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DEVEREUX
BY
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
(Lord Lytton)
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PRESENT EDITION.
IN this edition of a work composed in early youth, I have not attempted
to remove those faults of construction which may be sufficiently
apparent in the plot, but which could not indeed be thoroughly rectified
without re-writing the whole work. I can only hope that with the
defects of inexperience may be found some of the merits of frank and
artless enthusiasm. I have, however, lightened the narrative of certain
episodical and irrelevant passages, and relieved the general style of
some boyish extravagances of diction. At the time this work was written
I was deeply engaged in the study of metaphysics and ethics, and out of
that study grew the character of Algernon Mordaunt. He is represented
as a type of the Heroism of Christian Philosophy,--a union of love and
knowledge placed in the midst of sorrow, and labouring on through the
pilgrimage of life, strong in the fortitude that comes from belief in
Heaven.
KNEBWORTH, May 3, 1852.
E. B. L.
DEDICATORY EPISTLE
TO
JOHN AULDJO, ESQ., ETC.,
AT NAPLES
LONDON.
MY DEAR AULDJO,--Permit me, as a memento of the pleasant hours we passed
together, and the intimacy we formed by the winding shores and the rosy
seas of the old Parthenope, to dedicate to you this romance. It was
written in perhaps the happiest period of my literary life,--when
success began to brighten upon my labours, and it seemed to me a fine
thing to make a name. Reputation, like all possessions, fairer in the
hope than the reality, shone before me in the gloss of novelty; and I
had neither felt the envy it excites, the weariness it occasions, nor
(worse than all) that coarse and painful notoriety, that, something
between the gossip and the slander, which attends every man whose
writings become known,--surrendering the grateful privacies of life to
"The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day."
In short, yet almost a boy (for, in years at least, I was little more,
when "Pelham" and "The Disowned" were conceived and composed), and full
of the sanguine arrogance of hope, I pictured to myself far greater
triumphs than it will ever be mine to achieve: and never did architect
of dreams build his pyramid upon (alas!) a narrower base, or a more
crumbling soil! . . . Time cures us effectually of these self-conceits,
and brings us, somewhat harshly, from the gay extravagance of
confounding the much that we design with the little that we can
accomplish.
"The Disowned" and "Devereux" were both completed in retirement, and in
the midst of metaphysical studies and investigations, varied and
miscellaneous enough, if not very deeply conned. At that time I was
indeed engaged in preparing for the press a Philosophical Work which I
had afterwards the good sense to postpone to a riper age and a more
sobered mind. But the effect of these studies is somewhat prejudicially
visible in both the romances I have referred to; and the external and
dramatic colourings which belong to fiction are too often forsaken for
the inward and subtile analysis of motives, characters, and actions.
The workman was not sufficiently master of his art to forbear the vanity
of parading the wheels of the mechanism, and was too fond of calling
attention to the minute and tedious operations by which the movements
were to be performed and the result obtained. I believe that an author
is generally pleased with his work less in proportion as it is good,
than in proportion as it fulfils the idea with which he commenced it.
He is rarely perhaps an accurate judge how far the execution is in
itself faulty or meritorious; but he judges with tolerable success how
far it accomplishes the end and objects of the conception. He is
pleased with his work, in short, according as he can say, "This has
expressed what I meant it to convey." But the reader, who is not in the
secret of the author's original design, usually views the work through a
different medium; and is perhaps in this the wiser critic of the two:
for the book that wanders the most from the idea which originated it may
often be better than that which is rigidly limited to the unfolding and
/denouement/ of a single conception. If we accept this solution, we may
be enabled to understand why an author not unfrequently makes favourites
of some of his productions most condemned by the public. For my own
part, I remember that "Devereux" pleased me better than "Pelham" or "The
Disowned," because the execution more exactly corresponded with the
design. It expressed with tolerable fidelity what I meant it to
express. That was a happy age, my dear Auldjo, when, on finishing a
work, we could feel contented with our labour, and fancy we had done our
best! Now, alas I I have learned enough of the wonders of the Art to
recognize all the deficiencies of the Disciple; and to know that no
author worth the reading can ever in one single work do half of which he
is capable.
What man ever wrote anything really good who did not feel that he had
the ability to write something better? Writing, after all, is a cold
and a coarse interpreter of thought. How much of the imagination, how
much of the intellect, evaporates and is lost while we seek to embody it
in words! Man made language and God the genius. Nothing short of an
eternity could enable men who imagine, think, and feel, to express all
they have imagined, thought, and felt. Immortality, the spiritual
desire, is the intellectual /necessity/.
In "Devereux" I wished to portray a man flourishing in the last century
with the train of mind and sentiment peculiar to the present; describing
a life, and not its dramatic epitome, the historical characters
introduced are not closely woven with the main plot, like those in the
fictions of Sir Walter Scott, but are rather, like the narrative
romances of an earlier school, designed to relieve the predominant
interest, and give a greater air of truth and actuality to the supposed
memoir. It is a fiction which deals less with the Picturesque than the
Real. Of the principal character thus introduced (the celebrated and
graceful, but charlatanic, Bolingbroke) I still think that my sketch,
upon the whole, is substantially just. We must not judge of the
politicians of one age by the lights of another. Happily we now demand
in a statesman a desire for other aims than his own advancement; but at
that period ambition was almost universally selfish--the Statesman was
yet a Courtier--a man whose very destiny it was to intrigue, to plot, to
glitter, to deceive. It is in proportion as politics have ceased to be
a secret science, in proportion as courts are less to be flattered and
tools to be managed, that politicians have become useful and honest men;
and the statesman now directs a people, where once he outwitted an
ante-chamber. Compare Bolingbroke--not with the men and by the rules of
this day, but with the men and by the rules of the last. He will lose
nothing in comparison with a Walpole, with a Marlborough on the one
side,--with an Oxford or a Swift upon the other.
And now, my dear Auldjo, you have had enough of my egotisms. As our
works grow up,--like old parents, we grow garrulous, and love to recur
to the happier days of their childhood; we talk over the pleasant pain
they cost us in their rearing, and memory renews the season of dreams
and hopes; we speak of their faults as of things past, of their merits
as of things enduring: we are proud to see them still living, and, after
many a harsh ordeal and rude assault, keeping a certain station in the
world; we hoped perhaps something better for them in their cradle, but
as it is we have good cause to be contented. You, a fellow-author, and
one whose spirited and charming sketches embody so much of personal
adventure, and therefore so much connect themselves with associations of
real life as well as of the studious closet; /you/ know, and must feel
with me, that these our books are a part of us, bone of our bone and
flesh of our flesh! They treasure up the thoughts which stirred us, the
affections which warmed us, years ago; they are the mirrors of how much
of what we were! To the world they are but as a certain number of
pages,--good or bad,--tedious or diverting; but to ourselves, the
authors, they are as marks in the wild maze of life by which we can
retrace our steps, and be with our youth again. What would I not give
to feel as I felt, to hope as I hoped, to believe as I believed, when
this work was first launched upon the world! But time gives while it
takes away; and amongst its recompenses for many losses are the memories
I referred to in commencing this letter, and gratefully revert to at its
close. From the land of cloud and the life of toil, I turn to that
golden clime and the happy indolence that so well accords with it; and
hope once more, ere I die, with a companion whose knowledge can recall
the past and whose gayety can enliven the present, to visit the
Disburied City of Pompeii, and see the moonlight sparkle over the waves
of Naples. Adieu, my dear Auldjo,
And believe me,
Your obliged and attached friend,
E. B. LYTTON.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHER'S INTRODUCTION.
MY life has been one of frequent adventure and constant excitement. It
has been passed, to this present day, in a stirring age, and not without
acquaintance of the most eminent and active spirits of the time. Men of
all grades and of every character have been familiar to me. War, love,
ambition, the scroll of sages, the festivals of wit, the intrigues of
states,--all that agitate mankind, the hope and the fear, the labour and
the pleasure, the great drama of vanities, with the little interludes of
wisdom; these have been the occupations of my manhood; these will
furnish forth the materials of that history which is now open to your
survey. Whatever be the faults of the historian, he has no motive to
palliate what he has committed nor to conceal what he has felt.
Children of an after century, the very time in which these pages will
greet you destroys enough of the connection between you and myself to
render me indifferent alike to your censure and your applause. Exactly
one hundred years from the day this record is completed will the seal I
shall place on it be broken and the secrets it contains be disclosed. I
claim that congeniality with you which I have found not among my own
coevals. /Their/ thoughts, their feelings, their views, have nothing
kindred to my own. I speak their language, but it is not as a native:
/they/ know not a syllable of mine! With a future age my heart may have
more in common; to a future age my thoughts may be less unfamiliar, and
my sentiments less strange. I trust these confessions to the trial!
Children of an after century, between you and the being who has traced
the pages ye behold--that busy, versatile, restless being--there is but
one step,--but that step is a century! His /now/ is separated from your
now by an interval of three generations! While he writes, he is
exulting in the vigour of health and manhood; while ye read, the very
worms are starving upon his dust. This commune between the living and
the dead; this intercourse between that which breathes and moves and
/is/, and that which life animates not nor mortality knows,--annihilates
falsehood, and chills even self-delusion into awe. Come, then, and look
upon the picture of a past day and of a gone being, without apprehension
of deceit; and as the shadows and lights of a checkered and wild
existence flit before you, watch if in your own hearts there be aught
which mirrors the reflection.
MORTON DEVEREUX.
NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION (1852).
If this work possess any merit of a Narrative order, it will perhaps be
found in its fidelity to the characteristics of an Autobiography. The
reader must, indeed, comply with the condition exacted from his
imagination and faith; that is to say, he must take the hero of the
story upon the terms for which Morton Devereux himself stipulates; and
regard the supposed Count as one who lived and wrote in the last
century, but who (dimly conscious that the tone of his mind harmonized
less with his own age than with that which was to come) left his
biography as a legacy to the present. This assumption (which is not an
unfair one) liberally conceded, and allowed to account for occasional
anachronisms in sentiment, Morton Devereux will be found to write as a
man who is not constructing a romance, but narrating a life. He gives
to Love, its joy and its sorrow, its due share in an eventful and
passionate existence; but it is the share of biography, not of fiction.
He selects from the crowd of personages with whom he is brought into
contact, not only those who directly influence his personal destinies,
but those of whom a sketch or an anecdote would appear to a biographer
likely to have interest for posterity. Louis XIV., the Regent Orleans,
Peter the Great, Lord Bolingbroke, and others less eminent, but still of
mark in their own day, if growing obscure to ours, are introduced not
for the purposes and agencies of fiction, but as an autobiographer's
natural illustrations of the men and manners of his time.
And here be it pardoned if I add that so minute an attention has been
paid to accuracy that even in petty details, and in relation to
historical characters but slightly known to the ordinary reader, a
critic deeply acquainted with the memoirs of the age will allow that the
novelist is always merged in the narrator.
Unless the Author has failed more in his design than, on revising the
work of his early youth with the comparatively impartial eye of maturer
judgment, he is disposed to concede, Morton Devereux will also be found
with that marked individuality of character which distinguishes the man
who has lived and laboured from the hero of romance. He admits into his
life but few passions; those are tenacious and intense: conscious that
none who are around him will sympathize with his deeper feelings, he
veils them under the sneer of an irony which is often affected and never
mirthful. Wherever we find him, after surviving the brief episode of
love, we feel--though he does not tell us so--that he is alone in the
world. He is represented as a keen observer and a successful actor in
the busy theatre of mankind, precisely in proportion as no cloud from
the heart obscures the cold clearness of the mind. In the scenes of
pleasure there is no joy in his smile; in the contests of ambition there
is no quicker beat of the pulse. Attaining in the prime of manhood such
position and honour as would first content and then sate a man of this
mould, he has nothing left but to discover the vanities of this world
and to ponder on the hopes of the next; and, his last passion dying out
in the retribution that falls on his foe, he finally sits down in
retirement to rebuild the ruined home of his youth,--unconscious that to
that solitude the Destinies have led him to repair the waste and ravages
of his own melancholy soul.
But while outward Dramatic harmonies between cause and effect, and the
proportionate agencies which characters introduced in the Drama bring to
bear upon event and catastrophe, are carefully shunned,--as real life
does for the most part shun them,--yet there is a latent coherence in
all that, by influencing the mind, do, though indirectly, shape out the
fate and guide the actions.
Dialogue and adventures which, considered dramatically, would be
episodical,--considered biographically, will be found essential to the
formation, change, and development of the narrator's character. The
grave conversations with Bolingbroke and Richard Cromwell, the light
scenes in London and at Paris, the favour obtained with the Czar of
Russia, are all essential to the creation of that mixture of wearied
satiety and mournful thought which conducts the Probationer to the
lonely spot in which he is destined to learn at once the mystery of his
past life and to clear his reason from the doubts that had obscured the
future world.
Viewing the work in this more subtile and contemplative light, the
reader will find not only the true test by which to judge of its design
and nature, but he may also recognize sources of interest in the story
which might otherwise have been lost to him; and if so, the Author will
not be without excuse for this criticism upon the scope and intention of
his own work. For it is not only the privilege of an artist, but it is
also sometimes his duty to the principles of Art, to place the spectator
in that point of view wherein the light best falls upon the canvas. "Do
not place yourself there," says the painter; "to judge of my composition
you must stand where I place you."
CONTENTS.
Book I.
CHAPTER I.
Of the Hero's Birth and Parentage.--Nothing can differ more from the
End of Things than their Beginning
CHAPTER II.
A Family Consultation.--A Priest, and an Era in Life
CHAPTER III.
A Change in Conduct and in Character: our evil Passions will some-
times produce good Effects; and on the contrary, an Alteration for
the better in Manners will, not unfrequently, have amongst its
Causes a little Corruption of Mind; for the Feelings are so blended
that, in suppressing those disagreeable to others, we often suppress
those which are amiable in themselves
CHAPTER IV.
A Contest of Art and a League of Friendship.--Two Characters in
mutual Ignorance of each other, and the Reader no wiser than
either of them
CHAPTER V.
Rural Hospitality.--An extraordinary Guest.--A Fine Gentleman is
not necessarily a Fool
CHAPTER VI.
A Dialogue, which might be dull if it were longer
CHAPTER VII.
A Change of Prospects.--A new Insight into the Character of the Hero.
--A Conference between two Brothers
CHAPTER VIII.
First Love
CHAPTER IX.
A Discovery and a Departure
CHAPTER X.
A very short Chapter,--containing a Valet
CHAPTER XI.
The Hero acquits himself honourably as a Coxcomb.--A Fine Lady of
the Eighteenth Century, and a fashionable Dialogue; the Substance
of fashionable Dialogue being in all Centuries the same
CHAPTER XII.
The Abbe's Return.--A Sword, and a Soliloquy
CHAPTER XIII.
A mysterious Letter.-A Duel.--The Departure of one of the Family
CHAPTER XIV.
Being a Chapter of Trifles
CHAPTER XV.
The Mother and Son.--Virtue should be the Sovereign of the Feelings,
not their Destroyer
Book II.
CHAPTER I.
The Hero in London.--Pleasure is often the shortest, as it is the
earliest road to Wisdom, and we may say of the World what Zeal-of-
the-Land-Busy says of the Pig-Booth, "We escape so much of the
other Vanities by our early Entering"
CHAPTER II.
Gay Scenes and Conversations.--The New Exchange and the Puppet-
Show.--The Actor, the Sexton, and the Beauty
CHAPTER III.
More Lions
CHAPTER IV.
An intellectual Adventure
CHAPTER V.
The Beau in his Den, and a Philosopher discovered
CHAPTER VI.
A universal Genius.--Pericles turned Barber.--Names of Beauties in
171-.--The Toasts of the Kit-Cat Club
CHAPTER VII.
A Dialogue of Sentiment succeeded by the Sketch of a Character, in
whose Eyes Sentiment was to Wise Men what Religion is to Fools;
namely, a Subject of Ridicule
CHAPTER VIII.
Lightly won, lightly lost.--A Dialogue of equal Instruction and
Amusement.--A Visit to Sir Godfrey Kneller
CHAPTER IX.
A Development of Character, and a long Letter; a Chapter, on the
whole, more important than it seems
CHAPTER X.
Being a short Chapter, containing a most important Event
CHAPTER XI.
Containing more than any other Chapter in the Second Book of this
History
Book III.
CHAPTER I.
Wherein the History makes great Progress and is marked by one
important Event in Human Life
CHAPTER II.
Love; Parting; a Death-Bed.--After all human Nature is a beautiful
Fabric; and even its Imperfections are not odious to him who has
studied the Science of its Architecture, and formed a reverent
Estimate of its Creator
CHAPTER III.
A great Change of Prospects
CHAPTER IV.
An Episode.--The Son of the Greatest Man who (one only excepted)
/ever rose to a Throne/, but by no means of the Greatest Man (save
one) /who ever existed/
CHAPTER V.
In which the Hero shows Decision on more Points than one.--More of
Isora's Character is developed
CHAPTER VI.
An Unexpected Meeting.--Conjecture and Anticipation
CHAPTER VII.
The Events of a Single Night.--Moments make the Hues in which
Years are coloured
Book IV.
CHAPTER I.
A Re-entrance into Life through the Ebon Gate, Affliction
CHAPTER II.
Ambitious Projects
CHAPTER III.
The real Actors Spectators to the false ones
CHAPTER IV.
Paris.--A Female Politician, and an Ecclesiastical One.--Sundry other
Matters
CHAPTER V.
A Meeting of Wits.--Conversation gone out to Supper in her Dress of
Velvet and Jewels
CHAPTER VI.
A Court, Courtiers, and a King
CHAPTER VII.
Reflections.--A Soiree.--The Appearance of one important in the
History.--A Conversation with Madame de Balzac highly satisfactory
and cheering.--A Rencontre with a curious old Soldier.--
The Extinction of a once great Luminary
CHAPTER VIII.
In which there is Reason to fear that Princes are not invariably free
from Human Peccadilloes
CHAPTER IX.
A Prince, an Audience, and a Secret Embassy
CHAPTER X.
Royal Exertions for the Good of the People
CHAPTER XI.
An Interview
Book V.
CHAPTER I.
A Portrait
CHAPTER II.
The Entrance into Petersburg.--A Rencontre with an inquisitive and
mysterious Stranger.--Nothing like Travel
CHAPTER III.
The Czar.--The Czarina.--A Feast at a Russian Nobleman's
CHAPTER IV.
Conversations with the Czar.--If Cromwell was the greatest Man
(Caesar excepted) who ever /rose/ to the Supreme Power, Peter was
the greatest Man ever /born/ to it
CHAPTER V.
Return to Paris.--Interview with Bolingbroke.--A gallant Adventure.
--Affair with Dubois.--Public Life is a Drama, in which private
Vices generally play the Part of the Scene-shifters
CHAPTER VI.
A long Interval of Years.--A Change of Mind and its Causes
Book VI.
CHAPTER I.
The Retreat
CHAPTER II.
The Victory
CHAPTER III.
The Hermit of the Well
CHAPTER IV.
The Solution of many Mysteries.--A dark View of the Life and Nature
of Man
CHAPTER V.
In which the History makes a great Stride towards the final Catastrophe.
--The Return to England, and the Visit to a Devotee
CHAPTER VI.
The Retreat of a celebrated Man, and a Visit to a great Poet
CHAPTER VII.
The Plot approaches its /Denouement/
CHAPTER VIII.
The Catastrophe
CONCLUSION
DEVEREUX.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE HERO'S BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.--NOTHING CAN DIFFER MORE FROM THE END
OF THINGS THAN THEIR BEGINNING.
MY grandfather, Sir Arthur Devereux (peace be with his ashes!) was a
noble old knight and cavalier, possessed of a property sufficiently
large to have maintained in full dignity half a dozen peers,--such as
peers have been since the days of the first James. Nevertheless, my
grandfather loved the equestrian order better than the patrician,
rejected all offers of advancement, and left his posterity no titles but
those to his estate.
Sir Arthur had two children by wedlock,--both sons; at his death, my
father, the younger, bade adieu to the old hall and his only brother,
prayed to the grim portraits of his ancestors to inspire him, and set
out--to join as a volunteer the armies of that Louis, afterwards
surnamed /le grand/. Of him I shall say but little; the life of a
soldier has only two events worth recording,--his first campaign and his
last. My uncle did as his ancestors had done before him, and, cheap as
the dignity had grown, went up to court to be knighted by Charles II.
He was so delighted with what he saw of the metropolis that he forswore
all intention of leaving it, took to Sedley and champagne, flirted with
Nell Gwynne, lost double the value of his brother's portion at one
sitting to the chivalrous Grammont, wrote a comedy corrected by
Etherege, and took a wife recommended by Rochester. The wife brought
him a child six months after marriage, and the infant was born on the
same day the comedy was acted. Luckily for the honour of the house, my
uncle shared the fate of Plemneus, king of Sicyon, and all the offspring
he ever had (that is to say, the child and the play) "died as soon as
they were born." My uncle was now only at a loss what to do with his
wife,--that remaining treasure, whose readiness to oblige him had been
so miraculously evinced. She saved him the trouble of long cogitation,
an exercise of intellect to which he was never too ardently inclined.
There was a gentleman of the court, celebrated for his sedateness and
solemnity; my aunt was piqued into emulating Orpheus, and, six weeks
after her confinement, she put this rock into motion,--they eloped.
Poor gentleman! it must have been a severe trial of patience to a man
never known before to transgress the very slowest of all possible walks,
to have had two events of the most rapid nature happen to him in the
same week: scarcely had he recovered the shock of being run away with by
my aunt, before, terminating forever his vagrancies, he was run through
by my uncle. The wits made an epigram upon the event, and my uncle, who
was as bold as a lion at the point of a sword, was, to speak frankly,
terribly disconcerted by the point of a jest. He retired to the country
in a fit of disgust and gout. Here his natural goodness soon recovered
the effects of the artificial atmosphere to which it had been exposed,
and he solaced himself by righteously governing domains worthy of a
prince, for the mortifications he had experienced in the dishonourable
career of a courtier.
Hitherto I have spoken somewhat slightingly of my uncle, and in his
dissipation he deserved it, for he was both too honest and too simple to
shine in that galaxy of prostituted genius of which Charles II. was the
centre. But in retirement he was no longer the same person; and I do
not think that the elements of human nature could have furnished forth a
more amiable character than Sir William Devereux presiding at Christmas
over the merriment of his great hall.
Good old man! his very defects were what we loved best in him: vanity
was so mingled with good-nature, that it became graceful, and we
reverenced one the most, while we most smiled at the other.
One peculiarity had he which the age he had lived in and his domestic
history rendered natural enough; namely, an exceeding distaste to the
matrimonial state: early marriages were misery, imprudent marriages
idiotism, and marriage, at the best, he was wont to say, with a kindling
eye and a heightened colour, marriage at the best was the devil! Yet it
must not be supposed that Sir William Devereux was an ungallant man. On
the contrary, never did the /beau sexe/ have a humbler or more devoted
servant. As nothing in his estimation was less becoming to a wise man
than matrimony, so nothing was more ornamental than flirtation.
He had the old man's weakness, garrulity; and he told the wittiest
stories in the world, without omitting anything in them but the point.
This omission did not arise from the want either of memory or of humour;
but solely from a deficiency in the malice natural to all jesters. He
could not persuade his lips to repeat a sarcasm hurting even the dead or
the ungrateful; and when he came to the drop of gall which should have
given zest to the story, the milk of human kindness broke its barrier,
despite of himself,--and washed it away. He was a fine wreck, a little
prematurely broken by dissipation, but not perhaps the less interesting
on that account; tall, and somewhat of the jovial old English girth,
with a face where good-nature and good living mingled their smiles and
glow. He wore the garb of twenty years back, and was curiously
particular in the choice of his silk stockings. Between you and me, he
was not a little vain of his leg, and a compliment on that score was
always sure of a gracious reception.
The solitude of my uncle's household was broken by an invasion of three
boys,--none of the quietest,--and their mother, who, the gentlest and
saddest of womankind, seemed to follow them, the emblem of that primeval
silence from which all noise was born. These three boys were my two
brothers and myself. My father, who had conceived a strong personal
attachment for Louis XIV., never quitted his service, and the great King
repaid him by orders and favours without number; he died of wounds
received in battle,--a Count and a Marshal, full of renown and destitute
of money. He had married twice: his first wife, who died without issue,
was a daughter of the noble house of La Tremouille; his second, our
mother, was of a younger branch of the English race of Howard. Brought
up in her native country, and influenced by a primitive and retired
education, she never loved that gay land which her husband had adopted
as his own. Upon his death she hastened her return to England, and
refusing, with somewhat of honourable pride, the magnificent pension
which Louis wished to settle upon the widow of his favourite, came to
throw herself and her children upon those affections which she knew they
were entitled to claim.
My uncle was unaffectedly rejoiced to receive us; to say nothing of his
love for my father, and his pride at the honours the latter had won to
their ancient house, the good gentleman was very well pleased with the
idea of obtaining four new listeners, out of whom he might select an
heir, and he soon grew as fond of us as we were of him. At the time of
our new settlement, I had attained the age of twelve; my second brother
(we were twins) was born an hour after me; my third was about fifteen
months younger. I had never been the favourite of the three. In the
first place, my brothers (my youngest especially) were uncommonly
handsome, and, at most, I was but tolerably good-looking: in the second
place, my mind was considered as much inferior to theirs as my body; I
was idle and dull, sullen and haughty,--the only wit I ever displayed
was in sneering at my friends, and the only spirit, in quarrelling with
my twin brother; so said or so thought all who saw us in our childhood;
and it follows, therefore, that I was either very unamiable or very much
misunderstood.
But, to the astonishment of myself and my relations, my fate was now to
be reversed; and I was no sooner settled at Devereux Court than I became
evidently the object of Sir William's pre-eminent attachment. The fact
was, that I really liked both the knight and his stories better than my
brothers did; and the very first time I had seen my uncle, I had
commented on the beauty of his stocking, and envied the constitution of
his leg; from such trifles spring affection! In truth, our attachment
to each other so increased that we grew to be constantly together; and
while my childish anticipations of the world made me love to listen to
stories of courts and courtiers, my uncle returned the compliment by
declaring of my wit, as the angler declared of the River Lea, that one
would find enough in it, if one would but angle sufficiently long.
Nor was this all; my uncle and myself were exceedingly like the waters
of Alpheus and Arethusa,--nothing was thrown into the one without being
seen very shortly afterwards floating upon the other. Every witticism
or legend Sir William imparted to me (and some, to say truth, were a
little tinged with the licentiousness of the times he had lived in), I
took the first opportunity of retailing, whatever might be the audience;
and few boys, at the age of thirteen, can boast of having so often as
myself excited the laughter of the men and the blushes of the women.
This circumstance, while it aggravated my own vanity, delighted my
uncle's; and as I was always getting into scrapes on his account, so he
was perpetually bound, by duty, to defend me from the charges of which
he was the cause. No man defends another long without loving him the
better for it; and perhaps Sir William Devereux and his eldest nephew
were the only allies in the world who had no jealousy of each other.
CHAPTER II.
A FAMILY CONSULTATION.--A PRIEST, AND AN ERA IN LIFE.
"YOU are ruining the children, my dear Sir William," said my gentle
mother, one day when I had been particularly witty; "and the Abbe
Montreuil declares it absolutely necessary that they should go to
school."
"To school!" said my uncle, who was caressing his right leg, as it lay
over his left knee,--"to school, Madam! you are joking. What for,
pray?"
"Instruction, my dear Sir William," replied my mother.
"Ah, ah; I forgot that; true, true!" said my uncle, despondingly, and
there was a pause. My mother counted her rosary; my uncle sank into a
revery; my twin brother pinched my leg under the table, to which I
replied by a silent kick; and my youngest fixed his large, dark,
speaking eyes upon a picture of the Holy Family, which hung opposite to
him.
My uncle broke the silence; he did it with a start.
"Od's fish, Madam,"--(my uncle dressed his oaths, like himself, a little
after the example of Charles II.)--"od's fish, Madam, I have thought of
a better plan than that; they shall have instruction without going to
school for it."
"And how, Sir William?"
"I will instruct them myself, Madam," and William slapped the calf of
the leg he was caressing.
My mother smiled.
"Ay, Madam, you may smile; but I and my Lord Dorset were the best
scholars of the age; you shall read my play."
"Do, Mother," said I, "read the play. Shall I tell her some of the
jests in it, Uncle?"
My mother shook her head in anticipative horror, and raised her finger
reprovingly. My uncle said nothing, but winked at me; I understood the
signal, and was about to begin, when the door opened, and the Abbe
Montreuil entered. My uncle released his right leg, and my jest was cut
off. Nobody ever inspired a more dim, religious awe than the Abbe
Montreuil. The priest entered with a smile. My mother hailed the
entrance of an ally.
"Father," said she, rising, "I have just represented to my good brother
the necessity of sending my sons to school; he has proposed an
alternative which I will leave you to discuss with him."
"And what is it?" said Montreuil, sliding into a chair, and patting
Gerald's head with a benignant air.
"To educate them himself," answered my mother, with a sort of satirical
gravity. My uncle moved uneasily in his seat, as if, for the first
time, he saw something ridiculous in the proposal.
The smile, immediately fading from the thin lips of the priest, gave way
to an expression of respectful approbation. "An admirable plan," said
he slowly, "but liable to some little exceptions, which Sir William will
allow me to point out."
My mother called to us, and we left the room with her. The next time we
saw my uncle, the priest's reasonings had prevailed. The following week
we all three went to school. My father had been a Catholic, my mother
was of the same creed, and consequently we were brought up in that
unpopular faith. But my uncle, whose religion had been sadly undermined
at court, was a terrible caviller at the holy mysteries of Catholicism;
and while his friends termed him a Protestant, his enemies hinted,
falsely enough, that he was a sceptic. When Montreuil first followed us
to Devereux Court, many and bitter were the little jests my worthy uncle
had provided for his reception; and he would shake his head with a
notable archness whenever he heard our reverential description of the
expected guest. But, somehow or other, no sooner had he seen the priest
than all his proposed railleries deserted him. Not a single witticism
came to his assistance, and the calm, smooth face of the ecclesiastic
seemed to operate upon the fierce resolves of the facetious knight in
the same manner as the human eye is supposed to awe into impotence the
malignant intentions of the ignobler animals. Yet nothing could be
blander than the demeanour of the Abbe Montreuil; nothing more worldly,
in their urbanity, than his manner and address. His garb was as little
clerical as possible, his conversation rather familiar than formal, and
he invariably listened to every syllable the good knight uttered with a
countenance and mien of the most attentive respect.
What then was the charm by which the singular man never failed to obtain
an ascendency, in some measure allied with fear, over all in whose
company he was thrown? This was a secret my uncle never could solve,
and which only in later life I myself was able to discover. It was
partly by the magic of an extraordinary and powerful mind, partly by an
expression of manner, if I may use such a phrase, that seemed to sneer
most, when most it affected to respect; and partly by an air like that
of a man never exactly at ease; not that he was shy, or ungraceful, or
even taciturn,--no! it was an indescribable embarrassment, resembling
that of one playing a part, familiar to him, indeed, but somewhat
distasteful. This embarrassment, however, was sufficient to be
contagious, and to confuse that dignity in others, which, strangely
enough, never forsook himself.
He was of low origin, but his address and appearance did not betray his
birth. Pride suited his mien better than familiarity; and his
countenance, rigid, thoughtful, and cold, even through smiles, in
expression was strikingly commanding. In person he was slightly above
the middle standard; and had not the texture of his frame been
remarkably hard, wiry, and muscular, the total absence of all
superfluous flesh would have given the lean gauntness of his figure an
appearance of almost spectral emaciation. In reality, his age did not
exceed twenty-eight years; but his high broad forehead was already so
marked with line and furrow, his air was so staid and quiet, his figure
so destitute of the roundness and elasticity of youth, that his
appearance always impressed the beholder with the involuntary idea of a
man considerably more advanced in life. Abstemious to habitual penance,
and regular to mechanical exactness in his frequent and severe
devotions, he was as little inwardly addicted to the pleasures and
pursuits of youth, as he was externally possessed of its freshness and
its bloom.
Nor was gravity with him that unmeaning veil to imbecility which
Rochefoucauld has so happily called "the mystery of the body." The
variety and depth of his learning fully sustained the respect which his
demeanour insensibly created. To say nothing of his lore in the dead
tongues, he possessed a knowledge of the principal European languages
besides his own, namely, English, Italian, German, and Spanish, not less
accurate and little less fluent than that of a native; and he had not
only gained the key to these various coffers of intellectual wealth, but
he had also possessed himself of their treasures. He had been educated
at St. Omer: and, young as he was, he had already acquired no
inconsiderable reputation among his brethren of that illustrious and
celebrated Order of Jesus which has produced some of the worst and some
of the best men that the Christian world has ever known,--which has, in
its successful zeal for knowledge, and the circulation of mental light,
bequeathed a vast debt of gratitude to posterity; but which, unhappily
encouraging certain scholastic doctrines, that by a mind at once subtle
and vicious can be easily perverted into the sanction of the most
dangerous and systematized immorality, has already drawn upon its
professors an almost universal odium.
So highly established was the good name of Montreuil that when, three
years prior to the time of which I now speak, he had been elected to the
office he held in our family, it was scarcely deemed a less fortunate
occurrence for us to gain so learned and so pious a preceptor, than it
was for him to acquire a situation of such trust and confidence in the
household of a Marshal of France and the especial favourite of Louis
XIV.
It was pleasant enough to mark the gradual ascendency he gained over my
uncle; and the timorous dislike which the good knight entertained for
him, yet struggled to conceal. Perhaps that was the only time in his
life in which Sir William Devereux was a hypocrite.
Enough of the priest at present; I return to his charge. To school we
went: our parting with our uncle was quite pathetic; mine in especial.
"Hark ye, Sir Count," whispered he (I bore my father's title), "hark ye,
don't mind what the old priest tells you; your real man of wit never
wants the musty lessons of schools in order to make a figure in the
world. Don't cramp your genius, my boy; read over my play, and honest
George Etherege's 'Man of Mode;' they'll keep your spirits alive, after
dozing over those old pages which Homer (good soul!) dozed over before.
God bless you, my child; write to me; no one, not even your mother,
shall see your letters; and--and be sure, my fine fellow, that you don't
fag too hard. The glass of life is the best book, and one's natural wit
the only diamond that can write legibly on it."
Such were my uncle's parting admonitions; it must be confessed that,
coupled with the dramatic gifts alluded to, they were likely to be of
infinite service to the /debutant/ for academical honours. In fact, Sir
William Devereux was deeply impregnated with the notion of his
time,--that ability and inspiration were the same thing, and that,
unless you were thoroughly idle, you could not be thoroughly a genius.
I verily believe that he thought wisdom got its gems, as Abu Zeid al
Hassan* declares some Chinese philosophers thought oysters got their
pearls, namely, /by gaping/!
* In his Commentary on the account of China by two Travellers.
CHAPTER III.
A CHANGE IN CONDUCT AND IN CHARACTER: OUR EVIL PASSIONS WILL SOMETIMES
PRODUCE GOOD EFFECTS; AND ON THE CONTRARY, AN ALTERATION FOR THE BETTER
IN MANNERS WILL, NOT UNFREQUENTLY, HAVE AMONGST ITS CAUSES A LITTLE
CORRUPTION OF MIND; FOR THE FEELINGS ARE SO BLENDED THAT, IN SUPPRESSING
THOSE DISAGREEABLE TO OTHERS, WE OFTEN SUPPRESS THOSE WHICH ARE AMIABLE
IN THEMSELVES.
MY twin brother, Gerald, was a tall, strong, handsome boy, blessed with
a great love for the orthodox academical studies, and extraordinary
quickness of ability. Nevertheless, he was indolent by nature in things
which were contrary to his taste; fond of pleasure; and, amidst all his
personal courage, ran a certain vein of irresolution, which rendered it
easy for a cool and determined mind to awe or to persuade him. I cannot
help thinking, too, that, clever as he was, there was something
commonplace in the cleverness; and that his talent was of that
mechanical yet quick nature which makes wonderful boys but mediocre men.
In any other family he would have been considered the beauty; in ours he
was thought the genius.
My youngest brother, Aubrey, was of a very different disposition of mind
and frame of body; thoughtful, gentle, susceptible, acute; with an
uncertain bravery, like a woman's, and a taste for reading, that varied
with the caprice of every hour. He was the beauty of the three, and my
mother's favourite. Never, indeed, have I seen the countenance of man
so perfect, so glowingly yet delicately handsome, as that of Aubrey
Devereux. Locks, soft, glossy, and twining into ringlets, fell in dark
profusion over a brow whiter than marble; his eyes were black and tender
as a Georgian girl's; his lips, his teeth, the contour of his face, were
all cast in the same feminine and faultless mould; his hands would have
shamed those of Madame de la Tisseur, whose lover offered six thousand
marks to any European who could wear her glove; and his figure would
have made Titania give up her Henchman, and the King of the Fairies be
anything but pleased with the exchange.
Such were my two brothers; or, rather (so far as the internal qualities
are concerned), such they seemed to me; for it is a singular fact that
we never judge of our near kindred so well as we judge of others; and I
appeal to any one, whether, of all people by whom he has been mistaken,
he has not been most often mistaken by those with whom he was brought
up.
I had always loved Aubrey, but they had not suffered him to love me; and
we had been so little together that we had in common none of those
childish remembrances which serve, more powerfully than all else in
later life, to cement and soften affection. In fact, I was the
scapegoat of the family. What I must have been in early childhood I
cannot tell; but before I was ten years old I was the object of all the
despondency and evil forebodings of my relations. My father said I
laughed at /la gloire et le grand monarque/ the very first time he
attempted to explain to me the value of the one and the greatness of the
other. The countess said I had neither my father's eye nor her own
smile,--that I was slow at my letters and quick with my tongue; and
throughout the whole house nothing was so favourite a topic as the
extent of my rudeness and the venom of my repartee. Montreuil, on his
entrance into our family, not only fell in with, but favoured and
fostered, the reigning humour against me; whether from that /divide et
impera/ system, which was so grateful to his temper, or from the mere
love of meddling and intrigue, which in him, as in Alberoni, attached
itself equally to petty as to large circles, was not then clearly
apparent; it was only certain that he fomented the dissensions and
widened the breach between my brothers and myself. Alas! after all, I
believe my sole crime was my candour. I had a spirit of frankness which
no fear could tame, and my vengeance for any infantine punishment was in
speaking veraciously of my punishers. Never tell me of the pang of
falsehood to the slandered: nothing is so agonizing to the fine skin of
vanity as the application of a rough truth!
As I grew older, I saw my power and indulged it; and, being scolded for
sarcasm, I was flattered into believing I had wit; so I punned and
jested, lampooned and satirized, till I was as much a torment to others
as I was tormented myself. The secret of all this was that I was
unhappy. Nobody loved me: I felt it to my heart of hearts. I was
conscious of injustice, and the sense of it made me bitter. Our
feelings, especially in youth, resemble that leaf which, in some old
traveller, is described as expanding itself to warmth, but when chilled,
not only shrinking and closing, but presenting to the spectator thorns
which had lain concealed upon the opposite side of it before.
With my brother Gerald, I had a deadly and irreconcilable feud. He was
much stouter, taller, and stronger than myself; and, far from conceding
to me that respect which I imagined my priority of birth entitled me to
claim, he took every opportunity to deride my pretensions, and to
vindicate the cause of the superior strength and vigour which
constituted his own. It would have done your heart good to have seen us
cuff one another, we did it with such zeal. There is nothing in human
passion like a good brotherly hatred! My mother said, with the most
feeling earnestness, that she used to feel us fighting even before our
birth: we certainly lost no time directly after it. Both my parents
were secretly vexed that I had come into the world an hour sooner than
my brother; and Gerald himself looked upon it as a sort of juggle,--a
kind of jockeyship by which he had lost the prerogative of birthright.
This very early rankled in his heart, and he was so much a greater
favourite than myself that, instead of rooting out so unfortunate a
feeling on his part, my good parents made no scruple of openly lamenting
my seniority. I believe the real cause of our being taken from the
domestic instructions of the Abbe (who was an admirable teacher) and
sent to school, was solely to prevent my uncle deciding everything in my
favour. Montreuil, however, accompanied us to our academy, and remained
with us during the three years in which we were perfecting ourselves in
the blessings of education.
At the end of the second year, a prize was instituted for the best
proficient at a very severe examination; two months before it took place
we went home for a few days. After dinner my uncle asked me to walk
with him in the park. I did so: we strolled along to the margin of a
rivulet which ornamented the grounds. There my uncle, for the first
time, broke silence.
"Morton," said he, looking down at his left leg, "Morton, let me see;
thou art now of a reasonable age,--fourteen at the least."
"Fifteen, if it please you, sir," said I, elevating my stature as much
as I was able.
"Humph! my boy; and a pretty time of life it is, too. Your brother
Gerald is taller than you by two inches."
"But I can beat him for all that, uncle," said I, colouring, and
clenching my fist.
My uncle pulled down his right ruffle. "'Gad so, Morton, you're a brave
fellow," said he; "but I wish you were less of a hero and more of a
scholar. I wish you could beat him in Greek as well as in boxing. I
will tell you what Old Rowley said," and my uncle occupied the next
quarter of an hour with a story. The story opened the good old
gentleman's heart; my laughter opened it still more. "Hark ye, sirrah!"
said he, pausing abruptly, and grasping my hand with a vigorous effort
of love and muscle, "hark ye, sirrah,--I love you,--'Sdeath, I do. I
love you better than both your brothers, and that crab of a priest into
the bargain; but I am grieved to the heart to hear what I do of you.
They tell me you are the idlest boy in the school; that you are always
beating your brother Gerald, and making a scurrilous jest of your mother
or myself."
"Who says so? who dares say so?" said I, with an emphasis that would
have startled a less hearty man than Sir William Devereux. "They lie,
Uncle; by my soul they do. Idle I am; quarrelsome with my brother I
confess myself; but jesting at you or my mother--never--never. No, no;
/you/, too, who have been so kind to me,--the only one who ever was.
No, no; do not think I could be such a wretch:" and as I said this the
tears gushed from my eyes.
My good uncle was exceedingly affected. "Look ye, child," said he, "I
do not believe them. 'Sdeath, not a word; I would repeat to you a good
jest now of Sedley's, 'Gad, I would, but I am really too much moved just
at present. I tell you what, my boy, I tell you what you shall do:
there is a trial coming on at school--eh?--well, the Abbe tells me
Gerald is certain of being first, and you of being last. Now, Morton,
you shall beat your brother, and shame the Jesuit. There; my mind's
spoken; dry your tears, my boy, and I'll tell you the jest Sedley made:
it was in the Mulberry Garden one day--" And the knight told his story.
I dried my tears, pressed my uncle's hand, escaped from him as soon as I
was able, hastened to my room, and surrendered myself to reflection.
When my uncle so good-naturedly proposed that I should conquer Gerald at
the examination, nothing appeared to him more easy; he was pleased to
think I had more talent than my brother, and talent, according to his
creed, was the only master-key to unlock every science. A problem in
Euclid or a phrase in Pindar, a secret in astronomy or a knotty passage
in the Fathers, were all riddles, with the solution of which application
had nothing to do. One's mother-wit was a precious sort of necromancy,
which could pierce every mystery at first sight; and all the gifts of
knowledge, in his opinion, like reading and writing in that of the sage
Dogberry, "came by nature." Alas! I was not under the same pleasurable
delusion; I rather exaggerated than diminished the difficulty of my
task, and thought, at the first glance, that nothing short of a miracle
would enable me to excel my brother. Gerald, a boy of natural talent,
and, as I said before, of great assiduity in the orthodox
studies,--especially favoured too by the instruction of Montreuil,--had
long been esteemed the first scholar of our little world; and though I
knew that with some branches of learning I was more conversant than
himself, yet, as my emulation had been hitherto solely directed to
bodily contention, I had never thought of contesting with him a
reputation for which I cared little, and on a point in which I had been
early taught that I could never hope to enter into any advantageous
comparison with the "genius" of the Devereuxs.
A new spirit now passed into me: I examined myself with a jealous and
impartial scrutiny; I weighed my acquisitions against those of my
brother; I called forth, from their secret recesses, the unexercised and
almost unknown stores I had from time to time laid up in my mental
armoury to moulder and to rust. I surveyed them with a feeling that
they might yet be polished into use; and, excited alike by the stimulus
of affection on one side and hatred on the other, my mind worked itself
from despondency into doubt, and from doubt into the sanguineness of
hope. I told none of my design; I exacted from my uncle a promise not
to betray it; I shut myself in my room; I gave out that I was ill; I saw
no one, not even the Abbe; I rejected his instructions, for I looked
upon him as an enemy; and, for the two months before my trial, I spent
night and day in an unrelaxing application, of which, till then, I had
not imagined myself capable.
Though inattentive to the school exercises, I had never been wholly
idle. I was a lover of abstruser researches than the hackneyed subjects
of the school, and we had really received such extensive and judicious
instructions from the Abbe during our early years that it would have
been scarcely possible for any of us to have fallen into a thorough
distaste for intellectual pursuits. In the examination I foresaw that
much which I had previously acquired might be profitably
displayed,--much secret and recondite knowledge of the customs and
manners of the ancients, as well as their literature, which curiosity
had led me to obtain, and which I knew had never entered into the heads
of those who, contented with their reputation in the customary
academical routine, had rarely dreamed of wandering into less beaten
paths of learning. Fortunately too for me, Gerald was so certain of
success that latterly he omitted all precaution to obtain it; and as
none of our schoolfellows had the vanity to think of contesting with
him, even the Abbe seemed to imagine him justified in his supineness.
The day arrived. Sir William, my mother, the whole aristocracy of the
neighbourhood, were present at the trial. The Abbe came to my room a
few hours before it commenced: he found the door locked.
"Ungracious boy," said he, "admit me; I come at the earnest request of
your brother Aubrey to give you some hints preparatory to the
examination."
"He has indeed come at my wish," said the soft and silver voice of
Aubrey, in a supplicating tone: "do admit him, dear Morton, for my
sake!"
"Go," said I, bitterly, from within, "go: ye are both my foes and
slanderers; you come to insult my disgrace beforehand; but perhaps you
will yet be disappointed."
"You will not open the door?" said the priest.
"I will not; begone."
"He will indeed disgrace his family," said Montreuil, moving away.
"He will disgrace himself," said Aubrey, dejectedly.
I laughed scornfully. If ever the consciousness of strength is
pleasant, it is when we are thought most weak.
The greater part of our examination consisted in the answering of
certain questions in writing, given to us in the three days immediately
previous to the grand and final one; for this last day was reserved the
paper of composition (as it was termed) in verse and prose, and the
personal examination in a few showy, but generally understood, subjects.
When Gerald gave in his paper, and answered the verbal questions, a buzz
of admiration and anxiety went round the room. His person was so
handsome, his address so graceful, his voice so assured and clear, that
a strong and universal sympathy was excited in his favour. The
head-master publicly complimented him. He regretted only the deficiency
of his pupil in certain minor but important matters. I came next, for I
stood next to Gerald in our class. As I walked up the hall, I raised my
eyes to the gallery in which my uncle and his party sat. I saw that my
mother was listening to the Abbe, whose eye, severe, cold, and
contemptuous, was bent upon me. But my uncle leaned over the railing of
the gallery, with his plumed hat in his hand, which, when he caught my
look, he waved gently,--as if in token of encouragement, and with an air
so kind and cheering, that I felt my step grow prouder as I approached
the conclave of the masters.
