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Genius in Sunshine and Shadow

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As an example of calm, determined resolve and patience to accomplish an honorable end, we know of nothing more remarkable in connection with authorship or literature than that of Sir Walter Scott's deliberately sitting down to pay off a debt of one hundred and twenty-eight thousand pounds with his pen. Scott considered it a debt of honor, though it was not of his own contracting. Amid the pains and pressure of increasing age he worked on to fulfil this honorable purpose, until in seven years he had paid all but about twenty thousand pounds of this enormous load of debt, when the overwrought brain and body gave out, and he was laid to sleep forever. The great "Wizard of the North" says modestly: "It is with the deepest regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of learning166 which I neglected in my youth; through every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance, and I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if by so doing I could rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning and science."

CHAPTER IX

There seems always to have been a natural attraction in literature which draws from other and less captivating professions. Bryant, Longfellow, and Washington Irving started early in life with the purpose of studying law; so did Bailey the poet, and Prescott the historian, – though each and all abandoned that profession for literature. Beaconsfield served an apprenticeship in an attorney's office in London. Burke, Lockhart, John Wilson, Shirley Brooks, Corneille, Layard, and Buffon began in life as solicitors, but soon drifted into literature. Byron's first poetical efforts were failures; so were those of Bulwer-Lytton and Beaconsfield, both in literature and oratory. "I have begun several times many things, and have succeeded in them at last," said the latter when he was hissed down in the House of Commons. "I shall sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me." He toiled patiently, until the House laughed with him instead of at him.167 Sheridan broke down completely on the occasion of his first effort at public speaking, but declared that it was in him and should come out. Bulwer-Lytton worked his way upwards by slow degrees, and acquired his later facility only by the greatest assiduity and patient application. He wrote at first very slowly and with great difficulty; but he resolved to overcome his slowness of thought, and he succeeded. He was very systematic in his literary work, and rarely wrote more than three hours each day; that is, from ten o'clock in the morning until one. When regularly engaged, the product of a day in latter years amounted to twenty pages of printed matter, such as appear in the regular editions of his novels. Jean Paul Richter's first efforts as a writer were failures; but he possessed genius and the great element of success, – namely, patience. He fought long and hard to attain a position in literature, supporting himself by small contributions to the press, not all of which were accepted or paid for. "I will succeed in making an honorable living by my pen," he said, "or I will starve in the attempt." His triumph was near at hand.168

It is the overcoming of difficulties by heroic perseverance that in no small degree serves to secure and to fix success. "Every noble work is at first impossible," says Carlyle. "Even in social life it is persistency," says Whipple, "which attracts confidence, more than talents and accomplishments."

Thus it will be seen that the greatest geniuses have not commanded success at the outset, but have finally achieved it by deserving it. Voltaire was one of the most brilliant and popular of dramatists; but when "Mariamne" was brought out, it was played but once. The question of its merit was settled oddly enough. The farce which was given after Voltaire's production was entitled "Mourning." "For the deceased play, I suppose," said one of the critics, in the pit; and this decided the fate of the piece. Again, when the "Semirarmis" of Voltaire was acted for the first time, it was far from receiving all the praise which its author anticipated for it. As he was coming from the theatre, he overtook Piron, a less celebrated but brother dramatist, and asked him his opinion of the piece. "I think," said Piron, "you would be very glad if I had written it!"

Dr. Samuel Parr, whom Macaulay pronounced to be the greatest scholar of his age, was a very hard-working literary genius, sensitive more especially to the tender emotions, so that he would weep like a woman when listening to any affecting story. He was very erratic and imaginative, having a special horror of the east wind, which he believed had both a moral and physical power over him. Sheridan knew this very well, and kept the Doctor a prisoner in the house for a whole fortnight by fixing the weathercock in that direction. The Doctor was not without his share of conceit, founded upon the possession of acknowledged talent and ability. He once said in a miscellaneous assembly, pertinent to the subject before the company: "England has produced three great classical scholars: the first was Bentley, the second was Porson, and the third modesty forbids me to mention."

