THE result of this conversation was that Cosmo made a little private visit to Edinburgh to determine his own entrance into the republic of letters, and to see the enterprising projector of the Auld Reekie Magazine through whom this was to take place. The boy went modestly, half abashed by his good fortune and dawning dream of fame, yet full of a flush of youthful hope, sadly out of proportion to any possible pretensions of the new periodical. He saw it advertised in the newspaper which one of his fellow-passengers on the coach read on the way. He saw a little printed hand-bill with its illustrious name in the window of the first bookseller’s shop he looked into on his arrival in Edinburgh, and Cosmo marched over the North Bridge with his carpet-bag in his hand, with a swell of visionary glory. He could not help half wondering what the indifferent people round him would think, if they knew—and then could not but blush at himself for the fancy. Altogether the lad was in a tumult of delightful excitement, hope, and pleasure, such as perhaps only falls to the lot of boys who hope themselves poets, and think at eighteen that they are already appreciated and on the highway to fame.
As he ascended the stairs to Mrs. Purdie’s, he met Cameron coming down. There was a very warm greeting between them—a greeting which surprise startled into unusual affectionateness on the part of the Highlander. Cameron forgot his own business altogether to return with Cosmo, and needed very little persuasion to enter the little parlor, which no other lodger had turned up to occupy, and share the refreshment which the overjoyed landlady made haste to prepare for her young guest. This was so very unusual a yielding on Cameron’s part, that Cosmo almost forgot his own preoccupation in observing his friend, who altogether looked brightened and smoothed out, and younger than when they parted. The elder and soberer man, who knew a little more of life and the world than Cosmo, though very little more of literature, could not help a half-perceptible smile at the exuberance of Cosmo’s hopes. Not that Cameron despised the Auld Reekie Magazine; far from that, the Divinity student had all the reverence for literature common to those who know little about it, which reverence, alas! grows smaller and smaller in this too-knowing age. But at thirty years old people know better than at eighteen how the sublimest undertakings break down, and how sometimes even “the highest talent” can not float its venture. So the man found it hard not to smile at the boy’s shy triumph and undoubting hope, yet could not help but be proud, notwithstanding, with a tenderness almost feminine, of the unknown gifts of the lad, whose youth, he could not quite tell how, had found out the womanish corner of his own reserved heart, in which, as he said himself, only two or three could find room at any time.
“But you never told me of these poetical effusions, Cosmo,” said his friend, as he put up the bookseller’s note.
“Don’t laugh at Mr. Todhunter. I only call them verses,” said Cosmo, with that indescribable blending of vanity and humility which belongs to his age; “and I knew you would not care for them; they were not worth showing to you.”
“I’m not a poetical man,” said Cameron, “but I might care for your verses in spite of that; and now Cosmo, laddie, while you have been thinking of fame, what novel visitor should you suppose had come to me?”
“Who?—what?” cried Cosmo, with eager interest.
“What?” echoed Cameron, “either temptation or good fortune—it’s hard to say which—only I incline to the first. Satan’s an active chield, and thinks little of trouble; but I doubt if the other one would have taken the pains to climb my stair. I’ve had an offer of a tutorship, Cosmo—to go abroad for six months or so with a callant like yourself.”
“To go abroad!” Cosmo’s eyes lighted up with instant excitement, and he stretched his hand across the table to his friend, with a vehemence which Cameron did not understand, though he returned the grasp.
“An odd enough thing for me,” said the Highlandman, “but the man’s an eccentric man, and something has possessed him that his son would be in safe hands; as in safe hands he might be,” added the student in an undertone, “seeing I would be sorry to lead any lad into evil—but as for fit hands, that’s to be seen, and I’m far from confident it would be right for me.”
“Go, and I’ll go with you,” said Cosmo, eagerly. “I’ve set my heart upon it for years.”
“More temptation!” said the Highlandman. “Carnal inclinations and pleasures of this world—and I’ve little time to lose. I can not afford a session—whisht! Comfort and ease to the flesh, and pleasure to the mind, are hard enough to fight with by themselves without help from you.”
It was almost the first time he had made the slightest allusion to his own hard life and prolonged struggle, and Cosmo was silent out of respect and partially in the belief that if Cameron’s mind had not been very near made up in favor of this new proposal, he would not have suffered himself to refer to it. The two friends sat up late together that night. Cosmo pouring out all his maze of half-formed plans and indistinct intentions into Cameron’s ears—his projects of authorship, his plan for a tragedy of which Wallace wight should be the hero; of a pastoral poem and narrative, something between Colin Clout and the Gentle Shepherd—and of essays and philosophies without end; while Cameron on his part smiled, as he could not but smile by right of his thirty years, yet somehow began to believe, like the Mistress, in the enthusiastic boy, with all that youthful flush and fervor in the face which his triumph and inspiration of hope made beautiful. The elder man could not give his own confidence so freely as Cosmo did, but he opened himself as far as it was his nature to do, in droppings of shy frankness—a little now and a little then—which were in reality the very highest compliment which such a man could pay to his companion. When they separated, Cameron, it is true, knew all about Cosmo, while Cosmo did not know all about Cameron; but the difference was not even so much a matter of temperament as of years, and the lad, without hearing many particulars, or having a great deal of actual confidence given to him, knew the man better at the end of this long evening than ever he had done before.