"Morton Devereux," said the president of the school, in a calm, loud,
austere voice, that filled the whole hall, "we have looked over your
papers on the three previous days, and they have given us no less
surprise than pleasure. Take heed and time how you answer us now."
At this speech a loud murmur was heard in my uncle's party, which
gradually spread round the hall. I again looked up: my mother's face
was averted; that of the Abbe was impenetrable; but I saw my uncle
wiping his eyes, and felt a strange emotion creeping into my own, I
turned hastily away, and presented my paper; the head master received
it, and, putting it aside, proceeded to the verbal examination.
Conscious of the parts in which Gerald was likely to fail, I had paid
especial attention to the minutiae of scholarship, and my forethought
stood me in good stead at the present moment. My trial ceased; my last
paper was read. I bowed, and retired to the other end of the hall. I
was not so popular as Gerald; a crowd was assembled round him, but I
stood alone. As I leaned against a column, with folded arms, and a
countenance which I felt betrayed little of my internal emotions, my eye
caught Gerald's. He was very pale, and I could see that his hand
trembled. Despite of our enmity, I felt for him. The worst passions
are softened by triumph, and I foresaw that mine was at hand.
The whole examination was over. Every boy had passed it. The masters
retired for a moment; they reappeared and reseated themselves. The
first sound I heard was that of my own name. I was the victor of the
day: I was more; I was one hundred marks before my brother. My head
swam round; my breath forsook me. Since then I have been placed in many
trials of life, and had many triumphs; but never was I so overcome as at
that moment. I left the hall; I scarcely listened to the applauses with
which it rang. I hurried to my own chamber, and threw myself on the bed
in a delirium of intoxicated feeling, which had in it more of rapture
than anything but the gratification of first love or first vanity can
bestow.
Ah! it would be worth stimulating our passions if it were only for the
pleasure of remembering their effect; and all violent excitement should
be indulged less for present joy than for future retrospection.
My uncle's step was the first thing which intruded on my solitude.
"Od's fish, my boy," said he, crying like a child, "this is fine
work,--'Gad, so it is. I almost wish I were a boy myself to have a
match with you,--faith I do,--see what it is to learn a little of life!
If you had never read my play, do you think you would have done half so
well?--no, my boy, I sharpened your wits for you. Honest George
Etherege and I,--we were the making of you! and when you come to be a
great man, and are asked what made you so, you shall say, 'My uncle's
play;' 'Gad, you shall. Faith, boy, never smile! Od's fish, I'll tell
you a story as /a propos/ to the present occasion as if it had been made
on purpose. Rochester and I and Sedley were walking one day,
and--/entre nous/--awaiting certain appointments--hem!--for my part I
was a little melancholy or so, thinking of my catastrophe,--that is, of
my play's catastrophe; and so, said Sedley, winking at Rochester, 'Our
friend is sorrowful.' 'Truly,' said I, seeing they were about to banter
me,--for you know they were arch fellows,--'truly, little Sid' (we
called Sedley Sid), 'you are greatly mistaken;'--you see, Morton, I was
thus sharp upon him because when you go to court you will discover that
it does not do to take without giving. And then Rochester said, looking
roguishly towards me, the wittiest thing against Sedley that ever I
heard; it was the most celebrated /bon mot/ at court for three weeks; he
said--no, boy, od's fish, it was so stinging I can't tell it thee;
faith, I can't. Poor Sid; he was a good fellow, though malicious,--and
he's dead now. I'm sorry I said a word about it. Nay, never look so
disappointed, boy. You have all the cream of the story as it is. And
now put on your hat, and come with me. I've got leave for you to take a
walk with your old uncle."
That night, as I was undressing, I heard a gentle rap at the door, and
Aubrey entered. He approached me timidly, and then, throwing his arms
round my neck, kissed me in silence. I had not for years experienced
such tenderness from him; and I sat now mute and surprised. At last I
said, with the sneer which I must confess I usually assumed towards
those persons whom I imagined I had a right to think ill of:--
"Pardon me, my gentle brother, there is something portentous in this
sudden change. Look well round the room, and tell me at your earliest
leisure what treasure it is that you are desirous should pass from my
possession into your own."
"Your love, Morton," said Aubrey, drawing back, but apparently in pride,
not anger; "your love: I ask nothing more."
"Of a surety, kind Aubrey," said I, "the favour seems somewhat slight to
have caused your modesty such delay in requesting it. I think you have
been now some years nerving your mind to the exertion."
"Listen to me, Morton," said Aubrey, suppressing his emotion; "you have
always been my favourite brother. From our first childhood my heart
yearned to you. Do you remember the time when an enraged bull pursued
me, and you, then only ten years old, placed yourself before it and
defended me at the risk of your own life? Do you think I could ever
forget that,--child as I was?--never, Morton, never!"
Before I could answer the door was thrown open, and the Abbe entered.
"Children," said he, and the single light of the room shone full upon
his unmoved, rigid, commanding features--"children, be as Heaven
intended you,--friends and brothers. Morton, I have wronged you, I own
it; here is my hand: Aubrey, let all but early love, and the present
promise of excellence which your brother displays, be forgotten."
With these words the priest joined our hands. I looked on my brother,
and my heart melted. I flung myself into his arms and wept.
"This is well," said Montreuil, surveying us with a kind of grim
complacency, and, taking my brother's arm, he blest us both, and led
Aubrey away.
That day was a new era in my boyish life. I grew henceforth both better
and worse. Application and I having once shaken hands became very good
acquaintance. I had hitherto valued myself upon supplying the frailties
of a delicate frame by an uncommon agility in all bodily exercises. I
now strove rather to improve the deficiencies of my mind, and became
orderly, industrious, and devoted to study. So far so well; but as I
grew wiser, I grew also more wary. Candour no longer seemed to me the
finest of virtues. I thought before i spoke: and second thought
sometimes quite changed the nature of the intended speech; in short,
gentlemen of the next century, to tell you the exact truth, the little
Count Devereux became somewhat of a hypocrite!
CHAPTER IV.
A CONTEST OF ART AND A LEAGUE OF FRIENDSHIP.--TWO CHARACTERS IN MUTUAL
IGNORANCE OF EACH OTHER, AND THE READER NO WISER THAN EITHER OF THEM.
THE Abbe was now particularly courteous to me. He made Gerald and
myself breakfast with him, and told us nothing was so amiable as
friendship among brothers. We agreed to the sentiment, and, like all
philosophers, did not agree a bit the better for acknowledging the same
first principles. Perhaps, notwithstanding his fine speeches, the Abbe
was the real cause of our continued want of cordiality. However, we did
not fight any more: we avoided each other, and at last became as civil
and as distant as those mathematical lines which appear to be taking all
possible pains to approach one another and never get a jot the nearer
for it. Oh! your civility is the prettiest invention possible for
dislike! Aubrey and I were inseparable, and we both gained by the
intercourse. I grew more gentle, and he more masculine; and, for my
part, the kindness of his temper so softened the satire of mine that I
learned at last to smile full as often as to sneer.
The Abbe had obtained a wonderful hold over Aubrey; he had made the poor
boy think so much of the next world, that he had lost all relish for
this. He lived in a perpetual fear of offence: he was like a chemist of
conscience, and weighed minutiae by scruples. To play, to ride, to run,
to laugh at a jest, or to banquet on a melon, were all sins to be atoned
for; and I have found (as a penance for eating twenty-three cherries
instead of eighteen) the penitent of fourteen standing, barefooted, in
the coldest nights of winter, upon the hearthstones, almost utterly
naked, and shivering like a leaf, beneath the mingled effect of frost
and devotion. At first I attempted to wrestle with this exceeding
holiness, but finding my admonitions received with great distaste and
some horror, I suffered my brother to be happy in his own way. I only
looked with a very evil and jealous eye upon the good Abbe, and
examined, while I encouraged them, the motives of his advances to
myself. What doubled my suspicions of the purity of the priest was my
perceiving that he appeared to hold out different inducements for
trusting him to each of us, according to his notions of our respective
characters. My brother Gerald he alternately awed and persuaded, by the
sole effect of superior intellect. With Aubrey he used the mechanism of
superstition. To me, he, on the one hand, never spoke of religion, nor,
on the other, ever used threats or persuasion, to induce me to follow
any plan suggested to my adoption; everything seemed to be left to my
reason and my ambition. He would converse with me for hours upon the
world and its affairs, speak of courts and kings, in an easy and
unpedantic strain; point out the advantage of intellect in acquiring
power and controlling one's species; and, whenever I was disposed to be
sarcastic upon the human nature I had read of, he supported my sarcasm
by illustrations of the human nature he had seen. We were both, I think
(for myself I can answer), endeavouring to pierce the real nature of the
other; and perhaps the talent of diplomacy for which, years afterwards,
I obtained some applause, was first learnt in my skirmishing warfare
with the Abbe Montreuil.
At last, the evening before we quitted school for good arrived. Aubrey
had just left me for solitary prayers, and I was sitting alone by my
fire, when Montreuil entered gently. He sat himself down by me, and,
after giving me the salutation of the evening, sank into a silence which
I was the first to break.
"Pray, Abbe," said I, "have one's years anything to do with one's age?"
The priest was accustomed to the peculiar tone of my sagacious remarks,
and answered dryly,--
"Mankind in general imagine that they have."
"Faith, then," said I, "mankind know very little about the matter.
To-day I am at school, and a boy; to-morrow I leave school; if I hasten
to town I am presented at court; and lo! I am a man; and this change
within half-a-dozen changes of the sun! therefore, most reverend father,
I humbly opine that age is measured by events, not years."
"And are you not happy at the idea of passing the age of thraldom, and
seeing arrayed before you the numberless and dazzling pomps and
pleasures of the great world?" said Montreuil, abruptly, fixing his dark
and keen eye upon me.
"I have not yet fully made up my mind whether to be happy or not," said
I, carelessly.
"It is a strange answer;" said the priest; "but" (after a pause) "you
are a strange youth: a character that resembles a riddle is at your age
uncommon, and, pardon me, unamiable. Age, naturally repulsive, requires
a mask; and in every wrinkle you may behold the ambush of a scheme: but
the heart of youth should be open as its countenance! However, I will
not weary you with homilies; let us change the topic. Tell me, Morton,
do you repent having turned your attention of late to those graver and
more systematic studies which can alone hereafter obtain you
distinction?"
"No, father," said I, with a courtly bow, "for the change has gained me
your good opinion."
A smile, of peculiar and undefinable expression, crossed the thin lips
of the priest; he rose, walked to the door, and saw that it was
carefully closed. I expected some important communication, but in vain;
pacing the small room to and fro, as if in a musing mood, the Abbe
remained silent, till, pausing opposite some fencing foils, which among
various matters (books, papers, quoits, etc.) were thrown idly in one
corner of the room, he said,--
"They tell me that you are the best fencer in the school--is it so?"
"I hope not, for fencing is an accomplishment in which Gerald is very
nearly my equal," I replied.
"You run, ride, leap, too, better than any one else, according to the
votes of your comrades?"
"It is a noble reputation," said I, "in which I believe I am only
excelled by our huntsman's eldest son."
"You are a strange youth," repeated the priest; "no pursuit seems to
give you pleasure, and no success to gratify your vanity. Can you not
think of any triumph which would elate you?"
I was silent.
"Yes," cried Montreuil, approaching me,--"yes," cried he, "I read your
heart, and I respect it; these are petty competitions and worthless
honours. You require a nobler goal, and a more glorious reward. He who
feels in his soul that Fate has reserved for him a great and exalted
part in this world's drama may reasonably look with indifference on
these paltry rehearsals of common characters."
I raised my eye, and as it met that of the priest, I was irresistibly
struck with the proud and luminous expression which Montreuil's look had
assumed. Perhaps something kindred to its nature was perceptible in my
own; for, after surveying me with an air of more approbation than he had
ever honoured me with before, he grasped my arm firmly, and said,
"Morton, you know me not; for many years I have not known you: that time
is past. No sooner did your talents develop themselves than I was the
first to do homage to their power: let us henceforth be more to each
other than we have been; let us not be pupil and teacher; let us be
friends. Do not think that I invite you to an unequal exchange of good
offices: you may be the heir to wealth and a distinguished name; I may
seem to you but an unknown and undignified priest; but the authority of
the Almighty can raise up, from the sheepfold and the cotter's shed, a
power, which, as the organ of His own, can trample upon sceptres and
dictate to the supremacy of kings. And /I/--/I/"--the priest abruptly
paused, checked the warmth of his manner, as if he thought it about to
encroach on indiscretion, and, sinking into a calmer tone, continued,
"yes, I, Morton, insignificant as I appear to you, can, in /every/ path
through this intricate labyrinth of life, be more useful to your desires
than you can ever be to mine. I offer to you in my friendship a fervour
of zeal and energy of power which in none of your equals, in age and
station, you can hope to find. Do you accept my offer?"
"Can you doubt," said I, with eagerness, "that I would avail myself of
the services of any man, however displeasing to me, and worthless in
himself? How, then, can I avoid embracing the friendship of one so
extraordinary in knowledge and intellect as yourself? I do embrace it,
and with rapture."
The priest pressed my hand. "But," continued he, fixing his eyes upon
mine, "all alliances have their conditions: I require implicit
confidence; and for some years, till time gives you experience, regard
for your interests induces me also to require obedience. Name any wish
you may form for worldly advancement, opulence, honour, the smile of
kings, the gifts of states, and--I--I will pledge myself to carry that
wish into effect. Never had eastern prince so faithful a servant among
the Dives and Genii as Morton Devereux shall find in me: but question me
not of the sources of my power; be satisfied when their channel wafts
you the success you covet. And, more, when I in my turn (and this shall
be but rarely) request a favour of you, ask me not for what end nor
hesitate to adopt the means I shall propose. You seem startled; are you
content at this understanding between us, or will you retract the bond?"
"My father," said I, "there is enough to startle me in your proposal; it
greatly resembles that made by the Old Man of the Mountains to his
vassals, and it would not exactly suit my inclinations to be called upon
some morning to act the part of a private executioner."
The priest smiled. "My young friend," said he, "those days have passed;
neither religion nor friendship requires of her votaries sacrifices of
blood. But make yourself easy; whenever I ask of you what offends your
conscience, even in a punctilio, refuse my request. With this
exception, what say you?"
"That I think I will agree to the bond: but, father, I am an irresolute
person; I must have time to consider."
"Be it so. To-morrow, having surrendered my charge to your uncle, I
depart for France."
"For France!" said I; "and how? Surely the war will prevent your
passage."
The priest smiled. Nothing ever displeased me more than that priest's
smile. "The ecclesiastics," said he, "are the ambassadors of Heaven,
and have nothing to do with the wars of earth. I shall find no
difficulty in crossing the Channel. I shall not return for several
months, perhaps not till the expiration of a year: I leave you, till
then, to decide upon the terms I have proposed to you. Meanwhile,
gratify my vanity by employing my power; name some commission in France
which you wish me to execute."
"I can think of none,--yet, stay;" and I felt some curiosity to try the
power of which he boasted,--"I have read that kings are blest with a
most accommodating memory, and perfectly forget their favourites when
they can be no longer useful. You will see, perhaps, if my father's
name has become a Gothic and unknown sound at the court of the Great
King. I confess myself curious to learn this, though I can have no
personal interest in it."
"Enough, the commission shall be done. And now, my child, Heaven bless
you! and send you many such friends as the humble priest, who, whatever
be his failings, has, at least, the merit of wishing to serve those whom
he loves."
So saying, the priest closed the door. Sinking into a revery, as his
footsteps died upon my ear, I muttered to myself: "Well, well, my sage
ecclesiastic, the game is not over yet; let us see if, at sixteen, we
cannot shuffle cards, and play tricks with the gamester of thirty. Yet
he may be in earnest, and faith I believe he is; but I must look well
before I leap, or consign my actions into such spiritual keeping.
However, if the worst come to the worst, if I do make this compact, and
am deceived,--if, above all, I am ever seduced, or led blindfold into
one of those snares which priestcraft sometimes lays to the cost of
honour,--why, I shall have a sword, which I shall never be at a loss to
use, and it can find its way through a priest's gown as well as a
soldier's corselet."
Confess that a youth who could think so promptly of his sword was well
fitted to wear one!
CHAPTER V.
RURAL HOSPITALITY.--AN EXTRAORDINARY GUEST.--A FIN$ GENTLEMAN IS NOT
NECESSARILY A FOOL.
WE were all three (my brothers and myself) precocious geniuses. Our
early instructions, under a man like the Abbe, at once learned and
worldly, and the society into which we had been initiated from our
childhood, made us premature adepts in the manners of the world; and I,
in especial, flattered myself that a quick habit of observation rendered
me no despicable profiter by my experience. Our academy, too, had been
more like a college than a school; and we had enjoyed a license that
seemed to the superficial more likely to benefit our manners than to
strengthen our morals. I do not think, however, that the latter
suffered by our freedom from restraint. On the contrary, we the earlier
learned that vice, but for the piquancy of its unlawfulness, would never
be so captivating a goddess; and our errors and crimes in after life had
certainly not their origin in our wanderings out of academical bounds.
It is right that I should mention our prematurity of intellect, because,
otherwise, much of my language and reflections, as detailed in the first
book of this history, might seem ill suited to the tender age at which
they occurred. However, they approach, as nearly as possible, to my
state of mind at that period; and I have, indeed, often mortified my
vanity in later life by thinking how little the march of time has
ripened my abilities, and how petty would have been the intellectual
acquisitions of manhood, if they had not brought me something like
content!
My uncle had always, during his retirement, seen as many people as he
could assemble out of the "mob of gentlemen who /live at/ ease." But,
on our quitting school and becoming men, he resolved to set no bounds to
his hospitality. His doors were literally thrown open; and as he was by
far the greatest person in the district--to say nothing of his wines,
and his French cook--many of the good people of London did not think it
too great an honour to confer upon the wealthy representative of the
Devereuxs the distinction of their company and compliments. Heavens!
what notable samples of court breeding and furbelows did the crane-neck
coaches, which made our own family vehicle look like a gilt tortoise,
pour forth by couples and leashes into the great hall; while my gallant
uncle, in new periwig and a pair of silver-clocked stockings (a present
from a /ci-devant/ fine lady), stood at the far end of the
picture-gallery to receive his visitors with all the graces of the last
age.
My mother, who had preserved her beauty wonderfully, sat in a chair of
green velvet, and astonished the courtiers by the fashion of a dress
only just imported. The worthy Countess (she had dropped in England the
loftier distinction of /Madame la Marechale/) was however quite innocent
of any intentional affectation of the /mode/; for the new stomacher, so
admired in London, had been the last alteration in female garniture at
Paris a month before my father died. Is not this "Fashion" a noble
divinity to possess such zealous adherents?--a pitiful, lackey-like
creature, which struts through one country with the cast-off finery of
another!
As for Aubrey and Gerald, they produced quite an effect; and I should
most certainly have been thrown irrevocably into the background had I
not been born to the good fortune of an eldest son. This was far more
than sufficient to atone for the comparative plainness of my person; and
when it was discovered that I was also Sir William's favourite, it is
quite astonishing what a beauty I became! Aubrey was declared too
effeminate; Gerald too tall. And the Duchess of Lackland one day, when
she had placed a lean, sallow ghost of a daughter on either side of me,
whispered my uncle in a voice, like the /aside/ of a player, intended
for none but the whole audience, that the young Count had the most
imposing air and the finest eyes she had ever seen. All this inspired
me with courage, as well as contempt; and not liking to be beholden
solely to my priority of birth for my priority of distinction, I
resolved to become as agreeable as possible. If I had not in the vanity
of my heart resolved also to be "myself alone," Fate would have
furnished me at the happiest age for successful imitation with an
admirable model.
Time rolled on; two years were flown since I had left school, and
Montreuil was not yet returned. I had passed the age of eighteen, when
the whole house, which, as it was summer, when none but cats and
physicians were supposed gifted by Providence with the power to exist in
town, was uncommonly full,--the whole house, I say, was thrown into a
positive fever of expectation. The visit of a guest, if not of greater
consequence at least of greater interest than any who had hitherto
honoured my uncle, was announced. Even the young Count, with the most
imposing air in the world and the finest eyes, was forgotten by
everybody but the Duchess of Lackland and her daughters, who had just
returned to Devereux Court to observe how amazingly the Count had grown!
Oh! what a prodigy wisdom would be, if it were but blest with a memory
as keen and constant as that of interest!
Struck with the universal excitement, I went to my uncle to inquire the
name of the expected guest. My uncle was occupied in fanning the Lady
Hasselton, a daughter of one of King Charles's Beauties. He had only
time to answer me literally, and without comment; the guest's name was
Mr. St. John.
I had never conned the "Flying Post," and I knew nothing about politics.
"Who is Mr. St. John?" said I; my uncle had renewed the office of a
zephyr. The daughter of the Beauty heard and answered, "The most
charming person in England." I bowed and turned away. "How vastly
explanatory!" said I. I met a furious politician. "Who is Mr. St.
John?" I asked.
"The cleverest man in England," answered the politician, hurrying off
with a pamphlet in his hand.
"Nothing can be more satisfactory," thought I. Stopping a coxcomb of
the first water, "Who is Mr. St. John?" I asked.
"The finest gentleman in England," answered the coxcomb, settling his
cravat.
"Perfectly intelligible!" was my reflection on this reply; and I
forthwith arrested a Whig parson,--"Who is Mr. St. John?" said I.
"The greatest reprobate in England!" answered the Whig parson, and I was
too stunned to inquire more.
Five minutes afterwards the sound of carriage wheels was heard in the
courtyard, then a slight bustle in the hall, and the door of the
ante-room being thrown open Mr. St. John entered.
He was in the very prime of life, about the middle height, and of a mien
and air so strikingly noble that it was some time before you recovered
the general effect of his person sufficiently to examine its peculiar
claims to admiration. However, he lost nothing by a further survey: he
possessed not only an eminently handsome but a very extraordinary
countenance. Through an air of /nonchalance/, and even something of
lassitude; through an ease of manners sometimes sinking into effeminate
softness, sometimes bordering upon licentious effrontery,--his eye
thoughtful, yet wandering, seemed to announce that the mind partook but
little of the whim of the moment, or of those levities of ordinary life
over which the grace of his manner threw so peculiar a charm. His brow
was, perhaps, rather too large and prominent for the exactness of
perfect symmetry, but it had an expression of great mental power and
determination. His features were high, yet delicate, and his mouth,
which, when closed, assumed a firm and rather severe expression,
softened, when speaking, into a smile of almost magical enchantment.
Richly but not extravagantly dressed, he appeared to cultivate rather
than disdain the ornaments of outward appearance; and whatever can
fascinate or attract was so inherent in this singular man that all which
in others would have been most artificial was in him most natural: so
that it is no exaggeration to add that to be well dressed seemed to the
elegance of his person not so much the result of art as of a property
innate and peculiar to himself.
Such was the outward appearance of Henry St. John; one well suited to
the qualities of a mind at once more vigorous and more accomplished than
that of any other person with whom the vicissitudes of my life have ever
brought me into contact.
I kept my eye on the new guest throughout the whole day: I observed the
mingled liveliness and softness which pervaded his attentions to women,
the intellectual yet unpedantic superiority he possessed in his
conversations with men; his respectful demeanour to age; his careless,
yet not over-familiar, ease with the young; and, what interested me more
than all, the occasional cloud which passed over his countenance at
moments when he seemed sunk into a revery that had for its objects
nothing in common with those around him.
Just before dinner St. John was talking to a little group, among whom
curiosity seemed to have drawn the Whig parson whom I have before
mentioned. He stood at a little distance, shy and uneasy; one of the
company took advantage of so favourable a butt for jests, and alluded to
the bystander in a witticism which drew laughter from all but St. John,
who, turning suddenly towards the parson, addressed an observation to
him in the most respectful tone. Nor did he cease talking with him
(fatiguing as the conference must have been, for never was there a
duller ecclesiastic than the gentleman conversed with) until we
descended to dinner. Then, for the first time, I learned that nothing
can constitute good breeding that has not good-nature for its
foundation; and then, too, as I was leading Lady Barbara Lackland to the
great hall by the tip of her forefinger I made another observation.
Passing the priest, I heard him say to a fellow-clerk,--
"Certainly, he is the greatest man in England;" and I mentally remarked,
"There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing
in the world, either to get one a good name or to supply the want of
it."
CHAPTER VI.
A DIALOGUE, WHICH MIGHT BE DULL IF IT WERE LONGER.
THREE days after the arrival of St. John, I escaped from the crowd of
impertinents, seized a volume of Cowley, and, in a fit of mingled poetry
and melancholy, strolled idly into the park. I came to the margin of
the stream, and to the very spot on which I had stood with my uncle on
the evening when he had first excited my emulation to scholastic rather
than manual contention with my brother; I seated myself by the
water-side, and, feeling indisposed to read, leaned my cheek upon my
hand, and surrendered my thoughts as prisoners to the reflections which
I could not resist.
I continued I know not how long in my meditation, till I was roused by a
gentle touch upon my shoulder; I looked up, and saw St. John.
"Pardon me, Count," said he, smiling, "I should not have disturbed your
reflections had not your neglect of an old friend emboldened me to
address you upon his behalf." And St. John pointed to the volume of
Cowley which he had taken up without my perceiving it.
"Well," added he, seating himself on the turf beside me, "in my younger
days, poetry and I were better friends than we are now. And if I had
had Cowley as a companion, I should not have parted with him as you have
done, even for my own reflections."
"You admire him then?" said I.
"Why, that is too general a question. I admire what is fine in him, as
in every one else, but I do not love him the better for his points and
his conceits. He reminds me of what Cardinal Pallavicino said of
Seneca, that he 'perfumes his conceits with civet and ambergris.'
However, Count, I have opened upon a beautiful motto for you:--
"'Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds above me flying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute,
And the more tuneful birds to both replying;
Nor be myself too mute.'
"What say you to that wish? If you have a germ of poetry in you such
verse ought to bring it into flower."
"Ay," answered I, though not exactly in accordance with the truth; "but
I have not that germ. I destroyed it four years ago. Reading the
dedications of poets cured me of the love for poetry. What a pity that
the Divine Inspiration should have for its oracles such mean souls!"
"Yes, and how industrious the good gentlemen are in debasing themselves!
Their ingenuity is never half so much shown in a simile as in a
compliment; I know nothing in nature more melancholy than the discovery
of any meanness in a great man. There is so little to redeem the dry
mass of follies and errors from which the materials of this life are
composed, that anything to love or to reverence becomes, as it were, the
sabbath for the mind. It is better to feel, as we grow older, how the
respite is abridged, and how the few objects left to our admiration are
abased. What a foe not only to life, but to all that dignifies and
ennobles it, is Time! Our affections and our pleasures resemble those
fabulous trees described by Saint Oderic: the fruits which they bring
forth are no sooner ripened into maturity than they are transformed into
birds and fly away. But these reflections cannot yet be familiar to
you. Let us return to Cowley. Do you feel any sympathy with his prose
writings? For some minds they have a great attraction."
"They have for mine," answered I: "but then I am naturally a dreamer;
and a contemplative egotist is always to me a mirror in which I behold
myself."
"The world," answered St. John, with a melancholy smile, "will soon
dissolve, or forever confirm, your humour for dreaming; in either case,
Cowley will not be less a favourite. But you must, like me, have long
toiled in the heat and travail of business, or of pleasure, which is
more wearisome still, in order fully to sympathize with those beautiful
panegyrics upon solitude which make perhaps the finest passages in
Cowley. I have often thought that he whom God hath gifted with a love
of retirement possesses, as it were, an extra sense. And among what our
poet so eloquently calls 'the vast and noble scenes of Nature,' we find
the balm for the wounds we have sustained among the 'pitiful shifts of
policy;' for the attachment to solitude is the surest preservative from
the ills of life: and I know not if the Romans ever instilled, under
allegory, a sublimer truth than when they inculcated the belief that
those inspired by Feronia, the goddess of woods and forests, could walk
barefoot and uninjured over burning coals."
At this part of our conference, the bell swinging hoarsely through the
long avenues, and over the silent water, summoned us to the grand
occupation of civilized life; we rose and walked slowly towards the
house.
"Does not," said I, "this regular routine of petty occurrence, this
periodical solemnity of trifles, weary and disgust you? For my part, I
almost long for the old days of knight-errantry, and would rather be
knocked on the head by a giant, or carried through the air by a flying
griffin, than live in this circle of dull regularities,--the brute at
the mill."
"You may live even in these days," answered St. John, "without too tame
a regularity. Women and politics furnish ample food for adventure, and
you must not judge of all life by country life."
"Nor of all conversation," said I, with a look which implied a
compliment, "by the insipid idlers who fill our saloons. Behold them
now, gathered by the oriel window, yonder; precious distillers of
talk,--sentinels of society with certain set phrases as watchwords,
which they never exceed; sages, who follow Face's advice to Dapper,--
"'Hum thrice, and buzz as often.'"
CHAPTER VII.
A CHANGE OF PROSPECTS.--A NEW INSIGHT INTO THE CHARACTER OF THE HERO.--A
CONFERENCE BETWEEN TWO BROTHERS.
A DAY or two after the conversation recorded in my last chapter, St.
John, to my inexpressible regret, left us for London; however, we had
enjoyed several conferences together during his stay, and when we parted
it was with a pressing invitation on his side to visit him in London,
and a most faithful promise on mine to avail myself of the request.
No sooner was he fairly gone than I went to seek my uncle; I found him
reading one of Farquhar's comedies. Despite my sorrow at interrupting
him in so venerable a study, I was too full of my new plot to heed
breaking off that in the comedy. In very few words I made the good
knight understand that his descriptions had infected me, and that I was
dying to ascertain their truth; in a word, that his hopeful nephew was
fully bent on going to town. My uncle first stared, then swore, then
paused, then looked at his leg, drew up his stocking, frowned, whistled,
and told me at last to talk to him about it another time. Now, for my
part, I think there are only two classes of people in the world
authorized to put one off to "another time,"--prime ministers and
creditors; accordingly, I would not take my uncle's dismissal. I had
not read plays, studied philosophy, and laid snares for the Abbe
Montreuil without deriving some little wisdom from my experience; so I
took to teasing, and a notable plan it is too! Whoever has pursued it
may guess the result. My uncle yielded, and that day fortnight was
fixed for my departure.
Oh! with what transport did I look forward to the completion of my
wishes, the goal of my ambition! I hastened forth; I hurried into the
woods; I sang out in the gladness of my heart, like a bird released; I
drank in the air with a rapturous sympathy in its freedom; my step
scarcely touched the earth, and my whole frame seemed ethereal, elated,
exalted by the vivifying inspiration of my hopes. I paused by a little
streamlet, which, brawling over stones and through unpenetrated
thicknesses of wood, seemed, like confined ambition, not the less
restless for its obscurity.
"Wild brooklet," I cried, as my thoughts rushed into words, "fret on,
our lot is no longer the same; your wanderings and your murmurs are
wasted in solitude and shade; your voice dies and re-awakes, but without
an echo; your waves spread around their path neither fertility nor
terror; their anger is idle, and their freshness is lavished on a
sterile soil; the sun shines in vain for you, through these unvarying
wastes of silence and gloom; Fortune freights not your channel with her
hoarded stores, and Pleasure ventures not her silken sails upon your
tide; not even the solitary idler roves beside you, to consecrate with
human fellowship your melancholy course; no shape of beauty bends over
your turbid waters, or mirrors in your breast the loveliness that
hallows earth. Lonely and sullen, through storm or sunshine, you repine
along your desolate way, and only catch, through the matted boughs that
darken over you, the beams of the wan stars, which, like human hopes,
tremble upon your breast, and are broken, even before they fade, by the
very turbulence of the surface on which they fall. Rove, repine, murmur
on! Such was my fate, but the resemblance is no more. I shall no
longer be a lonely and regretful being; my affections will no longer
waste themselves upon barrenness and stone. I go among the living and
warm world of mortal energies and desires; my existence shall glide
alternately through crested cities, and bowers in which Poetry worships
Love; and the clear depths of my heart shall reflect whatever its young
dreams have shadowed forth, the visioned form, the gentle and fairy
spirit, the Eve of my soul's imagined and foreboded paradise."
Venting, in this incoherent strain, the exultation which filled my
thoughts, I wandered on, throughout the whole day, till my spirits had
exhausted themselves by indulgence; and, wearied alike by mental
excitement and bodily exertion, I turned, with slow steps, towards the
house. As I ascended the gentle acclivity on which it stood, I saw a
figure approaching towards me: the increasing shades of the evening did
not allow me to recognize the shape until it was almost by my side; it
was Aubrey.
Of late I had seen very little of him. His devotional studies and
habits seemed to draw him from the idle pursuits of myself and my
uncle's guests; and Aubrey was one peculiarly susceptible of neglect,
and sore, to morbidity, at the semblance of unkindness; so that he
required to be sought, and rarely troubled others with advances: that
night, however, his greeting was unusually warm.
"I was uneasy about you, Morton," said he, drawing my arm in his; "you
have not been seen since morning; and, oh! Morton, my uncle told me,
with tears in his eyes, that you were going to leave us. Is it so?"
"Had he tears in his eyes? Kind old man! And you, Aubrey, shall you,
too, grieve for my departure?"
"Can you ask it, Morton? But why will you leave us? Are we not all
happy here, now? /Now/ that there is no longer any barrier or
difference between us,--/now/ that I may look upon you, and listen to
you, and love you, and /own/ that I love you? Why will you leave us
now? And [continued Aubrey, as if fearful of giving me time to
answer]--and every one praises you so here; and my uncle and all of us
are so proud of you. Why should you desert our affections merely
because they are not new? Why plunge into that hollow and cold world
which all who have tried it picture in such fearful hues? Can you find
anything there to repay you for the love you leave behind?"
"My brother," said I, mournfully, and in a tone which startled him,--it
was so different from that which I usually assumed,--"my brother, hear
before you reproach me. Let us sit down upon this bank, and I will
suffer you to see more of my restless and secret heart than any hitherto
have beheld."
We sat down upon a little mound: how well I remember the spot! I can
see the tree which shadows it from my window at this moment. How many
seasons have the sweet herb and the emerald grass been withered there
and renewed! Ah, what is this revival of all things fresh and youthful
in external Nature but a mockery of the wintry spot which lies perished
and /irrenewable/ within!
We drew near to each other, and as my arm wound around him, I said,
"Aubrey, your love has been to me a more precious gift than any who have
not, like me, thirsted and longed even for the love of a dog, can
conceive. Never let me lose that affection! And do not think of me
hereafter as of one whose heart echoed all that his lip uttered. Do not
believe that irony, and sarcasm, and bitterness of tongue flowed from a
malignant or evil source. That disposition which seems to you
alternately so light and gloomy had, perhaps, its origin in a mind too
intense in its affections, and too exacting in having them returned.
Till you sought my friendship, three short years ago, none but my uncle,
with whom I could have nothing in common but attachment, seemed to care
for my very existence. I blame them not; they were deceived in my
nature: but blame /me/ not too severely if my temper suffered from their
mistake. Your friendship came to me, not too late to save me from a
premature misanthropy, but too late to eradicate every morbidity of
mind. Something of sternness on the one hand, and of satire on the
other, has mingled so long with my better feelings that the taint and
the stream have become inseparable. Do not sigh, Aubrey. To be
unamiable is not to be ungrateful; and I shall not love you the less if
I have but a few objects to love. You ask me my inducement to leave
you. 'The World' will be sufficient answer. I cannot share your
contempt of it, nor your fear. I am, and have been of late, consumed
with a thirst,--eager, and burning, and unquenchable: it is ambition!"
"Oh, Morton!" said Aubrey, with a second sigh, longer and deeper than
the first, "that evil passion! the passion which lost an angel heaven."
"Let us not now dispute, my brother, whether it be sinful in itself, or
whether, if its object be virtuous, it is not a virtue. In baring my
soul before you, I only speak of my motives, and seek not to excuse
them. Perhaps on this earth there is no good without a little evil.
When my mind was once turned to the acquisition of mental superiority,
every petty acquisition I made increased my desire to attain more, and
partial emulation soon widened into universal ambition. We three,
Gerald and ourselves, are the keepers of a treasure more valuable than
gold,--the treasure of a not ignoble nor sullied name. For my part, I
confess that I am impatient to increase the store of honour which our
father bequeathed to us. Nor is this all: despite our birth, we are
poor in the gifts of fortune. We are all dependants on my uncle's
favour; and, however we may deserve it, there would be something better
in earning an independence for ourselves."
"That," said Aubrey, "may be an argument for mine and Gerald's
exertions; but not for yours. You are the eldest, and my uncle's
favourite. Nature and affection both point to you as his heir."
"If so, Aubrey, may many years pass before that inheritance be mine!
Why should those years that might produce so much lie fallow? But
though I would not affect an unreal delicacy, and disown my chance of
future fortune, yet you must remember that it is a matter possible, not
certain. My birthright gives me no claim over my uncle, whose estates
are in his own gift; and favour, even in the good, is a wind which
varies without power on our side to calculate the season or the cause.
However this be,--and I love the person on whom fortune depends so much
that I cannot, without pain, speak of the mere chance of its passing
from his possession into mine,--you will own at least that I shall not
hereafter deserve wealth the less for the advantages of experience."
"Alas!" said Aubrey, raising his eyes, "the worship of our Father in
Heaven finds us ample cause for occupation, even in retirement; and the
more we mix with His creatures, the more, I fear, we may forget the
Creator. But if it must be so, I will pray for you, Morton; and you
will remember that the powerless and poor Aubrey can still lift up his
voice in your behalf."
As Aubrey thus spoke, I looked with mingled envy and admiration upon the
countenance beside me, which the beauty of a spirit seemed at once to
soften and to exalt.
Since our conference had begun, the dusk of twilight had melted away;
and the moon had called into lustre--living, indeed, but unlike the
common and unhallowing life of day--the wood and herbage, and silent
variations of hill and valley, which slept around us; and, as the still
and shadowy light fell over the upward face of my brother, it gave to
his features an additional, and not wholly earth-born, solemnity of
expression. There was indeed in his face and air that from which the
painter of a seraph might not have disdained to copy: something
resembling the vision of an angel in the dark eyes that swam with tears,
in which emotion had so little of mortal dross; in the youthful and soft
cheeks, which the earnestness of divine thought had refined by a pale
but transparent hue; in the high and unclouded forehead, over which the
hair, parted in the centre, fell in long and wavelike curls; and in the
lips, silent, yet moving with internal prayer, which seemed the more
fervent, because unheard.
I did not interrupt him in the prayer, which my soul felt, though my ear
caught it not, was for me. But when he had ceased, and turned towards
me, I clasped him to my breast. "My brother," I said, "we shall part,
it is true, but not till our hearts have annihilated the space that was
between them; not till we have felt that the love of brotherhood can
pass the love of woman. Whatever await you, your devoted and holy mind
will be, if not your shield from affliction, at least your balm for its
wounds. Remain here. The quiet which breathes around you well becomes
your tranquillity within; and sometimes bless me in your devotions, as
you have done now. For me, I shall not regret those harder and harsher
qualities which you blame in me, if thereafter their very sternness can
afford me an opportunity of protecting your gentleness from evil, or
redressing the wrongs from which your nature may be too innocent to
preserve you. And now let us return home in the conviction that we have
in our friendship one treasure beyond the reach of fate."
Aubrey did not answer; but he kissed my forehead, and I felt his tears
upon my cheek. We rose, and with arms still embracing each other as we
walked, bent our steps to the house.
Ah, earth! what hast thou more beautiful than the love of those whose
ties are knit by nature, and whose union seems ordained to begin from
the very moment of their birth?
CHAPTER VIII.
FIRST LOVE.
WE are under very changeful influences in this world! The night on
which occurred the interview with Aubrey that I have just narrated, I
was burning to leave Devereux Court. Within one little week from that
time my eagerness was wonderfully abated. The sagacious reader will
readily discover the cause of this alteration. About eight miles from
my uncle's house was a seaport town; there were many and varied rides
leading to it, and the town was a favourite place of visitation with all
the family. Within a few hundred yards of the town was a small cottage,
prettily situated in the midst of a garden, kept with singular neatness,
and ornamented with several rare shrubs and exotics. I had more than
once observed in the garden of this house a female in the very first
blush of youth, and beautiful enough to excite within me a strong
curiosity to learn the owner of the cottage. I inquired, and
ascertained that its tenant was a Spaniard of high birth, and one who
had acquired a melancholy celebrity by his conduct and misfortunes in
the part he had taken in a certain feeble but gallant insurrection in
his native country. He had only escaped with life and a very small sum
of money, and now lived in the obscure seaport of ------, a refugee and
a recluse. He was a widower, and had only one child,--a daughter; and I
was therefore at no loss to discover who was the beautiful female I had
noted and admired.
On the day after my conversation with Aubrey detailed in the last
chapter, in riding past this cottage alone, I perceived a crowd
assembled round the entrance; I paused to inquire the cause.
"Why, your honour," quoth a senior of the village, "I believe the
tipstaves be come to take the foreigner for not paying his rent; and he
does not understand our English liberty like, and has drawn his sword,
and swears, in his outlandish lingo, he will not be made prisoner
alive."
I required no further inducement to make me enter the house. The crowd
gave way when they saw me dismount, and suffered me to penetrate into
the first apartment. There I found the gallant old Spaniard with his
sword drawn, keeping at bay a couple of sturdy-looking men, who appeared
to be only prevented from using violence by respect for the person or
the safety of a young woman, who clung to her father's knees and
implored him not to resist where resistance was so unavailing. Let me
cut short this scene; I dismissed the bailiffs, and paid the debt. I
then endeavoured to explain to the Spaniard, in French, for he scarcely
understood three words of our language, the cause of a rudeness towards
him which he persisted in calling a great insult and inhospitality
manifested to a stranger and an exile. I succeeded at length in
pacifying him. I remained for more than an hour at the cottage, and I
left it with a heart beating at a certain persuasion that I had
established therein the claim of acquaintance and visitation.
Will the reader pardon me for having curtailed this scene? It is
connected with a subject on which I shall better endure to dwell as my
narrative proceeds. From that time I paid frequent visits to the
cottage; the Spaniard soon grew intimate with me, and I thought the
daughter began to blush when I entered, and to sigh when I departed.
One evening I was conversing with Don Diego D'Alvarez (such was the
Spaniard's name), as he sat without the threshold, inhaling the gentle
air, that stole freshness from the rippling sea that spread before us,
and fragrance from the earth, over which the summer now reigned in its
most mellow glory. Isora (the daughter) sat at a little distance.
"How comes it," said Don Diego, "that you have never met our friend
Senor Bar--Bar--these English names are always escaping my memory. How
is he called, Isora?"
"Mr.--Mr. Barnard," said Isora (who, brought early to England, spoke its
language like a native), but with evident confusion, and looking down as
she spoke--"Mr. Barnard, I believe, you mean."
"Right, my love," rejoined the Spaniard, who was smoking a long pipe
with great gravity, and did not notice his daughter's embarrassment,--"a
fine youth, but somewhat shy and over-modest in manner."
"Youth!" thought I, and I darted a piercing look towards Isora. "How
comes it, indeed," I said aloud, "that I have not met him? Is he a
friend of long standing?"
"Nay, not very,--perhaps of some six weeks earlier date than you, Senor
Don Devereux. I pressed him, when he called this morning, to tarry your
coming: but, poor youth, he is diffident, and not yet accustomed to mix
freely with strangers, especially those of rank; our own presence a
little overawes him;" and from Don Diego's gray mustachios issued a yet
fuller cloud than was ordinarily wont to emerge thence.
My eyes were still fixed on Isora; she looked up, met them, blushed
deeply, rose, and disappeared within the house. I was already
susceptible of jealousy. My lip trembled as I resumed: "And will Don
Diego pardon me for inquiring how commenced his knowledge of this
ingenuous youth?"
The question was a little beyond the pale of good breeding; perhaps the
Spaniard, who was tolerably punctilious in such matters, thought so, for
he did not reply. I was sensible of my error, and apologizing for it,
insinuated, nevertheless, the question in a more respectful and covert
shape. Still Don Diego, inhaling the fragrant weed with renewed
vehemence, only--like Pion's tomb, recorded by Pausanias--replied to the
request of his petitioner /by smoke/. I did not venture to renew my
interrogatories, and there was a long silence. My eyes fixed their gaze
on the door by which Isora had disappeared. In vain; she returned not;
and as the chill of the increasing evening began now to make itself felt
by the frame of one accustomed to warmer skies, the Spaniard soon rose
to re-enter his house, and I took my farewell for the night.
There were many ways (as I before said) by which I could return home,
all nearly equal in picturesque beauty; for the county in which my
uncle's estates were placed was one where stream roved and woodland
flourished even to the very strand or cliff of the sea. The shortest
route, though one the least frequented by any except foot-passengers,
was along the coast, and it was by this path that I rode slowly
homeward. On winding a curve in the road about one mile from Devereux
Court, the old building broke slowly, tower by tower, upon me. I have
never yet described the house, and perhaps it will not be uninteresting
to the reader if I do so now.
It had anciently belonged to Ralph de Bigod. From his possession it had
passed into that of the then noblest branch the stem of Devereux,
whence, without break or flaw in the direct line of heritage, it had
ultimately descended to the present owner. It was a pile of vast
extent, built around three quadrangular courts, the farthest of which
spread to the very verge of the gray, tall cliffs that overhung the sea;
in this court was a rude tower, which, according to tradition, had
contained the apartments ordinarily inhabited by our ill-fated namesake
and distant kinsman, Robert Devereux, the favourite and the victim of
Elizabeth, whenever he had honoured the mansion with a visit. There was
nothing, it is true, in the old tower calculated to flatter the
tradition, for it contained only two habitable rooms, communicating with
each other, and by no means remarkable for size or splendour; and every
one of our household, save myself, was wont to discredit the idle rumour
which would assign to so distinguished a guest so unseemly a lodgment.
But, as I looked from the narrow lattices of the chambers, over the wide
expanse of ocean and of land which they commanded; as I noted, too, that
the tower was utterly separated from the rest of the house, and that the
convenience of its site enabled one on quitting it, to escape at once,
and privately, either to the solitary beach, or to the glades and groves
of the wide park which stretched behind,--I could not help indulging the
belief that the unceremonious and not unromantic noble had himself
selected his place of retirement, and that, in so doing, the gallant of
a stately court was not perhaps undesirous of securing at well-chosen
moments a brief relaxation from the heavy honours of country homage; or
that the patron and poetic admirer of the dreaming Spenser might have
preferred, to all more gorgeous accommodation, the quiet and unseen
egress to that sea and shore, which, if we may believe the accomplished
Roman,* are so fertile in the powers of inspiration.
* "O mare, O litus, verum secretumque Movoetov, quam multa dictatis,
quam multa invenitis!"--PLINIUS.
"O sea, O shore, true and secret sanctuary of the Muses, how many things
ye dictate, how many things ye discover!"
