Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861

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My second letter was the only sort of letter that it could be,--an
account of my own conjectures about him, and of my regret that I could
see no probability of my being of use to him, except in as far as my
experience of many troubles might enable me to speak suitably to him. I
added some few words on the dangers attending any sort of trouble, when
too keenly felt.

In answer to my first note came a few lines, telling me that the purpose
of his application was mainly answered, and that my reply was of
altogether greater consequence than I could have any idea of. He was
less unhappy now, and believed he should never be so desperately
wretched again. Wild as this might appear, I was still persuaded that he
was not insane.

By the next post came a rather bulky packet. It contained, besides a
letter from him, two or three old parchment documents, which showed that
Patrick's forefathers had filled some chief municipal offices in the
city in which the family had been settled for several generations. I had
divined that Patrick was a gentleman; and he now showed me that he came
of a good and honorable family, and had been well-educated. He was an
orphan, and had not a relation in the world,--if I remember right. It
was evident that he was poor; but he did not ask for money, nor seem to
write on that account. He aspired to a literary life, and believed
he should have done so, even if he had had the means of professional
education. But he did not ask me for aid in trying his powers in
literature. It was very perplexing; and the fact became presently clear
that he expected me to tell him how I could be of use to him,--he being
in no way able to afford me that information. I may as well give here
the key to the mystery, which I had to wait for for some time. When poor
Patrick was in a desperate condition,--very ill, in a lodging of which
he could not pay the rent,--threatened with being turned into the street
as soon as the thing could be done without danger to his life,--galled
with a sense of disgrace, and full of impotent wrath against an
oppressor,--and even suffering under deeper griefs than these,--at such
a time, the worn man fell asleep, and dreamed that I looked kindly upon
him. This happened three times; and on this ground, and this alone, he
applied to me for comfort.

Before I learned this much, I had taken upon me to advise freely
whatever occurred to me as best, finding Patrick entirely docile under
my suggestions. Among other things, I advised him not to take offence,
or assume any reserve, if a gentleman should call on him, with a desire
to be of use to him. A gentleman did call, and was of eminent use to
him. I had written to a benevolent friend of mine, a chief citizen of
Dublin, begging him to obtain for me, through some trusty clerk or other
messenger, some information as to what Patrick was like,--how old he
was, what he was doing, and whether anything effectual could be done for
him. Mr. H. went himself. He found Patrick sitting over a little fire
in a little room, his young face thin and flushed, and his thin hands
showing fever. He had had inflammation of the lungs, and, though he
talked cheerfully, he was yet very far from well. Mr. H. was charmed
with him. He found in him no needless reserves, and not so much
sensitive pride as we had feared. Patrick had great hopes of sufficient
employment, when once he could get out and go and see about it; and he
pointed out two or three directions in which he believed he could obtain
engagements. Two things, however, were plain: that there was some
difficulty about getting out, and that his mind was set upon going
to London at the first possible moment. He had not only the ordinary
provincial ambition to achieve an entrance into the London literary
world, but he had another object: he could serve his country best in
London. Mr. H. easily divined the nature of the obstacle to his going
out into the fresh air which he needed so much; and in a few days
Patrick had a good suit of clothes. This was Mr. H.'s doing; and he also
removed the danger of Patrick's being turned out of his lodging.
The landlord had no wish to do such a thing; the young man was a
gentleman,--regular and self-denying in his habits, and giving no
trouble that he could help: but he had been very ill; and it was so
desolate! Nobody came to see him; no letters arrived for him; no
money was coming in, it was clear; and he could not go on living
there,--starving, in fact.