In glancing through the records of the past no name upon the roll of fame strikes the eye of appreciation more pleasantly than that of Sir Philip Sidney, whose life has been called poetry put in action. He lived amid contemporary applause, and his memory is the admiration of all. The bravest of soldiers, he was also the gentlest of sons, equally illustrious for moral qualities and for intellectual genius, controlled by "that chastity of honor which felt a stain like a wound." No incident in history is more familiar than that of this exhausted warrior resigning the cup of water to a fainting soldier, whose need, he said, was greater than his own. Sidney was one of the brightest ornaments of Queen Elizabeth's court. Lord Brooke, who was his intimate friend, says of him: "Though I lived with him and knew him from a child, yet I never knew him other than a man with such steadiness of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as carried grace and reverence above greater years. His talk was ever of knowledge, and his very play tended to enrich the mind." His death occurred at the age of thirty-two, from a wound in battle, the result of his self-abnegation. He was in full armor, but seeing the marshal of the camp unprotected, he took off his armor and gave it to him, thus exposing himself to the mortal wound which he received. Fuller says, "He was slain before Zutphen, in a small skirmish which we may sadly term a great battle, considering our heavy loss therein."

Victor Hugo was banished from France for his opposition to the coup d'état. He was ever true to his convictions without counting the cost. "If there is anything grander than Victor Hugo's genius," said Louis Blanc, "it is the use which he has made of it." He affords us an instance of the highest fame and the favor of fortune culminating in ripe old age. When Hugo was but a rising man, he was still looked upon by the elder littérateurs with considerable jealousy. At the time when he was first an aspirant for the honors of the French Academy, and called on M. Royer-Collard to solicit his vote, the sturdy veteran professed entire ignorance of his name. "I am the author of 'Notre Dame de Paris,' 'Marion Delorme,' 'Les Derniers Jours d'un Condamne,' etc." "I never heard of them," said Collard. "Will you do me the honor of accepting a copy of my works?" said Victor Hugo, with perfect urbanity. "I never read new books," was the cutting reply.169 But the time came presently when not to know the author of "Les Misérables" was to argue one's self unknown. When he had reached the age of sixty-three he wrote on a bit of sketching paper accompanying a scene he wished to delineate in the "Toilers of the Sea: " "On the face of this cardboard I have sketched my own destiny, – a steamboat tossed by the tempest in the midst of the monstrous ocean; almost disabled, assaulted by foaming waves, and having nothing left but a bit of smoke which people call glory, which the wind sweeps away, and which constitutes its strength."

 

Improvidence has ever been a distinctive and a common feature in the lives of men of genius. Sir Thomas Lawrence, the celebrated English portrait-painter, was an illustrious example. Of his natural genius there was ample evidence even in childhood, when at the age of six years he produced in crayon in a very few moments accurate likenesses of eminent persons. At the age of twenty-three he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as first painter to the king. He received a hundred guineas each for his portraits, – head and bust, – and one thousand if full-length, which was a large price for those days; and yet he was always embarrassed for money, and died deeply in debt while president of the Royal Academy.

Thomas Moore was very improvident; and though he realized over thirty thousand pounds from his literary productions, yet his family were obliged to live in the most economical manner, often experiencing serious deprivation of the ordinary comforts of life. "His excellent wife," says Rogers, "contrived to maintain the whole family upon a guinea a week; and he, when in London, thought nothing of throwing away that sum weekly on hackney-coaches and gloves." In order to escape the payment of his just debts, Moore was finally obliged to go to Paris, where, Rogers tells us, he frittered away a thousand pounds a year.170

Lamartine and the elder Dumas are notable examples of gross improvidence, – the first being reduced almost to beggary before his death, and supported solely by the liberal contributions of his admirers, while the latter was much of his life either squandering gold profusely or dodging his honest creditors.

Richard Savage, the unfortunate poet and dramatist, passed his life divided between beggary and extravagance. His undoubted genius and ability as an author attracted the hearty friendship of Johnson and Steele, both of whom made earnest efforts to save him from himself; but dissolute habits had taken too firm a hold of him. It is also honorable to Pope that he was his steady and consistent friend almost to the close of his life. Savage's ill-conceived poem of "The Bastard" was intended to expose the cruelty of his mother, who was responsible in the main for the wreck of his life. He finally died a prisoner for debt in Bristol jail. Undoubtedly Dr. Johnson was right when he said that the miseries which Savage underwent were sometimes the consequence of his faults, and his faults were often the effect of his misfortunes.

