The Adventures of Hugh Trevor Part 38

It is likewise true that, in their own opinion, these men were more or less criminal: and guilt always a.s.sumes an audacity, and fierceness, which it does not feel. They were not intentionally acting well: but were doing that which they supposed to be a deed of desperate wickedness, for selfish purposes. Had the consent of any one of them when dying been asked, to have his body dug up and dissected, he would have heard the proposal with detestation. Consequently, they deceived us the more effectually: for they had the manners of that guilt which, as far as intention was concerned, they actually possessed.

Add to this the spectacle of a dissecting-room; seen indistinctly by the partial glimmerings of a lanthorn. Whoever has been in such a place will recognise the picture. Here preparations of arms, pendent in rows, with the vessels injected. There legs, feet, and other limbs.

In this place the intestines: in that membranes, cartilages, muscles, with the bones and all their varieties of clothing, in every imaginary mangled form. These things ought not to be terrible: but to persons of little reflection, and not familiarized to them, they always are.

Escaped from this scene, restored as it were to human intercourse, and encouraged by the kindness of our host, whose name was Evelyn, our pulses began to grow temperate; and our imaginations to relax and gravitate toward common sense. We took the refreshment that was brought us, and conversed during the meal with Mr. Evelyn: partly on the incidents of the night, and partly in answering a few questions; which he put with a feeling that denoted a desire rather to afford us aid than to gratify his own curiosity. After which, as we were weary and he disposed to pursue his nocturnal researches, we immediately retired to rest. Clarke was full to overflowing with cogitation: but, for the present, it was too large, or rather too confused, for utterance; and it soon overpowered and sunk him into sleep.

For my own part, my mind was too much alive to be immediately overcome by fatigue. I lay revolving in thought the incidents of the night; which led me into reveries on the singular character of Mr. Evelyn, on my own forlorn state, on the bleak prospect before me, and on Olivia.

This last train of thinking was not easily dismissed. At length, however, both mind and body were so overwearied that I fell into an unusually profound sleep; from which I did not awake till Clarke, who had risen two hours before, came between nine and ten o'clock and rouzed me, to inform me that breakfast was waiting, and that our host expected my company.

While I was dressing, he told me that Mr. Evelyn had been making many enquiries concerning me; and apologized himself, with marks of apprehension lest he should have done wrong, while he owned that he had answered these interrogatories, by relating such particulars as he knew.

We then went down; and, among other conversation at breakfast, Mr.

Evelyn remarked that he understood, from Clarke, we had no urgent business which would make a day sooner or a day later of any material consequence; and he therefore particularly requested we would delay our departure till the next morning. The reason he gave was a kind expression of interest, which what he had heard from my companion had excited; and a desire, not of inquisitive prying but evidently of benevolence, to be as fully informed of my history as I should think proper to make him.

There was something soothing both in the request and in his manner, which induced me to readily comply. Poor Clarke excepted, I seemed as if no human being took any concern in my fate; and to discover that there was yet a man who was capable of sympathizing with me was like filling a painful vacancy of the heart, and afforded something of an incoherent hope of relief.

Not that I was prepared to ask or even to accept favours. I had rather entertained a kind of indignant sense of injury, against any one who should presume to make me his debtor: or to suppose I was incapable of not rather enduring all extremities than so to subject and degrade myself as, in my own apprehension, I should do by any such condescension.

After breakfast, Mr. Evelyn desired me to walk with him; that we might converse the more freely when alone. He then repeated what Clarke had told him, gave a strong and affecting picture of the overflowing kindness and compa.s.sion with which my companion had related all he knew, and proceeded afterward to speak of himself in the following terms.

'I am a man, Mr. Trevor, engaged in a trust which I find it very difficult conscientiously to discharge. I have an estate of fifteen hundred a year, and am a creature whose real wants, like those of other human creatures, are few. I live here surrounded by some hundreds of acres; stored with fruits, corn, and cattle; which the laws and customs of nations call mine. But what is it that these laws and customs mean? That I am to devour the whole produce of thus much land? The thing is impossible!'