Once able to go about again, Patrick cheered up; but it was plain that
there was one point on which he would not be ruled. He would not stay
in Dublin, under any inducement whatever; and he would go to London.
I wrote very plainly to him about the risk he was running,--even
describing the desolate condition of the unsuccessful literary
adventurer in the dreary peopled wilderness, in which the friendless may
lie down and die alone, as the starved animal lies down and perishes in
the ravine in the desert. I showed him how impossible it was for me or
anybody to help him, except with a little money, till he had shown what
he could do; and I entreated him to wait two years,--one year,--six
months, before rushing on such a fate. Here, and here alone, he was
self-willed. At first he explained to me that he had one piece of
employment to rely on. He was to be the London correspondent of the
Repeal organ in Dublin,--the "Nation" newspaper. The pay was next to
nothing. He could not live, ever so frugally, on four times the amount:
but it was an engagement; and it would enable him to serve his country.
So, as there was nothing else to be done, Mr. H. started him for London,
with just money enough to carry him there. Once there, he was sure he
should do very well.

I doubted this; and he was met, at the address he gave, (at an Irish
greengrocer's, the only person he knew in London,) by an order for money
enough to carry him over two or three weeks,--money given by two or
three friends to whom I ventured to open the case. I have seldom read
a happier letter than Patrick's first from London; but it was not even
then, nor for some time after, that he told me the main reason of his
horror at remaining in Dublin.

He had hoped to support himself as a tutor while studying and practising
for the literary profession; and he had been engaged to teach the
children of a rich citizen,--not only the boys, but the daughter. He, an
engaging youth of three-and-twenty, with blue eyes and golden hair, an
innocent and noble expression of countenance, an open heart, a glowing
imagination, and an eloquent tongue, was set to teach Latin and literary
composition to a pretty, warm-hearted, romantic girl of twenty; and when
they were in love and engaged, the father considered himself the victim
of the basest treachery that ever man suffered under. In vain the young
people pleaded for leave to love and wait till Patrick could provide a
home for his wife. They asked no favor but to be let alone. Patrick's
family was as good as hers; and he had the education and manners of a
gentleman, without any objectionable habits or tastes, but with every
possible desire to win an honorable home for his beloved. I am not sure,
but I think there was a moment when they thought of eloping some day,
if nothing but the paternal displeasure intervened between them and
happiness; but it was not yet time for this. There was much to be done
first. What the father did first was to turn Patrick out of the house,
under such circumstances of ignominy as he could devise. What he did
next was the blow which broke the poor fellow down. Patrick had written
a letter, in answer to the treatment he had received, in which he
expressed his feelings as strongly as one might expect. This letter was
made the ground of a complaint at the police-office; and Patrick was
arrested, marched before the magistrate, and arraigned as the sender of
a threatening letter to a citizen. In vain he protested that no idea of
threatening anybody had been in his mind. The letter, as commented on by
his employer, was pronounced sufficiently menacing to justify his being
bound over to keep the peace towards this citizen and all his family.
The intention was, no doubt, to disgrace him, and put him out of the
question as a suitor; for no man could pretend to be really afraid of
violence from a candid youth like Patrick, who loved the daughter too
well to lift a finger against any one connected with her. The scheme
succeeded; for he believed it had broken his heart. He supposed himself
utterly disgraced in Dublin; and he could live there no longer. Hence
his self-will about going to London.