The period of which we are writing has been vividly described by Macaulay, from whom we quote: —

"All that is squalid and miserable might now be summed up in the word Poet. That word denoted a creature dressed like a scarecrow, familiar with compters and sponging-houses, and perfectly competent to decide on the comparative merits of the Common Side in the King's Bench prison and of Mount Scoundrel in the Fleet. Even the poorest pitied him; and they well might pity him. For if their condition was equally abject, their aspirings were not equally high, nor their sense of insult equally acute. To lodge in a garret up four pair of stairs, to dine in a cellar among footmen out of place, to translate ten hours a day for the wages of a ditcher, to be hunted by bailiffs from one haunt of beggary and pestilence to another, – from Grub Street to St. George's Field, and from St. George's Field to the alleys behind St. Martin's church, – to sleep on a bulk in June and amidst the ashes of a glass-house in December, to die in a hospital and to be buried in a parish vault, was the fate of more than one writer who, if he had lived thirty years earlier, would have been admitted to the sittings of the Kitcat or the Scriblerus club, would have sat in Parliament, and would have been intrusted with embassies to the High Allies; who, if he had lived in our time, would have found encouragement scarcely less munificent in Albemarle Street or in Paternoster Row.

"As every climate has its peculiar diseases, so every walk of life has its peculiar temptations. The literary character assuredly has always had its share of faults, vanity, jealousy, morbid sensibility. To these faults were now superadded the faults which are commonly found in men whose livelihood is precarious, and whose principles are exposed to the trial of severe distress. All the vices of the gambler and of the beggar were blended with those of the author. The prizes in the wretched lottery of book-making were scarcely less ruinous than the blanks. If good fortune came, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to be abused. After a month of starvation and despair, a full third night or a well-received dedication filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, unwashed poet with guineas. He hastened to enjoy those luxuries with the images of which his mind had been haunted while he was sleeping amidst the cinders and eating potatoes at the Irish ordinary in Shoe Lane. A week of taverns soon qualified him for another year of night-cellars. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse, and of a crowd of others. Sometimes blazing in gold-lace hats and waistcoats; sometimes lying in bed because their coats had gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats because their linen was in pawn; sometimes drinking champagne and Tokay with Betty Careless; sometimes standing at the window of an eating-house in Porridge island, to snuff up the scent of what they could not afford to taste, – they knew luxury; they knew beggary; but they never knew comfort. These men were irreclaimable. They looked on a regular and frugal life with the same aversion which an old gypsy or a Mohawk hunter feels for a stationary abode, and for the restraints and securities of civilized communities."

Notwithstanding Douglas Jerrold received a thousand pounds per annum from "Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper" alone, besides a respectable income from "Punch" and other literary labor, he never had a guinea in his pocket; every penny was forestalled, and he left his family in extreme penury.

Goldsmith, as we have seen, was the most improvident of men, and died owing two thousand pounds; which led Dr. Johnson to say, "Was ever poet so trusted before?" It was at this time that Boswell, who was always a little jealous of Goldsmith's intimacy with Johnson, made some disparaging remarks about the dead poet; whereupon Johnson promptly replied, "Dr. Goldsmith was wild, sir, but he is so no more!" "Cover the good man who has been vanquished," says Thackeray, – "cover his face and pass on!" Some families seem to inherit impecuniosity; Goldsmith came thus rightfully, so to speak, by his weakness in this respect.171

Sheridan, according to Byron, wrote the best comedy, the "School for Scandal;" the best opera, the "Duenna;" the best farce, the "Critic;" and delivered the most famous oration of modern times. With genius and talents which entitled him to the highest station, he yet sank into difficulties, mostly through inexcusable improvidence, outraging every principle of justice and of truth, finally dying in neglect. The reader will be apt to recall the anecdote illustrative of Sheridan's impecuniosity. As he was hacking his face one day with a dull razor, he turned to his son and said, "Tom, if you open any more oysters with my razor, I'll cut you off with a shilling." "Very well, father," was the reply; "but where is the shilling to come from?" Sheridan thought if he had stuck to the law he might have done as well as his friend Erskine; "but," he added, "I had no time for such studies; Mrs. Sheridan and myself were often obliged to keep writing for our daily leg or shoulder of mutton, otherwise we should have had no dinner; yes, it was a joint concern."

