Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848

To death of Distance I have died,
And all has perished, but – Despair.
Whether thy fate with woe be fraught,
Or Joy's gay rainbow gleams o'er thee,
I've died to all, but the mad thought
That what was once no more shall be.

'Tis well: – at least I shall not know
How time or tears may change that brow;
Thine eyes shall smile, thy cheek shall glow
To me in distant years as now.
And when in holier worlds, where Blame,
And Blight, and Sorrow, have no birth,
Thou'rt mine at last – I'll clasp the same
Unalter'd Angel, loved on earth.

MAN IS A FEATHERLESS BIPED

I have heard – I saw yesterday that fact enlarged upon in Mrs Thunder's Tales of Passion– that people's hair may be turned gray by intense anxiety, intense fear, intensity of any kind, in a single day. My hair is not exactly gray (far from it, indeed, considering my time of life) – but, if the above physical phenomenon did ever really occur, it ought to be silvery-white. For I have passed through a day, the consequences of which colour, and will colour, my whole existence. Life's fever came to a crisis, and the crisis turned out unfavourably. The threads of my destiny got into a tangle, and Fate in a passion cut the knot with her scissors. My earthly career has been divided into two distinctly-marked portions, and the point where the two are united – the bending-stone (as the Greeks say) of the race-course, is the day on which I was plucked.

Reader of Maga, as your experiences are possibly confined to the land of Maga's nativity, I will explain to you what it is to be plucked. It is to have your degree refused at one of the English universities. Now don't suppose that, when I have said this, I have said all. The mischief does not end with the refusal. It is bad enough, truly, to have gone through three years of reading and walking, or of port-wine drinking and tandem-driving, and then to get nothing for your trouble. But that's not it. A plucking brings with it consequences quite peculiar to itself – consequences hardly intelligible out of England – hardly intelligible, indeed, out of the sphere of the upper classes in England. The English universities are the nurseries of adolescent English gentlemen – of the whole aristocracy, church, and bar. And the many thousand persons comprised in these very extensive denominations, although they may have nothing else in common, agree in fond and not very discriminating reverence for Oxford and Cambridge. I really believe that many a man, whose actual reminiscences of these seats of learning are confined to the pace of the boats and the badness and dearness of the wine, yet manages to persuade himself that his being was somehow exalted by his three years' course. And then the sacredness which attaches to their verdict! A fellow will pass current any where with the university stamp upon him. I know that Muggleton, who got a medal, and is the slowest dummy in creation, used to be invited occasionally to dinner-parties as a substitute for the late S. S. Besides, university life is common ground to half the world. You place Tories and Whigs, high churchmen and low churchmen, round the same table, and there follows a wrangle or a quarrel; but, let the conversation once veer round to the incidents of "Slogger's year," or the character of Dr – , and you will find the talk flowing freely, and opinions unanimous.

So you see the unpleasantness of there being nothing to be said about one, under such circumstances, except that one was plucked. Of Mr Pennefeather, of Elmstead Lodge, Surrey, (my present designation,) little is known in the neighbourhood of the aforesaid Elmstead Lodge, beyond the fact that he and his charming family live there. But the name of Pennefeather of St Saviour's, Cambridge, is common property, and hundreds know it in connexion with certain unfortunate circumstances, already alluded to.

I was always in my college considered rather a reading man. I attended chapel and lecture regularly. I went to few parties or none. Grindham of St John's (the present dean of – ), and Swetter of Trinity (the new Queen's counsel), backed by their respective colleges for the senior wranglership, were old school-fellows of mine, and we continued our acquaintance. By dint of flattering Swetter, and listening to Grindham's endless holdings forth on mathematical subjects, I grew into favour with both. I believe the worthy fellows began to think me one of themselves, – nothing very brilliant, perhaps, but still sure of a decent place in the honour-list. And, indeed, had fate pleased, their influence might have brought things to a better issue. I was induced to keep my outer door scrupulously shut till two o'clock P.M.; and, though I often fell asleep in my chair, and conic sections always made my head ache, I nevertheless made some way. But I was ruined by a flute! I had learned to play in early life – my mother liked me to accompany my sisters; and now the accomplishment, of which I had grown most school-boyishly ashamed, was discovered by a lazy, handsome, perfumed, kid-gloved flaneur of a fellow, Jenkyns of our college, whose rooms were above mine. He was just then getting up a musical association, and of all things wanted a second flute. I have no patience to narrate the steps of the seduction and triumph, – how I resisted his overtures at first, then gave way conditionally, then unconditionally, – how we had meetings, and held committees, and gave concerts, – how the dons first looked suspicious, then indifferent, then applausible, – and how, finally, far conspicuous with my white waistcoat and baton, I led the band on the first anniversary of our foundation, in the presence of the vice-chancellor and a brilliant assemblage of professors and heads of houses. But the degree examination was approaching – unappeasable, inevitable.

