"Plus de louange et d'honneur tu mérite,La cause étant de France recouvrer,Que ce que peut dedans un cloitre ouvrer,Close nonnain, ou bien dévol hermite."
"Plus de louange et d'honneur tu mérite,La cause étant de France recouvrer,Que ce que peut dedans un cloitre ouvrer,Close nonnain, ou bien dévol hermite."
The king lavished gifts and honors upon Agnes. He built a château for her at Loches; he gave her, besides the comté de Penthièvre, in Bretagne, the lordships of Roche Servière, of Issoudun, in Berri, and the Château de Beauté, at the extremity of the wood of Vincennes, that she might be, as he said, "in deed and in name the Queen of Beauty." It is believed that she never made a bad use of her influence with the king for any political purposes or unkind private feelings; nevertheless, the Dauphin (afterwards Louis XI.) conceived an implacable jealousy against her, and carried his resentment so far, on one occasion, as to give her a blow.
She retired, in 1445, to Loches, and for nearly five years declined appearing at court; but the king's love for her still continued, and he took many journeys into Touraine to visit her. But eventually the queen, who had never forgotten her noble counsels to the king, which had roused him from his lethargy, persuaded her to return to court.
The queen appears to have felt no jealousy, but to have had a regard for her. It seems, also, that Agnes had become very popular, partly from her beauty and wit, partly because she was considered in a great measure, to have saved France, and partly because she distributed large sums in alms to the poor, and to repair decayed churches.
After the taking of Rouen, and the entire expulsion of the English from France, the king took up his winter-quarters in the Abbey of Jumiège. Agnes hastened to the Château de Masnal la Belle, a league distant from this abbey, for the purpose of warning the king of a conspiracy. The king only laughed at the intelligence; but the death of Agnes Sorel, which immediately followed, gives some grounds for crediting the truth of the information which she communicated. At this place Agnes, still beautiful, and in perfect health, was suddenly attacked by a dysentery which carried her off. It is believed that she was poisoned. Some affirm that it was effected by direction of the Dauphin; others accuse Jacques Cœur, the king's goldsmith (as the master of the treasury was then called), and others attribute it to female jealousy.
The account given of her death by Monstrelet is to the following effect: Agnes was suddenly attacked by a dysentery which could not be cured. She lingered long, and employed the time in prayer and repentance; she often, as he relates, called upon Mary Magdalen, who had also been a sinner, and upon God and the blessed Virgin for aid. After receiving the sacrament, she desired the book of prayers to be brought her, in which she had written with her own hand the verses of St. Barnard, and these she repeated. She then made many gifts, which were put down in writing: and these, including alms and the payment of her servants, amounted to 60,000 crowns. The fair Agnes, the once proud beauty, perceiving her end approaching, and now feeling a disgust to life proportioned to the fulness of her past enjoyment of all its gayeties, vanities, and pleasures, said to the Lord de la Tremouille and others, and in the presence of all her damsels, that our insecure and worldly life was but a foul ordure. She then requested her confessor to give her absolution, according to a form she herself dictated, with which he complied. After this, she uttered a loud shriek, and gave up the ghost. She died on Monday, the 9th day of February, 1449, about six o'clock in the afternoon, in the fortieth year of her age.
This account, though bearing every appearance of probability, is yet open to some doubts, from the manifestation of a tendency, on the part of Monstrelet, to give a coloring to the event, and to the character of Agnes Sorel. He even attempts to throw a doubt upon her having been the king's mistress, treating the fact as a mere scandal. He says that the affection of the king was attributable to her good sense, her wit, her agreeable manners, and gayety, quite as much as to her beauty. This was, no doubt, the case; but it hardly helps the argument of the historian. Monstrelet finds it difficult, however, to dispose of the children that she had by the king: he admits that Agnes had a daughter which she said was the king's, but that he denied it. The compilation by Denys Codefroy takes the same view, but nearly the whole account is copied verbatim from Monstrelet, without acknowledgment.
The heart and intestines of Agnes were buried at Jumiège. Her body was placed in the centre of the choir of the collegiate church of the Château de Loches, which she had greatly enriched.
Her tomb was in existence at Loches, in 1792. It was of black marble. The figure of Agnes was in white marble; her head resting upon a lozenge, supported by angels, and two lambs were at her feet.
The writer of the life of Agnes Sorel in the "Biographie Universelle," having access to printed books and MSS. of French history which are not in the public libraries of this country, the following statements are taken from that work: the writer does not give his authorities.
The canons of the church pretended to be scandalized at having the tomb of Agnes placed in their choir, and begged permission of Louis XI. to have it removed. "I consent," replied the king, "provided you give up all you have received from her bounty."
The poets of the day were profuse in their praises of the memory of Agnes. One of the most memorable of these is a poem by Baïf, printed at Paris in 1573. In 1789 the library of the chapter of Loches possessed a manuscript containing nearly a thousand Latin sonnets in praise of Agnes, all acrostics, and made by a canon of that city.
A marble bust of her was long preserved at the Château de Chinon, and is now placed in the Muséum des Augustins.
Agnes Sorel had three daughters by Charles VII., who all received dowries, and were married at the expense of the crown. They received the title of daughters of France, the name given at that time to the natural daughters of the kings. An account of the noble families into which they married, together with the honors bestowed upon the brother of Agnes, will be found in Moreri's "Dictionnaire Historique."
Africa has never been propitious to European settlement or colonization, but quite the contrary. The last founded state of the Anglo-American Union, of about two years' growth, is alone, at this moment, worth more than all that has been effected by the European race in Africa in two-and-twenty centuries. The most respectable product of African colonization is a Cape boor, and this is certainly not a finished specimen of humanity. Assuredly, for the last three hundred years, Africa has done nothing for the nations of Europe but seduce them into crime, folly, and extravagance.
The Romans were the first European settlers in Africa; it was at their very door, and they held it for eight centuries. Now, there is not left in it hardly a trace of Roman civilization;certainly fewer, at all events, than the Arabs have left in Spain. The Vandal occupation of Mediterranean Africa lasted only half a century. We should not have known that Vandals had ever set their feet on the Continent but for the written records of civilized men. There is nothing Vandal there, unless Vandalism in the abstract. The Dutch came next, in order of time, in another portion of Africa, and we have already alluded to the indistinct "spoor" which they have left behind them after an occupation of a hundred and fifty years.
The English have settled in two different quarters of the African continent, one of them within eight degrees of the equatorial line, and the other some thirty-four south of it. The first costs us civil establishments, forts, garrisons, and squadrons included (for out of Africa and its people comes the supposed necessity for the squadron), a good million a year. The most valuable article we get from tropical Africa is the oil of a certain palm, which contributes largely towards an excise duty of about a million and a half a year, levied on what has been justly called a second necessary of life—to wit, soap.