However this be, I had cheated myself into the belief that my conjecture
was true, and I had petitioned my uncle, when, on leaving school, he
assigned to each of us our several apartments, to grant me the exclusive
right to this dilapidated tower. I gained my boon easily enough;
and--so strangely is our future fate compounded from past trifles--I
verily believe that the strong desire which thenceforth seized me to
visit courts and mix with statesmen--which afterwards hurried me into
intrigue, war, the plots of London, the dissipations of Paris, the
perilous schemes of Petersburg, nay, the very hardships of a Cossack
tent--was first formed by the imaginary honour of inhabiting the same
chamber as the glittering but ill-fated courtier of my own name. Thus
youth imitates where it should avoid; and thus that which should have
been to me a warning became an example.
In the oaken floor to the outer chamber of this tower was situated a
trap-door, the entrance into a lower room or rather cell, fitted up as a
bath; and here a wooden door opened into a long subterranean passage
that led out into a cavern by the sea-shore. This cave, partly by
nature, partly by art, was hollowed into a beautiful Gothic form; and
here, on moonlight evenings, when the sea crept gently over the yellow
and smooth sands and the summer tempered the air from too keen a
freshness, my uncle had often in his younger days, ere gout and rheum
had grown familiar images, assembled his guests. It was a place which
the echoes peculiarly adapted for music; and the scene was certainly not
calculated to diminish the effect of "sweet sounds." Even now, though
my uncle rarely joined us, we were often wont to hold our evening revels
in this spot; and the high cliffs, circling either side in the form of a
bay, tolerably well concealed our meetings from the gaze of the vulgar.
It is true (for these cliffs were perforated with numerous excavations)
that some roving peasant, mariner, or perchance smuggler, would now and
then, at low water, intrude upon us. But our London Nereids and courtly
Tritons were always well pleased with the interest of what they
graciously termed "an adventure;" and our assemblies were too numerous
to think an unbroken secrecy indispensable. Hence, therefore, the
cavern was almost considered a part of the house itself; and though
there was an iron door at the entrance which it gave to the passage
leading to my apartments, yet so great was our confidence in our
neighbours or ourselves that it was rarely secured, save as a defence
against the high tides of winter.
The stars were shining quietly over the old gray castle (for castle it
really was), as I now came within view of it. To the left, and in the
rear of the house, the trees of the park, grouped by distance, seemed
blent into one thick mass of wood; to the right, as I now (descending
the cliff by a gradual path) entered on the level sands, and at about
the distance of a league from the main shore, a small islet, notorious
as the resort and shelter of contraband adventurers, scarcely relieved
the wide and glassy azure of the waves. The tide was out; and passing
through one of the arches worn in the bay, I came somewhat suddenly by
the cavern. Seated there on a crag of stone I found Aubrey.
My acquaintance with Isora and her father had so immediately succeeded
the friendly meeting with Aubrey which I last recorded, and had so
utterly engrossed my time and thoughts, that I had not taken of that
interview all the brotherly advantage which I might have done. My heart
now smote me for my involuntary negligence. I dismounted, and fastening
my horse to one of a long line of posts that ran into the sea,
approached Aubrey and accosted him.
"Alone, Aubrey? and at an hour when my uncle always makes the old walls
ring with revel? Hark! can you not hear the music even now? It comes
from the ball-room, I think, does it not?"
"Yes," said Aubrey, briefly, and looking down upon a devotional book,
which (as was his wont) he had made his companion.
"And we are the only truants!--Well, Gerald will supply our places with
a lighter step, and, perhaps, a merrier heart."
Aubrey sighed. I bent over him affectionately (I loved that boy with
something of a father's as well as a brother's love), and as I did bend
over him, I saw that his eyelids were red with weeping.
"My brother--my own dear brother," said I, "what grieves you?--are we
not friends, and more than friends?--what can grieve you that grieves
not me?"
Suddenly raising his head, Aubrey gazed at me with a long, searching
intentness of eye; his lips moved, but he did not answer.
"Speak to me, Aubrey," said I, passing my arm over his shoulder; "has
any one, anything, hurt you? See, now, if I cannot remedy the evil."
"Morton," said Aubrey, speaking very slowly, "do you believe that Heaven
pre-orders as well as foresees our destiny?"
"It is the schoolman's question," said I, smiling; "but I know how these
idle subtleties vex the mind; and you, my brother, are ever too occupied
with considerations of the future. If Heaven does pre-order our
destiny, we know that Heaven is merciful, and we should be fearless, as
we arm ourselves in that knowledge."
"Morton Devereux," said Aubrey, again repeating my name, and with an
evident inward effort that left his lip colourless, and yet lit his dark
dilating eye with a strange and unwonted fire,--"Morton Devereux, I feel
that I am predestined to the power of the Evil One!"
I drew back, inexpressibly shocked. "Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "what
can induce you to cherish so terrible a phantasy? what can induce you
to wrong so fearfully the goodness and mercy of our Creator?"
Aubrey shrank from my arm, which had still been round him, and covered
his face with his hands. I took up the book he had been reading; it was
a Latin treatise on predestination, and seemed fraught with the most
gloomy and bewildering subtleties. I sat down beside him, and pointed
out the various incoherencies and contradictions of the work, and the
doctrine it espoused: so long and so earnestly did I speak that at
length Aubrey looked up, seemingly cheered and relieved.
"I wish," said he, timidly, "I wish that you loved me, and that you
loved /me only/: but you love pleasure, and power, and show, and wit,
and revelry; and you know not what it is to feel for me as I feel at
times for you,--nay, perhaps you really dislike or despise me."
Aubrey's voice grew bitter in its tone as he concluded these words, and
I was instantly impressed with the belief that some one had insinuated
distrust of my affection for him.
"Why should you think thus?" I said; "has any cause occurred of late to
make you deem my affection for you weaker than it was? Has any one
hinted a surmise that I do not repay your brotherly regard?"
Aubrey did not answer.
"Has Gerald," I continued, "jealous of our mutual attachment, uttered
aught tending to diminish it? Yes, I see that he has."
Aubrey remained motionless, sullenly gazing downward and still silent.
"Speak," said I, "in justice to both of us,--speak! You know, Aubrey,
how I /have/ loved and love you: put your arms round me, and say that
thing on earth which you wish me to do, and it shall be done!"
Aubrey looked up; he met my eyes, and he threw himself upon my neck, and
burst into a violent paroxysm of tears.
I was greatly affected. "I see my fault," said I, soothing him; "you
are angry, and with justice, that I have neglected you of late; and,
perhaps, while I ask your confidence, you suspect that there is some
subject on which I should have granted you mine. You are right, and, at
a fitter moment, I will. Now let us return homeward: our uncle is never
merry when we are absent; and when my mother misses your dark locks and
fair cheek, I fancy that she sees little beauty in the ball. And yet,
Aubrey," I added, as he now rose from my embrace and dried his tears, "I
will own to you that I love this scene better than any, however gay,
within;" and I turned to the sea, starlit as it was, and murmuring with
a silver voice, and I became suddenly silent.
There was a long pause. I believe we both felt the influence of the
scene around us, softening and tranquillizing our hearts; for, at
length, Aubrey put his hand in mine, and said, "You were always more
generous and kind than I, Morton, though there are times when you seem
different from what you are; and I know you have already forgiven me."
I drew him affectionately towards me, and we went home. But although I
meant from that night to devote myself more to Aubrey than I had done of
late, my hourly increasing love for Isora interfered greatly with my
resolution. In order, however, to excuse any future neglect, I, the
very next morning, bestowed upon him my confidence. Aubrey did not much
encourage my passion: he represented to me Isora's situation, my own
youth, my own worldly ambition; and, more than all (reminding me of my
uncle's aversion even to the most prosperous and well-suited marriage),
he insisted upon the certainty that Sir William would never yield
consent to the lawful consummation of so unequal a love. I was not too
well pleased with this reception of my tale, and I did not much trouble
my adviser with any further communication and confidence on the subject.
Day after day I renewed my visits to the Spaniard's cottage; and yet
time passed on, and I had not told Isora a syllable of my love. I was
inexpressibly jealous of this Barnard, whom her father often eulogized,
and whom I never met. There appeared to be some mystery in his
acquaintance with Don Diego, which that personage carefully concealed;
and once, when I was expressing my surprise to have so often missed
seeing his friend, the Spaniard shook his head gravely, and said that he
had now learnt the real reason for it: there were circumstances of state
which made men fearful of new acquaintances even in their own country.
He drew back, as if he had said too much, and left me to conjecture that
Barnard was connected with him in some intrigue, more delightful in
itself than agreeable to the government. This belief was strengthened
by my noting that Alvarez was frequently absent from home, and this too
in the evening, when he was generally wont to shun the bleakness of the
English air,--an atmosphere, by the by, which I once heard a Frenchman
wittily compare to Augustus placed between Horace and Virgil; namely, in
the /bon mot/ of the emperor himself, /between sighs and tears/.
But Isora herself never heard the name of this Barnard mentioned without
a visible confusion, which galled me to the heart; and at length, unable
to endure any longer my suspense upon the subject, I resolved to seek
from her own lips its termination. I long tarried my opportunity; it
was one evening that coming rather unexpectedly to the cottage, I was
informed by the single servant that Don Diego had gone to the
neighbouring town, but that Isora was in the garden. Small as it was,
this garden had been cultivated with some care, and was not devoid of
variety. A high and very thick fence of living box-wood, closely
interlaced with the honeysuckle and the common rose, screened a few
plots of rarer flowers, a small circular fountain, and a rustic arbour,
both from the sea breezes and the eyes of any passer-by, to which the
open and unsheltered portion of the garden was exposed. When I passed
through the opening cut in the fence, I was somewhat surprised at not
immediately seeing Isora. Perhaps she was in the arbour. I approached
the arbour trembling. What was my astonishment and my terror when I
beheld her stretched lifeless on the ground!
I uttered a loud cry, and sprang forward. I raised her from the earth,
and supported her in my arms; her complexion--through whose pure and
transparent white the wandering blood was wont so gently, yet so
glowingly, to blush, undulating while it blushed, as youngest
rose-leaves which the air just stirs into trembling--was blanched into
the hues of death. My kisses tinged it with a momentary colour not its
own; and yet as I pressed her to my heart, methought hers, which seemed
still before, began as if by an involuntary sympathy, palpably and
suddenly to throb against my own. My alarm melted away as I held her
thus,--nay, I would not, if I could, have recalled her /yet/ to life; I
was forgetful, I was unheeding, I was unconscious of all things else,--a
few broken and passionate words escaped my lips, but even they ceased
when I felt her breath just stirring and mingling with my own. It
seemed to me as if all living kind but ourselves had, by a spell,
departed from the earth, and we were left alone with the breathless and
inaudible Nature from which spring the love and the life of all things.
Isora slowly recovered; her eyes in opening dwelt upon mine; her blood
rushed at once to her cheek, and as suddenly left it hueless as before.
She rose from my embrace, but I still extended my arms towards her; and
words over which I had no control, and of which now I have no
remembrance, rushed from my lips. Still pale, and leaning against the
side of the arbour, Isora heard me, as--confused, incoherent, impetuous,
but still intelligible to her--my released heart poured itself forth.
And when I had ceased, she turned her face towards me, and my blood
seemed at once frozen in its channel. Anguish, deep ineffable anguish,
was depicted upon every feature; and when she strove at last to speak,
her lips quivered so violently that, after a vain effort, she ceased
abruptly. I again approached; I seized her hand, which I covered with
my kisses.
"Will you not answer me, Isora?" said I, trembling. "/Be/ silent,
then; but give me one look, one glance of hope, of pardon, from those
dear eyes, and I ask no more."
Isora's whole frame seemed sinking beneath her emotions; she raised her
head, and looked hurriedly and fearfully round; my eye followed hers,
and I then saw upon the damp ground the recent print of a man's
footstep, not my own: and close to the spot where I had found Isora lay
a man's glove. A pang shot through me; I felt my eyes flash fire, and
my brow darken, as I turned to Isora and said, "I see it; I see all: I
have a rival, who has but just left you; you love me not; your
affections are for him!" Isora sobbed violently, but made no reply.
"You love him," said I, but in a milder and more mournful tone, "you
love him; it is enough; I will persecute you no more; and yet--" I
paused a moment, for the remembrance of many a sign, which my heart had
interpreted flatteringly, flashed upon me, and my voice faltered.
"Well, I have no right to murmur--only, Isora--only tell me with your
lips that you love another, and I will depart in peace."
Very slowly Isora turned her eyes to me, and even through her tears they
dwelt upon me with a tender and a soft reproach.
"You love another?" said I; and from her lips, which scarcely parted,
came a single word which thrilled to my heart like fire,--"No!"
"No!" I repeated, "no? say that again, and again; yet who then is this
that has dared so to agitate and overpower you? Who is he whom you have
met, and whom, even now while I speak, you tremble to hear me recur to?
Answer me one word: is it this mysterious stranger whom your father
honours with his friendship? is it Barnard?"
Alarm and fear again wholly engrossed the expression of Isora's
countenance.
"Barnard!" she said; "yes--yes--it is Barnard!"
"Who is he?" I cried vehemently; "who or what is he; and of what nature
is his influence upon you? Confide in me," and I poured forth a long
tide of inquiry and solicitation.
By the time I had ended, Isora seemed to have recovered herself. With
her softness was mingled something of spirit and self-control, which was
rare alike in her country and her sex.
"Listen to me!" said she, and her voice, which faltered a little at
first, grew calm and firm as she proceeded. "You profess to love me: I
am not worthy your love; and if, Count Devereux, I do not reject nor
disclaim it--for I am a woman, and a weak and fond one--I will not at
least wrong you by encouraging hopes which I may not and I dare not
fulfil. I cannot,--" here she spoke with a fearful distinctness,--"I
cannot, I can never be yours; and when you ask me to be so, you know not
what you ask nor what perils you incur. Enough; I am grateful to you.
The poor exiled girl is grateful for your esteem--and--and your
affection. She will never forget them,--never! But be this our last
meeting--our very last--God bless you, Morton!" and, as she read my
heart, pierced and agonized as it was, in my countenance, Isora bent
over me, for I knelt beside her, and I felt her tears upon my
cheek,--"God bless you--and farewell!"
"You insult, you wound me," said I, bitterly, "by this cold and taunting
kindness; tell me, tell me only, who it is that you love better than
me."
Isora had turned to leave me, for I was too proud to detain her; but
when I said this, she came back, after a moment's pause, and laid her
hand upon my arm.
"If it make you happy to know /my/ unhappiness," she said, and the tone
of her voice made me look full in her face, which was one deep blush,
"know that I am not insensible--"
I heard no more: my lips pressed themselves involuntarily to hers,--a
long, long kiss,--burning, intense, concentrating emotion, heart, soul,
all the rays of life's light into a single focus; and she tore herself
away from me,--and I was alone.
CHAPTER IX.
A DISCOVERY AND A DEPARTURE.
I HASTENED home after my eventful interview with Isora, and gave myself
up to tumultuous and wild conjecture. Aubrey sought me the next
morning: I narrated to him all that had occurred: he said little, but
that little enraged me, for it was contrary to the dictates of my own
wishes. The character of Morose in the "Silent Woman" is by no means an
uncommon one. Many men--certainly many lovers--would say with equal
truth, always provided they had equal candour, "All discourses but my
own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome." Certainly I
felt that amiable sentiment most sincerely with regard to Aubrey. I
left him abruptly: a resolution possessed me. "I will see," said I,
"this Barnard; I will lie in wait for him; I will demand and obtain,
though it be by force, the secret which evidently subsists between him
and this exiled family."
Full of this idea, I drew my cloak round me, and repaired on foot to the
neighbourhood of the Spaniard's cottage. There was no place near it
very commodious for accommodation both of vigil and concealment.
However, I made a little hill, in a field opposite the house, my
warder's station, and, lying at full length on the ground, wrapt in my
cloak, I trusted to escape notice. The day passed: no visitor appeared.
The next morning I went from my own rooms, through the subterranean
passage into the castle cave, as the excavation I have before described
was generally termed. On the shore I saw Gerald by one of the small
fishing-boats usually kept there. I passed him with a sneer at his
amusements, which were always those of conflicts against fish or fowl.
He answered me in the same strain, as he threw his nets into the boat,
and pushed out to sea. "How is it that you go alone?" said I; "is there
so much glory in the capture of mackerel and dogfish that you will allow
no one to share it?"
"There are other sports besides those for men," answered Gerald,
colouring indignantly: "my taste is confined to amusements in which he
is but a fool who seeks companionship; and if you could read character
better, my wise brother, you would know that the bold rover is ever less
idle and more fortunate than the speculative dreamer."
As Gerald said this, which he did with a significant emphasis, he rowed
vigorously across the water, and the little boat was soon half way to
the opposite islet. My eyes followed it musingly as it glided over the
waves, and my thoughts painfully revolved the words which Gerald had
uttered. "What can he mean?" said I, half aloud; "yet what matters it?
Perhaps some low amour, some village conquest, inspires him with that
becoming fulness of pride and vain-glory; joy be with so bold a rover!"
and I strode away along the beach towards my place of watch; once only I
turned to look at Gerald; he had then just touched the islet, which was
celebrated as much for the fishing it afforded as the smuggling it
protected.
I arrived at last at the hillock, and resumed my station. Time passed
on, till, at the dusk of evening, the Spaniard came out. He walked
slowly towards the town; I followed him at a distance. Just before he
reached the town, he turned off by a path which led to the beach. As
the evening was unusually fresh and chill, I felt convinced that some
cause, not wholly trivial, drew the Spaniard forth to brave it. My
pride a little revolted at the idea of following him; but I persuaded
myself that Isora's happiness, and perhaps her father's safety, depended
on my obtaining some knowledge of the character and designs of this
Barnard, who appeared to possess so dangerous an influence over both
daughter and sire; nor did I doubt but that the old man was now gone
forth to meet him. The times were those of mystery and of intrigue: the
emissaries of the House of Stuart were restlessly at work among all
classes; many of them, obscure and mean individuals, made their way the
more dangerously from their apparent insignificance. My uncle, a
moderate Tory, was opposed, though quietly and without vehemence, to the
claims of the banished House. Like Sedley, who became so stanch a
revolutionist, he had seen the Court of Charles II. and the character of
that King's brother too closely to feel much respect for either; but he
thought it indecorous to express opposition loudly against a party among
whom were many of his early friends; and the good old knight was too
much attached to private ties to be very much alive to public feeling.
However, at his well-filled board, conversation, generally, though
displeasingly to himself, turned upon politics, and I had there often
listened, of late, to dark hints of the danger to which we were exposed,
and of the restless machinations of the Jacobites. I did not,
therefore, scruple to suspect this Barnard of some plot against the
existing state, and I did it the more from observing that the Spaniard
often spoke bitterly of the English Court, which had rejected some
claims he had imagined himself entitled to make upon it; and that he was
naturally of a temper vehemently opposed to quiet and alive to
enterprise. With this impression, I deemed it fair to seize any
opportunity of seeing, at least, even if I could not question, the man
whom the Spaniard himself confessed to have state reasons for
concealment; and my anxiety to behold one whose very name could agitate
Isora, and whose presence could occasion the state in which I had found
her, sharpened this desire into the keenness of a passion.
While Alvarez descended to the beach, I kept the upper path, which wound
along the cliff. There was a spot where the rocks were rude and broken
into crags, and afforded me a place where, unseen, I could behold what
passed below. The first thing I beheld was a boat approaching rapidly
towards the shore; one man was seated in it; he reached the shore, and I
recognized Gerald. That was a dreadful moment. Alvarez now slowly
joined him; they remained together for nearly an hour. I saw Gerald
give the Spaniard a letter, which appeared to make the chief subject of
their conversation. At length they parted, with the signs rather of
respect than familiarity. Don Diego returned homeward, and Gerald
re-entered the boat. I watched its progress over the waves with
feelings of a dark and almost unutterable nature. "My enemy! my rival!
ruiner of my hopes!--/my brother/!--/my twin brother/!" I muttered
bitterly between my ground teeth.
The boat did not make to the open sea: it skulked along the shore, till
distance and shadow scarcely allowed me to trace the outline of Gerald's
figure. It then touched the beach, and I could just descry the dim
shape of another man enter; and Gerald, instead of returning homewards,
pushed out towards the islet. I spent the greater part of the night in
the open air. Wearied and exhausted by the furious indulgence of my
passions, I gained my room at length. There, however, as elsewhere,
thought succeeded to thought, and scheme to scheme. Should I speak to
Gerald? Should I confide in Alvarez? Should I renew my suit to Isora?
If the first, what could I hope to learn from my enemy? If the second,
what could I gain from the father, while the daughter remained averse to
me? If the third,--there my heart pointed, and the third scheme I
resolved to adopt.
But was I sure that Gerald was this Barnard? Might there not be some
hope that he was not? No, I could perceive none. Alvarez had never
spoken to me of acquaintance with any other Englishman than Barnard; I
had no reason to believe that he ever held converse with any other.
Would it not have been natural too, unless some powerful cause, such as
love to Isora, induced silence,--would it not have been natural that
Gerald should have mentioned his acquaintance with the Spaniard? Unless
some dark scheme, such as that which Barnard appeared to have in common
with Don Diego, commanded obscurity, would it have been likely that
Gerald should have met Alvarez alone,--at night,--on an unfrequented
spot? What that scheme /was/, I guessed not,--I cared not. All my
interest in the identity of Barnard with Gerald Devereux was that
derived from the power he seemed to possess over Isora. Here, too, at
once, was explained the pretended Barnard's desire of concealment, and
the vigilance with which it had been effected. It was so certain that
Gerald, if my rival, would seek to avoid me; it was so easy for him, who
could watch all my motions, to secure the power of doing so. Then I
remembered Gerald's character through the country as a gallant and a
general lover; and I closed my eyes as if to shut out the vision when I
recalled the beauty of his form contrasted with the comparative
plainness of my own.
"There is no hope," I repeated; and an insensibility, rather than sleep,
crept over me. Dreadful and fierce dreams peopled my slumbers; and,
when I started from them at a late hour the next day, I was unable to
rise from my bed: my agitation and my wanderings had terminated in a
burning fever. In four days, however, I recovered sufficiently to mount
my horse: I rode to the Spaniard's house; I found there only the woman
who had been Don Diego's solitary domestic. The morning before, Alvarez
and his daughter had departed, none knew for certain whither; but it was
supposed their destination was London. The woman gave me a note: it was
from Isora; it contained only these lines:
Forget me: we are now parted forever. As you value my peace of mind--of
happiness I do not speak--seek not to discover our next retreat. I
implore you to think no more of what has been; you are young, very
young. Life has a thousand paths for you; any one of them will lead you
from remembrance of me. Farewell, again and again!
ISORA D'ALVAREZ.
With this note was another, in French, from Don Diego: it was colder and
more formal than I could have expected; it thanked me for my attentions
towards him; it regretted that he could not take leave of me in person,
and it enclosed the sum by the loan of which our acquaintance had
commenced.
"It is well!" said I, calmly, to myself, "it is well; I will forget
her:" and I rode instantly home. "But," I resumed in my soliloquy, "I
will yet strive to obtain confirmation to what perhaps needs it not. I
will yet strive to see if Gerald can deny the depth of his injuries
towards me; there will be at least some comfort in witnessing either his
defiance or his confusion."
Agreeably to this thought, I hastened to seek Gerald. I found him in
his apartment; I shut the door, and seating myself, with a smile thus
addressed him,--
"Dear Gerald, I have a favour to ask of you."
"What is it?"
"How long have you known a certain Mr. Barnard?" Gerald changed colour;
his voice faltered as he repeated the name "Barnard!"
"Yes," said I, with affected composure, "Barnard! a great friend of Don
Diego D'Alvarez."
"I perceive," said Gerald, collecting himself, "that you are in some
measure acquainted with my secret: how far it is known to you I cannot
guess; but I tell you, very fairly, that from me you will not increase
the sum of your knowledge."
When one is in a good sound rage, it is astonishing how calm one can be!
I was certainly somewhat amazed by Gerald's hardihood and assurance, but
I continued, with a smile,
"And Donna Isora, how long, if not very intrusive on your confidence,
have you known her?"
"I tell you," answered Gerald, doggedly, "that I will answer no
questions."
"You remember the old story," returned I, "of the two brothers, Eteocles
and Polynices, whose very ashes refused to mingle; faith, Gerald, our
love seems much of the same sort. I know not if our ashes will exhibit
so laudible an antipathy: but I think our hearts and hands will do so
while a spark of life animates them; yes, though our blood" (I added, in
a voice quivering with furious emotion) "prevents our contest by the
sword, it prevents not the hatred and the curses of the heart."
Gerald turned pale. "I do not understand you," he faltered out,--"I
know you abhor me; but why, why this excess of malice?"
I cast on him a look of bitter scorn, and turned from the room.
It is not pleasing to place before the reader these dark passages of
fraternal hatred: but in the record of all passions there is a moral;
and it is wise to see to how vast a sum the units of childish animosity
swell, when they are once brought into a heap, by some violent event,
and told over by the nice accuracy of Revenge.
But I long to pass from these scenes, and my history is about to glide
along others of more glittering and smiling aspect. Thank Heaven, I
write a tale, not only of love, but of a life; and that which I cannot
avoid I can at least condense.
CHAPTER X.
A VERY SHORT CHAPTER,--CONTAINING A VALET.
MY uncle for several weeks had flattered himself that I had quite
forgotten or foregone the desire of leaving Devereux Court for London.
Good easy man! he was not a little distressed when I renewed the subject
with redoubled firmness, and demanded an early period for that event.
He managed, however, still to protract the evil day. At one time it was
impossible to part with me, because the house was so full; at another
time it was cruel to leave him, when the house was so empty. Meanwhile,
a new change came over me. As the first shock of Isora's departure
passed away, I began to suspect the purity of her feelings towards me.
Might not Gerald--the beautiful, the stately, the glittering
Gerald--have been a successful wooer under the disguised name of
Barnard, and /hence/ Isora's confusion when that name was mentioned, and
hence the power which its possessor exercised over her?
This idea, once admitted, soon gained ground. It is true that Isora had
testified something of favourable feelings towards me; but this might
spring from coquetry or compassion. My love had been a boy's love,
founded upon beauty and coloured by romance. I had not investigated the
character of the object; and I had judged of the mind solely by the
face. I might easily have been deceived: I persuaded myself that I was.
Perhaps Gerald had provided their present retreat for sire and daughter;
perhaps they at this moment laughed over my rivalry and my folly.
Methought Gerald's lip wore a contemptuous curve when we met. "It shall
have no cause," I said, stung to the soul; "I will indeed forget this
woman, and yet, though in other ways, eclipse this rival. Pleasure,
ambition, the brilliancy of a court, the resources of wealth, invite me
to a thousand joys. I will not be deaf to the call. Meanwhile I will
not betray to Gerald, to any one, the scar of the wound I have received;
and I will mortify Gerald, by showing him that, handsome as he is, he
shall be forgotten in my presence!"
Agreeably to this exquisite resolution, I paid incessant court to the
numerous dames by whom my uncle's mansion was thronged; and I resolved
to prepare, among them, the reputation for gallantry and for wit which I
proposed to establish in town.
"You are greatly altered since your love," said Aubrey, one day to me,
"but not by your love. Own that I did right in dissuading you from its
indulgence!"
"Tell me!" said I, sinking my voice to a whisper, "do you think Gerald
was my rival?" and I recounted the causes of my suspicion.
Aubrey's countenance testified astonishment as he listened. "It is
strange, very strange," said he; "and the evidence of the boat is almost
conclusive; still I do not think it quite sufficient to leave no
loop-hole of doubt. But what matters it? you have conquered your love
now."
"Ay," I said, with a laugh, "I have conquered it, and I am now about to
find some other empress of the heart. What think you of the Lady
Hasselton?--a fair dame and a sprightly. I want nothing but her love to
be the most enviable of men, and a French /valet-de-chambre/ to be the
most irresistible."
"The former is easier to obtain than the latter, I fear," returned
Aubrey; "all places produce light dames, but the war makes a scarcity of
French valets."
"True," said I, "but I never thought of instituting a comparison between
their relative value. The Lady Hasselton, no disparagement to her
merits, is but one woman; but a French valet who knows his /metier/ arms
one for conquest over a thousand;" and I turned to the saloon.
Fate, which had destined to me the valuable affections of the Lady
Hasselton, granted me also, at a yet earlier period, the greater boon of
a French valet. About two or three weeks after this sapient
communication with Aubrey, the most charming person in the world
presented himself a candidate /pour le supreme bonheur de soigner
Monsieur le Comte/. Intelligence beamed in his eye; a modest assurance
reigned upon his brow; respect made his step vigilant as a zephyr's; and
his ruffles were the envy of the world!
I took him at a glance; and I presented to the admiring inmates of the
house a greater coxcomb than the Count Devereux in the ethereal person
of Jean Desmarais.
CHAPTER XI.
THE HERO ACQUITS HIMSELF HONOURABLY AS A COXCOMB.--A FINE LADY OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, AND A FASHIONABLE DIALOGUE; THE SUBSTANCE OF
FASHIONABLE DIALOGUE BEING IN ALL CENTURIES THE SAME.
"I AM thinking, Morton," said my uncle, "that if you are to go to town,
you should go in a style suitable to your rank. What say you to flying
along the road in my green and gold chariot? 'Sdeath! I'll make you a
present of it. Nay--no thanks; and you may have four of my black
Flanders mares to draw you."
"Now, my dear Sir William," cried Lady Hasselton, who, it may be
remembered, was the daughter of one of King Charles's Beauties, and who
alone shared the breakfast-room with my uncle and myself,--"now, my dear
Sir William, I think it would be a better plan to suffer the Count to
accompany us to town. We go next week. He shall have a seat in our
coach, help Lovell to pay our post-horses, protect us at inns, scold at
the drawers in the pretty oaths of the fashion, which are so innocent
that I will teach them to his Countship myself; and unless I am much
more frightful than my honoured mother, whose beauties you so gallantly
laud, I think you will own, Sir William, that this is better for your
nephew than doing solitary penance in your chariot of green and gold,
with a handkerchief tied over his head to keep away cold, and with no
more fanciful occupation than composing sonnets to the four Flanders
mares."
"'Sdeath, Madam, you inherit your mother's wit as well as beauty," cried
my uncle, with an impassioned air.
"And his Countship," said I, "will accept your invitation without asking
his uncle's leave."
"Come, that is bold for a gentleman of--let me see, thirteen--are you
not?"
"Really," answered I, "one learns to forget time so terribly in the
presence of Lady Hasselton that I do not remember even how long it has
existed for me."
"Bravo!" cried the knight, with a moistening eye; "you see, Madam, the
boy has not lived with his old uncle for nothing."
"I am lost in astonishment!" said the lady, glancing towards the glass;
"why, you will eclipse all our beaux at your first appearance;
but--but--Sir William--how green those glasses have become! Bless me,
there is something so contagious in the effects of the country that the
very mirrors grow verdant. But--Count--Count--where are you, Count? [I
was exactly opposite to the fair speaker.] Oh, there you are! Pray, do
you carry a little pocket-glass of the true quality about you? But, of
course you do; lend it me."
"I have not the glass you want, but I carry with me a mirror that
reflects your features much more faithfully."
"How! I protest I do not understand you!"
"The mirror is here!" said I, laying my hand to my heart.
"'Gad, I must kiss the boy!" cried my uncle, starting up.
"I have sworn," said I, fixing my eyes upon the lady,--"I have sworn
never to be kissed, even by women. You must pardon me, Uncle."
"I declare," cried the Lady Hasselton, flirting her fan, which was
somewhat smaller than the screen that one puts into a great hall, in
order to take off the discomfort of too large a room,--"I declare,
Count, there is a vast deal of originality about you. But tell me, Sir
William, where did your nephew acquire, at so early an age--eleven, you
say, he is--such a fund of agreeable assurance?"
"Nay, Madam, let the boy answer for himself."
"/Imprimis/, then," said I, playing with the ribbon of my
cane,--"/imprimis/, early study of the best authors,--Congreve and
Farquhar, Etherege and Rochester; secondly, the constant intercourse of
company which gives one the spleen so overpoweringly that despair
inspires one with boldness--to get rid of them; thirdly, the personal
example of Sir William Devereux; and, fourthly, the inspiration of
hope."
"Hope, sir?" said the Lady Hasselton, covering her face with her fan, so
as only to leave me a glimpse of the farthest patch upon her left
cheek,--"hope, sir?"
"Yes, the hope of being pleasing to you. Suffer me to add that the hope
has now become certainty."
"Upon my word, Count--"
"Nay, you cannot deny it; if one can once succeed in impudence, one is
irresistible."
"Sir William," cried Lady Hasselton, "you may give the Count your
chariot of green and gold, and your four Flanders mares, and send his
mother's maid with him. He shall not go with me."
"Cruel! and why?" said I.
"You are too"--the lady paused, and looked at me over her fan. She was
really very handsome--"you are too /old/, Count. You must be more than
nine."
"Pardon me," said I, "I /am/ nine,--a very mystical number nine is too,
and represents the Muses, who, you know, were always attendant upon
Venus--or you, which is the same thing; so you can no more dispense with
my company than you can with that of the Graces."
"Good morning, Sir William," cried the Lady Hasselton, rising.
I offered to hand her to the door; with great difficulty, for her hoop
was of the very newest enormity of circumference; I effected this
object. "Well, Count," said she, "I am glad to see you have brought so
much learning from school; make the best use of it while it lasts, for
your memory will not furnish you with a single simile out of the
mythology by the end of next winter."
"That would be a pity," said I, "for I intend having as many goddesses
as the heathens had, and I should like to worship them in a classical
fashion."
"Oh, the young reprobate!" said the beauty, tapping me with her fan.
"And pray, what other deities besides Venus do I resemble?"
"All!" said I,--"at least, all the celestial ones!"
Though half way through the door, the beauty extricated her hoop, and
drew back. "Bless me, the gods as well as the goddesses?"
"Certainly."
"You jest: tell me how."
"Nothing can be easier; you resemble Mercury because of your thefts."
"Thefts!"
"Ay; stolen hearts, and," added I, in a whisper, "glances; Jupiter,
partly because of your lightning, which you lock up in the said
glances,--principally because all things are subservient to you;
Neptune, because you are as changeable as the seas; Vulcan, because you
live among the flames you excite; and Mars, because--"
"You are so destructive," cried my uncle.
"Exactly so; and because," added I--as I shut the door upon the
beauty--"because, thanks to your hoop, you cover nine acres of ground."
"Ods fish, Morton," said my uncle, "you surprise me at times: one while
you are so reserved, at another so assured; to-day so brisk, to-morrow
so gloomy. Why now, Lady Hasselton (she is very comely, eh! faith, but
not comparable to her mother) told me, a week ago, that she, gave you up
in despair, that you were dull, past hoping for; and now, 'Gad, you had
a life in you that Sid himself could not have surpassed. How comes it,
Sir, eh?"
"Why, Uncle, you have explained the reason; it was exactly because she
said I was dull that I was resolved to convict her in an untruth."
"Well, now, there is some sense in that, boy; always contradict ill
report by personal merit. But what think you of her ladyship? 'Gad,
you know what old Bellair said of Emilia. 'Make much of her: she's one
of the best of your acquaintance. I like her countenance and behaviour.
Well, she has a modesty not i' this age, a-dad she has.' Applicable
enough; eh, boy?"
"'I know her value, Sir, and esteem her accordingly,'" answered I, out
of the same play, which by dint of long study I had got by heart. "But,
to confess the truth," added I, "I think you might have left out the
passage about her modesty."
"There, now; you young chaps are so censorious; why, 'sdeath, sir, you
don't think the worse of her virtue because of her wit?"
"Humph!"
"Ah, boy! when you are my age, you'll know that your demure cats are not
the best; and that reminds me of a little story; shall I tell it you,
child?"
"If it so please you, Sir."
"Zauns--where's my snuff-box?--oh, here it is. Well, Sir, you shall
have the whole thing, from beginning to end. Sedley and I were one day
conversing together about women. Sid was a very deep fellow in that
game: no passion you know; no love on his own side; nothing of the sort;
all done by rule and compass; knew women as well as dice, and calculated
the exact moment when his snares would catch them, according to the
principles of geometry. D----d clever fellow, faith; but a confounded
rascal: but let it go no further; mum's the word! must not slander the
dead; and 'tis only my suspicion, you know, after all. Poor fellow: I
don't think he was such a rascal; he gave a beggar an angel once,--well,
boy, have a pinch?--Well, so I said to Sir Charles, 'I think you will
lose the widow, after all,--'Gad I do.' 'Upon what principle of
science, Sir William?' said he. 'Why, faith, man, she is so modest, you
see, and has such a pretty way of blushing.' 'Hark ye, friend
Devereux,' said Sir Charles, smoothing his collar and mincing his words
musically, as he was wont to do,--'hark ye, friend Devereux, I will give
you the whole experience of my life in one maxim: I can answer for its
being new, and I think it is profound; and that maxim is--,' no, faith,
Morton--no, I can't tell it thee: it is villanous, and then it's so
desperately against all the sex."
"My dear uncle, don't tantalize me so: pray tell it me; it shall be a
secret."
"No, boy, no: it will corrupt thee; besides, it will do poor Sid's
memory no good. But, 'sdeath, it was a most wonderfully shrewd
saying,--i' faith, it was. But, zounds, Morton, I forgot to tell you
that I have had a letter from the Abbe to-day."
"Ha! and when does he return?"
"To-morrow, God willing!" said the knight, with a sigh.
"So soon, or rather after so long an absence! Well, I am glad of it. I
wish much to see him before I leave you."
"Indeed!" quoth my uncle; "you have an advantage over me, then! But,
ods fish, Morton, how is it that you grew so friendly with the priest
before his departure? He used to speak very suspiciously of thee
formerly; and, when I last saw him, he lauded thee to the skies."
"Why, the clergy of his faith have a habit of defending the strong and
crushing the weak, I believe; that's all. He once thought I was dull
enough to damn my fortune, and then he had some strange doubts for my
soul; now he thinks me wise enough to become prosperous, and it is
astonishing what a respect he has conceived for my principles."
"Ha! ha! ha!--you have a spice of your uncle's humour in you; and, 'Gad,
you have no small knowledge of the world, considering you have seen so
little of it."
A hit at the popish clergy was, in my good uncle's eyes, the exact acme
of wit and wisdom. We are always clever with those who imagine we think
as they do. To be shallow you must differ from people: to be profound
you must agree with them. "Why, Sir," answered the sage nephew, "you
forget that I have seen more of the world than many of twice my age.
Your house has been full of company ever since I have been in it, and
you set me to making observations on what I saw before I was thirteen.
And then, too, if one is reading books about real life, at the very time
one is mixing in it, it is astonishing how naturally one remarks and how
well one remembers."
"Especially if one has a genius for it,--eh, boy? And then too, you
have read my play; turned Horace's Satires into a lampoon upon the boys
at school; been regularly to assizes during the vacation; attended the
county balls, and been a most premature male coquette with the ladies.
Ods fish, boy! it is quite curious to see how the young sparks of the
present day get on with their lovemaking."
"Especially if one has a genius for it,--eh, sir?" said I.
"Besides, too," said my uncle, ironically, "you have had the Abbe's
instructions."
"Ay, and if the priests would communicate to their pupils their
experience in frailty, as well as in virtue, how wise they would make
us!"
"Ods fish! Morton, you are quite oracular. How got you that fancy of
priests?--by observation in life already?"
"No, Uncle: by observation in plays, which you tell me are the mirrors
of life; you remember what Lee says,--
"''Tis thought
That earth is more obliged to priests for bodies
Than Heaven for souls.'"
And my uncle laughed, and called me a smart fellow.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ABBE'S RETURN.--A SWORD, AND A SOLILOQUY.
THE next evening, when I was sitting alone in my room, the Abbe
Montreuil suddenly entered. "Ah, is it you? welcome!" cried I. The
priest held out his arms, and embraced me in the most paternal manner.
"It is your friend," said he, "returned at last to bless and
congratulate you. Behold my success in your service," and the Abbe
produced a long leather case richly inlaid with gold.
"Faith, Abbe," said I, "am I to understand that this is a present for
your eldest pupil?"
"You are," said Montreuil, opening the case, and producing a sword. The
light fell upon the hilt, and I drew back, dazzled with its lustre; it
was covered with stones, apparently of the most costly value. Attached
to the hilt was a label of purple velvet, on which, in letters of gold,
was inscribed, "To the son of Marshal Devereux, the soldier of France,
and the friend of Louis XIV."
Before I recovered my surprise at this sight, the Abbe said: "It was
from the King's own hand that I received this sword, and I have
authority to inform you that if ever you wield it in the service of
France it will be accompanied by a post worthy of your name."
"The service of France!" I repeated; "why, at present that is the
service of an enemy."
"An enemy only to a /part/ of England!" said the Abbe, emphatically;
"perhaps I have overtures to you from other monarchs, and the friendship
of the court of France may be synonymous with the friendship of the true
sovereign of England."
There was no mistaking the purport of this speech, and even in the midst
of my gratified vanity I drew back alarmed.
The Abbe noted the changed expression of my countenance, and artfully
turned the subject to comments on the sword, on which I still gazed with
a lover's ardour. Thence he veered to a description of the grace and
greatness of the royal donor: he dwelt at length upon the flattering
terms in which Louis had spoken of my father, and had inquired
concerning myself; he enumerated all the hopes that the illustrious
house into which my father had first married expressed for a speedy
introduction to his son; he lingered with an eloquence more savouring of
the court than of the cloister on the dazzling circle which surrounded
the French throne; and when my vanity, my curiosity, my love of
pleasure, my ambition, all that are most susceptible in young minds,
were fully aroused, he suddenly ceased, and wished me a good night.
"Stay," said I; and looking at him more attentively than I had hitherto
done, I perceived a change in his external appearance which somewhat
startled and surprised me. Montreuil had always hitherto been
remarkably plain in his dress; but he was now richly attired, and by his
side hung a rapier, which had never adorned it before. Something in his
aspect seemed to suit the alteration in his garb: and whether it was
that long absence had effaced enough of the familiarity of his features
to allow me to be more alive than formerly to the real impression they
were calculated to produce, or whether a commune with kings and nobles
had of late dignified their old expression, as power was said to have
clothed the soldier-mien of Cromwell with a monarch's bearing,--I do not
affect to decide; but I thought that, in his high brow and Roman
features, the compression of his lip, and his calm but haughty air,
there was a nobleness, which I acknowledged for the first time. "Stay,
my father," said I, surveying him, "and tell me, if there be no
irreverence in the question, whether brocade and a sword are compatible
with the laws of the Order of Jesus?"
"Policy, Morton," answered Montreuil, "often dispenses with custom; and
the declarations of the Institute provide, with their usual wisdom, for
worldly and temporary occasions. Even while the constitution ordains us
to discard habits repugnant to our professions of poverty, the following
exception is made: 'Si in occurrenti aliqua occasione, vel necessitate,
quis vestibus melioribus, honestis tamen, indueretur.'"*
* "But should there chance any occasion or necessity, one may wear
better though still decorous garments."
"There is now, then, some occasion for a more glittering display than
ordinary?" said I.
"There is, my pupil," answered Montreuil; "and whenever you embrace the
offer of my friendship made to you more than two years ago,--whenever,
too, your ambition points to a lofty and sublime career,--whenever to
make and unmake kings, and in the noblest sphere to execute the will of
God, indemnifies you for a sacrifice of petty wishes and momentary
passions,--I will confide to you schemes worthy of your ancestors and
yourself."
With this the priest departed. Left to myself, I revolved his hints,
and marvelled at the power he seemed to possess. "Closeted with kings,"
said I, soliloquizing,--"bearing their presents through armed men and
military espionage; speaking of empires and their overthrow as of
ordinary objects of ambition; and he himself a low-born and undignified
priest, of a poor though a wise order,--well, there is more in this than
I can fathom: but I will hesitate before I embark in his dangerous and
concealed intrigues; above all, I will look well ere I hazard my safe
heritage of these broad lands in the service of that House which is
reported to be ungrateful, and which is certainly exiled."
After this prudent and notable resolution, I took up the sword,
re-examined it, kissed the hilt once and the blade twice, put it under
my pillow, sent for my valet, undressed, went to bed, fell asleep, and
dreamed that I was teaching the Marechal de Villars the thrust /en
seconde/.
But Fate, that arch-gossip, who, like her prototypes on earth, settles
all our affairs for us without our knowledge of the matter, had decreed
that my friendship with the Abbe Montreuil should be of very short
continuance, and that my adventures on earth should flow through a
different channel than, in all probability, they would have done under
his spiritual direction.
CHAPTER XIII.
A MYSTERIOUS LETTER.--A DUEL.--THE DEPARTURE OF ONE OF THE FAMILY.
THE next morning I communicated to the Abbe my intention of proceeding
to London. He received it with favour. "I myself," said he, "shall
soon meet you there: my office in your family has expired; and your
mother, after so long an absence, will perhaps readily dispense with my
spiritual advice to her. But time presses: since you depart so soon,
give me an audience to-night in your apartment. Perhaps our
conversation may be of moment."
I agreed; the hour was fixed, and I left the Abbe to join my uncle and
his guests. While I was employing among them my time and genius with
equal dignity and profit, one of the servants informed me that a man at
the gate wished to see me--and alone.
Somewhat surprised, I followed the servant out of the room into the
great hall, and desired him to bid the stranger attend me there. In a
few minutes, a small, dark man, dressed between gentility and meanness,
made his appearance. He greeted me with great respect, and presented a
letter, which, he said, he was charged to deliver into my own hands,
"with," he added in a low tone, "a special desire that none should, till
I had carefully read it, be made acquainted with its contents." I was
not a little startled by this request; and, withdrawing to one of the
windows, broke the seal. A letter, enclosed in the envelope, in the
Abbe's own handwriting, was the first thing that met my eyes. At that
instant the Abbe himself rushed into the hall. He cast one hasty look
at the messenger, whose countenance evinced something of surprise and
consternation at beholding him; and, hastening up to me, grasped my hand
vehemently, and, while his eye dwelt upon the letter I held, cried, "Do
not read it--not a word--not a word: there is poison in it!" And so
saying, he snatched desperately at the letter. I detained it from him
with one hand, and pushing him aside with the other, said,--
"Pardon me, Father, directly I have read it you shall have that
pleasure,--not till then!" and, as I said this, my eye falling upon the
letter discovered my own name written in two places. My suspicions were
aroused. I raised my eyes to the spot where the messenger had stood,
with the view of addressing some question to him respecting his
employer, when, to my surprise, I perceived he was already gone; I had
no time, however, to follow him.
"Boy," said the Abbe, gasping for breath, and still seizing me with his
lean, bony hand,--"boy, give me that letter instantly; I charge you not
to disobey me."
"You forget yourself, Sir," said I, endeavouring to shake him off, "you
forget yourself: there is no longer between us the distinction of pupil
and teacher; and if you have not yet learned the respect due to my
station, suffer me to tell you that it is time you should."
"Give me that letter, I beseech you," said Montreuil, changing his voice
from anger to supplication; "I ask your pardon for my violence: the
letter does not concern you but me; there is a secret in those lines
which you see are in my handwriting that implicates my personal safety.
