Chapter XXII: Mr. Bucket (2)

"I shall never forget," he said, "that I, one day, placed myself in a position which was to decide my future. The Prince of ---- had, for some time, coveted the possession of my violin--the only one I possessed at that period, and which I still have. He, on one particular occasion, was extremely anxious that I should mention the sum for which I would dispose of it; but, not wishing to part with my instrument, I declared I would not sell it for 250 gold Napoleons. Some time after, the prince said to me that I was, doubtless, only in jest in asking such a sum, but that he would be willing to give me 2,000 francs. I was, at this moment, in the greatest want of money to meet a debt of honor I had incurred at play, and I was almost tempted to accept the proffered amount, when I received an invitation to a party that evening at a friend's house. All my capital consisted of thirty francs, as I had disposed of all my jewels, watch, rings, and brooches, &c., I resolved on risking this last resource; and, if fortune proved fickle, to sell my violin to the prince and proceed to St. Petersburg, without instrument or luggage, with the view of re-establishing my affairs; my thirty francs were reduced to three, when, suddenly, my fortune took a sudden turn; and, with the small remains of my capital, I won 160 francs. This amount saved my violin, and completely set me up. From that day I abjured gaming--to which I had sacrificed a part of my youth--convinced that a gamester is an object of contempt to all well-regulated minds."

Although he was still in the full prime of youth, Paganini devoted his talent steadily to success and profit, when, in one of those hallucinations to which all great artists are subject, the violin lost its attractions in his eyes. A lady of rank having fallen desperately in love with him, and reciprocated by him, he withdrew with her to an estate she possessed in Tuscany. This lady played the guitar, and Paganini imbibed a taste for the instrument, and applied himself as sedulously to its practice as he had formerly done with the violin. He soon discovered new resources; and during a period of three years, he divided all the energies of his mind between its study, and agricultural pursuits, for which the lady's estate afforded him ample opportunities. But Paganini's former _penchant_ for the violin returned, and he decided on resuming his travels. On his return to Genoa, in 1804, he occupied himself solely with composition. It appears, too, that at this period he gave instruction on the violin to Catherine Calcagno, born at Genoa, in 1797, who, at the age of fifteen, astounded Italy by the boldness of her style; all traces of her seem lost after 1816. Toward the middle of 1805, Paganini left Genoa, to undertake a new tour in Italy. The first town he visited was Lucca, the scene of his first successes. Here he again created so great a sensation by the concerto he performed at a nocturnal festival, in a convent chapel, that the monks were obliged to leave their stalls, in order to repress the applause which burst forth, despite the sanctity of the place. He was then twenty-one years of age. The principality of Lucca and Piombino had been organized in the month of March, of the same year, in favor of the Princess Eliza, sister of Napoleon, and the wife of Prince Bacciochi. The court had fixed its residence in the town of Lucca. The great reputation of the violinist induced the princess to offer him the posts of director of her private music, and conductor of the Opera orchestra, which he accepted. The princess, who had appreciated the originality of his talent, excited him to extend his discoveries of novel effects upon his instrument. To convince him of the interest he had inspired her with, she granted him the grade of captain in the Royal Gendarmerie, so that he might be admitted with his brilliant costume at all the great court receptions. Seeking to vary the effect of his instrument at the court concerts, he removed the second and third strings, and composed a dialogue sonata for the first and fourth strings. He has related this circumstance himself nearly in the same terms:

"At Lucca I directed the orchestra when the reigning family honored the Opera with their presence. I was often also called upon to play at court: and then, fortnightly, I organized concerts, and announced to the court a novelty under the title of _Scène amoureuse_. Curiosity rose to the highest pitch; but the surprise of all present at court was extreme, when I entered the saloon with a violin with only two strings. I had only retained the first and the fourth. The former was to express the sentiments of a young girl; the other was to express the passionate language of a lover. I had composed a kind of dialogue, in which the most tender accents followed the outbursts of jealousy. At one time, chords representing most tender appeals; at another, plaintive reproaches, cries of joy and anger, felicity and pain. Then followed the reconciliation; and the lovers, more persuaded than ever, executed a _pas de deux_, which terminated in a brilliant coda. This novelty was eminently successful. The Princess Eliza lauded me to the skies; and said to me, in the most gracious manner possible, '_You have just performed impossibilities--would not a single string suffice for your talent?_' I promised to make the attempt. This idea delighted me; and, some weeks after, I composed my military sonata, entitled _Napoleon_, which I performed on the 25th of August, before a numerous and brilliant court. Its success far surpassed my expectations. My predilection for the _G_ string dates from this period."

In the summer of 1808, Paganini obtained leave to travel, and quitted Lucca, never more to return. As the sister of Napoleon had become Grand Duchess of Tuscany, she fixed her residence at Florence, with all her court, and where the great artist retained his position. He went to Leghorn, where, seven years previously, he had met with so much success. He has related, with much humor, a series of tribulations which happened to him upon the occasion of his first concert there. "A nail," he said, "had run into my heel, and I came on limping, at which the audience laughed. At the moment I was about to commence my concerto, the candles of my desk fell out. (Another laugh.) At the end of the first few bars of the solo, my first string broke, which increased the hilarity of the audience; but I played the piece on the three strings--the grins quickly changed into acclamations of applause." This broken string frequently occurred afterward; and Paganini has been accused of using it as a means of success, having previously practiced upon the three strings, pieces which appear to require the use of the first string.