We have been in possession of the southern promontory of Africa for above fifty years. In this time, besides its conquest twice over from a European power, and in addition to fleets and armies, it has cost us, in mere self-defence against savages, three million pounds, while at this moment we are engaged in the same kind of defence, with the tolerable certainty of incurring another million. No one will venture to say that this sum alone does not far exceed the value of the fee simple and sovereignty of the southern promontory of Africa. What we get from it consists chiefly in some purgative aloes, a little indifferent wool, and a good deal of execrable wine, on the importation of which we pay a virtual bounty! As forour subjectsin this part of the African continent, they amount to about two hundred thousand, and are composed of Anglo-Saxons, Dutch, Malays, Hottentots, Bushmen, Gaikas, Tambookies, Amagarkas, Zulas, and Amazulas, speaking a very Babel of African, Asiatic, and European tongues, perilous to delicate organic structures even to listen to.
Now for French African colonization. If we have not been very wise ourselves, our neighbors, who have never been eminently happy in their attempts at colonization, have been much less so. They have been in possession of an immense territory in Algeria for twenty years, and have now about fifty thousand colonists there, with an army which has generally not been less than one hundred thousand, so that every colonist requires two soldiers to keep his throat from being cut, and his property from being robbed or stolen. This is about ten times the regular army that protects twenty-eight millions of Anglo-Americans from nearly all the savages of North America. The local revenue of Algeria is half a million sterling; but the annual cost of the experiment to France amounts to eight times as much as the revenue; and it has been computed that the whole charge to the French nation, from first to last (it goes on at the same rate), has been sixty million pounds. This is without exception the most monstrous attempt at colonization that has ever been made by man. If war should unfortunately arise with any maritime power, the matter will be still worse. At least one hundred thousand of the flower of the French army will then be worse than lost to France. For, pent up as it will be in a narrow strip of eighty miles broad along the shore of the Mediterranean, it may be blockaded from the sea by any superior naval power; and assuredly will be so, from the side of the desert, by a native one. To hold Algeria is to cripple France.
What, then, is the cause of the fatality which has thus ever attended African colonization by Europeans? In tropical Africa, the heat and insalubrity, and consequently the total unfitness for European life, are causes quite sufficient to account for the failure; and the failure has been eminent with French, Dutch, English, and Danes. But this will not account for want of success in temperate Africa, whether beyond the northern or southern tropic. The climate of this last, especially, is very good; and that of the first being nearly the same as their own, ought not to be hurtful to the constitutions of southern Europeans.
Drought, and the intermixture of deserts and wastes of sand with fertile lands, after the manner of a chess-board, without the regularity, is, of course, unpropitious to colonization, but cannot prevent its advancement, as we see by the progress of our Australian colonies. These causes, however, combined with the character of the native or congenial inhabitants of the country, have been quite sufficient to prove insuperable obstacles to a prosperous colonization. A nomad and wandering population has in fact been generated, incapable either of advancement or amalgamation, having just a sufficient knowledge of the arts to be dangerous neighbors, not capable of being driven to a distance from the settlers, nor likely to be destroyed by gunpowder or brandy. The lion and shepherd recede before the white man in southern Africa, but not the Caffir.
The inhabitant of northern Africa, whether Arabian or Numidian, is, in relation to an European colony, only a more formidable Caffir, from greater numbers and superior skill. Heretofore, a garrison of five thousand men at the most has been sufficient to protect the Cape colony, although six thousand miles distant from England. The territory of Algeria, of about the same extent, requires about twenty times that number, although within a day's sail of France. Arab and Numidian seem to be alike untamable both by position and by race. The Arabs (and it shows they were capable of better things) were a civilizedand industrious people while in the fair regions of Spain; driven from it, they have degenerated into little more than predatory shepherds, or freebooters; but they are only the more formidable to civilized men on this very account.
What, then, will be the fate of the French and English colonies in temperate Africa? We confess we can hardly venture to predict. Assuredly, neither north nor south Africa will ever give birth to a great or flourishing community, such as North America has done, and as Australia and New Zealand will certainly do. The Caffirs may possibly be driven to a distance, after a long course of trouble and expense; but the Arabs and Kabyles are as inexpungable as the wandering tribes of Arabia Petræa or Tartary. With them, neither expulsion, nor extermination, nor amalgamation is practicable. Very likely France and England will get heartily tired of paying yearly millions for their unavailable deserts, and there is no knowing what they may be driven to do in such an extremity. At all events, we may safely assert that France would have saved sixty millions of pounds, and the interminable prospect of a proportional annual expenditure, had she confined herself to the town and fortress of Algiers; and England would have been richer and wiser, had she kept within the bounds of the original Dutch colony. The best thing we ourselves can do with our extra-tropical Africa, is to leave the colonists to govern, and also to defend themselves from all but enemies by sea: that the French, unfortunately, cannot do.
"I hope, Pisistratus," said my father, "that you do not intend to be dull!"
"Heaven forbid, sir! what could make you ask such a question?Intend!No! if I am dull it is from innocence."
"A very long Discourse upon Knowledge!" said my father; "very long. I should cut it out!"
I looked upon my father as a Byzantian sage might have looked on a Vandal. "Cut it out!"
"Stops the action, sir!" said my father, dogmatically.
"Action! But a novel is not a drama."
"No, it is a great deal longer—twenty times as long, I dare say," replied Mr. Caxton with a sigh.
"Well, sir—well! I think my Discourse upon Knowledge has much to do with the subject—is vitally essential to the subject; does not stop the action—only explains and elucidates the action. And I am astonished, sir, that you, a scholar, and a cultivator of knowledge—"
"There—there!" cried my father, deprecatingly; "I yield—I yield. What better could I expect when I set up for a critic! What author ever lived that did not fly into a passion—even with his own father, if his father presumed to say—'Cut out!'Pacem imploro—"
Mrs. Caxton.—"My dear Austin, I am sure Pisistratus did not mean to offend you, and I have no doubt he will take your—"
Pisistratus, (hastily.)—"Advicefor the future, certainly. I will quicken the action and—"
"Go on with the Novel," whispered Roland, looking up from his eternal account-book. "We have lost £200 by our barley!"
Therewith I plunged my pen into the ink, and my thoughts into the "Fair Shadowland."
"Halt!" cried a voice; and not a little surprised was Leonard when the stranger who had accosted him the preceding evening got into the chaise.
"Well," said Richard, "I am not the sort of man you expected, eh! Take time to recover yourself." And with these words Richard drew forth a book from his pocket, threw himself back, and began to read. Leonard stole many a glance at the acute, hardy, handsome face of his companion, and gradually recognized a family likeness to poor John, in whom, despite age and infirmity, the traces of no common share of physical beauty were still evident. And, with that quick link in ideas which mathematical aptitude bestows, the young student at once conjectured that he saw before him his uncle Richard. He had the discretion, however, to leave that gentleman free to choose his own time for introducing himself, and silently revolved the new thoughts produced by the novelty of his situation. Mr. Richard read with notable quickness—sometimes cutting the leaves of the book with his penknife, sometimes tearing them open with his forefinger, sometimes skipping whole pages altogether. Thus he galloped to the end of the volume—flung it aside—lighted his cigar, and began to talk.
