The Caxtons — Volume 12 eBook

Then I looked on the stately old hall, grand in its forlorn decay.  And the dreams I had begun to cherish at my heart swept over me, and hurried me along, far, far away into the golden land whither Hope beckons youth.  To restore my father’s fortunes; re-weave the links of that broken ambition which had knit his genius with the world; rebuild those fallen walls; cultivate those barren moors; revive the ancient name; glad the old soldier’s age; and be to both the brothers what Roland had lost,—­a son:  these were my dreams; and when I woke from them, to! they had left behind an intense purpose, a resolute object.  Dream, O youth! dream manfully and nobly, and thy dreams shall be prophets!

CHAPTER VI.

Letter From Pisistratus Caxton TO Albert Trevanion, Esq., M.P.

(The confession of a youth who in the Old World finds himself one too many.)

My Dear Mr. Trevanion,—­I thank you cordially, and so we do all, for your reply to my letter informing you of the villanous traps through which we have passed,—­not indeed with whole skins, but still whole in life and limb,—­which, considering that the traps were three, and the teeth sharp, was more than we could reasonably expect.  We have taken to the wastes, like wise foxes as we are, and I do not think a bait can be found that will again snare the fox paternal.  As for the fox filial it is different, and I am about to prove to you that he is burning to redeem the family disgrace.  Ah! my dear Mr. Trevanion, if you are busy with “blue- books” when this letter reaches you, stop here, and put it aside for some rare moment of leisure.  I am about to open my heart to you, and ask you, who know the world so well, to aid me in an escape from those flammantia maenia wherewith I find that world begirt and enclosed.  For look you, sir, you and my father were right when you both agreed that the mere book-life was not meant for me.  And yet what is not book-life, to a young man who would make his way through the ordinary and conventional paths to fortune?  All the professions are so book-lined, book-hemmed, book- choked, that wherever these strong hands of mine stretch towards action, they find themselves met by octavo ramparts, flanked with quarto crenellations.  For first, this college life, opening to scholarships, and ending, perchance, as you political economists would desire, in Malthusian fellowships,—­premiums for celibacy,—­ consider what manner of thing it is!

Three years, book upon book,—­a great Dead Sea before one; three years long, and all the apples that grow on the shore full of the ashes of pica and primer!  Those three years ended, the fellowship, it may be, won,—­still books, books, if the whole world does not close at the college gates.  Do I, from scholar, effloresce into literary man, author by profession?  Books, books!  Do I go into the law?  Books, books!  Ars longa, vita brevis, which,