From Leghorn he went to Turin, where Paganini was first attacked with the bowel complaint, which subsequently so debilitated his health, as frequently to cause long interruptions to his travels, and his series of concerts.

Being at Milan in the spring of 1813, he witnessed, at the theatre of _La Scala_, the ballet of _Il noce di Benevento_ (the Drowned One of Benevento). It was from this ballet Paganini took the theme of his celebrated variations, _le Streghe_ (the Witches), from the air being that to which witches appeared. Here he was again seized with a return of his former malady, and several months elapsed before he could appear in public. It was only on the 29th of October following, he was enabled to give his first concert, exciting a sensation which the journals of Italy and Germany made known to the whole world.

In the month of October, 1814, he went to Bologna, when he saw Rossini for the first time, and commenced a friendship which became strengthened at Rome in 1817, and at Paris in 1831.

In the year 1817, he arrived at Rome, and found Rossini there busy in producing his _Cenerentola_. Several concerts he gave here during the Carnival excited the greatest enthusiasm. From this time, Paganini formed the project of leaving Italy to visit the principal cities in Germany and France; and in the year 1819, he arrived at Naples. It is a very remarkable circumstance, that he appeared here in a manner unworthy of his great name; for, instead of giving his first concerts at St. Carlo, he modestly commenced at the theatre of the _Fondo_.

On his arrival at Naples, Paganini found several artists indisposed toward him. They doubted the reality of the prodigies attributed to him, and awaited a failure. To put his talent to the test, the young composer, Danna, was engaged, recently from the Conservatory, to write a quartet, containing every species of difficulty, convinced that the great violinist would not vanquish them. He was, therefore, invited to a musical re-union, where the piece was immediately given to him to play at first sight. Understanding the snare that was laid for him, he merely glanced at it, and played it as if he had been familiar with it. Amazed and confounded at what they had heard, the highest approbation was awarded to him, and he was proclaimed a miracle.

It was during this sojourn at Naples that Paganini met with one of the most singular adventures of his extraordinary life. An alarming relapse of his malady took place; and, satisfied that any current of air was injurious to him, he took an apartment in the part of the town called _Petrajo_ under Saint Elme; but meeting here that which he most sought to avoid, and his health daily becoming worse, it was reported that he was consumptive. At Naples, the opinion prevails that consumption is contagious. His landlord, alarmed at having in his house one who was supposed to be dying of this malady, had the inhumanity to turn him into the street, with all he possessed. Fortunately, the violoncellist, Ciandelli, the friend of Paganini, happened to be passing, and, incensed at the act of cruelty he was witness to, and which might have proved fatal to the great artist, belabored the barbarian unmercifully with a stick he carried, and then had his friend conveyed to a comfortable lodging, where every attention was paid to him.

Between 1820 and 1828, he visited Milan, Rome, Naples, and Trieste, and on the 2d of March, 1828, he proceeded to Vienna.

On the 29th of March, the first concert of this artist threw the Viennese population into an indescribable paroxysm of enthusiasm. "The first note he played on his Guarneri" (says M. Schilling, in his poetical style, in his _Lexique Universel de Musique_)--indeed, from his first step into the room--his reputation was decided in Germany. The Vienna journals were unlimited in hyperbolical expressions of admiration; and all admitted his performance to be incomparable. Verses appeared in every publication--medals were struck--the name of Paganini engrossing all; and, as M. Schottky remarks, _every thing was à la Paganini_. Cooks designated certain productions after him; and any extraordinary stroke of billiards was compared to a bow movement of the artist. His portrait appeared on snuff-boxes and cigar-cases; his bust surmounted the walking-sticks of the fashionable men. After a concert given for the benefit of the poor, the magistrate of Vienna presented to Paganini the large gold medal of St. Salvator, and the emperor conferred upon him the title of virtuoso of his private band.

After an uninterrupted series of triumphs, during three years, the celebrated artist arrived at Paris, and gave his first concert at the Opera, the 9th of March, 1831. His studies for the violin, which had been published there for some time--a species of enigma which had perplexed every violinist--the European fame of the artist--his travels and triumphs--raised the curiosity of the artists and the public. It were impossible to describe the enthusiasm his first concert created--it was universal frenzy. The same enthusiasm prevailed during his entire stay in Paris.

Toward the middle of May he left this city and proceeded to London--where he was expected with the utmost impatience, but not with that artistic and perceptive interest with which he had been received at Paris.

After an absence of six years, Paganini again set foot on his native soil. The wealth he had amassed in his European tour, placed him in a position of great independence; and among the various properties he purchased, was a charming country-house in the environs of Parma, called _la Villa Gajona_--here he decided on residing.

In 1836, speculators induced him to lend the aid of his name and talent for establishing a casino, of which music was the pretext, but gambling the real object. This establishment, which was situate in the most fashionable locality of Paris, was opened with considerable splendor at the end of November, 1837, under the name of _Casino Paganini_; but the government refused to authorize its opening as a gambling-house, and the speculators were reduced to give concerts, which far exceeded the expenses of the undertaking. The declension of his health was manifest, and his wasted strength precluded the possibility of his playing at the casino. A lawsuit was commenced against him, which he lost; and the judges, without having heard his defense, condemned him to pay 50,000f. to the creditors of the speculation, and he was deprived of his liberty until that amount was paid.

