Lavengro by George Borrow (read me a book txt) 📕

“Yes, I see.”

“Do you, dear? well, bless your heart, I’m glad you do. Would you like to look at the book?”

“Well, I think I should.”

“Honour bright?” said the apple-woman, looking me in the eyes.

“Honour bright,” said I, looking the apple-woman in the eyes.

“Well then, dear, here it is,” said she, taking it from under her cloak; “read it as long as you like, only get a little farther into the booth. Don’t sit so near the edge⁠—you might⁠—”

I went deep into the booth, and the apple-woman, bringing her chair round, almost confronted me. I commenced reading the book, and was soon engrossed by it; hours passed away, once or twice I lifted up my eyes, the apple-woman was still confronting me: at last my eyes began to ache, whereupon I returned the book to the apple-woman, and giving her another tanner, walked away.

Time passed away, and with it the Review,160 which, contrary to the publisher’s expectation, did not prove a successful speculation. About four months after the period of its birth it expired, as all Reviews must for which there is no demand. Authors had ceased to send their publications to it, and, consequently, to purchase it; for I have already hinted that it was almost entirely supported by authors of a particular class, who expected to see their publications foredoomed to immortality in its pages. The behaviour of these authors towards this unfortunate publication I can attribute to no other cause than to a report which was industriously circulated, namely, that the Review was low, and that to be reviewed in it was an infallible sign that one was a low person, who could be reviewed nowhere else. So authors took fright; and no wonder, for it will never do for an author to be considered low. Homer himself has never yet entirely recovered from the injury he received by Lord Chesterfield’s remark, that the speeches of his heroes were frequently exceedingly low.

So the Review ceased, and the reviewing corps no longer existed as such; they forthwith returned to their proper avocations⁠—the editor to compose tunes on his piano, and to the task of disposing of the remaining copies of his Quintilian⁠—the inferior members to working for the publisher, being to a man dependants of his; one, to composing fairy tales; another, to collecting miracles of Popish saints; and a third, Newgate lives and trials. Owing to the bad success of the Review, the publisher became more furious than ever. My money was growing short, and I one day asked him to pay me for my labours in the deceased publication.

“Sir,” said the publisher, “what do you want the money for?”

“Merely to live on,” I replied; “it is very difficult to live in this town without money.”

“How much money did you bring with you to town?” demanded the publisher.

“Some twenty or thirty pounds,” I replied.

“And you have spent it already?”

“No,” said I, “not entirely; but it is fast disappearing.”

“Sir,” said the publisher, “I believe you to be extravagant; yes, sir, extravagant!”

“On what grounds do you suppose me to be so?”

“Sir,” said the publisher, “you eat meat.”

“Yes,” said I, “I eat meat sometimes: what should I eat?”

“Bread, sir,” said the publisher; “bread and cheese.”

“So I do, sir, when I am disposed to indulge; but I cannot often afford it⁠—it is very expensive to dine on bread and cheese, especially when one is fond of cheese, as I am. My last bread and cheese dinner cost me fourteen pence. There is drink, sir; with bread and cheese one must drink porter, sir.”

“Then, sir, eat bread⁠—bread alone. As good men as yourself have eaten bread alone; they have been glad to get it, sir. If with bread and cheese you must drink porter, sir, with bread alone you can, perhaps, drink water, sir.”

However, I got paid at last for my writings in the Review, not, it is true, in the current coin of the realm, but in certain bills; there were two of them, one payable at twelve, and the other at eighteen months after date. It was a long time before I could turn these bills to any account; at last I found a person who, at a discount of only thirty percent, consented to cash them; not, however, without sundry grimaces, and, what was still more galling, holding, more than once, the unfortunate papers high in air between his forefinger and thumb. So ill, indeed, did I like this last action, that I felt much inclined to snatch them away. I restrained myself, however, for I remembered that it was very difficult to live without money, and that, if the present person did not discount the bills, I should probably find no one else that would.

But if the treatment which I had experienced from the publisher, previous to making this demand upon him, was difficult to bear, that which I subsequently underwent was far more so; his great delight seemed to consist in causing me misery and mortification; if, on former occasions, he was continually sending me in quest of lives and trials difficult to find, he now was continually demanding lives and trials which it was impossible to find, the personages whom he mentioned never having lived, nor consequently been tried. Moreover, some of my best lives and trials which I had corrected and edited with particular care, and on which I prided myself no little, he caused to be cancelled after they had passed through the press. Amongst these was the life of “Gentleman Harry.” “They are drugs, sir,” said the publisher, “drugs; that life of Harry Simms has long been the greatest drug in the calendar⁠—has it not, Taggart?”

Taggart made no answer save by taking a pinch of snuff. The reader has, I hope, not forgotten Taggart, whom I mentioned whilst giving an account of my first morning’s visit to the publisher. I beg Taggart’s pardon for having been so long silent about him;