We have never heard of any one who, discovering the fictitious character
of a novel he had believed as a fact, waited on the publisher with a
modest request that his money might be returned to him, being obtained
under false pretences; much less of his applying to his worship for a
warrant against G. P. R. James, Esq., or Harrison Ainsworth, for certain
imaginary woes and unreal sorrows depicted in their writings: yet the
conduct of the lady towards Mr. Cavanagh was exactly of this nature. How
did his appetite do her any possible disservice? what sins against her
soul were contained in his sausages? and yet she must appeal to the
justice as an injured woman: Cavanagh had imposed upon her--she
was wronged because he was hungry. All his narrative, beautifully
constructed and artfully put together, went for nothing; his look, his
manner, his entertaining anecdotes, his fascinating conversation, his
time--from ten in the morning till eight in the evening--went all for
nothing: this really is too bad. Do we ask of every author to be the
hero he describes? Is Bulwer, Pelham, and Paul Clifford, Eugene Aram,
and the Lady of Lyons? Is James, Mary of Burgundy, Darnley, the
Gipsy, and Corse de Leon? Is Dickens, Sara Weller, Quilp, and Barnaby
Rudge?--to what absurdities will this lead us! and yet Bernard Cavanagh
was no more guilty than any of these gentlemen. He was, if I may so
express it, a pictorial--an ideal representation of a man that fasted:
he narrated all the sensations want of food suggests; its dreamy
debility, its languid stupor, its painful suffering, its stage of
struggle and suspense, ending in a victory, where the mind, the
conqueror over the baser nature, asserts its proud and glorious
supremacy in the triumph of volition; and for this beautiful creation of
his brain he is sent to the treadmill, as though, instead of a poet, he
had been a pickpocket.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account