CHAPTER I--A Word for Lavengro.

Lavengro is the history up to a certain period of one of rather a

peculiar mind and system of nerves, with an exterior shy and cold, under

which lurk much curiosity, especially with regard to what is wild and

extraordinary, a considerable quantity of energy and industry, and an

unconquerable love of independence. It narrates his earliest dreams and

feelings, dwells with minuteness on the ways, words, and characters of

his father, mother, and brother, lingers on the occasional resting-places

of his wandering half military childhood, describes the gradual hardening

of his bodily frame by robust exercises, his successive struggles, after

his family and himself have settled down in a small local capital, to

obtain knowledge of every kind, but more particularly philological lore;

his visits to the tent of the Romany chal, and the parlour of the Anglo-

German philosopher; the effect produced upon his character by his

flinging himself into contact with people all widely differing from each

other, but all extraordinary; his reluctance to settle down to the

ordinary pursuits of life; his struggles after moral truth; his glimpses

of God and the obscuration of the Divine Being, to his mind's eye; and

his being cast upon the world of London by the death of his father, at

the age of nineteen. In the world within a world, the world of London,

it shows him playing his part for some time as he best can, in the

capacity of a writer for reviews and magazines, and describes what he saw

and underwent whilst labouring in that capacity; it represents him,

however, as never forgetting that he is the son of a brave but poor

gentleman, and that if he is a hack author, he is likewise a scholar. It

shows him doing no dishonourable jobs, and proves that if he occasionally

associates with low characters, he does so chiefly to gratify the

curiosity of a scholar. In his conversations with the apple-woman of

London Bridge, the scholar is ever apparent, so again in his acquaintance

with the man of the table, for the book is no raker up of the uncleanness

of London, and if it gives what at first sight appears refuse, it

invariably shows that a pearl of some kind, generally a philological one,

is contained amongst it; it shows its hero always accompanied by his love

of independence, scorning in the greatest poverty to receive favours from

anybody, and describes him finally rescuing himself from peculiarly

miserable circumstances by writing a book, an original book, within a

week, even as Johnson is said to have written his "Rasselas," and

Beckford his "Vathek," and tells how, leaving London, he betakes himself

to the roads and fields.

In the country it shows him leading a life of roving adventure, becoming

tinker, gypsy, postillion, ostler; associating with various kinds of

people, chiefly of the lower classes, whose ways and habits are

described; but, though leading this erratic life, we gather from the book

that his habits are neither vulgar nor vicious, that he still follows to

a certain extent his favourite pursuits, hunting after strange

characters, or analysing strange words and names. At the conclusion of

the last chapter, which terminates the first part of the history, it

hints that he is about to quit his native land on a grand philological

expedition.

Those who read this book with attention--and the author begs to observe

that it would be of little utility to read it hurriedly--may derive much

information with respect to matters of philology and literature; it will

be found treating of most of the principal languages from Ireland to

China, and of the literature which they contain; and it is particularly

minute with regard to the ways, manners, and speech of the English

section of the most extraordinary and mysterious clan or tribe of people

to be found in the whole world--the children of Roma. But it contains

matters of much more importance than anything in connection with

philology, and the literature and manners of nations. Perhaps no work

was ever offered to the public in which the kindness and providence of

God have been set forth by more striking examples, or the machinations of

priestcraft been more truly and lucidly exposed, or the dangers which

result to a nation when it abandons itself to effeminacy, and a rage for

what is novel and fashionable, than the present.

With respect to the kindness and providence of God, are they not

exemplified in the case of the old apple-woman and her son? These are

beings in many points bad, but with warm affections, who, after an

agonizing separation, are restored to each other, but not until the

hearts of both are changed and purified by the influence of affliction.

