Vivian Grey/Volume 3/Chapter 5.1

Thou rapid Aar! thy waves are swollen by the snows of a thousand hills—but for whom are thy leaping waters fed?—Is it for the Rhine?

Calmly, oh! placid Neckar, does thy blue stream glide through thy vine-clad vales—but calmer seems thy course when it touches the rushing Rhine!

How fragrant are the banks which are cooled by thy dark-green waters, thou tranquil Maine!—but is not the perfume sweeter of the gardens of the Rhine?

​Thou impetuous Nah! I lingered by thine islands of nightingales, and I asked thy rushing waters why they disturbed the music of thy groves?—They told me, they were hastening to the Rhine!

Red Moselle! fierce is the swell of thy spreading course—but why do thy broad waters blush when they meet the Rhine?

Thou delicate Meuse! how clear is the current of thy limpid wave—as the wife yields to the husband, do thy pure waters yield to the Rhine!

And thou! triumphant and imperial River, flushed with the tribute of these vassal streams; thou art thyself a tributary, and hastenest even in the pride of conquest to confess thine own vassalage! But no superior stream exults in the homage of thy servile waters: the Ocean, the eternal Ocean, alone comes forward to receive thy kiss!—not as a conqueror, but as a parent, he welcomes with proud joy his gifted child, the offspring of his honour; thy duty—his delight; thy tribute—thine own glory!

Once more upon thy banks, most beauteous ​Rhine! In the spring-time of my youth I gazed on thee, and deemed thee matchless. Thy vine-enamoured mountains—thy spreading waters—thy traditionary crags—thy shining cities—the sparkling villages of thy winding shores—thy antique convents—thy grey and silent castles—the purple glories of thy radiant grape—the vivid tints of thy teeming flowers—the fragrance of thy sky—the melody of thy birds, whose carols tell the pleasures of their sunny woods,—are they less lovely now, less beautiful, less sweet?

Once more upon thy banks, most beauteous Rhine! Since I first gazed on thee, other climes have revealed to me their wonders, and their glory—other climes, which Fame, perhaps, loves more; which many deem more beautiful—but not for a moment have I forgotten thy varied banks, and my memory still clings to thee, thou River of my Youth!

The keen emotions of our youth are often the occasion of our estimating too ardently; but the first impression of beauty, though often overcharged, is seldom supplanted: and as the ​first great author which he reads is reverenced by the boy as the most immortal, and the first beautiful woman that he meets is sanctified by him as the most adorable; so the impressions created upon us by those scenes of nature which first realize the romance of our reveries never escape from our minds, and are ever consecrated in our memories;—and thus some great spirits, after having played their part on the theatre of the world, have retired from the blaze of courts and cities, to the sweet seclusion of some spot, which they have accidentally met with in the earliest years of their career.

But we are to speak of one who had retired from the world before his time; of one, whose early vices, and early follies, have been already obtruded, for no unworthy reason, on the notice of the public, in as hot and hurried a sketch as ever yet was penned; but like its subject; for what is youth but a sketch—a brief hour of principles unsettled, passions unrestrained, powers undeveloped, and purposes unexecuted!

I am loth to speak even one moment of the author, instead of the hero; but with respect ​to those who have with such singular industry associated the character of the author of Vivian Grey with that of his hero; I must observe, that as this is an inconvenience which I share in company with more celebrated writers, so also is it one which will never prevent me from describing any character which my mind may conceive.

To those who, alike unacquainted with my person, my life, my habits, have, with that audacious accuracy for which ignorance is celebrated, not only boldly avowed that the original of my hero may be discovered in myself, but that the character, at the same time, forms also a flattering portrait of a more frail original, I shall say nothing. Most of these chatterers are included in that vast catalogue of frivolous beings who carry on in society an espionage on a small scale, not precisely through malice, but from an invincible ambition of having something to say, when they have nothing to think about. A few of these persons, I am informed, cannot even plead a brainless skull as an excuse for their indecent conduct; but dreading that in time ​the lash might be applied to their own guilty littleness, they have sought in the propagation of falsehood on their part, a boasted means for the prevention of further publication on mine. Unlucky rogues! how effectual have been your exertions! Let me not by one irritable expression console these clumsy midwives of calumny for the abortion of their slander; but pass over their offences with that merciful silence, to which even insolent imbecility is ever entitled.