When this decision was pronounced, Paganini was dying--his malady, which was phthisis of the larynx, had increased since the commencement of 1839. The medical men advised him to proceed to Marseilles, the climate of which they considered favorable to his health. He followed this advice, and traveled by slow stages to the southern extremity. Despite his extreme weakness, he went to hear a requiem, by Cherubini, for male voices; finally, on the 21st of June, he attended in one of the churches at Marseilles, to take part in a solemn mass, by Beethoven. However, the love of change, inherent in all valetudinarians, induced him to return to Genoa by sea, fully impressed the voyage would recruit his health. Vain hope! In the commencement of October of the same year, he wrote from his native city to M. Galafre, a painter, an esteemed friend: "_Being in much worse health than I was at Marseilles, I have resolved on passing the winter at Nice._" Nice was destined to be his last abode. The progress of his malady was rapid--his voice became almost extinct, and dreadful fits of coughing, which daily became more frequent, and, finally, reduced him to a shadow. The sinking of his features, a certain token of approaching death, was visible in his face. An Italian writer has furnished us with a most touching description of his last moments, in the following terms:

"On the last night of his existence, he appeared unusually tranquil--he had slept a little: when he awoke, he requested that the curtains of his bed should be drawn aside to contemplate the moon, which, at its full, was advancing calmly in the immensity of the pure heavens. At this solemn hour, he seemed desirous to return to Nature all the soft sensations which he was then possessed of; stretching forth his hand toward his enchanted violin--to the faithful companion of his travels--to the magician which had robbed care of its stings--he sent to heaven, with its last sounds, the last sigh of a life which had been all melody."

The great artist expired on the 27th of May, 1840, at the age of 56, leaving to his only son, Achille, an immense fortune, and the title of Baron, which had been conceded him in Germany. All had not ended with the man whose life was as extraordinary as his talent. Whether from the effect of certain popular rumors, or whether from Paganini having died without receiving the last rites of his church, he had left doubts of his faith; his remains were refused interment in consecrated ground by the Bishop of Nice. Vainly did his friends solicit permission to celebrate a solemn service for his eternal rest; the bishop remained inexorable, but proffered an authentic act of decease, with permission to remove the body wheresoever they pleased. This was not accepted, and the matter was brought before the tribunals. All this time, the body was remaining in one of the rooms of the hospital at Nice; it was afterward removed by sea from the lazaretto of Villa Franca, near that city, to a country spot named _Polcevera_, near Genoa, which belonged to the inheritance of the illustrious artist. At length, the friends of the deceased obtained permission from the bishop of Parma to bring the body into the Duchy, to remove it to the _Villa Gajona_, and to inter it in the village church. This funeral homage was rendered to the remains of this celebrated man, in the month of May, 1845, but without pomp, in conformity with the orders which had emanated from the government.

By his will, made on the 27th of April, 1837, and opened the 1st of June, 1840, Paganini left to his son, legitimized by deeds of law, a fortune estimated at two millions (£80,000 sterling), out of which two legacies were to be paid, of fifty and sixty thousand francs, to his two sisters, leaving to the mother of his son, Achille, an annuity of 1,200 francs. Independently of his wealth, Paganini possessed a collection of valuable instruments; his large _Guarneri_, the only instrument which accompanied him in his travels, he bequeathed to the town of Genoa, not being desirous that an artist should possess it after him.

NUMBER NINETEEN IN OUR STREET.

Number Nineteen in our street is a gloomy house, with a blistered door and a cavernous step; with a hungry area and a desolate frontage. The windows are like prison-slips, only a trifle darker, and a good deal dirtier, and the kitchen-offices might stand proxies for the Black Hole of Calcutta, barring the company and the warmth. For as to company, black beetles, mice, and red ants, are all that are ever seen of animated nature there, and the thermometer rarely stands above freezing-point. Number Nineteen is a lodging-house, kept by a poor old maid, whose only friend is her cat, and whose only heirs will be the parish. With the outward world, excepting such as slowly filter through the rusty opening of the blistered door, Miss Rebecca Spong has long ceased to have dealings. She hangs a certain piece of card-board, with "Lodgings to Let," printed in school-girl print, unconscious of straight lines, across it; and this act of public notification, coupled with anxious peepings over the blinds of the parlor front, is all the intercourse which she and the world of men hold together. Every now and then, indeed, a mangy cab may be seen driving up to her worn-out step; and dingy individuals, of the kind who travel about with small square boxes, covered with marbled paper, and secured with knotted cords of different sizes, may be witnessed taking possession of Nineteen, in a melancholy and mysterious way. But even these visitations, unsatisfactory as most lodging-house keepers would consider them, are few and far between; for somehow the people who come and go never seem to have any friends or relations whereby Miss Spong may improve her "connection." You never see the postman stop at that desolate door; you never hear a visitor's knock on that rusty lion's head; no unnecessary traffic of social life ever takes place behind those dusty blinds; it might be the home of a select party of Trappists, or the favorite hiding-place of coiners, for all the sunshine of external humanity that is suffered to enter those interior recesses. If a murder had been committed in every room, from the attics to the cellar, a heavier spell of solitude and desolation could not rest on its floors.

