CHAPTER VIII. P. I.

A KIND SCHOOLMASTER AND A HAPPY SCHOOL BOY.

Though happily thou wilt say that wands be to be wrought when they are green, lest they rather break than bend when they be dry, yet know also that he that bendeth a twig because he would see if it would bow by strength may chance to have a crooked tree when he would have a straight.

EUPHUES.             

From this time the two Flossofers were friends. Daniel seldom went to Ingleton without looking in upon Guy, if it were between school hours. Guy on his part would walk as far with him on the way back, as the tether of his own time allowed, and frequently on Saturdays and Sundays he strolled out and took a seat by Daniel's fire side. Even the wearying occupation of hearing one generation of urchins after another repeat a-b-ab, hammering the first rules of arithmetic into leaden heads, and pacing like a horse in a mill the same dull dragging round day after day, had neither diminished Guy's good-nature, nor lessened his love for children. He had from the first conceived a liking for young Daniel, both because of the right principle which was evinced by the manner in which he proposed the question concerning stealing the beans, and of the profound gravity (worthy of a Flossofer's son) with which he behaved in the affair of the moonshine. All that he saw and heard of him tended to confirm this favourable prepossession; and the boy, who had been taught to read in the Bible and in Stowe's Chronicle, was committed to his tuition at seven years of age.

Five days in the week (for in the North of England Saturday as well as Sunday is a Sabbath to the Schoolmaster) did young Daniel after supping his porringer of oat-meal pottage, set off to school, with a little basket containing his dinner in his hand. This provision usually consisted of oat-cake and cheese, the latter in goodly proportion, but of the most frugal quality, whatever cream the milk afforded having been consigned to the butter tub. Sometimes it was a piece of cold bacon or of cold pork; and in winter there was the luxury of a shred pie, which is a coarse north country edition of the pie abhorred by puritans. The distance was in those days called two miles; but miles of such long measure that they were for him a good hour's walk at a cheerful pace. He never loitered on the way, being at all times brisk in his movements, and going to school with a spirit as light as when he returned from it, like one whose blessed lot it was never to have experienced, and therefore never to stand in fear of severity or unkindness. For he was not more a favorite with Guy for his docility, and regularity and diligence, than he was with his schoolfellows for his thorough good nature and a certain original oddity of humour.

There are some boys who take as much pleasure in exercising their intellectual faculties, as others do when putting forth the power of arms and legs in boisterous exertion. Young Daniel was from his childhood fond of books. William Dove used to say he was a chip of the old block; and this hereditary disposition was regarded with much satisfaction by both parents, Dinah having no higher ambition nor better wish for her son, than that he might prove like his father in all things. This being the bent of his nature, the boy having a kind master as well as a happy home, never tasted of what old Lily calls (and well might call) the wearisome bitterness of the scholar's learning. He was never subject to the brutal discipline of the Udals and Busbys and Bowyers, and Parrs and other less notorious tyrants who have trodden in their steps; nor was any of that inhuman injustice ever exercised upon him to break his spirit, for which it is to be hoped Dean Colet has paid in Purgatory;—to be hoped, I say, because if there be no Purgatory, the Dean may have gone farther and fared worse. Being the only Latiner in the school his lessons were heard with more interest and less formality. Guy observed his progress with almost as much delight and as much hope as Daniel himself. A schoolmaster who likes his vocation feels toward the boys who deserve his favour something like a thrifty and thriving father toward the children for whom he is scraping together wealth; he is contented that his humble and patient industry should produce fruit not for himself, but for them, and looks with pride to a result in which it is impossible for him to partake, and which in all likelihood he may never live to see. Even some of the old Phlebotomists have had this feeling to redeem them.

“Sir,” says the Compositor to the Corrector of the Press, “there is no heading in the Copy for this Chapter. What must I do?”

“Leave a space for it,” the Corrector replies. “It is a strange sort of book; but I dare say the Author has a reason for every thing that he says or does, and most likely you will find out his meaning as you set up.”

Right Mr. Corrector! you are a judicious person, free from the common vice of finding fault with what you do not understand. My meaning will be explained presently. And having thus prologized, we will draw a line if you please, and begin.

Ten measures of garrulity, says the Talmud, were sent down upon the earth, and the women took nine.

I have known in my time eight terrific talkers; and five of them were of the masculine gender.

But supposing that the Rabbis were right in allotting to the women a ninefold proportion of talkativeness, I confess that I have inherited my mother's share.

I am liberal of my inheritance, and the Public shall have the full benefit of it.

