Newton Forster

by Frederick Marryat

  Chapter XL

  "Rich in the gems of India's gaudy zone, And plunder piled from kingdoms not their own, Degenerate trade! thy minions could despise Thy heart-born anguish of a thousand cries: Could lock, with impious hands, their teeming store, While famish'd nations died along the shore; Could mock the groans of fellow-men, and bear The curse of kingdoms, peopled with despair; Could stamp disgrace on man's polluted name, And barter with their gold eternal shame."

  CAMPBELL.

  Gold!--gold! for thee, what will man not attempt?--for thee, to whatdegradation will he not submit?--for thee, what will he not risk in thisworld, or prospectively in the next? Industry is rewarded by thee;enterprise is supported by thee; crime is cherished, and heaven itself isbartered for thee, thou powerful auxiliary of the devil! One tempter wassufficient for the fall of man; but thou wert added, that he ne'er mightrise again.

  Survey the empire of India; calculate the millions of acres, the billionswith which it is peopled, and then pause while you ask yourself thequestion--How is it that a company of merchants claim it as their own? Bywhat means did it come into their possession?

  Honestly, they will reply. Honestly! you went there as suppliants; you werereceived with kindness and hospitality, and your request was granted, bywhich you obtained a footing on the soil. Now you are lords of countlessacres, masters of millions, who live or perish as you will; receivers ofenormous tribute. Why, how is this?

  Honestly, again you say; by treaty, by surrender, by taking from those whowould have destroyed us the means of doing injury. Honestly! say it again,that Heaven may register, and hell may chuckle at your barefaced, impudentassertion.

  No! by every breach of faith which could disgrace an infidel; by every actof cruelty which could disgrace our nature; by extortion, by rapine, byinjustice, by mockery of all laws, or human or divine. The thirst for gold,and a golden country, led you on; and in these scorching regions you haveraised the devil on his throne, and worshipped him in his proudpre-eminence as Mammon.

  Let us think. Is not the thirst for gold a temptation to which our naturesare doomed to be subjected--part of the ordeal which we have to pass? orwhy is it that there never is sufficient?

  It appears to be ordained by Providence that this metal, obtained from theearth to feed the avarice of man, should again return to it. If all theprecious ore which for a series of ages has been raised from the dark minewere now in tangible existence, how trifling would be its value! howinadequate as a medium of exchange for the other productions of nature, orof art! If all the diamonds and other precious stones which have beencollected from the decomposed rocks (for hard as they once were, like allsublunary matter, they too yield to time) why, if all were remaining on theearth, the frolic gambols of the May-day sweep would shake about thosegems, which now are to be found in profusion only where rank and beauty payhomage to the thrones of kings. Arts and manufactures consume a largeproportion of the treasures of the mine, and as the objects fall intodecay, so does the metal return to the earth again. But it is in Easternclimes, where it is collected, that it soonest disappears. Where the despotreigns, and the knowledge of an individual's wealth is sufficient warrantyto seal his doom, it is to the care of the silent earth alone that thepossessor will commit his treasures; he trusts not to relation or tofriend, for gold is too powerful for human ties. It is but on his death-bedthat he imparts the secret of his deposit to those he leaves behind him;often called away before he has time to make it known, reserving the fondsecret till too late; still clinging to life, and all that makes life dearto him. Often does the communication, made from the couch of death, inhalf-articulated words, prove so imperfect, that the knowledge of itsexistence is of no avail unto his intended heirs; and thus it is thatmillions return again to the earth from which they have been gathered withsuch toil. What avarice has dug up avarice buries again; perhaps in futureages to be regained by labour, when, from the chemical powers of eternaland mysterious Nature, they have again been filtered through the induratedearth, and reassumed the form and the appearance of the metal which haslain in darkness since the creation of the world.

  Is not this part of the grand principle of the universe?--the eternal cycleof reproduction and decay, pervading all and every thing--blindlycontributed to by the folly and wickedness of man! "So far shalt thou go,but no further," was the fiat; and, arrived at the prescribed limit, wemust commence again. At this moment intellect has seized upon theseven-league boots of the fable, which fitted everybody who drew them on,and strides over the universe. How soon, as on the decay of the Romanempire, may all the piles of learning which human endeavours would rear asa tower of Babel to scale the heavens, disappear, leaving but fragments tofuture generations, as proofs of pre-existent knowledge! Whether we referto nature or to art, to knowledge or to power, to accumulation ordestruction, bounds have been prescribed which man can never pass, guardedas they are by the same unerring and unseen Power, which threw the planetsfrom his hand, to roll in their appointed orbits. All appears confusedbelow, but all is clear in heaven.

  I have somewhere heard it said, that wherever heaven may be, those whoreach it will behold the mechanism of the universe in its perfection. Thosestars, now studding the firmament in such apparent confusion, will thereappear in all their regularity, as worlds revolving in their severalorbits, round suns which gladden them with light and heat, all in harmony,all in beauty, rejoicing as they roll their destined course in obedience tothe Almighty fiat; one vast, stupendous, and, to the limits of our presentsenses, incomprehensible mechanism, perfect in all its parts, mostwonderful in the whole. Nor do I doubt it: it is but reasonable to supposeit. He that hath made this world and all upon it can have no limits to Hispower.