In the morning Cosmo got up full of pleasurable excitement, and set out early to call on Mr. Todhunter. The North British Courant office was in one of the short streets which run between Princes Street and George Street, and in the back premises, a long way back, through a succession of rooms, Cosmo was ushered into the especial little den of the publisher. Mr. Todhunter was of a yellow complexion, with loose, thick lips, and wiry black hair. The lips were the most noticeable feature in his face, from the circumstance that when he spoke his mouth seemed uncomfortably full of moisture, which gave also a peculiar character to his voice. He was surrounded by a mass of papers, and had paste and scissors—those palladiums of the weekly press—by his side. If there was one thing more than another on which the North British Courant prided itself, it was on the admirable collection of other people’s opinions which everybody might find in its columns. Mr. Todhunter made no very great stand upon politics. What he prized was a reputation which he thought “literary,” and a skill almost amounting to genius for making what he called “excerpts.”
“Very glad to make your personal acquaintance, Mr. Livingstone,” said the projector of the Auld Reekie Magazine, “and still more to receive your assurances of support. I’ve set my heart on making this a real, impartial, literary enterprise, sir—no’ one of your close boroughs, as they say now-a-days, for a dozen or a score of favored contributors, but open to genius, sir—genius wherever it may be—rich or poor.”
Cosmo did not know precisely what to answer, so he filled in the pause with a little murmur of assent.
“Ye see the relations of every thing’s changing,” said Mr. Todhunter; “old arrangements will not do—wull not answer, sir, in an advancing age. I have always held high opinions as to the claims of literary men, myself—it’s against my nature to treat a man of genius like a shopkeeper; and my principle, in the Auld Reekie Magazine, is just this—first-rate talent to make the thing pay, and first-rate pay to secure the talent. That’s my rule, and I think it’s a very safe guide for a plain man like me.”
“And it’s sure to succeed,” said Cosmo, with enthusiasm.
“I think it wull, sir—upon my conscience, if you ask me, I think it wull,” said Mr. Todhunter; “and I have little doubt young talent will rally round the Auld Reekie Magazine. I’m aware it’s an experiment, but nothing shall ever make me give in to an ungenerous principle. Men of genius must be protected, sir; and how are they protected in your old-established periodicals? There’s one old fogy for this department, and another old fogy for that department; and as for a genial recognition of young talent, take my word for’t, there’s no such thing.”
“I know,” said Cosmo, “it is the hardest thing in the world to get in. Poor Chatterton, and Keats, and—”
“Just that,” said Mr. Todhunter. “It’s for the Keatses and the Chattertons of this day, sir, that I mean to interpose; and no lad of genius shall go to the grave with a pistol in his hand henceforward if I can help it. I admire your effusions very much, Mr. Livingstone—there’s real heart and talent in them, sir—in especial the one to Mary, which, I must say, gave me the impression of an older man.”
“I am pretty old in practice—I have been writing a great many years,” said Cosmo, with that delightful, ingenuous, single-minded, youthful vanity, which it did one’s heart good to see. Even Mr. Todhunter, over his paste and scissors, was somehow illumined by it, and looked up at the lad with the ghost of a smile upon his watery lips.
“And what do you mean to provide us for the opening of the feast?” said the bookseller, “which must be ready by the 15th, at the very latest, and be the very cream of your inspiration. It’s no small occasion, sir. Have you made up your mind what is to be your deboo?”
“It depends greatly upon what you think best,” said Cosmo, candid and impartial; “and as you know what articles you have secured already, I should be very glad of any hint from you.”
“A very sensible remark,” said Mr. Todhunter. “Well, I would say, a good narrative now, in fine, stirring, ballad verse—a narrative always pleases the public fancy—or a spirited dramatic sketch, or a historical tale, to be completed, say, in the next number. I should say, sir, any one of these would answer the Auld Reekie;—only be on your mettle. I consider there’s good stuff in you—real good stuff—but, at the same time, many prudent persons would tell me I was putting too much reliance on so young a man.”
“I will not disappoint you,” said Cosmo, with a little pride; “but, supposing this first beginning over, could it do any good to the magazine, do you think, to have a contributor—letters from abroad—I had some thoughts—I—I wished very much to know—”
“Were you thinking of going abroad?” said the bookseller, benignantly.
“I can scarcely say think—but, there was an opportunity,” said Cosmo, with a blush; “that is, if it did not stand in the way of—”
“Auld Reekie? Certainly not—on the contrary, I know nothing I would like better,” said Mr. Todhunter. “Some fine Italian legends, now, or a few stories from the Rhine, with a pleasant introduction, and a little romantic incident, to show how you heard them—capital! but I must see you at my house before you go. And as for the remuneration, we can scarcely fix on that, perhaps, till the periodical’s launched—but ye know my principle, and I may say, sir, with confidence, no man was left in the lurch that put reliance upon me. I’m a plain man, as you see me, but I appreciate the claims of genius, and young talent shall not want its platform in this city of Edinburgh; or, if it does, it shall be no fault of mine.”
With a murmured applause of this sentiment, and in a renewed tumult of pleasure, Cosmo left his new friend, and went home lingering over the delightful thought of Italian legends and stories of the Rhine, told in the very scenes of the same. The idea intoxicated him almost out of remembrance of Mary of Melmar, and if the boy’s head was not turned, it seemed in a very fair way of being so, for the sentiments of Mr. Todhunter—a publisher!—a practical man!—one who knew the real value of authorship! filled the lad with a vague glory in his new craft. A London newspaper proprietor, who spoke like the possessor of the North British Courant, would have been, the chances are, a conscious humbug, and perhaps so might an Edinburgh bookseller of the present time, who expressed the same sentiments. Mr. Todhunter, however, was not a humbug. He was like one of those dabblers in science who come at some simple mechanical principle by chance, and in all the flush of their discovery, claim as original and their own what was well known a hundred years since. He was perfectly honest in the rude yet simple vanity with which he patronized “young talent,” and in his vulgar, homely fashion, felt that he had quite seized upon a new idea in his Auld Reekie Magazine—an idea too original and notable to yield precedence even to the Edinburgh Review.