This eBook was produced by Pat Castevens
and David Widger
And my father pushed aside his books.
O young reader, whoever thou art,—or reader at least who hast beenyoung,—canst thou not remember some time when, with thy wild troublesand sorrows as yet borne in secret, thou hast come back from that hard,stern world which opens on thee when thou puttest thy foot out of thethreshold of home,—come back to the four quiet walls wherein thineelders sit in peace,—and seen, with a sort of sad amaze, how calm andundisturbed all is there? That generation which has gone before thee inthe path of the passions,—the generation of thy parents (not so manyyears, perchance, remote from thine own),—how immovably far off, in itsstill repose, it seems from thy turbulent youth! It has in it astillness as of a classic age, antique as the statues of the Greeks.That tranquil monotony of routine into which those lives that precededthee have merged; the occupations that they have found sufficing fortheir happiness, by the fireside, in the arm-chair and cornerappropriated to each,—how strangely they contrast thine own feverishexcitement! And they make room for thee, and bid thee welcome, and thenresettle to their hushed pursuits as if nothing had happened! Nothinghad happened! while in thy heart, perhaps, the whole world seems tohave shot from its axis, all the elements to be at war! And you sitdown, crushed by that quiet happiness which you can share no more, andsmile mechanically, and look into the fire; and, ten to one, you saynothing till the time comes for bed, and you take up your candle andcreep miserably to your lonely room.
Now, it in a stage-coach in the depth of winter, when three passengersare warm and snug, a fourth, all besnowed and frozen, descends from theoutside and takes place amongst them, straightway all the threepassengers shift their places, uneasily pull up their cloak collars, re-arrange their "comforters," feel indignantly a sensible loss of caloric:the intruder has at least made a sensation. But if you had all thesnows of the Grampians in your heart, you might enter unnoticed; takecare not to tread on the toes of your opposite neighbor, and not a soulis disturbed, not a "comforter" stirs an inch. I had not slept a wink,I had not even lain down all that night,—the night in which I had saidfarewell to Fanny Trevanion; and the next morning, when the sun rose, Iwandered out,—where I know not: I have a dim recollection of long,gray, solitary streets; of the river, that seemed flowing in dull,sullen silence, away, far away, into some invisible eternity; trees andturf, and the gay voices of children. I must have gone from one end ofthe great Babel to the other; for my memory only became clear anddistinct when I knocked, somewhere before noon, at the door of myfather's house, and, passing heavily up the stairs, came into thedrawing-room, which was the rendezvous of the little family; for sincewe had been in London, my father had ceased to have his study apart, andcontented himself with what he called "a corner,"—a corner wide enoughto contain two tables and a dumb-waiter, with chairs a discretion alllittered with books. On the opposite side of this capacious corner satmy uncle, now nearly convalescent, and he was jotting down, in hisstiff, military hand, certain figures in a little red account-book; foryou know already that my Uncle Roland was, in his expenses, the mostmethodical of men.
My father's face was more benign than usual, for before him lay aproof,—the first proof of his first work—his one work—the Great Book!Yes! it had positive