BOYHOOD AND BOYS
Human nature is a very telescopic "institution." It delights to dwell on whatever is most distant. Lord Rosse's famous instrument dwindles down to a mere opera glass if you compare it with the mental vision of a restless boy, looking forward to the time when he shall don a tail-coat and a beaver hat. How his young heart swells with pride as he anticipates the day when he shall be his own master, as the phrase is – when he shall be able to stay out after nine o'clock in the evening, and to go home without being subjected to the ignominy of being escorted by a chambermaid! If he be of a particularly sanguine temperament, his wild imagination is rapt in the contemplation of the possibility of one day having his name in the newspapers as secretary of some public meeting, or as having made a vigorous speech at a political caucus where liberty of speech runs out into slander, and sedition is mistaken for patriotism, – or perhaps even of being one day a Common Councilman, or a member of the Great and General Court. A popular poet of the present day has expressed the same idea in a less prosaic manner: —
"Not rainbow pinions coloured like yon cloud,
The sun's broad banner o'er his western tent,
Can match the bright imaginings of a child
Upon the glories of his coming years: " —
and another bard avers that human blessings are always governing the future, and never the present tense, – or something to that effect. The truth of this nobody will deny who has passed from the boxes of childhood upon the stage of manhood which so charmed his youthful fancy, and finds that the heroes who dazzled him once by their splendid achievements are mere ordinary mortals like himself, whom the blindness or caprice of their fellows has allowed to be dressed in a little brief authority; that the cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces he used to gaze on from afar, prove, on a closer inspection, to be mere deceptions of paint and canvas, and that he has only to look behind them to see the rough bricks and mortar of every-day life.
The voyager who sails from the dark waters of the restless Atlantic into the deep blue Mediterranean, notices at sunset a rich purple haze which rises apparently from the surface of that fair inland sea, and drapes the hills and vales along the beautiful shore with a glory that fills the heart of the beholder with unutterable gladness. The distant, snow-covered peaks of old Granada, clad in the same bright robe, seem by their regal presence to impose silence on those whom their majestic beauty has blessed with a momentary poetic inspiration which defies all power of tongue or pen. It touches nothing which it does not adorn, and the commonest objects are transmuted by its magic into fairy shapes which abide ever after in the memory. Under its softening influence, the dingy sail of a fisherman's boat becomes almost as beautiful an object to the sight as the ruins of the temple which crowns the height of Cape Colonna. But when you approach nearer to that which had seemed so charming in its twilight robes, your poetic sense is somewhat interfered with. You find the fishing boat as unattractive as any that anchor on the Banks from which we obtain such frequent discounts of nasty weather, and the shore, though it may still be very beautiful, lacks the supernal glory imparted to it by distance. It is very much after this fashion with manhood, when we compare its reality with our childish expectations. We find that we have been deceived by a mere atmospheric phenomenon. But the destruction of the charm which age had for our eyes as children, is compensated for by the creation of a new glory which lights up our young days, as we look back upon them with the regret of manhood, and realize that their joys can never be lived over again.
Pardon me, gentle reader, for all this prosing. I have been reading that pleasant, hearty book, "Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby," during the past week, and it has set me a-thinking about my own boyhood; for, strange as it may seem, there was a time when this troublesome foot was more familiar with the football and the skate than with gout and flannel, – and Tom Brown's genial reminiscences have revived the memory of that time most wonderfully. There was considerable fun in Boston in my childhood, even though most of the faces which one met in Marlboro' Street and Cornhill were such as might have appropriately surrounded Cromwell at Naseby or Marston Moor. There were many people, even then, who did not regard religion as an affair of spasmodic emotions, and long, bilious-looking faces, and psalm-singing, and neck-ties. They thought that, so long as they were honest in their dealings, and did not swear to false invoices at the customhouse, and did as they would be done by, and lived virtuously, that He to whom they had been taught by parental lips to pray, would overlook the smaller offences – such as an occasional laugh or a pleasant jest – into which weak nature would now and then betray them. I cannot help thinking that they were about right, though I fear that I shall be set down as little better than one of the wicked by Stiggins, Chadband, Sleek & Co.