Give it me, my dear, dear son: your own honour, if not your affection
for me, demands that you should."
I was staggered. His violence had confirmed my suspicions, but his
gentleness weakened them. "Besides," thought I, "the handwriting /is
his/; and even if my life depended upon reading the letter of another, I
do not think my honour would suffer me to do so against his consent." A
thought struck me,--
"Will you swear," said I, "that this letter does not concern me?"
"Solemnly," answered the Abbe, raising his eyes.
"Will you swear that I am not even mentioned in it?"
"Upon peril of my soul, I will."
"Liar! traitor! perjured blasphemer!" cried I, in an inexpressible rage,
"look here, and here!" and I pointed out to the priest various lines in
which my name legibly and frequently occurred. A change came over
Montreuil's face: he released my arm and staggered back against the
wainscot; but recovering his composure instantaneously, he said, "I
forgot, my son--I forgot--your name is mentioned, it is true, but with
honourable eulogy, that is all."
"Bravo, honest Father!" cried I, losing my fury in admiring surprise at
his address,--"bravo! However, if that be all, you can have no
objection to allow me to read the lines in which my name occurs; your
benevolence cannot refuse me such a gratification as the sight of your
written panegyric!"
"Count Devereux," said the Abbe, sternly, while his dark face worked
with suppressed passion, "this is trifling with me, and I warn you not
to push my patience too far. I /will/ have that letter, or--" he ceased
abruptly, and touched the hilt of his sword.
"Dare you threaten me?" I said, and the natural fierceness of my own
disposition, deepened by vague and strong suspicions of some treachery
designed against me, spoke in the tones of my voice.
"Dare I?" repeated Montreuil, sinking and sharpening his voice into a
sort of inward screech. "Dare I!--ay, were your whole tribe arrayed
against me. Give me the letter, or you will find me now and forever
your most deadly foe; deadly--ay--deadly, deadly!" and he shook his
clenched hand at me, with an expression of countenance so malignant and
menacing that I drew back involuntarily, and laid my hand on my sword.
The action seemed to give Montreuil a signal for which he had hitherto
waited. "Draw then," he said through his teeth, and unsheathed his
rapier.
Though surprised at his determination, I was not backward in meeting it.
Thrusting the letter in my bosom, I drew my sword in time to parry a
rapid and fierce thrust. I had expected easily to master Montreuil, for
I had some skill at my weapon: I was deceived; I found him far more
adroit than myself in the art of offence; and perhaps it would have
fared ill for the hero of this narrative had Montreuil deemed it wise to
direct against my life all the science he possessed. But the moment our
swords crossed, the constitutional coolness of the man, which rage or
fear had for a brief time banished, returned at once, and he probably
saw that it would be as dangerous to him to take away the life of his
pupil as to forfeit the paper for which he fought. He, therefore,
appeared to bend all his efforts towards disarming me. Whether or not
he would have effected this it is hard to say, for my blood was up, and
any neglect of my antagonist, in attaining an object very dangerous,
when engaged with a skilful and quick swordsman, might have sent him to
the place from which the prayers of his brethren have (we are bound to
believe) released so many thousands of souls. But, meanwhile, the
servants, who at first thought the clashing of swords was the wanton
sport of some young gallants as yet new to the honour of wearing them,
grew alarmed by the continuance of the sound, and flocked hurriedly to
the place of contest. At their intrusion we mutually drew back.
Recovering my presence of mind (it was a possession I very easily lost
at that time), I saw the unseemliness of fighting with my preceptor, and
a priest. I therefore burst, though awkwardly enough, into a laugh,
and, affecting to treat the affair as a friendly trial of skill between
the Abbe and myself, resheathed my sword and dismissed the intruders,
who, evidently disbelieving my version of the story, retreated slowly,
and exchanging looks. Montreuil, who had scarcely seconded my attempt
to gloss over our /rencontre/, now approached me.
"Count," he said, with a collected and cool voice, "suffer me to request
you to exchange three words with me in a spot less liable than this to
interruption."
"Follow me then!" said I; and I led the way to a part of the grounds
which lay remote and sequestered from intrusion. I then turned round,
and perceived that the Abbe had left his sword behind. "How is this?" I
said, pointing to his unarmed side, "have you not come hither to renew
our engagement?"
"No!" answered Montreuil, "I repent me of my sudden haste, and I have
resolved to deny myself all further possibility of unseemly warfare.
That letter, young man, I still demand from you; I demanded it from your
own sense of honour and of right: it was written by me; it was not
intended for your eye; it contains secrets implicating the lives of
others besides myself; now, read it if you will."
"You are right, Sir," said I, after a short pause; "there is the letter;
never shall it be said of Morton Devereux that he hazarded his honour to
secure his safety. But the tie between us is broken now and forever!"
So saying, I flung down the debated epistle, and strode away. I
re-entered the great hall. I saw by one of the windows a sheet of
paper; I picked it up, and perceived that it was the envelope in which
the letter had been enclosed. It contained only these lines, addressed
me in French:--
A friend of the late Marshal Devereux encloses to his son a letter, the
contents of which it is essential for His safety that he should know.
C. D. B.
"Umph!" said I, "a very satisfactory intimation, considering that the
son of the late Marshal Devereux is so very well assured that he shall
not know one line of the contents of the said letter. But let me see
after this messenger!" and I immediately hastened to institute inquiry
respecting him. I found that he was already gone; on leaving the hall
he had remounted his horse and taken his departure. One servant,
however, had seen him, as he passed the front court, address a few words
to my valet, Desmarais, who happened to be loitering there. I summoned
Desmarais and questioned him.
"The dirty fellow," said the Frenchman, pointing to his spattered
stockings with a lachrymose air, "splashed me, by a prance of his horse,
from head to foot, and while I was screaming for very anguish, he
stopped and said, 'Tell the Count Devereux that I was unable to tarry,
but that the letter requires no answer.'"
I consoled Desmarais for his misfortune, and hastened to my uncle with a
determination to reveal to him all that had occurred. Sir William was
in his dressing-room, and his gentleman was very busy in adorning his
wig. I entreated him to dismiss the /coiffeur/, and then, without much
preliminary detail, acquainted him with all that had passed between the
Abbe and myself.
The knight seemed startled when I came to the story of the sword.
"'Gad, Sir Count, what have you been doing?" said he; "know you not that
this may be a very ticklish matter? The King of France is a very great
man, to be sure,--a very great man,--and a very fine gentleman; but you
will please to remember that we are at war with his Majesty, and I
cannot guess how far the accepting such presents may be held
treasonable."
And Sir William shook his head with a mournful significance. "Ah,"
cried he, at last (when I had concluded my whole story), with a
complacent look, "I have not lived at court, and studied human nature,
for nothing: and I will wager my best full-bottom to a night-cap that
the crafty old fox is as much a Jacobite as he is a rogue! The letter
would have proved it, Sir; it would have proved it!"
"But what shall be done now?" said I; "will you suffer him to remain any
longer in the house?"
"Why," replied the knight, suddenly recollecting his reverence to the
fair sex, "he is your mother's guest, not mine; we must refer the matter
to her. But zauns, Sir, with all deference to her ladyship, we cannot
suffer our house to be a conspiracy-hatch as well as a popish chapel;
and to attempt your life too--the devil! Ods fish, boy, I will go to
the countess myself, if you will just let Nicholls finish my wig,--never
attend the ladies /en deshabille/,--always, with them, take care of your
person most, when you most want to display your mind;" and my uncle
ringing a little silver bell on his dressing-table, the sound
immediately brought Nicholls to his toilet.
Trusting the cause to the zeal of my uncle, whose hatred to the
ecclesiastic would, I knew, be an efficacious adjunct to his diplomatic
address, and not unwilling to avoid being myself the person to acquaint
my mother with the suspected delinquency of her favourite, I hastened
from the knight's apartment in search of Aubrey. He was not in the
house. His attendants (for my uncle, with old-fashioned grandeur of
respect, suitable to his great wealth and aristocratic temper, allotted
to each of us a separate suite of servants as well as of apartments)
believed he was in the park. Thither I repaired, and found him, at
length, seated by an old tree, with a large book of a religious cast
before him, on which his eyes were intently bent.
"I rejoice to have found thee, my gentle brother," said I, throwing
myself on the green turf by his side; "in truth you have chosen a
fitting and fair place for study."
"I have chosen," said Aubrey, "a place meet for the peculiar study I am
engrossed in; for where can we better read of the power and benevolence
of God than among the living testimonies of both? Beautiful--how very
beautiful!--is this happy world; but I fear," added Aubrey, and the glow
of his countenance died away,--"I fear that we enjoy it too much."
"We hold different interpretations of our creed then," said I, "for I
esteem enjoyment the best proof of gratitude; nor do I think we can pay
a more acceptable duty to the Father of all Goodness than by showing
ourselves sensible of the favours He bestows upon us."
Aubrey shook his head gently, but replied not.
"Yes," resumed I, after a pause,--"yes, it is indeed a glorious and fair
world which we have for our inheritance. Look how the sunlight sleeps
yonder upon fields covered with golden corn; and seems, like the divine
benevolence of which you spoke, to smile upon the luxuriance which its
power created. This carpet at our feet, covered with flowers that
breathe, sweet as good deeds, to Heaven; the stream that breaks through
that distant copse, laughing in the light of noon, and sending its voice
through the hill and woodland, like a messenger of glad tidings; the
green boughs over our head, vocal with a thousand songs, all
inspirations of a joy too exquisite for silence; the very leaves, which
seem to dance and quiver with delight,--think you, Aubrey, that these
are so sullen as not to return thanks for the happiness they imbibe with
being: what are those thanks but the incense of their joy? The flowers
send it up to heaven in fragrance; the air and the wave, in music.
Shall the heart of man be the only part of His creation that shall
dishonour His worship with lamentation and gloom? When the inspired
writers call upon us to praise our Creator, do they not say to us,--'Be
/joyful/ in your God?'"
"How can we be joyful with the Judgment-Day ever before us?" said
Aubrey; "how can we be joyful" (and here a dark shade crossed his
countenance, and his lip trembled with emotion) "while the deadly
passions of this world plead and rankle at the heart? Oh, none but they
who have known the full blessedness of a commune with Heaven can dream
of the whole anguish and agony of the conscience, when it feels itself
sullied by the mire and crushed by the load of earth!" Aubrey paused,
and his words, his tone, his look, made upon me a powerful impression.
I was about to answer, when, interrupting me, he said, "Let us talk not
of these matters; speak to me on more worldly topics."
"I sought you," said I; "that I might do so," and I proceeded to detail
to Aubrey as much of my private intercourse with the Abbe as I deemed
necessary in order to warn him from too close a confidence in the wily
ecclesiastic. Aubrey listened to me with earnest attention: the affair
of the letter; the gross falsehood of the priest in denying the mention
of my name, in his epistle, evidently dismayed him. "But," said he,
after a long silence,--"but it is not for us, Morton,--weak, ignorant,
inexperienced as we are,--to judge prematurely of our spiritual pastors.
To them also is given a far greater license of conduct than to us, and
ways enveloped in what to our eyes are mystery and shade; nay, I know
not whether it be much less impious to question the paths of God's
chosen than to scrutinize those of the Deity Himself."
"Aubrey, Aubrey, this is childish!" said I, somewhat moved to anger.
"Mystery is always the trick of imposture: God's chosen should be
distinguished from their flock only by superior virtue, and not by a
superior privilege in deceit."
"But," said Aubrey, pointing to a passage in the book before him, "see
what a preacher of the word has said!" and Aubrey recited one of the
most dangerous maxims in priestcraft, as reverently as if he were
quoting from the Scripture itself. "'The nakedness of truth should
never be too openly exposed to the eyes of the vulgar. It was wisely
feigned by the ancients that Truth did lie concealed in a well!'"
"Yes," said I, with enthusiasm, "but that well is like the holy stream
at Dodona, which has the gift of enlightening those who seek it, and the
power of illumining every torch which touches the surface of its water!"
Whatever answer Aubrey might have made was interrupted by my uncle, who
appeared approaching towards us with unusual satisfaction depicted on
his comely countenance.
"Well, boys, well," said he, when he came within hearing, "a holyday for
you! Ods fish,--and a holier day than my old house has known since its
former proprietor, Sir Hugo, of valorous memory, demolished the nunnery,
of which some remains yet stand on yonder eminence. Morton, my man of
might, the thing is done; the court is purified; the wicked one is
departed. Look here, and be as happy as I am at our release;" and he
threw me a note in Montreuil's writing:--
TO SIR WILLIAM DEVEREUX, KT.
MY HONOURED FRIEND,--In consequence of a dispute between your eldest
nephew, Count Morton Devereux, and myself, in which he desired me to
remember, not only that our former relationship of tutor and pupil was
at an end, but that friendship for his person was incompatible with the
respect due to his superior station, I can neither so far degrade the
dignity of letters, nor, above all, so meanly debase the sanctity of my
divine profession, as any longer to remain beneath your hospitable
roof,--a guest not only unwelcome to, but insulted by, your relation and
apparent heir. Suffer me to offer you my gratitude for the favours you
have hitherto bestowed on me, and to bid you farewell forever.
I have the honour to be,
With the most profound respect, etc.,
JULIAN MONTREUIL.
"Well, sir, what say you?" cried my uncle, stamping his cane firmly on
the ground, when I had finished reading the letter, and had transmitted
it to Aubrey.
"That the good Abbe has displayed his usual skill in composition. And
my mother? Is she imbued with our opinion of his priestship?"
"Not exactly, I fear. However, Heaven bless her, she is too soft to say
'nay.' But those Jesuits are so smooth-tongued to women. 'Gad, they
threaten damnation with such an irresistible air, that they are as much
like William the Conqueror as Edward the Confessor. Ha! master Aubrey,
have you become amorous of the old Jacobite, that you sigh over his
crabbed writing, as if it were a /billet-doux/?"
"There seems a great deal of feeling in what he says, Sir," said Aubrey,
returning the letter to my uncle.
"Feeling!" cried the knight; "ay, the reverend gentry always have a
marvellously tender feeling for their own interest,--eh, Morton?"
"Right, dear sir," said I, wishing to change a subject which I knew
might hurt Aubrey; "but should we not join yon party of dames and
damsels? I see they are about to make a water excursion."
"'Sdeath, sir, with all my heart," cried the good-natured knight; "I
love to see the dear creatures amuse themselves; for, to tell you the
truth, Morton," said he, sinking his voice into a knowing whisper, "the
best thing to keep them from playing the devil is to encourage them in
playing the fool!" and, laughing heartily at the jest he had purloined
from one of his favourite writers, Sir William led the way to the
water-party.
CHAPTER XIV.
BEING A CHAPTER OF TRIFLES.
THE Abby disappeared! It is astonishing how well everybody bore his
departure. My mother scarcely spoke on the subject; but along the
irrefragable smoothness of her temperament all things glided without
resistance to their course, or trace where they had been. Gerald, who,
occupied solely in rural sports or rustic loves, seldom mingled in the
festivities of the house, was equally silent on the subject. Aubrey
looked grieved for a day or two: but his countenance soon settled into
its customary and grave softness; and, in less than a week, so little
was the Abbe spoken of or missed that you would scarcely have imagined
Julian Montreuil had ever passed the threshold of our gate. The
oblivion of one buried is nothing to the oblivion of one disgraced.
Meanwhile I pressed for my departure; and, at length, the day was
finally fixed. Ever since that conversation with Lady Hasselton which
has been set before the reader, that lady had lingered and
lingered--though the house was growing empty, and London, in all
seasons, was, according to her, better than the country in any--until
the Count Devereux, with that amiable modesty which so especially
characterized him, began to suspect that the Lady Hasselton lingered on
his account. This emboldened that bashful personage to press in earnest
for the fourth seat in the beauty's carriage, which we have seen in the
conversation before mentioned had been previously offered to him in
jest. After a great affectation of horror at the proposal, the Lady
Hasselton yielded. She had always, she said, been dotingly fond of
children, and it was certainly very shocking to send such a chit as the
little Count to London by himself.
My uncle was charmed with the arrangement. The beauty was a peculiar
favourite of his, and, in fact, he was sometimes pleased to hint that he
had private reasons for love towards her mother's daughter. Of the
truth of this insinuation I am, however, more than somewhat suspicious,
and believe it was only a little ruse of the good knight, in order to
excuse the vent of those kindly affections with which (while the
heartless tone of the company his youth had frequented made him ashamed
to own it) his breast overflowed. There was in Lady Hasselton's
familiarity--her ease of manner--a certain good-nature mingled with her
affectation, and a gayety of spirit, which never flagged,--something
greatly calculated to win favour with a man of my uncle's temper.
An old gentleman who filled in her family the office of "the
/chevalier/" in a French one; namely, who told stories; not too long,
and did not challenge you for interrupting them; who had a good air, and
unexceptionable pedigree,--a turn for wit, literature, note-writing, and
the management of lap-dogs; who could attend /Madame/ to auctions,
plays, courts, and the puppet-show; who had a right to the best company,
but would, on a signal, give up his seat to any one the pretty
/capricieuse/ whom he served might select from the worst,--in short a
very useful, charming personage, "vastly" liked by all, and
"prodigiously" respected by none,--this gentleman, I say, by name Mr.
Lovell, had attended her ladyship in her excursion to Devereux Court.
Besides him there came also a widow lady, a distant relation, with one
eye and a sharp tongue,--the Lady Needleham, whom the beauty carried
about with her as a sort of /gouvernante/ or duenna. These excellent
persons made my /compagnons de voyage/, and filled the remaining
complements of the coach. To say truth, and to say nothing of my
/tendresse/ for the Lady Hasselton, I was very anxious to escape the
ridicule of crawling up to the town like a green beetle, in my uncle's
verdant chariot, with the four Flanders mares trained not to exceed two
miles an hour. And my Lady Hasselton's /private/ raileries--for she was
really well bred, and made no jest of my uncle's antiquities of taste,
in his presence, at least--had considerably heightened my intuitive
dislike to that mode of transporting myself to the metropolis. The day
before my departure, Gerald, for the first time, spoke of it.
Glancing towards the mirror, which gave in full contrast the magnificent
beauty of his person, and the smaller proportions and plainer features
of my own, he said with a sneer, "Your appearance must create a
wonderful sensation in town."
"No doubt of it," said I, taking his words literally, and arraying my
laced cravat with the air of a /petit-maitre/.
"What a wit the Count has!" whispered the Duchess of Lackland, who had
not yet given up all hope of the elder brother.
"Wit!" said the Lady Hasselton; "poor child, he is a perfect simpleton!"
CHAPTER XV.
THE MOTHER AND SON.--VIRTUE SHOULD BE THE SOVEREIGN OF THE FEELINGS, NOT
THEIR DESTROYER.
I TOOK the first opportunity to escape from the good company who were so
divided in opinion as to my mental accomplishments, and repaired to my
mother; for whom, despite of her evenness of disposition, verging
towards insensibility, I felt a powerful and ineffaceable affection.
Indeed, if purity of life, rectitude of intentions, and fervour of piety
can win love, none ever deserved it more than she. It was a pity that,
with such admirable qualities, she had not more diligently cultivated
her affections. The seed was not wanting; but it had been neglected.
Originally intended for the veil, she had been taught, early in life,
that much feeling was synonymous with much sin; and she had so long and
so carefully repressed in her heart every attempt of the forbidden fruit
to put forth a single blossom, that the soil seemed at last to have
become incapable of bearing it. If, in one corner of this barren but
sacred spot, some green and tender verdure of affection did exist, it
was, with a partial and petty reserve for my twin-brother, kept
exclusive, and consecrated to Aubrey. His congenial habits of pious
silence and rigid devotion; his softness of temper; his utter freedom
from all boyish excesses, joined to his almost angelic beauty,--a
quality which, in no female heart, is ever without its value,--were
exactly calculated to attract her sympathy, and work themselves into her
love. Gerald was also regular in his habits, attentive to devotion, and
had, from an early period, been high in the favour of her spiritual
director. Gerald, too, if he had not the delicate and dream-like beauty
of Aubrey, possessed attractions of a more masculine and decided order;
and for Gerald, therefore, the Countess gave the little of love that she
could spare from Aubrey. To me she manifested the most utter
indifference. My difficult and fastidious temper; my sarcastic turn of
mind; my violent and headstrong passions; my daring, reckless and, when
roused, almost ferocious nature,--all, especially, revolted the even and
polished and quiescent character of my maternal parent. The little
extravagances of my childhood seemed to her pure and inexperienced mind
the crimes of a heart naturally distorted and evil; my jesting vein,
which, though it never, even in the wantonness of youth, attacked the
substances of good, seldom respected its semblances and its forms, she
considered as the effusions of malignity; and even the bursts of love,
kindness, and benevolence, which were by no means unfrequent in my wild
and motley character, were so foreign to her stillness of temperament
that they only revolted her by their violence, instead of affecting her
by their warmth.
Nor did she like me the better for the mutual understanding between my
uncle and myself. On the contrary, shocked by the idle and gay turn of
the knight's conversation, the frivolities of his mind, and his
heretical disregard for the forms of the religious sect which she so
zealously espoused, she was utterly insensible to the points which
redeemed and ennobled his sterling and generous character; utterly
obtuse to his warmth of heart,--his overflowing kindness of
disposition,--his charity,--his high honour,--his justice of principle,
that nothing save benevolence could warp,--and the shrewd, penetrating
sense, which, though often clouded by foibles and humorous eccentricity,
still made the stratum of his intellectual composition. Nevertheless,
despite her prepossessions against us both, there was in her temper
something so gentle, meek, and unupbraiding, that even the sense of
injustice lost its sting, and one could not help loving the softness of
her character, while one was most chilled by its frigidity. Anger,
hope, fear, the faintest breath or sign of passion, never seemed to stir
the breezeless languor of her feelings; and quiet was so inseparable
from her image that I have almost thought, like that people described by
Herodotus, her very sleep could never be disturbed by dreams.
Yes! how fondly, how tenderly I loved her! What tears, secret but deep,
bitter but unreproaching, have I retired to shed, when I caught her cold
and unaffectionate glance! How (unnoticed and uncared for) have I
watched and prayed and wept without her door when a transitory sickness
or suffering detained her within; and how, when stretched myself upon
the feverish bed to which my early weakness of frame often condemned
me,--how have I counted the moments to her punctilious and brief visit,
and started as I caught her footstep, and felt my heart leap within me
as she approached! and then, as I heard her cold tone and looked upon
her unmoved face, how bitterly have I turned away with all that
repressed and crushed affection which was construed into sullenness or
disrespect! O mighty and enduring force of early associations, that
almost seems, in its unconquerable strength, to partake of an innate
prepossession, that binds the son to the mother who concealed him in her
womb and purchased life for him with the travail of death?--fountain of
filial love, which coldness cannot freeze, nor injustice embitter, nor
pride divert into fresh channels, nor time, and the hot suns of our
toiling manhood, exhaust,--even at this moment, how livingly do you gush
upon my heart, and water with your divine waves the memories that yet
flourish amidst the sterility of years?
I approached the apartments appropriated to my mother: I knocked at her
door; one of her women admitted me. The Countess was sitting on a
high-backed chair, curiously adorned with tapestry. Her feet, which
were remarkable for their beauty, were upon a velvet cushion; three
hand-maids stood round her, and she herself was busily employed in a
piece of delicate embroidery, an art in which she eminently excelled.
"The Count, Madam!" said the woman who had admitted me, placing a chair
beside my mother, and then retiring to join her sister maidens.
"Good day to you, my son," said the Countess, lifting her eyes for a
moment, and then dropping them again upon her work.
"I have come to seek you, dearest mother, as I know not, if, among the
crowd of guests and amusements which surround us, I shall enjoy another
opportunity of having a private conversation with you: will it please
you to dismiss your women?"
My mother again lifted up her eyes. "And why, my son? surely there
/can/ be nothing between us which requires their absence; what is your
reason?"
"I leave you to-morrow, Madam: is it strange that a son should wish to
see his mother alone before his departure?"
"By no means, Morton; but your absence will not be very long, will it?"
"Forgive my importunity, dear Mother; but /will/ you dismiss your
attendants?"
"If you wish it, certainly; but I dislike feeling alone, especially in
these large rooms; nor did I think being unattended quite consistent
with our rank: however, I never contradict you, my son," and the
Countess directed her women to wait in the anteroom.
"Well, Morton, what is your wish?"
"Only to bid you farewell, and to ask if London contains nothing which
you will commission me to obtain for you?"
The Countess again raised her eyes from her work. "I am greatly obliged
to you, my dear son; this is a very delicate attention on your part. I
am informed that stomachers are worn a thought less pointed than they
were. I care not, you well know, for such vanities; but respect for the
memory of your illustrious father renders me desirous to retain a seemly
appearance to the world, and my women shall give you written
instructions thereon to Madame Tourville; she lives in St. James's
Street, and is the only person to be employed in these matters. She is
a woman who has known misfortune, and appreciates the sorrowful and
subdued tastes of those whom an exalted station has not preserved from
like afflictions. So you go to-morrow: will you get me the scissors?
They are on the ivory table yonder. When do you return?"
"Perhaps never!" said I, abruptly.
"Never, Morton; how singular--why?"
"I may join the army, and be killed."
"I hope not. Dear, how cold it is: will you shut the window? pray
forgive my troubling you, but you /would/ send away the women. Join the
army, you say? It is a very dangerous profession; your poor father
might be alive now but for having embraced it; nevertheless, in a
righteous cause, under the Lord of Hosts, there is great glory to be
obtained beneath its banners. Alas, however, for its private evils!
alas, for the orphan and the widow! You will be sure, my dear son, to
give the note to Madame Tourville herself? Her assistants have not her
knowledge of my misfortunes, nor indeed of my exact proportions; and at
my age, and in my desolate state, I would fain be decorous in these
things, and that reminds me of dinner. Have you aught else to say,
Morton?"
"Yes!" said I, suppressing my emotions, "yes, Mother! do bestow on me
one warm wish, one kind word, before we part: see,--I kneel for your
blessing,--will you not give it me?"
"Bless you, my child,--bless you! look you now; I have dropped my
needle!"
I rose hastily, bowed profoundly (my mother returned the courtesy with
the grace peculiar to herself), and withdrew. I hurried into the great
drawing-room, found Lady Needleham alone, rushed out in despair,
encountered the Lady Hasselton, and coquetted with her the rest of the
evening. Vain hope! to forget one's real feelings by pretending those
one never felt!
The next morning, then, after suitable adieux to all (Gerald excepted)
whom I left behind; after some tears too from my uncle, which, had it
not been for the presence of the Lady Hasselton, I could have returned
with interest; and after a long caress to his dog Ponto, which now, in
parting with that dear old man, seemed to me as dog never seemed before,
I hurried into the Beauty's carriage, bade farewell forever to the
Rubicon of Life, and commenced my career of manhood and citizenship by
learning, under the tuition of the prettiest coquette of her time, the
dignified duties of a Court Gallant and a Town Beau.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
THE HERO IN LONDON.--PLEASURE IS OFTEN THE SHORTEST, AS IT IS THE
EARLIEST ROAD TO WISDOM, AND WE MAY SAY OF THE WORLD WHAT
ZEAL-OF-THE-LAND-BUSY SAYS OF THE PIG-BOOTH, "WE ESCAPE SO MUCH OF THE
OTHER VANITIES BY OUR EARLY ENTERING."
IT had, when I first went to town, just become the fashion for young men
of fortune to keep house, and to give their bachelor establishments the
importance hitherto reserved for the household of a Benedict.
Let the reader figure to himself a suite of apartments, magnificently
furnished, in the vicinity of the court. An anteroom is crowded with
divers persons, all messengers in the various negotiations of pleasure.
There, a French valet,--that inestimable valet, Jean Desmarais,--sitting
over a small fire, was watching the operations of a coffee-pot, and
conversing, in a mutilated attempt at the language of our nation, though
with the enviable fluency of his own, with the various loiterers who
were beguiling the hours they were obliged to wait for an audience of
the master himself, by laughing at the master's Gallic representative.
There stood a tailor with his books of patterns just imported from
Paris,--that modern Prometheus, who makes a man what he is! Next to him
a tall, gaunt fellow, in a coat covered with tarnished lace, a night-cap
wig, and a large whip in his hands, comes to vouch for the pedigree and
excellence of the three horses he intends to dispose of, out of pure
love and amity for the buyer. By the window stood a thin starveling
poet, who, like the grammarian of Cos, might have put lead in his
pockets to prevent being blown away, had he not, with a more paternal
precaution, put so much in his works that he had left none to spare.
Excellent trick of the times, when ten guineas can purchase every virtue
under the sun, and when an author thinks to vindicate the sins of his
book by proving the admirable qualities of the paragon to whom it is
dedicated.* There with an air of supercilious contempt upon his smooth
cheeks, a page, in purple and silver, sat upon the table, swinging his
legs to and fro, and big with all the reflected importance of a
/billet-doux/. There stood the pert haberdasher, with his box of
silver-fringed gloves, and lace which Diana might have worn. At that
time there was indeed no enemy to female chastity like the former
article of man-millinery: the delicate whiteness of the glove, the
starry splendour of the fringe, were irresistible, and the fair Adorna,
in poor Lee's tragedy of "Caesar Borgia," is far from the only lady who
has been killed by a pair of gloves.
* Thank Heaven, for the honour of literature, /nous avons change tout
cela!--ED.
Next to the haberdasher, dingy and dull of aspect, a book-hunter bent
beneath the load of old works gathered from stall and shed, and about to
be re-sold according to the price exacted from all literary gallants who
affect to unite the fine gentleman with the profound scholar. A little
girl, whose brazen face and voluble tongue betrayed the growth of her
intellectual faculties, leaned against the wainscot, and repeated, in
the anteroom, the tart repartees which her mistress (the most celebrated
actress of the day) uttered on the stage; while a stout, sturdy,
bull-headed gentleman, in a gray surtout and a black wig, mingled with
the various voices of the motley group the gentle phrases of
Hockley-in-the-Hole, from which place of polite merriment he came
charged with a message of invitation. While such were the inmates of
the anteroom, what picture shall we draw of the /salon/ and its
occupant?
A table was covered with books, a couple of fencing foils, a woman's
mask, and a profusion of letters; a scarlet cloak, richly laced, hung
over, trailing on the ground. Upon a slab of marble lay a hat, looped
with diamonds, a sword, and a lady's lute. Extended upon a sofa,
loosely robed in a dressing-gown of black velvet, his shirt collar
unbuttoned, his stockings ungartered, his own hair (undressed and
released for a brief interval from the false locks universally worn)
waving from his forehead in short yet dishevelled curls, his whole
appearance stamped with the morning negligence which usually follows
midnight dissipation, lay a young man of about nineteen years. His
features were neither handsome nor ill-favoured, and his stature was
small, slight, and somewhat insignificant, but not, perhaps, ill-formed
either for active enterprise or for muscular effort. Such, reader, is
the picture of the young prodigal who occupied the apartments I have
described, and such (though somewhat flattered by partiality) is a
portrait of Morton Devereux, six months after his arrival in town.
The door was suddenly thrown open with that unhesitating rudeness by
which our friends think it necessary to signify the extent of their
familiarity; and a young man of about eight-and-twenty, richly dressed,
and of a countenance in which a dissipated /nonchalance/ and an
aristocratic /hauteur/ seemed to struggle for mastery, abruptly entered.
"What! ho, my noble royster," cried he, flinging himself upon a chair,
"still suffering from St. John's Burgundy! Fie, fie, upon your
apprenticeship!--why, before I had served half your time, I could take
my three bottles as easily as the sea took the good ship 'Revolution,'
swallow them down with a gulp, and never show the least sign of them the
next morning!"
"I really believe you, most magnanimous Tarleton. Providence gives to
each of its creatures different favours,--to one wit, to the other a
capacity for drinking. A thousand pities that they are never united!"
"So bitter, Count!--ah, what will ever cure you of sarcasm?"
"A wise man by conversation, or fools by satiety."
"Well, I dare say that is witty enough, but I never admire fine things
of a morning. I like letting my faculties live till night in a
deshabille; let us talk easily and sillily of the affairs of the day.
/Imprimis/, will you stroll to the New Exchange? There is a black eye
there that measures out ribbons, and my green ones long to flirt with
it."
"With all my heart--and in return you shall accompany me to Master
Powell's puppet-show."
"You speak as wisely as Solomon himself in the puppet-show. I own that
I love that sight: 'tis a pleasure to the littleness of human nature to
see great things abased by mimicry; kings moved by bobbins, and the
pomps of the earth personated by Punch."
"But how do you like sharing the mirth of the groundlings, the filthy
plebeians, and letting them see how petty are those distinctions which
you value so highly, by showing them how heartily you can laugh at such
distinctions yourself? Allow, my superb Coriolanus, that one purchases
pride by the loss of consistency."
"Ah, Devereux, you poison my enjoyment by the mere word 'plebeian'! Oh,
what a beastly thing is a common person!--a shape of the trodden clay
without any alloy; a compound of dirty clothes, bacon breaths, villanous
smells, beggarly cowardice, and cattish ferocity. Pah, Devereux! rub
civet on the very thought!"
"Yet they will laugh to-day at the same things you will, and
consequently there would be a most flattering congeniality between you.
Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow; whether raised at a
puppet-show, a funeral, or a battle,--is your grandest of levellers.
The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic."
"Oracular, as usual, Count,--but, hark, the clock gives tongue. One, by
the Lord!--will you not dress?"
And I rose and dressed. We passed through the anteroom; my attendant
assistants in the art of wasting money drew up in a row.
"Pardon me, gentlemen," said I ("gentlemen, indeed!" cried Tarleton),
"for keeping you so long. Mr. Snivelship, your waistcoats are
exquisite: favour me by conversing with my valet on the width of the
lace for my liveries; he has my instructions. Mr. Jockelton, your
horses shall be tried to-morrow at one. Ay, Mr. Rymer, I beg you a
thousand pardons; I beseech you to forgive the ignorance of my rascals
in suffering a gentleman of your merit to remain for a moment unattended
to. I have read your ode; it is splendid,--the ease of Horace with the
fire of Pindar; your Pegasus never touches the earth, and yet in his
wildest excesses you curb him with equal grace and facility: I object,
sir, only to your dedication; it is too flattering."
"By no means, my Lord Count, it fits you to a hair."
"Pardon me," interrupted I, "and allow me to transfer the honour to Lord
Halifax; he loves men of merit; he loves also their dedications. I will
mention it to him to-morrow: everything you say of me will suit him
exactly. You will oblige me with a copy of your poem directly it is
printed, and suffer me to pay your bookseller for it now, and through
your friendly mediation; adieu!"
"Oh, Count, this is too generous."
"A letter for me, my pretty page? Ah! tell her ladyship I shall wait
upon her commands at Powell's: time will move with a tortoise speed till
I kiss her hands. Mr. Fribbleden, your gloves would fit the giants at
Guildhall: my valet will furnish you with my exact size; you will see to
the legitimate breadth of the fringe. My little beauty, you are from
Mrs. Bracegirdle: the play /shall/ succeed; I have taken seven boxes;
Mr. St. John promised his influence. Say, therefore, my Hebe, that the
thing is certain, and let me kiss thee: thou hast dew on thy lip
already. Mr. Thumpen, you are a fine fellow, and deserve to be
encouraged; I will see that the next time your head is broken it shall
be broken fairly: but I will not patronize the bear; consider that
peremptory. What, Mr. Bookworm, again! I hope you have succeeded
better this time: the old songs had an autumn fit upon them, and had
lost the best part of their /leaves/; and Plato had mortgaged one half
his "Republic," to pay, I suppose, the exorbitant sum you thought proper
to set upon the other. As for Diogenes Laertius, and his
philosophers--"
"Pish!" interrupted Tarleton; "are you going, by your theoretical
treatises on philosophy, to make me learn the practical part of it, and
prate upon learning while I am supporting myself with patience?"
"Pardon me! Mr. Bookworm; you will deposit your load, and visit me
to-morrow at an earlier hour. And now, Tarleton, I am at your service."
CHAPTER II.
GAY SCENES AND CONVERSATIONS.--THE NEW EXCHANGE AND THE
PUPPET-SHOW.--THE ACTOR, THE SEXTON, AND THE BEAUTY.
"WELL, Tarleton," said I, looking round that mart of millinery and
love-making, which, so celebrated in the reign of Charles II., still
preserved the shadow of its old renown in that of Anne,--"well, here we
are upon the classical ground so often commemorated in the comedies
which our chaste grandmothers thronged to see. Here we can make
appointments, while we profess to buy gloves, and should our mistress
tarry too long, beguile our impatience by a flirtation with her
milliner. Is there not a breathing air of gayety about the place?--does
it not still smack of the Ethereges and Sedleys?"
"Right," said Tarleton, leaning over a counter and amorously eying the
pretty coquette to whom it belonged; while, with the coxcombry then in
fashion, he sprinkled the long curls that touched his shoulders with a
fragrant shower from a bottle of jessamine water upon the
counter,--"right; saw you ever such an eye? Have you snuff of the true
scent, my beauty--foh! this is for the nostril of a Welsh
parson--choleric and hot, my beauty,--pulverized horse-radish,--why, it
would make a nose of the coldest constitution imaginable sneeze like a
washed school-boy on a Saturday night.--Ah, this is better, my princess:
there is some courtesy in this snuff; it flatters the brain like a
poet's dedication. Right, Devereux, right, there is something
infectious in the atmosphere; one catches good humour as easily as if it
were cold. Shall we stroll on?--/my/ Clelia is on the other side of the
Exchange.--You were speaking of the play-writers: what a pity that our
Ethereges and Wycherleys should be so frank in their gallantry that the
prudish public already begins to look shy on them. They have a world of
wit!"
"Ay," said I; "and, as my good uncle would say, a world of knowledge of
human nature, namely, of the worst part of it. But they are worse than
merely licentious: they are positively villanous; pregnant with the most
redemptionless /scoundrelism/,--cheating, lying, thieving, and fraud;
their humour debauches the whole moral system; they are like the
Sardinian herb,--they make you laugh, it is true, but they poison you in
the act. But who comes here?"
"Oh, honest Coll!--Ah, Cibber, how goes it with you?"
The person thus addressed was a man of about the middle age, very
grotesquely attired, and with a periwig preposterously long. His
countenance (which, in its features, was rather comely) was stamped with
an odd mixture of liveliness, impudence, and a coarse yet not unjoyous
spirit of reckless debauchery. He approached us with a saunter, and
saluted Tarleton with an air servile enough, in spite of an affected
familiarity.
"What think you," resumed my companion, "we were conversing upon?"
"Why, indeed, Mr. Tarleton," answered Cibber, bowing very low, "unless
it were the exquisite fashion of your waistcoat, or your success with my
Lady Duchess, I know not what to guess."
"Pooh, man," said Tarleton, haughtily, "none of your compliments;" and
then added in a milder tone, "No, Colley, we were abusing the
immoralities that existed on the stage until thou, by the light of thy
virtuous example, didst undertake to reform it."
"Why," rejoined Cibber, with an air of mock sanctity, "Heaven be
praised, I have pulled out some of the weeds from our theatrical
/parterre/--"
"Hear you that, Count? Does he not look a pretty fellow for a censor?"
"Surely," said Cibber, "ever since Dicky Steele has set up for a saint,
and assumed the methodistical twang, some hopes of conversion may be
left even for such reprobates as myself. Where, may I ask, will Mr.
Tarleton drink to-night?"
"Not with thee, Coll. The Saturnalia don't happen every day. Rid us
now of thy company: but stop, I will do thee a pleasure; know you this
gentleman?"
"I have not that extreme honour."
"Know a Count, then! Count Devereux, demean yourself by sometimes
acknowledging Colley Cibber, a rare fellow at a song, a bottle, and a
message to an actress; a lively rascal enough, but without the goodness
to be loved, or the independence to be respected."
"Mr. Cibber," said I, rather hurt at Tarleton's speech, though the
object of it seemed to hear this description with the most unruffled
composure--"Mr. Cibber, I am happy and proud of an introduction to the
author of the 'Careless Husband.' Here is my address; oblige me with a
visit at your leisure."
"How could you be so galling to the poor devil?" said I, when Cibber,
with a profusion of bows and compliments, had left us to ourselves.
"Ah, hang him,--a low fellow, who pins all his happiness to the skirts
of the quality, is proud of being despised, and that which would
excruciate the vanity of others only flatters his. And now for my
Clelia."
After my companion had amused himself with a brief flirtation with a
young lady who affected a most edifying demureness, we left the
Exchange, and repaired to the puppet-show.
On entering the Piazza, in which, as I am writing for the next century,
it may be necessary to say that Punch held his court, we saw a tall,
thin fellow, loitering under the columns, and exhibiting a countenance
of the most ludicrous discontent. There was an insolent arrogance about
Tarleton's good-nature, which always led him to consult the whim of the
moment at the expense of every other consideration, especially if the
whim referred to a member of the /canaille/ whom my aristocratic friend
esteemed as a base part of the exclusive and despotic property of
gentlemen.
"Egad, Devereux," said he, "do you see that fellow? he has the audacity
to affect spleen. Faith, I thought melancholy was the distinguishing
patent of nobility: we will smoke him." And advancing towards the man
of gloom, Tarleton touched him with the end of his cane. The man
started and turned round. "Pray, sirrah," said Tarleton, coldly, "pray
who the devil are you that you presume to look discontented?"
"Why, Sir," said the man, good-humouredly enough, "I have some right to
be angry."
"I doubt it, my friend," said Tarleton. "What is your complaint? a rise
in the price of tripe, or a drinking wife? Those, I take it, are the
sole misfortunes incidental to your condition."
"If that be the case," said I, observing a cloud on our new friend's
brow, "shall we heal thy sufferings? Tell us thy complaints, and we
will prescribe thee a silver specific; there is a sample of our skill."
"Thank you humbly, gentlemen," said the man, pocketing the money, and
clearing his countenance; "and seriously, mine is an uncommonly hard
case. I was, till within the last few weeks, the under-sexton of St.
Paul's, Covent Garden, and my duty was that of ringing the bells for
daily prayers but a man of Belial came hitherwards, set up a
puppet-show, and, timing the hours of his exhibition with a wicked
sagacity, made the bell I rang for church serve as a summons to
Punch,--so, gentlemen, that whenever your humble servant began to pull
for the Lord, his perverted congregation began to flock to the devil;
and, instead of being an instrument for saving souls, I was made the
innocent means of destroying them. Oh, gentlemen, it was a shocking
thing to tug away at the rope till the sweat ran down one, for four
shillings a week; and to see all the time that one was thinning one's
own congregation and emptying one's own pockets!"
"It was indeed a lamentable dilemma; and what did you, Mr. Sexton?"
"Do, Sir? why, I could not stifle my conscience, and I left my place.
Ever since then, Sir, I have stationed myself in the Piazza, to warn my
poor, deluded fellow-creatures of their error, and to assure them that
when the bell of St. Paul's rings, it rings for prayers, and not for
puppet-shows, and--Lord help us, there it goes at this very moment; and
look, look, gentlemen, how the wigs and hoods are crowding to the
motion* instead of the minister."
* An antiquated word in use for puppet-shows.
"Ha! ha! ha!" cried Tarleton, "Mr. Powell is not the first man who has
wrested things holy to serve a carnal purpose, and made use of church
bells in order to ring money to the wide pouch of the church's enemies.
Hark ye, my friend, follow my advice, and turn preacher yourself; mount
a cart opposite to the motion, and I'll wager a trifle that the crowd
forsake the theatrical mountebank in favour of the religious one; for
the more sacred the thing played upon, the more certain is the game."
"Body of me, gentlemen," cried the ex-sexton, "I'll follow your advice."
"Do so, man, and never presume to look doleful again; leave dulness to
your superiors."*
* See "Spectator," No. 14, for a letter from this unfortunate
under-sexton.
And with this advice, and an additional compensation for his confidence,
we left the innocent assistant of Mr. Powell, and marched into the
puppet-show, by the sound of the very bells the perversion of which the
good sexton had so pathetically lamented.
The first person I saw at the show, and indeed the express person I came
to see, was the Lady Hasselton. Tarleton and myself separated for the
present, and I repaired to the coquette. "Angels of grace!" said I,
approaching; "and, by the by, before I proceed another word, observe,
Lady Hasselton, how appropriate the exclamation is to /you/! Angels of
/grace/! why, you have moved all your patches--one--two--three--six--
eight--as I am a gentleman, from the left side of your cheek to the
right! What is the reason of so sudden an emigration?"
"I have changed my politics, Count,* that is all, and have resolved to
lose no time in proclaiming the change. But is it true that you are
going to be married?"
* Whig ladies patched on one side of the cheek, Tories on the other.
"Married! Heaven forbid! which of my enemies spread so cruel a report?"
"Oh, the report is universal!" and the Lady Hasselton flirted her fan
with the most flattering violence.
"It is false, nevertheless; I cannot afford to buy a wife at present,
for, thanks to jointures and pin-money, these things are all matters of
commerce; and (see how closely civilized life resembles the savage!) the
English, like the Tartar gentleman, obtains his wife only by purchase!
But who is the bride?"
"The Duke of Newcastle's rich daughter, Lady Henrietta Pelham."
"What, Harley's object of ambition!* Faith, Madam, the report is not so
cruel as I thought for!"
* Lord Bolingbroke tells us that it was the main end of Harley's
administration to marry his son to this lady. Thus is the fate of
nations a bundle made up of a thousand little private schemes.
"Oh, you fop!--but is it not true?"
"By my honour, I fear not; my rivals are too numerous and too powerful.
Look now, yonder! how they already flock around the illustrious
heiress; note those smiles and simpers. Is it not pretty to see those
very fine gentlemen imitating bumpkins at a fair, and grinning their
best /for a gold ring/! But you need not fear me, Lady Hasselton, my
love cannot wander if it would. In the quaint thought of Sidney,* love
having once flown to my heart, burned its wings there, and cannot fly
away."
* In the "Arcadia," that museum of oddities and beauties.
"La, you now!" said the Beauty; "I do not comprehend you exactly: your
master of the graces does not teach you your compliments properly."
"Yes, he does, but in your presence I forget them; and now," I added,
lowering my voice into the lowest of whispers, "now that you are assured
of my fidelity, will you not learn at last to discredit rumours and
trust to me?"
"I love you too well!" answered the Lady Hasselton in the same tone, and
that answer gives an admirable idea of the affection of every coquette!
love and confidence with them are qualities that have a natural
antipathy, and can never be united. Our /tete-a-tete/ was at an end;
the people round us became social, and conversation general.
"Betterton acts to-morrow night," cried the Lady Pratterly: "we must
go!"
"We must go," cried the Lady Hasselton.
"We must go!" cried all.
And so passed the time till the puppet-show was over, and my attendance
dispensed with.
It is a charming thing to be the lover of a lady of the mode! One so
honoured does with his hours as a miser with his guineas; namely,
nothing but count them!
CHAPTER III.
MORE LIONS.
THE next night, after the theatre, Tarleton and I strolled into Wills's.