  I wonder whether I shall ever see it.

  I said just now, let us think. I had better have said, let us not think;for thought is painful, even dangerous when carried to excess. Happy is hewho thinks but little, whose ideas are so confined as not to cause theintellectual fever, wearing out the mind and body, and often threateningboth with dissolution. There is a happy medium of intellect, sufficient toconvince us that all is good--sufficient to enable us to comprehend thatwhich is revealed, without a vain endeavour to pry into the hidden; tounderstand the one, and lend our faith unto the other; but when the mindwould soar unto the heaven not opened to it, or dive into sealed and darkfuturity, how does it return from its several expeditions? Confused,alarmed, unhappy; willing to rest, yet restless; willing to believe, yetdoubting; willing to end its futile travels, yet setting forth anew. Yet,how is a superior understanding envied! how coveted by all!--a gift whichalways leads to danger, and often to perdition.

  Thank Heaven! I have not been entrusted with one of those thorough-bred,snorting, champing, foaming sort of intellects, which run away with CommonSense, who is jerked from his saddle at the beginning of its wild career.Mine is a good, steady, useful hack, who trots along the high-road of life,keeping on his own side, and only stumbling a little now and then, when Ihappen to be careless,--ambitious only to arrive safely at the end of hisjourney, not to pass by others.

  Why am I no longer ambitious? Once I was, but 'twas when I was young andfoolish. Then methought "It were an easy leap to pluck bright honour fromthe pale-faced moon;" but now I am old and fat, and there is something infat which chokes or destroys ambition. It would appear that it is requisitefor the body to be active and springing as the mind; and if it is not, itweighs the latter down to its own gravity. Who ever heard of a fat manbeing ambitious? Caesar was a spare man; Buonaparte was thin as long as heclimbed the ladder; Nelson was a shadow. The Duke of Wellington has notsufficient fat in his composition to grease his own Wellington-boots. Inshort, I think my hypothesis to be fairly borne out, that fat and ambitionare incompatible.

  It is very melancholy to be forced to acknowledge this, for I am convincedthat it may be of serious injury to my works. An author with a genteelfigure will always be more read than one who is corpulent. All hisetherealness depar
ts. Some young ladies may have fancied me an elegantyoung man, like Lytton Bulwer, full of fun and humour, concealing all myprofound knowledge under the mask of levity, and have therefore read mybooks with as much delight as has been afforded by "Pelham." But the truthmust be told. I am a grave, heavy man, with my finger continually laidalong my temple, seldom speaking unless spoken to--and when ladies talk, Inever open my mouth; the consequence is, that sometimes, when there is asuccession of company, I do not speak for a week. Moreover, I am married,with five small children; and now all I look forward to, and all I covet,is to live in peace, and die in my bed.

  I wonder why I did not commence authorship before! How true it is that aman never knows what he can do until he tries! The fact is, I never thoughtthat I could make a novel; and I was thirty years old before I stumbled onthe fact. What a pity!

  Writing a book reminds me very much of making a passage across theAtlantic. At one moment, when the ideas flow, you have the wind aft, andaway you scud, with a flowing sheet, and a rapidity which delights you: atother times, when your spirit flags, and you gnaw your pen (I have latelyused iron pens, for I'm a devil of a crib-biter), it is like unto a foulwind, tack and tack, requiring a long time to get on a short distance. Butstill you do go, although but slowly; and in both cases we must take thefoul wind with the fair. If a ship were to furl her sails until the windwas again favourable, her voyage would be protracted to an indefinite time;and if an author were to wait until he again felt in a humour, it wouldtake a life to write a novel.

  Whenever the wind is foul, which it now most certainly is, for I am writinganything but "Newton Forster," and which will account for this rambling,stupid chapter, made up of odds and ends, strung together like what we call"skewer pieces" on board of a man-of-war; when the wind is foul, as I saidbefore, I have, however, a way of going a-head by getting up the steam,which I am now about to resort to--and the fuel is brandy. All on this sideof the world are asleep, except gamblers, house-breakers, the new police,and authors. My wife is in the arms of Morpheus--an allegorical _crim.con._, which we husbands are obliged to wink at; and I am making love tothe brandy-bottle, that I may stimulate my ideas, as unwilling to be rousedfrom their dark cells of the brain as the spirit summoned by Lochiel, whoimplored at each response, "Leave, oh! leave me to repose."

  Now I'll invoke them, conjure them up, like little imps, to do mybidding:--

  By this glass which now I drain, By this spirit, which shall cheer you, As its fumes mount to my brain, From thy torpid slumbers rear you.

  By this head, so tired with thinking, By this hand, no longer trembling, By these lips, so fond of drinking, Let me feel that you're assembling.

  By the bottle placed before me, (Food for you, ere morrow's sun), By this second glass, I pour me, Come, you _little beggars_, come.