He put many questions to Leonard relative to his rearing, and especially to the mode by which he had acquired his education; and Leonard, confirmed in the idea that he was replying to a kinsman, answered frankly.
Richard did not think it strange that Leonard should have acquired so much instruction with so little direct tuition. Richard Avenel himself had been tutor to himself. He had lived too long with our go-ahead brethren, who stride the world on the other side the Atlantic with the seven-leagued boots of the Giant-killer, not to have caught their glorious fever for reading. But it was for a reading wholly different from that which was familiar to Leonard. The books he read must be new; to read old books would have seemed to him going back in the world. He fancied that new books necessarily contained new ideas—a common mistake—and our lucky adventurer was the man of his day.
Tired with talking, he at length chucked thebook he had run through to Leonard, and, taking out a pocket-book and pencil, amused himself with calculations on some detail of his business, after which he fell into an absorbed train of thought—part pecuniary, part ambitious.
Leonard found the book interesting; it was one of the numerous works, half-statistic, half-declamatory, relating to the condition of the working-classes, which peculiarly distinguish our century, and ought to bind together rich and poor, by proving the grave attention which modern society bestows upon all that can affect the welfare of the last.
"Dull stuff—theory—clap-trap," said Richard, rousing himself from his reverie at last: "it can't interest you."
"All books interest me, I think," said Leonard, "and this especially; for it relates to the working-class, and I am one of them."
"You were yesterday, but you mayn't be to-morrow," answered Richard good-humoredly, and patting him on the shoulder. "You see, my lad, that it is the middle class which ought to govern the country. What the book says about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good; but the man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants to regulate the number of hours a free-born boy should work at a factory—only ten hours a-day—pooh! and so lose two to the nation! Labor is wealth: and if we could get men to work twenty-four hours a-day, we should be just twice as rich. If the march of civilization is to proceed," continued Richard, loftily, "men, and boys too, must not lie a-bed doing nothingall night, sir." Then with a complacent tone—"We shall get to the twenty-four hours at last; and, by gad, we must, or we shan't flog the Europeans as we do now."
On arriving at the inn at which Richard had first made acquaintance with Mr. Dale, the coach by which he had intended to perform the rest of the journey was found to be full. Richard continued to perform the journey in post chaises, not without some grumbling at the expense, and incessant orders to the postboys to make the best of the way. "Slow country this, in spite of all its brag," said he—"very slow. Time is money—they know that in the States; for why, they are all men of business there. Always slow in a country where a parcel of lazy idle lords, and dukes, and baronets, seem to think 'time is pleasure.'"
Towards evening the chaise approached the confines of a very large town, and Richard began to grow fidgety. His easy cavalier air was abandoned. He withdrew his legs from the window, out of which they had been luxuriously dangling; pulled down his waistcoat; buckled more tightly his stock: it was clear that he was resuming the decorous dignity that belongs to state. He was like a monarch who, after travelling happy and incognito, returns to his capital. Leonard divined at once, that they were nearing their journey's end.
Humble foot-passengers now looked at the chaise, and touched their hats. Richard returned the salutation with a nod—a nod less gracious than condescending. The chaise turned rapidly to the left, and stopped before a smart lodge, very new, very white, adorned with two Doric columns in stucco, and flanked by a large pair of gates. "Hollo!" cried the postboy, and cracked his whip.
Two children were playing before the lodge, and some clothes were hanging out to dry on the shrubs and pales round the neat little building.
"Hang those brats! they are actually playing," growled Dick. "As I live, the jade has been washing again! Stop, boy." During this soliloquy, a good-looking young woman had rushed from the door—slapped the children, as catching sight of the chaise, they ran towards the house—opened the gates, and, dropping a curtsey to the ground, seemed to wish that she could drop into it altogether, so frightened and so trembling seemed she to shrink from the wrathful face which the master now put out of the window.
"Did I tell you, or did I not," said Dick, "that I would not have these horrid disreputable clubs of yours playing just before my lodge gates?"
"Please, sir—"
"Don't answer me. And did I tell you, or did I not, that the next time I saw you making a drying-ground of my lilacs, you should go out, neck and crop—"
"Oh, please, sir—"
"You leave my lodge next Saturday: drive on, boy. The ingratitude and insolence of those common people are disgraceful to human nature," muttered Richard, with an accent of the bitterest misanthropy.
The chaise wheeled along the smoothest and freshest of gravel roads, and through fields of the finest land, in the highest state of cultivation. Rapid as was Leonard's survey, his rural eye detected the signs of a master in the art agronomial. Hitherto he had considered the Squire's model farm as the nearest approach to good husbandry he had seen: for Jackeymo's finer skill was developed rather on the minute scale of market-gardening than what can fairly be called husbandry. But the Squire's farm was degraded by many old fashioned notions, and concessions to the whim of the eye, which would not be found in model farms now-a-days,—large tangled hedgerows, which, though they constitute one of the beauties most picturesque in old England, make sad deductions from produce; great trees, overshadowing the corn, and harboring the birds; little patches of rough sward left to waste; and angles of woodland running into fields, exposing them to rabbits, and blocking out the sun. These and such like blots on a gentleman's agriculture, common-sense and Giacomo had made clear to the acute comprehension of Leonard. No such faults were perceptible in Richard Avenel's domain. The fields lay in broad divisions, the hedges were clipped andnarrowed into their proper destination of mere boundaries. Not a blade of wheat withered under the cold shade of a tree; not a yard of land lay waste; not a weed was to be seen, not a thistle to waft its baleful seed through the air: some young plantations were placed, not where the artist would put them, but just where the farmer wanted a fence from the wind. Was there no beauty in this? Yes, there was beauty of its kind—beauty at once recognizable to the initiated—beauty of use and profit—beauty that could bear a monstrous high rent. And Leonard uttered a cry of admiration which thrilled through the heart of Richard Avenel.
"Thisisfarming!" said the villager.
"Well, I guess it is," answered Richard, all his ill-humor vanishing. "You should have seen the land when I bought it. But we new men, as they call us—(damn their impertinence)—are the new blood of this country."
Richard Avenel never said any thing more true. Long may the new blood circulate through the veins of the mighty giantess; but let the grand heart be the same as it has beat for proud ages.
The chaise now passed through a pretty shrubbery, and the house came into gradual view—a house with a portico—all the offices carefully thrust out of sight.
The postboy dismounted, and rang the bell.
"I almost think they are going to keep me waiting," said Mr. Richard, well-nigh in the very words of Louis XIV.
But that fear was not realized—the door opened; a well-fed servant out of livery presented himself. There was no hearty welcoming smile on his face, but he opened the chaise-door with demure and taciturn respect.
"Where's George? why does not he come to the door?" asked Richard, descending from the chaise slowly, and leaning on the servant's outstretched arm with as much precaution as if he had had the gout.
Fortunately, George here came into sight, settling himself hastily into his livery coat.
