by Westland Marston.
Originally published in The National Magazine (National Magazine Company) #1 (Nov 1856).
A few nights since I turned from the deafening roar of Fleet Street, and found myself in one of the old courts that skirt the Temple. I lost something in elasticity, both of gait and spirit, amidst the tall tenements on either hand, that look as if marshalled to oblivion by the dim lamps over the staircases. Besides these depressing influences from without, I had a deep source of anxiety connected with my friend Paul Placet, to whose chambers—attics might be the word—I was destined.
Paul is by nature as genial, capable, and well informed, as any man of my acquaintance who has eaten his terms, and is still on the bright side of thirty. But with the residue of a slender patrimony fast going out, and with neither brief nor case coming in, his position was now getting somewhat serious; and I so far felt the contagion of it, that, instead of vaulting up story after story to his door as I had once done, I now accomplished that precipitous ascent by the slow elaboration of step after step.
I was agreeably surprised to receive from Paul a welcome not only cordial—that it always was—but blithe, which it had seldom been of late. He seized me by both arms, inducted me into his solitary easy chair, and produced a bottle of that old Rousillon which we both held to be better than many a costlier wine; perhaps because it always recalls to us our first French tour, and the rural auberge where we made its acquaintance.
This buoyancy on the part of my friend, though satisfactory, was puzzling. I saw on the table no brief-paper neatly folded, tastefully decorated with red tape, and indorsed with the gratifying announcement: "Mr. Placet, for plaintiff, 3 Guas."—a legal abbreviation which is perhaps more rapidly intelligible than any other to junior counsel. In the absence of any such document, how was Paul's light-hearted laugh to be accounted for? Had he drawn a prize in the great German lottery? Had some vigorous researches for next of kin ended in the discovery of his collateral heir-ship to that Baron Bodlington, with whose family a Placet of 1700 had connected himself by marriage? Paul detected my curiosity, and was good enough to appease it,—' Congratulate me, my dear boy," he cried suddenly.
"With all my heart and soul, Paul; but on what?"
"My first client."
"That's news, indeed; we'll toast him in a bumper. But first tell me how it all happened. Where's your brief?"
"No brief," said Paul.
"O, then a case for Mr. Placet's opinion, I suppose. Out with it."
"Wrong again! In a word, my good friend, that you may no longer torment yourself with guesses, I have strong doubts whether my client exists in the flesh, whether he be not the latest form of apparition,—a subjective objectivity, a spectral entity that declines the ordeal of touch."
I hoped his guineas had not the same peculiarity.
"Rest content on that score. Now you shall hear how it came about."
Somewhat annoyed, I tossed off my glass prematurely, but composed myself to listen. Paul then proceeded as follows.
"It was only yesterday, a little before dusk, that, planting my elbows upon this little table and resting my chin upon my palms, I looked my Condition full in the face, and heard what it had to say tome. Its language was curt and decisive. 'Paul,' it cried, 'you've been three years at the bar; you were called in Michaelmas term, and here's Michaelmas term once again. Of the thousand pounds with which you started in life you have left barely a hundred. I don't complain that you have been an idle fellow, but you have been what is still more obnoxious to society—an unfortunate one. You haven't received a single fee.'
My Condition, having uttered this severe reproach, said no more, but continued to stare at me for a full quarter of an hour, At the expiration of that time, trusting, I suppose, that I was sensible of my criminality, its aspect gradually became less distinct. I fell into a reverie as to the general decline of litigation, the chances that happier juniors had enjoyed fifty years ago, when men were more combative than now with regard to property, when there were no county courts in which attorneys were permitted to address juries, when protracted revels inflamed the blood, and private outrage or public turbulence often challenged the interference of the law. These comparatively restrained and peaceful times bore, it seemed to me, as hardly upon us of the robe as a salubrious climate and sanitary regulations would do upon our brethren of the chronometer and cane. Then I thought how unfortunate we lawyers were in the limitations of legal wrong, how many offences and injustices were, alas, neither actionable nor indictable—opinions coerced by wealth, honest natural impulses thwarted by the tyrannies of custom or fashion, wounds inflicted on the hearts of patient sufferers by the selfishness that wears the mask of decorum and respects appearances. As I continued to muse, various instances of such wrong rose before my imagination; and I was in a condition betwixt dream and reverie, when the several pictures that flitted before my mind's eye were gradually resolved into an obscure back-ground, from which a sort of chaotic presence seemed slowly to emerge, until at length it stood before me in the well-defined likeness of a human figure.
