The Professor

t know the physiognomy of the country? You have not its l

; but freshly coloured, green, dewy, with a spring sky, piled with glittering yet showery clouds; for my childhood was not all sunshine — it had its overcast, its cold, its stormy

in my heart an echo, such as no other assemblage of syllables, however sweet or classic, can produce. Belgium! I repeat the word, now as I sit alone near midnight. It stirs my world of the past like a summons to resurrection; the graves unclose, the dead are raised; thoughts, feelings, memories that slept, are seen by me

ce of her smile and embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind. Yes, at that epoch I felt like a morning traveller who doubts not that from the hill he is ascending he shall behold a glorious sunrise; what if the track be strait, steep, and stony? he sees it not; his eyes are fixed on that summit, flushed already, flushed and gilded, and having gained it he is certain of the scene beyond. He knows that the sun will face him, that his chariot is even now coming over the eastern horizon, and that the herald breeze he feels on his

low by the road-side; painted Flemish farmhouses; some very dirty hovels; a gray, dead sky; wet road, wet fields, wet house-tops: not a beautiful, scarcely a picturesque object met my eye along the whole route; yet to me, all was beautiful, all was more than picturesque. It continued fair so long as daylight lasted, though the moisture of many preceding damp days had sodden the whole country; as it grew dar

as I lay in quiet and darkness, I first heard the great bell of St. Paul’s telling London it was midnight, and well do I recall the deep, deliberate tones, so full charged with colossal phlegm and force. From the small, narrow window of that room, I first saw the dome, looming through a London mist. I suppose the sensations, stirred by those first sounds, first sights, are felt but once; treasure them, Memory; seal them in urns, and keep them in safe niches! Well — I rose. Travellers talk of the apartments in foreign dwellings being bare and uncomfortable; I thought my chamber looked stately and cheerful. It had such large windows — croisees that opened like doors, with such broad, clear panes of glass; such a great looking-glass s

s indisputably very warm, and there were two gentlemen seated by it talking in French; impossible to follow their rapid utterance, or comprehend much of the purport of what they said — yet French, in the mouths of Frenchmen, or Belgians (I was not then sensible of the horrors of the Belgian accent) was as music to my ears. One of these gentlemen presently discerned me to be an Englishman — no doubt from the fashion in which I addressed the waiter; for I would persist in speaking Frenc

one week from twenty-one years of constraint, must, of necessity, resume the fetters of dependency. Hardly had I tasted the delight of being without a master when duty issued her stern mandate: “Go forth and seek another service.” I never linger over a painful and necessary task; I never take pleasure before business, it is not in my nature to do so

nt on one thing, finding out “Mr. Brown, Numero — Rue Royale,” for so my letter was addressed. By dint of

e asked me if there was anything in which his advice or experience could be of use. I said, “ Yes,” and then proceeded to tell him that I was not a gentleman of fortune, travelling for pleasure, but an ex-counting-house clerk, who wanted employment of

tried the high stool; I hated it; I believed there were other occupati

disposed to turn your attention to teaching. I am acquainted with the director

tes, then I seized

thing, sir

erstand French well enough t

udied French under a Frenchman, I could speak the language intelligibl

sieur Pelet will not refuse a professor recommended by me; but come here

struck me. “I am not

rofessor, here in Belgium, m

d, walking leisurely along its broad pavement, I continued to survey its stately hotels, till the palisades, the gates, and trees of the park appearing in sight, offered to my eye a new attraction. I remember, before entering the park, I stood awhile to contemplate the statue of General Belliard, and then I advanced to the top of the great staircase just beyond, and I looked down into a narrow back street, which I afterwards learnt was called the Rue d’Isabelle.

d; I felt none of the agitation which had troubled my first interview with Edward Crimsworth. M. Pelet’s bow was extremely polite, yet not theatrical, scarcely French; he and I were presently seated opposite to each other. In a pleasing voice, low, and, out of consideration to my foreign ears, very distinct and deliberate, M. Pelet intimated that he had just been receiving from “le respectable M. Brown,” an account of my attainments and character, which relieved him from all scruple as to the propriety of engaging me as professor of English and La

ally liberal for Brussels; instruction being extremely cheap there on account of the number of teachers. It was

parentage), yet the degree of harshness inseparable from Gallic lineaments was, in his case, softened by a mild blue eye, and a melancholy, almost suffering, expression of countenance; his physiognomy was “fine et spirituelle.” I use two French words because they define better than any English terms the species of intelligence with which his fea

lrooms, I beheld a numerous assemblage of pupils, boys of course, whose collective appearance showed all the signs of a full, flourishing, and well-disciplined seminary. As I traversed the classes in company with M. Pelet, a profound silence reigned on all sides, and if by chance a

e boys as they are, and testin

areer by hesitation, so I just stepped to the professor’s desk near which we stood, and faced the circle of my pupils. I took a moment t

enez vos livre

a thickset, moon-faced young Flamand in

gla

he delivery of explanations; my accent and idiom would be too open to the criticisms of the young gentlemen before me, relative to

ever, have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the words, as enunciated by Jules, bore to the language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great Britain. My God! how he did snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was said in his throat and nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak, but I heard him to the end of his paragraph

enough and long enough, will show symptoms of embarrassment, and so at length did my bench of Belgians. Perceiving that some of the f

c’est a

n the way I wished them to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in their self-conceit, the next step was to raise myself in

, which at first only excited his scorn, deigns at length to bestow aid. I then began at the very beginning of the “Vicar of Wakefield,” and read, in a slow, distinct

ssieurs; demain nous recommencero

bowed, and in company with M.

s parlour. “Je vois que monsieur a de l’adresse; cela, me plait,

, which was of course a great comfort. Yet, though so limited in dimensions, it had two windows. Light not being taxed in Belgium, the people never grudge its admission into their houses; just here, however, this observation is not very apropos, for

ensionnat de demoiselles,” said he, “et les convenances e

t, with an enormous “pas de geant” in the middle, and the monotonous walls and windows of a boys’ school-house round. Not only then, but many a time after, especially in moments of weariness and low spirits, did I look with dissatisfied eyes on that most tantalizing board, longing to tear it away and get a glimpse of the green region which I imagined to lie beyond. I knew a tree grew close up to the window, for though there were as yet no leaves to rustle, I often heard at night the tapping of branches against the panes. In the daytime, when I listened attentively, I could hear, even through the boards, the voices of the demoiselles in their hours of recreation, and, to speak the honest truth, my sentimental reflections were occasionally a trifle disarranged by the not quite silvery, in fact the too often brazen sounds, which, rising from

ountered them on a right footing at the very beginning, and continued tenaciously to retain the advantage I had early gained, they never attempted mutiny, which circumstance, all who are in any degree acquainted with the ongoings of Belgian schools, and who know the relation in whi

r natures; they were dull, but they were also singularly stubborn, heavy as lead and, like lead, most difficult to move. Such being the case, it would have been truly absurd to exact from them much in the way of mental exertion; having short memories, dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers, they recoiled with repugnan

immutable as the towers of Ste. Gudule; for a step — but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the gulf of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive proofs of Flemish gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant saliva and handfuls of Low Country mud. You might smooth to the utmost the path of learning, remove every pebble from the track; but then you must finally insist with decision on the pupil taking your arm and allowing himself to be led quietly along the prepared road. When I had brought down my lesson to the lowest level of my dullest pu