One dreary afternoon in November, a cab stopped at Number Nineteen. It was a railway cab, less worn and ghastly than those vehicles in general, but not bringing much evidence of gayety or wealth for all that. Its inmates were a widow and a boy of about fifteen; and all the possessions they had with them were contained in one trunk of very moderate dimensions, a cage with a canary-bird twittering inside, some pots of flowers, and a little white rabbit, one of the comical "lop-eared" kind. There was something very touching in these evidences of the fresh country life which they had left for the dull atmosphere and steaming fogs of the metropolis. They told a sad tale of old associations broken, and old loves forsworn; of days of comfort and prosperity exchanged for the dreariness of poverty; and freedom, love, and happiness, all snapped asunder for the leaden chain of suffering to be forged instead. One could not help thinking of all those two hapless people must have gone through before they could have summoned courage to leave their own dear village, where they had lived so many years in that local honorableness of the clergyman's family; throwing themselves out of the society which knew and loved them, that they might enter a harsh world, where they must make their own position, and earn their own living, unaided by sympathy, honor, or affection. They looked as if they themselves thought something of this, too, when they took possession of the desolate second floor; and the widow sat down near her son, and taking his hand in hers, gave vent to a flood of tears, which ended by unmanning the boy as well. And then they shut up the window carefully, and nothing more was seen of them that night.

Mrs. Lawson, the widow, was a mild, lady-like person, whose face bore the marks of recent affliction, and whose whole appearance and manners were those of a loving, gentle, unenergetic, and helpless woman, whom sorrow could well crush beyond all power of resistance. The boy was a tall, thin youth, with a hectic flush and a hollow cough, eyes bright and restless, and as manifestly nervous as his mother was the reverse in temperament--anxious and restless, and continually taxing his strength beyond its power, making himself seriously ill in his endeavors to save his beloved mother some small trouble. They seemed to be very tenderly attached one to the other, and to supply to each all that was wanting in each: the mother's gentleness soothing down her boy's excitability, and the boy's nervousness rousing the mother to exertion. They were interesting people--so lonely, apparently so unfit to "rough it," in the world; the mother so gentle in temper, and the son so frail in constitution--two people who ought to have been protected from all ill and all cares, yet who had such a bitter cup to empty, such a harsh fate to fulfill.

They were very poor. The mother used to go out with a small basket on her arm, which could hold but scanty supplies for two full-grown people. Yet this was the only store they had; for no baker, no butcher, no milkman, grocer, or poulterer, ever stopped at the area gate of Miss Rebecca Spong; no purveyor of higher grade than a cat's-meat-man was ever seen to hand provisions into the depths of Number Nineteen's darkness. The old maid herself was poor; and she, too, used to do her marketing on the basket principle; carrying home, generally at night, odd scraps from the open stalls in Tottenham Court Road, which she had picked up as bargains, and dividing equally between herself and her fagged servant-of-all-work the wretched meal which would not have been too ample for one. She therefore could not help her lodgers, and they all scrambled on over the desolate places of poverty as they best might. In general, tea, sugar, bread, a little rice, a little coffee as a change, a scrap of butter which no cow that ever yielded milk would have acknowledged--these were the usual items of Mrs. Lawson's marketing, on which she and her young son were to be nourished. And on such poor fare as this was that pale boy expected to become a hearty man? The mother could not, did not expect it. Else why were the tears in her eyes so often as she returned? and why did she hang over her son, and caress him fondly, as if in deprecation, when she brought him his wretched meal, seeming to lament, to blame herself, too, that she had not been able to provide him any thing better? Poor things! poor things!

Mrs. Lawson seemed at last to get some employment. She had been seeking for it long--to judge by her frequent absences from home, and the weary look of disappointment she wore when she returned. But at last the opening was found, and she set to work in earnest. She used to go out early in the morning, and not return until late in the evening, and then she looked pale and tired, as one whose energies had been overtasked all the day; but she had found no gold-mine. The scanty meals were even scantier than before, and her shabby mourning was getting shabbier and duller. She was evidently hard-worked for very little pay; and their condition was not improved, only sustained by her exertions. Things seemed to be very bad with them altogether, and with little hope of amendment; for poor Mrs. Lawson had been "brought up as a lady," and so was doubly incapable--by education as well as by temperament--of gaining her own living. She was now employed as daily governess in the family of a city tradesman--people, who though they were kindly-natured enough, had as much as they could do in keeping their own fortunes afloat without giving any substantial aid to others, and who had therefore engaged her at the lowest possible salary, such as was barely sufficient to keep her and her son from absolute want.

The boy had long been very busy. He used to sit by the window all the day, earnestly employed with paper and scissors; and I wondered what fascinating occupation he had found to chain him for so many hours by those chinks and draughts; for he was usually enveloped in shawls, and blankets were hung about his chair, and every tender precaution taken that he should not increase his sickness by exposure even to the ordinary changes in the temperature of a dwelling-room. But now, in spite of his terrible cough, in spite of his hurried breathing, he used to sit for hours on hours by the dusky window, cutting and cutting at that eternal paper, as if his very life depended on his task. But he used to gather up the cuttings carefully, and hide all out of sight before his mother came home--sometimes nearly caught before quite prepared, when he used to show as much trepidation as if committing a crime.