All authorities combine in pronouncing the great speech of Sheridan on the impeachment of Warren Hastings to be one of the grandest oratorical efforts known to us. But the persuasive power of eloquence was never better illustrated than in the instance of Mirabeau when he pleaded his own case. His liaison with the Marchioness de Mounier surpasses, in fact, all stories of romance. Mirabeau induced her to run away with him, for which she was seized and thrown into a convent, while he escaped to Switzerland.172 He was brought to trial, was convicted of contumacy, and sentenced to lose his head. The lady escaped and once more joined him; together they passed into Holland, where they were a second time arrested, she being again immured in a convent and he confined in the Castle of Vincennes, where he remained for more than three years. After his liberation he obtained a new trial, pleaded his own case, and by the impassioned power of his all-commanding eloquence he terrified the court and the prosecutor, melted the audience to tears, obtained a prompt reversal of his sentence, and even threw the whole cost of the suit upon the prosecution.173

When the stupid, ill-bred Judge Robinson insulted Curran by reflecting upon his poverty while he was arguing a case before him, saying to him that he "suspected his law library was rather contracted," Curran answered the servile office-holder in words of aptest eloquence and cutting irony. "It is true, my lord," said Curran, with dignified respect, "that I am poor, and the circumstance has somewhat curtailed my library; my books are not numerous, but they are select, and I hope they have been perused with proper disposition. I have prepared myself for this high profession rather by the study of a few good works than by the composition of a great many bad ones. I am not ashamed of my poverty, but I should be ashamed of my wealth could I have stooped to acquire it by servility and corruption. If I rise not to rank, I shall at least be honest; and should I ever cease to be so, many an example shows me that ill-gained reputation, by making me the more conspicuous, would only make me the more universally and the more notoriously contemptible!"174

 

Speaking of eloquence, Hazlitt describes how he walked ten miles to hear Coleridge the poet preach, and declared that he could not have been more delighted if he had heard the music of the spheres. The names of Fox, Pitt, Grattan, Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Wendell Phillips, and Rufus Choate, with many others, crowd upon the mind as we dwell upon the theme of eloquence in oratory. There is eloquence of the pen as well as of the tongue; Socrates of old, celebrated for his noble oratorical compositions, was of so timid a disposition that he rarely ventured to speak in public. He compared himself to a whetstone, which will not cut, but which readily enables other things to do so; for his productions served as models to other orators.

We have myriads of examples showing us that accident has often determined the bent and development of genius. Accident may not, however, create genius; it is innate, or it is not at all. Cowley tells us that when quite young he chanced upon a copy of the "Faerie Queene,"175 nearly the only book at hand, and becoming interested he read it carefully and often, until enchanted thereby he became irrevocably a poet. The apple that fell on Newton's head with a force apparently out of all proportion to its size, led him to ponder upon the fact, until he deduced the great law of gravitation and laid the foundation of his philosophy. It was Shakespeare's youthful roguery which drove him from his trade of wool-carding and necessitated his leaving Stratford. A company of strolling actors became his first new associates, and he took up with their business for a while; but dissatisfied with his own success as an actor he turned to writing plays, and thus arose the greatest dramatist the world has produced. Molière, who was of very low birth, being often taken as a lad to the theatre by his grandfather, was thus led to study the usages of the stage, and came to be the greatest dramatic author of France. "Tartuffe," which he wrote a hundred and twenty years ago, still holds the stage, as well as many others of his inimitable productions. He was the Shakespeare of France. Hallam says that Shakespeare had the greater genius, but Molière has perhaps written the better comedies. Corneille fell in love, and was thus incited to pour out his feelings in verse, developing rapidly into a poet and dramatist. He was intended for the law; but love tripped up his heels and made him a poet.

The chance perusal of De Foe's "Essay on Projects," Dr. Franklin tells us, influenced the principal events and course of his life; so the reading of the "Lives of the Saints" caused Ignatius Loyola to form the purpose of creating a new religious order, – which purpose eventuated in the powerful society of the Jesuits. Benjamin West says, "A kiss from my mother made me a painter."176 La Fontaine read by chance a volume of Malherbe's poems, – he who was called "the poet of princes and the prince of poets," – whereby he became so impressed, that ever after his mind sought expression through the same medium. Rousseau's eccentric genius was first aroused by an advertisement offering a prize for the best essay on a certain theme, which brought out his "Declamation against the Arts and Sciences" (winning the prize thereby), and determined his future career. The husband and father of the woman who nursed Michael Angelo were stone-masons, and the chisel thus became the first and most common plaything put into the child's hands; hence his earliest efforts were made to apply the hammer and chisel to marble, and the seed was planted which blossomed into art. It was the accidental observation of steam, lifting by its expansive power the heavy iron cover of a boiling pot, that suggested to the mind of James Watt thoughts which led to the invention of the steam-engine. The "Pickwick Papers," Dickens's earliest and best literary work, owes its origin to the publisher of a magazine upon which he was doing job-work desiring him to write a serial story to fit some comic pictures which were in the publisher's possession. The genius was in Dickens, but it slept.