Half-a-dozen wits were assembled. Heavens! how they talked! actors,
actresses, poets, statesmen, philosophers, critics, divines, were all
pulled to pieces with the most gratifying malice imaginable. We sat
ourselves down, and while Tarleton amused himself with a dish of coffee
and the "Flying Post," I listened very attentively to the conversation.
Certainly if we would take every opportunity of getting a grain or two
of knowledge, we should soon have a chest-full; a man earned an
excellent subsistence by asking every one who came out of a
tobacconist's shop for a pinch of snuff, and retailing the mixture as
soon as he had filled his box.*
* "Tatler."
While I was listening to a tall lusty gentleman, who was abusing Dogget,
the actor, a well-dressed man entered, and immediately attracted the
general observation. He was of a very flat, ill-favoured countenance,
but of a quick eye, and a genteel air; there was, however, something
constrained and artificial in his address, and he appeared to be
endeavouring to clothe a natural good-humour with a certain primness
which could never be made to fit it.
"Ha, Steele!" cried a gentleman in an orange-coloured coat, who seemed
by a fashionable swagger of importance desirous of giving the tone to
the company,--"Ha, Steele, whence come you? from the chapel or the
tavern?" and the speaker winked round the room as if he wished us to
participate in the pleasure of a good thing.
Mr. Steele drew up, seemingly a little affronted; but his good-nature
conquering the affectation of personal sanctity, which, at the time I
refer to, that excellent writer was pleased to assume, he contented
himself with nodding to the speaker, and saying,--
"All the world knows, Colonel Cleland, that you are a wit, and therefore
we take your fine sayings as we take change from an honest
tradesman,--rest perfectly satisfied with the coin we get, without
paying any attention to it."
"Zounds, Cleland, you got the worst of it there," cried a gentleman in a
flaxen wig. And Steele slid into a seat near my own.
Tarleton, who was sufficiently well educated to pretend to the character
of a man of letters, hereupon thought it necessary to lay aside the
"Flying Post," and to introduce me to my literary neighbour.
"Pray," said Colonel Cleland, taking snuff and swinging himself to and
fro with an air of fashionable grace, "has any one seen the new paper?"
"What!" cried the gentleman in the flaxen wig, "what! the 'Tatler's'
successor,--the 'Spectator'?"
"The same," quoth the colonel.
"To be sure; who has not?" returned he of the flaxen ornament. "People
say Congreve writes it."
"They are very much mistaken, then," cried a little square man with
spectacles; "to my certain knowledge Swift is the author."
"Pooh!" said Cleland, imperiously, "pooh! it is neither the one nor the
other; I, gentlemen, am in the secret--but--you take me, eh? One must
not speak well of one's self; mum is the word."
"Then," asked Steele, quietly, "we are to suppose that you, Colonel, are
the writer?"
"I never said so, Dicky; but the women will have it that I am," and the
colonel smoothed down his cravat.
"Pray, Mr. Addison, what say you?" cried the gentleman in the flaxen
wig; "are you for Congreve, Swift, or Colonel Cleland?" This was
addressed to a gentleman of a grave but rather prepossessing mien; who,
with eyes fixed upon the ground, was very quietly and to all appearance
very inattentively solacing himself with a pipe; without lifting his
eyes, this personage, then eminent, afterwards rendered immortal,
replied,
"Colonel Cleland must produce other witnesses to prove his claim to the
authorship of the 'Spectator:' the women, we well know, are prejudiced
in his favour."
"That's true enough, old friend," cried the colonel, looking askant at
his orange-coloured coat; "but faith, Addison, I wish you would set up a
paper of the same sort, d'ye see; you're a nice judge of merit, and your
sketches of character would do justice to your friends."
"If ever I do, Colonel, I, or my coadjutors, will study at least to do
justice to you."*
* This seems to corroborate the suspicion entertained of the identity of
Colonel Cleland with the Will Honeycomb of the "Spectator."
"Prithee, Steele," cried the stranger in spectacles, "prithee, tell us
thy thoughts on the subject: dost thou know the author of this droll
periodical?"
"I saw him this morning," replied Steele, carelessly.
"Aha! and what said you to him?"
"I asked him his name."
"And what did he answer?" cried he of the flaxen wig, while all of us
crowded round the speaker, with the curiosity every one felt in the
authorship of a work then exciting the most universal and eager
interest.
"He answered me solemnly," said Steele, "in the following words,--
"'Graeci carent ablativo, Itali dativo, ego nominativo.'"*
* "The Greek wants an ablative, the Italians a dative, I a nominative."
"Famous--capital!" cried the gentleman in spectacles; and then, touching
Colonel Cleland, added, "what does it exactly mean?"
"Ignoramus!" said Cleland, disdainfully, "every /schoolboy knows
Virgil/!"
"Devereux," said Tarleton, yawning, "what a d----d delightful thing it
is to hear so much wit: pity that the atmosphere is so fine that no
lungs unaccustomed to it can endure it long, Let us recover ourselves by
a walk."
"Willingly," said I; and we sauntered forth into the streets.
"Wills's is not what it was," said Tarleton; "'tis a pitiful ghost of
its former self, and if they had not introduced cards, one would die of
the vapours there."
"I know nothing so insipid," said I, "as that mock literary air which it
is so much the fashion to assume. 'Tis but a wearisome relief to
conversation to have interludes of songs about Strephon and Sylvia,
recited with a lisp by a gentleman with fringed gloves and a languishing
look."
"Fie on it," cried Tarleton, "let us seek for a fresher topic. Are you
asked to Abigail Masham's to-night, or will you come to Dame de la
Riviere Manley's?"
"Dame de la what?--in the name of long words who is she?"
"Oh! Learning made libidinous: one who reads Catullus and profits by
it."
"Bah, no, we will not leave the gentle Abigail for her. I have promised
to meet St. John, too, at the Mashams'."
"As you like. We shall get some wine at Abigail's, which we should
never do at the house of her cousin of Marlborough."
And, comforting himself with this belief, Tarleton peaceably accompanied
me to that celebrated woman, who did the Tories such notable service, at
the expense of being termed by the Whigs one great want divided into two
parts; namely, a great want of every shilling belonging to other people,
and a great want of every virtue that should have belonged to herself.
As we mounted the staircase, a door to the left (a private apartment)
was opened, and I saw the favourite dismiss, with the most flattering
air of respect, my old preceptor, the Abbe Montreuil. He received her
attentions as his due, and, descending the stairs, came full upon me.
He drew back, changed neither hue nor muscle, bowed civilly enough, and
disappeared. I had not much opportunity to muse over this circumstance,
for St. John and Mr. Domville--excellent companions both--joined us; and
the party being small, we had the unwonted felicity of talking, as well
as bowing, to each other. It was impossible to think of any one else
when St. John chose to exert himself; and so even the Abbe Montreuil
glided out of my brain as St. John's wit glided into it. We were all of
the same way of thinking on politics, and therefore were witty without
being quarrelsome,--a rare thing. The trusty Abigail told us stories of
the good Queen, and we added /bons mots/ by way of corollary. Wine,
too, wine that even Tarleton approved, lit up our intellects, and we
spent altogether an evening such as gentlemen and Tories very seldom
have the sense to enjoy.
O Apollo! I wonder whether Tories of the next century will be such
clever, charming, well-informed fellows as we were!
CHAPTER IV.
AN INTELLECTUAL ADVENTURE.
A LITTLE affected by the vinous potations which had been so much an
object of anticipation with my companion, Tarleton and I were strolling
homeward when we perceived a remarkably tall man engaged in a contest
with a couple of watchmen. Watchmen were in all cases the especial and
natural enemies of the gallants in my young days; and no sooner did we
see the unequal contest than, drawing our swords with that true English
valour which makes all the quarrels of other people its own, we hastened
to the relief of the weaker party.
"Gentlemen," said the elder watchman, drawing back, "this is no common
brawl; we have been shamefully beaten by this here madman, and for no
earthly cause."
"Who ever did beat a watchman for any earthly cause, you rascal?" cried
the accused party, swinging his walking cane over the complainant's head
with a menacing air.
"Very true," cried Tarleton, coolly. "Seigneurs of the watch, you are
both made and paid to be beaten; /ergo/--you have no right to complain.
Release this worthy cavalier, and depart elsewhere to make night hideous
with your voices."
"Come, come," quoth the younger Dogberry, who perceived a reinforcement
approaching, "move on, good people, and let us do our duty."
"Which," interrupted the elder watchman, "consists in taking this
hulking swaggerer to the watchhouse."
"Thou speakest wisely, man of peace," said Tarleton; "defend thyself;"
and without adding another word he ran the watchman through--not the
body but the coat; avoiding with great dexterity the corporeal substance
of the attacked party, and yet approaching it so closely as to give the
guardian of the streets very reasonable ground for apprehension. No
sooner did the watchman find the hilt strike against his breast, than he
uttered a dismal cry and fell upon the pavement as if he had been shot.
"Now for thee, varlet," cried Tarleton, brandishing his rapier before
the eyes of the other watchman, "tremble at the sword of Gideon."
"O Lord, O Lord!" ejaculated the terrified comrade of the fallen man,
dropping on his knees, "for Heaven's sake, sir, have a care."
"What argument canst thou allege, thou screech-owl of the metropolis,
that thou shouldst not share the same fate as thy brother owl?"
"Oh, sir!" cried the craven night-bird (a bit of a humourist in its
way), "because I have a nest and seven little owlets at home, and t'
other owl is only a bachelor."
"Thou art an impudent thing to jest at us," said Tarleton; "but thy wit
has saved thee; rise."
At this moment two other watchmen came up.
"Gentlemen," said the tall stranger whom we had rescued, "we had better
fly."
Tarleton cast at him a contemptuous look, and placed himself in a
posture of offence.
"Hark ye," said I, "let us effect an honourable peace. Messieurs the
watch, be it lawful for you to carry off the slain, and for us to claim
the prisoners."
But our new foes understood not a jest, and advanced upon us with a
ferocity which might really have terminated in a serious engagement, had
not the tall stranger thrust his bulky form in front of the approaching
battalion, and cried out with a loud voice, "Zounds, my good fellows,
what's all this for? If you take us up you will get broken heads
to-night, and a few shillings perhaps to-morrow. If you leave us alone,
you will have whole heads, and a guinea between you. Now, what say
you?"
Well spoke Phaedra against the dangers of eloquence. The watchmen
looked at each other. "Why really, sir," said one, "what you say alters
the case very much; and if Dick here is not much hurt, I don't know what
we may say to the offer."
So saying, they raised the fallen watchman, who, after three or four
grunts, began slowly to recover himself.
"Are you dead, Dick?" said the owl with seven owlets.
"I think I am," answered the other, groaning.
"Are you able to drink a pot of ale, Dick?" cried the tall stranger.
"I think I am," reiterated the dead man, very lack-a-daisically. And
this answer satisfying his comrades, the articles of peace were
subscribed to.
Now, then, the tall stranger began searching his pockets with a most
consequential air.
"Gad, so!" said he at last; "not in my breeches pocket!--well, it must
be in my waistcoat. No. Well, 'tis a strange thing--demme it is!
Gentlemen, I have had the misfortune to leave my purse behind me: add to
your other favours by lending me wherewithal to satisfy these honest
men."
And Tarleton lent him the guinea. The watchmen now retired, and we were
left alone with our portly ally.
Placing his hand to his heart he made us half-a-dozen profound bows,
returned us thanks for our assistance in some very courtly phrases, and
requested us to allow him to make our acquaintance. We exchanged cards
and departed on our several ways.
"I have met that gentleman before," said Tarleton. "Let us see what
name he pretends to. 'Fielding--Fielding;' ah, by the Lord, it is no
less a person! It is the great Fielding himself."
"Is Mr. Fielding, then, as elevated in fame as in stature?"
"What, is it possible that you have not yet heard of Beau Fielding, who
bared his bosom at the theatre in order to attract the admiring
compassion of the female part of the audience?"
"What!" I cried, "the Duchess of Cleveland's Fielding?"
"The same; the best-looking fellow of his day! A sketch of his history
is in the 'Tatler,' under the name of 'Orlando the Fair.' He is
terribly fallen as to fortune since the day when he drove about in a car
like a sea-shell, with a dozen tall fellows, in the Austrian livery,
black and yellow, running before and behind him. You know he claims
relationship to the house of Hapsburg. As for the present, he writes
poems, makes love, is still good-natured, humorous, and odd; is rather
unhappily addicted to wine and borrowing, and rigidly keeps that oath of
the Carthusians which never suffers them to carry any money about them."
"An acquaintance more likely to yield amusement than profit."
"Exactly so. He will favour you with a visit--to-morrow, perhaps, and
you will remember his propensities."
"Ah! who ever forgets a warning that relates to his purse!"
"True!" said Tarleton, sighing. "Alas! my guinea, thou and I have
parted company forever! /vale, vale, inquit Iolas/!"
CHAPTER V.
THE BEAU IN HIS DEN, AND A PHILOSOPHER DISCOVERED.
MR. FIELDING having twice favoured me with visits, which found me from
home, I thought it right to pay my respects to him; accordingly one
morning I repaired to his abode. It was situated in a street which had
been excessively the mode some thirty years back; and the house still
exhibited a stately and somewhat ostentatious exterior. I observed a
considerable cluster of infantine ragamuffins collected round the door,
and no sooner did the portal open to my summons than they pressed
forward in a manner infinitely more zealous than respectful. A servant
in the Austrian livery, with a broad belt round his middle, officiated
as porter. "Look, look!" cried one of the youthful gazers, "look at the
Beau's /keeper/!" This imputation on his own respectability and that of
his master, the domestic seemed by no means to relish; for, muttering
some maledictory menace, which I at first took to be German, but which I
afterwards found to be Irish, he banged the door in the faces of the
intrusive impertinents, and said, in an accent which suited very ill
with his Continental attire,--
"And is it my master you're wanting, Sir?"
"It is."
"And you would be after seeing him immediately?"
"Rightly conjectured, my sagacious friend."
"Fait then, your honour, my master's in bed with a terrible fit of the
megrims."
"Then you will favour me by giving this card to your master, and
expressing my sorrow at his indisposition."
Upon this the orange-coloured lacquey, very quietly reading the address
on the card, and spelling letter by letter in an audible mutter,
rejoined,
"C--o--u (cou) n--t (unt) Count, D--e--v. Och, by my shoul, and it's
Count Devereux after all I'm thinking?"
"You think with equal profundity and truth."
"You may well say that, your honour. Stip in a bit: I'll tell my
master; it is himself that will see you in a twinkling!"
"But you forget that your master is ill?" said I.
"Sorrow a bit for the matter o' that: my master is never ill to a
jontleman."
And with this assurance "the Beau's keeper" ushered me up a splendid
staircase into a large, dreary, faded apartment, and left me to amuse
myself with the curiosities within, while he went to perform a cure upon
his master's "megrims." The chamber, suiting with the house and the
owner, looked like a place in the other world set apart for the
reception of the ghosts of departed furniture. The hangings were wan
and colourless; the chairs and sofas were most spiritually
unsubstantial; the mirrors reflected all things in a sepulchral
sea-green; even a huge picture of Mr. Fielding himself, placed over the
chimney-piece, seemed like the apparition of a portrait, so dim, watery,
and indistinct had it been rendered by neglect and damp. On a huge
tomb-like table in the middle of the room, lay two pencilled profiles of
Mr. Fielding, a pawnbroker's ticket, a pair of ruffles, a very little
muff, an immense broadsword, a Wycherley comb, a jackboot, and an old
plumed hat; to these were added a cracked pomatum-pot containing ink,
and a scrap of paper, ornamented with sundry paintings of hearts and
torches, on which were scrawled several lines in a hand so large and
round that I could not avoid seeing the first verse, though I turned
away my eyes as quickly as possible; that verse, to the best of my
memory, ran thus: "Say, lovely Lesbia, when thy swain." Upon the ground
lay a box of patches, a periwig, and two or three well thumbed books of
songs. Such was the reception-room of Beau Fielding, one indifferently
well calculated to exhibit the propensities of a man, half bully, half
fribble; a poet, a fop, a fighter, a beauty, a walking museum of all odd
humours, and a living shadow of a past renown. "There are changes in
wit as in fashion," said Sir William Temple, and he proceeds to instance
a nobleman who was the greatest wit of the court of Charles I., and the
greatest dullard in that of Charles II.* But Heavens! how awful are the
revolutions of coxcombry! what a change from Beau Fielding the Beauty,
to Beau Fielding the Oddity!
* The Earl of Norwich.
After I had remained in this apartment about ten minutes, the great man
made his appearance. He was attired in a dressing-gown of the most
gorgeous material and colour, but so old that it was difficult to
conceive any period of past time which it might not have been supposed
to have witnessed; a little velvet cap, with a tarnished gold tassel,
surmounted his head, and his nether limbs were sheathed in a pair of
military boots. In person he still retained the trace of that
extraordinary symmetry he had once possessed, and his features were yet
handsome, though the complexion had grown coarse and florid, and the
expression had settled into a broad, hardy, farcical mixture of
effrontery, humour, and conceit.
But how different his costume from that of old! Where was the long wig
with its myriad curls? the coat stiff with golden lace? the diamond
buttons,--"the pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war?" the
glorious war Beau Fielding had carried on throughout the female
world,--finding in every saloon a Blenheim, in every play-house a
Ramilies? Alas! to what abyss of fate will not the love of notoriety
bring men! to what but the lust of show do we owe the misanthropy of
Timon, or the ruin of Beau Fielding!
"By the Lord!" cried Mr. Fielding, approaching, and shaking me
familiarly by the hand, "by the Lord, I am delighted to see thee! As I
am a soldier, I thought thou wert a spirit, invisible and incorporeal;
and as long as I was in that belief I trembled for thy salvation, for I
knew at least that thou wert not a spirit of Heaven, since thy door is
the very reverse of the doors above, which we are assured shall be
opened unto our knocking. But thou art early, Count; like the ghost in
"Hamlet," thou snuffest the morning air. Wilt thou not keep out the
rank atmosphere by a pint of wine and a toast?"
"Many thanks to you, Mr. Fielding; but I have at least one property of a
ghost, and don't drink after daybreak."
"Nay, now, 'tis a bad rule! a villanous bad rule, fit /only for/ ghosts
and graybeards. We youngsters, Count, should have a more generous
policy. Come, now, where didst thou drink last night? has the bottle
bequeathed thee a qualm or a headache, which preaches repentance and
abstinence this morning?"
"No, but I visit my mistress this morning; would you have me smell of
strong potations, and seem a worshipper of the '/Glass/ of Fashion,'
rather than of 'the Mould of Form'? Confess, Mr. Fielding, that the
women love not an early tippler, and that they expect sober and sweet
kisses from a pair 'of youngsters' like us."
"By the Lord," cried Mr. Fielding, stroking down his comely stomach,
"there is a great show of reason in thy excuses, but only the show, not
substance, my noble Count. You know me, you know my experience with the
women: I would not boast, as I'm a soldier; but 'tis something! nine
hundred and fifty locks of hair have I got in my strong box, under
padlock and key; fifty within the last week,--true, on my soul,--so that
I may pretend to know a little of the dear creatures; well, I give thee
my honour, Count, that they like a royster; they love a fellow who can
carry his six bottles under a silken doublet; there's vigour and manhood
in it; and, then, too, what a power of toasts can a six-bottle man drink
to his mistress! Oh, 'tis your only chivalry now,--your modern
substitute for tilt and tournament; true, Count, as I am a soldier!"
"I fear my Dulcinea differs from the herd, then; for she quarrelled with
me for supping with St. John three nights ago, and--"
"St. John," interrupted Fielding, cutting me off in the beginning of a
witticism, "St. John, famous fellow, is he not? By the Lord, we will
drink to his administration, you in chocolate, I in Madeira. O'Carroll,
you dog,--O'Carroll--rogue--rascal--ass--dolt!"
"The same, your honour," said the orange-coloured lacquey, thrusting in
his lean visage.
"Ay, the same indeed, thou anatomized son of Saint Patrick; why dost
thou not get fat? Thou shamest my good living, and thy belly is a
rascally minister to thee, devouring all things for itself, without
fattening a single member of the body corporate. Look at /me/, you dog,
am /I/ thin? Go and get fat, or I will discharge thee: by the Lord I
will! the sun shines through thee like an empty wineglass."
"And is it upon your honour's lavings you would have me get fat?"
rejoined Mr. O'Carroll, with an air of deferential inquiry.
"Now, as I live, thou art the impudentest varlet!" cried Mr. Fielding,
stamping his foot on the floor, with an angry frown.
"And is it for talking of your honour's lavings? an' sure that's
/nothing/ at all, at all," said the valet, twirling his thumbs with
expostulating innocence.
"Begone, rascal!" said Mr. Fielding, "begone; go to the Salop, and bring
us a pint of Madeira, a toast, and a dish of chocolate."
"Yes, your honour, in a twinkling," said the valet, disappearing.
"A sorry fellow," said Mr. Fielding, "but honest and faithful, and loves
me as well as a saint loves gold; 'tis his love makes him familiar."
Here the door was again opened, and the sharp face of Mr. O'Carroll
again intruded.
"How now, sirrah!" exclaimed his master.
Mr. O'Carroll, without answering by voice, gave a grotesque sort of
signal between a wink and a beckon. Mr. Fielding rose muttering an
oath, and underwent a whisper. "By the Lord," cried he, seemingly in a
furious passion, "and thou hast not got the bill cashed yet, though I
told thee twice to have it done last evening? Have I not my debts of
honour to discharge, and did I not give the last guinea I had about me
for a walking cane yesterday? Go down to the city immediately, sirrah,
and bring me the change."
The valet again whispered.
"Ah," resumed Fielding, "ah--so far, you say, 'tis true; 'tis a great
way, and perhaps the Count can't wait till you return. Prithee (turning
to me), prithee now, is it not vexatious,--no change about me, and my
fool has not cashed a trifling bill I have, for a thousand or so, on
Messrs. Child! and the cursed Salop puts not its /trust/ even in
princes; 'tis its way; 'Gad now, you have not a guinea about you?"
What could I say? My guinea joined Tarleton's, in a visit to that
bourne whence no /such/ traveller e'er returned.
Mr. O'Carroll now vanished in earnest, the wine and the chocolate soon
appeared. Mr. Fielding brightened up, recited his poetry, blessed his
good fortune, promised to call on me in a day or two; and assured me,
with a round oath, that the next time he had the honour of seeing me, he
would treat me with another pint of Madeira, exactly of the same sort.
I remember well that it was the evening of the same day in which I had
paid this visit to the redoubted Mr. Fielding, that, on returning from a
drum at Lady Hasselton's, I entered my anteroom with so silent a step,
that I did not arouse even the keen senses of Monsieur Desmarais. He
was seated by the fire, with his head supported by his hands, and
intently poring over a huge folio. I had often observed that he
possessed a literary turn, and all the hours in which he was unemployed
by me he was wont to occupy with books. I felt now, as I stood still
and contemplated his absorbed attention in the contents of the book
before him, a strong curiosity to know the nature of his studies; and so
little did my taste second the routine of trifles in which I had been
lately engaged, that in looking upon the earnest features of the man on
which the solitary light streamed calm and full; and impressed with the
deep quiet and solitude of the chamber, together with the undisturbed
sanctity of comfort presiding over the small, bright hearth, and
contrasting what I saw with the brilliant scene--brilliant with gaudy,
wearing, wearisome frivolities--which I had just quitted, a sensation of
envy at the enjoyments of my dependant entered my breast, accompanied
with a sentiment resembling humiliation at the nature of my own
pursuits. I am generally thought a proud man; but I am never proud to
my inferiors; nor can I imagine pride where there is no competition. I
approached Desmarais, and said, in French,--
"How is this? why did you not, like your fellows, take advantage of my
absence to pursue your own amusements? They must be dull indeed if they
do not hold out to you more tempting inducements than that colossal
offspring of the press."
"Pardon me, Sir," said Desmarais, very respectfully, and closing the
book, "pardon me, I was not aware of your return. Will Monsieur doff
his cloak?"
"No; shut the door, wheel round that chair, and favour me with a sight
of your book."
"Monsieur will be angry, I fear," said the valet (obeying the first two
orders, but hesitating about the third), "with my course of reading: I
confess it is not very compatible with my station."
"Ah, some long romance, the 'Clelia,' I suppose,--nay, bring it hither;
that is to say, if it be movable by the strength of a single man."
Thus urged, Desmarais modestly brought me the book. Judge of my
surprise when I found it was a volume of Leibnitz, a philosopher then
very much the rage,--because one might talk of him very safely, without
having read him.* Despite of my surprise, I could not help smiling when
my eye turned from the book to the student. It is impossible to
conceive an appearance less like a philosopher's than that of Jean
Desmarais. His wig was of a nicety that would not have brooked the
irregularity of a single hair; his dress was not preposterous, for I do
not remember, among gentles or valets, a more really exquisite taste
than that of Desmarais; but it evinced, in every particular, the arts of
the toilet. A perpetual smile sat upon his lips,--sometimes it deepened
into a sneer, but that was the only change it ever experienced; an
irresistible air of self-conceit gave piquancy to his long, marked
features, small glittering eye, and withered cheeks, on which a delicate
and soft bloom excited suspicion of artificial embellishment. A very
fit frame of body this for a valet; but I humbly opine a very unseemly
one for a student of Leibnitz.
* Which is possibly the reason why there are so many disciples of Kant
at the present moment.--ED.
"And what," said I, after a short pause, "is your opinion of this
philosopher? I understand that he has just written a work* above all
praise and comprehension."
* The "Theodicaea."
"It is true, Monsieur, that it is above his own understanding. He knows
not what sly conclusions may be drawn from his premises; but I beg
Monsieur's pardon, I shall be tedious and intrusive."
"Not a whit! speak out, and at length. So you conceive that Leibnitz
makes ropes which /others/ will make into ladders?"
"Exactly so," said Desmarais; "all his arguments go to swell the sails
of the great philosophical truth,--'Necessity!' We are the things and
toys of Fate, and its everlasting chain compels even the Power that
creates as well as the things created."
"Ha!" said I, who, though little versed at that time in these
metaphysical subtleties, had heard St. John often speak of the strange
doctrine to which Desmarais referred, "you are, then, a believer in the
fatalism of Spinoza?"
"No, Monsieur," said Desmarais, with a complacent smile, "my system is
my own: it is composed of the thoughts of others; but my thoughts are
the cords which bind the various sticks into a fagot."
"Well," said I, smiling at the man's conceited air, "and what is your
main dogma?"
"Our utter impotence."
"Pleasing! Mean you that we have no free will?"
"None."
"Why, then, you take away the very existence of vice and virtue; and,
according to you, we sin or act well, not from our own accord, but
because we are compelled and preordained to it."
Desmarais' smile withered into the grim sneer with which, as I have
said, it was sometimes varied.
"Monsieur's penetration is extreme; but shall I not prepare his nightly
draught?"
"No; answer me at length; and tell me the difference between good and
ill, if we are compelled by Necessity to either."
Desmarais hemmed, and began. Despite of his caution, the coxcomb loved
to hear himself talk, and he talked, therefore, to the following
purpose:
"Liberty is a thing impossible! Can you /will/ a single action, however
simple, independent of your organization,--independent of the
organization of others,--independent of the order of things
past,--independent of the order of things to come? You cannot. But if
not independent, you are dependent; if dependent, where is your liberty?
where your freedom of will? Education disposes our characters: can you
control your own education, begun at the hour of birth? You cannot.
Our character, joined to the conduct of others, disposes of our
happiness, our sorrow, our crime, our virtue. Can you control your
character? We have already seen that you cannot. Can you control the
conduct of others,--others perhaps whom you have never seen, but who may
ruin you at a word; a despot, for instance, or a warrior? You cannot.
What remains? that if we cannot choose our characters, nor our fates, we
cannot be accountable for either. If you are a good man, you are a
lucky man; but you are not to be praised for what you could not help.
If you are a bad man, you are an unfortunate one; but you are not to be
execrated for what you could not prevent."*
* Whatever pretensions Monsieur Desmarais may have had to originality,
this tissue of opinions is as old as philosophy itself.--ED.
"Then, most wise Desmarais, if you steal this diamond loop from my hat,
you are only an unlucky man, not a guilty one, and worthy of my
sympathy, not anger?"
"Exactly so; but you must hang me for it. You cannot control events,
but you can modify man. Education, law, adversity, prosperity,
correction, praise, modify him,--without his choice, and sometimes
without his perception. But once acknowledge Necessity, and evil
passions cease; you may punish, you may destroy others, if for the
safety and good of the commonwealth; but motives for doing so cease to
be private: you can have no personal hatred to men for committing
actions which they were irresistibly compelled to commit."
I felt that, however I might listen to and dislike these sentiments, it
would not do for the master to argue with the domestic, especially when
there was a chance that he might have the worst of it. And so I was
suddenly seized with a fit of sleepiness, which broke off our
conversation. Meanwhile I inly resolved, in my own mind, to take the
first opportunity of discharging a valet who saw no difference between
good and evil, but that of luck; and who, by the irresistible compulsion
of Necessity, might some day or other have the involuntary misfortune to
cut the throat of his master!
I did not, however, carry this unphilosophical resolution into effect.
Indeed, the rogue, doubting perhaps the nature of the impression he had
made on me, redoubled so zealously his efforts to please me in the
science of his profession that I could not determine upon relinquishing
such a treasure for a speculative opinion, and I was too much accustomed
to laugh at my Sosia to believe there could be any reason to fear him.
CHAPTER VI.
A UNIVERSAL GENIUS.--PERICLES TURNED BARBER.--NAMES OF BEAUTIES IN
171-.--THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB.
As I was riding with Tarleton towards Chelsea, one day, he asked me if I
had ever seen the celebrated Mr. Salter. "No," said I, "but I heard
Steele talk of him the other night at Wills's. He is an antiquarian and
a barber, is he not?"
"Yes, a shaving virtuoso; really a comical and strange character, and
has oddities enough to compensate one for the debasement of talking with
a man in his rank."
"Let us go to him forthwith," said I, spurring my horse into a canter.
"/Quod petis hic est/," cried Tarleton, "there is his house." And my
companion pointed to a coffee-house.
"What!" said I, "does he draw wine as well as teeth?"
"To be sure: Don Saltero is a universal genius. Let us dismount."
Consigning our horses to the care of our grooms, we marched into the
strangest-looking place I ever had the good fortune to behold. A long
narrow coffee-room was furnished with all manner of things that,
belonging neither to heaven, earth, nor the water under the earth, the
redoubted Saltero might well worship without incurring the crime of
idolatry. The first thing that greeted my eyes was a bull's head, with
a most ferocious pair of vulture's wings on its neck. While I was
surveying this, I felt something touch my hat; I looked up and
discovered an immense alligator swinging from the ceiling, and fixing a
monstrous pair of glass eyes upon me. A thing which seemed to me like
an immense shoe, upon a nearer approach expanded itself into an Indian
canoe; and a most hideous spectre with mummy skin, and glittering teeth,
that made my blood run cold, was labelled, "Beautiful specimen of a
Calmuc Tartar."
While lost in wonder, I stood in the middle of the apartment, up walks a
little man as lean as a miser, and says to me, rubbing his hands,--
"Wonderful, Sir, is it not?"
"Wonderful, indeed, Don!" said Tarleton; "you look like a Chinese Adam
surrounded by a Japanese creation."
"He, he, he, Sir, you have so pleasant a vein," said the little Don, in
a sharp shrill voice. "But it has been all done, Sir, by one man; all
of it collected by me, simple as I stand."
"Simple, indeed," quoth Tarleton; "and how gets on the fiddle?"
"Bravely, Sir, bravely; shall I play you a tune?"
"No, no, my good Don; another time."
"Nay, Sir, nay," cried the antiquarian, "suffer me to welcome your
arrival properly."
And, forthwith disappearing, he returned in an instant with a
marvellously ill-favoured old fiddle. Throwing a /penseroso/ air into
his thin cheeks, our Don then began a few preliminary thrummings, which
set my teeth on edge, and made Tarleton put both hands to his ears.
Three sober-looking citizens, who had just sat themselves down to pipes
and the journal, started to their feet like so many pieces of clockwork;
but no sooner had Don Saltero, with a /degage/ air of graceful
melancholy, actually launched into what he was pleased to term a tune,
than a universal irritation of nerves seized the whole company. At the
first overture, the three citizens swore and cursed, at the second
division of the tune, they seized their hats, at the third they
vanished. As for me, I found all my limbs twitching as if they were
dancing to St. Vitus's music; the very drawers disappeared; the
alligator itself twirled round, as if revivified by so harsh an
experiment on the nervous system; and I verily believe the whole museum,
bull, wings, Indian canoe, and Calmuc Tartar, would have been set into
motion by this new Orpheus, had not Tarleton, in a paroxysm of rage,
seized him by the tail of the coat, and whirled him round, fiddle and
all, with such velocity that the poor musician lost his equilibrium, and
falling against a row of Chinese monsters, brought the whole set to the
ground, where he lay covered by the wrecks that accompanied his
overthrow, screaming and struggling, and grasping his fiddle, which
every now and then, touched involuntarily by his fingers, uttered a
dismal squeak, as if sympathizing in the disaster it had caused, until
the drawer ran in, and, raising the unhappy antiquarian, placed him on a
great chair.
"O Lord!" groaned Don Saltero, "O Lord! my monsters--my monsters--the
pagoda--the mandarin, and the idol where are they?--broken--ruined--
annihilated!"
"No, Sir; all safe, Sir," said the drawer, a smart, small, smug, pert
man; "put 'em down in the bill, nevertheless, Sir. Is it Alderman
Atkins, Sir, or Mr. Higgins?"
"Pooh," said Tarleton, "bring me some lemonade; send the pagoda to the
bricklayer, the mandarin to the surgeon, and the idol to the Papist over
the way! There's a guinea to pay for their carriage. How are you,
Don?"
"Oh, Mr. Tarleton, Mr. Tarleton! how could you be so cruel?"
"The nature of things demanded it, my good Don. Did I not call you a
Chinese Adam? and how could you bear that name without undergoing the
fall?"
"Oh, Sir, this is no jesting matter,--broke the railing of my pagoda,
bruised my arm, cracked my fiddle, and cut me off in the middle of that
beautiful air!--no jesting matter."
"Come, Mr. Salter," said I, "'tis very true! but cheer up. 'The gods,'
says Seneca, 'look with pleasure on a great man falling with the
statesmen, the temples, and the divinities of his country;' all of
which, mandarin, pagoda, and idol, accompanied /your/ fall. Let us have
a bottle of your best wine, and the honour of your company to drink it."
"No, Count, no," said Tarleton, haughtily; "we can drink not with the
Don; but we'll have the wine, and he shall drink it. Meanwhile, Don,
tell us what possible combination of circumstances made thee fiddler,
barber, anatomist, and virtuoso!"
Don Saltero loved fiddling better than anything in the world, but next
to fiddling he loved talking. So being satisfied that he should be
reimbursed for his pagoda, and fortifying himself with a glass or two of
his own wine, he yielded to Tarleton's desire, and told us his history.
I believe it was very entertaining to the good barber, but Tarleton and
I saw nothing extraordinary in it; and long before it was over, we
wished him an excellent good day, and a new race of Chinese monsters.
That evening we were engaged at the Kit-Cat Club, for though I was
opposed to the politics of its members, they admitted me on account of
my literary pretensions. Halifax was there, and I commended the poet to
his protection. We were very gay, and Halifax favoured us with three
new toasts by himself. O Venus! what beauties we made, and what
characters we murdered! Never was there so important a synod to the
female world as the gods of the Kit-Cat Club. Alas! I am writing for
the children of an after age, to whom the very names of those who made
the blood of their ancestors leap within their veins will be unknown.
What cheek will colour at the name of Carlisle? What hand will tremble
as it touches the paper inscribed by that of Brudenel? The graceful
Godolphin, the sparkling enchantment of Harper, the divine voice of
Claverine, the gentle and bashful Bridgewater, the damask cheek and ruby
lips of the Hebe Manchester,--what will these be to the race for whom
alone these pages are penned? This history is a union of strange
contrasts! like the tree of the Sun, described by Marco Polo, which was
green when approached on one side, but white when perceived on the
other: to me it is clothed in the verdure and spring of the existing
time; to the reader it comes covered with the hoariness and wanness of
the Past!
CHAPTER VII.
A DIALOGUE OF SENTIMENT SUCCEEDED BY THE SKETCH OF A CHARACTER, IN WHOSE
EYES SENTIMENT WAS TO WISE MEN WHAT RELIGION IS TO FOOLS; NAMELY, A
SUBJECT OF RIDICULE.
ST. JOHN was now in power, and in the full flush of his many ambitious
and restless schemes. I saw as much of him as the high rank he held in
the state, and the consequent business with which he was oppressed,
would suffer me,--me, who was prevented by religion from actively
embracing any political party, and who, therefore, though inclined to
Toryism, associated pretty equally with all. St. John and myself formed
a great friendship for each other, a friendship which no after change or
chance could efface, but which exists, strengthened and mellowed by
time, at the very hour in which I write.
One evening he sent to tell me he should be alone, if I would sup with
him; accordingly I repaired to his house. He was walking up and down
the room with uneven and rapid steps, and his countenance was flushed
with an expression of joy and triumph, very rare to the thoughtful and
earnest calm which it usually wore. "Congratulate me, Devereux," said
he, seizing me eagerly by the hand, "congratulate me!"
"For what?"
"Ay, true: you are not yet a politician; you cannot yet tell how
dear--how inexpressibly dear to a politician--is a momentary and petty
victory,--but--if I were Prime Minister of this country, what would you
say?"
"That you could bear the duty better than any man living; but remember
Harley is in the way."
"Ah, there's the rub," said St. John, slowly, and the expression of his
face again changed from triumph to thoughtfulness; "but this is a
subject not to your taste: let us choose another." And flinging himself
into a chair, this singular man, who prided himself on suiting his
conversation to every one, began conversing with me upon the lighter
topics of the day; these we soon exhausted, and at last we settled upon
that of love and women.
"I own," said I, "that, in this respect, pleasure has disappointed as
well as wearied me. I have longed for some better object of worship
than the trifler of fashion, or the yet more ignoble minion of the
senses. I ask a vent for enthusiasm, for devotion, for romance, for a
thousand subtle and secret streams of unuttered and unutterable feeling.
I often think that I bear within me the desire and the sentiment of
poetry, though I enjoy not its faculty of expression; and that that
desire and that sentiment, denied legitimate egress, centre and shrink
into one absorbing passion,--which is the want of love. Where am I to
satisfy this want? I look round these great circles of gayety which we
term the world; I send forth my heart as a wanderer over their regions
and recesses, and it returns, sated and palled and languid, to myself
again."
"You express a common want in every less worldly or more morbid nature,"
said St. John; "a want which I myself have experienced, and if I had
never felt it, I should never, perhaps, have turned to ambition to
console or to engross me. But do not flatter yourself that the want
will ever be fulfilled. Nature places us alone in this hospitable
world, and no heart is cast in a similar mould to that which we bear
within us. We pine for sympathy; we make to ourselves a creation of
ideal beauties, in which we expect to find it: but the creation has no
reality; it is the mind's phantasma which the mind adores; and it is
because the phantasma can have no actual being that the mind despairs.
Throughout life, from the cradle to the grave, it is no real living
thing which we demand; it is the realization of the idea we have formed
within us, and which, as we are not gods, we can never call into
existence. We are enamoured of the statue ourselves have graven; but,
unlike the statue of the Cyprian, it kindles not to our homage nor melts
to our embraces."
"I believe you," said I; "but it is hard to undeceive ourselves. The
heart is the most credulous of all fanatics, and its ruling passion the
most enduring of all superstitions. Oh! what can tear from us, to the
last, the hope, the desire, the yearning for some bosom which, while it
mirrors our own, parts not with the reflection! I have read that, in
the very hour and instant of our birth, one exactly similar to
ourselves, in spirit and form, is born also, and that a secret and
unintelligible sympathy preserves that likeness, even through the
vicissitudes of fortune and circumstance, until, in the same point of
time, the two beings are resolved once more into the elements of earth:
confess that there is something welcome, though unfounded in the fancy,
and that there are few of the substances of worldly honour which one
would not renounce, to possess, in the closest and fondest of all
relations, this shadow of ourselves!"
"Alas!" said St. John, "the possession, like all earthly blessings,
carries within it its own principle of corruption. The deadliest foe to
love is not change nor misfortune nor jealousy nor wrath, nor anything
that flows from passion or emanates from fortune; the deadliest foe to
it is custom! With custom die away the delusions and the mysteries
which encircle it; leaf after leaf, in the green poetry on which its
beauty depends, droops and withers, till nothing but the bare and rude
trunk is left. With all passion the soul demands something unexpressed,
some vague recess to explore or to marvel upon,--some veil upon the
mental as well as the corporeal deity. Custom leaves nothing to
romance, and often but little to respect. The whole character is bared
before us like a plain, and the heart's eye grows wearied with the
sameness of the survey. And to weariness succeeds distaste, and to
distaste one of the myriad shapes of the Proteus Aversion; so that the
passion we would make the rarest of treasures fritters down to a very
instance of the commonest of proverbs,--and out of familiarity cometh
indeed contempt!"
"And are we, then," said I, "forever to forego the most delicious of our
dreams? Are we to consider love as an entire delusion, and to reconcile
ourselves to an eternal solitude of heart? What, then, shall fill the
crying and unappeasable void of our souls? What shall become of those
mighty sources of tenderness which, refused all channel in the rocky
soil of the world, must have an outlet elsewhere or stagnate into
torpor?"
"Our passions," said St. John, "are restless, and will make each
experiment in their power, though vanity be the result of all.
Disappointed in love, they yearn towards ambition; /and the object of
ambition, unlike that of love, never being wholly possessed, ambition is
the more durable passion of the two/. But sooner or later even that and
all passions are sated at last; and when wearied of too wide a flight we
limit our excursions, and looking round us discover the narrow bounds of
our proper end, we grow satisfied with the loss of rapture if we can
partake of enjoyment; and the experience which seemed at first so
bitterly to betray us becomes our most real benefactor, and ultimately
leads us to content. For it is the excess and not the nature of our
passions which is perishable. Like the trees which grew by the tomb of
Protesilaus, the passions flourish till they reach a certain height, but
no sooner is that height attained than they wither away."
Before I could reply, our conversation received an abrupt and complete
interruption for the night. The door was thrown open, and a man,
pushing aside the servant with a rude and yet a dignified air, entered
the room unannounced, and with the most perfect disregard to ceremony--
"How d'ye do, Mr. St. John," said he,--"how d'ye do?--Pretty sort of a
day we've had. Lucky to find you at home,--that is to say if you will
give me some broiled oysters and champagne for supper."
"With all my heart, Doctor," said St. John, changing his manner at once
from the pensive to an easy and somewhat brusque familiarity,--"with all
my heart; but I am glad to hear you are a convert to champagne: you
spent a whole evening last week in endeavouring to dissuade me from the
sparkling sin."
"Pish! I had suffered the day before from it; so, like a true Old
Bailey penitent, I preached up conversion to others, not from a desire
of their welfare, but a plaguy sore feeling for my own misfortune.
Where did you dine to-day? At home! Oh! the devil! I starved on three
courses at the Duke of Ormond's."
"Aha! Honest Matt was there?"
"Yes, to my cost. He borrowed a shilling of me for a chair. Hang this
weather, it costs me seven shillings a day for coach-fare, besides my
paying the fares of all my poor brother parsons, who come over from
Ireland to solicit my patronage for a bishopric, and end by borrowing
half-a-crown in the meanwhile. But Matt Prior will pay me again, I
suppose, out of the public money?"
"To be sure, if Chloe does not ruin him first."
"Hang the slut: don't talk of her. How Prior rails against his place!*
He says the excise spoils his wit, and that the only rhymes he ever
dreams of now-a-days are 'docket and cocket.'"
* In the Customs.
"Ha, ha! we must do something better for Matt,--make him a bishop or an
ambassador. But pardon me, Count, I have not yet made known to you the
most courted, authoritative, impertinent, clever, independent, haughty,
delightful, troublesome parson of the age: do homage to Dr. Swift.
Doctor, be merciful to my particular friend, Count Devereux."
Drawing himself up, with a manner which contrasted his previous one
strongly enough, Dr. Swift saluted me with a dignity which might even be
called polished, and which certainly showed that however he might
prefer, as his usual demeanour, an air of negligence and semi-rudeness,
be had profited sufficiently by his acquaintance with the great to equal
them in the external graces, supposed to be peculiar to their order,
whenever it suited his inclination. In person Swift is much above the
middle height, strongly built, and with a remarkably fine outline of
throat and chest; his front face is certainly displeasing, though far
from uncomely; but the clear chiselling of the nose, the curved upper
lip, the full, round Roman chin, the hanging brow, and the resolute
decision, stamped upon the whole expression of the large forehead, and
the clear blue eye, make his profile one of the most striking I ever
saw. He honoured me, to my great surprise, with a fine speech and a
compliment; and then, with a look, which menaced to St. John the retort
that ensued, he added: "And I shall always be glad to think that I owe
your acquaintance to Mr. Secretary St. John, who, if he talked less
about operas and singers,--thought less about Alcibiades and
Pericles,--if he never complained of the load of business not being
suited to his temper, at the very moment he had been working, like
Gumdragon, to get the said load upon his shoulders; and if he persuaded
one of his sincerity being as great as his genius,--would appear to all
time as adorned with the choicest gifts that Heaven has yet thought fit
to bestow on the children of men. Prithee now, Mr. Sec., when shall we
have the oysters? Will you be merry to-night, Count?"
"Certainly; if one may find absolution for the champagne."
"I'll absolve you, with a vengeance, on condition that you'll walk home
with me, and protect the poor parson from the Mohawks. Faith, they ran
young Davenant's chair through with a sword, t' other night. I hear
they have sworn to make daylight through my Tory cassock,--all Whigs you
know, Count Devereux, nasty, dangerous animals, how I hate them! they
cost me five-and-sixpence a week in chairs to avoid them."
"Never mind, Doctor, I'll send my servants home with you," said St.
John.
"Ay, a nice way of mending the matter--that's curing the itch by
scratching the skin off. I could not give your tall fellows less than a
crown a-piece, and I could buy off the bloodiest Mohawk in the kingdom,
if he's a Whig, for half that sum. But, thank Heaven, the supper is
ready."
And to supper we went. The oysters and champagne seemed to exhilarate,
if it did not refine, the Doctor's wit. St. John was unusually
brilliant. I myself caught the infection of their humour, and
contributed my quota to the common stock of jest and repartee; and that
evening, spent with the two most extraordinary men of the age, had in it
more of broad and familiar mirth than any I have ever wasted in the
company of the youngest and noisiest disciples of the bowl and its
concomitants. Even amidst all the coarse ore of Swift's conversation,
the diamond perpetually broke out; his vulgarity was never that of a
vulgar mind. Pity that, while he condemned St. John's over affectation
of the grace of life, he never perceived that his own affectation of
coarseness and brutality was to the full as unworthy of the simplicity
of intellect;* and that the aversion to cant, which was the strongest
characteristic of his mind, led him into the very faults he despised,
only through a more displeasing and offensive road. That same aversion
to cant is, by the way, the greatest and most prevalent enemy to the
reputation of high and of strong minds; and in judging Swift's character
in especial, we should always bear it in recollection. This
aversion--the very antipodes to hypocrisy--leads men not only to
disclaim the virtues they have, but to pretend to the vices they have
not. Foolish trick of disguised vanity! the world, alas, readily
believes them! Like Justice Overdo, in the garb of poor Arthur of
Bradley, they may deem it a virtue to have assumed the disguise; but
they must not wonder if the sham Arthur is taken for the real, beaten as
a vagabond, and set in the stocks as a rogue!