"See to the things, both of you," said Richard, as he paid the postboy.
Leonard stood on the gravel sweep, gazing at the square white house.
"Handsome elevation—classical, I take it—eh?" said Richard, joining him. "But you should see the offices."
He then, with familiar kindness, took Leonard by the arm, and drew him within. He showed him the hall, with a carved mahogany stand for hats; he showed him the drawing-room, and pointed out its beauties—though it was summer the drawing-room looked cold, as will look rooms newly furnished, with walls newly papered, in houses newly built. The furniture was handsome, and suited to the rank of a rich trader. There was no pretence about it, and therefore no vulgarity, which is more than can be said for the houses of many an honorable Mrs. Somebody in Mayfair, with rooms twelve feet square, chokeful of buhl, that would have had its proper place in the Tuileries. Then Richard showed him the library, with mahogany book-cases and plate glass, and the fashionable authors handsomely bound. Your new men are much better friends to living authors than your old families who live in the country, and at most subscribe to a book-club. Then Richard took him up-stairs, and led him through the bedrooms—all very clean and comfortable, and with every modern convenience; and, pausing in a very pretty single gentleman's chamber, said, "This is your den. And now, can you guess who I am?"
"No one but my Uncle Richard could be so kind," answered Leonard.
But the compliment did not flatter Richard. He was extremely disconcerted and disappointed. He had hoped that he should be taken for a lord at least, forgetful of all that he had said in disparagement of lords.
"Pish!" said he at last, biting his lip—"so you don't think that I look like a gentleman! Come, now, speak honestly."
Leonard wonderingly saw he had given pain, and with the good breeding which comes instinctively from good nature, replied—"I judged you by your heart, sir, and your likeness to my grandfather—otherwise I should never have presumed to fancy we could be relations."
"Hum!" answered Richard. "You can just wash your hands, and then come down to dinner; you will hear the gong in ten minutes. There's the bell—ring for what you want."
With that, he turned on his heel; and, descending the stairs, gave a look into the dining-room, and admired the plated salver on the sideboard, and the king's pattern spoons and forks on the table. Then he walked to the looking-glass over the mantel-piece; and, wishing to survey the whole effect of his form, mounted a chair. He was just getting into an attitude which he thought imposing, when the butler entered, and being London bred, had the discretion to try to escape unseen; but Richard caught sight of him in the looking-glass, and colored up to the temples.
"Jarvis," said he mildly—"Jarvis, put me in mind to have these inexpressibles altered."
Apropos of the inexpressibles, Mr. Richard did not forget to provide his nephew with a much larger wardrobe than could have been thrust into Dr. Riccabocca's knapsack. There was a very good tailor in the town, and the clothes were very well made. And, but for an air more ingenuous, and a cheek that, despite study and night vigils, retained much of the sunburnt bloom of the rustic, Leonard Fairfield might now have almost passed, without disparaging comment, by the bow-window at White's. Richard burst into an immoderate fit of laughter when he first saw the watch which the poor Italian had bestowed upon Leonard; but, to atone for the laughter, he made him a present of a very pretty substitute, and bade him "lock up his turnip." Leonard wasmore hurt by the jeer at his old patron's gift than pleased by his uncle's. But Richard Avenel had no conception of sentiment. It was not for many days that Leonard could reconcile himself to his uncle's manner. Not that the peasant could pretend to judge of its mere conventional defects; but there is an ill breeding to which, whatever our rank and nurture, we are almost equally sensitive—the ill breeding that comes from want of consideration for others. Now, the Squire was as homely in his way as Richard Avenel, but the Squire's bluntness rarely hurt the feelings: and when it did so, the Squire perceived and hastened to repair his blunder. But Mr. Richard, whether kind or cross, was always wounding you in some little delicate fibre—not from malice, but from the absence of any little delicate fibres of his own. He was really, in many respects, a most excellent man, and certainly a very valuable citizen. But his merits wanted the fine tints and fluent curves that constitute beauty of character. He was honest, but sharp in his practice, and with a keen eye to his interests. He was just, but as a matter of business. He made no allowances, and did not leave to his justice the large margin of tenderness and mercy. He was generous, but rather from an idea of what was due to himself than with much thought of the pleasure he gave to others; and he even regarded generosity as a capital put out to interest. He expected a great deal of gratitude in return, and, when he obliged a man, considered that he had bought a slave. Every needy voter knew where to come, if he wanted relief or a loan; but woe to him if he had ventured to express hesitation when Mr. Avenel told him how he must vote.
In this town Richard had settled after his return from America, in which country he had enriched himself—first, by spirit and industry—lastly, by bold speculation and good luck. He invested his fortune in business—became a partner in a large brewery—soon bought out his associates—and then took a principal share in a flourishing corn-mill. He prospered rapidly—bought a property of some two or three hundred acres, built a house, and resolved to enjoy himself, and make a figure. He had now become the leading man of the town, and the boast to Audley Egerton that he could return one of the members, perhaps both, was by no means an exaggerated estimate of his power. Nor was his proposition, according to his own views, so unprincipled as it appeared to the statesman. He had taken a great dislike to both the sitting members—a dislike natural to a sensible man of modern politics, who had something to lose. For Mr. Slappe, the active member—who was head-over-ears in debt—was one of the furious democrats rare before the Reform Bill—and whose opinions were held dangerous even by the mass of a liberal constituency; while Mr. Sleekie, the gentleman member, who laid by £5000 every year from his dividends in the Funds, was one of those men whom Richard justly pronounced to be "humbugs"—men who curry favor with the extreme party by voting for measures sure not to be carried; while, if there were the least probability of coming to a decision that would lower the money market, Mr. Sleekie was seized with a well-timed influenza. Those politicians are common enough now. Propose to march to the Millennium, and they are your men. Ask them to march a quarter of a mile, and they fall to feeling their pockets, and trembling for fear of the footpads. They are never so joyful as when there is no chance of a victory. Did they beat the Minister, they would be carried out of the house in a fit.