This went on for some time, and at last he went out. It was fortunately a fine day--a clear, cold, January day; but he had no sooner breathed the brisk frosty air than a terrible fit of coughing seemed to threaten his frail existence. He did not turn back though; and I watched him slowly pass down the street, holding on by the rails, and every now and then stopping to take breath. I saw a policeman speak to him in a grave, compassionating way, as if--seeing that he was so young and feeble, and so much a stranger, that he was asking his way to Oxford-street, while going in a totally contrary direction--he was advising him to go home, and to let some one else do his business--his father perhaps; but the boy only smiled, and shook his head in a hopeful way; and so he went from my sight, though not from my thoughts.

This continued daily, sometimes Herbert bringing home a small quantity of money, sometimes only disappointment; and these were terrible trials! At last, the mother was made acquainted with her son's new mode of life, by the treasured 5s. which the poor boy thrust into her hand one evening, with a strange shy pride that brought all the blood into his face, while he kissed her with impetuosity to smother her reproaches. She asked him how he had got so much money--so much! and then he told her how, self-taught, he had learned to cut out figures--dogs and landscapes--in colored paper, which he had taken to the bazaars and stationers' shops, and there disposed of--for a mere trifle truly. "For this kind of thing is not fashionable, mother, though I think the Queen likes them," he said; "and of course, if not fashionable, I could not get very much for them." So he contented himself, and consoled her, for the small payment of sixpence or a shilling, which perhaps was all he could earn by three or four days' work.

The mother gently blamed him for his imprudence in exposing himself as he had done to the wet and cold--and, alas! these had told sadly on his weakened frame; but Herbert was so happy to-night, that she could not damp his pleasure, even for maternal love; so she reserved the lecture which _must_ be given until to-morrow. And then his out-door expeditions were peremptorily forbidden; and Miss Spong was called up to strengthen the prohibition--which she did effectually by offering, in her little, quick, nervous way, to take Herbert's cuttings to the shops herself, and thus to spare him the necessity of doing so. Poor Mrs. Lawson went up to the little woman, and kissed her cheek like a sister, as she spoke; while Miss Spong, so utterly unused as she had been for years to the smallest demonstration of affection, looked at first bewildered and aghast, and finally sank down on the chair in a childish fit of crying. I can not say how much the sight of that poor little old maid's tears affected me! They seemed to speak of such long years of heart-loneliness--such loving impulses strangled by the chill hand of solitude--such weary familiarity with that deadness of life wherein no sympathy is bestowed, no love awakened--that I felt as one witnessing a dead man recalled to life, after all that made life pleasant had fled. What a sorrowful house that Number Nineteen was! From the desolate servant-of-all-work at her first place from the Foundling, to the half-starved German in the attics, every inmate of the house seemed to have nothing but the bitter bread of affliction to eat--nothing but the salt waters of despair to drink.

And now began another epoch in the Lawson history, which shed a sad but most beautiful light over the fading day of that young life.

A girl of about fourteen--she might have been a year or so younger--was once sent from one of the stationer's shops to conclude some bargain with the sick paper-cutter. I saw her slender figure bound up the desolate steps with the light tread of youth, as if she had been a divine being entering the home of human sorrow. She was one of those saintly children who are sometimes seen blooming like white roses, unstained by time or by contact. Her hair hung down her neck in long, loose curls, among which the sunlight seemed to have fairly lost itself, they were so golden bright; her eyes were large, and of that deep, dark gray which is so much more beautiful, because so much more intellectual, than any other color eyes can take; her lips were fresh and youthful; and her figure had all that girlish grace of fourteen which combines the unconscious innocence of the child with the exquisite modesty of the maiden. She soon became the daily visitor of the Lawsons--pupil to Herbert.

The paper-cutting was not wholly laid aside though; in the early morning, and in the evening, and often late into the night, the thin, wan fingers were busy about their task; but the middle of the day was snatched like an hour of sleep in the midst of pain--garnered up like a fountain of sweet waters in the wilderness; for then it was that little Jessie came for her Latin lesson, which she used to learn so well, and take such pleasure in, and be doubly diligent about, because poor Herbert Lawson was ill, and vexation would do him harm. Does it seem strange that a stationer's daughter should be so lovely, and should learn Latin? And there those two children used to sit for three dear hours of the day; she, leaning over her book, her sweet young face bent on her task with a look of earnest intellectuality in it, that made her like some sainted maid of olden time; and he watching her every movement, and listening to every syllable, with a rapt interest such as only very early youth can feel. How happy he used to look! How his face would lighten up, as if an angel's wing had swept over it, when the two gentle taps at the door heralded young Jessie! How his boyish reverence, mixed with boyish care, gave his wasted features an expression almost unearthly, as he hung over her so protectingly, so tenderly, so adoringly! It was so different from a man's love! There was something so exquisitely pure and spiritual in it--something so reverential and so chivalrous--it would have been almost a sin to have had that love grow out into a man's strong passion! The flowers she brought him--and seldom did a day pass without a fresh supply of violets, and, when the weather was warmer, of primroses and cowslips, from her gentle hand--all these were cherished more than gold would have been cherished; the books she lent him were never from his side; if she touched one of the paltry ornaments on the chimney-piece, that ornament was transferred to his own private table; and the chair she used was always kept apart, and sacred to her return.