* It has been said that Swift was only coarse in his later years, and,
with a curious ignorance both of fact and of character, that Pope was
the cause of the Dean's grossness of taste. There is no doubt that he
grew coarser with age; but there is also no doubt that, graceful and
dignified as that great genius could be when he pleased, he affected at
a period earlier than the one in which he is now introduced, to be
coarse both in speech and manner. I seize upon this opportunity, /mal a
propos/ as it is, to observe that Swift's preference of Harley to St.
John is by no means so certain as writers have been pleased generally to
assert. Warton has already noted a passage in one of Swift's letters to
Bolingbroke, to which I will beg to call the reader's attention.
"It is /you were/ my hero, but the other (Lord Oxford) /never was/; yet
if he were, it was your own fault, who taught me to love him, and often
vindicated him, in the beginning of your ministry, from my accusations.
But I granted he had the greatest inequalities of any man alive; and his
whole scene was fifty times more a what-d'ye-call-it than yours; for I
declare yours was /unie/, and I wish you would so order it that the
world may be as wise as I upon that article."
I have to apologize for introducing this quotation, which I have done
because (and I entreat the reader to remember this) I observe that Count
Devereux always speaks of Lord Bolingbroke as he was spoken of by the
eminent men of that day,--not as he is now rated by the judgment of
posterity.--ED.
CHAPTER VIII.
LIGHTLY WON, LIGHTLY LOST.--A DIALOGUE OF EQUAL INSTRUCTION AND
AMUSEMENT.--A VISIT TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
ONE morning Tarleton breakfasted with me. "I don't see the little
page," said he, "who was always in attendance in your anteroom; what the
deuce has become of him?"
"You must ask his mistress; she has quarrelled with me, and withdrawn
both her favour and her messenger."
"What! the Lady Hasselton quarrelled with you! / Diable/! Wherefore?"
"Because I am not enough of the 'pretty fellow;' am tired of carrying
hood and scarf, and sitting behind her chair through five long acts of a
dull play; because I disappointed her in not searching for her at every
drum and quadrille party; because I admired not her monkey; and because
I broke a teapot with a toad for a cover."
"And is not that enough?" cried Tarleton. "Heavens! what a black
bead-roll of offences; Mrs. Merton would have discarded me for one of
them. However, thy account has removed my surprise; I heard her praise
thee the other day; now, as long as she loved thee, she always abused
thee like a pickpocket."
"Ha! ha! ha!--and what said she in my favour?"
"Why, that you were certainly very handsome, though you were small; that
you were certainly a great genius, though every one would not discover
it; and that you certainly had the air of high birth, though you were
not nearly so well dressed as Beau Tippetly. But /entre nous/,
Devereux, I think she hates you, and would play you a trick of
spite--revenge is too strong a word--if she could find an opportunity."
"Likely enough, Tarleton; but a coquette's lover is always on his guard;
so she will not take me unawares."
"So be it. But tell me, Devereux, who is to be your next mistress, Mrs.
Denton or Lady Clancathcart? the world gives them both to you."
"The world is always as generous with what is worthless as the bishop in
the fable was with his blessing. However, I promise thee, Tarleton,
that I will not interfere with thy claims either upon Mrs. Denton or
Lady Clancathcart."
"Nay," said Tarleton, "I will own that you are a very Scipio; but it
must be confessed, even by you, satirist as you are, that Lady
Clancathcart has a beautiful set of features."
"A handsome face, but so vilely made. She would make a splendid picture
if, like the goddess Laverna, she could be painted as a head without a
body."
"Ha! ha! ha!--you have a bitter tongue, Count; but Mrs. Denton, what
have you to say against her?"
"Nothing; she has no pretensions for me to contradict. She has a green
eye and a sharp voice; a mincing gait and a broad foot. What friend of
Mrs. Denton would not, therefore, counsel her to a prudent obscurity?"
"She never had but one lover in the world," said Tarleton, "who was old,
blind, lame, and poor; she accepted him, and became Mrs. Denton."
"Yes," said I, "she was like the magnet, and received her name from the
very first person* sensible of her attraction."
*Magnes.
"Well, you have a shrewd way of saying sweet things," said Tarleton;
"but I must own that you rarely or never direct it towards women
individually. What makes you break through your ordinary custom?"
"Because I am angry with women collectively; and must pour my spleen
through whatever channel presents itself."
"Astonishing," said Tarleton; "I despise women myself. I always did;
but you were their most enthusiastic and chivalrous defender a month or
two ago. What makes thee change, my Sir Amadis?"
"Disappointment! they weary, vex, disgust me; selfish, frivolous, mean,
heartless: out on them! 'tis a disgrace to have their love!"
"O /Ciel/! What a sensation the news of thy misogyny will cause; the
young, gay, rich Count Devereux, whose wit, vivacity, splendour of
appearance, in equipage and dress, in the course of one season have
thrown all the most established beaux and pretty fellows into the shade;
to whom dedications and odes and /billet-doux/ are so much waste paper;
who has carried off the most general envy and dislike that any man ever
was blest with, since St. John turned politician; what! thou all of a
sudden to become a railer against the divine sex that made thee what
thou art! Fly, fly, unhappy apostate, or expect the fate of Orpheus, at
least!"
"None of your raileries, Tarleton, or I shall speak to you of plebeians
and the /canaille!"
"/Sacre/! my teeth are on edge already! Oh, the base, base /canaille/,
how I loathe them! Nay, Devereux, joking apart, I love you twice as
well for your humour. I despise the sex heartily. Indeed, /sub rosa/
be it spoken, there are few things that breathe that I do not despise.
Human nature seems to me a most pitiful bundle of rags and scraps, which
the gods threw out of Heaven, as the dust and rubbish there."
"A pleasant view of thy species," said I.
"By my soul it is. Contempt is to me a luxury. I would not lose the
privilege of loathing for all the objects which fools ever admired.
What does old Persius say on the subject?
"'Hoc ridere meum, tam nil, nulla tibi vendo Iliade.'"*
* "This privilege of mine, to laugh,--such a nothing as it seems,--I
would not barter to thee for an Iliad."
"And yet, Tarleton," said I, "the littlest feeling of all is a delight
in contemplating the littleness of other people. Nothing is more
contemptible than habitual contempt."
"Prithee, now," answered the haughty aristocrat, "let us not talk of
these matters so subtly: leave me my enjoyment without refining upon it.
What is your first pursuit for the morning?"
"Why, I have promised my uncle a picture of that invaluable countenance
which Lady Hasselton finds so handsome; and I am going to give Kneller
my last sitting."
"So, so, I will accompany you; I like the vain old dog; 'tis a pleasure
to hear him admire himself so wittily."
"Come, then!" said I, taking up my hat and sword; and, entering
Tarleton's carriage, we drove to the painter's abode.
We found him employed in finishing a portrait of Lady Godolphin.
"He, he!" cried he, when he beheld me approach. "By Got, I am glad to
see you, Count Tevereux; dis painting is tamned poor work by one's self,
widout any one to make /des grands yeux/, and cry, 'Oh, Sir Godfrey
Kneller, how fine dis is!'"
"Very true, indeed," said I, "no great man can be expected to waste his
talents without his proper reward of praise. But, Heavens, Tarleton,
did you ever see anything so wonderful? that hand, that arm, how
exquisite! If Apollo turned painter, and borrowed colours from the
rainbow and models from the goddesses, he would not be fit to hold the
pallet to Sir Godfrey Kneller."
"By Got, Count Tevereux, you are von grand judge of painting," cried the
artist, with sparkling eyes, "and I will paint you as von tamned
handsome man!"
"Nay, my Apelles, you might as well preserve some likeness."
"Likeness, by Got! I vill make you like and handsome both. By my shoul
you make me von Apelles, I vill make you von Alexander!"
"People in general," said Tarleton, gravely, "believe that Alexander had
a wry neck, and was a very plain fellow; but no one can know about
Alexander like Sir Godfrey Kneller, who has studied military tactics so
accurately, and who, if he had taken up the sword instead of the pencil,
would have been at least an Alexander himself."
"By Got, Meester Tarleton, you are as goot a judge of de talents for de
war as Count Tevereux of de /genie/ for de painting! Meester Tarleton,
I vill paint your picture, and I vill make your eyes von goot inch
bigger than dey are!"
"Large or small," said I (for Tarleton, who had a haughty custom of
contracting his orbs till they were scarce perceptible, was so much
offended, that I thought it prudent to cut off his reply), "large or
small, Sir Godfrey, Mr. Tarleton's eyes are capable of admiring your
genius; why, your painting is like lightning, and one flash of your
brush would be sufficient to restore even a blind man to sight."
"It is tamned true," said Sir Godfrey, earnestly; "and it did restore
von man to sight once! By my shoul, it did! but sit yourself town,
Count Tevereux, and look over your left shoulder--ah, dat is it--and
now, praise on, Count Tevereux; de thought of my genius gives you--vat
you call it--von animation--von fire, look you--by my shoul, it does!"
And by dint of such moderate panegyric, the worthy Sir Godfrey completed
my picture, with equal satisfaction to himself and the original. See
what a beautifier is flattery: a few sweet words will send the Count
Devereux down to posterity with at least three times as much beauty as
he could justly lay claim to.*
* This picture represents the Count in an undress. The face is
decidedly, though by no means remarkably, handsome; the nose is
aquiline,--the upper lip short and chiselled,--the eyes gray, and the
forehead, which is by far the finest feature in the countenance, is
peculiarly high, broad, and massive. The mouth has but little beauty;
it is severe, caustic, and rather displeasing, from the extreme
compression of the lips. The great and prevalent expression of the face
is energy. The eye, the brow, the turn of the head, the erect,
penetrating aspect,--are all strikingly bold, animated, and even daring.
And this expression makes a singular contrast to that in another
likeness to the Count, which was taken at a much later period of life.
The latter portrait represents him in a foreign uniform, decorated with
orders. The peculiar sarcasm of the month is hidden beneath a very long
and thick mustachio, of a much darker colour than the hair (for in both
portraits, as in Jervas's picture of Lord Bolingbroke, the hair is left
undisguised by the odious fashion of the day). Across one cheek there
is a slight scar, as of a sabre cut. The whole character of this
portrait is widely different from that in the earlier one. Not a trace
of the fire, the animation, which were so striking in the physiognomy of
the youth of twenty, is discoverable in the calm, sedate, stately, yet
somewhat stern expression, which seems immovably spread over the paler
hue and the more prominent features of the man of about four or five and
thirty. Yet, upon the whole, the face in the latter portrait is
handsomer; and, from its air of dignity and reflection, even more
impressive than that in the one I have first described.--ED.
CHAPTER IX.
A DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER, AND A LONG LETTER; A CHAPTER, ON THE WHOLE,
MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT SEEMS.
THE scenes through which, of late, I have conducted my reader are by no
means episodical: they illustrate far more than mere narration the
career to which I was so honourably devoted.
Dissipation,--women,--wine,--Tarleton for a friend, Lady Hasselton for a
mistress. Let me now throw aside the mask.
To people who have naturally very intense and very acute feelings,
nothing is so fretting, so wearing to the heart, as the commonplace
affections, which are the properties and offspring of the world. We
have seen the birds which, with wings unclipt, children fasten to a
stake. The birds seek to fly, and are pulled back before their wings
are well spread; till, at last, they either perpetually strain at the
end of their short tether, exciting only ridicule by their anguish and
their impotent impatience; or, sullen and despondent, they remain on the
ground, without any attempt to fly, nor creep, even to the full limit
which their fetters will allow. Thus it is with the feelings of the
keen, wild nature I speak of: they are either striving forever to pass
the little circle of slavery to which they are condemned, and so move
laughter by an excess of action and a want of adequate power; or they
rest motionless and moody, disdaining the petty indulgence they /might/
enjoy, till sullenness is construed into resignation, and despair seems
the apathy of content. Time, however, cures what it does not kill; and
both bird and beast, if they pine not to the death at first, grow tame
and acquiescent at last.
What to me was the companionship of Tarleton, or the attachment of Lady
Hasselton? I had yielded to the one, and I had half eagerly, half
scornfully, sought the other. These, and the avocations they brought
with them, consumed my time, and of Time murdered there is a ghost which
we term /ennui/. The hauntings of this spectre are the especial curse
of the higher orders; and hence springs a certain consequence to the
passions. Persons in those ranks of society so exposed to /ennui/ are
either rendered totally incapable of real love, or they love far more
intensely than those in a lower station; for the affections in them are
either utterly frittered away on a thousand petty objects (poor shifts
to escape the persecuting spectre), or else, early disgusted with the
worthlessness of these objects, the heart turns within and languishes
for something not found in the daily routine of life. When this is the
case, and when the pining of the heart is once satisfied, and the object
of love is found, there are two mighty reasons why the love should be
most passionately cherished. The first is, the utter indolence in which
aristocratic life oozes away, and which allows full food for that
meditation which can nurse by sure degrees the weakest desire into the
strongest passion; and the second reason is, that the insipidity and
hollowness of all patrician pursuits and pleasures render the excitement
of love more delicious and more necessary to the "/ignavi terrarum
domini/," than it is to those orders of society more usefully, more
constantly, and more engrossingly engaged.
Wearied and sated with the pursuit of what was worthless, my heart, at
last, exhausted itself in pining for what was pure. I recurred with a
tenderness which I struggled with at first, and which in yielding to I
blushed to acknowledge, to the memory of Isora. And in the world,
surrounded by all which might be supposed to cause me to forget her, my
heart clung to her far more endearingly than it had done in the rural
solitudes in which she had first allured it. The truth was this; at the
time I first loved her, other passions--passions almost equally
powerful--shared her empire. Ambition and pleasure--vast whirlpools of
thought--had just opened themselves a channel in my mind, and thither
the tides of my desires were hurried and lost. Now those whirlpools had
lost their power, and the channels, being dammed up, flowed back upon my
breast. Pleasure had disgusted me, and the only ambition I had yet
courted and pursued had palled upon me still more. I say, the only
ambition, for as yet that which is of the loftier and more lasting kind
had not afforded me a temptation; and the hope which had borne the name
and rank of ambition had been the hope rather to glitter than to rise.
These passions, not yet experienced when I lost Isora, had afforded me
at that period a ready comfort and a sure engrossment. And, in
satisfying the hasty jealousies of my temper, in deeming Isora unworthy
and Gerald my rival, I naturally aroused in my pride a dexterous orator
as well as a firm ally. Pride not only strengthened my passions, it
also persuaded them by its voice; and it was not till the languid yet
deep stillness of sated wishes and palled desires fell upon me, that the
low accent of a love still surviving at my heart made itself heard in
answer.
I now began to take a different view of Isora's conduct. I now began to
doubt where I had formerly believed; and the doubt, first allied to
fear, gradually brightened into hope. Of Gerald's rivalry, at least of
his identity with Barnard, and, consequently, of his power over Isora,
there was, and there could be, no feeling short of certainty. But of
what nature was that power? Had not Isora assured me that it was not
love? Why should I disbelieve her? Nay, did she not love myself? had
not her cheek blushed and her hand trembled when I addressed her? Were
these signs the counterfeits of love? Were they not rather of that
heart's dye which no skill /can/ counterfeit? She had declared that she
could not, that she could never, be mine; she had declared so with a
fearful earnestness which seemed to annihilate hope; but had she not
also, in the same meeting, confessed that I was dear to her? Had not
her lip given me a sweeter and a more eloquent assurance of that
confession than words?--and could hope perish while love existed? She
had left me,--she had bid me farewell forever; but that was no proof of
a want of love, or of her unworthiness. Gerald, or Barnard, evidently
possessed an influence over father as well as child. Their departure
from ------ might have been occasioned by him, and she might have
deplored, while she could not resist it; or she might not even have
deplored; nay, she might have desired, she might have advised it, for my
sake as well as hers, were she thoroughly convinced that the union of
our loves was impossible.
But, then, of what nature could be this mysterious authority which
Gerald possessed over her? That which he possessed over the sire,
political schemes might account for; but these, surely, could not have
much weight for the daughter. This, indeed, must still remain doubtful
and unaccounted for. One presumption, that Gerald was either no
favoured lover or that he was unacquainted with her retreat, might be
drawn from his continued residence at Devereux Court. If he loved
Isora, and knew her present abode, would he not have sought her? Could
he, I thought, live away from that bright face, if once allowed to
behold it? unless, indeed (terrible thought!) there hung over it the
dimness of guilty familiarity, and indifference had been the offspring
of possession. But was that delicate and virgin face, where changes
with every moment coursed each other, harmonious to the changes of the
mind, as shadows in a valley reflect the clouds of heaven!--was that
face, so ingenuous, so girlishly revelant of all,--even of the
slightest, the most transitory, emotion,--the face of one hardened in
deceit and inured to shame? The countenance is, it is true, but a
faithless mirror; but what man that has studied women will not own that
there is, at least while the down of first youth is not brushed away, in
the eye and cheek of zoned and untainted Innocence, that which survives
not even the fruition of a lawful love, and has no (nay, not even a
shadowed and imperfect) likeness in the face of guilt? Then, too, had
any worldlier or mercenary sentiment entered her breast respecting me,
would Isora have flown from the suit of the eldest scion of the rich
house of Devereux? and would she, poor and destitute, the daughter of an
alien and an exile, would she have spontaneously relinquished any hope
of obtaining that alliance which maidens of the loftiest houses of
England had not disdained to desire? Thus confused and incoherent, but
thus yearning fondly towards her image and its imagined purity, did my
thoughts daily and hourly array themselves; and, in proportion as I
suffered common ties to drop from me one by one, those thoughts clung
the more tenderly to that which, though severed from the rich argosy of
former love, was still indissolubly attached to the anchor of its hope.
It was during this period of revived affection that I received the
following letter from my uncle:--
I thank thee for thy long letter, my dear boy; I read it over three
times with great delight. Ods fish, Morton, you are a sad Pickle, I
fear, and seem to know all the ways of the town as well as your old
uncle did some thirty years ago! 'Tis a very pretty acquaintance with
human nature that your letters display. You put me in mind of little
Sid, who was just about your height, and who had just such a pretty,
shrewd way of expressing himself in simile and point. Ah, it is easy to
see that you have profited by your old uncle's conversation, and that
Farquhar and Etherege were not studied for nothing.
But I have sad news for thee, my child, or rather it is sad for me to
tell thee my tidings. It is sad for the old birds to linger in their
nest when the young ones take wing and leave them; but it is merry for
the young birds to get away from the dull old tree, and frisk it in the
sunshine,--merry for them to get mates, and have young themselves. Now,
do not think, Morton, that by speaking of mates and young I am going to
tell thee thy brothers are already married; nay, there is time enough
for those things, and I am not friendly to early weddings, nor to speak
truly, a marvellous great admirer of that holy ceremony at any age; for
the which there may be private reasons too long to relate to thee now.
Moreover, I fear my young day was a wicked time,--a heinous wicked time,
and we were wont to laugh at the wedded state, until, body of me, some
of us found it no laughing matter.
But to return, Morton,--to return to thy brothers: they have both left
me; and the house seems to me not the good old house it did when ye were
all about me; and, somehow or other, I look now oftener at the
churchyard than I was wont to do. You are all gone now,--all shot up
and become men; and when your old uncle sees you no more, and recollects
that all his own contemporaries are out of the world, he cannot help
saying, as William Temple, poor fellow, once prettily enough said,
"Methinks it seems an impertinence in me to be still alive." You went
first, Morton; and I missed you more than I cared to say: but you were
always a kind boy to those you loved, and you wrote the old knight merry
letters, that made him laugh, and think he was grown young again (faith,
boy, that was a jolly story of the three Squires at Button's!), and once
a week comes your packet, well filled, as if you did not think it a task
to make me happy, which your handwriting always does; nor a shame to my
gray hairs that I take pleasure in the same things that please thee!
So, thou seest, my child, that I have got through thy absence pretty
well, save that I have had no one to read thy letters to; for Gerald and
thou are still jealous of each other,--a great sin in thee, Morton,
which I prithee to reform. And Aubrey, poor lad, is a little too rigid,
considering his years, and it looks not well in the dear boy to shake
his head at the follies of his uncle. And as to thy mother, Morton, I
read her one of thy letters, and she said thou wert a graceless
reprobate to think so much of this wicked world, and to write so
familiarly to thine aged relative. Now, I am not a young man, Morton;
but the word aged has a sharp sound with it when it comes from a lady's
mouth.
Well, after thou hadst been gone a month, Aubrey and Gerald, as I wrote
thee word long since, in the last letter I wrote thee with my own hand,
made a tour together for a little while, and that was a hard stroke on
me. But after a week or two Gerald returned; and I went out in my chair
to see the dear boy shoot,--'sdeath, Morton, he handles the gun well.
And then Aubrey returned alone: but he looked pined and moping, and shut
himself up, and as thou dost love him so, I did not like to tell thee
till now, when he is quite well, that he alarmed me much for him; he is
too much addicted to his devotions, poor child, and seems to forget that
the hope of the next world ought to make us happy in this. Well,
Morton, at last, two months ago, Aubrey left us again, and Gerald last
week set off on a tour through the sister kingdom, as it is called.
Faith, boy, if Scotland and England are sister kingdoms, 'tis a thousand
pities for Scotland that they are not co-heiresses!
I should have told thee of this news before, but I have had, as thou
knowest, the gout so villanously in my hand that, till t' other day, I
have not held a pen, and old Nicholls, my amanuensis, is but a poor
scribe; and I did not love to let the dog write to thee on all our
family affairs, especially as I have a secret to tell thee which makes
me plaguy uneasy. Thou must know, Morton, that after thy departure
Gerald asked me for thy rooms; and though I did not like that any one
else should have what belonged to thee, yet I have always had a foolish
antipathy to say "No!" so thy brother had them, on condition to leave
them exactly as they were, and to yield them to thee whenever thou
shouldst return to claim them. Well, Morton, when Gerald went on his
tour with thy youngest brother, old Nicholls--you know 'tis a garrulous
fellow--told me one night that his son Hugh--you remember Hugh, a thin
youth and a tall--lingering by the beach one evening, saw a man, wrapped
in a cloak, come out of the castle cave, unmoor one of the boats, and
push off to the little island opposite. Hugh swears by more than yea
and nay that the man was Father Montreuil. Now, Morton, this made me
very uneasy, and I saw why thy brother Gerald wanted thy rooms, which
communicate so snugly with the sea. So I told Nicholls, slyly, to have
the great iron gate at the mouth of the passage carefully locked; and
when it was locked, I had an iron plate put over the whole lock, that
the lean Jesuit might not creep even through the keyhole. Thy brother
returned, and I told him a tale of the smugglers, who have really been
too daring of late, and insisted on the door being left as I had
ordered; and I told him, moreover, though not as if I had suspected his
communication with the priest, that I interdicted all further converse
with that limb of the Church. Thy brother heard me with an
indifferently bad grace; but I was peremptory, and the thing was agreed
on.
Well, child, the day before Gerald last left us, I went to take leave of
him in his own room,--to tell thee the truth, I had forgotten his
travelling expenses; when I was on the stairs of the tower I heard--by
the Lord I did--Montreuil's voice in the outer room, as plainly as ever
I heard it at prayers. Ods fish, Morton, I was an angered, and I made
so much haste to the door that my foot slipped by the way: thy brother
heard me fall, and came out; but I looked at him as I never looked at
thee, Morton, and entered the room. Lo, the priest was not there: I
searched both chambers in vain; so I made thy brother lift up the
trapdoor, and kindle a lamp, and I searched the room below, and the
passage. The priest was invisible. Thou knowest, Morton, that there is
only one egress in the passage, and that was locked, as I have said
before, so where the devil--the devil indeed--could thy tutor have
escaped? He could not have passed me on the stairs without my seeing
him; he could not have leaped the window without breaking his neck; he
could not have got out of the passage without making himself a current
of air. Ods fish, Morton, this thing might puzzle a wiser man, than
thine uncle. Gerald affected to be mighty indignant at my suspicions;
but, God forgive him, I saw he was playing a part. A man does not write
plays, my child, without being keen-sighted in these little intrigues;
and, moreover, it is impossible I could have mistaken thy tutor's voice,
which, to do it justice, is musical enough, and is the most singular
voice I ever heard,--unless little Sid's be excepted.
/A propos/ of little Sid. I remember that in the Mall, when I was
walking there alone, three weeks after my marriage, De Grammont and Sid
joined me. I was in a melancholic mood ('sdeath, Morton, marriage tames
a man as water tames mice!)--"Aha, Sir William," cried Sedley, "thou
hast a cloud on thee; prithee now brighten it away: see, thy wife shines
on thee from the other end of the Mall." "Ah, talk not to a dying man
of his physic!" said Grammont (that Grammont was a shocking rogue,
Morton!) "Prithee, Sir William, what is the chief characteristic of
wedlock? is it a state of war or of peace?" "Oh, peace to be sure!"
cried Sedley, "and Sir William and his lady carry with them the emblem."
"How!" cried I; for I do assure thee, Morton, I was of a different turn
of mind. "How!" said Sid, gravely, "why, the emblem of peace is the
/cornucopia/, which your lady and you equitably divide: she carries the
/copia/, and you the /cor/--." Nay, Morton, nay, I cannot finish the
jest; for, after all, it was a sorry thing in little Sid, whom I had
befriended like a brother, with heart and purse, to wound me so
cuttingly; but 'tis the way with your jesters.
Ods fish, now how I have got out of my story! Well, I did not go back
to my room, Morton, till I had looked to the outside of the iron door,
and seen that the plate was as firm as ever: so now you have the whole
of the matter. Gerald went the next day, and I fear me much lest he
should already be caught in some Jacobite trap. Write me thy advice on
the subject. Meanwhile, I have taken the precaution to have the
trap-door removed, and the aperture strongly boarded over.
But 'tis time for me to give over. I have been four days on this
letter, for the gout comes now to me oftener than it did, and I do not
know when I may again write to thee with my own hand; so I resolved I
would e'en empty my whole budget at once. Thy mother is well and
blooming; she is, at the present, abstractedly employed in a prodigious
piece of tapestry which old Nicholls informs me is the wonder of all the
women.
Heaven bless thee, my child! Take care of thyself, and drink
moderately. It is hurtful, at thy age, to drink above a gallon or so at
a sitting. Heaven bless thee again, and when the weather gets warmer,
thou must come with thy kind looks, to make me feel at home again. At
present the country wears a cheerless face, and everything about us is
harsh and frosty, except the blunt, good-for-nothing heart of thine
uncle, and that, winter or summer, is always warm to thee.
WILLIAM DEVEREUX.
P. S. I thank thee heartily for the little spaniel of the new breed
thou gottest me from the Duchess of Marlborough. It has the prettiest
red and white, and the blackest eyes possible. But poor Ponto is as
jealous as a wife three years married, and I cannot bear the old hound
to be vexed, so I shall transfer the little creature, its rival, to thy
mother.
This letter, tolerably characteristic of the blended simplicity,
penetration, and overflowing kindness of the writer, occasioned me much
anxious thought. There was no doubt in my mind but that Gerald and
Montreuil were engaged in some intrigue for the exiled family. The
disguised name which the former assumed, the state reasons which
D'Alvarez confessed that Barnard, or rather Gerald, had for concealment,
and which proved, at least, that some state plot in which Gerald was
engaged was known to the Spaniard, joined to those expressions of
Montreuil, which did all but own a design for the restoration of the
deposed line, and the power which I knew he possessed over Gerald, whose
mind, at once bold and facile, would love the adventure of the intrigue,
and yield to Montreuil's suggestions on its nature,--these combined
circumstances left me in no doubt upon a subject deeply interesting to
the honour of our house, and the very life of one of its members.
Nothing, however, for me to do, calculated to prevent or impede the
designs of Montreuil and the danger of Gerald, occurred to me. Eager
alike in my hatred and my love, I said, inly, "What matters it whether
one whom the ties of blood never softened towards me, with whom, from my
childhood upwards, I have wrestled as with an enemy, what matters it
whether he win fame or death in the perilous game he has engaged in?"
And turning from this most generous and most brotherly view of the
subject, I began only to think whether the search or the society of
Isora also influenced Gerald in his absence from home. After a
fruitless and inconclusive meditation on that head, my thoughts took a
less selfish turn, and dwelt with all the softness of pity, and the
anxiety of love, upon the morbid temperament and ascetic devotions of
Aubrey. What, for one already so abstracted from the enjoyments of
earth, so darkened by superstitious misconceptions of the true nature of
God and the true objects of His creatures,--what could be anticipated
but wasted powers and a perverted life? Alas! when will men perceive
the difference between religion and priestcraft? When will they
perceive that reason, so far from extinguishing religion by a more gaudy
light, sheds on it all its lustre? It is fabled that the first
legislator of the Peruvians received from the Deity a golden rod, with
which in his wanderings he was to strike the earth, until in some
destined spot the earth entirely absorbed it, and there--and there
alone--was he to erect a temple to the Divinity. What is this fable but
the cloak of an inestimable moral? Our reason is the rod of gold; the
vast world of truth gives the soil, which it is perpetually to sound;
and only where without resistance the soil receives the rod which guided
and supported us will our altar be sacred and our worship be accepted.
CHAPTER X.
BEING A SHORT CHAPTER, CONTAINING A MOST IMPORTANT EVENT.
SIR WILLIAM'S letter was still fresh in my mind, when, for want of some
less noble quarter wherein to bestow my tediousness, I repaired to St.
John. As I crossed the hall to his apartment, two men, just dismissed
from his presence, passed me rapidly; one was unknown to me, but there
was no mistaking the other,--it was Montreuil. I was greatly startled;
the priest, not appearing to notice me, and conversing in a whispered
yet seemingly vehement tone with his companion, hurried on and vanished
through the street door. I entered St. John's room: he was alone, and
received me with his usual gayety.
"Pardon me, Mr. Secretary," said I; "but if not a question of state, do
inform me what you know respecting the taller one of those two gentlemen
who have just quitted you."
"It is a question of state, my dear Devereux, so my answer must be
brief,--very little."
"You know who he is?"
"Yes, a Jesuit, and a marvellously shrewd one: the Abbe Montreuil."
"He was my tutor."
"Ah, so I have heard."
"And your acquaintance with him is positively and /bona fide/ of a state
nature?"
"Positively and /bona fide/."
"I could tell you something of him; he is certainly in the service of
the Court at St. Germains, and a terrible plotter on this side the
Channel."
"Possibly; but I wish to receive no information respecting him."
One great virtue of business did St. John possess, and I have never
known any statesman who possessed it so eminently: it was the discreet
distinction between friends of the statesman and friends of the man.
Much and intimately as I knew St. John, I could never glean from him a
single secret of a state nature, until, indeed, at a later period, I
leagued myself to a portion of his public schemes. Accordingly I found
him, at the present moment, perfectly impregnable to my inquiries; and
it was not till I knew Montreuil's companion was that celebrated
intriguant, the Abbe Gaultier, that I ascertained the exact nature of
the priest's business with St. John, and the exact motive of the
civilities he had received from Abigail Masham.* Being at last forced,
despairingly, to give over the attempt on his discretion, I suffered St.
John to turn the conversation upon other topics, and as these were not
much to the existent humour of my mind, I soon rose to depart.
* Namely, that Count Devereux ascertained the priest's communications
and overtures from the Chevalier. The precise extent of Bolingbroke's
secret negotiations with the exiled Prince is still one of the darkest
portions of the history of that time. That negotiations /were/ carried
on, both by Harley and by St. John, very largely, and very closely, I
need not say that there is no doubt.
"Stay, Count," said St. John; "shall you ride to-day?"
"If you will bear me company."
"/Volontiers/,--to say the truth, I was about to ask you to canter your
bay horse with me first to Spring Gardens,* where I have a promise to
make to the director; and, secondly, on a mission of charity to a poor
foreigner of rank and birth, who, in his profound ignorance of this
country, thought it right to enter into a plot with some wise heads, and
to reveal it to some foolish tongues, who brought it to us with as much
clatter as if it were a second gunpowder project. I easily brought him
off that scrape, and I am now going to give him a caution for the
future. Poor gentleman, I hear that he is grievously distressed in
pecuniary matters, and I always had a kindness for exiles. Who knows
but that a state of exile may be our own fate! and this alien is sprung
from a race as haughty as that of St. John or of Devereux. The /res
angusta domi/ must gall him sorely!"
* Vauxhall.
"True," said I, slowly. "What may be the name of the foreigner?"
"Why--complain not hereafter that I do not trust you in state matters--I
will indulge--D'Alvarez--Don Diego,--a hidalgo of the best blood of
Andalusia; and not unworthy of it, I fancy, in the virtues of fighting,
though he may be in those of council. But--Heavens! Devereux--you seem
ill!"
"No, no! Have you ever seen this man?"
"Never."
At this word a thrill of joy shot across me, for I knew St. John's fame
for gallantry, and I was suspicious of the motives of his visit.
"St. John, I know this Spaniard; I know him well, and intimately. Could
you not commission me to do your errand, and deliver your caution?
Relief from me he might accept; from you, as a stranger, pride might
forbid it; and you would really confer on me a personal and essential
kindness, if you would give me so fair an opportunity to confer kindness
upon him."
"Very well, I am delighted to oblige you in any way. Take his
direction; you see his abode is in a very pitiful suburb. Tell him from
me that he is quite safe at present; but tell him also to avoid,
henceforth, all imprudence, all connection with priests, plotters, /et
tous ces gens-la, as he values his personal safety, or at least his
continuance in this most hospitable country. It is not from every wood
that we make a Mercury, nor from every brain that we can carve a
Mercury's genius of intrigue."
"Nobody ought to be better skilled in the materials requisite for such
productions than Mr. Secretary St. John!" said I; "and now, adieu."
"Adieu, if you will not ride with me. We meet at Sir William Wyndham's
to-morrow."
Masking my agitation till I was alone, I rejoiced when I found myself in
the open streets. I summoned a hackney-coach, and drove as rapidly as
the vehicle would permit to the petty and obscure suburb to which St.
John had directed me. The coach stopped at the door of a very humble
but not absolutely wretched abode. I knocked at the door. A woman
opened it, and, in answer to my inquiries, told me that the poor foreign
gentleman was very ill,--very ill indeed,--had suffered a paralytic
stroke,--not expected to live. His daughter was with him now,--would
see no one,--even Mr. Barnard had been denied admission.
At that name my feelings, shocked and stunned at first by the unexpected
intelligence of the poor Spaniard's danger, felt a sudden and fierce
revulsion. I combated it. "This is no time," I thought, "for any
jealous, for any selfish, emotion. If I can serve her, if I can relieve
her father, let me be contented."--"She will see me," I said aloud, and
I slipped some money in the woman's hand. "I am an old friend of the
family, and I shall not be an unwelcome intruder on the sickroom of the
sufferer."
"Intruder, sir,--bless you, the poor gentleman is quite speechless and
insensible."
At hearing this I could refrain no longer. Isora's disconsolate,
solitary, destitute condition broke irresistibly upon me, and all
scruple of more delicate and formal nature vanished at once. I ascended
the stairs, followed by the old woman--she stopped me by the threshold
of a room on the second floor, and whispered "/There/!" I paused an
instant,--collected breath and courage, and entered. The room was
partially darkened. The curtains were drawn closely around the bed. By
a table, on which stood two or three phials of medicine, I beheld Isora,
listening with an eager, a /most/ eager and intent face to a man whose
garb betrayed his healing profession, and who, laying a finger on the
outstretched palm of his other hand, appeared giving his precise
instructions, and uttering that oracular breath which--mere human words
to him--was a message of fate itself,--a fiat on which hung all that
makes life life to his trembling and devout listener. Monarchs of
earth, ye have not so supreme a power over woe and happiness as one
village leech! As he turned to leave her, she drew from a most slender
purse a few petty coins, and I saw that she muttered some words
indicative of the shame of poverty, as she tremblingly tended them to
the outstretched palm. Twice did that palm close and open on the paltry
sum; and the third time the native instinct of the heart overcame the
later impulse of the profession. The limb of Galen drew back, and
shaking with a gentle oscillation his capitalian honours, he laid the
money softly on the table, and buttoning up the pouch of his nether
garment, as if to resist temptation, he pressed the poor hand still
extended towards him, and bowing over it with a kind respect for which I
did long to approach and kiss his most withered and undainty cheek, he
turned quickly round, and almost fell against me in the abstracted hurry
of his exit.
"Hush!" said I, softly. "What hope of your patient?"
The leech glanced at me meaningly, and I whispered to him to wait for me
below. Isora had not yet seen me. It is a notable distinction in the
feelings, that all but the solitary one of grief sharpen into exquisite
edge the keenness of the senses, but grief blunts them to a most dull
obtuseness. I hesitated now to come forward; and so I stood, hat in
hand, by the door, and not knowing that the tears streamed down my
cheeks as I fixed my gaze upon Isora. She too stood still, just where
the leech had left her, with her eyes fixed upon the ground, and her
head drooping. The right hand, which the man had pressed, had sunk
slowly and heavily by her side, with the small snowy fingers half closed
over the palm. There is no describing the despondency which the
listless position of that hand spoke, and the left hand lay with a like
indolence of sorrow on the table, with one finger outstretched and
pointing towards the phials, just as it bad, some moments before,
seconded the injunctions of the prim physician. Well, for my part, if I
were a painter I would come now and then to a sick chamber for a study.
At last Isora, with a very quiet gesture of self-recovery, moved towards
the bed, and the next moment I was by her side. If my life depended on
it, I could not write one, no, not /one/ syllable more of this scene.
CHAPTER XI.
CONTAINING MORE THAN ANY OTHER CHAPTER IN THE SECOND BOOK OF THIS
HISTORY.
MY first proposal was to remove the patient, with all due care and
gentleness, to a better lodging, and a district more convenient for the
visits of the most eminent physicians. When I expressed this wish to
Isora, she looked at me long and wistfully, and then burst into tears.
"/You/ will not deceive us," said she, "and I accept your kindness at
once,--from /him/ I rejected the same offer."
"Him?--of whom speak you?--this Barnard, or rather--but I know him!" A
startling expression passed over Isora's speaking face.
"Know him!" she cried, interrupting me, "you do not,--you cannot!"
"Take courage, dearest Isora,--if I may so dare to call you,--take
courage: it is fearful to have a rival in that quarter; but I am
prepared for it. This Barnard, tell me again, do you love him?"
"Love--O God, no!"
"What then? do you still fear him?--fear him, too, protected by the
unsleeping eye and the vigilant hand of a love like mine?"
"Yes!" she said falteringly, "I fear for /you/!"
"Me!" I cried, laughing scornfully, "me! nay, dearest, there breathes
not that man whom you need fear on /my/ account. But, answer me; is
not--"
"For Heaven's sake, for mercy's sake!" cried Isora, eagerly, "do not
question me; I may not tell you who, or what this man is; I am bound, by
a most solemn oath, never to divulge that secret."
"I care not," said I, calmly, "I want no confirmation of my knowledge:
this masked rival is my own brother!"
I fixed my eyes full on Isora while I said this, and she quailed beneath
my gaze: her cheek, her lips, were utterly without colour, and an
expression of sickening and keen anguish was graven upon her face. She
made no answer.
"Yes!" resumed I, bitterly, "it is my brother,--be it so,--I am
prepared; but if you can, Isora, say one word to deny it."
Isora's tongue seemed literally to cleave to her mouth; at last with a
violent effort, she muttered, "I have told you, Morton, that I am bound
by oath not to divulge this secret; nor may I breathe a single syllable
calculated to do so,--if I deny one name, you may question me on
more,--and, therefore, to deny one is a breach of my oath. But,
beware!" she added vehemently, "oh! beware how your suspicions--mere
vague, baseless suspicions--criminate a brother; and, above all,
whomsoever you believe to be the real being under this disguised name,
as you value your life, and therefore mine,--breathe not to him a
syllable of your belief."
I was so struck with the energy with which this was said, that, after a
short pause, I rejoined, in an altered tone,--
"I cannot believe that I have aught against life to fear from a
brother's hand; but I will promise you to guard against latent danger.
But is your oath so peremptory that you cannot deny even one name?--if
not, and you /can/ deny this, I swear to you that I will never question
you upon another."
Again a fierce convulsion wrung the lip and distorted the perfect
features of Isora. She remained silent for some moments, and then
murmured, "My oath forbids me even that single answer: tempt me no more;
now, and forever, I am mute upon this subject."
Perhaps some slight and momentary anger, or doubt, or suspicion,
betrayed itself upon my countenance; for Isora, after looking upon me
long and mournfully, said, in a quiet but melancholy tone, "I see your
thoughts, and I do not reproach you for them--it is natural that you
should think ill of one whom this mystery surrounds,--one too placed
under such circumstances of humiliation and distrust. I have lived long
in your country: I have seen, for the last few months, much of its
inhabitants; I have studied too the works which profess to unfold its
national and peculiar character: I know that you have a distrust of the
people of other climates; I know that you are cautious and full of
suspicious vigilance, even in your commerce with each other; I know, too
[and Isora's heart swelled visibly as she spoke], that poverty itself,
in the eyes of your commercial countrymen, is a crime, and that they
rarely feel confidence or place faith in those who are unhappy;--why,
Count Devereux, why should I require more of you than of the rest of
your nation? Why should you think better of the penniless and
friendless girl, the degraded exile, the victim of doubt,--which is so
often the disguise of guilt,--than any other, any one even among my own
people, would think of one so mercilessly deprived of all the decent and
appropriate barriers by which a maiden should be surrounded? No--no:
leave me as you found me; leave my poor father where you see him; any
place will do for us to die in."
"Isora!" I said, clasping her in my arms, "you do not know me yet: had I
found you in prosperity, and in the world's honour; had I wooed you in
your father's halls, and girt around with the friends and kinsmen of
your race,--I might have pressed for more than you will now tell me; I
might have indulged suspicion where I perceived mystery, and I might not
have loved as I love you now! Now, Isora, in misfortune, in
destitution, I place without reserve my whole heart--its trust, its
zeal, its devotion--in your keeping; come evil or good, storm or
sunshine, I am yours, wholly and forever. Reject me if you will, I will
return to you again; and never, never--save from my own eyes or your own
lips--will I receive a single evidence detracting from your purity, or,
Isora,--mine own, own Isora,--may I not add also--from your love?"
"Too, too generous!" murmured Isora, struggling passionately with her
tears, "may Heaven forsake me if ever I am ungrateful to thee; and
believe--believe, that if love more fond, more true, more devoted than
woman ever felt before can repay you, you shall be repaid!"
Why, at that moment, did my heart leap so joyously within me?--why did I
say inly,--"The treasure I have so long yearned for is found at last: we
have met, and through the waste of years, we will work together, and
never part again"? Why, at that moment of bliss, did I not rather feel
a foretaste of the coming woe? Oh, blind and capricious Fate, that
gives us a presentiment at one while and withholds it at an other!
Knowledge, and Prudence, and calculating Foresight, what are
ye?--warnings unto others, not ourselves. Reason is a lamp which
sheddeth afar a glorious and general light, but leaveth all that is
around it in darkness and in gloom. We foresee and foretell the destiny
of others: we march credulous and benighted to our own; and like
Laocoon, from the very altars by which we stand as the soothsayer and
the priest, creep forth, unsuspected and undreamt of, the serpents which
are fated to destroy us!
That very day, then, Alvarez was removed to a lodging more worthy of his
birth, and more calculated to afford hope of his recovery. He bore the
removal without any evident signs of fatigue; but his dreadful malady
had taken away both speech and sense, and he was already more than half
the property of the grave. I sent, however, for the best medical advice
which London could afford. They met, prescribed, and left the patient
just as they found him. I know not, in the progress of science, what
physicians may be to posterity, but in my time they are false witnesses
subpoenaed against death, whose testimony always tells less in favour of
the plaintiff than the defendant.
Before we left the poor Spaniard's former lodging, and when I was on the
point of giving some instructions to the landlady respecting the place
to which the few articles of property belonging to Don Diego and Isora
were to be moved, Isora made me a sign to be silent, which I obeyed.
"Pardon me," said she afterwards; "but I confess that I am anxious our
next residence should not be known,--should not be subject to the
intrusion of--of this--"
"Barnard, as you call him. I understand you; be it so!" and accordingly
I enjoined the goods to be sent to my own house, whence they were
removed to Don Diego's new abode and I took especial care to leave with
the good lady no clew to discover Alvarez and his daughter, otherwise
than /through me/. The pleasure afforded me of directing Gerald's
attention to myself, I could not resist. "Tell Mr. Barnard, when he
calls," said I, "that only through Count Morton Devereux will he hear of
Don Diego d'Alvarez and the lady his daughter."
"I will, your honour," said the landlady; and then looking at me more
attentively, she added: "Bless me! now when you speak, there is a very
strong likeness between yourself and Mr. Barnard."
I recoiled as if an adder had stung me, and hurried into the coach to
support the patient, who was already placed there.
Now then my daily post was by the bed of disease and suffering: in the
chamber of death was my vow of love ratified; and in sadness and in
sorrow was it returned. But it is in such scenes that the deepest, the
most endearing, and the most holy species of the passion is engendered.
As I heard Isora's low voice tremble with the suspense of one who
watches over the hourly severing of the affection of Nature and of early
years; and as I saw her light step flit by the pillow which she
smoothed, and her cheek alternately flush and fade, in watching the
wants which she relieved; as I marked her mute, her unwearying
tenderness, breaking into a thousand nameless but mighty cares, and
pervading like an angel's vigilance every--yea, the minutest--course
into which it flowed,--did I not behold her in that sphere in which
woman is most lovely, and in which love itself consecrates its
admiration and purifies its most ardent desires? That was not a time
for our hearts to speak audibly to each other; but we felt that they
grew closer and closer, and we asked not for the poor eloquence of
words. But over this scene let me not linger.
One morning, as I was proceeding on foot to Isora's, I perceived on the
opposite side of the way Montreuil and Gerald: they were conversing
eagerly; they both saw me. Montreuil made a slight, quiet, and
dignified inclination of the head: Gerald coloured, and hesitated. I
thought he was about to leave his companion and address me; but, with a
haughty and severe air, I passed on, and Gerald, as if stung by my
demeanour, bit his lip vehemently and followed my example. A few
minutes afterwards I felt an inclination to regret that I had not
afforded him an opportunity of addressing me. "I might," thought I,
"have then taunted him with his persecution of Isora, and defied him to
execute those threats against me, in which it is evident, from her
apprehensions for my safety, that he indulged."
I had not, however, much leisure for these thoughts. When I arrived at
the lodgings of Alvarez, I found that a great change had taken place in
his condition; he had recovered speech, though imperfectly, and
testified a return to sense. I flew upstairs with a light step to
congratulate Isora: she met me at the door. "Hush!" she whispered: "my
father sleeps!" But she did not speak with the animation I had
anticipated.