In addition to this personal, there was a patriotic view. Very early in
our correspondence, Patrick told me that he was a Repealer. He fancied
himself a very moderate one, and likely on that account to do the more
good. Those were the days of O'Connell's greatest power; or, if it was
on the wane, no one yet recognized any change. Patrick knew one of the
younger O'Connells, and had been flatteringly noticed by the great Dan
himself, who had approved the idea of his going to London, hoped to see
him there some day, and had prophesied that this young friend of his
would do great things for the cause by his pen, and be conspicuous among
the saviours of Ireland. Patrick's head was not quite turned by this;
and he lamented, in his letters to me, the plans proposed and the
language held by the common run of O'Connell's followers. Those were the
days when the Catholic peasantry believed that "Repale" would make every
man the owner of the land he lived on, or of that which he wished to
live on; and the great Dan did not disabuse them. Those were the days
when poor men believed that "Repale" would release every one from the
debts he owed; and Dan did not contradict it. When Dan was dead, the
consequence of his not contradicting it was that a literal-minded fellow
here and there shot the creditor who asked for payment of the coat, or
the pig, or the meal. For all this delusion Patrick was sorry. He was
sorry to hear Protestant shopmen wishing for the day when Dublin streets
would be knee-deep in Catholic blood, and to hear Catholic shopmen
reciprocating the wish in regard to Protestant blood. He was anxious to
make me understand that he had no such notions, and that he even thought
O'Connell mistaken in appearing to countenance such mistakes. But still
he, Patrick, was a Repealer; and he wished me to know precisely what he
meant by that, and what he proposed to do in consequence. He thought it
a sin and shame that Ireland should be trodden under the heel of the
Saxon; he thought the domination of the English Parliament intolerable;
he considered it just that the Irish should make their own laws, own
their own soil, and manage their own affairs. He had no wish to bring in
the French, or any other enemy of England; and he was fully disposed to
be loyal to the Crown, if the Crown would let Ireland entirely alone.
Even the constant persecution inflicted upon Ireland had not destroyed
his loyalty to the Crown. Such were the views on which his letters to
the "Nation" newspaper were to be grounded. In reply, I contented myself
with proposing that he should make sure of his ground as he went along;
for which purpose he should ascertain what proportion of the people of
Ireland wished for a repeal of the Union; and what sort of people they
were who desired Repeal on the one hand, or continued Union on the
other. I hoped he would satisfy himself as to what Repeal could
and could not effect; and that he would study the history of Irish
Parliaments, to learn what the character and bearing of their
legislation had been, and to estimate the chances of good government by
that kind of legislature, in comparison with the Imperial Parliament.

If any foreign reader should suppose it impossible, that, in modern
times, there can have been hopes entertained in Dublin of the streets
being inundated with blood, such reader may be referred to the evidence
afforded of Repeal sentiment five years later than the time of which I
write. When the heroes of that rising of 1848--of whom John Mitchell
is the sample best known in America--were tracked in their plans and
devices, it appeared what their proposed methods of warfare were. Some
of these, detailed in Repeal newspapers, and copied into American
journals, were proposed to the patriotic women of Ireland, as their
peculiar means of serving their country; and three especially. Red-hot
iron hoops, my readers may remember, were to be cast down from
balconies, so as to pin the arms of English soldiers marching in the
street, and scorch their hearts. Vitriol was to be flung into their
eyes. Boiling oil was to be poured upon them from windows. This is
enough. Nobody believes that the thing would ever have been done; but
the lively and repeated discussion of it shows how the feelings of the
ignorant are perverted, and the passions of party-men are stimulated in
Ireland, when unscrupulous leaders arise, proposing irrational projects.
The consequences have been seen in Popish and Protestant fights in
Ulster, and in the midnight drill of Phoenix Clubs in Munster, and in
John Mitchell's passion for fat negroes in the Slave States of America.
In Ireland such notions are regarded now as a delirious dream, except
by a John Mitchell here and there. Smith O'Brien himself declares that
there is nothing to be done while the people of Ireland are satisfied
with the government they live under; and that, if it were otherwise,
nothing can be done for a people which either elects jobbers to
Parliament, or suspects every man of being a traitor who proceeds, when
there, to do the business of his function. I suspected that Patrick
would find out some of these things for himself in London; and I left
him to make his own discoveries, when I had pointed out one or two paths
of inquiry.

The process was a more rapid one than I had anticipated. He reported his
first letter to the "Nation" with great satisfaction. He had begun his
work in London. He went to the House of Commons, and came away sorely
perplexed. After having heard and written so much of the wrongs of
Ireland under the domination of the English Parliament, he found that
Ireland actually and practically formed a part of that Parliament,--the
legislature being, not English, but Imperial. He must have known this
before; but he had never felt it. He now saw that Ireland was as well
represented as England or Scotland; that political offices were held in
fair proportion by Irishmen; and that the Irish members engrossed much
more than a fair share of the national time in debate and projects of
legislation. He saw at once that here was an end of all excuse for talk
of oppression by Parliament, and of all complaints which assumed that
Ireland was unrepresented. He was previously aware that Ireland was
more lightly taxed than the rest of the empire. The question remained,
whether a local legislature would or would not be a better thing than a
share in the Imperial Parliament. This was a fair subject of argument;
but he must now dismiss all notions grounded on the mistake of Ireland
being unrepresented, and oppressed by the representatives of other
people.

