Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (40 page)

Which was odd because the book looked exactly as it had done before.

Lascelles and Drawlight, who were both accustomed to seeing — or hearing about — Mr Norrell's wonderful magic, were scarcely impressed by this; indeed it was a great deal less than a common conjuror might manage at a fairground. Lascelles opened his mouth — doubtless to say some scathing thing — but was forestalled by Mr Norrell suddenly crying out in a tone of wonder, "But that is remarkable! That is truly . . .My dear Mr Strange! I never even heard of such magic before! It is not listed in Sutton-Grove. I assure you, my dear sir, it is not in Sutton-Grove!"

Lascelles and Drawlight looked from one magician to the other in some confusion.

Lascelles approached the table and stared hard at the book. "It is a little longer than it was perhaps," he said.

"I do not think so," said Drawlight.

"It is tan leather now," said Lascelles. "Was it blue before?"

"No," said Drawlight, "it was always tan."

Mr Norrell laughed out loud; Mr Norrell, who rarely even smiled, laughed at them. "No, no, gentlemen! You have not guessed it! Indeed you have not! Oh! Mr Strange, I cannot tell how much . . . but they do not understand what it is you have done! Pick it up!" he cried. "Pick it up, Mr Lascelles!"

More puzzled than ever Lascelles put out his hand to grasp the book, but all he grasped was the empty air. The book lay there in appearance only.

"He has made the book and its reflection change places," said Mr Norrell. "The real book is over there, in the mirror." And he went to peer into the mirror with an appearance of great professional interest. "But how did you do it?"

"How indeed?" murmured Strange; he walked about the room, examining the reflection of the book upon the table from different angles like a billiards-player, closing one eye and then the other.

"Can you get it back?" asked Drawlight.

"Sadly, no," said Strange. "To own the truth," he said at last, "I have only the haziest notion of what I did. I dare say it is just the same with you, sir, one has a sensation like music playing at the back of one's head — one simply knows what the next note will be."

"Quite remarkable," said Mr Norrell.

What was perhaps rather more remarkable was that Mr Norrell, who had lived all his life in fear of one day discovering a rival, had finally seen another man's magic, and far from being crushed by the sight, found himself elated by it.

Mr Norrell and Mr Strange parted that afternoon on very cordial terms, and upon the following morning met again without Mr Lascelles or Mr Drawlight knowing any thing about it. This meeting ended in Mr Norrell's offering to take Mr Strange as a pupil. Mr Strange accepted.

"I only wish that he had not married," said Mr Norrell fretfully. "Magicians have no business marrying."

1
The Modern Magician
was one of several magical periodicals set up following the first appearance of
The Friends of English Magic
in 1808. Though not appointed by Mr Norrell, the editors of these periodicals never dreamt of deviating from orthodox magical opinion as laid down by Mr Norrell.

2 Horace Tott spent an uneventful life in Cheshire always intending to write a large book on English magic, but never quite beginning. And so he died at seventy-four, still imagining he might begin next week, or perhaps the week after that.

25
The education of a magician

September-December 1809

O
N THE FIRST morning of Strange's education, he was invited to an early breakfast at Hanover-square. As the two magicians sat down at the breakfast-table, Mr Norrell said, "I have taken the liberty of drawing up a plan of study for you for the next three or four years."

Strange looked a little startled at the mention of three or four years, but he said nothing.

"Three or four years is such a very short time," continued Mr Norrell with a sigh, "that, try as I can, I cannot see that we will achieve very much."

He passed a dozen or so sheets of paper to Strange. Each sheet was covered in three columns of Mr Norrell's small, precise handwriting; each column contained a long list of different sorts of magic.
¹

Strange looked them over and said that there was more to learn than he had supposed.

"Ah! I envy you, sir," said Mr Norrell. "Indeed I do. The
practice
of magic is full of frustrations and disappointments, but the
study
is a continual delight! All of England's great magicians are one's companions and guides. Steady labour is rewarded by increase of knowledge and, best of all, one need not so much as look upon another of one's fellow creatures from one month's end to the next if one does not wish it!"