It was very beautiful to watch all these manifestations: for I did watch them, first from my own window, then in the house, in the midst of the lonely family, comforting when I could not aid, and sharing in the griefs I could not lessen. Under the new influence, the boy gained such loveliness and spiritualism, that his face had an angelic character, which, though it made young Jessie feel a strange kind of loving awe for the sick boy, betokened to me, and to his mother, that his end was not far off.

He was now too weak to sit up, excepting for a small part of the day; and I feared that he would soon become too weak to teach, even in his gentle way, and with such a gentle pupil. But the Latin exercises still held their place; the books lying on the sofa instead of on the table, and Jessie sitting by him on a stool, where he could overlook her as she read: this was all the change; unless, indeed, that Jessie read aloud more than formerly, and not always out of a Latin book. Sometimes it was poetry, and sometimes it was the Bible that she read to him; and then he used to stop her, and pour forth such eloquent, such rapturous remarks on what he had heard, that Jessie used to sit and watch him like a young angel holding converse with a spirit. She was beginning to love him very deeply in her innocent, girlish, unconscious way; and I used to see her bounding step grow sad and heavy as, day by day, her brother-like tutor seemed to be sinking from earth so fast.

Thus passed the winter, poor Mrs. Lawson toiling painfully at her task, and Herbert falling into death in his; but with such happiness in his heart as made his sufferings divine delights, and his weakness, the holy strength of heaven.

He could do but little at his paper-cutting now, but still he persevered; and his toil was well repaid, too, when he gave his mother the scanty payment which he received at the end of the week, and felt that he had done his best--that he had helped her forward--that he was no longer an idler supported by her sorrow--but that he had braced the burden of labor on to his own shoulders also, weak as they were, and had taken his place, though dying, among the manful workers of the world. Jessie brought a small weekly contribution also, neatly sealed up in fair white paper; and of these crumpled scraps Herbert used to cut angels and cherubs' heads, which he would sit and look at for hours together; and then he would pray as if in a trance--so earnest and heartfelt was it--while tears of love, not grief, would stream down his face, as his lips moved in blessings on that young maiden child.

It came at last. He had fought against it long and bravely; but death is a hard adversary, and can not be withstood, even by the strongest. It came, stealing over him like an evening cloud over a star--leaving him still beautiful, while blotting out his light--softening and purifying, while slowly obliterating his place. Day by day, his weakness increased; day by day, his pale hands grew paler, and his hollow cheek more wan. But the love in his boy's heart hung about his sick bed as flowers that have an eternal fragrance from their birth.

Jessie was ever a daily visitor, though no longer now a scholar; and her presence had all the effect of religion on the boy--he was so calm, and still, and holy, while she was there. When she was gone, he was sometimes restless, though never peevish; but he would get nervous, and unable to fix his mind on any thing, his sick head turning incessantly to the window, as if vainly watching for a shadowy hope, and his thin fingers plucking ceaselessly at his bedclothes, in restless, weary, unsoothed sorrow. While she sat by him, her voice sounding like low music in his ears, and her hands wandering about him in a thousand offices of gentle comforting, he was like a child sinking softly to sleep--a soul striving upward to its home, beckoned on by the hands of the holier sister before it.

And thus he died--in the bright spring-time of the year, in the bright spring-time of his life. Love had been the cradle song of his infancy, love was the requiem of his youth. His was no romantic fable, no heroic epic; adventures, passions, fame, made up none of its incidents; it was simply the history of a boy's manful struggling against fate--of the quiet heroism of endurance, compensated by inward satisfaction, if not by actual happiness.

True, his career was in the low-lying paths of humanity; but it was none the less beautiful and pure, for it is not deeds, it is their spirit, which makes men noble, or leaves them stained. Had Herbert Lawson been a warrior, statesman, hero, philosopher, he would have shown no other nature than that which gladdened the heart of his widowed mother, and proved a life's instruction to Jessie Hamilton, in his small deeds of love and untaught words of faith in the solitude of that lodging-house. Brave, pure, noble then, his sphere only would have been enlarged, and with his sphere the weight and power of his character; but the spirit would have been the same, and in the dying child it was as beautiful as it would have been in the renowned philosopher.

We have given this simple story--simple in all its bearings--as an instance of how much real heroism is daily enacted, how much true morality daily cherished, under the most unfavorable conditions. A widow and her young son cast on the world without sufficient means of living--a brave boy battling against poverty and sickness combined, and doing his small endeavor with manful constancy--a dying youth, whose whole soul is penetrated with love, as with a divine song; all these are elements of true human interest, and these are circumstances to be found in every street of a crowded city. And to such as these is the divine mission of brotherly charity required; for though poverty may not be relieved by reason of our inability, suffering may always be lightened by our sympathy. It takes but a word of love, a glance of pity, a gentle kiss of affection--it takes but an hour of our day, a prayer at night, and we may walk through the sick world and the sorrowful as angels dropping balm and comfort on the wounded. The cup of such human love as this poured freely out will prove in truth "twice blessed," returning back to our hearts the peace we have shed on others. Alas! alas! how thick the harvest and how few the reapers!