Richard Avenel—despising both these gentlemen, and not taking kindly to the Whigs since the great Whig leaders were Lords—looked with a friendly eye to the Government as it then existed, and especially to Audley Egerton, the enlightened representative of commerce. But in giving Audley and his colleagues the benefit of his influence, through conscience, he thought it all fair and right to have aquid pro quo, and, as he had so frankly confessed, it was his whim to rise up "Sir Richard." For this worthy citizen abused the aristocracy much on the same principle as the fair Olivia depreciated Squire Thornhill—he had a sneaking affection for what he abused. The society of Screwstown was, like most provincial capitals, composed of two classes—the commercial and the exclusive. These last dwelt chiefly apart, around the ruins of an old abbey; they affected its antiquity in their pedigrees, and had much of its ruin in their finances. Widows of rural thanes in the neighborhood—genteel spinsters—officers retired on half-pay—younger sons of rich squires, who had now become old bachelors—in short, a very respectable, proud, aristocratic set—who thought more of themselves than do all the Gowers and Howards, Courtenays and Seymours, put together. It had early been the ambition of Richard Avenel to be admitted into this sublime coterie; and, strange to say, he had partially succeeded. He was never more happy than when he was asked to their card-parties, and never more unhappy than when he was actually there. Various circumstances combined to raise Mr. Avenel into this elevated society. First, he was unmarried, still very handsome, and in that society there was a large proportion of unwedded females. Secondly, he was the only rich trader in Screwstown who kept a good cook, and professed to give dinners, and the half-pay captains and colonels swallowed the host for the sake of the venison. Thirdly, and principally, all these exclusives abhorred the two sitting members, and "idem nolle idem velle de republica, ea firma amicitia est;" that is, congeniality in politics pieces porcelain and crockery together better than the best diamond cement. The sturdy Richard Avenel—who valued himself on American independence—held these ladies and gentlemen in an awe that was truly Brahminical.Whether it was that, in England, all notions, even of liberty, are mixed up historically, traditionally, socially, with that fine and subtle element of aristocracy which, like the press, is the air we breathe; or whether Richard imagined that he really became magnetically imbued with the virtues of these silver pennies and gold seven-shilling pieces, distinct from the vulgar coinage in popular use, it is hard to say. But the truth must be told—Richard Avenel was a notable tuft-hunter. He had a great longing to marry out of this society; but he had not yet seen any one sufficiently high-born and high-bred to satisfy his aspirations. In the mean while, he had convinced himself that his way would be smooth could he offer to make his ultimate choice "My Lady;" and he felt that it would be a proud hour in his life when he could walk before stiff Colonel Pompley to the sound of "Sir Richard." Still, however disappointed at the ill success of his bluff diplomacy with Mr. Egerton, and however yet cherishing the most vindictive resentment against that individual—he did not, as many would have done, throw up his political convictions out of personal spite. He resolved still to favor the ungrateful and undeserving administration; and as Audley Egerton had acted on the representations of the mayor and deputies, and shaped his bill to meet their views, so Avenel and the Government rose together in the popular estimation of the citizens of Screwstown.
But, duly to appreciate the value of Richard Avenel, and in just counterpoise to all his foibles, one ought to have seen what he had effected for the town. Well might he boast of "new blood;" he had done as much for the town as he had for his fields. His energy, his quick comprehension of public utility, backed by his wealth, and bold, bullying, imperious character, had sped the work of civilization as if with the celerity and force of a steam-engine.
If the town were so well paved and so well lighted—if half-a-dozen squalid lanes had been transformed into a stately street—if half the town no longer depended on tanks for their water—if the poor-rates were reduced one-third,—praise to the brisk new blood which Richard Avenel had infused into vestry and corporation. And his example itself was so contagious! "There was not a plate-glass window in the town when I came into it," said Richard Avenel; "and now look down the High Street!" He took the credit to himself, and justly; for, though his own business did not require windows of plate-glass, he had awakened the spirit of enterprise which adorns a whole city.
Mr. Avenel did not present Leonard to his friends for more than a fortnight. He allowed him to wear off his rust. He then gave a grand dinner, at which his nephew was formally introduced, and, to his great wrath and disappointment, never opened his lips. How could he, poor youth, when Miss Clarina Mowbray only talked upon high life; till proud Colonel Pompley went in state through the history of the siege of Seringapatam.
While Leonard accustoms himself gradually to the splendors that surround him, and often turns with a sigh to the remembrance of his mother's cottage and the sparkling fount in the Italian's flowery garden, we will make with thee, O reader, a rapid flight to the metropolis, and drop ourselves amidst the gay groups that loiter along the dusty ground, or loll over the roadside palings of Hyde Park. The season is still at its height; but the short day of fashionable London life, which commences two hours after noon, is in its decline. The crowd in Rotten Row begins to thin. Near the statue of Achilles, and apart from all other loungers, a gentleman, with one hand thrust into his waistcoat, and the other resting on his cane, gazed listlessly on the horsemen and carriages in the brilliant ring. He was still in the prime of life, at the age when man is usually the most social—when the acquaintances of youth have ripened into friendship, and a personage of some rank and fortune has become a well-known feature in the mobile face of society. But though, when his contemporaries were boys scarce at college, this gentleman had blazed foremost amongst the princes of fashion, and though he had all the qualities of nature and circumstance which either retain fashion to the last, or exchange its false celebrity for a graver repute, he stood as a stranger in that throng of his countrymen. Beauties whirled by to the toilet—statesmen passed on to the senate—dandies took flight to the clubs; and neither nods, nor becks, nor wreathed smiles, said to the solitary spectator, "Follow us—thou art one of our set." Now and then, some middle-aged beau, nearing the post of the loiterer, turned round to look again; but the second glance seemed to dissipate the recognition of the first, and the beau silently continued his way.
"By the tombs of my fathers!" said the solitary to himself, "I know now what a dead man might feel if he came to life again, and took a peep at the living."
Time passed on—the evening shades descended fast. Our stranger in London had well-nigh the Park to himself. He seemed to breathe more freely as he saw that the space was so clear.
"There's oxygen in the atmosphere now," said he, half aloud; "and I can walk without breathing in the gaseous fumes of the multitude. O those chemists—what dolts they are! They tell us crowds taint the air, but they never guess why! Pah, it is not the lungs that poison the element—it is the reek of bad hearts. When a periwig-pated fellow breathes on me, I swallow a mouthful of care.Allons!my friend Nero; now for a stroll." He touched with his cane a large Newfoundland dog, who lay stretched near his feet; a dog and man went slow through the growing twilight, and over the brown dry turf. At length our solitarypaused, and threw himself on a bench under a tree. "Half-past eight!" said he, looking at his watch—"one may smoke one's cigar without shocking the world."
He took out his cigar-case, struck a light, and in another moment reclined at length on the bench—seemed absorbed in regarding the smoke, that scarce colored ere it vanished into air.
"It is the most barefaced lie in the world, my Nero," said he, addressing his dog, "this boasted liberty of man! Now here am I, a free-born Englishman, a citizen of the world, caring—I often say to myself—caring not a jot for Kaisar or Mob; and yet I no more dare smoke this cigar in the Park at half-past six, when all the world is abroad, than I dare pick my Lord Chancellor's pocket, or hit the Archbishop of Canterbury a thump on the nose. Yet no law in England forbids me my cigar, Nero! What is law at half-past eight, was not crime at six and a-half! Britannia says, 'Man, thou art free,' and she lies like a commonplace woman. O Nero, Nero! you enviable dog!—you serve but from liking. No thought of the world costs you one wag of your tail. Your big heart and true instinct suffice you for reason and law. You would want nothing to your felicity, if in these moments of ennui you would but smoke a cigar. Try it, Nero!—try it!" And, rising from his incumbent posture, he sought to force the end of the weed between the teeth of the dog.
