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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Disowned, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, V3
+#61 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
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+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
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+Title: The Disowned, Volume 3.
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 2005  [EBook #7633]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 4, 2004]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DISOWNED, LYTTON, V3 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen
+and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+Mrs. Trinket.  What d'ye buy, what d'ye lack, gentlemen?  Gloves,
+ribbons, and essences,--ribbons, gloves, and essences.
+                                                    ETHEREGE.
+
+"And so, my love," said Mr. Copperas, one morning at breakfast, to his
+wife, his right leg being turned over his left, and his dexter hand
+conveying to his mouth a huge morsel of buttered cake,--"and, so my
+love, they say that the old fool is going to leave the jackanapes all
+his fortune?"
+
+"They do say so, Mr. C.; for my part I am quite out of patience with
+the art of the young man; I dare say he is no better than he should
+be; he always had a sharp look, and for aught I know there may be more
+in that robbery than you or I dreamed of, Mr. Copperas.  It was a
+pity," continued Mrs. Copperas, upbraiding her lord with true
+matrimonial tenderness and justice, for the consequences of his having
+acted from her advice,--"it was a pity, Mr. C., that you should have
+refused to lend him the pistols to go to the old fellow's assistance,
+for then who knows but--"
+
+"I might have converted them into pocket pistols," interrupted Mr. C.,
+"and not have overshot the mark, my dear--ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"Lord, Mr. Copperas, you are always making a joke of everything."
+
+"No, my dear, for once I am making a joke of nothing."
+
+"Well, I declare it's shameful," cried Mrs. Copperas, still following
+up her own indignant meditations, "and after taking such notice of
+Adolphus, too, and all!"
+
+"Notice, my dear! mere words," returned Mr. Copperas, "mere words,
+like ventilators, which make a great deal of air, but never raise the
+wind; but don't put yourself in a stew, my love, for the doctors say
+that copperas in a stew is poison!"
+
+At this moment Mr. de Warens, throwing open the door, announced Mr.
+Brown; that gentleman entered, with a sedate but cheerful air.  "Well,
+Mrs. Copperas, your servant; any table-linen wanted?  Mr. Copperas,
+how do you do?  I can give you a hint about the stocks.  Master
+Copperas, you are looking bravely; don't you think he wants some new
+pinbefores, ma'am?  But Mr. Clarence Linden, where is he?  Not up yet,
+I dare say.  Ah, the present generation is a generation of sluggards,
+as his worthy aunt, Mrs. Minden, used to say."
+
+"I am sure," said Mrs. Copperas, with a disdainful toss of the head,
+"I know nothing about the young man.  He has left us; a very
+mysterious piece of business indeed, Mr. Brown; and now I think of it,
+I can't help saying that we were by no means pleased with your
+introduction: and, by the by, the chairs you bought for us at the sale
+were a mere take-in, so slight that Mr. Walruss broke two of them by
+only sitting down."
+
+"Indeed, ma'am?" said Mr. Brown, with expostulating gravity; "but then
+Mr. Walruss is so very corpulent.  But the young gentleman, what of
+him?" continued the broker, artfully turning from the point in
+dispute.
+
+"Lord, Mr. Brown, don't ask me: it was the unluckiest step we ever
+made to admit him into the bosom of our family; quite a viper, I
+assure you; absolutely robbed poor Adolphus."
+
+"Lord help us!" said Mr. Brown, with a look which "cast a browner
+horror" o'er the room, "who would have thought it?  and such a pretty
+young man!"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Copperas, who, occupied in finishing the buttered
+cake, had hitherto kept silence, "I must be off.  Tom--I mean de
+Warens--have you stopped the coach?"
+
+"Yees, sir."
+
+And what coach is it?"
+
+"It be the Swallow, sir."
+
+"Oh, very well.  And now, Mr. Brown, having swallowed in the roll, I
+will e'en roll in the Swallow--Ha, ha, ha!--At any rate," thought Mr.
+Copperas, as he descended the stairs, "he has not heard that before."