The sight of Virgil's tomb, just above the Grotto of Posilippo, at Naples, determined Giovanni's literary vocation for life. So Gibbon was struck with the idea of writing his "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire," as he sat dreaming amid the ruins of the Forum.177 When Scott was a mere boy he chanced upon a copy of Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Poetry," which he read with eagerness again and again. As soon as he could get the necessary sum of money, he purchased a copy; and thus the taste for poetry was early instilled into his soul and found after expression in his charming poems. Scott's first literary effort was the translation of "Götz von Berlichengen," to which Carlyle ascribes large influence on the great novelist's future career. He says this translation was "the prime cause of 'Marmion' and the 'Lady of the Lake,' with all that has followed from the same creative hand. Truly a grain of seed that had lighted in the right soil. For if not firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree; and all nations of the earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit."

While in England, not long since, the writer of these pages was told an anecdote relating to Mrs. Siddons which was new to him, and which illustrates how often accident has directed the future bent of genius. When quite a young lady, Sarah Siddons saw in some private gallery an antique statue of great excellence, which had a most electrifying effect upon her. It suggested to her at once the most effective position and manner in which to express intensity of feeling. The arms were close down at the sides, and the hands nervously clenched, while the head was erect, the chest expanded, and the face half in profile. "I cannot express how indelibly the pose took effect upon my imagination," said the great actress many years afterwards, "or the force of the lesson taught me by the marble." If memory serves us correctly, we recall an old engraving of Mrs. Siddons in the character of Lady Macbeth, which would be nearly a reproduction of the pose described.178

Accident developed one of the greatest vocalists the world has ever known. Jenny Lind was at the beginning of her life a poor neglected little girl, homely and uncouth, living in a single room of a tumble-down house in a narrow street at Stockholm. When the humble woman who had her in charge went out to her daily labor, she was accustomed to lock Jenny in with her sole companion, a cat. One day the little girl, who was always singing to herself like a canary-bird, "because," as she said, "the song was in her and would come out," sat with her dumb companion at the window warbling her sweet childlike notes. She was overheard by a passing lady, who paused and listened, struck by the clearness and trill of the untutored notes. She made careful inquiries about the child and became the patroness of little Jenny, who was at once supplied with a music-teacher. She loved the art of song, and had the true genius for it. Jenny made rapid progress, surprising both patroness and teachers, and presently became the great Queen of Song.

The world knows of Jenny Lind's splendid fortune, of her professional triumphs, and of her noble charities; but few, perhaps, have ever pictured her humble girlhood, cooped up in a cheerless room, with only her cat for a companion, in a dull quarter of the Swedish capital. The plain, awkward girl grew up under favorable culture to be a graceful, lovely woman. The courts of Europe treated her as a revered guest; she was covered with laurels and with jewels, but she was ever in disposition and character the same pure, simple Swedish girl. Adulation had no power to spoil this child of Nature and of art. The Swedish public cherish her name as that of their most favored daughter, and honor her for the noble educational institution which she has so liberally founded in her native Stockholm.

Christina Nilsson, another Scandinavian vocalist, was the daughter of an humble Swedish peasant, born in so lowly a cabin that it was difficult to conceive of the name of "home" being applied to it. While yet a child she was obliged to work with the rest of the family in the fields and on the mountain-side. Her sweet voice was first heard at the fairs and peasant weddings, where her simple Scandinavian melodies delighted the assembled crowds. At one of these public gatherings a man of taste and means heard the child's voice, and realized the hidden possibilities it indicated. He was a magistrate, and became her patron, taking her from her humble surroundings and supplying her with suitable teachers. She was carefully taught instrumental as well as vocal music, and became both an eminent pianist and singer, developing like her fair countrywoman, Jenny Lind, into a vocalist of grandest genius, and of such ability as the world affords but few examples.