GOSSIP ABOUT GREAT MEN.

One can not help taking an interest in great men. Even their pettiest foibles--their most ordinary actions--their by-play--their jokes--are eagerly commemorated. Their haunts--their homes--the apartments in which they have studied--their style of dress--and, above all, their familiar conversation, are treasured up in books, and fascinate all readers. Trifles help to decipher the character of a man, often more than his greatest actions. What is a man's daily life--his private conversations--his familiar deportment? These, though they make but a small figure in his history, are often the most characteristic and genuine things in a man's life. With what interest do we think of blind, glorious John Milton, when writing _Paradise Lost_, sitting at "the old organ behind the faded green hangings," his dimmed eyes rolling in vain to find the day; of Richardson, in his back-shop, writing _Pamela_; of Cowper and his tame hares; of Byron and Newstead Abbey; of Burns, in his humble cottage home; of Voltaire, in his retreat of Ferney, by the shores of Lake Leman; of Sir Walter Scott, in his study at Abbotsford; of Dr. Johnson, in his retreat in Bolt Court; of Shakspeare, and the woods of Charlecote; of Pope, and his house at Twickenham; of Swift, and his living at Laracor. We are never tired of reading of such things, identified as they are with genius, and consecrated by their association with the names of great men.

We take an interest in even smaller things. Everybody remembers Goldsmith's bloom-colored coat; George Fox's "leathern hull;" Milton's garb of coarse gray; Magliabecchi's great brown vest down to his knees, his broad-brimmed hat, and patched black mantle, and his cravat full of snuff-droppings; Pope's velvet cap, tye-wig, and sword; and Buffon, with his hair in curl-papers while sitting at his desk. We curiously remember Oliver Cromwell's warts; Wilks's squint; Scott's limp; Byron's club-foot; Pope's little crooked figure, like a note of interrogation; Johnson's rotundity and rheum; Charles Lamb's spindle-shanks in gaiters; and all manner of personal peculiarities of distinguished men.

The appetites, tastes, idiosyncracies, prejudices, foibles, and follies of great men, are well known. Perhaps we think too much of them; but we take interest in all that concerns them, even the pettiest details. It is often these that give an interest to their written life. What were Boswell's _Johnson_, that best of biographies, were it wanting in its gossip and small talk?

An interesting chapter might be written about the weaknesses of great men. For instance, they have been very notorious for their strange fits of abstraction. The anecdote of Archimedes will be remembered, who rushed through the streets of Syracuse _al fresco_, crying _Eureka!_ and at the taking of the city was killed by a soldier, while tracing geometrical lines on sand. Socrates, when filled with some idea, would stand for hours fixed like a statue. It is recorded of him that he stood amidst the soldiers in the camp at Potidea, in rooted abstraction, listening to his "prophetic or supernatural voice." Democritus shut himself up for days together in a little apartment in his garden. Dante was subject to fits of abstraction, in which he often quite forgot himself. One day, he found an interesting book, which he had long sought for, in a druggist's shop at Sienna, and sat reading there till night came on.

Bude, whom Erasmus called the wonder of France, was a thoroughly absent man. One day his domestics broke into his study with the intelligence that his house was on fire. "Go inform my wife," said he; "you know I do not interfere in household affairs!" Scaliger only slept for a few hours at a time, and passed whole days without thinking of food. Sully, when his mind was occupied with plans of reform, displayed extraordinary fits of forgetfulness. One day, in winter, when on his way to church, he observed, "How very cold it is to-day!" "Not more cold than usual," said one of his attendants. "Then I must have the ague," said Sully. "Is it not more probable that you are too scantily dressed?" he was asked. On lifting his tunic the secret was at once discovered. He had forgotten all his under clothing but his breeches!

Mrs. Bray tells a somewhat familiar story of the painter Stothard. When invited on one occasion to dine with the poet Rogers, on reaching the house in St. James's Place, he complained of cold, and, chancing to place his hand on his neck, he found he had forgotten to put on his cravat, when he hastily returned home to complete his attire.

Buffon was very fond of dress. He assumed the air of the grand signeur; sported jewels and finery; wore rich lace and velvets; and was curled and scented to excess--wearing his hair _en papillotte_ while at his studies. Pope, too, was a little dandy in a bag-wig and a sword; and his crooked figure enveloped in fashionable garments, gave him the look of an over-dressed monkey. Voltaire, also, was fond of magnificent attire, and usually dressed in an absurd manner. Diderot once traveled from St. Petersburg to Paris in his morning-gown and nightcap; and in this guise promenaded the streets and public places of the towns on his route. He was often taken for a madman. While composing his works, he used to walk about at a rapid pace, making huge strides, and sometimes throwing his wig in the air when he had struck out a happy idea. One day, a friend found him in tears--"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "what is the matter?" "I am weeping," answered Diderot, "at a story that I have just composed!"