Of the personal, and political matter contained in the former books of this work, I can declare, that though written in a hasty, it was not written in a reckless spirit; and that there is nothing contained in those volumes of which I am morally ashamed. As to the various satires in verse, and political and dramatic articles of unsuccessful newspapers, which have been palmed, with such lavish liberality, upon myself, or upon another individual as the supposed author of this work—inasmuch, as I never wrote one single line of them, neither of the articles nor of the satires, it is unnecessary for ​me to apologise for their contents. They have been made the ostensible, the avowed pretext for a series of attacks, which I now, for once, notice, only to recommend them to the attentive study of those ingenious gentlemen who wish to be libellers with impunity; and who are desirous of vindicating imaginary wrongs, or maintaining a miserable existence by the publication of periodical rhapsodies, whose foul scurrility, over-wrought malice, ludicrous passion, evident mendacity, and frantic feebleness, alike exempt them from the castigation of literary notice, or the severer penalties of an outraged law.

Of the literary vices of Vivian Grey, no one is perhaps more sensible than their author. I conceived the character of a youth of great talents, whose mind had been corrupted, as the minds of many of our youth have been, by the artificial age in which he lived. The age was not less corrupted than the being it had generated. In his whole career he was to be pitied; but for his whole career he was not to be less punished. When I sketched the feel​ings of his early boyhood, as the novelist, I had already foreseen the results to which those feelings were to lead; and had in store for the fictitious character the punishment which he endured. I am blamed for the affectation, the flippancy, the arrogance, the wicked wit of this fictitious character. Yet was Vivian Grey to talk like Simon Pure, and act like Sir Charles Grandison?

But to our tale.—Upwards of a year had now elapsed since Vivian Grey left England. The mode of life which he pursued at Heidelburg for many months, has already been mentioned. He felt himself a broken-hearted man, and looked for death, whose delay was no blessing; but the feelings of youth which had misled him in his burning hours of joy, equally deceived him in his days of sorrow. He lived; and in the course of time, found each day that life was less burdensome. The truth is, that if it be the lot of man to suffer, it is also his fortune to forget. Oblivion and Sorrow share our being in much the same manner, as Darkness and Light divide the course of time. It is not ​in human nature to endure extremities, and sorrows soon destroy either us, or themselves. Perhaps the fate of Niobe is no fable, but a type of the callousness of our nature. There is a time in human suffering when succeeding sorrows are but like snow falling on an iceberg. It is true, that it is horrible to think that our peace of mind should arise, not from a retrospection of the past, but from a forgetfulness of it; but, though this peace of mind is produced at the best by a mental laudanum, it is not valueless; and Oblivion, after all, is a just judge. As we retain but a faint remembrance of our felicity, it is but fair that the smartest stroke of sorrow should, if bitter, at least be brief. But in feeling that he might yet again mingle in the world, Vivian Grey also felt that he must meet mankind with different feelings, and view their pursuits with a different interest. He woke from his secret sorrow in as changed a state of being, as the water nymph from her first embrace; and he woke with a new possession, not only as miraculous as Undine's soul, but gained at as great a price, and leading to as bitter results. ​The nymph woke to new pleasures, and to new sorrows; and innocent as an infant she deemed mankind a god, and the world a paradise. Vivian Grey discovered that this deity was but an idol of brass, and this garden of Eden but a savage waste; for if the river nymph had gained a soul, he had gained experience.

Experience—word so lightly used, so little understood! Experience,—mysterious spirit! whose result is felt by all, whose nature is described by none. The father warns the son of your approach, and sometimes looks to you as his offspring's cure, and his own consolation. We hear of you in the nursery—we hear of you in the world—we hear of you in books; but who has recognised you until he was your subject, and who has discovered the object of so much fame, until he has kissed your chain? To gain you is the work of all, and the curse of all; you are at the same time necessary to our happiness, and destructive of our felicity; you are the saviour of all things, and the destroyer of all things; our best friend, and our bitterest enemy; for you teach us truth, and that truth ​is—despair. Ye youth of England, would that ye could read this riddle!