Grindham, I confess, had begun to look cold on me; but Swetter, who was a little ambitious of being considered an accomplished gentleman as well as a great mathematician, rather countenanced my proceedings. He never joined us himself – he was a great deal too deep for that – but he largely affected contempt for fellows who maintained that fiddling and reading were incompatible. And indeed, without being in the least aware of it, I had been made, as it were, the pattern-man of our association and the new system. Did any one object to our concerts, rehearsals, and practisings, as occupying too much time, he was referred to Pennefeather of St Saviour's, "a regular leading man, by Jove – pal of Grindham and Swetter – goes home after a concert, and sits up half the night with a wet cloth round his head." So said report – lying as usual; and my fall was the greater in consequence.

The examination was over, and the result was to be announced next morning. I had felt my ideas rather vague on the subject of the questions asked, and half suspected that my answers partook of their looseness. Still I had my hopes – I had covered a good deal of paper with my writing – a wranglership was not so very unlikely. With this conviction I went to bed, and slept, on the whole, very soundly. In the morning I dressed, shaved, and breakfasted, with considerable deliberation; and, just before nine o'clock, walked down to the senate-house. The scene there, on this and like occasions, is sufficiently exciting to an uninterested person – something more than exciting to one in a situation like mine. A crowd of young men, half mad with expectation, beset the doors of the edifice. The fate of themselves and their friends, their bets and the honour of their respective colleges, are at stake. They shout and scream. The doors are thrown open. All rush in. A pandemoniac confusion ensues. Then some patriotic individual volunteers to read aloud the expanded list, and, hoisted on the shoulders of his neighbours, begins, – wranglers, "Grindham, St John's; Swetter, Trinity; Pump, Trinity, ("Hooray!" shouts somebody, and runs off to convey the intelligence to Mr Pump, who is funking in his room) – Mullins, St John's; Shobley, St Saviours; &c., &c." I listened calmly to the first half of the wrangler-list, anxiously to the last, tremblingly to the names in the next class, agonisedly to those in the third and last. My name was not there at all! In the hope that it might have been omitted by mistake, I waited until the crowd thinned, and then, with dim eyes, read the paper myself. There was no mistake at all. I ran, unobserved, to my rooms, locked myself in, and during the next three hours I won't say what I did or thought. There are moments – but never mind! I'm a father of a family now.

The day was verging towards the afternoon when I put on my hat, determined to go out and brave the mocking looks of the undergraduate world. I thought I had some notion of what was to be expected, but the bitterness of the draught surpassed all my anticipations. I had hardly got outside the gate of my college, when there turned the nearest corner a walking party of fifteen gentlemen abreast – the centre-piece was Grindham. The two wings were composed of his admiring, flattering friends. My appearance caused a singular alteration in the countenances of the party. Some looked awkwardly; most of them manifested a strong inclination to laugh; but Grindham himself would have passed without recognising me, had not his neighbour whispered something in his ear. He turned and shook hands – I would have given the world so that he had cut me, for I expected some of that pity which "d – d goodnatured" friendship proffers on such occasions. Alas! my friend had forgotten my position in his own: he did not seem in the least aware that any person except himself and Swetter, the defeated Swetter, had been interested in the late examination. He talked incoherently for some minutes, for repressed exultation was making his eyes dim, and causing his tongue to stutter; and there we stood, he the victor and I not even worthy to be considered the vanquished, chattering on the most indifferent matters – even about that confounded musical association – and neither of us venturing to touch upon the subject which was filling each of our hearts to overflowing. Had any one of the fourteen young men who were tittering together at a little distance, been a cynic or a psychologist, he might have freely fed his humour, or made a valuable addition to his stock of observation. Grindham, Pennefeather – pride struggling hard to be modest; shame striving to gloss itself over with gay indifference – human nature in either case denying and belying itself – what lesson, or what a caricature! But, just before we separated, something seemed to strike my companion. He suddenly became more confused than ever, and then was clearly striving hard to look sentimental. "By the bye, my dear fellow – oh! ah! I was very sorry … better luck next time, eh!" And so we parted. But I had lost my friend.