'Why impossible? You may convert a hundred head of oxen into a service of gold plate. Liveries, laces, equipage, gilding, garnis.h.i.+ng, and ten thousand other modes or fas.h.i.+onable wants, which if not gratified render those that have them miserable, would eat up all that ten thousand acres, if you had them, could yield. Are you an Epicure? You may so stew, distill, and t.i.tillate your palate with essences that a hecatomb shall be swallowed at every meal. The means of devouring are innumerable, and justified by general usage.'

'General usage may be an apology, but not a justification. Happiness is the end of man: but it cannot be single. On the contrary, the more beings are happy the greater is the individual happiness of each: for each is a being of sympathies, and affections; which are increased by being called into action. It is the miserable mechanism of society which, by giving legal possession of what is called property to the holders, puts it absolutely and unconditionally in their disposal.'

'Why the miserable mechanism? Are you a friend to the Agrarian system?'

'By no means. I was incorrect: The mechanism is defective enough, but I rather meant to have said the miserable moral system of society; which allows every man to exercise his own caprice, and thinks him guilty of no crime though he is in the daily habit of wasting that which might render numbers happy, who are in absolute want.'

'This is an evil of which the world has for ages been complaining: but for which I see no remedy.'

'You mean no remedy which laws or governments, by the inflicting of pains and penalties, can afford: at which, to do them justice, they have been much too often aiming; but have as continually failed.'

'And you imagine, sir, you are possessed of a more effectual prescription?

'I dare not prescribe: it would be an arrogant a.s.sumption of wisdom.

But I may advise a regimen which has numerous probabilities in its favour. Yet what I must advise has been so many thousand times advised before that it seems impertinence to repeat it; if not mockery. To tell the rich that they seek enjoyment where it is not to be found, that the parade by which they torment themselves to gain distinction renders them supremely ridiculous, that their follies, while they are oppressive and hateful to the poor, are the topics of contempt and scandal even in their own circles, and that the repet.i.tion of them inevitably proves that they bring weariness, disgust, ruin, pain, and every human misery, is mere common-place declamation.

'But there is one truth of which they have not been sufficiently reminded. They are not, as they have too long been taught to suppose themselves, placed beyond the censure of the mult.i.tude. It is found that the mult.i.tude can think, and have discovered that the use the wealthy too often make of what they call their own is unjust, tyrannical, and destructive.

'This memento will come to them with the greater force the oftener they are made to recollect that the spirit of enquiry is abroad, that their voluptuous waste is daily becoming more odious, and that simplicity of manners, a benevolent economy, a vigorous munificence, and a comprehensive philanthropy, can alone redeem them; and preserve that social order which every lover of the human race delights to contemplate, but of which they arrogate to themselves the merit of being the sole advocates.

'It is the moral system of society that wants reform. This cannot be suddenly produced, nor by the efforts of any individual: but it may be progressive, and every individual may contribute: though some much more powerfully than others. The rich, in proportion as they shall understand this power and these duties, will become peculiarly instrumental: for poverty, by being subjected to continual labour, is necessarily ignorant; and it is well known how dangerous it is for ignorance to turn reformer.

'Let the rich therefore awake: let them encourage each other to quit their pernicious frivolities, and to enquire, without fear or prejudice, how they may secure tranquillity and promote happiness; and let them thus avert those miseries at which they so loudly and so bitterly rail, but into which by their conduct a majority of them is so ready to plunge.

'The intentions of those among them who think the most are excellent: to a.s.sert the contrary is equally false and absurd. But, when they expect to promote peace and order by irritating each other against this or that cla.s.s of men, however mistaken those men may be, and by disseminating a mutual spirit of acrimony between themselves and their opponents, they act like madmen; and, if they do not grow calm, forgiving, and kind, the increasing fury of the mad many will overtake them.'

'They are like the brethren of Dives. They pay but little regard to Moses and the prophets.'