Are they not exemplified in the case of the rich gentleman, who touches

objects in order to avert the evil chance? This being has great gifts

and many amiable qualities, but does not everybody see that his besetting

sin is selfishness? He fixes his mind on certain objects, and takes

inordinate interest in them, because they are his own, and those very

objects, through the providence of God, which is kindness in disguise,

become snakes and scorpions to whip him. Tired of various pursuits, he

at last becomes an author, and publishes a book, which is very much

admired, and which he loves with his usual inordinate affection; the

book, consequently, becomes a viper to him, and at last he flings it

aside and begins another; the book, however, is not flung aside by the

world, who are benefited by it, deriving pleasure and knowledge from it:

so the man who merely wrote to gratify self, has already done good to

others, and got himself an honourable name. But God will not allow that

man to put that book under his head and use it as a pillow: the book has

become a viper to him, he has banished it, and is about another, which he

finishes and gives to the world; it is a better book than the first, and

every one is delighted with it; but it proves to the writer a scorpion,

because he loves it with inordinate affection; but it was good for the

world that he produced this book, which stung him as a scorpion. Yes;

and good for himself, for the labour of writing it amused him, and

perhaps prevented him from dying of apoplexy; but the book is banished,

and another is begun, and herein, again, is the providence of God

manifested; the man has the power of producing still, and God determines

that he shall give to the world what remains in his brain, which he would

not do, had he been satisfied with the second work; he would have gone to

sleep upon that as he would upon the first, for the man is selfish and

lazy. In his account of what he suffered during the composition of this

work, his besetting sin of selfishness is manifest enough; the work on

which he is engaged occupies his every thought, it is his idol, his

deity, it shall be all his own, he won't borrow a thought from any one

else, and he is so afraid lest, when he publishes it, that it should be

thought that he had borrowed from any one, that he is continually

touching objects, his nervous system, owing to his extreme selfishness,

having become partly deranged. He is left touching, in order to banish

the evil chance from his book, his deity. No more of his history is

given; but does the reader think that God will permit that man to go to

sleep on his third book, however extraordinary it may be? Assuredly not.

God will not permit that man to rest till he has cured him to a certain

extent of his selfishness, which has, however, hitherto been very useful

to the world.

Then, again, in the tale of Peter Williams, is not the hand of Providence

to be seen? This person commits a sin in his childhood, utters words of

blasphemy, the remembrance of which, in after life, preying upon his

imagination, unfits him for quiet pursuits, to which he seems to have

been naturally inclined; but for the remembrance of that sin, he would

have been Peter Williams the quiet and respectable Welsh farmer, somewhat

fond of reading the ancient literature of his country in winter evenings,

after his work was done. God, however, was aware that there was

something in Peter Williams to entitle him to assume a higher calling; he

therefore permits this sin, which, though a childish affair, was yet a

sin, and committed deliberately, to prey upon his mind till he becomes at

last an instrument in the hand of God, a humble Paul, the great preacher,

Peter Williams, who, though he considers himself a reprobate and a

castaway, instead of having recourse to drinking in mad desperation, as

many do who consider themselves reprobates, goes about Wales and England

preaching the word of God, dilating on his power and majesty, and

visiting the sick and afflicted, until God sees fit to restore to him his

peace of mind; which he does not do, however, until that mind is in a

proper condition to receive peace, till it has been purified by the pain

of the one idea which has so long been permitted to riot in his brain;