And here if my gentle Public will consider to what profitable uses this gift might have been applied, the disinterestedness of my disposition in having thus benevolently dedicated it to their service, will doubtless be appreciated as it deserves by their discrimination and generosity. Had I carried it to the pulpit, think now how I might have filled the seats, and raised the prices of a private chapel! Had I taken it to the bar, think how I could have mystified a judge, and bamboozled a jury! Had I displayed it in the senate, think how I could have talked against time, for the purpose of delaying a division, till the expected numbers could be brought together; or how efficient a part I could have borne in the patriotic design of impeding the business of a session, prolonging and multiplying the debates, and worrying a minister out of his senses and his life.

Diis aliter visum.—I am what I was to be,—what it is best for myself that I should be,—and for you, my Public, also. The rough-hewn plans of my destination have been better shaped for me by Providence than I could have shaped them for myself.

But to the purpose of this chapter, which is as headless as the Whigs—Observe my Public, I have not said as brainless...If it were, the book would be worth no more than a new Tragedy of Lord Byron's; or an old number of Mr. Jeffrey's Review, when its prophecies have proved false, its blunders have been exposed, and its slander stinks.

Every thing here shall be in order. The digressions into which this gift of discourse may lead me must not interrupt the arrangement of our History. Never shall it be said of the Unknown that “he draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.” We have a journey to perform from Dan to Beersheba, and we must halt occasionally by the way. Matter will arise contingent to the story, correlative to it, or excrescent from it; not necessary to its progress, and yet indispensable for your delight, my gentle Public, and for mine own ease. My Public would not have me stifle the afflatus when I am labouring with it, and in the condition of Elihu as described by himself in the 18th and 19th verses of the xxxii. chapter of the book of Job.

Quemadmodum cælator oculos diu intentos ac fatigatos remittit atque avocat, et, ut dici solet, pascit; sic nos animum aliquando debemus relaxare et quibusdam oblectamentis reficere. Sed ipsa oblectamenta opera sint; ex his quoque si observaveris, sumes quod possit fieri salutare. 1

1 SENECA, Epist. 58.

But that the beautiful structure of this history may in no wise be deranged, such matter shall be distributed into distinct chapters in the way of intercalation; a device of which as it respects the year, Adam is believed to have been the inventor; but according to the Author of the book of Jalkut, it was only transmitted by him to his descendants, being one of the things which he received by revelation.

How then shall these Chapters be annominated? Intercalary they shall not. That word will send some of my readers to Johnson's Dictionary for its meaning; and others to Sheridan, or Walker for its pronunciation. Besides, I have a dislike to all mongrel words, and an especial dislike for strange compounds into which a preposition enters. I owe them a grudge. They make one of the main difficulties in Greek and German.

From our own Calenders we cannot borrow an appellation. In the Republican one of our neighbours, when the revolutionary fever was at its height, the supplemental days were called Sansculottedes. The Spaniards would call them Dias Descamisados. The holders of liberal opinions in England would term them Radical Days. A hint might be taken hence, and we might name them radical chapters, as having the root of the matter in them;—Or ramal, if there were such a word, upon the analogy of the Branch Bible societies. Or ramage as the king of Cockayne hath his Foliage. But they would not be truly and philosophically designated by these names. They are not branches from the tree of this history, neither are they its leaves; but rather choice garlands suspended there to adorn it on festival days. They may be likened to the waste weirs of a canal, or the safety valves of a steam engine; (my gentle Public would not have me stifle the afflatus!)—interludes;—symphonies between the acts;—voluntaries during the service;—resting places on the ascent of a church tower; angular recesses of an old bridge, into which foot passengers may retire from carriages or horsemen;—houses-of-call upon the road; seats by the way side, such as those which were provided by the Man of Ross, or the not less meritorious Woman of Chippenham, Maud Heath of Langley Burrel,—Hospices on the passages of the Alps,—Capes of Good Hope, or Isles of St. Helena,—yea Islands of Tinian or Juan Fernandez, upon the long voyage whereon we are bound.

Leap-chapters they cannot properly be called; and if we were to call them Ha Has! as being chapters which the Reader may leap if he likes, the name would appear rather strained than significant, and might be justly censured as more remarkable for affectation than for aptness. For the same reason I reject the designation of Intermeans, though it hath the sanction of great Ben's authority.

Among the requisites for an accomplished writer Steele enumerates the skill whereby common words are started into new significations. I will not presume so far upon that talent (—modesty forbids me—) as to call these intervening chapters either Interpellations or Interpositions, or Interlocations, or Intervals. Take this Reader for a general rule, that the readiest and plainest style is the most forcible (if the head be but properly stored;) and that in all ordinary cases the word which first presents itself is the best; even as in all matters of right and wrong, the first feeling is that which the heart owns and the conscience ratifies.

But for a new occasion, a new word or a new composite must be formed. Therefore I will strike one in the mint of analogy, in which alone the king's English must be coined, and call them Interchapters—and thus endeth