While thus gravely engaged, two figures had approached the place. The one was a man who seemed weak and sickly. His threadbare coat was buttoned to the chin, but hung large on his shrunken breast. The other was a girl of about fourteen, on whose arm he leant heavily. Her cheek was wan, and there was a patient sad look on her face, which seemed so settled that you would think she could never have known the mirthfulness of childhood.
"Pray rest here, papa," said the child softly; and she pointed to the bench, without taking heed of its pre-occupant, who now, indeed, confined to one corner of the seat, was almost hidden by the shadow of a tree.
The man sat down with a feeble sigh; and then, observing the stranger, raised his hat, and said in that tone of voice which betrays the usages of polished society, "Forgive me, if I intrude on you, sir."
The stranger looked up from his dog, and seeing that the girl was standing, rose at once, as if to make room for her on the bench.
But still the girl did not heed him. She hung over her father, and wiped his brow tenderly with a little kerchief which she took from her own neck for the purpose.
Nero, delighted to escape the cigar, had taken to some unwieldy curvets and gambols, to vent the excitement into which he had been thrown; and now returning, approached the bench with a low look of surprise, and sniffed at the intruders on his master's privacy.
"Come here, sir," said the master. "You need not fear him," he added, addressing himself to the girl.
But the girl, without turning round to him, cried in a voice rather of anguish than alarm, "He has fainted! Father! father!"
The stranger kicked aside his dog, which was in the way, and loosened the poor man's stiff military stock. While thus charitably engaged, the moon broke out, and the light fell full on the pale care-worn face of the unconscious sufferer.
"This face seems not unfamiliar to me, though sadly changed," said the stranger to himself; and bending towards the girl, who had sunk on her knees and was chafing her father's hands, he asked, "My child, what is your father's name?"
The child continued her task, too absorbed to answer.
The stranger put his hand on her shoulder, and repeated the question.
"Digby," answered the child, almost unconsciously; and as she spoke, the man's senses began to return. In a few minutes more he had sufficiently recovered to falter forth his thanks to the stranger. But the last took his hand, and said, in a voice at once tremulous and soothing, "Is it possible that I see once more an old brother in arms? Algernon Digby, I do not forget you; but it seems England has forgotten!"
A hectic flush spread over the soldier's face, and he looked away from the speaker as he answered—
"My name is Digby, it is true, sir; but I do not think we have met before. Come, Helen, I am well now—we will go home."
"Try and play with that great dog, my child," said the stranger—"I want to talk with your father."
The child bowed her submissive head, and moved away; but she did not play with the dog.
"I must re-introduce myself, formally, I see," quoth the stranger. "You were in the same regiment with myself, and my name is L'Estrange."
"My lord," said the soldier, rising, "forgive me that—"
"I don't think that it was the fashion to call me 'my lord' at the mess-table. Come, what has happened to you?—on half pay?"
Mr. Digby shook his head mournfully.
"Digby, old fellow, can you lend me £100?" said Lord L'Estrange, clapping hisci-devantbrother officer on the shoulder, and in a tone of voice that seemed like a boy's—so impudent was it and devil-me-carish. "No! Well, that's lucky, for I can lend it to you."
Mr. Digby burst into tears.
Lord L'Estrange did not seem to observe the emotion. "We were both sad extravagant fellows in our day," said he, "and I dare say I borrowed of you pretty freely."
"Me! Oh, Lord L'Estrange?"
"You have married since then, and reformed, I suppose. Tell me, old friend, all about it."
Mr. Digby, who by this time had succeeded in restoring some calm to his shattered nerves, now rose, and said in brief sentences, but clear firm tones,—
"My Lord, it is idle to talk of me—useless to help me. I am fast dying. But, my child there, my only child, (he paused an instant, and went on rapidly.) I have relations in a distant country, if I could but get to them—I think they would at least provide for her. This has been for weeks my hope, my dream, my prayer. I cannot afford the journey except by your help. I have begged without shame for myself; shall I be ashamed, then, to beg for her?"
"Digby," said L'Estrange with some grave alteration of manner, "talk neither of dying, nor begging. You were nearer death when the balls whistled round you at Waterloo. If soldier meets soldier and says, 'Friend, thy purse,' it is not begging, but brotherhood. Ashamed! By the soul of Belisarius! if I needed money, I would stand at a crossing with my Waterloo medal over my breast, and say to each sleek citizen I had helped to save from the sword of the Frenchman, 'It is your shame if I starve.' Now, lean upon me; I see you should be at home—which way?"
The poor soldier pointed his hand towards Oxford Street, and reluctantly accepted the proffered arm.
"And when you return from your relations, you will call on me? What!—hesitate? Come, promise."
"I will."
"On your honor."
"If I live, on my honor."
"I am staying at present at Knightsbridge, with my father; but you will always hear of my address at No. — Grosvenor Square, Mr. Egerton's. So you have a long journey before you?"
"Very long."
"Do not fatigue yourself—travel slowly. Ho, you foolish child!—I see you are jealous of me. Your father has another arm to spare you."
Thus talking, and getting but short answers, Lord L'Estrange continued to exhibit those whimsical peculiarities of character, which had obtained for him the repute of heartlessness in the world. Perhaps the reader may think the world was not in the right. But if ever the world does judge rightly of the character of a man who does not live for the world, nor talk of the world, nor feel with the world, it will be centuries after the soul of Harley L'Estrange has done with this planet.
Lord L'Estrange parted company with Mr. Digby at the entrance of Oxford Street. The father and child there took a cabriolet. Mr. Digby directed the driver to go down the Edgeware Road. He refused to tell L'Estrange his address, and this with such evident pain, from the sores of pride, that L'Estrange could not press the point. Reminding the soldier of his promise to call, Harley thrust a pocket-book into his hand, and walked off hastily towards Grosvenor Square.
He reached Audley Egerton's door just as that gentleman was getting out of his carriage; and the two friends entered the house together.
"Does the nation take a nap to-night?" asked L'Estrange. "Poor old lady! She hears so much of her affairs, that she may well boast of her constitution: it must be of iron."
"The House is still sitting," answered Audley seriously, and with small heed of his friend's witticism. "But it is not a Government motion, and the division will be late, so I came home; and if I had not found you here, I should have gone into the park to look for you."
"Yes—one always knows where to find me at this hour, 9 o'clockp.m.—cigar—Hyde Park. There is not a man in England so regular in his habits."
Here the friends reached a drawing-room in which the member of Parliament seldom sat, for his private apartments were all on the ground floor.
"But it is the strangest whim of yours, Harley," said he.
"What?"
"To affect detestation of ground-floors."
"Affect! O sophisticated man, of the earth, earthy! Affect!—nothing less natural to the human soul than a ground-floor. We are quite far enough from heaven, mount as many stairs as we will, without grovelling by preference."
"According to that symbolical view of the case," said Audley, "you should lodge in an attic."
"So I would, but that I abhor new slippers. As for hair-brushes, I am indifferent!"
"What have slippers and hair-brushes to do with attics?"
"Try! Make your bed in an attic, and the next morning you will have neither slippers nor hair-brushes!"