which pain, however, an angel, in the shape of a gentle faithful wife,

had occasionally alleviated; for God is merciful even in the blows which

He bestoweth, and will not permit any one to be tempted beyond the

measure which he can support. And here it will be as well for the reader

to ponder upon the means by which the Welsh preacher is relieved from his

mental misery: he is not relieved by a text from the Bible, by the words

of consolation and wisdom addressed to him by his angel-minded wife, nor

by the preaching of one yet more eloquent than himself; but by a

quotation made by Lavengro from the life of Mary Flanders, cut-purse and

prostitute, which life Lavengro had been in the habit of reading at the

stall of his old friend the apple-woman, on London Bridge, who had

herself been very much addicted to the perusal of it, though without any

profit whatever. Should the reader be dissatisfied with the manner in

which Peter Williams is made to find relief, the author would wish to

answer, that the Almighty frequently accomplishes his purposes by means

which appear very singular to the eyes of men, and at the same time to

observe that the manner in which that relief is obtained, is calculated

to read a lesson to the proud, fanciful, and squeamish, who are ever in a

fidget lest they should be thought to mix with low society, or to bestow

a moment's attention on publications which are not what is called of a

perfectly unobjectionable character. Had not Lavengro formed the

acquaintance of the apple-woman on London Bridge, he would not have had

an opportunity of reading the life of Mary Flanders; and, consequently,

of storing in a memory, which never forgets anything, a passage which

contained a balm for the agonized mind of poor Peter Williams. The best

medicines are not always found in the finest shops. Suppose, for

example, if, instead of going to London Bridge to read, he had gone to

Albemarle Street, and had received from the proprietors of the literary

establishment in that very fashionable street, permission to read the

publications on the tables of the saloons there, does the reader think he

would have met any balm in those publications for the case of Peter

Williams? does the reader suppose that he would have found Mary Flanders

there? He would certainly have found that highly unobjectionable

publication, "Rasselas," and the "Spectator," or "Lives of Royal and

Illustrious Personages," but, of a surety, no Mary Flanders; so when

Lavengro met with Peter Williams, he would have been unprovided with a

balm to cure his ulcerated mind, and have parted from him in a way not

quite so satisfactory as the manner in which he took his leave of him;

for it is certain that he might have read "Rasselas," and all other

unexceptionable works to be found in the library of Albemarle Street,

over and over again, before he would have found any cure in them for the

case of Peter Williams. Therefore the author requests the reader to drop

any squeamish nonsense he may wish to utter about Mary Flanders, and the

manner in which Peter Williams was cured.

And now with respect to the old man who knew Chinese, but could not tell

what was o'clock. This individual was a man whose natural powers would

have been utterly buried and lost beneath a mountain of sloth and

laziness, had not God determined otherwise. He had in his early years

chalked out for himself a plan of life in which he had his own ease and

self-indulgence solely in view; he had no particular bad passions to

gratify, he only wished to live a happy quiet life, just as if the

business of this mighty world could be carried on by innocent people fond

of ease or quiet, or that Providence would permit innocent quiet drones

to occupy any portion of the earth and to cumber it. God had at any rate

decreed that this man should not cumber it as a drone. He brings a

certain affliction upon him, the agony of which produces that terrible

whirling of the brain which, unless it is stopped in time, produces

madness; he suffers indescribable misery for a period, until one morning

his attention is arrested, and his curiosity is aroused, by certain

Chinese letters on a teapot; his curiosity increases more and more, and,

of course, in proportion as his curiosity is increased with respect to

the Chinese marks, the misery in his brain, produced by his mental

affliction, decreases. He sets about learning Chinese, and after the

lapse of many years, during which his mind subsides into a certain state

of tranquillity, he acquires sufficient knowledge of Chinese to be able

to translate with ease the inscriptions to be found on its singular

crockery. Yes, the laziest of human beings, through the Providence of

God, a being too of rather inferior capacity, acquires the written part

of a language so difficult that, as Lavengro said on a former occasion,

none but the cleverest people in Europe, the French, are able to acquire

it. But God did not intend that man should merely acquire Chinese. He

intended that he should be of use to his species, and by the

instrumentality of the first Chinese inscription which he translates, the

one which first arrested his curiosity, he is taught the duty of

hospitality; yes, by means of an inscription in the language of a people,

who have scarcely an idea of hospitality themselves, God causes the

slothful man to play a useful and beneficent part in the world, relieving

distressed wanderers, and, amongst others, Lavengro himself. But a

striking indication of the man's surprising sloth is still apparent in

what he omits to do; he has learnt Chinese, the most difficult of

languages, and he practises acts of hospitality, because he believes

himself enjoined to do so by the Chinese inscription, but he cannot tell

the hour of the day by the clock within his house; he can get on, he

thinks, very well without being able to do so; therefore from this one

omission, it is easy to come to a conclusion as to what a sluggard's part

the man would have played in life, but for the dispensation of

Providence; nothing but extreme agony could have induced such a man to do

anything useful. He still continues, with all he has acquired, with all

his usefulness, and with all his innocence of character, without any

proper sense of religion, though he has attained a rather advanced age.