The figure was of the male sex, rather above the middle height, and slightly tending to obesity. An open brow, a frank blue eye, and a projecting chin, gave a decisive, but not unamiable character to the face. The blue frock-coat, the rather low hat, and the neat gaiters, were all of good material, but of the plainest fashion. The useful was evidently the chief element in his attire, but the becoming had not been wholly disregarded. The umbrella held in the right hand was substantial and capacious, but the knob was of polished ivory. The countenance and the dress of this personage at once recalled to me my familiar acquaintance, Mr. John Bull; but there was about my present visitor a certain air of refinement which does not always distinguish Mr. Bull's physiognomy.
The figure removed his hat and bowed; I motioned him to a chair, which he took. Having scrutinised me for a minute, his lips parted, and he said aloud, 'Mr. Placet, you are, I believe, in want of a client?'
This was direct enough, certainly, but the tone was not discourteous.
'Rem acu tetigisti,—you have hit the nail on the head, sir,' I answered recklessly.
'Then I trust we shall suit each other, for I am sorely in want of an advocate. In me, sir, you behold one of the most injured of beings.'
'Of what do you complain?' I asked.
'Of libel, gross, aggravated, constant libel. While my calumniators treat me with every show of respect, and rarely mention me but with praise, they daily accuse me of the most degrading conduct, and misuse my name to sanction the meanest ends.'
'Be good enough to specify your grievances.'
'Right! nothing like being practical,' said my interlocutor. 'Well, to begin the list, a young girl of twenty died yesterday of a lingering disease.. No physician could detect its source; but I knew it, and had I been allowed, could have saved her. She was betrothed two years ago to a young man of slender means, but possessed of the talent and energy which rarely fail of success. A creature without any aim in life, except his own selfish indulgences, without any wit except to purvey them, with no sense of beauty except that which appeals to the gross eye, nor any sense of morality beyond the avoidance of open vice, appeared upon the scene. He was rich, however; and this one qualification in the eyes of the girl's guardian stood for every other. Adroitly enough, to accomplish an ill-assorted match, this guardian fomented a casual misunderstanding between his ward and the man of her choice. He prevented the chance of explanation by removing her to a distance, and by intercepting the letters of her lover. The grief thus engendered was the malady of which she died; and the guilt of her guardian in my eyes was scarcely less heinous than that of murder. At all events its consequences were as fatal. Yet, abhorring his detestable stratagems from my very soul, the author of them had the effrontery to charge them upon myself, and to say that he acted by my express advice. He said that Common Sense—that, sir, is my name—dictated and justified his conduct.'
I felt some awe at finding myself in the presence of so renowned a personage, and, at first, some surprise at the emotion which he betrayed.
'That, Mr. Placet,' he continued, 'is one example of the slanders habitually heaped upon me. Let me give you another instance. You have heard of Norris Fairpledge, M.P., who is now considered a rising politician. At the beginning of his career, Norris was—or at least appeared to be—sincere, ardent, and high-minded. He seemed by instinct to know the right, and to detect the wrong through all its disguises of custom and expediency. He obeyed the maxim of a contemporary poet,—
"Call all things
By their right names."
He could admire genius at first hand, and while the laugh was against it. He could recognise a patriot, whether leading the forlorn hope against oppression, or curbing some blind impulse of popular frenzy. I tell you, Mr. Placet, there was a time when he would have met a blaze of stars on the breast of a traitor without a wink, and when a rope round the neck of a true man would not have repelled him; when virtue was virtue with him, and sin sin; when murder, for instance, was murder, whether it slunk in a smock along the hedge, or rode, as at Naples, over a reeking causeway in a blood-splashed crown.
'At the time I speak of, Norris Fairpledge was not a party man. Mind, Mr. Placet, I do not now raise the question whether party be or be not a valuable institution. I may perhaps see no reason why the barge of state should be pulled now by left oars only, and anon by right oars only. I may think there is some time lost, some danger incurred, by the onesidedness of the motion, and suspect that the boat would go on more rapidly and more safely were all hands to pull together. But let the rowers be in earnest, they will make way somehow. My complaint of Fairpledge is, not that he ended in being a partisan, but that he became one, although he disbelieved in party.
'"See," said his friends, " Norris is a fellow of first-rate ability. He rarely speaks without fixing attention. His views, though held to be singular, are universally discussed, and here and there he gains a convert. But he will never have any influence, never rise to a leading position, because no party can count upon him, Why should they serve him who won't serve them?" "Norris," they remonstrated, "whether you have faith in party or otherwise, you must join it even to carry your own ends. My dear Norris, do be advised—do listen to Common Sense; Common Sense demands this of you." Now, Mr. Placet, that was a lie.