"What shall I have done with them?"
"Shied them at the cats!"
"What odd things you do say, Harley!"
"Odd! By Apollo and his nine spinsters! there is no human being who has so little imagination as a distinguished Member of Parliament. Answer me this, thou solemn right honorable—Hast thou climbed to the heights of august contemplation? Hast thou gazed on the stars with the rapt eye of song? Hast thou dreamed of a love known to the angels, or sought to seize in the Infinite the mystery of life?"
"Not I indeed, my poor Harley."
"Then no wonder, poor Audley, that you cannot conjecture why he who makes his bed in an attic, disturbed by base catterwauls, shies his slippers at cats. Bring a chair into the balcony. Nero spoiled my cigar to-night. I am going to smoke now. You never smoke. You can look on the shrubs in the Square."
Audley slightly shrugged his shoulders, but he followed his friend's counsel and example,and brought his chair into the balcony. Nero came too, but at sight and smell of the cigar prudently retreated, and took refuge under the table.
"Audley Egerton, I want something from Government."
"I am delighted to hear it."
"There was a cornet in my regiment, who would have done better not to have come into it. We were, for the most part of us, puppies and fops."
"You all fought well, however."
"Puppies and fops do fight well. Vanity and valor generally go together. Cæsar, who scratched his head with due care of his scanty curls, and, even in dying, thought of the folds in his toga; Walter Raleigh, who could not walk twenty yards, because of the gems in his shoes; Alcibiades, who lounged into the Agora with doves in his bosom, and an apple in his hand; Murat, bedizened in gold lace and furs; and Demetrius, the City-Taker, who made himself up like a FrenchMarquise,—were all pretty good fellows at fighting. A slovenly hero like Cromwell is a paradox in nature, and a marvel in history. But to return to my cornet. We were rich; he was poor. When the pot of clay swims down the stream with the brass-pots, it is sure of a smash. Men said Digby was stingy; I saw he was extravagant. But every one, I fear, would be rather thought stingy than poor.Bref.—I left the army, and saw him no more till to-night. There was never shabby poor gentleman on the stage more awfully shabby, more pathetically gentleman. But, look ye, this man has fought for England. It was no child's play at Waterloo, let me tell you, Mr. Egerton; and, but for such men, you would be at best asous-prefet, and your Parliament a Provincial Assembly. You must do something for Digby. What shall it be?"
"Why, really, my dear Harley, this man was no great friend of yours—eh?"
"If he were, he would not want the Government to help him—he would not be ashamed of taking money from me."
"That is all very fine, Harley; but there are so many poor officers, and so little to give. It is the most difficult thing in the world that which you ask me. Indeed, I know nothing can be done: he has his half-pay?"
"I think not; or, if he has it, no doubt it all goes on his debts. That's nothing to us: the man and his child are starving."
"But if it is his own fault—if he has been imprudent?"
"Ah—well, well; where the devil is Nero?"
"I am so sorry I can't oblige you. If it were any thing else—"
"There is something else. My valet—I can't turn him adrift—excellent fellow, but gets drunk now and then. Will you find him a place in the Stamp Office?"
"With pleasure."
"No, now I think of it—the man knows my ways: I must keep him. But my old wine-merchant—civil man, never dunned—is a bankrupt. I am under great obligations to him, and he has a very pretty daughter. Do you think you could thrust him into some small place in the colonies, or make him a King's Messenger, or something of the sort?"
"If you very much wish it, no doubt I can."
"My dear Audley, I am but feeling my way: the fact is, I want something for myself."
"Ah, that indeed gives me pleasure!" cried Egerton, with animation.
"The mission to Florence will soon be vacant—I know it privately. The place would quite suit me. Pleasant city; the best figs in Italy—very little to do. You could sound Lord —— on the subject."
"I will answer beforehand. Lord ——would be enchanted to secure to the public service a man so accomplished as yourself, and the son of a peer like Lord Lansmere."
Harley L'Estrange sprang to his feet, and flung his cigar in the face of a stately policeman who was looking up at the balcony.
"Infamous and bloodless official!" cried Harley L'Estrange; "so you could provide for a pimple-nosed lackey—for a wine-merchant who has been poisoning the king's subjects with white-lead or sloe-juice—for an idle sybarite, who would complain of a crumpled rose-leaf; and nothing, in all the vast patronage of England, for a broken down soldier, whose dauntless breast was her rampart!"
"Harley," said the member of Parliament, with his calm, sensible smile, "this would be a very good clap-trap at a small theatre; but there is nothing in which Parliament demands such rigid economy as the military branch of the public service; and no man for whom it is so hard to effect what we must plainly call a job, as a subaltern officer, who has done nothing more than his duty—and all military men do that. Still, as you take it so earnestly, I will use what interest I can at the War Office, and get him, perhaps, the mastership of a barrack."
"You had better; for if you do not, I swear I will turn radical, and come down to your own city to oppose you, with Hunt and Cobbett to canvass for me."
"I should be very glad to see you come into Parliament, even as a radical, and at my expense," said Audley, with great kindness. "But the air is growing cold, and you are not accustomed to our climate. Nay, if you are too poetic for catarrhs and rheums, I'm not—come in."
Lord L'Estrange threw himself on a sofa, and leant his cheek on his hand thoughtfully. Audley Egerton sat near him, with his arms folded, and gazed on his friend's face with a soft expression of aspect, which was very unusual to the firm outline of his handsome features. The two men were as dissimilar in person as the reader will have divined that they were in character. All about Egertonwas so rigid, all about L'Estrange so easy. In every posture of Harley there was the unconscious grace of a child. The very fashion of his garments showed his abhorrence of restraint. His clothes were wide and loose, his neckcloth tied carelessly, left his throat half bare. You could see that he had lived much in warm and southern lands, and contracted a contempt for conventionalities; there was as little in his dress as in his talk of the formal precision of the north. He was three or four years younger than Audley, but he looked at least twelve years younger. In fact, he was one of those men to whom old age seems impossible—voice, look, figure, had all the charm of youth; and, perhaps, it was from this gracious youthfulness—at all events, it was characteristic of the kind of love he inspired—that neither his parents, nor the few friends admitted into his intimacy, ever called him, in their habitual intercourse, by the name of his title. He was not L'Estrange with them, he was Harley; and by that familiar baptismal I will usually designate him. He was not one of those men whom author or reader wish to view at a distance, and remember as "my lord"—it was so rarely that he remembered it himself. For the rest, it had been said of him by a shrewd wit—"He is so natural, that every one calls him affected." Harley L'Estrange was not so critically handsome as Audley Egerton; to a commonplace observer he was, at best, rather good-looking than otherwise. But women said that he had a beautiful countenance, and they were not wrong. He wore his hair, which was of a fair chestnut, long, and in loose curls; and instead of the Englishman's whiskers, indulged in the foreigner's moustache. His complexion was delicate, though not effeminate; it was rather the delicacy of a student than of a woman. But in his clear gray eye there was wonderful vigor of life. A skilful physiologist, looking only into that eye, would have recognized rare stamina of constitution—a nature so rich that, while easily disturbed, it would require all the effects of time, or all the fell combinations of passion and grief, to exhaust it. Even now, though so thoughtful, and even so sad, the rays of that eye were as concentred and stedfast as the light of the diamond.