"What is the matter, dearest?" said I, following her into another
apartment: "you seem sad, and your eyes are red with tears, which are
not, methinks, entirely the tears of joy at this happy change in your
father."
"I am marked out for suffering," returned Isora, more keenly than she
was wont to speak. I pressed her to explain her meaning; she hesitated
at first, but at length confessed that her father had always been
anxious for her marriage with this /soi-disant/ Barnard, and that his
first words on his recovery had been to press her to consent to his
wishes.
"My poor father," said she, weepingly, "speaks and thinks only for my
fancied good; but his senses as yet are only recovered in part, and he
cannot even understand me when I speak of you. 'I shall die,' he said,
'I shall die, and you will be left on the wide world!' I in vain
endeavoured to explain to him that I should have a protector: he fell
asleep muttering those words, and with tears in his eyes."
"Does he know as much of this Barnard as you do?" said I.
"Heavens, no!--or he would never have pressed me to marry one so
wicked."
"Does he know even who he is?"
"Yes!" said Isora, after a pause; "but he has not known it long."
Here the physician joined us, and taking me aside, informed me that, as
he had foreboded, sleep had been the harbinger of death, and that Don
Diego was no more. I broke the news as gently as I could to Isora: but
her grief was far more violent than I could have anticipated; and
nothing seemed to cut her so deeply to the heart as the thought that his
last wish had been one with which she had not complied, and could never
comply.
I pass over the first days of mourning: I come to the one after Don
Diego's funeral. I had been with Isora in the morning; I left her for a
few hours, and returned at the first dusk of evening with some books and
music, which I vainly hoped she might recur to for a momentary
abstraction from her grief. I dismissed my carriage, with the intention
of walking home, and addressing the woman-servant who admitted me,
inquired, as was my wont, after Isora. "She has been very ill," replied
the woman, "ever since the strange gentleman left her."
"The strange gentleman?"
Yes, he had forced his way upstairs, despite of the denial the servant
had been ordered to give to all strangers. He had entered Isora's room;
and the woman, in answer to my urgent inquiries, added that she had
heard his voice raised to a loud and harsh key in the apartment; he had
stayed there about a quarter of an hour, and had then hurried out,
seemingly in great disorder and agitation.
"What description of man was he?" I asked.
The woman answered that he was mantled from head to foot in his cloak,
which was richly laced, and his hat was looped with diamonds, but
slouched over that part of his face which the collar of his cloak did
not hide, so that she could not further describe him than as one of a
haughty and abrupt bearing, and evidently belonging to the higher ranks.
Convinced that Gerald had been the intruder, I hastened up the stairs to
Isora. She received me with a sickly and faint smile, and endeavoured
to conceal the traces of her tears.
"So!" said I, "this insolent persecutor of yours has discovered your
abode, and again insulted or intimidated you. He shall do so no more!
I will seek him to-morrow; and no affinity of blood shall prevent--"
"Morton, dear Morton!" cried Isora, in great alarm, and yet with a
certain determination stamped upon her features, "hear me! It is true
this man has been here; it is true that, fearful and terrible as he is,
he has agitated and alarmed me: but it was only for you, Morton,--by the
Holy Virgin, it was only for you! 'The moment,' said he, and his voice
ran shiveringly through my heart like a dagger, 'the moment Morton
Devereux discovers who is his rival, that moment his death-warrant is
irrevocably sealed!'"
"Arrogant boaster!" I cried, and my blood burned with the intense rage
which a much slighter cause would have kindled from the natural
fierceness of my temper. "Does he think my life is at his bidding, to
allow or to withhold? Unhand me, Isora, unhand me! I tell you I will
seek him this moment, and dare him to do his worst!"
"Do so," said Isora, calmly, and releasing her hold; "do so; but hear me
first: the moment you breathe to him your suspicions you place an
eternal barrier betwixt yourself and me! Pledge me your faith that you
will never, while I live at least, reveal to him--to any one whom you
suspect--your reproach, your defiance, your knowledge--nay, not even
your lightest suspicion--of his identity with my persecutor; promise me
this, Morton Devereux, or I, in my turn, before that crucifix, whose
sanctity we both acknowledge and adore,--that crucifix which has
descended to my race for three unbroken centuries,--which, for my
departed father, in the solemn vow, and in the death-agony, has still
been a witness, a consolation, and a pledge, between the soul and its
Creator,--by that crucifix which my dying mother clasped to her bosom
when she committed me, an infant, to the care of that Heaven which hears
and records forever our lightest word,--I swear that I will never be
yours!"
"Isora!" said I, awed and startled, yet struggling against the
impression her energy had made upon me, "you know not to what you pledge
yourself, nor what you require of me. If I do not seek out this man, if
I do not expose to him my knowledge of his pursuit and unhallowed
persecution of you, if I do not effectually prohibit and prevent their
continuance, think well, what security have I for your future peace of
mind,--nay, even for the safety of your honour or your life? A man thus
bold, daring and unbaffled in his pursuit, thus vigilant and skilful in
his selection of time and occasion,--so that, despite my constant and
anxious endeavour to meet him in your presence, I have never been able
to do so,--from a man, I say, thus pertinacious in resolution, thus
crafty in disguise, what may you not dread when you leave him utterly
fearless by the license of impunity? Think too, again, Isora, that the
mystery dishonours as much as the danger menaces. Is it meet that my
betrothed and my future bride should be subjected to these secret and
terrible visitations,--visitations of a man professing himself her
lover, and evincing the vehemence of his passion by that of his pursuit?
Isora--Isora--you have not weighed these things; you know not what you
demand of me."
"I do!" answered Isora; "I do know all that I demand of you; I demand of
you only to preserve your life."
"How," said I, impatiently, "cannot my hand preserve my life? and is it
for you, the daughter of a line of warriors, to ask your lover and your
husband to shrink from a single foe?"
"No, Morton," answered Isora. "Were you going to battle, I would gird
on your sword myself; were, too, this man other than he is, and you were
about to meet him in open contest, I would not wrong you, nor degrade
your betrothed, by a fear. But I know my persecutor well,--fierce,
unrelenting,--dreadful in his dark and ungovernable passions as he is,
he has not the courage to confront you: I fear not the open foe, but the
lurking and sure assassin. His very earnestness to avoid you, the
precautions he has taken, are alone sufficient to convince you that he
dreads personally to oppose your claim or to vindicate himself."
"Then what have I to fear?"
"Everything! Do you not know that from men, at once fierce, crafty, and
shrinking from bold violence, the stuff for assassins is always made?
And if I wanted surer proof of his designs than inference, his oath--it
rings in my ears now--is sufficient. 'The moment Morton Devereux
discovers who is his rival, that moment his death-warrant is irrevocably
sealed.' Morton, I demand your promise; or, though my heart break, I
will record my own vow."
"Stay--stay," I said, in anger, and in sorrow: "were I to promise this,
and for my own safety hazard yours, what could you deem me?"
"Fear not for me, Morton," answered Isora; "you have no cause. I tell
you that this man, villain as he is, ever leaves me humbled and abased.
Do not think that in all times, and all scenes, I am the foolish and
weak creature you behold me now. Remember that you said rightly I was
the daughter of a line of warriors; and I have that within me which will
not shame my descent."
"But, dearest, your resolution may avail you for a time; but it cannot
forever baffle the hardened nature of a man. I know my own sex, and I
know my own ferocity, were it once aroused."
"But, Morton, you do not know me," said Isora, proudly, and her face, as
she spoke, was set, and even stern: "I am only the coward when I think
of you; a word--a look of mine--can abash this man; or, if it could not,
I am never without a weapon to defend myself, or--or--" Isora's voice,
before firm and collected, now faltered, and a deep blush flowed over
the marble paleness of her face.
"Or what?" said I, anxiously.
"Or thee, Morton!" murmured Isora, tenderly, and withdrawing her eyes
from mine.
The tone, the look that accompanied these words, melted me at once. I
rose,--I clasped Isora to my heart.
"You are a strange compound, my own fairy queen; but these lips, this
cheek, those eyes, are not fit features for a heroine."
"Morton, if I had less determination in my heart, I could not love you
so well."
"But tell me," I whispered, with a smile, "where is this weapon on which
you rely so strongly?"
"Here!" answered Isora, blushingly; and, extricating herself from me,
she showed me a small two-edged dagger, which she wore carefully
concealed between the folds of her dress. I looked over the bright,
keen blade, with surprise, and yet with pleasure, at the latent
resolution of a character seemingly so soft. I say with pleasure, for
it suited well with my own fierce and wild temper. I returned the
weapon to her, with a smile and a jest.
"Ah!" said Isora, shrinking from my kiss, "I should not have been so
bold, if I only feared danger for myself."
But if, for a moment, we forgot, in the gushings of our affection, the
object of our converse and dispute, we soon returned to it again. Isora
was the first to recur to it. She reminded me of the promise she
required; and she spoke with a seriousness and a solemnity which I found
myself scarcely able to resist.
"But," I said, "if he ever molest you hereafter; if again I find that
bright cheek blanched, and those dear eyes dimmed with tears; and I know
that, in my own house, some one has dared thus to insult its queen,--am
I to be still torpid and inactive, lest a dastard and craven hand should
avenge my assertion of your honour and mine?"
"No, Morton; after our marriage, whenever that be, you will have nothing
to apprehend from him on the same ground as before; my fear for you,
too, will not be what it is now; your honour will be bound in mine, and
nothing shall induce me to hazard it,--no, not even your safety. I have
every reason to believe that, after that event, he will subject me no
longer to his insults: how, indeed, can he, under your perpetual
protection? or, for what cause should he attempt it, if he could? I
shall be then yours,--only and ever yours; what hope could, therefore,
then nerve his hardihood or instigate his intrusions? Trust to me at
that time, and suffer me to--nay, I repeat, promise me that I may--trust
in you now!"
What could I do? I still combated her wish and her request; but her
steadiness and rigidity of purpose made me, though reluctantly, yield to
them at last. So sincere, and so stern, indeed, appeared her
resolution, that I feared, by refusal, that she would take the rash oath
that would separate us forever. Added to this, I felt in her that
confidence which, I am apt to believe, is far more akin to the latter
stages of real love than jealousy and mistrust; and I could not believe
that either now, or, still less after our nuptials, she would risk aught
of honour, or the seemings of honour, from a visionary and superstitious
fear. In spite, therefore, of my deep and keen interest in the thorough
discovery of this mysterious persecution; and, still more, in the
prevention of all future designs from his audacity, I constrained myself
to promise her that I would on no account seek out the person I
suspected, or wilfully betray to him by word or deed my belief of his
identity with Barnard.
Though greatly dissatisfied with my self-compulsion, I strove to
reconcile myself to its idea. Indeed, there was much in the peculiar
circumstances of Isora, much in the freshness of her present affliction,
much in the unfriended and utter destitution of her situation, that,
while on the one hand, it called forth her pride, and made stubborn that
temper which was naturally so gentle and so soft; on the other hand,
made me yield even to wishes that I thought unreasonable, and consider
rather the delicacy and deference due to her condition, than insist upon
the sacrifices which, in more fortunate circumstances, I might have
imagined due to myself. Still more indisposed to resist her wish and
expose myself to its penalty was I, when I considered her desire was the
mere excess and caution of her love, and when I felt that she spoke
sincerely when she declared that it was only for me that she was the
coward. Nevertheless, and despite all these considerations, it was with
a secret discontent that I took my leave of her, and departed homeward.
I had just reached the end of the street where the house was situated,
when I saw there, very imperfectly, for the night was extremely dark,
the figure of a man entirely enveloped in a long cloak, such as was
commonly worn by gallants in affairs of secrecy or intrigue; and, in the
pale light of a single lamp near which he stood, something like the
brilliance of gems glittered on the large Spanish hat which overhung his
brow. I immediately recalled the description the woman had given me of
Barnard's dress, and the thought flashed across me that it was he whom I
beheld. "At all events," thought I, "I may confirm my doubts, if I may
not communicate them, and I may watch over her safety if I may not
avenge her injuries." I therefore took advantage of my knowledge of the
neighbourhood, passed the stranger with a quick step, and then, running
rapidly, returned by a circuitous route to the mouth of a narrow and
dark street, which was exactly opposite to Isora's house. Here I
concealed myself by a projecting porch, and I had not waited long before
I saw the dim form of the stranger walk slowly by the house. He passed
it three or four times, and each time I thought--though the darkness
might deceive me--that he looked up to the windows. He made, however,
no attempt at admission, and appeared as if he had no other object than
that of watching by the house. Wearied and impatient at last, I came
from my concealment. "I may /confirm/ my suspicions," I repeated,
recurring to my oath, and I walked straight towards the stranger.
"Sir," I said very calmly, "I am the last person in the world to
interfere with the amusements of any other gentleman; but I humbly opine
that no man can parade by this house upon so very cold a night, without
giving just ground for suspicion to the friends of its inhabitants. I
happen to be among that happy number; and I therefore, with all due
humility and respect, venture to request you to seek some other spot for
your nocturnal perambulations."
I made this speech purposely prolix, in order to have time fully to
reconnoitre the person of the one I addressed. The dusk of the night,
and the loose garb of the stranger, certainly forbade any decided
success to this scrutiny; but methought the figure seemed, despite of my
prepossessions, to want the stately height and grand proportions of
Gerald Devereux. I must own, however, that the necessary inexactitude
of my survey rendered this idea without just foundation, and did not by
any means diminish my firm impression that it was Gerald whom I beheld.
While I spoke, he retreated with a quick step, but made no answer. I
pressed upon him: he backed with a still quicker step; and when I had
ended, he fairly turned round, and made at full speed along the dark
street in which I had fixed my previous post of watch. I fled after
him, with a step as fleet as his own: his cloak encumbered his flight; I
gained upon him sensibly; he turned a sharp corner, threw me out, and
entered into a broad thoroughfare. As I sped after him, Bacchanalian
voices burst upon my ear, and presently a large band of those young men
who, under the name of Mohawks, were wont to scour the town nightly,
and, sword in hand, to exercise their love of riot under the disguise of
party zeal, became visible in the middle of the street. Through them my
fugitive dashed headlong, and, profiting by their surprise, escaped
unmolested. I attempted to follow with equal speed, but was less
successful. "Hallo!" cried the foremost of the group, placing himself
in my way.
"No such haste! Art Whig or Tory? Under which king, Bezonian? speak or
die!"
"Have a care, Sir," said I, fiercely, drawing my sword.
"Treason, treason!" cried the speaker, confronting me with equal
readiness. "Have a care, indeed! have /at thee/."
"Ha!" cried another, "'tis a Tory; 'tis the Secretary's popish friend,
Devereux: pike him, pike him."
I had already run my opponent through the sword arm, and was in hopes
that this act would intimidate the rest, and allow my escape; but at the
sound of my name and political bias, coupled with the drawn blood of
their confederate, the patriots rushed upon me with that amiable fury
generally characteristic of all true lovers of their country. Two
swords passed through my body simultaneously, and I fell bleeding and
insensible to the ground. When I recovered I was in my own apartments,
whither two of the gentler Mohawks had conveyed me: the surgeons were by
my bedside; I groaned audibly when I saw them. If there is a thing in
the world I hate, it is in any shape the disciples of Hermes; they
always remind me of that Indian people (the Padaei, I think) mentioned
by Herodotus, who sustained themselves by devouring the sick. "All is
well," said one, when my groan was heard. "He will not die," said
another. "At least not till we have had more fees," said a third, more
candid than the rest. And thereupon they seized me and began torturing
my wounds anew, till I fainted away with the pain. However, the next
day I was declared out of immediate danger; and the first proof I gave
of my convalescence was to make Desmarais discharge four surgeons out of
five: the remaining one I thought my youth and constitution might enable
me to endure.
That very evening, as I was turning restlessly in my bed, and muttering
with parched lips the name of "Isora," I saw by my side a figure covered
from head to foot in a long veil, and a voice, low, soft, but thrilling
through my heart like a new existence, murmured, "She is here!"
I forgot my wounds; I forgot my pain and my debility; I sprang upwards:
the stranger drew aside the veil from her countenance, and I beheld
Isora!
"Yes!" said she, in her own liquid and honeyed accents, which fell like
balm upon my wound and my spirit, "yes, she whom /you/ have hitherto
tended is come, in her turn, to render some slight but woman's services
to you. She has come to nurse, and to soothe, and to pray for you, and
to be, till you yourself discard her, your hand-maid and your slave!"
I would have answered, but raising her finger to her lips, she arose and
vanished; but from that hour my wound healed, my fever slaked, and
whenever I beheld her flitting round my bed, or watching over me, or
felt her cool fingers wiping the dew from my brow, or took from her hand
my medicine or my food, in those moments, the blood seemed to make a new
struggle through my veins, and I felt palpably within me a fresh and
delicious life--a life full of youth and passion and hope--replace the
vaguer and duller being which I had hitherto borne.
There are some extraordinary incongruities in that very mysterious thing
/sympathy/. One would imagine that, in a description of things most
generally interesting to all men, the most general interest would be
found; nevertheless, I believe few persons would hang breathless over
the progressive history of a sick-bed. Yet those gradual stages from
danger to recovery, how delightfully interesting they are to all who
have crawled from one to the other! and who, at some time or other in
his journey through that land of diseases--civilized life--has not taken
that gentle excursion? "I would be ill any day for the pleasure of
getting well," said Fontenelle to me one morning with his usual
/naivete/; but who would not be ill for the more pleasure of being ill,
if he could be tended by her whom he most loves?
I shall not therefore dwell upon that most delicious period of my
life,--my sick bed, and my recovery from it. I pass on to a certain
evening in which I heard from Isora's lips the whole of her history,
save what related to her knowledge of the real name of one whose
persecution constituted the little of romance which had yet mingled with
her innocent and pure life. That evening--how well I remember it!--we
were alone; still weak and reduced, I lay upon the sofa beside the
window, which was partially open, and the still air of an evening in the
first infancy of spring came fresh, and fraught as it were with a
prediction of the glowing woods and the reviving verdure, to my cheek.
The stars, one by one, kindled, as if born of Heaven and Twilight, into
their nightly being; and, through the vapour and thick ether of the
dense city, streamed their most silent light, holy and pure, and
resembling that which the Divine Mercy sheds upon the gross nature of
mankind. But, shadowy and calm, their rays fell full upon the face of
Isora, as she lay on the ground beside my couch, and with one hand
surrendered to my clasp, looked upward till, as she felt my gaze, she
turned her cheek blushingly away. There was quiet around and above us;
but beneath the window we heard at times the sounds of the common earth,
and then insensibly our hands knit into a closer clasp, and we felt them
thrill more palpably to our hearts; for those sounds reminded us both of
our existence and of our separation from the great herd of our race!
What is love but a division from the world, and a blending of two souls,
two immortalities divested of clay and ashes, into one? it is a severing
of a thousand ties from whatever is harsh and selfish, in order to knit
them into a single and sacred bond! Who loves hath attained the
anchorite's secret; and the hermitage has become dearer than the world.
O respite from the toil and the curse of our social and banded state, a
little interval art thou, suspended between two eternities,--the Past
and the Future,--a star that hovers between the morning and the night,
sending through the vast abyss one solitary ray from heaven, but too far
and faint to illumine, while it hallows the earth!
There was nothing in Isora's tale which the reader has not already
learned or conjectured. She had left her Andalusian home in her early
childhood, but she remembered it well, and lingeringly dwelt over it in
description. It was evident that little, in our colder and less genial
isle, had attracted her sympathy, or wound itself into her affection.
Nevertheless, I conceive that her naturally dreamy and abstracted
character had received from her residence and her trials here much of
the vigour and the heroism which it now possessed. Brought up alone,
music, and books--few, though not ill-chosen, for Shakspeare was one,
and the one which had made upon her the most permanent impression, and
perhaps had coloured her temperament with its latent but rich hues of
poetry--constituted her amusement and her studies.
But who knows not that a woman's heart finds its fullest occupation
within itself? There lies its real study, and within that narrow orbit,
the mirror of enchanted thought reflects the whole range of earth.
Loneliness and meditation nursed the mood which afterwards, with Isora,
became love itself. But I do not wish now so much to describe her
character as to abridge her brief history. The first English stranger
of the male sex whom her father admitted to her acquaintance was
Barnard. This man was, as I had surmised, connected with him in certain
political intrigues, the exact nature of which she did not know. I
continue to call him by a name which Isora acknowledged was fictitious.
He had not, at first, by actual declaration, betrayed to her his
affections: though, accompanied by a sort of fierceness which early
revolted her, they soon became visible. On the evening in which I had
found her stretched insensible in the garden, and had myself made my
first confession of love, I learned that he had divulged to her his
passion and real name; that her rejection had thrown him into a fierce
despair; that he had accompanied his disclosure with the most terrible
threats against me, for whom he supposed himself rejected, and against
the safety of her father, whom he said a word of his could betray; and
her knowledge of his power to injure us--/us/--yes, Isora then loved me,
and then trembled for my safety! had terrified and overcome her; and
that in the very moment in which my horse's hoofs were heard, and as the
alternative of her non-compliance, the rude suitor swore deadly and sore
vengeance against Alvarez and myself, she yielded to the oath he
prescribed to her,--an oath that she would never reveal the secret he
had betrayed to her, or suffer me to know who was my real rival.
This was all that I could gather from her guarded confidence; he heard
the oath and vanished, and she felt no more till she was in my arms;
then it was that she saw in the love and vengeance of my rival a barrier
against our union; and then it was that her generous fear for me
conquered her attachment, and she renounced me. Their departure from
the cottage so shortly afterwards was at her father's choice and at the
instigation of Barnard, for the furtherance of their political projects;
and it was from Barnard that the money came which repaid my loan to
Alvarez. The same person, no doubt, poisoned her father against me, for
henceforth Alvarez never spoke of me with that partiality he had
previously felt. They repaired to London: her father was often absent,
and often engaged with men whom she had never seen before; he was
absorbed and uncommunicative, and she was still ignorant of the nature
of his schemings and designs.
At length, after an absence of several weeks, Barnard reappeared, and
his visits became constant; he renewed his suit to her father as well as
herself. Then commenced that domestic persecution, so common in this
very tyrannical world, which makes us sicken to bear, and which, had
Isora been wholly a Spanish girl, she, in all probability, would never
have resisted: so much of custom is there in the very air of a climate.
But she did resist it, partly because she loved me,--and loved me more
and more for our separation,--and partly because she dreaded and
abhorred the ferocious and malignant passions of my rival, far beyond
any other misery with which fortune could threaten her. "Your father
then shall hang or starve!" said Barnard, one day in uncontrollable
frenzy, and left her. He did not appear again at the house. The
Spaniard's resources, fed, probably, alone by Barnard, failed. From
house to house they removed, till they were reduced to that humble one
in which I had found them. There, Barnard again sought them; there,
backed by the powerful advocate of want, he again pressed his suit, and
at that exact moment her father was struck with the numbing curse of his
disease. "There and then," said Isora, candidly, "I might have yielded
at last, for my poor father's sake, if you had not saved me."
Once only (I have before recorded the time) did Barnard visit her in the
new abode I had provided for her, and the day after our conversation on
that event Isora watched and watched for me, and I did not come. From
the woman of the house she at last learned the cause. "I forgot," she
said timidly,--and in conclusion, "I forgot womanhood, and modesty, and
reserve; I forgot the customs of your country, the decencies of my own;
I forgot everything in this world, but you,--you suffering and in
danger; my very sense of existence seemed to pass from me, and to be
supplied by a breathless, confused, and overwhelming sense of impatient
agony, which ceased not till I was in your chamber, and by your side!
And--now, Morton, do not despise me for not having considered more, and
loved you less."
"Despise you!" I murmured, and I threw my arms around her, and drew her
to my breast. I felt her heart beat against my own: those hearts spoke,
though our lips were silent, and in their language seemed to say, "We
are united now, and we will not part."
The starlight, shining with a mellow and deep stillness, was the only
light by which we beheld each other: it shone, the witness and the
sanction of that internal voice, which we owned, but heard not. Our
lips drew closer and closer together, till they met! and in that kiss
was the type and promise of the after ritual which knit two spirits into
one. Silence fell around us like a curtain, and the eternal Night, with
her fresh dews and unclouded stars, looked alone upon the compact of our
hearts,--an emblem of the eternity, the freshness, and the unearthly
though awful brightness of the love which it hallowed and beheld!
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
WHEREIN THE HISTORY MAKES GREAT PROGRESS AND IS MARKED BY ONE IMPORTANT
EVENT IN HUMAN LIFE.
SPINOZA is said to have loved, above all other amusements, to put flies
into a spider's web; and the struggles of the imprisoned insects were
wont to bear, in the eyes of this grave philosopher, so facetious and
hilarious an appearance, that he would stand and laugh thereat until the
tears "coursed one another down his innocent nose." Now it so happened
that Spinoza, despite the general (and, in my most meek opinion, the
just) condemnation of his theoretical tenets,* was, in character and in
nature, according to the voices of all who knew him, an exceedingly
kind, humane, and benevolent biped; and it doth, therefore, seem a
little strange unto us grave, sober members of the unphilosophical Many,
that the struggles and terrors of these little winged creatures should
strike the good subtleist in a point of view so irresistibly ludicrous
and delightful. But, for my part, I believe that that most imaginative
and wild speculator beheld in the entangled flies nothing more than a
living simile--an animated illustration--of his own beloved vision of
Necessity; and that he is no more to be considered cruel for the
complacency with which he gazed upon those agonized types of his system
than is Lucan for dwelling with a poet's pleasure upon the many
ingenious ways with which that Grand Inquisitor of Verse has contrived
to vary the simple operation of dying. To the bard, the butchered
soldier was only an epic ornament; to the philosopher, the murdered fly
was only a metaphysical illustration. For, without being a fatalist, or
a disciple of Baruch de Spinoza, I must confess that I cannot conceive a
greater resemblance to our human and earthly state than the penal
predicament of the devoted flies. Suddenly do we find ourselves plunged
into that Vast Web,--the World; and even as the insect, when he first
undergoeth a similar accident of necessity, standeth amazed and still,
and only by little and little awakeneth to a full sense of his
situation; so also at the first abashed and confounded, we remain on the
mesh we are urged upon, ignorant, as yet, of the toils around us, and
the sly, dark, immitigable foe that lieth in yonder nook, already
feasting her imagination upon our destruction. Presently we revive, we
stir, we flutter; and Fate, that foe--the old arch-spider, that hath no
moderation in her maw--now fixeth one of her many eyes upon us, and
giveth us a partial glimpse of her laidly and grim aspect. We pause in
mute terror; we gaze upon the ugly spectre, so imperfectly beheld; the
net ceases to tremble, and the wily enemy draws gently back into her
nook. Now we begin to breathe again; we sound the strange footing on
which we tread; we move tenderly along it, and again the grisly monster
advances on us; again we pause; the foe retires not, but remains still,
and surveyeth us; we see every step is accompanied with danger; we look
round and above in despair; suddenly we feel within us a new impulse and
a new power! we feel a vague sympathy with /that/ unknown region which
spreads beyond this great net,--/that limitless beyond/ hath a mystic
affinity with a part of our own frame; we unconsciously extend our wings
(for the soul to us is as the wings to the fly!); we attempt to
rise,--to soar above this perilous snare, from which we are unable to
crawl. The old spider watcheth us in self-hugging quiet, and, looking
up to our native air, we think,--now shall we escape thee. Out on it!
We rise not a hair's breadth: we have the /wings/, it is true, but the
/feet/ are fettered. We strive desperately again: the whole web
vibrates with the effort; it will break beneath our strength. Not a jot
of it! we cease; we are more entangled than ever! wings, feet, frame,
the foul slime is over all! where shall we turn? every line of the web
leads to the one den,--we know not,--we care not,--we grow blind,
confused, lost. The eyes of our hideous foe gloat upon us; she whetteth
her insatiate maw; she leapeth towards us; she fixeth her fangs upon us;
and so endeth my parallel!
* One ought, however, to be very cautious before one condemns a
philosopher. The master's opinions are generally pure: it is the
conclusions and corollaries of his disciples that "draw the honey forth
that drives men mad." Schlegel seems to have studied Spinoza /de
fonte/, and vindicates him very earnestly from the charges brought
against him,--atheism, etc.--ED.
But what has this to do with my tale? Ay, Reader, that is thy question;
and I will answer it by one of mine. When thou hearest a man moralize
and preach of Fate, art thou not sure that he is going to tell thee of
some one of his peculiar misfortunes? Sorrow loves a parable as much as
mirth loves a jest. And thus already and from afar, I prepare thee, at
the commencement of this, the third of these portions into which the
history of my various and wild life will be divided, for that event with
which I purpose that the said portion shall be concluded.
It is now three months after my entire recovery from my wounds, and I am
married to Isora!--married,--yes, but /privately/ married, and the
ceremony is as yet closely concealed. I will explain.
The moment Isora's anxiety for me led her across the threshold of my
house it became necessary for her honour that our wedding should take
place immediately on my recovery: so far I was decided on the measure;
now for the method. During my illness, I received a long and most
affectionate letter from Aubrey, who was then at Devereux Court: /so/
affectionate was the heart-breathing spirit of that letter, so steeped
in all our old household remembrances and boyish feelings, that coupled
as it was with a certain gloom when he spoke of himself and of worldly
sins and trials, it brought tears to my eyes whenever I recurred to it;
and many and many a time afterwards, when I thought his affections
seemed estranged from me, I did recur to it to convince myself that I
was mistaken. Shortly afterwards I received also a brief epistle from
my uncle; it was as kind as usual, and it mentioned Aubrey's return to
Devereux Court. "That unhappy boy," said Sir William, "is more than
ever devoted to his religious duties; nor do I believe that any
priest-ridden poor devil in the dark ages ever made such use of the
scourge and the penance."
Now, I have before stated that my uncle would, I knew, be averse to my
intended marriage; and on hearing that Aubrey was then with him, I
resolved, in replying to his letter, to entreat the former to sound Sir
William on the subject I had most at heart, and ascertain the exact
nature and extent of the opposition I should have to encounter in the
step I was resolved to take. By the same post I wrote to the good old
knight in as artful a strain as I was able, dwelling at some length upon
my passion, upon the high birth, as well as the numerous good qualities
of the object, but mentioning not her name; and I added everything that
I thought likely to enlist my uncle's kind and warm feelings on my
behalf. These letters produced the following ones:--
FROM SIR WILLIAM DEVEREUX.
'Sdeath, nephew Morton,--but I won't scold thee, though thou deservest
it. Let me see, thou art now scarce twenty, and thou talkest of
marriage, which is the exclusive business of middle age, as familiarly
as "girls of thirteen do of puppy-dogs." Marry!--go hang thyself
rather. Marriage, my dear boy, is at the best a treacherous proceeding;
and a friend--a true friend--will never counsel another to adopt it
rashly. Look you: I have had experience in these matters; and, I think,
the moment a woman is wedded some terrible revolution happens in her
system; all her former good qualities vanish, /hey presto/! like eggs
out of a conjuror's box; 'tis true they appear on t' other side of the
box, the side turned to other people, but for the poor husband they are
gone forever. Ods fish, Morton, go to! I tell thee again that I have
had experience in these matters which thou never hast had, clever as
thou thinkest thyself. If now it were a good marriage thou wert about
to make; if thou wert going to wed power, and money, and places at
court,--why, something might be said for thee. As it is, there is no
excuse--none. And I am astonished how a boy of thy sense could think of
such nonsense. Birth, Morton, what the devil does that signify so long
as it is birth in another country? A foreign damsel, and a Spanish
girl, too, above all others! 'Sdeath, man, as if there was not
quicksilver enough in the English women for you, you must make a
mercurial exportation from Spain, must you! Why, Morton, Morton, the
ladies in that country are proverbial. I tremble at the very thought of
it. But as for my consent, I never will give it,--never; and though I
threaten thee not with disinheritance and such like, yet I do ask
something in return for the great affection I have always borne thee;
and I make no doubt that thou wilt readily oblige me in such a trifle as
giving up a mere Spanish donna. So think of her no more. If thou
wantest to make love, there are ladies in plenty whom thou needest not
to marry. And for my part, I thought that thou wert all in all with the
Lady Hasselton: Heaven bless her pretty face! Now don't think I want to
scold thee; and don't think thine old uncle harsh,--God knows he is
not,--but my dear, dear boy, this is quite out of the question, and thou
must let me hear no more about it. The gout cripples me so that I must
leave off. Ever thine old uncle,
WILLIAM DEVEREUX.
P. S. Upon consideration, I think, my dear boy, that thou must want
money, and thou art ever too sparing. Messrs. Child, or my goldsmiths
in Aldersgate, have my orders to pay to thy hand's-writing whatever thou
mayst desire; and I do hope that thou wilt now want nothing to make thee
merry withal. Why dost thou not write a comedy? is it not the mode
still?
LETTER FROM AUBREY DEVEREUX.
I have sounded my uncle, dearest Morton, according to your wishes; and I
grieve to say that I have found him inexorable. He was very much hurt
by your letter to him, and declared he should write to you forthwith
upon the subject. I represented to him all that you have said upon the
virtues of your intended bride; and I also insisted upon your clear
judgment and strong sense upon most points being a sufficient surety for
your prudence upon this. But you know the libertine opinions and the
depreciating judgment of women entertained by my poor uncle; and he
would, I believe, have been less displeased with the heinous crime of an
illicit connection than the amiable weakness of an imprudent marriage--I
might say of any marriage--until it was time to provide heirs to the
estate.
Here Aubrey, in the most affectionate and earnest manner, broke off, to
point out to me the extreme danger to my interests that it would be to
disoblige my uncle; who, despite his general kindness, would, upon a
disagreement on so tender a matter as his sore point, and his most
cherished hobby, consider my disobedience as a personal affront. He
also recalled to me all that my uncle had felt and done for me; and
insisted, at all events, upon the absolute duty of my delaying, even
though I should not break off, the intended measure. Upon these points
he enlarged much and eloquently; and this part of his letter certainly
left no cheering or comfortable impression upon my mind.
Now my good uncle knew as much of love as L. Mummius did of the fine
arts,* and it was impossible to persuade him that if one wanted to
indulge the tender passion, one woman would not do exactly as well as
another, provided she were equally pretty. I knew therefore that he was
incapable, on the one hand, of understanding my love for Isora, or, on
the other, of acknowledging her claims upon me. I had not, of course,
mentioned to him the generous imprudence which, on the news of my wound,
had brought Isora to my house: for if I had done so, my uncle, with the
eye of a courtier of Charles II., would only have seen the advantage to
be derived from the impropriety, not the gratitude due to the devotion;
neither had I mentioned this circumstance to Aubrey,--it seemed to me
too delicate for any written communication; and therefore, in his advice
to delay my marriage, he was unaware of the necessity which rendered the
advice unavailing. Now then was I in this dilemma, either to marry, and
that /instanter/, and so, seemingly, with the most hasty and the most
insolent decorum, incense, wound, and in his interpretation of the act,
contemn one whom I loved as I loved my uncle; or, to delay the marriage,
to separate Isora, and to leave my future wife to the malignant
consequences that would necessarily be drawn from a sojourn of weeks in
my house. This fact there was no chance of concealing; servants have
more tongues than Argus had eyes, and my youthful extravagance had
filled my whole house with those pests of society. The latter measure
was impossible, the former was most painful. Was there no third
way?--there was that of a private marriage. This obviated not every
evil; but it removed many: it satisfied my impatient love; it placed
Isora under a sure protection; it secured and established her honour the
moment the ceremony should be declared; and it avoided the seeming
ingratitude and indelicacy of disobeying my uncle, without an effort of
patience to appease him. I should have time and occasion then, I
thought, for soothing and persuading him, and ultimately winning that
consent which I firmly trusted I should sooner or later extract from his
kindness of heart.
* A Roman consul, who, removing the most celebrated remains of Grecian
antiquity to Rome, assured the persons charged with conveying them that,
if they injured any, they should make others to replace them.
That some objections existed to this mediatory plan was true enough:
those objections related to Isora rather than to myself, and she was the
first, on my hinting at the proposal, to overcome its difficulties. The
leading feature in Isora's character was generosity; and, in truth, I
know not a quality more dangerous either to man or woman. Herself was
invariably the last human being whom she seemed to consider; and no
sooner did she ascertain what measure was the most prudent for me to
adopt, than it immediately became that upon which she insisted. Would
it have been possible for me, man of pleasure and of the world as I was
thought to be,--no, my good uncle, though it went to my heart to wound
thee so secretly, it would /not/ have been possible for me, even if I
had not coined my whole nature into love, even if Isora had not been to
me what one smile of Isora's really was,--it would not have been
possible to have sacrificed so noble and so divine a heart, and made
myself, in that sacrifice, a wretch forever. No, my good uncle. I
could not have made that surrender to thy reason, much less to thy
prejudices. But if I have not done great injustice to the knight's
character, I doubt whether the youngest reader will not forgive him for
a want of sympathy with one feeling, when they consider how susceptible
that charming old man was to all others.
And herewith I could discourse most excellent wisdom upon that
mysterious passion of love. I could show, by tracing its causes, and
its inseparable connection with the imagination, that it is only in
certain states of society, as well as in certain periods of life, that
love--real, pure, high love--can be born. Yea, I could prove, to the
nicety of a very problem, that, in the court of Charles II., it would
have been as impossible for such a feeling to find root, as it would be
for myrtle trees to effloresce from a Duvillier periwig. And we are not
to expect a man, however tender and affectionate he may be, to
sympathize with that sentiment in another, which, from the accidents of
birth and position, nothing short of a miracle could have ever produced
in himself.
We were married then in private by a Catholic priest. St. John, and one
old lady who had been my father's godmother--for I wished for a female
assistant in the ceremony, and this old lady could tell no secrets, for,
being excessively deaf, nobody ever talked to her, and indeed she
scarcely ever went abroad--were the sole witnesses. I took a small
house in the immediate neighbourhood of London; it was surrounded on all
sides with a high wall which defied alike curiosity and attack. This
was, indeed, the sole reason which had induced me to prefer it to many
more gaudy or more graceful dwellings. But within I had furnished it
with every luxury that wealth, the most lavish and unsparing, could
procure. Thither, under an assumed name, I brought my bride, and there
was the greater part of my time spent. The people I had placed in the
house believed I was a rich merchant, and this accounted for my frequent
absences (absences which Prudence rendered necessary), for the wealth
which I lavished, and for the precautions of bolt, bar, and wall, which
they imagined the result of commercial caution.
Oh the intoxication of that sweet Elysium, that Tadmor in life's
desert,--the possession of the one whom we have first loved! It is as
if poetry, and music, and light, and the fresh breath of flowers, were
all blended into one being, and from that being rose our existence! It
is content made rapture,--nothing to wish for, yet everything to feel!
Was that air the air which I had breathed hitherto? that earth the earth
which I had hitherto beheld? No, my heart dwelt in a new world, and all
these motley and restless senses were melted into one sense,--deep,
silent, fathomless delight!
Well, too much of this species of love is not fit for a worldly tale,
and I will turn, for the reader's relief, to worldly affections. From
my first reunion with Isora, I had avoided all the former objects and
acquaintances in which my time had been so charmingly employed.
Tarleton was the first to suffer by my new pursuit. "What has altered
you?" said he; "you drink not, neither do you play. The women say you
are grown duller than a Norfolk parson, and neither the Puppet Show nor
the Water Theatre, the Spring Gardens nor the Ring, Wills's nor the Kit
Cat, the Mulberry Garden nor the New Exchange, witness any longer your
homage and devotion. What has come over you?--speak!"
"Apathy!"
"Ah! I understand,--you are tired of these things; pish, man!--go down
into the country, the green fields will revive thee, and send thee back
to London a new man! One would indeed find the town intolerably dull,
if the country were not, happily, a thousand times duller: go to the
country, Count, or I shall drop your friendship."
"Drop it!" said I, yawning, and Tarleton took pet, and did as I desired
him. Now I had got rid of my friend as easily as I had found him,--a
matter that would not have been so readily accomplished had not Mr.
Tarleton owed me certain moneys, concerning which, from the moment he
had "dropped my friendship," good breeding effectually prevented his
saying a single syllable to me ever after. There is no knowing the
blessings of money until one has learned to manage it properly!
So much, then, for the friend; now for the mistress. Lady Hasselton
had, as Tarleton hinted before, resolved to play me a trick of spite;
the reasons of our rupture really were, as I had stated to Tarleton, the
mighty effects of little things. She lived in a sea of trifles, and she
was desperately angry if her lover was not always sailing a
pleasure-boat in the same ocean. Now this was expecting too much from
me, and, after twisting our silken strings of attachment into all manner
of fantastic forms, we fell fairly out one evening and broke the little
ligatures in two. No sooner had I quarrelled with Tarleton than Lady
Hasselton received him in my place, and a week afterwards I was favoured
with an anonymous letter, informing me of the violent passion which a
certain /dame de la cour/ had conceived for me, and requesting me to
meet her at an appointed place. I looked twice over the letter, and
discovered in one corner of it two /g's/ peculiar to the caligraphy of
Lady Hasselton, though the rest of the letter (bad spelling excepted)
was pretty decently disguised. Mr. Fielding was with me at the time.
"What disturbs you?" said he, adjusting his knee-buckles.
"Read it!" said I, handing him the letter.
"Body of me, you are a lucky dog!" cried the beau. "You will hasten
thither on the wings of love."
"Not a whit of it," said I; "I suspect that it comes from a rich old
widow whom I hate mortally."
"A rich old widow!" repeated Mr. Fielding, to whose eyes there was
something very piquant in a jointure, and who thought consequently that
there were few virginal flowers equal to a widow's weeds. "A rich old
widow: you are right, Count, you are right. Don't go, don't think of
it. I cannot abide those depraved creatures. Widow, indeed,--quite an
affront to your gallantry."
"Very true," said I. "Suppose you supply my place?"
"I'd sooner be shot first," said Mr. Fielding, taking his departure, and
begging me for the letter to wrap some sugar plums in.
Need I add, that Mr. Fielding repaired to the place of assignation,
where he received, in the shape of a hearty drubbing, the kind favours
intended for me? The story was now left for me to tell, not for the
Lady Hasselton; and that makes all the difference in the manner a story
is told,--/me/ narrante, it is de /te/ fabula narratur; /te/ narrante,
and it is de /me/ fabula, etc. Poor Lady Hasselton! to be laughed at,
and have Tarleton for a lover!
I have gone back somewhat in the progress of my history in order to make
the above honourable mention of my friend and my mistress, thinking it
due to their own merits, and thinking it may also be instructive to
young gentlemen who have not yet seen the world to testify the exact
nature and the probable duration of all the loves and friendships they
are likely to find in that Great Monmouth Street of glittering and of
damaged affections! I now resume the order of narration.
I wrote to Aubrey, thanking him for his intercession, but concealing,
till we met, the measure I had adopted. I wrote also to my uncle,
assuring him that I would take an early opportunity of hastening to
Devereux Court, and conversing with him on the subject of his letter.
And after an interval of some weeks, I received the two following
answers from my correspondents; the latter arrived several days after
the former:--
FROM AUBREY DEVEREUX.
I am glad to understand from your letter, unexplanatory as it is, that
you have followed my advice. I will shortly write to you more at large;
at present I am on the eve of my departure for the North of England, and
have merely time to assure you of my affection.
AUBREY DEVEREUX.
P. S. Gerald is in London; have you seen him? Oh, this world! this
world! how it clings to us, despite our education, our wishes, our
conscience, our knowledge of the Dread Hereafter!
LETTER FROM SIR WILLIAM DEVEREUX.
MY DEAR NEPHEW,--Thank thee for thy letter, and the new plays thou
sentest me down, and that droll new paper, the "Spectator:" it is a
pretty shallow thing enough,--though it is not so racy as Rochester or
little Sid would have made it; but I thank thee for it, because it shows
thou wast not angry with thine old uncle for opposing thee on thy love
whimsies (in which most young men are dreadfully obstinate), since thou
didst provide so kindly for his amusement. Well, but, Morton, I hope
thou hast got that crotchet clear out of thy mind, and prithee now
/don't/ talk of it when thou comest down to see me. I hate
conversations on marriage more than a boy does flogging,--ods fish, I
do. So you must humour me on that point!
Aubrey has left me again, and I am quite alone,--not that I was much
better off when he was here, for he was wont, of late, to shun my poor
room like a "lazar house," and when I spoke to his mother about it, she
muttered something about "example" and "corrupting." 'Sdeath, Morton,
is your old uncle, who loves all living things, down to poor Ponto the
dog, the sort of man whose example corrupts youth? As for thy mother,
she grows more solitary every day; and I don't know how it is, but I am
not so fond of strange faces as I used to be. 'Tis a new thing for me
to be avoided and alone. Why, I remember even little Sid, who had as
much venom as most men, once said it was impossible to--Fie now--see if
I was not going to preach a sermon from a text in favour of myself! But
come, Morton, come, I long for your face again: it is not so soft as
Aubrey's, nor so regular as Gerald's; but it is twice as kind as either.
Come, before it is too late: I feel myself going; and, to tell thee a
secret, the doctors tell me I may not last many months longer. Come,
and laugh once more at the old knight's stories. Come, and show him
that there is still some one not too good to love him. Come, and I will
tell thee a famous thing of old Rowley, which I am too ill and too sad
to tell thee now.
WM. DEVEREUX.
Need I say that, upon receiving this letter, I resolved, without any
delay, to set out for Devereux Court? I summoned Desmarais to me; he
answered not my call: he was from home,--an unfrequent occurrence with
the necessitarian valet. I waited his return, which was not for some
hours, in order to give him sundry orders for my departure. The
exquisite Desmarais hemmed thrice,--"Will Monsieur be so very kind as to
excuse my accompanying him?" said he, with his usual air and tone of
obsequious respect.
"And why?" The valet explained. A relation of his was in England only
for a few days: the philosopher was most anxious to enjoy his society, a
pleasure which fate might not again allow him.
Though I had grown accustomed to the man's services, and did not like to
lose him even for a time, yet I could not refuse his request; and I
therefore ordered another of my servants to supply his place. This
change, however, determined me to adopt a plan which I had before
meditated; namely, the conveying of my own person to Devereux Court on
horseback, and sending my servant with my luggage in my post-chaise.
The equestrian mode of travelling is, indeed to this day, the one most
pleasing to me; and the reader will find me pursuing it many years
afterwards, and to the same spot.
I might as well observe here that I had never intrusted Desmarais--no,
nor one of my own servants--with the secret of my marriage with, or my
visits to, Isora. I am a very fastidious person on those matters; and
of all confidants, even in the most trifling affairs, I do most eschew
those by whom we have the miserable honour of being served.
In order, then, to avoid having my horse brought me to Isora's house by
any of these menial spies, I took the steed which I had selected for my
journey, and rode to Isora's with the intention of spending the evening
there, and thence commencing my excursion with the morning light.
CHAPTER II.
LOVE; PARTING; A DEATH-BED.--AFTER ALL HUMAN NATURE IS A BEAUTIFUL
FABRIC; AND EVEN ITS IMPERFECTIONS ARE NOT ODIOUS TO HIM WHO HAS STUDIED
THE SCIENCE OF ITS ARCHITECTURE, AND FORMED A REVERENT ESTIMATE OF ITS
CREATOR.
