from Samaria. It was really a curiosity in its way, being a transcript of one of the gospels in a dialect which I had never before seen, and of which, I think, but few specimens can remain. But I had a fidgety desire to get back to the ball-room, which prevented any thing like a satisfactory inspection of the precious document.

"Shall we return, general?" I asked.

"By all means," said the general, evincing at the same time no disposition to budge. "I trust, Mr Wilson," he continued, "that you will be no stranger at our house. We are humble people, as you see us, but we have friends at court. A man of your talents should command preferment; but these are sad times, and the best fare ill enough without a helping hand. I stand well with the premier."

"No doubt, deservedly," said I. "You have probably seen much service, general?"

"A little, a little;" replied the soldier with mock humility. "But as to yourself, Mr Wilson, they must make a bishop of you."

"Oh, general!" said I with unnecessary modesty.

"Ah, but I say they must! Leave that to me. We want sound and good men like yourself at the head of the church. Methodism must be put down. It is increasing frightfully. Vigorous and learned men are required to cope with it."

"Methodism," said I, with becoming warmth, "is undoubtedly a great curse to the church at the present moment, and every honest churchman is bound, to the extent of his ability, to oppose its further progress."

"My own words, Mr Wilson; and I beg you not to suspect me of flattery when I tell you that half a dozen men like yourself would do more to bring back a salutary state of things than any legal enactments they could contrive. Sinclair has told me of your energy, high honour, and attainments, and it would be a sin to suffer them to be inactive."