Yes, there was a good deal of fun among the boys in those old days. Boys will be boys, however serious the family may be; and if you take away their marbles, some other "vanity" will be sure to take their place. What jolly times we used to have Artillery Election! How good the egg-pop used to taste, in spite of the dust of Park Street, which mingled itself liberally with the nutmeg! How we used to save up our money for those festive days! How hard the arithmetic lessons seemed, particularly in the days immediately preceding vacation! How dreary were those long winters; and yet how short and pleasant they seemed to us! for we loved the runners, and skates, and jingling bells, and, as Pescatore, the Neapolitan poet, sings, "though bleak our lot, our hearts were warm."
Newspapers were not a common luxury in those times, and I suppose that I took as little notice of passing events as most children; yet I well remember the effect produced upon my mind one dark, threatening afternoon, near the close of the last century, by the announcement of the death of General Washington. I had been accustomed to hear him talked about as the Father of his Country; I had studied the lineaments of his calm countenance, as they were set forth for the edification of my patriotism on some coarse handkerchiefs presented to me by a public-spirited aunt, until I began to look upon him as almost a supernatural being. If I had been told that the Old South had been removed to Dorchester Heights, or that the solar system was irreparably disarranged, I should not have been more completely taken aback than I was by that melancholy intelligence. I need not say that afterwards, when I grew up and found that Washington was not only a mortal like the rest of us, but that he sometimes spelt incorrectly enough to have suited Noah Webster, (the inventor of the American language,) my supernatural view of that estimable general and patriot was very materially modified. I remember, too, how much I used to hear said about an extraordinary man who had risen up in France, and who seemed to be bending all Europe to his will. I never shall forget my astonishment on finding that Marengo was not a man, but a place. The discovery shamed me somewhat, and afterwards I always read whatever newspapers came in my way. When some slow tub of a packet had come across the ocean, battling with the nor'-westers, and was announced to have made a "quick passage of forty-eight days," how eagerly I followed the rapid fortunes of the first Napoleon! His successes, as they intoxicated him, dazzled and bewildered my boyish imagination. I understood the matter imperfectly, but I loved Napoleon, and delighted to repeat to myself those stirring names, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, &c. How I hated Russia after the disastrous campaign of 1812! (By the way, the exhibition of the Conflagration of Moscow, which used to have its intermittent terms of exhibition here some years since, always brought back all my youthful feelings about the old Napoleon; the march of the artillery across the bridge, in the foreground of the scene, the rattling of the gun carriages, – that most warlike of all warlike sounds, – the burning city, the destruction of the Kremlin, all united in my mind to form a sentiment of admiration and sympathy for the baffled conqueror. If that admirable show were to be revived once more, I should be tempted to take a season ticket to it, for I have no doubt that it would thrill me just as it did before my head could boast of a single gray hair.) Nor was my admiration for Napoleon's old marshals much below that which I entertained for the mighty genius who knew so well how to avail himself of their surpassing bravery and skill. I felt as if the unconquerable Murat, Lannes, Macdonald, Davoust, were my dearest and most intimate friends. The impetuous Ney, "the bravest of the brave," as his soldiers called him; and the inflexible Masséna, "the favourite child of victory," figured in all my dreams, heading gallant charges, and withstanding deadly assaults, and occupied the best part of my waking thoughts. I do not doubt that there is many a schoolboy nowadays who has dwelt with equal delight on the achievements of Scott and Taylor, of Canrobert, Bosquet and Pélissier, of Fenwick Williams and Havelock, and poor old Raglan, (that brave man upon whom the Circumlocution Office tried to fasten the blame of its own inefficiency, and who died broken-hearted, a melancholy illustration of the truth of Shakespeare's lines, —
"The painful warrior, famouséd for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razéd quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled,")
and who cherishes them as I did the heroes of half a century ago.
But, as I was saying, Tom Brown's happy reminiscences of Rugby have awakened once more all my boyish feelings; for New England has its Rugby, and many of the readers of the old Rugby boy's pleasant pages will grow enthusiastic with the recollection of their schoolboy days at Exeter, – their snowballings, their manly sports, their mighty contests with the boys of the town, – and, though they may not claim the genius of the former head-master of Rugby for the guardian of their youthful sports and studies, will apply all of the old boy's praises of Dr. Arnold to the wise, judicious, and lovable Dr. Abbot.
