Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон - What Will He Do with It? — Complete

If anything went wrong with him in his business, the whole town combined to set it right for him. Was a child born to him, Gatesboro’ rejoiced as a mother. Did measles or scarlatina afflict his neighbourhood, the first anxiety of Gatesboro’ was for Mr. Hartopp’s nursery. No one would have said Mrs. Hartopp’s nursery; and when in such a department the man’s name supersedes the woman’s, can more be said in proof of the tenderness he excites? In short, Jos. Hartopp was a notable instance of a truth not commonly recognized; namely, that affection is power, and that, if you do make it thoroughly and unequivocally clear that you love your neighbours, though it may not be quite so well as you love yourself,—still, cordially and disinterestedly, you will find your neighbours much better fellows than Mrs. Grundy gives them credit for,—but always provided that your talents be not such as to excite their envy, nor your opinions such as to offend their prejudices.

MR. HARTOPP.—“You take an interest, you say, in literary institutes, and have studied the subject?”

THE COMEDIAN.—“Of late, those institutes have occupied my thoughts as representing the readiest means of collecting liberal ideas into a profitable focus.”

MR. HARTOPP.—“Certainly it is a great thing to bring classes together in friendly union.”

THE COMEDIAN.—“For laudable objects.”

MR. HARTOPP.—“To cultivate their understandings.”

THE COMEDIAN.—“To warm their hearts.”

MR. HARTOPP.—“To give them useful knowledge.”

THE COMEDIAN.—“And pleasurable sensations.”

MR. HARTOPP.—“In a word, to instruct them.”

THE COMEDIAN.—“And to amuse.”

“Eh!” said the Mayor,—“amuse!”

Now, every one about the person of this amiable man was on the constant guard to save him from the injurious effects of his own benevolence; and accordingly his foreman, hearing that he was closeted with a stranger, took alarm, and entered on pretence of asking instructions about an order for hides, in reality, to glower upon the intruder, and keep his master’s hands out of imprudent pockets.

Mr. Hartopp, who, though not brilliant, did not want for sense, and was a keener observer than was generally supposed, divined the kindly intentions of his assistant. “A gentleman interested in the Gatesboro’ Athenaeum. My foreman, sir,—Mr. Williams, the treasurer of our institute. Take a chair, Williams.”

“You said to amuse, Mr. Chapman, but—”

“You did not find Professor Long on conchology amusing.”

“Why,” said the Mayor, smiling blandly, “I myself am not a man of science, and therefore his lecture, though profound, was a little dry to me.”

“Must it not have been still more dry to your workmen, Mr. Mayor?”

“They did not attend,” said Williams. “Up-hill task we have to secure the Gatesboro’ mechanics, when anything really solid is to be addressed to their understandings.”

“Poor things, they are so tired at night,” said the Mayor, compassionately; “but they wish to improve themselves, and they take books from the library.”

“Novels,” quoth the stern Williams: “it will be long before they take out that valuable ‘History of Limpets.”

“If a lecture were as amusing as a novel, would not they attend it?” asked the Comedian.

“I suppose they would,” returned Mr. Williams. “But our object is to instruct; and instruction, sir—”

“Could be made amusing. If, for instance, the lecturer could produce a live shell-fish, and, by showing what kindness can do towards developing intellect and affection in beings without soul,—make man himself more kind to his fellow-man?”

Mr. Williams laughed grimly. “Well, sir!”

“This is what I should propose to do.”

“With a shell-fish!” cried the Mayor.

“No, sir; with a creature of nobler attributes,—A DOG!”

The listeners stared at each other like dumb animals as Waife continued,—“By winning interest for the individuality of a gifted quadruped, I should gradually create interest in the natural history of its species. I should lead the audience on to listen to comparisons with other members of the great family which once associated with Adam. I should lay the foundation for an instructive course of natural history, and from vertebrated mammifers who knows but we might gradually arrive at the nervous system of the molluscous division, and produce a sensation by the production of a limpet?”

“Theoretical,” said Mr. Williams.

“Practical, sir; since I take it for granted that the Athenaeum, at present, is rather a tax upon the richer subscribers, including Mr. Mayor.”

“Nothing to speak of,” said the mild Hartopp. Williams looked towards his master with unspeakable love, and groaned. “Nothing indeed—oh!”

“These societies should be wholly self-supporting,” said the Comedian, “and inflict no pecuniary loss upon Mr. Mayor.”

“Certainly,” said Williams, “that is the right principle. Mr. Mayor should be protected.”

“And if I show you how to make these societies self-supporting—”

“We should be very much obliged to you.”

“I propose, then, to give an exhibition at your rooms.” Mr. Williams nudged the Mayor, and coughed, the Comedian not appearing to remark cough nor nudge.

“Of course gratuitously. I am not a professional lecturer, gentlemen.”

Mr. Williams looked charmed to hear it.

“And when I have made my first effort successful, as I feel sure it will be, I will leave it to you, gentlemen, to continue my undertaking. But I cannot stay long here. If the day after to-morrow—”

“That is our ordinary soiree night,” said the Mayor. “But you said a dog, sir,—dogs not admitted,-eh, Williams?”

MR. WILLIAMS.—“A mere by-law, which the subcommittee can suspend if necessary. But would not the introduction of a live animal be less dignified than—”

“A dead failure,” put in the Comedian, gravely. The Mayor would have smiled, but he was afraid of doing so lest he might hurt the feelings of Mr. Williams, who did not seem to take the joke.

“We are a purely intellectual body,” said the latter gentleman, “and a dog—”

“A learned dog, I presume,” observed the Mayor.

MR. WILLIAMS (nodding).—“Might form a dangerous precedent for the introduction of other quadrupeds. We might thus descend even to the level of a learned pig. We are not a menagerie, Mr.—Mr.—”

“Chapman,” said the Mayor, urbanely.

“Enough,” said the Comedian, rising with his grand air; “if I considered myself at liberty, gentlemen, to say who and what I am, you would be sure that I am not trifling with what I consider a very grave and important subject. As to suggesting anything derogatory to the dignity of science, and the eminent repute of the Gatesboro’ Athenaeum, it would be idle to vindicate myself. These gray hairs are—”

He did not conclude that sentence, save by a slight wave of the hand. The two burgesses bowed reverentially, and the Comedian went on,—

“But when you speak of precedent, Mr. Williams, allow me to refer you to precedents in point. Aristotle wrote to Alexander the Great for animals to exhibit to the Literary Institute of Athens. At the colleges in Egypt lectures were delivered on a dog called Anubis, as inferior, I boldly assert, to that dog which I have referred to, as an Egyptian College to a British Institute. The ancient Etrurians, as is shown by the erudite Schweighduser in that passage—you understand Greek, I presume, Mr. Williams?”

Mr. Williams could not say he did.

THE COMEDIAN.—“Then I will not quote that passage in Schweighauser upon the Molossian dogs in general, and the dog of Alcibiades in particular. But it proves beyond a doubt, that, in every ancient literary institute, learned dogs were highly estimated; and there was even a philosophical Academy called the Cynic,—that is, Doggish, or Dog-school, of which Diogenes was the most eminent professor. He, you know, went about with a lantern looking for an honest man, and could not find one! Why? Because the Society of Dogs had raised his standard of human honesty to an impracticable height. But I weary you; otherwise I could lecture on in this way for the hour together, if you think the Gatesboro’ operatives prefer erudition to amusement.”