I proceeded. An indistinct object became visible on the other side of the way, which, as I approached, gradually assumed the form and proportions of a man. It was a figure, not unfrequently seen in my day in the streets of Cambridge: a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat, which completely concealed the countenance of the wearer, just permitted to loom out of its shadow a many-coloured neckhandkerchief, printed with the flags of all nations. This last cosmopolitan habiliment shone in advantageous contrast to a dogskin waistcoat, of indescribable hue, and immensely broad trousers of white flannel. No coat at all was visible in front, but behind you might perceive that one of bright olive-coloured cloth came sharply out immediately below the arms, – a sporting Newmarket coat, exaggerated to intensity. Such was the outer man of Mr Charles Maxey, of St Saviour's; the inner man was full of all corruption and wickedness. This gentleman, being rather at a loss for occupation amid the uncongenial excitements of the day, was engaged in somewhat roughly schooling a small and horribly ugly terrier puppy to follow him up and down the street. I had no acquaintance with him. I knew nothing of him whatever, beyond the fact that he generally entered the College Hall very much after the proper time, dressed in a rough pilot coat, and invariably swearing violently, as he came in, at some unknown person or object outside the door. But it appeared that, if I had lost one friend, I had gained another. He, who would never have ventured to speak to me before – for the credit of our college, let me say that he was completely and universally cut – now rushed across the street, and shaking me by the hand, bade me "cheer up, (I had flattered myself I was looking tolerably cheerful,) and d – n the concern!" The beast then favoured me with a dissertation on the nature, cause, and consequences of mishaps like mine; in the course of which he explained that his own two pluckings had been entirely owing to the remissness of his private tutor, in not providing cigars at his (the private tutor's) rooms, and thereby failing to render Mr Maxey's studies sufficiently agreeable. "B – and T – ," censoriously remarked that gentleman, "always do it: so I shall go to one of them, and cut old Z – , next term." Finally, he insisted on taking me off to breakfast, (breakfast at two o'clock!) at the rooms of a friend of his, who had been plucked fifteen times, and meant going on to the twentieth plucking, to entitle himself (according to an old Cambridge tradition,) to a gratuitous degree. I accompanied him in passive helplessness, and found a room some thing more than filled with about thirty Maxeys, smoking and singing. I remember it all to this day; – the indescribable songs – the spiced ale – Maxey's story about trotting the gray mare to Newmarket – the jocular allusions to myself – all this comes over me now like a dream of purgatory. The events of that day are indissolubly linked together in my mind; and I can never recall my misfortune without recalling too the meeting with Grindham and the party at the rooms of Mr Maxey's friend. But hard as these things were to endure in our little world at Cambridge, I have since experienced worse consequences of that accursed plucking among grown men, and in a manner made more painful to a sensitive organisation like mine.