If it be observed, that this want of religion is a great defect in the

story, the author begs leave to observe that he cannot help it. Lavengro

relates the lives of people so far as they were placed before him, but no

further. It was certainly a great defect in so good a man to be without

religion; it was likewise a great defect in so learned a man not to be

able to tell what was o'clock. It is probable that God, in his loving

kindness, will not permit that man to go out of the world without

religion; who knows but some powerful minister of the church full of zeal

for the glory of God, will illume that man's dark mind; perhaps some

clergyman will come to the parish who will visit him and teach him his

duty to his God. Yes, it is very probable that such a man, before he

dies, will have been made to love his God; whether he will ever learn to

know what's o'clock is another matter. It is probable that he will go

out of the world without knowing what's o'clock. It is not so necessary

to be able to tell the time of day by the clock as to know one's God

through His inspired word; a man cannot get to heaven without religion,

but a man can get there very comfortably without knowing what's o'clock.

But, above all, the care and providence of God are manifested in the case

of Lavengro himself, by the manner in which he is enabled to make his way

in the world up to a certain period, without falling a prey either to

vice or poverty. In his history, there is a wonderful illustration of

part of the text, quoted by his mother, "I have been young, but now am

old, yet never saw I the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging his

bread." He is the son of good and honourable parents, but at the

critical period of life, that of entering into the world, he finds

himself without any earthly friend to help him, yet he manages to make

his way; he does not become a Captain in the Life Guards, it is true, nor

does he get into Parliament, nor does the last volume conclude in the

most satisfactory and unobjectionable manner, by his marrying a dowager

countess, as that wise man Addison did, or by his settling down as a

great country gentleman, perfectly happy and contented, like the very

moral Roderick Random, or the equally estimable Peregrine Pickle; he is

hack author, gypsy, tinker, and postillion, yet, upon the whole, he seems

to be quite as happy as the younger sons of most earls, to have as high

feelings of honour; and when the reader loses sight of him, he has money

in his pocket honestly acquired, to enable him to commence a journey

quite as laudable as those which the younger sons of earls generally

undertake. Surely all this is a manifestation of the kindness and

providence of God: and yet he is not a religious person; up to the time

when the reader loses sight of him, he is decidedly not a religious

person; he has glimpses, it is true, of that God who does not forsake

him, but he prays very seldom, is not fond of going to church; and,

though he admires Tate and Brady's version of the Psalms, his admiration

is rather caused by the beautiful poetry which that version contains than

the religion; yet his tale is not finished--like the tale of the

gentleman who touched objects, and that of the old man who knew Chinese

without knowing what was o'clock; perhaps, like them, he is destined to

become religious, and to have, instead of occasional glimpses, frequent

and distinct views of his God; yet, though he may become religious, it is

hardly to be expected that he will become a very precise and

straightlaced person; it is probable that he will retain, with his

scholarship, something of his gypsyism, his predilection for the hammer

and tongs, and perhaps some inclination to put on certain gloves, not

white kid, with any friend who may be inclined for a little old English

diversion, and a readiness to take a glass of ale, with plenty of malt in

it, and as little hop as may well be--ale at least two years old--with

the aforesaid friend, when the diversion is over; for, as it is the

belief of the writer that a person may get to heaven very comfortably

without knowing what's o'clock, so it is his belief that he will not be

refused admission there, because to the last he has been fond of healthy

and invigorating exercises, and felt a willingness to partake of any of

the good things which it pleases the Almighty to put within the reach of

his children during their sojourn upon earth.