+
+"Ha, ha!" gravely chuckled Mr. Brown, "what a very facetious, lively
+gentleman Mr. Copperas is.  But touching this ungrateful young man,
+Mr. Linden, ma'am?"
+
+"Oh, don't tease me, Mr. Brown, I must see after my
+domestics: ask Mr. Talbot, the old miser in the next house, the
+havarr, as the French say."
+
+"Well, now," said Mr. Brown, following the good lady down stairs, "how
+distressing for me! and to say that he was Mrs. Minden's nephew, too!"
+
+But Mr. Brown's curiosity was not so easily satisfied, and finding Mr.
+de Warens leaning over the "front" gate, and "pursuing with wistful
+eyes" the departing "Swallow," he stopped, and, accosting him, soon
+possessed himself of the facts that "old Talbot had been robbed and
+murdered, but that Mr. Linden had brought him to life again; and that
+old Talbot had given him a hundred thousand pounds, and adopted him as
+his son; and that how Mr. Linden was going to be sent to foreign
+parts, as an ambassador, or governor, or great person; and that how
+meester and meeses were quite 'cut up' about it."
+
+All these particulars having been duly deposited in the mind of Mr.
+Brown, they produced an immediate desire to call upon the young
+gentleman, who, to say nothing of his being so very nearly related to
+his old customer, Mrs. Minden, was always so very great a favourite
+with him, Mr. Brown.
+
+Accordingly, as Clarence was musing over his approaching departure,
+which was now very shortly to take place, he was somewhat startled by
+the apparition of Mr. Brown--"Charming day, sir,--charming day," said
+the friend of Mrs. Minden,--"just called in to congratulate you.  I
+have a few articles, sir, to present you with,--quite rarities, I
+assure you,--quite presents, I may say.  I picked them up at a sale of
+the late Lady Waddilove's most valuable effects.  They are just the
+things, sir, for a gentleman going on a foreign mission.  A most
+curious ivory chest, with an Indian padlock, to hold confidential
+letters,--belonged formerly, sir, to the Great Mogul; and a beautiful
+diamond snuff-box, sir, with a picture of Louis XIV. on it,
+prodigiously fine, and will look so loyal too: and, sir, if you have
+any old aunts in the country, to send a farewell present to, I have
+some charming fine cambric, a superb Dresden tea set, and a lovely
+little 'ape,' stuffed by the late Lady W. herself."
+
+"My good sir," began Clarence.
+
+"Oh, no thanks, sir,--none at all,--too happy to serve a relation of
+Mrs. Minden,--always proud to keep up family connections.  You will be
+at home to-morrow, sir, at eleven; I will look in; your most humble
+servant, Mr. Linden."  And almost upsetting Talbot, who had just
+entered, Mr. Brown bowed himself out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+    He talked with open heart and tongue,
+      Affectionate and true;
+    A pair of friends, though I was young
+      And Matthew seventy-two.--WORDSWORTH.
+
+Meanwhile the young artist proceeded rapidly with his picture.
+Devoured by his enthusiasm, and utterly engrossed by the sanguine
+anticipation of a fame which appeared to him already won, he allowed
+himself no momentary interval of relaxation; his food was eaten by
+starts, and without stirring from his easel; his sleep was brief and
+broken by feverish dreams; he no longer roved with Clarence, when the
+evening threw her shade over his labours; all air and exercise he
+utterly relinquished; shut up in his narrow chamber, he passed the
+hours in a fervid and passionate self-commune, which, even in suspense
+from his work, riveted his thoughts the closer to its object.  All
+companionship, all intrusion, he bore with irritability and
+impatience.  Even Clarence found himself excluded from the presence of
+his friend; even his nearest relation, who doted on the very ground
+which he hallowed with his footstep, was banished from the haunted
+sanctuary of the painter; from the most placid of human beings, Warner
+seemed to have grown the most morose.
+
+Want of rest, abstinence from food, the impatience of the strained
+spirit and jaded nerves, all contributed to waste the health while
+they excited the genius of the artist. A crimson spot, never before
+seen there, burned in the centre of his pale cheek; his eye glowed
+with a brilliant but unnatural fire; his features grew sharp and
+attenuated; his bones worked from his whitening and transparent skin;
+and the soul and frame, turned from their proper and kindly union,
+seemed contesting, with fierce struggles, which should obtain the
+mastery and the triumph.