Taglioni was also Scandinavian by birth, having been born at Stockholm, in 1804, of humble parentage, her father being a dancing-master. She had the genius of an artist, which she patiently developed through many dark hours of toil and deprivation, until she made herself acknowledged as queen of the ballet in the great cities of Europe. Her purity of character added a charm to her public performances, giving her a prestige never before enjoyed by any exponent of her art. She finally amassed a large fortune, and retiring from the stage married Count Gilbert de Voisins. Doubtless many of our readers have paused in their gondolas beneath the windows of her marble palace on the Grand Canal at Venice, to recall the story of the great danseuse, or have looked with pleasure upon her elegant villa on the Lake of Como.

166Like Milton, Swift, and other great geniuses, Scott was, as Swift says of himself at school, "very justly celebrated for his stupidity." But one is inclined to think that it was largely owing to a want of talent in his master rather than in the pupil. It will be remembered that it was the illustrious Samuel Parr, when an undermaster at Harrow School, who first discovered the latent talent and genius of Sheridan, and who by judicious cultivation brought it forth and developed it.
167In five or six years subsequent to that failure of his maiden speech, Disraeli, as he was then known, became leader of the Opposition in the House, and Chancellor of the Exchequer soon after, rising rapidly, until in 1868 he became Premier of England.
168Richter was a Bavarian, and of very humble birth. During his youthful career he was reduced to extreme indigence. He became a tutor in a private family, and afterwards taught school, all the while striving with his pen both for fame and money, until at last he "compelled" public appreciation. He is one of the few geniuses of that period who were happy in their domestic relations. He died at Baireuth in 1825.
169Royer-Collard was an eminent philosopher and statesman, the founder of a school called the "Doctrinaire," of which Cousin was a disciple. He was President of the Chamber of Deputies in 1828. His father's family name was Royer, to which he joined the name of his wife, Mademoiselle Collard.
170Hazlitt was a just but merciless critic. It was he who designated Moore's productions "the poetry of the toilet-table, of the saloon, and of the fashionable world, – not the poetry of nature, of the heart, or of human life;" and the force of the criticism lay in the fact of its truth.
171Goldsmith himself tells us: "My father, the younger son of a good family, was possessed of a small living in the Church. His education was above his fortune, and his generosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, he had his flatterers; for every dinner he gave them they returned him an equivalent in praise, and this was all he wanted."
172It happened that a certain lady became charmed with Mirabeau by reading his writings, and wrote him rather a tender letter, asking him to describe himself to her. He did so by return of post as follows: "Figure to yourself a tiger that has had the small-pox." History has not handed down the sequel.
173Mirabeau and the Marchioness had agreed on mutual destruction, by exchanging poisoned locks of hair, if he failed to be acquitted.
174To make the appropriateness of this retort clear, it should be known that Judge Robinson was the author of many stupid, slavish, and scurrilous political pamphlets; and by his servility to the ruling powers he had been raised to the eminence which he thus shamefully disgraced.
175The effect the poem had upon the Earl of Southampton when he first read it will be remembered. Spenser took it to this noble patron of poets as soon as it was finished, and sent it up to him. The earl read a few pages and said to a servant, "Take the writer twenty pounds." Reading on, he presently cried in rapture, "Carry that man twenty pounds more." Still he read on; but at length he shouted, "Go turn that fellow out of the house, for if I read further I shall be ruined!"
176When a boy, West secretly pursued his first attempts at art, absenting himself from school to do so. Being one day surprised at his work in the garret of the house by his mother, he expected to be seriously reproved; but Mrs. West saw incipient genius in her son's work at the age of ten; so she kissed and congratulated him, promising to intercede with his father in his behalf that he would forgive him for his truancy.
177It was not without difficulty that Gibbon could obtain a publisher for his famous History. After it had been declined by several houses, it was finally undertaken by Thomas Cadell, "on easy terms," as the author expresses it. It was thought best to publish only five hundred copies at first; this edition being soon exhausted, edition after edition followed in rapid succession, until, as Gibbon says, "my book was on every table and on almost every toilet."
178Sydney Smith said of Mrs. Siddons: "What a face she had! The gods do not bestow such a face as hers on the stage more than once in a century. I knew her very well, and she had the good taste to laugh at my jokes; she was an excellent person, but she was not remarkable out of her profession, and never got out of tragedy even in common life. She used to stab the potatoes; and said 'Boy, give me a knife!' as she would have said 'Give me a dagger!'"
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