For a few moments Mr Norrell seemed lost in contemplation of this happy state, then, rousing himself, he proposed that they deny themselves the pleasure of Strange's education no longer but go immediately into the library to begin.

Mr Norrell's library was on the first floor. It was a charming room in keeping with the tastes of its owner who would always chuse to come here for both solace and recreation. Mr Drawlight had persuaded Mr Norrell to adopt the fashion of setting small pieces of mirror into odd corners and angles. This meant that one was constantly meeting with a bright gleam of silver light or the sudden reflection of someone in the street where one least expected it. The walls were covered with a light green paper, with a pattern of green oak leaves and knobbly oak twigs, and there was a little dome set into the ceiling which was painted to represent the leafy canopy of a glade in spring. The books all had matching bindings of pale calf leather with their titles stamped in neat silver capitals on the spine. Among all this elegance and harmony it was some-what surprizing to observe so many gaps among the books, and so many shelves entirely empty.

Strange and Mr Norrell seated themselves one on each side of the fire.

"If you will permit me, sir," said Strange, "I should like to begin by putting some questions to you. I confess that what I heard the other day concerning fairy-spirits entirely astonished me, and I wondered if I might prevail upon you to talk to me a little upon this subject? To what dangers does the magician expose himself in employing fairy-spirits? And what is your opinion of their utility?"

"Their utility has been greatly exaggerated, the danger much underestimated," said Mr Norrell.

"Oh! Is it your opinion that fairies are, as some people think, demons?" asked Strange.

"Upon the contrary. I am quite certain that the common view of them is the correct one. Do you know the writings of Chaston upon the subject? It would not surprize me if Chaston turned out to have come very near the truth of it.
²
No, no, my objection to fairies is quite another thing. Mr Strange, tell me, in your opinion why does so much English magic depend — or appear to depend — upon the aid of fairy-spirits?"

Strange thought a moment. "I suppose because all English magic comes from the Raven King who was educated at a fairy court and learnt his magic there."

"I agree that the Raven King has every thing to do with it," said Mr Norrell, "but not, I think, in the way you suppose. Consider, if you will, Mr Strange, that all the time the Raven King ruled Northern England, he also ruled a fairy kingdom. Consider, if you will, that no king ever had two such diverse races under his sway. Consider, if you will, that he was as great a king as he was a magician — a fact which almost all historians are prone to overlook. I think there can be little doubt that he was much preoccupied with the task of binding his two peoples together — a task which he accomplished, Mr Strange,
by deliberately exaggerating the role of fairies in magic
. In this way he increased his human subjects' esteem for fairies, he provided his fairy subjects with useful occupation, and made both peoples desire each other's company."

"Yes," said Strange, thoughtfully, "I see that."

"It seems to me," continued Mr Norrell, "that even the greatest of
Aureate
magicians miscalculated the extent to which fairies are necessary to human magic. Look at Pale! He considered his fairy-servants so essential to the pursuit of his art that he wrote that his greatest treasures were the three or four fairy-spirits living in his house! Yet my own example makes it plain that almost all
respectable
sorts of magic are perfectly achievable without assistance from any one! What have I ever done that has needed the help of a fairy?"

"I understand you," said Strange, who imagined that Mr Norrell's last question must be rhetorical. "And I must confess, sir, that this idea is quite new to me. I have never seen it in any book."

"Neither have I," said Mr Norrell. "Of course there are some sorts of magic which are entirely impossible without fairies. There may be times — and I sincerely hope that such occasions will be rare — when you and I shall have to treat with those pernicious creatures. Naturally we shall have to exercise the greatest caution. Any fairy we summon will almost certainly have dealt with English magicians before. He will be eager to recount for us all the names of the great magicians he has served and the services he has rendered to each. He will understand the forms and precedents of such dealings a great deal better than we do. It puts us — will put us — at a disadvantage. I assure you, Mr Strange, nowhere is the decline of English magic better understood than in the Other Lands."

