The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, September, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, September, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
Having thus, as he thought, safely provided for his two young charges,
Helen and Leonard, the Doctor then gave himself up to his final
preparations for departure. He left a short note for Leonard with Mr.
Prickett, containing some brief advice, some kind cheering; a
postscript to the effect that he had not communicated to Mrs. Avenel
the information Leonard had acquired, and that it were best to leave
her in that ignorance; and six small powders to be dissolved in water,
and a tea-spoonful every fourth hour--"Sovereign against rage and
sombre thoughts," wrote the Doctor. By the evening of the next day Dr.
Morgan, accompanied by his pet patient with the chronic tic, whom he
had talked into exile, was on the steamboat on his way to Ostend.
Leonard resumed his life at Mr. Prickett's; but the change in him did
not escape the bookseller. All his ingenious simplicity had deserted
him. He was very distant, and very taciturn; he seemed to have grown
much older. I shall not attempt to analyze metaphysically this change.
By the help of such words as Leonard may himself occasionally let
fall, the reader will dive into the boy's heart, and see how there the
change had worked, and is working still. The happy dreamy
peasant-genius, gazing on glory with inebriate, undazzled eyes, is no
more. It is a man, suddenly cut off from the old household holy
ties--conscious of great powers, and confronted on all sides by
barriers of iron--alone with hard reality, and scornful London; and if
he catches a glimpse of the lost Helicon, he sees, where he saw the
muse, a pale melancholy spirit veiling its face in shame--the ghost of
the mournful mother, whose child has no name, not even the humblest,
among the family of men.
On the second evening after Dr. Morgan's departure, as Leonard was
just about to leave the shop, a customer stepped in with a book in
his hand which he had snatched from the shop-boy, who was removing the
volumes for the night from the booth without.
"Mr. Prickett, Mr. Prickett!" said the customer, "I am ashamed of you.
You presume to put upon this work, in two volumes, the sum of eight
shillings."
Mr. Prickett stepped forth from the Cimmerian gloom of some recess,
and cried, "What! Mr. Burley, is that you? But for your voice I should
not have known you."
"Man is like a book, Mr. Prickett; the commonalty only look to his
binding. I am better bound, it is very true."
Leonard glanced towards the speaker, who now stood under the gas-lamp,
and thought he recognized his face. He looked again; yes, it was the
perch-fisher whom he had met on the banks of the Brent, and who had
warned him of the lost fish and the broken line.
_Mr. Burley_ (continuing).--"But 'The Art of Thinking,'--you charge
eight shillings for 'The Art of Thinking?'"
_Mr. Prickett._--"Cheap enough, Mr. Burley. A very clean copy."
_Mr. Burley._--"Usurer! I sold it to you for three shillings. It is
more than 150 per cent. you propose to gain from my 'Art of
Thinking.'"
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