I always cherished an unbounded esteem for boys. The boy – the genuine human boy – may, I think, safely be set down as the noblest work of God. Pope claims that proud distinction for the honest man, but at the present time, the nearest we can come to such a mythological personage as an honest man, (even though we add Argand burners, expensive Carcels, Davy safeties, and the Drummond light to the officially recognized lantern of Diogenes,) is a real human boy, without a thought beyond his next holiday, with his heart overflowing with happiness, and his pockets chock full of marbles. Young girls cannot help betraying something of the in-dwelling vanity so natural to the sex; you can discern a self-consciousness in their every action which you shall look for in vain in the boy. Bless your heart! – you may dress a real boy up with superhuman care, and try to impress on his young mind that he is the pride of his parents, and one of the most remarkable beings that ever visited this mundane sphere, and he will listen to you with becoming reverence and docility; but his pure and honest nature will give the lie to all your flattery as soon as your back is turned, and in ten minutes you will find him kicking out the toes of his new boots, or rumpling his clean collar by "playing horse," or using the top of his new cap for a drinking vessel, and mixing in with the Smiths, and Browns, and Jinkinses, on terms of the most unquestioned equality. The author of Tom Brown says that "boys follow one another in herds like sheep, for good or evil; they hate thinking, and have rarely any settled principles." This is undoubtedly true; but still there is a generous instinct in boys which is far more trustworthy than those sliding, and unreliable, and deceptive ideas which we call settled principles. The boy's thinking powers may be fallible, but his instinct is, in the main, sure. There is no aristocracy of feeling among boys. Linsey-woolsey and broadcloth find equal favour in their eyes. What they seek is just as likely to be found under coarse raiment as under purple and fine linen. If their companion is a real good feller, even though he be a son of a rich merchant or banker, he is esteemed as highly as if his father were an editor of a newspaper.
The nature of the boy is full of the very essence of generosity. The boys who hide away their gingerbread, and eat it by themselves, – who lay up their Fourth of July five-cent pieces, for deposit in that excellent savings institution in School Street, instead of spending them for the legitimate India crackers of the "Sabbath Day of Freedom," – are exceptions which only put the general rule beyond the pale of controversy. The real boy carries his apple in one of his pockets until it is comfortably warm, and he has found some companion to whom he may offer a festive bite; for he feels, with Goethe, that and if, occasionally, when he sees his friend gratifying his palate with a fair round specimen of the same delicious fruit, he asks for a return of his kindness, with a beckoning gesture, and a free and easy – "I say, you know me, Bill!" – he is moved thereto by no mere selfish liking for apples, but by a natural sense of friendship, and of the excellence of the apostolic principle of community of goods. This spirit of generosity may be seen in the friendships of boys, which are more entire and unselfish than those by which men seek to mitigate the irksomeness of life. There are more Oresteses and Pyladeses, more Damons and Pythiases, at twelve years of age than at any later period of life. The devotedness of boyish friendship is peculiar from the fact that it is generally reciprocal. In this it is superior to what we call love, which, if we may believe the French satirist, in most instances consists of one party who loves, and another who allows himself or herself to be loved. This phenomenon has not escaped the notice of that great observer of human nature, Thackeray.
"It were the greatest misery known
To be in paradise alone;"
"What generous boy," he asks, "in his time has not worshipped somebody? Before the female enslaver makes her appearance, every lad has a friend of friends, a crony of cronies, to whom he writes immense letters in vacation; whom he cherishes in his heart of hearts; whose sister he proposes to marry in after life; whose purse he shares; for whom he will take a thrashing if need be; who is his hero."