"Yet fairy-spirits hold a great fascination for ordinary people," mused Strange, "and perhaps if you were occasionally to employ one in your work it might help make our art more popular. There is still a great deal of prejudice against using magic in the war."

"Oh! Indeed!" cried Mr Norrell, irritably. "People believe that magic begins and ends with fairies! They scarcely consider the skill and learning of the magician at all! No, Mr Strange, that is no argument with me for employing fairies! Rather the reverse! A hundred years ago the magio-historian, Valentine Munday, denied that the Other Lands existed. He thought that the men who claimed to have been there were all liars. In this he was quite wrong, but his position remains one with which I have a great deal of sympathy and I wish we could make it more generally believed. Of course," said Mr Norrell thoughtfully, "Munday went on to deny that America existed, and then France and so on. I believe that by the time he died he had long since given up Scotland and was beginning to entertain doubts of Carlisle . . . I have his book here."
³
Mr Norrell stood up and fetched it from the shelves. But he did not give it to Strange straightaway.

After a short silence Strange said, "You advise me to read this book?"

"Yes, indeed. I think you should read it," said Mr Norrell.

Strange waited, but Norrell continued to gaze at the book in his hand as though he were entirely at a loss as to how to proceed. "Then you must give it to me, sir," said Strange gently.

"Yes, indeed," said Mr Norrell. He approached Strange cautiously and held the book out for several moments, before suddenly tipping it up and off into Strange's hand with an odd gesture, as though it was not a book at all, but a small bird which clung to him and would on no account go to any one else, so that he was obliged to trick it into leaving his hand. He was so intent upon this manoeuvre that fortunately he did not look up at Strange who was trying not to laugh.

Mr Norrell remained a moment, looking wistfully at his book in another magician's hand.

But once he had parted with one book the painful part of his ordeal seemed to be over. Half an hour later he recommended another book to Strange and went and got it with scarcely any fuss. By midday he was pointing out books on the shelves to Strange and allowing him to fetch them down for himself. By the end of the day Mr Norrell had given Strange a quite extraordinary number of books to read, and said that he expected him to have read them by the end of the week.

A whole day of conversation and study was a luxury they could not often afford; generally they were obliged to spend some part of every day in attending to Mr Norrell's visitors — whether these were the fashionable people whom Mr Norrell still believed it essential to cultivate or gentlemen from the various Government departments.

By the end of a fortnight Mr Norrell's enthusiasm for his new pupil knew no bounds. "One has but to explain something to him once," Norrell told Sir Walter, "and he understands it immediately! I well remember how many weeks I laboured to comprehend Pale's Conjectures Concerning the Foreshadowing of Things To Come, yet Mr Strange was master of this exceptionally difficult theory in little more than four hours!"

Sir Walter smiled. "No doubt. But I think you rate your own achievements too low. Mr Strange has the advantage of a teacher to explain the difficult parts to him, whereas you had none —
you
have prepared the way for him and made everything smooth and easy."

"Ah!" cried Mr Norrell. "But when Mr Strange and I sat down to talk of the Conjectures some more, I realized that they had a much wider application than I had supposed. It was his questions, you see, which led me to a new understanding of Dr Pale's ideas!" Sir Walter said, "Well, sir, I am glad that you have found a friend whose mind accords so well with your own — there is no greater comfort."

"I agree with you, Sir Walter!" cried Mr Norrell. "Indeed I do!"

Strange's admiration for Mr Norrell was of a more restrained nature. Norrell's dull conversation and oddities of behaviour continued to grate upon his nerves; and at about the same time as Mr Norrell was praising Strange to Sir Walter, Strange was complaining of Norrell to Arabella.

"Even now I scarcely know what to make of him. He is, at one and the same time, the most remarkable man of the Age and the most tedious. Twice this morning our conversation was interrupted because he
thought
he heard a mouse in the room — mice are a particular aversion of his. Two footmen, two maids and I moved all the furniture about looking for the mouse, while he stood by the fireplace, rigid with fear."