I won't say what my father said when he heard of this termination of my university career. He had been a chancellor's medallist himself, and, in virtue of his medal, was listened to in parliament before the war. I believe he thought that all a man's doings in life were contained in his university exploits, like the chicken in the egg. Me he sent off to read theology with a clergyman in the country, previously to taking orders – for a family living awaited me. In this position I remained two years. I may mention, in passing, that my worthy instructor, a perfect ninny, though a former fellow of his college, despised me utterly for my past failure, and was at no pains to conceal his contempt; and at the end of that time, I set out for the cathedral city of F – , to go through the bishop's preparatory examination. Now, there is a prevalent notion in England, or at least in the English universities, that a bishop's examination is regulated after a peculiar fashion. It is reported that the prelate, or his chaplain, examines beforehand the calendars of the two universities, and adapts his subsequent questions to the information thence derived, in what may be called reverse order. Thus, a wrangler or first-classman, being supposed fit for any thing, is asked nothing in particular. It was even whispered – ay! even in these days of priestly dignity – that when my friend Grindham's eldest son, himself a second senior wrangler, went up a few weeks ago to the Bishop of – , his lordship merely demanded information respecting the feeling of the university on the Hampden question, and on being satisfactorily answered, remarked that he dined at six, and dismissed his examinee. But, to resume – the questions are said, or rather were said, to increase in difficulty with the decreasing honours of the applicant. A second-classman had questions of average difficulty put to him, a man who took no honours, was stiffly catechised; a plucked man – but how it fared, and perhaps still fares, with plucked men, you shall judge from my case. After a night of excessive nervousness at the inn, I proceeded to the palace at ten o'clock in the morning. A number of serious-looking, white-cravatted, young men were waiting in the outer room, into which I was ushered. It was bitterly cold: there was, it is true, a fire; but it was actually going out, because no one dared to stir the Episcopal embers. An inner door every now and then opened and shut, admitting each time some one individual of the shivering crowd into the dreaded presence. Many old familiar faces were there. I should perhaps have shrunk from their aspect, had not nervousness, and perhaps a feeling that every one of them might in a few minutes find himself in my identical position, placed us all on a level. So I looked almost boldly about me. After a few minutes, I was on the point of addressing an old acquaintance, when, above the shoulder of the man to whom I was about to speak, there appeared a face, often seen but always loathed in my walking and sleeping visions. It was Maxey's. The cosmopolitan handkerchief had disappeared, and the debauched eyes looked brighter and less bloodshot than of old; but it was the same Maxey who fraternised with me on the day of my fall. He was – I am sorry to say – attempting to get into orders. He had been rejected, he told me, once before, but he had now been "coached by so-and-so half a year, and meant to manage it this time." Whether Mr So-and-So provided cigars for theological pupils I did not inquire; I was too much sickened by Maxey's presence, – so much so that it was really a relief when I was summoned in my turn to the Bishop's apartment. I passed through a long passage, then through an ante-room; lastly, a door opened, and displayed his lordship sitting solemnly at a large green table. The chaplain was leaving the room just as my name was announced. I saw him put his hand to his mouth, and distinctly heard him whisper in a loud aside – "Plucked in 18 – , my Lord."

The Bishop's face assumed an expression of yet more awful solemnity. He gravely motioned me to sit down, and then, looking me full in the eyes, said – "Ah hem! I have no doubt, Mr Pennefather, you have sufficiently prepared yourself for the – hem – important office you propose to take on yourself. I am sorry to say that this – ah! – hem – most important office is often entered upon without sufficient – hem – preparation."

A pause. Fluency was not his lordship's forte. But if the moral annihilation of the object addressed is the end and aim of oratory, he proved himself in this case a Demosthenes.

He then continued – "Nothing is more – hem – essential to a clergyman than a knowledge of the early history of Christianity. Let me ask you what you know of the Patripassian heresy?"

I don't know what I might have answered under other circumstances, but the chaplain's whisper and the Bishop's exordium were too much for me. I could not utter a word. Other questions followed, to which I answered nothing or nonsense. In the end I recollect that his lordship made me a long speech, from which I gathered – it was not difficult to do this, as it consisted of the same sentence repeated in every variety of collocation – that he was very sorry that he could not admit me into orders with such – hem – ah – insufficient preparation.

I bowed and left the room, passed through the ante-chamber and passage into the apartment where the rest of the candidates were waiting, and thence made my exit with some words of Mr Maxey's dancing and humming in my ears, – "so we're plucked again, old boy!"

Between this scene and the next passage of my life, which I shall sketch or the reader's benefit, there was an interval of several years. I had been abroad most of the time, and had very nearly managed to forget my university misfortune. There was no occasion to revert to the bishop, for my elder brother died, and I stepped into his place – the family living being duly put out to nurse for my brother Tom. From the proximate parson, I had become the bachelor heir, with rooms in Piccadilly, a groom, and a brougham.