The generosity, and all the priceless charms of boyhood, rarely outlive its careless years of happiness. They are generally severely shaken, if not wholly destroyed, when the youth enters upon that crepuscular period of manhood in which his jacket is lengthened into a sack, and he begins to take his share in the conceit, and ambition, and selfishness of full-grown humanity. It is sad to think that a human boy, like the morning star, full of life and joy, may be stricken down by death, and all his hilarity stifled in the grave; but to my mind it is even more melancholy to think that he may live to grow up, and be hard, and worldly, and ungenerous as any of the rest of us. For this latter fate is accompanied by no consolations such as naturally assuage our sorrow when an innocent child is snatched from among his playthings, – when "death has set the seal of eternity upon his brow, and the beautiful hath been made permanent" I have seen few men who would be willing to live over again their years of manhood, however prosperous and comparatively free from trouble they may have been; but fewer still are those whom I have met, in whose memory the records of boyhood are not written as with a sunbeam. No, talk as we may about the happiness of manhood, the satisfaction of success in life, of gratified ambition, of the possession of the Mary or Lizzie of one's choice, – what is it all compared to the unadulterate joy of that time when we built our card houses, and made our dirt pies, or drove our hoops, unvexed by the thoughts that Jinkins's house was larger than ours, or by any anxiety concerning the possibility of obtaining our next day's mutton-chop and potatoes? Except the momentary pain occasioned by the exercise of a magisterial rattan upon our persons, or an occasional stern reproof from a hair-brush or the thin sole of a maternal shoe, that halcyon period is imperturbed, and may safely be called the happiest part of life.
My venerated friend, Baron Nabem, who has been through all these "experiences," and therefore ought to know, insists upon it that no man really knows any thing until he is forty years old. For when he is eighteen or twenty years of age, he esteems himself to be a sort of combination of the seven wise men of Greece in one person, with Humboldt, Mezzofanti, and Macaulay thrown in to make out the weight; at twenty-five, his confidence in his own infallibility begins to grow somewhat shaky; at thirty, he begins to wish that he might really know a tenth part as much as he thought he did ten years before; at thirty-five, he thinks that if he were added up, there would be very little to carry; and at forty the great truth bursts upon him in all its effulgence that he is an ass. There are some who reach this desirable state of self-knowledge before they attain the age specified by the Baron; other some there are who never reach it at all, – as we all see numerous instances around us, – but these are mere exceptions strengthening rather than invalidating the common rule. It is a humiliating acknowledgment, but if we consider the uncertainty of all earthly things, if we try the depth of the sea of human science, and find how easy it is to touch bottom any where therein, if we convince ourselves of the impenetrability of the veil which bounds our mental vision, – I think that we shall be obliged to allow that the recognition of our own nothingness and asininity is the sum and perfection of human knowledge. Now, Solomon tells us that he who increases knowledge increases sorrow; and it naturally follows that when a man has reached the knowledge which generally comes with his fortieth year, he is less happy than he was when he wrapped himself in the measureless content of his twentieth year's self-deception. And it follows, too, most incontrovertibly, that he is happier when unpossessed by that exaggerated self-esteem which rendered the discovery of his fortieth year necessary to him; and when is that time, if not during the careless, happy years of boyhood?
The period of boyhood has been shortened very considerably within a few years; and real boys are becoming scarce. They are no sooner emancipated from the bright buttons which unite the two principal articles of puerile apparel, than they begin to pant for virile habiliments. Their choler is roused if they are denied a stand-up dickey. They sport canes. They delight to display themselves at lectures and concerts. Their young lips are not innocent of damns and short-sixes; and they imitate the vulgarity and conceit of the young men of the present day so successfully that you find it hard to believe that they are mere children. Since this period of dearth in the boy market set in, of course the genuine, marketable article has become more precious to me. I remember seeing an old physician in Paris, who was as true a boy as any beloved twelve-year-old that ever snapped a marble or stuck his forefinger into a preserve jar on an upper shelf in a china closet. A charming old fellow he was, too. He used to stop to see the boys play in the gardens of the Tuileries, and I knew him once to spend a whole afternoon in the avenue of the Champs Elysées looking at the puppet shows and other sights with the rest of the youngsters. He told me afterwards that that was one of the happiest days of his life; for he had felt as if he were back again in the pleasant time before he knew any thing of that most uncertain of all uncertain things – the science of medicine; and he doubted whether any boy there had enjoyed the cheap amusement more than himself. I envied him, for I knew that he who retained so much of the happy spirit of boyhood could not have outlived all of its generosity and simplicity. "Once a man and twice a child," says the old proverb; and I cannot help thinking that if at the last we could only recall something of the sincerity, and innocence, and unselfishness of our early life, second childhood would indeed be a blessed thing.