'Well, Mr. Trevor, you will own at least that, since I can talk with all this seeming wisdom, a small share of the practice will be becoming in me; and what you and all mankind would expect.'

'I may: but not all mankind. There are some who pretend to be so learned, in what they call the depravity of human nature, that, after having heard you speak thus admirably in favour of virtue, they would think it more than an equal chance that you are one of the wickedest of men.'

'Oh, with respect to that, some of my very neighbours do not scruple to affirm that I am so. But, I repeat, I have what I consider as a large estate in trust; and it is a serious and a sacred duty imposed upon me to seek how it may be best employed. I seldom am satisfied with the means which offer themselves; and am therefore always in quest of new.'

'I wonder at that, sir, with your system. Have you no poor in the country?'

'O yes: enough to grieve any penetrable heart. But I know no task more difficult than that of administering to their wants, without encouraging their vices. Of these wants I consider instruction as the greatest; and to that I pay the greatest attention. Food, cloathing, and disease are imperious necessities; and to leave them unprovided would be guilt incredible to speculation, did we not see it in hourly practice. But the poor are so misled, by the opinions they are taught to hold and the oppressions to which they are subject, that, by relieving these most urgent wants we are in danger of teaching them idleness, drunkenness, and servility. I do them the little good that I can, most willingly: but I consider the diffusion of knowledge, by which that which I call the moral system of mankind is to be improved, as the most effectual means of conferring happiness. Are you of that opinion?'

'I certainly am.'

'Then I cannot but think you intend to promote this beneficial plan.'

'I scarcely know my own intentions. They are unsettled, incoherent, and the dreams of delirium; rather than the system of a sage, such as you have imagined.'

'I wish we had been longer acquainted and were intimate enough to induce you to relate your history, and confide your thoughts to me, as to a friend; or, if you please, as to one who holds it a duty to offer aid, whenever he imagines it will answer a good end.'

'To offer aid is kind: but there are very few cases in which he that receives it is not mean and degraded. You however are actuated by a generous spirit; and, as you are inclined to listen, I will very willingly inform you of the chief incidents of a life that has already been considerably checkered, and the future prospects of which are sufficiently gloomy.'

After this preface, I began my narrative; and succinctly related the princ.i.p.al of those events with which the reader already is acquainted.

Nor did the state of my feelings and the strong sense of injury which was ever present to my imagination, when I came to recapitulate my adventures since I first left college, suffer me to colour with a negligent or a feeble hand.

Some of the incidents necessarily induced me to mention Olivia, and betray my sentiments in part: which the questions of Mr. Evelyn, put with kindness, delicacy, and interest that was evidently unaffected, induced me at length wholly to reveal, with all the tenderness and the vehemence of pa.s.sion.

I was encouraged or rather impelled to this confidence by the emotions which Mr. Evelyn betrayed, in his countenance, voice, and manner. His hopes, his fears, and his affections, were so much in unison with my own, his eye so often glistened and his cheek so frequently glowed, that it was impossible for the heart not to open all its recesses, and pour out not only its complaints but its very follies.

Of all the pleasures in which the soul of man most delights that of sympathy is surely the chief. It can unite and mingle not only two but ten millions of spirits as one. Could a world be spectators of the sorrows of Lear, a world would with one consent partic.i.p.ate in them: so omnipotent is the power of sympathy. It is the consolation of poverty, it is the cordial of friends.h.i.+p, it is the essence of love.

Pride and suspicion are its chief enemies; and they are the vices that engender the most baneful of the miseries of man.

Mr. Evelyn remained, after I had ended, for some time in deep meditation; now and then casting his eyes toward me and then taking them away, as if fearful of offending my sensibility and again falling into thought. At length, fixing them more firmly and with an open benignity of countenance, he thus broke silence.