One day – it was in the course of my first season in town – I was dining with Jobson in Hamilton Place. Why I went so frequently to Jobson's, any body who remembers Emily Jobson, and what an angel she looked in that lilac silk, will easily guess. I had flattered myself I was not prospering badly with her. But I knew there was a rival in the field – no other person than my old friend Swetter, then a rising junior of five-and-thirty at the chancery bar. We were running on a tie, as I fancied – Swetter and I. The dear girl was, I am sure, very much puzzled to decide between us; and I often thought I could see, by the expression of her face, that she was balancing Swetter, his advantages and disadvantages, his possible peerage, and the necessity entailed on his wife of staying in London through the winter, against me and my little place in Surrey. And all the time, I had an uneasy consciousness that my rival could get the start, if he pleased, by confiding to Emily certain awkward antecedents of mine, known to the reader. But, to do him justice, he was too much of a gentleman to head me by such means. This I knew, and though at this very dinner-party he was sitting opposite Emily and myself, and looking exquisitely uncomfortable every time I whispered in her ear between the spoonfuls of bisque d'écrivisses, I felt certain that even greater provocation would not tempt him to peach. So all went smoothly – as smoothly as things ought to go at one of Jobson's admirable dinners. But towards the middle of the second course, Jobson's voice, which had been growing gradually louder since we sat down, became so overpowering as to beat down and absorb all other conversation. He was talking about Cambridge and his son Plantagenet. Jobson is a nouveau riche (some of his friends call him Tyburn Jobson, because he made his money in hemp), and rather unnecessarily fond of introducing the now well-known facts that Plantagenet is at the university, and Tudor in the Guards. So, Jobson giving the cue, Cambridge became the text of the general conversation. Glauber, who stammers horridly, and, like most stammering men, takes every opportunity of telling long and inextricable stories, began to hold forth, in the midst of general silence, concerning Lady Ligham's son William, whom her ladyship would persist in believing a genius, and whom she had sent to Cambridge expressly to be senior wrangler. "But," added Glauber, "only the other d..d..d..day I heard he was p..p..p..pluck – ."

The word was not out of his mouth, when that brute Jones, who was next him, gave him a tremendous admonitory poke in the side. Glauber first turned wrathfully on him, and then, beginning to comprehend, looked straight at me – his red face becoming redder with confusion, and his great goggle eyes almost starting out of his head.

"I b. b. b. beg your p. p." begun the wretch; but Swetter and Jones, who had been writhing with suppressed laughter, here gave vent to such sounds as effectually drowned his miserable voice. I gulped down a glass of champagne, and made things worse by choking myself. Meanwhile Emily looked on with a face of the utmost astonishment.

Well, we concluded dinner, drank Jobson's wine, and ascended to the drawing-room. No sooner did we enter, than I saw Emily go straight up to Swetter, and ask a question. He laughed a good deal at first, and then visibly commenced a long story. I followed it in Emily's face as clearly as if I had been listening to it. Yes! the temptation was too much for Swetter; and, to say the truth, he only did what any one else would have done in like circumstances. He told all. Determined to know my fate, I walked to Emily's chair, and began conversing in my usual strain. She was civil – just civil – but in less than five minutes, she managed to inform me that she hoped her dear brother Plantagenet would work hard at Cambridge —for the honour of his family. It was enough. Swetter and she were married in two months.

I left London without waiting for the season to conclude, and buried myself and a fishing-rod in a lonely Welsh cottage. For months I saw nobody but the old woman whom I brought from Monmouth to cook my dinners. She, I believe, thought me decidedly mad – principally because I once swore dreadfully at her, when, àpropos of a chicken on which I was to dine, she used a word vernacularly employed to signify the stripping birds of their feathers. I fished, caught nothing, and mused on Emily. At last, however, on casually extending a ramble to a greater length than usual, I found that a house, five miles from my present residence, and quite as solitary, had been taken by an English family. As a matter of course – though I really cannot precisely remember in what way – we became acquainted. All I know is, that I determined the acquaintance should commence as soon as possible, immediately after meeting a young lady in a pink bonnet, who was sauntering along the side of the stream in which I was pretending to fish. This was Caroline Lumley. They were the Lumleys – Captain and Mrs Lumley, and two daughters. The family had lived the anomalous life common to English semi-genteel families with small incomes. They had resided, now in Jersey, now in Dublin, now on the Continent – every where but in civilised and inhabitable parts of England. At present they had settled themselves down, for the sake of cheapness, in a spot where every thing except mutton and house-rent was twice as expensive as in London, and where they had to walk five miles to meet with a neighbour.