To wake from your bright hopes, and feel that all is vanity—to be roused from your crafty plans, and know that all is worthless, is a bitter, but your sure destiny. Escape is impossible; for despair is the price of conviction. How many centuries have fled, since Solomon, in his cedar palaces, sung the vanity of man! Though his harp was golden, and his throne of ivory, his feelings were not less keen, and his conviction not less complete. How many sages of all nations, have, since the monarch of Jerusalem, echoed his sad philosophy! yet the vain bubble still glitters, and still allures, and must for ever.

The genealogy of Experience is brief; for Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We cannot learn men from books, nor can we form, from written descriptions, a more accurate idea of the movements of the human heart, than we can of the movements of nature. A man may read all his life, and form no conception of the rush of a mountain torrent, ​or the waving of a forest of pines in a storm; and a man may study in his closet the heart of his fellow creatures for ever, and have no idea of the power of ambition, or the strength of revenge.

It is when we have acted ourselves, and have seen others acting; it is when we have laboured ourselves under the influence of our passions, and have seen others labouring; it is when our great hopes have been attained, or have been baulked; it is when, after having had the human heart revealed to us, we have the first opportunity to think; it is then, if we can think, that the whole truth lights upon us; it is then that we ask of ourselves whether it be wise to endure such anxiety of mind, such agitation of spirit, such harrowing of the soul, to gain what may cease to interest to-morrow, or for which, at the best, a few years of enjoyment can alone be afforded; it is then that we waken to the hollowness of all human things; it is then that the sayings of sages, and the warnings of prophets are explained and understood; it is then that we gain experience.

​To deem all things vain is not the part of a disappointed man, who may feign it, but who can never feel it. To deem all things vain is the bitter portion of that mind, who, having known the world, dares to think. Experience will arise as often from satiety of joy, as from the sting of sorrow. But knowledge of the world is only an acquaintance with the powers of human passions, formed from our observation of our fellow creatures, and of ourselves. He whose courage has been put to the test—who has relied on the love, or suffered by the hate of woman—has been deceived by man, and has deceived himself—may have as much knowledge of the world at twenty, as if he had lived a century. We may travel over the whole globe, and not gain more, although, certainly, we might have more opportunities of seeing the same farce repeated, the same game of broken promises, and baulked hopes, false expectation, and self-delusion. Few men were better acquainted with their species than Gil Blas, when he sat down at Lirias, and yet he had only travelled in two or three Spanish provinces.

​Vivian Grey woke, as we have said, to a conviction of the worthlessness of human fortunes. His character was changed; and this is the most wonderful of all revolutions—a revolution which precept or reason can never bring about, but which a change of circumstances or fortune may. In his career through the world he resembled a turbid mountain river, whose colour had been cleared, and whose course had been calmed in its passage through a lake.

But he commenced by founding his philosophy on a new error; for he fancied himself passionless, which man never is. His trial had been severe, and because he could no longer interest himself in any of the usual pursuits of men, he believed that he could interest himself in none. But doubting of all things, he doubted of himself; and finding himself so changed from what he had been only a year or two before, he felt as if he should not be astonished if he changed again.

With all his grief, he was no cynic—if he smiled on men, it was not in bitterness; if he thought them base, he did not blame them. ​He pitied those whose baseness, in his opinion, was their sufficient punishment; for nothing they could attain could repay them for the hot contest of their passions. Subdued, but not melancholy; contemplative, but not gloomy; he left his solitude. Careless of what was to come, the whole world was before him. Indifference is at least the boon of sorrow; for none look forward to the future with indifference, who do not look back to the past with dread.

Vivian Grey was now about to join, for the second time, the great and agitated crowd of beings, who are all intent in the search after that undiscoverable talisman—Happiness. That he entertained the slightest hopes of being the successful inquirer, is not for a moment to be imagined. He considered that the happiest moment in human life is exactly the sensation of a sailor who has escaped a shipwreck; and that the mere belief that his wishes are to be indulged, is the greatest bliss enjoyed by man.

How far his belief was correct, how he prospered in this, his second venture on the great ocean of life, it is our business to relate. There ​were moments, when he wished himself neither experienced nor a philosopher—moments when he looked back to the lost paradise of his innocent boyhood—those glorious hours, when the unruffled river of his Life mirrored the cloudless heaven of his Hope!