Captain Baines’s name in one of the newspapers.”
“Lieutenant Hector Baines served on The King of the North , a frigate,” said Childermass. “At twenty-one years of age he lost a leg and two or three fingers in an action in the West Indies. In the same battle the Captain of The King of the North and many of the seamen died. Reports that Lieutenant Baines continued to command the ship and issue orders to his crew while the ship’s doctor was actually sawing at his leg are, I dare say, a good deal exaggerated, but he certainly brought a fearfully damaged ship out of the Indies, attacked a Spanish ship full of bounty, gained a fortune and came home a hero. He jilted the young lady to whom he was engaged and married another. This, sir, is the Captain’s history as it appeared in The Morning Post . And now I shall tell you what followed. Baines is a northerner like you, sir, a man of obscure birth with no great friends to make life easy for him. Shortly after his marriage he and his bride went to London to stay at the house of some friends in Seacoal-lane, and while they were there they were visited by people of all ranks and stations. They ate their dinner at viscountesses’ tables, were toasted by Members of Parliament, and all that influence and patronage can do for Captain Baines was promised to him. This success, sir, I attribute to the general approbation and esteem which the report in the newspaper gained for him. But perhaps you have friends in London who will perform the same services for you without troubling the editors of the newspapers?”
“You know very well that I do not,” said Mr Norrell impatiently.
In the meantime, Mr Segundus laboured very long over his letter and it grieved him that he could not be more warm in his praise of Mr Norrell. It seemed to him that the readers of the London newspaper would expect him to say something of Mr Norrell’s personal virtues and would wonder why he did not.
In due course the letter appeared in The Times entitled: “EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCES IN YORK: AN APPEAL TO THE FRIENDS OF ENGLISH MAGIC.” Mr Segundus ended his description of the magic at York by saying that the Friends of English Magic must surely bless that love of extreme retirement which marked Mr Norrell’s character — for it had fostered his studies and had at last borne fruit in the shape of the wonderful magic at York Cathedral — but, said Mr Segundus, he appealed to the Friends of English Magic to join him in begging Mr Norrell not to return to a life of solitary study but to take his place upon the wider stage of the Nation’s affairs and so begin a new chapter in the History of English Magic.
AN APPEAL TO THE FRIENDS OF ENGLISH MAGIC had a most sensational effect, particularly in London. The readers of The Times were quite thunderstruck by Mr Norrell’s achievements. There was a general desire to see Mr Norrell; young ladies pitied the poor old gentlemen of York who had been so frightened by him, and wished very much to be as terrified themselves. Clearly such an opportunity as this was scarcely likely to come again; Mr Norrell determined to establish himself in London with all possible haste. “You must get me a house, Childermass,” he said. “Get me a house that says to those that visit it that magic is a respectable profession — no less than Law and a great deal more so than Medicine.”
Childermass inquired drily if Mr Norrell wished him to seek out architecture expressive of the proposition that magic was as respectable as the Church?
Mr Norrell (who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them in books, but who had never actually been introduced to a joke or shaken its hand) considered a while before replying at last that no, he did not think they could quite claim that.
So Childermass (perhaps thinking that nothing in the world is so respectable as money) directed his master to a house in Hanover-square among the abodes of
“Lieutenant Hector Baines served on The King of the North , a frigate,” said Childermass. “At twenty-one years of age he lost a leg and two or three fingers in an action in the West Indies. In the same battle the Captain of The King of the North and many of the seamen died. Reports that Lieutenant Baines continued to command the ship and issue orders to his crew while the ship’s doctor was actually sawing at his leg are, I dare say, a good deal exaggerated, but he certainly brought a fearfully damaged ship out of the Indies, attacked a Spanish ship full of bounty, gained a fortune and came home a hero. He jilted the young lady to whom he was engaged and married another. This, sir, is the Captain’s history as it appeared in The Morning Post . And now I shall tell you what followed. Baines is a northerner like you, sir, a man of obscure birth with no great friends to make life easy for him. Shortly after his marriage he and his bride went to London to stay at the house of some friends in Seacoal-lane, and while they were there they were visited by people of all ranks and stations. They ate their dinner at viscountesses’ tables, were toasted by Members of Parliament, and all that influence and patronage can do for Captain Baines was promised to him. This success, sir, I attribute to the general approbation and esteem which the report in the newspaper gained for him. But perhaps you have friends in London who will perform the same services for you without troubling the editors of the newspapers?”
“You know very well that I do not,” said Mr Norrell impatiently.
In the meantime, Mr Segundus laboured very long over his letter and it grieved him that he could not be more warm in his praise of Mr Norrell. It seemed to him that the readers of the London newspaper would expect him to say something of Mr Norrell’s personal virtues and would wonder why he did not.
In due course the letter appeared in The Times entitled: “EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCES IN YORK: AN APPEAL TO THE FRIENDS OF ENGLISH MAGIC.” Mr Segundus ended his description of the magic at York by saying that the Friends of English Magic must surely bless that love of extreme retirement which marked Mr Norrell’s character — for it had fostered his studies and had at last borne fruit in the shape of the wonderful magic at York Cathedral — but, said Mr Segundus, he appealed to the Friends of English Magic to join him in begging Mr Norrell not to return to a life of solitary study but to take his place upon the wider stage of the Nation’s affairs and so begin a new chapter in the History of English Magic.
AN APPEAL TO THE FRIENDS OF ENGLISH MAGIC had a most sensational effect, particularly in London. The readers of The Times were quite thunderstruck by Mr Norrell’s achievements. There was a general desire to see Mr Norrell; young ladies pitied the poor old gentlemen of York who had been so frightened by him, and wished very much to be as terrified themselves. Clearly such an opportunity as this was scarcely likely to come again; Mr Norrell determined to establish himself in London with all possible haste. “You must get me a house, Childermass,” he said. “Get me a house that says to those that visit it that magic is a respectable profession — no less than Law and a great deal more so than Medicine.”
Childermass inquired drily if Mr Norrell wished him to seek out architecture expressive of the proposition that magic was as respectable as the Church?
Mr Norrell (who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them in books, but who had never actually been introduced to a joke or shaken its hand) considered a while before replying at last that no, he did not think they could quite claim that.
So Childermass (perhaps thinking that nothing in the world is so respectable as money) directed his master to a house in Hanover-square among the abodes of
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