'I have been devising, my n.o.ble young friend, allow me to call you so, by what means I should best make myself understood to you; and how most effectually prevail on you to contribute to my happiness, and to those great ends for which souls of ardour like yours are so highly gifted. I have already sketched my principles, concerning the use and abuse of property. One of those rare occasions on which it may be excellently employed now presents itself. You are in pursuit of science, by which a world is to be improved. To the best of my ability I follow the same track: but I have the means, which you want. You have too little: I have too much. It is my province, and, if you consent, as I hope and trust you will, it will be my supreme pleasure to supply the deficiency. I am acquainted with the delicacy of your sentiments: but I am likewise acquainted with the expansion of your heart, and with its power of rising superior to the false distinctions which at present regulate society. I might a.s.sume the severe tone of the moralist, and urge your compliance with my request as a duty: but I would rather indulge what may perhaps be the foible of immature virtue, and follow the affectionate impulse which binds me to you as my friend and brother. Beside these are vibrations with which I am persuaded your warm and kindred heart will more readily harmonize.

In youth, we willingly obey impetuous sensations: but reluctantly listen to the slow and frigid deductions of reason, when they are in contradiction to our habits and prejudices. I therefore repeat, you are my friend and brother; and I conjure you, by those generous and magnanimous feelings of which your whole life proves you are so eminently susceptible, not to wound me by refusal. Do not consider me as the acquaintance of a day; for, by hearing your history, I have travelled with you through life, and seem as if I had been the inmate of your bosom even from your years of infancy. No: far from being strangers, we have been imbibing similar principles, similar views, and similar affections. Our souls have communed for years, and rejoice that the time at length is come in which that individual intercourse for which they may most justly be said to have panted is opened. If you object, if you hesitate, if you suspect me, you will annihilate the purest sensations which these souls have mutually cherished: you will wrong both yourself and me.'

There was an emanating fervor in the look, deportment, and the very gestures, of Mr. Evelyn that was irresistible. It surpa.s.sed his language. It led me out of myself. It hurried me beyond the narrow limits of prejudices and prepossessions, and transported me wherever it pleased. I was no longer in mortal society; surrounded by selfishness, cunning, and cowardly suspicions. He had borne me on his wings, and seated me among the G.o.ds; whose ministers were wisdom and beneficence. I burst into exclamation.

'I own it, you are my friend! you are my brother! I accept your offers, I will receive your benefits, but I will retaliate.'

I paused. I felt the egotism of my own thoughts, but could not subdue the torrent. I continued inwardly to vow, with the most vehement a.s.severations, that I would repay every mark of kindness he should bestow fifty fold. The heart of man will not rest satisfied with inferiority, and has recourse to a thousand stratagems, a thousand deceptions, to relieve itself of any such doubts; which it entertains with impatience, and pain.

My own enthusiasm however was soon inclined to subside; and I became ready to tax myself with that meanness and degradation which I had felt, and expressed, at the beginning of the discussion. Of this the quick penetration of Mr. Evelyn seemed to be aware; and he so effectually counteracted these emotions that, at length, I abandoned all thoughts of resistance; or of betraying those jealousies which would now have appeared almost insulting, to a man who had displayed a spirit so disinterested.

This subject being as it were dismissed, our conversation recurred to my present affairs, and future prospects; and, while we discoursed on these, that which might well at this period be called the malady of my mind exhibited itself. Though I had as it were lost sight of Olivia, though I knew not but she might at that time be a wife, and though, whatever her condition might be, I had sufficient reason to fear that if she thought of me it was with pain, not with love, still that she must and should be mine was a kind of frantic conclusion with which I always consoled myself. But for this purpose riches presented themselves as of the first necessity; and riches themselves would be useless, unless obtained with the rapidity rather of enchantment than by the ordinary progress of human events.

I did not conceal this weakness from my friend, and ventured to propose a plan on which I had previously been ruminating; though I had foreseen no means of putting it in practice. Every man had heard of the fortunes acquired in the east, and of the wealth which had been poured from the lap of India. The army there was at all times open to men like myself; youthful, healthy, and of education. 'Tis true I had been of opinion that there were strong moral objections to this profession: but these my more prevalent pa.s.sions had lulled me into a forgetfulness of, and I stated this as the most probable scheme for the accomplishment of my dearest hopes.