"You were only, then, in jest," said Audley, after a long silence, "when you spoke of this mission to Florence. You have still no idea of entering into public life.
"None."
"I had hoped better things when I got your promise to pass one season in London. But, indeed, you have kept your promise to the ear to break it to the spirit. I could not presuppose that you would shun all society, and be as much of a hermit here as under the vines of Como."
"I have sat in the Strangers' Gallery, and heard your great speakers; I have been in the pit of the opera, and seen your fine ladies; I have walked your streets, I have lounged in your parks, and I say that I can't fall in love with a faded dowager, because she fills up her wrinkles with rouge."
"Of what dowager do you speak?" asked the matter-of-fact Audley.
"She has a great many titles. Some people call her fashion, you busy men, politics: it is all one—tricked out and artificial. I mean London life. No, I can't fall in love with her, fawning old harridan!"
"I wish you could fall in love with something."
"I wish I could, with all my heart."
"But you are soblasé."
"On the contrary, I am so fresh. Look out of the window—what do you see?"
"Nothing!"
"Nothing—"
"Nothing but houses and dusty lilacs, my coachman dozing on his box, and two women in pattens crossing the kennel."
"I see none of that where I lie on the sofa. I see but the stars. And I feel for them as I did when I was a schoolboy at Eton. It is you who areblasé, not I—enough of this. You do not forget my commission, with respect to the exile who has married into your brother's family?"
"No; but here you set me a task more difficult than that of saddling your cornet on the War Office."
"I know it is difficult, for the counter influence is vigilant and strong; but, on the other hand, the enemy is so damnable a traitor that one must have the Fates and the household gods on one's side."
"Nevertheless," said the practical Audley, bending over a book on the table, "I think that the best plan would be to attempt a compromise with the traitor."
"To judge of others by myself," answered Harley with spirit, "it were less bitter to put up with wrong than to palter with it for compensation. And such wrong! Compromise with the open foe—that may be done with honor; but with the perjured friend—that were to forgive the perjury."
"You are too vindictive," said Egerton; "there may be excuses for the friend, which palliate even—"
"Hush! Audley, hush! or I shall think the world has indeed corrupted you. Excuse for the friend who deceives, who betrays! No, such is the true outlaw of Humanity; and the Furies surround him even while he sleeps in the temple."
The man of the world lifted his eye slowly on the animated face of one still natural enough for the passions. He then once more returned to his book, and said, after a pause, "It is time you should marry, Harley."
"No," answered L'Estrange, with a smile at this sudden turn in the conversation—"not time yet; for my chief objection to that change in life is, that all the women now-a-days are too old for me, or I am too young for them; a few, indeed, are so infantine that one is ashamedto be their toy; but most are so knowing that one is a fool to be their dupe. The first, if they condescend to love you, love you as the biggest doll they have yet dandled, and for a doll's good qualities—your pretty blue eyes, and your exquisite millinery. The last, if they prudently accept you, do so on algebraical principles; you are but the X or the Y that represents a certain aggregate of goods matrimonial—pedigree, title, rent-roll, diamonds, pin-money, opera-box. They cast you up with the help of mamma, and you wake some morning to find thatpluswifeminusaffection equals—the Devil!"
"Nonsense," said Audley, with his quiet grave laugh. "I grant that it is often the misfortune of a man in your station to be married rather for what he has, than for what he is; but you are tolerably penetrating, and not likely to be deceived in the character of the woman you court."
"Of the woman Icourt?—No! But of the woman Imarry, very likely indeed. Woman is a changeable thing, as our Virgil informed us at school; but her changepar excellenceis from the fairy you woo to the brownie you wed. It is not that she has been a hypocrite, it is that she is a transmigration. You marry a girl for her accomplishments. She paints charmingly, or plays like St. Cecilia. Clap a ring on her finger, and she never draws again—except perhaps your caricature on the back of a letter, and never opens a piano after the honeymoon. You marry her for her sweet temper; and next year, her nerves are so shattered that you can't contradict her but you are whirled into a storm of hysterics. You marry her because she declares she hates balls and likes quiet; and ten to one but what she becomes a patroness at Almacks, or a lady in waiting."
"Yet most men marry, and most men survive the operation."
"If it were only necessary to live, that would be a consolatory and encouraging reflection. But to live with peace, to live with dignity, to live with freedom, to live in harmony with your thoughts, your habits, your aspirations—and this in the perpetual companionship of a person to whom you have given the power to wound your peace, to assail your dignity, to cripple your freedom, to jar on each thought and each habit, and bring you down to the meanest details of earth, when you invite her, poor soul, to soar to the spheres—that makes the to be, or not to be, which is the question."
"If I were you, Harley, I would do as I have heard the author ofSandford and Mertondid—choose out a child, and educate her yourself after your own heart."
"You have hit it," answered Harley, seriously. "That has long been my idea—a very vague one, I confess. But I fear I shall be an old man before I find even the child."
"Ah," he continued, yet more earnestly, while the whole character of his varying countenance changed again—"ah! if indeed I could discover what I seek—one who with the heart of a child has the mind of a woman; one who beholds in nature the variety, the charm, the never feverish, ever healthful excitement that others vainly seek in the bastard sentimentalities of a life false with artificial forms; one who can comprehend, as by intuition, the rich poetry with which creation is clothed—poetry so clear to the child when enraptured with the flower, or when wondering at the star? If on me such exquisite companionship were bestowed—why, then"—he paused, sighed deeply, and, covering his face with his hand, resumed in faltering accents,—
"But once—but once only, did such vision of the Beautiful made human rise before me—amidst 'golden exhalations of the dawn.' It beggared my life in vanishing. You know only—you only—how—how"—
He bowed his head, and the tears forced themselves through his clenched fingers.
"So long ago!" said Audley, sharing his friend's emotion. "Years so long and so weary, yet still thus tenacious of a mere boyish memory."
"Away with it, then!" cried Harley, springing to his feet, and with a laugh of strange merriment. "Your carriage still waits; set me home before you go to the House."
Then laying his hand lightly on his friend's shoulder, he said, "Is it for you, Audley Egerton, to speak sneeringly of boyish memories? What else is it that binds us together? What else warms my heart when I meet you? What else draws your thoughts from blue-books and beer-bills, to waste them on a vagrant like me? Shake hands. Oh, friend of my boyhood! recollect the oars that we plied and the bats that we wielded in the old time, or the murmured talk on the moss-grown bank, as we sat together, building in the summer air castles mightier than Windsor. Ah! they are strong ties, those boyish memories, believe me! I remember as if it were yesterday my translation of that lovely passage in Perseus, beginning—let me see—ah!—