Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2207 page)

They encountered other dangers from stray Papist travellers, from which they escaped, however, with very little difficulty. — The further they got from Paris, the fewer risks they ran. On the eighth day after their departure, they reached a large building, situated in a very remote place, and called Castlenau. This was the end of their journey; for here the Sieur de Caumont had flown for refuge, after riding out to the Pr
e
-aux-Clercs with the rest of the Huguenot fugitives,

“
Nobody,
”
says the ancient chronicler from whose pages these particulars are taken
, “
nobody would believe, if I tried to relate it, how the Sieur de Caumont rejoiced over the recovery of the nephew whom he had given up for dead. From that time forth he loved the boy as if he had been his son; and the first lesson he taught him was to thank God, on his knees, night and morning, for his deliverance from death.
”
It is good to know that Jacques showed himself well worthy of his uncle
’
s affection and care. He entered the army, and rose to the highest distinction as a soldier. In French history his name is famous, as the Marshal de la Force. He escaped death on the field of battle as marvellously as he had escaped it in the streets of Paris, and he lived prosperously to the ripe old age of eighty-four years.

This is all there is to tell of the escape of Jacques from the Massacre of St. Bartholomew
’
s Day.

 
Taken from
Household Words
9 January 1858

IN Boswell
’
s Life of Johnson it is related of OLIVER GOLDSMITH that he one day broke his shins in attempting to show his friends that he could perform a certain feat of agility, which had conferred great celebrity on a Clown who was the popular favourite of the day. The anecdote is generally accepted, with a high sense of relish, as one among many other amusing proofs of Goldsmith
’
s ridiculous vanity. Speaking for myself, I have never been able to look at it in that light. I have always believed that the misadventure to Goldsmith
’
s shins was caused by his acute sense of the neglected state of his muscular education. He knew that he possessed the same bodily apparatus as the Clown; he was ashamed of not being able to turn it to the same dexterous use; he gallantly endeavoured to make up for deficiencies in early training by self-directed efforts in later life; and, like many another man, who, in default of proper schooling, has tried to teach himself, he failed in accomplishing his meritorious purpose. Superficial spectators, who could not look beyond the broken shins, all burst out laughing at the accident, and cried: There is his vanity again! And, since that time, a superficial public has unanimously echoed the exclamation.

Grateful remembrances of The Vicar of Wakefield make me hope that I am right in the view I take of this anecdote. At the same time, common candour compels me to confess that all public exhibitions of great skill and dexterity have the same curious effect on my own mind, which I suppose the Clown
’
s feat to have had on the mind of Goldsmith. When, for example, I attend the performances of a conjuror; when I observe that his hands are in every respect like mine; and when I see the amazing uses to which he can put them, I blush at the mortifying sight of my own fingers and thumbs; I think of the dormant dexterities which my parents never cultivated, and which I can now never hope to acquire; and I leave the entertainment, secretly ashamed of my grossly ignorant hands, and secretly relieved when I find myself hiding them from the public eye in the kindly refuge of my pockets.

It must be a very strong feeling indeed which makes an Englishman ashamed of his own legs. The observant reader who has travelled abroad, will, I think, support me when I assert that no respectable Frenchman, German, or Italian, was ever yet seen to bend his head down while walking in the street, and survey the spectacle of his own legs with a grave and vacant satisfaction. The same observant reader, on returning to London from foreign parts, cannot fail to have noticed that all respectable Englishmen perform this action, at one period or another of their progress through the streets. It may be that we admire our own legs as a nation; or it may be that we are scrupulously anxious to see that our trousers are properly brushed. At any rate, there is no doubt of the fact that the Englishman enjoys the sight of his own legs in a state of progression
especially when they are taking him to Church. National in all other matters, I used to be national also in this. Some years since, unfortunately for myself, I saw a famous male opera-dancer. The sprightly leapings, twistings, twirlings, and twinklings of those incomparable and never-to-be-forgotten legs, sank deep into my mind, and dried up in me for ever, those sources of innocent national enjoyment, to which I have referred, I hope, with becoming tenderness and respect. I left the theatre, so heartily disgusted with the stolidity of my own uneducated legs, that I have never had the courage or the curiosity to look at them since.