That neighbour was myself. I was sick with disappointed love, and Caroline Lumley was dying with ennui. Need I say that in six weeks we were engaged!

I really believe that she worshipped me as a superior being. There had been few or no men in the out-of-the-way places where they had lived. There never are. They are all draughted off to business and employments of various kinds. So I not only had no equal in her estimation, but could not, by any possibility, have had one. She thought me the handsomest man in the world. She used to praise my talents and accomplishments to my face. Indeed, by the side of old Captain Lumley, who, prosy by nature, had long ago exhausted all his topics, I might have appeared a Crichton. Every now and then, however, when Caroline had called me clever, there used to come over me a shudder. Could she be ever brought to think of me as Emily Jobson probably did? The idea was positively maddening. Many a night did I lie awake, speculating whether, after all, it might not be better to secure myself against another such cross of destiny by freely revealing to her my great secret.

At last, reflection, building on the reminiscences of an old Cambridge tradition, suggested to me a plan which I lost no time in executing.

"My love," said I to Caroline one morning, "did you ever hear of Cambridge?"

"Oh yes!" she replied, apparently quoting from Pinnock; "it's the capital of Cambridgeshire."

"Did you never hear any thing else about it?" rejoined I.

"It's famous for its university, isn't it?" said she, seemingly from the same source.

"On this hint I spake," and told her how that I had been educated at Cambridge, and how that, after three years of intense study, I had received the greatest honour the university had to bestow —a plucking.

"Yes," said I, my face radiant with a triumphant expression – "I was actually plucked."

"I am sure you were, you dear, clever thing!" cried she, throwing her arms round my neck.

We were married at Monmouth, and I took my bride straight to London. I own I was a little desirous of showing Emily Jobson, or rather Emily Swetter, that there was a young lady in the world quite as pretty as herself, and with better taste. Swetter and his wife called on us as soon as he heard we were in town; and shortly afterwards we dined with them at their new house in Torrington Square. Among the guests was Grindham —my Grindham, but how changed! He had become tutor of his college, and had expanded into the most perfect specimen of the university don I ever beheld. He was positively swelling with importance. So inordinately conspicuous, indeed, was his air of self-appreciation, that even my little Caroline noticed it; and I heard her ask Mrs Swetter who and what he was.

"He took the very highest honours at Cambridge," said she in reply.

Caroline smiled, and seemed to think him quite justified in looking as important as he did.

The cloth was removed. Caroline was sitting by Grindham's side. She had spoken little during dinner-time; but I had noticed that several times she had seemed fidgetty, as though she ought to say something to her neighbour. Now my wife had at that time a bad habit of speaking in a very loud voice – in consequence of a deaf father, and of the little society she had seen. The conversation, accordingly, had no sooner stopped (as is its wont) with a dead pause, than she turned to Grindham, and said in a tone of appalling distinctness —

"Mr Grindham, were you ever plucked?"

Had a trumpet been suddenly blown close to Grindham's ear, he could not have looked more thoroughly taken aback.

Caroline repeated her words with yet more frightful clearness —

"I understand that you were plucked at Cambridge."

Grindham's countenance grew purple; we had a room full of university men, and the insulting speech was overheard by all. There was a universal stare and stir; and Mrs Swetter seemed to be saying to herself, "what wild beast have I got here!"

Caroline, perceiving she had done something very much amiss, got frightened, and bent over her plate during the rest of dinner.

When the gentlemen came to the drawing-room, Mrs Swetter and she were sitting together. They had been talking, and Caroline's face was very red. Our eyes met: her look was full of contempt.