_ BOOK FOURTH CHAPTER XVIII
Certainly it is a glorious fever,--that desire To Know! And there are few sights in the moral world more sublime than that which many a garret might afford, if Asmodeus would bare the roofs to our survey,--namely, a brave, patient, earnest human being toiling his own arduous way, athwart the iron walls of penury, into the magnificent Infinite, which is luminous with starry souls.
So there sits Leonard the Self-taught in the little cottage alone: for, though scarcely past the hour in which great folks dine, it is the hour in which small folks go to bed, and Mrs. Fairfield has retired to rest, while Leonard has settled to his books.
He had placed his table under the lattice, and from time to time he looked up and enjoyed the stillness of the moon. Well for him that, in reparation for those hours stolen from night, the hardy physical labour commenced with dawn. Students would not be the sad dyspeptics they are, if they worked as many hours in the open air as my scholar-peasant. But even in him you could see that the mind had begun a little to affect the frame. They who task the intellect must pay the penalty with the body. Ill, believe me, would this work-day world get on if all within it were hard-reading, studious animals, playing the deuce with the ganglionic apparatus.
Leonard started as he heard the knock at the door; the parson's well-known voice reassured him. In some surprise he admitted his visitors.
"We are come to talk to you, Leonard," said Mr. Dale; "but I fear we shall disturb Mrs. Fairfield."
"Oh, no, sir! the door to the staircase is shut, and she sleeps soundly."
"Why, this is a French book! Do you read French, Leonard?" asked Riccabocca.
"I have not found French difficult, sir. Once over the grammar, and the language is so clear; it seems the very language for reasoning."
"True. Voltaire said justly, 'Whatever is obscure is not French,'" observed Riccabocca.
"I wish I could say the same of English," muttered the parson.
"But what is this,--Latin too?--Virgil?"
"Yes, sir. But I find I make little way there without a master. I fear I must give it up" (and Leonard sighed).
The two gentlemen exchanged looks, and seated themselves. The young peasant remained standing modestly, and in his air and mien there was something that touched the heart while it pleased the eye. He was no longer the timid boy who had shrunk from the frown of Mr. Stirn, nor that rude personation of simple physical strength, roused to undisciplined bravery, which had received its downfall on the village green of Hazeldean. The power of thought was on his brow,--somewhat unquiet still, but mild and earnest. The features had attained that refinement which is often attributed to race, but comes, in truth, from elegance of idea, whether caught from our parents or learned from books. In his rich brown hair, thrown carelessly from his temples, and curling almost to the shoulders; in his large blue eye, which was deepened to the hue of the violet by the long dark lash; in that firmness of lip, which comes from the grapple with difficulties, there was considerable beauty, but no longer the beauty of the mere peasant. And yet there was still about the whole countenance that expression of goodness and purity which a painter would give to his ideal of the peasant lover,--such as Tasso would have placed in the "Aminta," or Fletcher have admitted to the side of the Faithful Shepherdess.
"You must draw a chair here, and sit down between us, Leonard," said the parson.
"If any one," said Riccabocca, "has a right to sit, it is the one who is to hear the sermon; and if any one ought to stand, it is the one who is about to preach it."
"Don't be frightened, Leonard," said the parson, graciously; "it is only a criticism, not a sermon;" and he pulled out Leonard's Prize Essay. _