Young, the poet, composed his _Night Thoughts_ with a skull before him, in which he would sometimes place a lighted candle; and he occasionally sought his sepulchral inspiration by wandering among the tombs at midnight. Mrs. Radcliffe courted the horrors with which she filled her gloomy romances, by supping on half-raw beefsteaks, plentifully garnished with onions. Dryden used to take physic before setting himself to compose a new piece. Kant, the German philosopher, while lecturing, had the habit of fixing his attention upon one of his auditors who wore a garment without a button in a particular place. One day, the student had the button sewed on. Kant, on commencing his lecture, fixed his eyes on the usual place. The button was there! Fancy the consternation of the philosopher, whose ideas had become associated with that buttonless garment. His lecture that day was detestable: he was quite unhinged by the circumstance.

Too many authors have been fond of the bottle. Rabelais said, "Eating and drinking are my true sources of inspiration. See this bottle! It is my true and only Helicon, my cabalistic fountain, my sole enthusiasm. Drinking, I deliberate; and deliberating, I drink." Ennius, Eschylus, and Cato, all got their inspiration while drinking. Mezerai had always a large bottle of wine beside him, among his books. He drank of it at each page that he wrote. He turned the night into day; and never composed except by lamp-light, even in the day time. All his windows were darkened; and it was no unusual thing for him to show a friend to the door with a lamp, though outside it was broad daylight! On the contrary, Varillas, the historian, never wrote except at full mid-day. His ideas, he imagined, grew and declined with the sun's light.

Sir William Blackstone is said to have composed his _Commentaries_ with a bottle of wine on the table, from which he drank largely at intervals: and Addison, while composing, used to pace to and fro the long drawing-room of Holland House, with a glass of sherry at each end, and rewarded himself by drinking one in case of a felicitous inspiration.

While Goldsmith wrote his _Vicar of Wakefield_, he kept drinking at Madeira, "to drown care," for the duns were upon him. When Johnson called to relieve him, he sent away the bottle, and took the manuscript to the bookseller, bringing back some money to the author. Goldsmith's first use of the money was, to call in the landlady to have a glass of punch with him. Goldie was guilty of very strange tricks. He once broke his shin by exhibiting to the company how much better he could jump over a stick than puppets.

The intemperance of poets is but too painfully illustrated in the lives of Parnell, Otway, Sheffield, Savage, Churchill, Prior, Dryden, Cowley, Burns, Coleridge, Lamb, and others. There is nothing more painful in Burns's letters, than those in which he confesses his contrition after his drunken bouts, and vows amendment for the future. His letter to Mrs. Dunlop on this subject will be remembered. Lamb, too, in a letter to Mr. Carey, painted _next morning_ in vivid terrors. Byron says--

Get very drunk; and when
You wake with headache, you shall see what then.

Here is Lamb's graphic picture: "I protest," said he, to Mr. Carey, the translator of Dante; "I know not in what words to invest my sense of the shameful violation of hospitality which I was guilty of on that fatal Wednesday. Let it be blotted from the calendar. Had it been committed at a layman's house--say a merchant's, or a manufacturer's, or a cheesemonger's, or a greengrocer's--or, to go higher, a barrister's, a member of parliament's, a rich banker's, I should have felt alleviation--a drop of self-pity. But to be seen deliberately to go out of the house of a clergyman, drunk!... With feverish eyes on the succeeding dawn, I opened upon the faint light, enough to distinguish, in a strange chamber, not immediately to be recognized, garters, hose, waistcoat, neckerchief, arranged in dreadful order and proportion, which I knew was not mine own! 'Tis the common symptom, on awaking, I judge my last night's condition from. A tolerable scattering on the floor I hail as being too probably my own, and if the candlestick be not removed, I assail myself. But this finical arrangement--this finding every thing in the morning in exact diametrical rectitude, torments me. By whom was I divested? burning blushes! not by the fair hand of nymphs--the Buffian graces! Remote whispers suggested that I _coached_ it home in triumph. Far be that from waking pride in me, for I was unconscious of the locomotion. That a young Newton accompanied a reprobate old Telemachus; that, Trojan-like, he bore his charge upon his shoulders, while the wretched incubus, in glimmering sense, hiccoughed drunken snatches of flying on the bat's wings after sunset.... Occasion led me through Great Russell-street, yesterday: I gazed at the great knocker. My feeble hands in vain essayed to lift it. I dreaded that Argus Portitor, who doubtless lanterned me out on that prodigious night. I called the Elginian marbles; they were cold to my suit. I shall never again, I said, on the wide gates unfolding, say, without fear of thrusting back, in a light but a peremptory air, 'I am going to Mr. Cary's.'"

Lamb was also a great smoker at one period of his life. But he determined to give it up, as he found it led to drinking--to "drinking egg-flip hot, at the Salutation"--so he wrote his "Farewell to Tobacco," and gave it up--returning to it again, but finally abandoning it. In a letter to Wordsworth, he said: "Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for these five years; and you know how difficult it is from refraining to pick one's lips even, when it has become a habit. I have had it in my head to write this poem [Farewell to Tobacco] these two years; but tobacco stood in its own light, when it gave me headaches that prevented my singing its praises."

Once, in the height of Lamb's smoking fever, he was puffing the smoke of strong, coarse tobacco from a clay pipe, in the company of Dr. Parr, who whiffed only the finest weed, when the latter, addressing Lamb, asked: "Dear me, sir, how is it that you have acquired so prodigious a smoking power?" "I have acquired it," answered Lamb, "by toiling after it, as some men toil after virtue."