'I was never consulted upon the subject, or when those sugared poisons—influence and position—were first administered, I should have urged an antidote. "Norris," I should have said, "be true to your convictions. They may be right or wrong, but while you hold them, be true to them. Grant, for argument, that man's first motive is happiness, who can be happy that ceases to be true? The smile of power and a large following—why, say that they have a certain value; yet take heed, my dear boy, of the price. What would you say of an epicure who should secure his dainty on the condition of losing his appetite, or of a Sybarite who should accept an ague as the price of perpetual sunshine! Now a sound conscience and true sympathies, what are these to the heart but its very blood—the generous blood, on which its relish and enjoyment depend? Don't be a fool; don't sell yourself for your condition." That's what I, Common Sense, should have said; yet you see, Mr, Placet, how I have been traduced.'
'Your case is indeed a hard one,' I remarked.
'If you think so from these samples, what,' he asked, 'would you say to the whole? It would be simple truth to state that there never was a great discovery resisted, nor a great discoverer persecuted—never a generous impulse sacrificed to a selfish one—never a heart or conscience immolated to Mammon—never an immortality bartered for the gauds of the hour, but my sanction was alleged for it. Were a tithe of what is told of me true, I should be an epitome of all that is base in the universe. In my name the Inquisition menaced Galileo; in my name wild-beasts have been let loose upon martyrs, scaffolds built for them, fagots kindled. Common Sense—it was said—will teach their followers to beware of fire and sword. In more modern times, the men who laughed Harvey and Jenner to scorn, boasted that I gave them their cue. When people were hung for all thefts above ninepence, I was held by grave citizens of that day to insist upon the practice, and to be outraged at the mere hint of its discontinuance. I am still supposed to scoff at the newest developments in art, policy, science, and medicine, and to dismiss facts as of no account when they oppose customs. At this very moment, in some states of America, I am feigned to bawl myself hoarse on behalf of slavery; and, even in England, to drop oceasional whispers as to the danger of interfering with that patriarchal system.
'I have done, Mr, Placet,' continued the speaker; 'and I may now inquire whether every known case of slander is not trifling and tolerable compared with mine?"
'His grievances, I confessed, were unprecedented.
'They would drive me mad, sir,' he exclaimed, 'were I any body else. But I am patient by nature; and would not even complain if I did not hope for a remedy, I trust you see your way to one, Mr. Placet?'
I was obliged to shake my head, and own that our law courts had no jurisdiction.
'But surely a court of equity—'
'Can give no relief in this case,' I answered.
'And this is England,' exclaimed the injured apparition,—'England, where every wrong is fabled to have its
remedy!' He rose in wrath.
A sudden light flashed upon me, 'Stay, sir,' I exclaimed; 'there is, perhaps, a court that may do you justice,—a court that has often interposed to protect or to punish where legal tribunals can do neither, What do you say to the Court of Literature?'
'An excellent suggestion,' cried my interlocutor, 'Do you practise there?'
'I should be quite willing to plead,' I said, 'for so distinguished a client.'
'You will do your best for me, I am sure,' he replied, 'You will try to set forth, in plain terse English, the facts which I have related. I can bring hosts of witnesses; and you will be careful, Mr. Placet, to correct one grievous mistake respecting me, the fountain-head, as I take it, of the injuries that have almost overwhelmed me. You will tell judge and jury that it is a gross wrong and a dire fallacy to suppose that I, Common Sense, have a natural enmity to Genius and Conscience. I know that I work in a lower range than they, but not in a hostile one. So far from scoffing at them, I should hold my calling worthless unless they inspired it. From them come the impulses which I shape into action. They are the mind, I the hand. They inspire the ideal, I chisel the stone. Say, in a word, that it is the pride of Common Sense, not that he decries the beautiful and the true, but that he translates them into the actual.'
I promised to do my utmost; the figure put forth its hand, and I almost seemed to feel its grasp. After a while it appeared to relax, and lineament and outline of my visitor melted slowly into air."
Here Paul's narrative ceased.
"And do you really intend," I asked, "to advocate the cause of this unsubstantial client in the court aforesaid?"
"Decidedly," answered my friend.
"Then pray consider me as a sort of attorney of the court," I said; "and accept from me a 'retainer.'"
He merrily consented, and we devoted our last glass of Rousillon to the health of Common Sense and to the speedy discomfiture of his traducers.