In the letter which disclosed these new views Patrick reported his visit
to O'Connell. He had reminded his friend, the junior O'Connell, of Dan's
invitation to him to go to see him in London; and he had looked forward
to their levee with delight and expectation. Whether he had candidly
expressed his thoughts about the actual representation of Ireland, I
don't know; but it was plain that he had not much enjoyed the interview.
O'Connell looked very well: the levee was crowded: O'Connell was
surrounded by ardent patriots: the junior O'Connell had led Patrick up
to his father with particular kindness. Still, there was no enthusiasm
in the report; and the next letter showed the reason why. Patrick could
not understand O'Connell at all. It was certain that Dan remembered him;
and he could not have forgotten the encouragement he gave him to write
on behalf of his country; yet now he was cold, even repellent in his
manner; and he tried to pretend that he did not know who Patrick was.
What could this mean?

Again I trusted to Patrick's finding out for himself what it meant. To
be brief about a phase of human experience which has nothing new in it,
Patrick presently saw that the difficulty of governing Ireland by a
local legislature, and executive is this:--that no man is tolerated from
the moment he can do more than talk. Irish members under O'Connell's eye
were for the most part talkers only. Then and since, every Irishman
who accepts the office so vehemently demanded is suspected of a good
understanding with Englishmen, and soon becomes reviled as a traitor
and place-hunter. Between the mere talkers and the proscribed
office-holders, Ireland would get none of her business done, if the
Imperial Government did not undertake affairs, and see that Ireland was
taken care of by somebody or other. Patrick saw that this way of
putting Government in abeyance was a mild copy of what happened when a
Parliament sat in Dublin, perpetrating the most insolent tyranny and the
vilest jobs ever witnessed under any representative system. He told me,
very simply, that the people of Ireland should send to Parliament men
whom they could trust, and should trust them to act when there: the
people should either demand a share of office for their countrymen, or
make up their minds to go without; they ought not first to demand office
for Irishmen, and then call every Irishman a traitor and self-seeker who
took it. In a very short time he told me that he found he had much to
unlearn as well as learn: that many things of which he had been most
sure now turned out to be mistakes, and many very plain matters to be
exceedingly complicated; but that the one thing about which there could
be no mistake was, that, in such a state of opinion, he was no proper
guide for the readers of the "Nation," and he had accordingly sent in
his resignation of his appointment, together with some notices to the
editor of the different light in which Irish matters appear outside the
atmosphere of Repeal meetings.

In thus cutting loose from his only means of pecuniary support, Patrick
forfeited also his patriotic character. He was as thoroughly ruined in
the eyes of Repealers as if he had denounced the "Saxon" one hour and
the next crept into some warm place in the Custom-House on his knees.
Here ended poor Patrick's short political life, after, I think, two
letters to the "Nation," and here ended all hope of aid from his
countrymen in London. His letter was very moving. He knew himself to be
mortified by O'Connell's behavior to him; but he felt that he could not
submit to be regarded with suspicion because he had come to see for
himself how matters stood. He did not give up Repeal yet: he only wanted
to study the case on better knowledge; and in order to have a
perfectly clear conscience and judgment, he gave up his only pecuniary
resource,--his love and a future home being in the distance, and always
in view, all the time. Here, in spite of some lingering of old hopes,
two scenes of his young life had closed. His Irish life was over, and
his hope of political service.