IT is a noticeable thing how much fear increases love. I mean--for the
aphorism requires explanation--how much we love in proportion to our
fear of losing (or even to our fear of injury done to) the beloved
object. 'Tis an instance of the reaction of the feelings: the love
produces the fear, and the fear reproduces the love. This is one
reason, among many, why women love so much more tenderly and anxiously
than we do; and it is also one reason among many why frequent absences
are, in all stages of love, the most keen exciters of the passion. I
never breathed, away from Isora, without trembling for her safety. I
trembled lest this Barnard, if so I should still continue to call her
persecutor, should again discover and again molest her. Whenever (and
that was almost daily) I rode to the quiet and remote dwelling I had
procured her, my heart beat so vehemently, and my agitation was so
intense, that on arriving at the gate I have frequently been unable, for
several minutes, to demand admittance. There was, therefore, in the
mysterious danger which ever seemed to hang over Isora, a perpetual
irritation to a love otherwise but little inclined to slumber; and this
constant excitement took away from the torpor into which domestic
affection too often languishes, and increased my passion even while it
diminished my happiness.
On my arrival now at Isora's, I found her already stationed at the
window, watching for my coming. How her dark eyes lit into lustre when
they saw me! How the rich blood mantled up under the soft cheek which
feeling had refined of late into a paler hue than it was wont, when I
first gazed upon it, to wear! Then how sprang forth her light step to
meet me! How trembled her low voice to welcome me! How spoke, from
every gesture of her graceful form, the anxious, joyful, all-animating
gladness of her heart! It is a melancholy pleasure to the dry, harsh
afterthoughts of later life, to think one has been thus loved; and one
marvels, when one considers what one is now, how it could have ever
been! That love /of ours/ was never made for after years! It could
never have flowed into the common and cold channel of ordinary affairs!
It could never have been mingled with the petty cares and the low
objects with which the loves of all who live long together in this
sordid and most earthly earth are sooner or later blended! We could not
have spared to others an atom of the great wealth of our affection. We
were misers of every coin in that boundless treasury. It would have
pierced me to the soul to have seen Isora smile upon another. I know
not even, had we had children, if I should not have been jealous of my
child! Was this selfish love? yes, it was, intensely, wholly selfish;
but it was a love made so only by its excess; nothing selfish on a
smaller scale polluted it. There was not on earth that which the one
would not have forfeited at the lightest desire of the other. So
utterly were happiness and Isora entwined together that I could form no
idea of the one with which the other was not connected. Was this love
made for the many and miry roads through which man must travel? Was it
made for age, or, worse than age, for those cool, ambitious, scheming
years that we call mature, in which all the luxuriance and verdure of
things are pared into tame shapes that mimic life, but a life that is
estranged from Nature, in which art is the only beauty and regularity
the only grace? No, in my heart of hearts, I feel that our love was not
meant for the stages of life through which I have already passed; it
would have made us miserable to see it fritter itself away, and to
remember what it once was. Better as it is! better to mourn over the
green bough than to look upon the sapless stem. You who now glance over
these pages, are you a mother? If so, answer me one question: Would you
not rather that the child whom you have cherished with your soul's care,
whom you have nurtured at your bosom, whose young joys your eyes have
sparkled to behold, whose lightest grief you have wept to witness as you
would have wept not for your own; over whose pure and unvexed sleep you
have watched and prayed, and, as it lay before you thus still and
unconscious of your vigil, have shaped out, oh, such bright hopes for
its future lot,--would you not rather that while thus young and
innocent, not a care tasted, not a crime incurred, it went down at once
into the dark grave? Would you not rather suffer this grief, bitter
though it be, than watch the predestined victim grow and ripen, and wind
itself more and more around your heart, and when it is of full and
mature age, and you yourself are stricken by years, and can form no new
ties to replace the old that are severed, when woes have already bowed
the darling of your hope, whom woe never was to touch, when sins have
already darkened the bright, seraph, unclouded heart which sin never was
to dim,--behold it sink day by day altered, diseased, decayed, into the
tomb which its childhood had in vain escaped? Answer me: would not the
earlier fate be far gentler than the last? And if you /have/ known and
wept over that early tomb, if you have seen the infant flower fade away
from the green soil of your affections; if you have missed the bounding
step, and the laughing eye, and the winning mirth which made this
sterile world a perpetual holiday,--Mother of the Lost, if you have
known, and you still pine for these, answer me yet again! Is it not a
comfort, even while you mourn, to think of all that that breast, now so
silent, has escaped? The cream, the sparkle, the elixir of life, it had
already quaffed: is it not sweet to think it shunned the wormwood and
the dregs? Answer me, even though the answer be in tears! Mourner,
your child was to you what my early and only love was to me; and could
you pierce down, down through a thousand fathom of ebbing thought, to
the far depths of my heart, you would there behold a sorrow /and a
consolation/ that have something in unison with your own!
When the light of the next morning broke into our room, Isora was still
sleeping. Have you ever observed that the young, seen asleep and by the
morning light, seem much younger even than they are? partly because the
air and the light sleep of dawn bring a fresher bloom to the cheek, and
partly, because the careless negligence and the graceful postures
exclusively appropriated to youth, are forbidden by custom and formality
through the day, and developing themselves unconsciously in sleep, they
strike the eye like the ease and freedom of childhood itself. There, as
I looked upon Isora's tranquil and most youthful beauty, over which
circled and breathed an ineffable innocence,--even as the finer and
subtler air, which was imagined by those dreamy bards who kindled the
soft creations of naiad and of nymph, to float around a goddess,--I
could not believe that aught evil awaited one for whom infancy itself
seemed to linger,--linger as if no elder shape and less delicate hue
were meet to be the garment of so much guilelessness and tenderness of
heart. I felt, indeed, while I bent over her, and her regular and
quiet breath came upon my cheek, that feeling which is exactly the
reverse to a presentiment of ill. I felt as if, secure in her own
purity, she had nothing to dread, so that even the pang of parting was
lost in the confidence which stole over me as I then gazed.
I rose gently, went to the next room, and dressed myself; I heard my
horse neighing beneath, as the servant walked him lazily to and fro. I
re-entered the bed-chamber in order to take leave of Isora; she was
already up. "What!" said I, "it is but three minutes since I left you
asleep, and I stole away as time does when with you."
"Ah!" said Isora, smiling and blushing too, "but for my part, I think
there is an instinct to know, even if all the senses were shut up,
whether the one we love is with us or not. The moment you left me, I
felt it at once, even in sleep, and I woke. But you will not, no, you
will not leave me yet!"
I think I see Isora now, as she stood by the window which she had
opened, with a woman's minute anxiety, to survey even the aspect of the
clouds, and beseech caution against the treachery of the skies. I think
I see her now, as she stood the moment after I had torn myself from her
embrace, and had looked back, as I reached the door, for one parting
glance,--her eyes all tenderness, her lips parted, and quivering with
the attempt to smile, the long, glossy ringlets (through whose raven hue
the /purpureum lumen/ broke like an imprisoned sunbeam) straying in
dishevelled beauty over her transparent neck; the throat bent in mute
despondency; the head drooping; the arms half extended, and dropping
gradually as my steps departed; the sunken, absorbed expression of face,
form, and gesture, so steeped in the very bitterness of dejection,--all
are before me now, sorrowful, and lovely in sorrow, as they were beheld
years ago, by the gray, cold, comfortless light of morning!
"God bless you,--my own, own love," I said; and as my look lingered, I
added, with a full but an assured heart; "and He will!" I tarried no
more: I flung myself on my horse, and rode on as if I were speeding
/to/, and not /from/, my bride.
The noon was far advanced, as, the day after I left Isora, I found
myself entering the park in which Devereux Court is situated. I did not
enter by one of the lodges, but through a private gate. My horse was
thoroughly jaded; for the distance I had come was great, and I had
ridden rapidly; and as I came into the park, I dismounted, and, throwing
the rein over my arm, proceeded slowly on foot. I was passing through a
thick, long plantation, which belted the park and in which several walks
and rides had been cut, when a man crossed the same road which I took,
at a little distance before me. He was looking on the ground, and
appeared wrapt in such earnest meditation that he neither saw nor heard
me. But I had seen enough of him, in that brief space of time, to feel
convinced that it was Montreuil whom I beheld. What brought him hither,
him, whom I believed in London, immersed with Gerald in political
schemes, and for whom these woods were not only interdicted ground, but
to whom they must have also been but a tame field of interest, after his
audiences with ministers and nobles? I did not, however, pause to
consider on his apparition; I rather quickened my pace towards the
house, in the expectation of there ascertaining the cause of his visit.
The great gates of the outer court were open as usual: I rode
unheedingly through them, and was soon at the door of the hall. The
porter, who unfolded to my summons the ponderous door, uttered, when he
saw me, an exclamation that seemed to my ear to have in it more of
sorrow than welcome.
"How is your master?" I asked.
The man shook his head, but did not hasten to answer; and, impressed
with a vague alarm, I hurried on without repeating the question. On the
staircase I met old Nicholls, my uncle's valet; I stopped and questioned
him. My uncle had been seized on the preceding day with gout in the
stomach; medical aid had been procured, but it was feared ineffectually,
and the physicians had declared, about an hour before I arrived, that he
could not, in human probability, outlive the night. Stifling the rising
at my heart, I waited to hear no more: I flew up the stairs; I was at
the door of my uncle's chamber; I stopped there, and listened; all was
still; I opened the door gently; I stole in, and, creeping to the
bedside, knelt down and covered my face with my hands; for I required a
pause for self-possession, before I had courage to look up. When I
raised my eyes, I saw my mother on the opposite side; she sat on a chair
with a draught of medicine in one hand, and a watch in the other. She
caught my eye, but did not speak; she gave me a sign of recognition, and
looked down again upon the watch. My uncle's back was turned to me, and
he lay so still that, for some moments, I thought he was asleep; at
last, however, he moved restlessly.
"It is past noon!" said he to my mother, "is it not?"
"It is three minutes and six seconds after four," replied my mother,
looking closer at the watch.
My uncle sighed. "They have sent an express for the dear boy, Madam?"
said he.
"Exactly at half-past nine last evening," answered my mother, glancing
at me.
"He could scarcely be here by this time," said my uncle, and he moved
again in the bed. "Pish, how the pillow frets one!"
"Is it too high?" said my mother.
"No," said my uncle, faintly, "no--no--the discomfort is not in the
pillow, after all: 'tis a fine day; is it not?"
"Very!" said my mother; "I wish you could go out."
My uncle did not answer: there was a pause. "Ods fish, Madam, are those
carriage wheels?"
"No, Sir William--but--"
"There /are/ sounds in my ear; my senses grow dim," said my uncle,
unheeding her: "would that I might live another day; I should not like
to die without seeing him. 'Sdeath, Madam, I do hear something
behind!--Sobs, as I live!--Who sobs for the old knight?" and my uncle
turned round, and saw me.
"My dear--dear uncle!" I said, and could say no more.
"Ah, Morton," cried the kind old man, putting his hand affectionately
upon mine. "Beshrew me, but I think I have conquered the grim enemy now
that you are come. But what's this, my boy?--tears--tears,--why, little
Sid--no, nor Rochester either, would ever have believed this if I had
sworn it! Cheer up, cheer up."
But, seeing that I wept and sobbed the more, my uncle, after a pause,
continued in the somewhat figurative strain which the reader has
observed he sometimes adopted, and which perhaps his dramatic studies
had taught him.
"Nay, Morton, what do you grieve for?--that Age should throw off its
fardel of aches and pains, and no longer groan along its weary road,
meeting cold looks and unwilling welcomes, as both host and comrade grow
weary of the same face, and the spendthrift heart has no longer quip or
smile wherewith to pay the reckoning? No, no: let the poor pedler
shuffle off his dull pack, and fall asleep. But I am glad you are come:
I would sooner have one of your kind looks at your uncle's stale saws or
jests than all the long faces about me, saving only the presence of your
mother;" and with his characteristic gallantry, my uncle turned
courteously to her.
"Dear Sir William!" said she, "it is time you should take your draught;
and then would it not be better that you should see the chaplain? he
waits without."
"Ods fish," said my uncle, turning again to me, "'tis the way with them
all: when the body is past hope comes the physician, and when the soul
is past mending comes the priest. No, Madam, no, 'tis too late for
either.--Thank ye, Morton, thank ye" (as I started up--took the draught
from my mother's hand, and besought him to drink it), "'tis of no use;
but if it pleases thee, I must,"--and he drank the medicine.
My mother rose, and walked towards the door: it was ajar; and, as my eye
followed her figure, I perceived, through the opening, the black garb of
the chaplain.
"Not yet," said she, quietly; "wait." And then gliding away, seated
herself by the window in silence, and told her beads.
My uncle continued: "They have been at me, Morton, as if I had been a
pagan; and I believe, in their hearts, they are not a little scandalized
that I don't try to win the next world by trembling like an ague. Faith
now, I never could believe that Heaven was so partial to cowards; nor
can I think, Morton, that Salvation is like a soldier's muster-roll, and
that we may play the devil between hours, so that, at the last moment,
we whip in, and answer to our names. Ods fish, Morton, I could tell
thee a tale of that; but 'tis a long one, and we have not time now.
Well, well, for my part, I deem reverently and gratefully of God, and do
not believe He will be very wroth with our past enjoyment of life, if we
have taken care that others should enjoy it too; nor do I think, with
thy good mother, and Aubrey, dear child! that an idle word has the same
weight in the Almighty's scales as a wicked deed."
"Blessed, blessed, are they," I cried through my tears, "on whose souls
there is as little stain as there is on yours!"
"Faith, Morton, that's kindly said; and thou knowest not how strangely
it sounds, after their exhortations to repentance. I know I have had my
faults, and walked on to our common goal in a very irregular line; but I
never wronged the living nor slandered the dead, nor ever shut my heart
to the poor,--'t were a burning sin if I had,--and I have loved all men
and all things, and I never bore ill-will to a creature. Poor Ponto,
Morton, thou wilt take care of poor Ponto, when I'm dead,--nay, nay,
don't grieve so. Go, my child, go: compose thyself while I see the
priest, for 't will please thy poor mother; and though she thinks
harshly of me now, I should not like her to do so /to-morrow/! Go, my
dear boy, go."
I went from the room, and waited by the door, till the office of the
priest was over. My mother then came out, and said Sir William had
composed himself to sleep. While she was yet speaking, Gerald surprised
me by his appearance. I learned that he had been in the house for the
last three days, and when I heard this, I involuntarily accounted for
the appearance of Montreuil. I saluted him distantly, and he returned
my greeting with the like pride. He seemed, however, though in a less
degree, to share in my emotions; and my heart softened to him for it.
Nevertheless we stood apart, and met not as brothers should have met by
the death-bed of a mutual benefactor.
"Will you wait without?" said my mother.
"No," answered I, "I will watch over him." So I stole in, with a light
step, and seated myself by my uncle's bed-side. He was asleep, and his
sleep was as hushed and quiet as an infant's. I looked upon his face,
and saw a change had come over it, and was increasing sensibly: but
there was neither harshness nor darkness in the change, awful as it was.
The soul, so long nurtured on benevolence, could not, in parting, leave
a rude stamp on the kindly clay which had seconded its impulses so well.
The evening had just set in, when my uncle woke; he turned very gently,
and smiled when he saw me.
"It is late," said he, and I observed with a wrung heart, that his voice
was fainter.
"No, Sir, not very," said I.
"Late enough, my child; the warm sun has gone down; and 'tis a good time
to close one's eyes, when all without looks gray and chill: methinks it
is easier to wish thee farewell, Morton, when I see thy face
indistinctly. I am glad I shall not die in the daytime. Give me thy
hand, my child, and tell me that thou art not angry with thine old uncle
for thwarting thee in that love business. I have heard tales of the
girl, too, which made me glad, for thy sake, that it is all off, though
I might not tell thee of them before. 'Tis very dark, Morton. I have
had a pleasant sleep. Ods fish, I do not think a bad man would have
slept so well. The fire burns dim, Morton: it is very cold. Cover me
up; double the counterpane over the legs, Morton. I remember once
walking in the Mall; little Sid said, 'Devereux'--it is colder and
colder, Morton; raise the blankets more over the back; 'Devereux,' said
little Sid--faith, Morton, 'tis ice now--where art thou?--is the fire
out, that I can't see thee? Remember thine old uncle, Morton--and--
and--don't forget poor--Ponto. Bless thee, my child; bless you all!"
And my uncle died!
CHAPTER III.
A GREAT CHANGE OF PROSPECTS.
I SHUT myself up in the apartments prepared for me (they were not those
I had formerly occupied), and refused all participation in my solitude,
till, after an interval of some days, my mother came to summon me to the
opening of the will. She was more moved than I had expected. "It is a
pity," said she, as we descended the stairs, "that Aubrey is not here,
and that we should be so unacquainted with the exact place where he is
likely to be that I fear the letter I sent him may be long delayed, or,
indeed, altogether miscarry."
"Is not the Abbe here?" said I, listlessly.
"No!" answered my mother, "to be sure not."
"He has /been/ here," said I, greatly surprised. "I certainly saw him
on the day of my arrival."
"Impossible!" said my mother, in evident astonishment; and seeing that,
at all events, she was unacquainted with the circumstance, I said no
more.
The will was to be read in the little room where my uncle had been
accustomed to sit. I felt it as a sacrilege to his memory to choose
that spot for such an office, but I said nothing. Gerald and my mother,
the lawyer (a neighbouring attorney, named Oswald), and myself were the
only persons present. Mr. Oswald hemmed thrice, and broke the seal.
After a preliminary, strongly characteristic of the testator, he came to
the disposition of the estates. I had never once, since my poor uncle's
death, thought upon the chances of his will; indeed, knowing myself so
entirely his favourite, I could not, if I had thought upon them, have
entertained a doubt as to their result. What then was my astonishment
when, couched in terms of the strongest affection, the whole bulk of the
property was bequeathed to Gerald; to Aubrey the sum of forty, to myself
that of twenty thousand pounds (a capital considerably less than the
yearly income of my uncle's princely estates), was allotted. Then
followed a list of minor bequests,--to my mother an annuity of three
thousand a year, with the privilege of apartments in the house during
her life; to each of the servants legacies sufficient for independence;
to a few friends, and distant connections of the family, tokens of the
testator's remembrance,--even the horses to his carriage, and the dogs
that fed from his menials' table, were not forgotten, but were to be set
apart from work, and maintained in indolence during their remaining span
of life. The will was concluded: I could not believe my senses; not a
word was said as a reason for giving Gerald the priority.
I rose calmly enough. "Suffer me, Sir," said I to the lawyer, "to
satisfy my own eyes." Mr. Oswald bowed, and placed the will in my
hands. I glanced at Gerald as I took it: his countenance betrayed, or
feigned, an astonishment equal to my own. With a jealous, searching,
scrutinizing eye, I examined the words of the bequest; I examined
especially (for I suspected that the names must have been exchanged) the
place in which my name and Gerald's occurred. In vain: all was smooth
and fair to the eye, not a vestige of possible erasure or alteration was
visible. I looked next at the wording of the will: it was evidently my
uncle's; no one could have feigned or imitated the peculiar turn of his
expressions; and, above all, many parts of the will (the affectionate
and personal parts) were in his own handwriting.
"The date," said I, "is, I perceive, of very recent period; the will is
signed by two witnesses besides yourself. Who and where are they?"
"Robert Lister, the first signature, my clerk; he is since dead, Sir."
"Dead!" said I; "and the other witness, George Davis?"
"Is one of Sir William's tenants, and is below, Sir, in waiting."
"Let him come up," and a middle-sized, stout man, with a blunt, bold,
open countenance, was admitted.
"Did you witness this will?" said I.
"I did, your honour!"
"And this is your handwriting?" pointing to the scarcely legible scrawl.
"Yees, your honour," said the man, scratching his head, "I think it be;
they are my /ees/, and G, and D, sure enough."
"And do you know the purport of the will you signed?"
"Anan!"
"I mean, do you know to whom Sir William--stop, Mr. Oswald, suffer the
man to answer me--to whom Sir William left his property?"
"Noa, to be sure, Sir; the will was a woundy long one, and Maister
Oswald there told me it was no use to read it over to me, but merely to
sign, as a witness to Sir William's handwriting."
"Enough: you may retire;" and George Davis vanished.
"Mr. Oswald," said I, approaching the attorney, "I may wrong you, and if
so, I am sorry for it, but I suspect there has been foul practice in
this deed. I have reason to be convinced that Sir William Devereux
could never have made this devise. I give you warning, Sir, that I
shall bring the business immediately before a court of law, and that if
guilty--ay, tremble, Sir--of what I suspect, you will answer for this
deed at the foot of the gallows."
I turned to Gerald, who rose while I was yet speaking. Before I could
address him, he exclaimed, with evident and extreme agitation,
"You cannot, Morton,--you cannot--you dare not--insinuate that I, your
brother, have been base enough to forge, or to instigate the forgery of,
this will?"
Gerald's agitation made me still less doubtful of his guilt.
"The case, Sir," I answered coldly, "stands thus: my uncle could not
have made this will; it is a devise that must seem incredible to all who
knew aught of our domestic circumstances. Fraud has been practised, how
I know not; by whom I do know."
"Morton, Morton: this is insufferable; I cannot bear such charges, even
from a brother."
"Charges!--your conscience speaks, Sir,--not I; no one benefits by this
fraud but you: pardon me if I draw an inference from a fact."
So saying, I turned on my heel, and abruptly left the apartment. I
ascended the stairs which led to my own: there I found my servant
preparing the paraphernalia in which that very evening I was to attend
my uncle's funeral. I gave him, with a calm and collected voice, the
necessary instructions for following me to town immediately after that
event, and then I passed on to the room where the deceased lay in state.
The room was hung with black: the gorgeous pall, wrought with the proud
heraldry of our line, lay over the coffin; and by the lights which made,
in that old chamber, a more brilliant, yet more ghastly, day, sat the
hired watchers of the dead.
I bade them leave me, and kneeling down beside the coffin, I poured out
the last expressions of my grief. I rose, and was retiring once more to
my room, when I encountered Gerald.
"Morton," said he, "I own to you, I myself am astounded by my uncle's
will. I do not come to make you offers; you would not accept them: I do
not come to vindicate myself, it is beneath me; and we have never been
as brothers, and we know not their language: but I /do/ come to demand
you to retract the dark and causeless suspicions you have vented against
me, and also to assure you that, if you have doubts of the authenticity
of the will, so far from throwing obstacles in your way, I myself will
join in the inquiries you institute and the expenses of the law."
I felt some difficulty in curbing my indignation while Gerald thus
spoke. I saw before me the persecutor of Isora, the fraudulent robber
of my rights, and I heard this enemy speak to me of aiding in the
inquiries which were to convict himself of the basest, if not the
blackest, of human crimes; there was something too in the reserved and
yet insolent tone of his voice which, reminding me as it did of our long
aversion to each other, made my very blood creep with abhorrence. I
turned away, that I might not break my oath to Isora, for I felt
strongly tempted to do so; and said in as calm an accent as I could
command, "The case will, I trust, require no king's evidence; and, at
least, I will not be beholden to the man whom my reason condemns for any
assistance in bringing upon himself the ultimate condemnation of the
law."
Gerald looked at me sternly. "Were you not my brother," said he, in a
low tone, "I would, for a charge so dishonouring my fair name, strike
you dead at my feet."
"It is a wonderful exertion of fraternal love," I rejoined, with a
scornful laugh, but an eye flashing with passions a thousand times more
fierce than scorn, "that prevents your adding that last favour to those
you have already bestowed on me."
Gerald, with a muttered curse, placed his hand upon his sword; my own
rapier was instantly half drawn, when, to save us from the great guilt
of mortal contest against each other, steps were heard, and a number of
the domestics charged with melancholy duties at the approaching rite,
were seen slowly sweeping in black robes along the opposite gallery.
Perhaps that interruption restored both of us to our senses, for we
said, almost in the same breath, and nearly in the same phrase, "This
way of terminating strife is not for us;" and, as Gerald spoke, he
turned slowly away, descended the staircase, and disappeared.
The funeral took place at night: a numerous procession of the tenants
and peasantry attended. My poor uncle! there was not a dry eye for
thee, but those of thine own kindred. Tall, stately, erect in the power
and majesty of his unrivalled form, stood Gerald, already assuming the
dignity and lordship which, to speak frankly, so well became him; my
mother's face was turned from me, but her attitude proclaimed her
utterly absorbed in prayer. As for myself, my heart seemed hardened: I
could not betray to the gaze of a hundred strangers the emotions which I
would have hidden from those whom I loved the most. Wrapped in my
cloak, with arms folded on my breast, and eyes bent to the ground, I
leaned against one of the pillars of the chapel, apart, and apparently
unmoved.
But when they were about to lower the body into the vault, a momentary
weakness came over me. I made an involuntary step forward, a single but
deep groan of anguish broke from me, and then, covering my face with my
mantle, I resumed my former attitude, and all was still. The rite was
over; in many and broken groups the spectators passed from the chapel:
some to speculate on the future lord, some to mourn over the late, and
all to return the next morning to their wonted business, and let the
glad sun teach them to forget the past, until for themselves the sun
should be no more, and the forgetfulness eternal.
The hour was so late that I relinquished my intention of leaving the
house that night; I ordered my horse to be in readiness at daybreak and
before I retired to rest I went to my mother's apartments: she received
me with more feeling than she had ever testified before.
"Believe me, Morton," said she, and she kissed my forehead; "believe me,
I can fully enter into the feelings which you must naturally experience
on an event so contrary to your expectations. I cannot conceal from you
how much I am surprised. Certainly Sir William never gave any of us
cause to suppose that he liked either of your brothers--Gerald less than
Aubrey--so much as yourself; nor, poor man, was he in other things at
all addicted to conceal his opinions."
"It is true, my mother," said I; "it is true. Have you not therefore
some suspicions of the authenticity of the will?"
"Suspicions!" cried my mother. "No!--impossible!--suspicions of whom?
You could not think Gerald so base, and who else had an interest in
deception? Besides, the signature is undoubtedly Sir William's
handwriting, and the will was regularly witnessed; suspicions,
Morton,--no, impossible! Reflect, too, how eccentric and humoursome
your uncle always was: suspicions!--no, impossible!"
"Such things have been, my mother, nor are they uncommon: men will
hazard their souls, ay, and what to some are more precious still, their
lives too, for the vile clay we call money. But enough of this now: the
Law,--that great arbiter,--that eater of the oyster, and divider of its
shells,--the Law will decide between us, and if against me, as I suppose
and fear the decision will be,--why, I must be a suitor to fortune
instead of her commander. Give me your blessing, my dearest mother: I
cannot stay longer in this house; to-morrow I leave you."
And my mother did bless me, and I fell upon her neck and clung to it.
"Ah!" thought I, "this blessing is almost worth my uncle's fortune."
I returned to my room; there I saw on the table the case of the sword
sent me by the French king. I had left it with my uncle, on my
departure to town, and it had been found among his effects and reclaimed
by me. I took out the sword, and drew it from the scabbard. "Come,"
said I, and I kindled with a melancholy yet a deep enthusiasm, as I
looked along the blade, "come, my bright friend, with thee through this
labyrinth which we call the world will I carve my way! Fairest and
speediest of earth's levellers, thou makest the path from the low valley
to the steep hill, and shapest the soldier's axe into the monarch's
sceptre! The laurel and the fasces, and the curule car, and the
emperor's purple,--what are these but thy playthings, alternately thy
scorn and thy reward! Founder of all empires, propagator of all creeds,
thou leddest the Gaul and the Goth, and the gods of Rome and Greece
crumbled upon their altars! Beneath thee the fires of the Gheber waved
pale, and on thy point the badge of the camel-driver blazed like a sun
over the startled East! Eternal arbiter, and unconquerable despot,
while the passions of mankind exist! Most solemn of hypocrites,
--circling blood with glory as with a halo; and consecrating
homicide and massacre with a hollow name, which the parched throat of
thy votary, in the battle and the agony, shouteth out with its last
breath! Star of all human destinies! I kneel before thee, and invoke
from thy bright astrology an omen and a smile."
CHAPTER IV.
AN EPISODE.--THE SON OF THE GREATEST MAN WHO (ONE ONLY EXCEPTED) /EVER
ROSE TO A THRONE/, BUT BY NO MEANS OF THE GREATEST MAN (SAVE ONE) WHO
/EVER EXISTED/.
BEFORE sunrise the next morning I had commenced my return to London. I
had previously intrusted to the /locum tenens/ of the sage Desmarais,
the royal gift, and (singular conjunction!) poor Ponto, my uncle's dog.
Here let me pause, as I shall have no other opportunity to mention him,
to record the fate of the canine bequest. He accompanied me some years
afterwards to France, and he died there in extreme age. I shed tears as
I saw the last relic of my poor uncle expire, and I was not consoled
even though he was buried in the garden of the gallant Villars, and
immortalized by an epitaph from the pen of the courtly Chaulieu.
Leaving my horse to select his own pace, I surrendered myself to
reflection upon the strange alteration that had taken place in my
fortunes. There did not, in my own mind, rest a doubt but that some
villany had been practised with respect to the will. My uncle's
constant and unvarying favour towards me; the unequivocal expressions he
himself from time to time had dropped indicative of his future
intentions on my behalf; the easy and natural manner in which he had
seemed to consider, as a thing of course, my heritage and succession to
his estates; all, coupled with his own frank and kindly character, so
little disposed to raise hopes which he meant to disappoint, might alone
have been sufficient to arouse my suspicions at a devise so contrary to
all past experience of the testator. But when to these were linked the
bold temper and the daring intellect of my brother, joined to his
personal hatred to myself; his close intimacy with Montreuil, whom I
believed capable of the darkest designs; the sudden and evidently
concealed appearance of the latter on the day my uncle died; the
agitation and paleness of the attorney; the enormous advantages accruing
to Gerald, and to no one else, from the terms of the devise: when these
were all united into one focus of evidence, they appeared to me to leave
no doubt of the forgery of the testament and the crime of Gerald. Nor
was there anything in my brother's bearing and manner calculated to
abate my suspicions. His agitation was real; his surprise might have
been feigned; his offer of assistance in investigation was an unmeaning
bravado; his conduct to myself testified his continued ill-will towards
me,--an ill-will which might possibly have instigated him in the fraud
scarcely less than the whispers of interest and cupidity.
But while this was the natural and indelible impression on my mind, I
could not disguise from myself the extreme difficulty I should
experience in resisting my brother's claim. So far as my utter want of
all legal knowledge would allow me to decide, I could perceive nothing
in the will itself which would admit of a lawyer's successful cavil: my
reasons for suspicion, so conclusive to myself, would seem nugatory to a
judge. My uncle was known as a humourist; and prove that a man differs
from others in one thing, and the world will believe that he differs
from them in a thousand. His favour to me would be, in the popular eye,
only an eccentricity, and the unlooked-for disposition of his will only
a caprice. Possession, too, gave Gerald a proverbial vantage-ground,
which my whole life might be wasted in contesting; while his command of
an immense wealth might, more than probably, exhaust my spirit by delay,
and my fortune by expenses. Precious prerogative of law, to reverse the
attribute of the Almighty! to fill the /rich/ with good things, but to
send the poor empty away! /In corruptissima republica plurimoe leges/.
Legislation perplexed is synonymous with crime unpunished,--a
reflection, by the way, I should never have made, if I had never had a
law-suit: sufferers are ever reformers.
Revolving, then, these anxious and unpleasing thoughts, interrupted, at
times, by regrets of a purer and less selfish nature for the friend I
had lost, and wandering, at others, to the brighter anticipations of
rejoining Isora, and drinking from her eyes my comfort for the past and
my hope for the future, I continued and concluded my day's travel.
The next day, on resuming my journey, and on feeling the time approach
that would bring me to Isora, something like joy became the most
prevalent feeling in my mind. So true it is that misfortunes little
affect us so long as we have some ulterior object, which, by arousing
hope, steals us from affliction. Alas! the pang of a moment becomes
intolerable when we know of nothing /beyond/ the moment which it soothes
us to anticipate! Happiness lives in the light of the future: attack
the present; she defies you! darken the future, and you destroy her!
It was a beautiful morning: through the vapours, which rolled slowly
away beneath his beams, the sun broke gloriously forth; and over wood
and hill, and the low plains, which, covered with golden corn, stretched
immediately before me, his smile lay in stillness, but in joy. And ever
from out the brake and the scattered copse, which at frequent intervals
beset the road, the merry birds sent a fitful and glad music to mingle
with the sweets and freshness of the air.
I had accomplished the greater part of my journey, and had entered into
a more wooded and garden-like description of country, when I perceived
an old man, in a kind of low chaise, vainly endeavouring to hold in a
little but spirited horse, which had taken alarm at some object on the
road, and was running away with its driver. The age of the gentleman
and the lightness of the chaise gave me some alarm for the safety of the
driver; so, tying my own horse to a gate, lest the sound of his hoofs
might only increase the speed and fear of the fugitive, I ran with a
swift and noiseless step along the other side of the hedge and, coming
out into the road just before the pony's head, I succeeded in arresting
him, at a rather critical spot and moment. The old gentleman very soon
recovered his alarm; and, returning me many thanks for my interference,
requested me to accompany him to his house, which he said was two or
three miles distant.
Though I had no desire to be delayed in my journey for the mere sake of
seeing an old gentleman's house, I thought my new acquaintance's safety
required me, at least, to offer to act as his charioteer till we reached
his house. To my secret vexation at that time, though I afterwards
thought the petty inconvenience was amply repaid by a conference with a
very singular and once noted character, the offer was accepted.
Surrendering my own steed to the care of a ragged boy, who promised to
lead it with equal judgment and zeal, I entered the little car, and,
keeping a firm hand and constant eye on the reins, brought the offending
quadruped into a very equable and sedate pace.
"Poor Bob," said the old gentleman, apostrophizing his horse; "poor Bob,
like thy betters, thou knowest the weak hand from the strong; and when
thou art not held in by power, thou wilt chafe against love; so that
thou renewest in my mind the remembrance of its favourite maxim, namely,
'The only preventive to rebellion is restraint!'"
"Your observation, Sir," said I, rather struck by this address, "makes
very little in favour of the more generous feelings by which we ought to
be actuated. It is a base mind which always requires the bit and
bridle."
"It is, Sir," answered the old gentleman; "I allow it: but, though I
have some love for human nature, I have no respect for it; and while I
pity its infirmities, I cannot but confess them."
"Methinks, Sir," replied I, "that you have uttered in that short speech
more sound philosophy than I have heard for months. There is wisdom in
not thinking too loftily of human clay, and benevolence in not judging
it too harshly, and something, too, of magnanimity in this moderation;
for we seldom contemn mankind till they have hurt us, and when they have
hurt us, we seldom do anything but detest them for the injury."
"You speak shrewdly; Sir, for one so young," returned the old man,
looking hard at me; "and I will be sworn you have suffered some cares;
for we never begin to think till we are a little afraid to hope."
I sighed as I answered, "There are some men, I fancy, to whom
constitution supplies the office of care; who, naturally melancholy,
become easily addicted to reflection, and reflection is a soil which
soon repays us for whatever trouble we bestow upon its culture."
"True, Sir!" said my companion; and there was a pause. The old
gentleman resumed: "We are not far from my home now (or rather my
temporary residence, for my proper and general home is at Cheshunt, in
Hertfordshire); and, as the day is scarcely half spent, I trust you will
not object to partake of a hermit's fare. Nay, nay, no excuse: I assure
you that I am not a gossip in general, or a liberal dispenser of
invitations; and I think, if you refuse me now, you will hereafter
regret it."
My curiosity was rather excited by this threat; and, reflecting that my
horse required a short rest, I subdued my impatience to return to town,
and accepted the invitation. We came presently to a house of moderate
size, and rather antique fashion. This, the old man informed me, was
his present abode. A servant, almost as old as his master, came to the
door, and, giving his arm to my host, led him, for he was rather lame
and otherwise infirm, across a small hall into a long low apartment. I
followed.
A miniature of Oliver Cromwell, placed over the chimney-piece, forcibly
arrested my attention.
"It is the only portrait of the Protector I ever saw," said I, "which
impresses on me the certainty of a likeness; that resolute gloomy
brow,--that stubborn lip,--that heavy, yet not stolid expression,--all
seem to warrant a resemblance to that singular and fortunate man, to
whom folly appears to have been as great an instrument of success as
wisdom, and who rose to the supreme power perhaps no less from a
pitiable fanaticism than an admirable genius. So true is it that great
men often soar to their height by qualities the least obvious to the
spectator, and (to stoop to a low comparison) resemble that animal* in
which a common ligament supplies the place and possesses the property of
wings."
* The flying squirrel.
The old man smiled very slightly as I made this remark. "If this be
true," said he, with an impressive tone, "though we may wonder less at
the talents of the Protector, we must be more indulgent to his
character, nor condemn him for insincerity when at heart he himself was
deceived."
"It is in that light," said I, "that I have always viewed his conduct.
And though myself, by prejudice, a Cavalier and a Tory, I own that
Cromwell (hypocrite as he is esteemed) appears to me as much to have
exceeded his royal antagonist and victim in the virtue of sincerity, as
he did in the grandeur of his genius and the profound consistency of his
ambition."
"Sir," said my host, with a warmth that astonished me, "you seem to have
known that man, so justly do you judge him. Yes," said he, after a
pause, "yes, perhaps no one ever so varnished to his own breast his
designs; no one, so covetous of glory, was ever so duped by conscience;
no one ever rose to such a height through so few acts that seemed to
himself worthy of remorse."
At this part of our conversation, the servant, entering, announced
dinner. We adjourned to another room, and partook of a homely yet not
uninviting repast. When men are pleased with each other, conversation
soon gets beyond the ordinary surfaces to talk; and an exchange of
deeper opinions was speedily effected by what old Barnes* quaintly
enough terms, "The gentleman-usher of all knowledge,--Sermocination!"
* In the "Gerania."
It was a pretty, though small room, where we dined; and I observed that
in this apartment, as in the other into which I had been at first
ushered, there were several books scattered about, in that confusion and
number which show that they have become to their owner both the choicest
luxury and the least dispensable necessary. So, during dinner-time, we
talked principally upon books, and I observed that those which my host
seemed to know the best were of the elegant and poetical order of
philosophers, who, more fascinating than deep, preach up the blessings
of a solitude which is useless, and a content which, deprived of
passion, excitement, and energy, would, if it could ever exist, only be
a dignified name for vegetation.
"So," said he, "when, the dinner being removed, we were left alone with
that substitute for all society,--wine! "so you are going to town: in
four hours more you will be in that great focus of noise, falsehood,
hollow joy, and real sorrow. Do you know that I have become so wedded
to the country that I cannot but consider all those who leave it for the
turbulent city, in the same light, half wondering, half compassionating,
as that in which the ancients regarded the hardy adventurers who left
the safe land and their happy homes, voluntarily to expose themselves in
a frail vessel to the dangers of an uncertain sea? Here, when I look
out on the green fields and the blue sky, the quiet herds basking in the
sunshine or scattered over the unpolluted plains, I cannot but exclaim
with Pliny, 'This is the true Movoetov!' this is the source whence flow
inspiration to the mind and tranquillity to the heart! And in my love
of Nature--more confiding and constant than ever is the love we bear to
women--I cry with the tender and sweet Tibullus,--
"'Ego composito securus acervo
Despiciam dites, despiciamque famem.'"*
* "Satisfied with my little hoard, I can despise wealth, and fear not
hunger."
"These," said I, "are the sentiments we all (perhaps the most restless
of us the most passionately) at times experience. But there is in our
hearts some secret but irresistible principle that impels us, as a
rolling circle, onward, onward, in the great orbit of our destiny; nor
do we find a respite until the wheels on which we move are broken--at
the tomb."
"Yet," said my host, "the internal principle you speak of can be
arrested before the grave,--at least stilled and impeded. You will
smile incredulously, perhaps (for I see you do not know who I am), when
I tell you that I might once have been a monarch, and that obscurity
seemed to me more enviable than empire; I resigned the occasion: the
tide of fortune rolled onward, and left me safe but solitary and
forsaken upon the dry land. If you wonder at my choice, you will wonder
still more when I tell you that I have never repented it."
Greatly surprised, and even startled, I heard my host make this strange
avowal. "Forgive me," said I, "but you have powerfully excited my
interest; dare I inquire from whose experience I am now deriving a
lesson?"
"Not yet," said my host, smiling, "not till our conversation is over,
and you have bid the old anchorite adieu, in all probability forever:
you will then know that you have conversed with a man, perhaps more
universally neglected and contemned than any of his contemporaries.
Yes," he continued, "yes, I resigned power, and I got no praise for my
moderation, but contempt for my folly; no human being would believe that
I could have relinquished that treasure through a disregard for its
possession which others would only have relinquished through an
incapacity to retain it; and that which, had they seen it recorded in an
ancient history, men would have regarded as the height of philosophy,
they despised when acted under their eyes, as the extremest abasement of
imbecility. Yet I compare my lot with that of the great man whom I was
expected to equal in ambition, and to whose grandeur I might have
succeeded; and am convinced that in this retreat I am more to be envied
than he in the plenitude of his power and the height of his renown; yet
is not happiness the aim of wisdom? if my choice is happier than his, is
it not wiser?"
"Alas," thought I, "the wisest men seldom have the loftiest genius, and
perhaps happiness is granted rather to mediocrity of mind than to
mediocrity of circumstance;" but I did not give so uncourteous a reply
to my host an audible utterance; on the contrary, "I do not doubt," said
I, as I rose to depart, "the wisdom of a choice which has brought you
self-gratulation. And it has been said by a man both great and good, a
man to whose mind was open the lore of the closet and the experience of
courts that, in wisdom or in folly, 'the only difference between one man
and another, is whether a man governs his passions or his passions him.'
According to this rule, which indeed is a classic and a golden aphorism,
Alexander, on the throne of Persia, might have been an idiot to Diogenes
in his tub. And now, Sir, in wishing you farewell, let me again crave
your indulgence to my curiosity."
"Not yet, not yet," answered my host; and he led me once more into the
other room. While they were preparing my horse, we renewed our
conversation. To the best of my recollection, we talked about Plato;
but I had now become so impatient to rejoin Isora that I did not accord
to my worthy host the patient attention I had hitherto given him. When
I took leave of him he blessed me, and placed a piece of paper in my
hand; "Do not open this," said he, "till you are at least two miles
hence; your curiosity will then be satisfied. If ever you travel this
road again, or if ever you pass by Cheshunt, pause and see if the old
philosopher is dead. Adieu!"
And so we parted.
You may be sure that I had not passed the appointed distance of two
miles very far, when I opened the paper and read the following words:--
Perhaps, young stranger, at some future period of a life, which I
venture to foretell will be adventurous and eventful, it may afford you
a matter for reflection, or a resting-spot for a moral, to remember that
you have seen, in old age and obscurity, the son of him who shook an
empire, avenged a people, and obtained a throne, only to be the victim
of his own passions and the dupe of his own reason. I repeat now the
question I before put to you,--Was the fate of the great Protector
fairer than that of the despised and forgotten
RICHARD CROMWELL?
"So," thought I, "it is indeed with the son of the greatest ruler
England, or perhaps, in modern times, Europe has ever produced, that I
have held this conversation upon content! Yes, perhaps your fate is
more to be envied than that of your illustrious father; but who /would/
envy it more? Strange that while we pretend that happiness is the
object of all desire, happiness is the last thing which we covet. Love
and wealth and pleasure and honour,--these are the roads which we take
so long that, accustomed to the mere travel, we forget that it was first
undertaken not for the course but the goal; and in the common
infatuation which pervades all our race, we make the toil the meed, and
in following the means forsake the end."
I never saw my host again; very shortly afterwards he died:* I and Fate,
which had marked with so strong a separation the lives of the father and
the son, united in that death--as its greatest, so its only universal
blessing--the philosopher and the recluse with the warrior and the
chief!
* Richard Cromwell died in 1712--ED.
CHAPTER V.
IN WHICH THE HERO SHOWS DECISION ON MORE POINTS THAN ONE.--MORE OF
ISORA'S CHARACTER IS DEVELOPED.
To use the fine image in the "Arcadia," it was "when the sun, like a
noble heart, began to show his greatest countenance in his lowest
estate," that I arrived at Isora's door. I had written to her once, to
announce my uncle's death and the day of my return: but I had not
mentioned in my letter my reverse of fortunes; I reserved that
communication till it could be softened by our meeting. I saw by the
countenance of the servant who admitted me that all was well: so I asked
no question; I flew up the stairs; I broke into Isora's chamber, and in
an instant she was in my arms. Ah, Love, Love! wherefore art thou so
transitory a pilgrim on the earth,--an evening cloud which hovers on our
horizon, drinking the hues of the sun, that grows ominously brighter as
it verges to the shadow and the night, and which, the moment that sun is
set, wanders on in darkness or descends in tears?
"And now, my bird of Paradise," said I, as we sat alone in the apartment
I had fitted up as the banqueting-room, and on which, though small in
its proportions, I had lavished all the love of luxury and of show which
made one of my most prevailing weaknesses, "and now how has time passed
with you since we parted?"
"Need you ask, Morton? Ah, have you ever noted a poor dog deserted by
its master, or rather not deserted, for that you know is not my case
yet," added Isora, playfully, "but left at home while the master went
abroad? have you noted how restless the poor animal is; how it refuses
all company and all comfort; how it goes a hundred times a day into the
room which its master is wont mostly to inhabit; how it creeps on the
sofa or the chair which the same absent idler was accustomed to press;
how it selects some article of his very clothing, and curls jealously
around it, and hides and watches over it as I have hid and watched over
this glove, Morton? Have you ever noted that humble creature whose
whole happiness is the smile of one being, when the smile was
away,--then, Morton, you can tell how my time has passed during your
absence."
I answered Isora by endearments and by compliments. She turned away
from the latter.
"Never call me those fine names, I implore you," she whispered; "call me
only by those pretty pet words by which I know you will never call any
one else. Bee and bird are my names, and mine only; but beauty and
angel are names you have given or may give to a hundred others! Promise
me, then, to address me only in your own language."
"I promise, and lo, the seal to the promise. But tell me, Isora, do you
not love these rare scents that make an Araby of this unmellowed clime?
Do you not love the profusion of light which reflects so dazzling a
lustre on that soft cheek; and those eyes which the ancient romancer*
must have dreamed of when he wrote so prettily of "eyes that seemed a
temple where love and beauty were married"? Does not yon fruit take a
more tempting hue, bedded as it is in those golden leaves? Does not
sleep seem to hover with a downier wing over those sofas on which the
limbs of a princess have been laid? In a word, is there not in luxury
and in pomp a spell which no gentler or wiser mind would disdain?"
* Sir Philip Sydney, who, if we may judge from the number of quotations
from his works scattered in this book, seems to have been an especial
favourite with Count Devereux.--ED.
"It may be so!" said Isora, sighing; "but the splendour which surrounds
us chills and almost terrifies me. I think that every proof of your
wealth and rank puts me further from you: then, too, I have some
remembrance of the green sod, and the silver rill, and the trees upon
which the young winds sing and play; an |