Something of the same eccentric mental operation has been lately stirred into action within me by the perusal of a very remarkable book which is just now interesting the public in an unusual degree. I have been following a narrative of great dangers and trials, encountered in a good cause, by as honest and as courageous a man as ever lived. In other words, I have been reading DOCTOR LIVINGSTONE
’
S Account of his Travels in South Africa. What various results this book may have produced upon the minds of its very large circle of readers, I cannot pretend to say. One of the results which it has produced on my mind, is of a kind which I suspect neither its author, its publisher, nor its critics foresaw, when it was first presented to the world. The effect of it on me has been to lower my opinion of my own character in a most remarkable and most disastrous manner. I used to think that I possessed the moral virtues of courage, patience, resolution, and self-control. Since I have read Doctor Livingstone
’
s volume, I have been driven to the humiliating conclusion that, in forming my own opinion of myself, I have been imposed upon by a false and counterfeit article. Guided by the test of the South African Traveller, I find that my much-prized courage, patience, resolution, and self-control, turn out to be nothing but plated goods. A week ago I thought they were genuine silver
;
I did, indeed.

How can this possibly have happened?
some persons may be inclined to ask. Happy persons! who can lay the book down, thankful to the author (as I am thankful) for having written it; but, on the other hand, not depreciated in their own estimations, as I am depreciated in mine. It is no very difficult task to describe the manner in which my self-esteem oozed out of me as soon as I made Doctor Livingstone
’
s acquaintance. The process was simple in itself; and it began at the very first chapter in. the book. I had only reached page twelve, when I was irresistibly impelled to ask myself this searching and decisive question: Suppose I was travelling in South Africa, and suppose, at the very beginning of my wanderings, a lion laid hold of me by the shoulder, and got me down on the ground under his paw? What should I have done? Beyond all possibility of doubt, I should have shrieked for help to my savage friends running off in the background; and, receiving none, I should have fainted away with fright, and have known nothing more till my, faithful niggers brought me to, and set my pulse going again with news that the lion was dead. That is what I should have done under these circumstances. What does Doctor Livingstone do?

* * * “I took a good aim at his body through the bush, and fired both barrels into it. * * I did not see any one else shoot at him, but I saw the lion
’
s tail erected in anger behind the bush, and, turning to the people said, Stop a little till I load again. When in the act of ramming down the bullets, I heard a shout. Starting and looking half-round, I saw the lion in the act of springing upon me.”

That is where I should have shrieked for help.

“I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear”

This is where I should have fainted with fright
.

“he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain, nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. * * * Turning round to relieve myself of the weight, as he had one paw on the back of my head, I saw his eyes directed to Mebalwe who was trying to shoot him at a distance of ten or fifteen yards. His gun, a flint one, missed fire in both barrels; the lion immediately left me, and, attacking Mebalwe bit his thigh. Another man, whose life I had saved before, after he had been tossed by a buffalo, attempted to spear the lion while he was biting Mebalwe. He left Mebalwe and caught this man by the shoulder, but at that moment the bullets he had received took effect, and he fell down dead. The whole was the work of a few moments, and must have been his paroxysm of dying rage. * * * Besides crushing the bone into splinters, he left eleven teeth-wounds on the upper part of my arm.”

Gentle reader, if you were under the paw of a lion could you move to make your position more comfortable? Could you notice whether your companion
’
s gun missed fire or not? Could you keep your consciousness, and analyse your feelings afterwards? I could have done none of these things; and, knowing that, it did not surprise me to find that the perusal of the passage just quoted and the loss of all belief in my own courage, were simultaneous mental operations, in my case, no longer than a week ago.

Another example. Suppose I set forth, as Doctor Livingstone set forth, to spread the blessings of Christianity among savages to whom the mere sight of a white man was a marvel
strong in my determination to do good
;
stronger yet in my freedom from the mischievous spiritual crotchets of sects and their high-priests at home, and in my wise resolution to give the cause of Religion the whole benefit of my plainest common sense, without regarding worn-out traditions, without stooping to powerful prejudices, without fearing senseless blame. Suppose I had been a Missionary of this rare sort
as Doctor Livingstone was, and is
how would my patience have held out, when I came to put my plans in practice, against such vexations and such trials as these?

* * * “It is, however, difficult to give an idea to an European of the little effect teaching produces, because no one can realise the degradation to which their minds have been sunk by centuries of barbarism and hard struggling for the necessaries of life; like most others, they listen with respect and attention, but, when we kneel down, and address an unseen Being, the position and the act often appear to them so ridiculous that they cannot refrain from bursting into uncontrollable laughter. After a few services they get over this tendency. I was once present when a missionary attempted to sing among a wild heathen tribe of Bechuanas, who had no music in their composition; the effect on the risible muscles of the audience was such that the tears actually ran down their cheeks. Nearly all their thoughts are directed to the supply of their bodily wants, and this has been the case with the race for ages: If asked, then, what effect the preaching of the Gospel has had at the commencement on such individuals, I am unable to tell, except that some have confessed long afterwards that they then first began to pray in secret.” * * *