I had before written about him to two or three literary friends in
London; and now I felt bound to see what could be done in opening a way
for him. He had obtained the insertion of a tale in a magazine, for
which he had one guinea in payment. This raised his spirits, and gave
him a hope of independence; for it was a parting of the clouds, and
there was no saying how much sunlight might be let down. He was willing
to apply himself to any drudgery; but his care to undertake nothing that
he was not sure of doing well was very striking. He might have obtained
good work as classical proof-corrector; but he feared, that, though his
classical attainments were good, his training had not qualified him
for the necessary accuracy. He had some employment of the sort, if I
remember right, which defrayed a portion of his small expenses. His
expenses were indeed small. He told me all his little gains and his
weekly outlay; and I was really afraid that he did not allow himself
sufficient food. Yet he knew that there was a little money in my hands,
when he wanted it. His letters became now very gay in spirits. He keenly
relished the society into which he was invited; and, on the other hand,
everybody liked him. It was amusing to me, in my sick room, three
hundred miles off, to hear of the impression he made, with his
innocence, his fresh delight in his new life, his candor, his modesty,
and his bright cleverness,--and then, again, to learn how diligently he
had set about learning what I, his correspondent, was really like. In
his dreams he had seen me very aged,--he thought upwards of eighty; and
he had never doubted of the fact being so. In one letter he told me,
that, finding a brother of mine was then in London, he was going that
afternoon to a public meeting to see him, in order to have some idea of
my aspect. A mutual friend told me afterwards that Patrick had come away
quite bewildered and disappointed. He had expected to see in my brother
a gray-haired ancient; whereas he found a man under forty. I really
believe he was disturbed that his dreams had misled him. Yet I never
observed any other sign of superstition in him.

At last the happy day came when he had a literary task worthy of him,--a
sort of test of his capacity for reviewing. One of the friends to whom
I had introduced him was then sub-editor of the "Athenaeum,"--a weekly
periodical of higher reputation at that time than now. Patrick was
commissioned to review a book of some weight and consequence,--Sir
Robert Kane's "Industrial Resources of Ireland,"--and he did it so well
that the conductors hoped to give him a good deal of employment. What
they gave him would have led to more; and thus he really was justified
in his exultation at having come to London. I remember, that, in the
midst of his joy, he startled me by some light mention of his having
spit blood, after catching cold,--a thing which had happened before in
Ireland. In answer to my inquiries, my friends told me that he certainly
looked very delicate, but made light of it. It happened, unfortunately,
that he was obliged just then to change his lodging. He increased his
cold by going about in bad weather to look for another. He found one,
however, and settled himself, in hope of doing great things there.

He had not been there a week before he rang his bell one day, and was
found bleeding from the lungs. His landlady called in a physician;
and it is probable that this gentleman did not know or suspect the
circumstances of his patient; for he not only ordered ice and various
expensive things, but took fees, while the poor patient was lying
forbidden to speak, and gnawed with anxiety as to where more money was
to come from, and with eagerness to get to work. His friends soon found
him out in his trouble; and I understood from him afterwards, and from
others who knew more about it than he did, that they were extremely
kind. I believe that one left a bank-note of a considerable amount at
the door, in a blank envelope. All charges were defrayed, and he was
bidden not to be anxious. Yet something must be done. What must it be?

As soon as he was allowed to raise his head from his pillow, he wrote me
a note in pencil; and it afforded an opening for discussing his affairs
with him. He had some impression of his life's being in danger; for it
was now that he confided to me the whole story of his attachment, and
the sufferings attending it: but he was still sanguine about doing great
things in literature, and chafing at his unwilling idleness. I was
strongly of opinion that the best way of dealing with him was to be
perfectly open; and, after proposing that we should have no reserves, I
told him what (proceeding on his own report of his health) I should in
his place decide upon doing. His pride would cause him some pain in
either of the two courses which were open to him,--but, I thought, more
in one than the other. If he remained in his lodgings, he would break
his heart about being a burden (as he would say) to his friends; and he
would fret after work so as to give himself no chance of such recovery
as might be hoped for: whereas, if he could once cheerfully agree to
enter a hospital, he would have every chance of rallying, and all the
sooner for being free from any painful sense of obligation. If the
treatment should succeed, this passage in his life would be something to
smile at hereafter, or to look back upon with sound satisfaction; and if
not, he would have friends about him, just as he would in a lodging.

The effect was what I wished. My letter gave no offence, and did him no
harm. He only begged for a few days more, before deciding that he might
satisfy himself whether he was getting well or not: if not, he would
cheerfully go wherever his friends advised, and believe that the plan
was the best for him.

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