第6章 DE JUVENTUTE(3)

Not that we were not great epicures.I remember how we constantly grumbled at the quantity of the food in our master's house -- which on my conscience I believe was excellent and plentiful -- and how we tried once or twice to eat him out of house and home.At the pastrycook's we may have over-eaten ourselves (I have admitted half-a-crown's worth for my own part, but I don't like to mention the real figure for fear of perverting the present generation of boys by my monstrous confession) -- we may have eaten too much, I say.We did; but what then? The school apothecary was sent for: a couple of small globules at night, a trifling preparation of senna in the morning, and we had not to go to school, so that the draught was an actual pleasure.

For our amusements, besides the games in vogue, which were pretty much in old times as they are now (except cricket par exemple -- and I wish the present youth joy of their bowling, and suppose Armstrong and Whitworth will bowl at them with light field-pieces next), there were novels -- ah! I trouble you to find such novels in the present day! O Scottish Chiefs, didn't we weep over you! O Mysteries of Udolpho, didn't I and Briggs Minor draw pictures out of you, as I have said?Efforts,feeble indeed, but still giving pleasure to us and our friends."I say, old boy, draw us Vivaldi tortured in the Inquisition," or, "Draw us Don Quixote and the windmills, you know," amateurs would say, to boys who had a love of drawing."Peregrine Pickle" we liked, our fathers admiring it, and telling us (the sly old boys) it was capital fun; but I think I was rather bewildered by it, though "Roderick Random" was and remains delightful.I don't remember having Sterne in the school library, no doubt because the works of that divine were not considered decent for young people.Ah! not against thy genius, O father of Uncle Toby and Trim, would I say a word in disrespect.But I am thankful to live in times when men no longer have the temptation to write so as to call blushes on women's cheeks, and would shame to whisper wicked allusions to honest boys.Then, above all, we had Walter Scott, the kindly, the generous, the pure -- the companion of what countless delightful hours; the purveyor of how much happiness; the friend whom we recall as the constant benefactor of our youth! How well I remember the type and the brownish paper of the old duodecimo "Tales of My Landlord!" I have never dared to read the "Pirate," and the "Bride of Lammermoor," or "Kenilworth," from that day to this, because the finale is unhappy, and people die, and are murdered at the end.But "Ivanhoe," and "Quentin Durward"! Oh! for a half-holiday, and a quiet corner, and one of those books again! Those books, and perhaps those eyes with which we read them; and, it may be, the brains behind the eyes! It may be the tart was good; but how fresh the appetite was! If the gods would give me the desire of my heart, I should be able to write a story which boys would relish for the next few dozen of centuries.The boy-critic loves the story: grown up, he loves the author who wrote the story.Hence the kindly tie is established between writer and reader, and lasts pretty nearly for life.I meet people now who don't care of Walter Scott, or the "Arabian Nights"; I am sorry for them, unless they in their time have found their romancer -- their charming Scheherazade.By the way, Walter, when you are writing, tell me who is the favourite novelist in the fourth form now? Have you got anything so good and kindly as dear Miss Edgeworth's Frank? It used to belong to a fellow's sisters generally; but though he pretended to despiseit, and said, "Oh, stuff for girls!" he read it; and I think there were one or two passages which would try my eyes now, were I to meet with the little book.

As for Thomas and Jeremiah (it is only my witty way of calling Tom and Jerry), I went to the British Museum the other day on purpose to get it; but somehow, if you will press the question so closely, on reperusal, Tom and Jerry is not so brilliant as I had supposed it to be.The pictures are just as fine as ever; and I shook hands with broad-backed Jerry Hawthorn and Corinthian Tom with delight, after many year's absence.But the style of the writing, I own, was not pleasing to me; I even thought it a little vulgar -- well! well! other writers have been considered vulgar -- and as a description of the sports and amusements of London in the ancient times, more curious than amusing.