+
+But neither his new prospects nor the coldness of his friend diverted
+the warm heart of Clarence from meditating how he could most
+effectually serve the artist before he departed from the country, It
+was a peculiar object of desire to Warner that the most celebrated
+painter of the day, who was on terms of intimacy with Talbot, and who
+with the benevolence of real superiority was known to take a keen
+interest in the success of more youthful and inexperienced genius,--it
+was a peculiar object of desire to Warner, that Sir Joshua Reynolds
+should see his picture before it was completed; and Clarence, aware of
+this wish, easily obtained from Talbot a promise that it should be
+effected.  That was the least service of his zeal touched by the
+earnestness of Linden's friendship, anxious to oblige in any way his
+preserver, and well pleased himself to be the patron of merit, Talbot
+readily engaged to obtain for Warner whatever the attention and favour
+of high rank or literary distinction could bestow.  "As for his
+picture," said Talbot (when, the evening before Clarence's departure,
+the latter was renewing the subject), "I shall myself become the
+purchaser, and at a price which will enable our friend to afford
+leisure and study for the completion of his next attempt; but even at
+the risk of offending your friendship, and disappointing your
+expectations, I will frankly tell you that I think Warner overrates,
+perhaps not his talents, but his powers; not his ability for doing
+something great hereafter, but his capacity of doing it at present.
+In the pride of his heart, he has shown me many of his designs, and I
+am somewhat of a judge: they want experience, cultivation, taste, and,
+above all, a deeper study of the Italian masters.  They all have the
+defects of a feverish colouring, an ambitious desire of effect, a
+wavering and imperfect outline, an ostentatious and unnatural strength
+of light and shadow; they show, it is true, a genius of no ordinary
+stamp, but one ill regulated, inexperienced, and utterly left to its
+own suggestions for a model.  However, I am glad he wishes for the
+opinion of one necessarily the best judge: let him bring the picture
+here by Thursday; on that day my friend has promised to visit me; and
+now let us talk of you and your departure."
+
+The intercourse of men of different ages is essentially unequal: it
+must always partake more or less of advice on one side and deference
+on the other; and although the easy and unpedantic turn of Talbot's
+conversation made his remarks rather entertaining than obviously
+admonitory, yet they were necessarily tinged by his experience, and
+regulated by his interest in the fortunes of his young friend.
+
+"My dearest Clarence," said he, affectionately, "we are about to bid
+each other a long farewell.  I will not damp your hopes and
+anticipations by insisting on the little chance there is that you
+should ever see me again.  You are about to enter upon the great
+world, and have within you the desire and power of success; let me
+flatter myself that you can profit by my experience.  Among the
+'Colloquia' of Erasmus, there is a very entertaining dialogue between
+Apicius and a man who, desirous of giving a feast to a very large and
+miscellaneous party, comes to consult the epicure what will be the
+best means to give satisfaction to all.  Now you shall be this
+Spudaeus (so I think he is called), and I will be Apicius; for the
+world, after all, is nothing more than a great feast of different
+strangers, with different tastes and of different ages, and we must
+learn to adapt ourselves to their minds, and our temptations to their
+passions, if we wish to fascinate or even to content them.  Let me
+then call your attention to the hints and maxims which I have in this
+paper amused myself with drawing up for your instruction.  Write to me
+from time to time, and I will, in replying to your letters, give you
+the best advice in my power.  For the rest, my dear boy, I have only
+to request that you will be frank, and I, in my turn, will promise
+that when I cannot assist, I will never reprove.  And now, Clarence,
+as the hour is late and you leave us early tomorrow, I will no longer
+detain you.  God bless you and keep you.  You are going to enjoy
+life,--I to anticipate death; so that you can find in me little
+congenial to yourself; but as the good Pope said to our Protestant
+countryman, 'Whatever the difference between us, I know well that an
+old man's blessing is never without its value.'"
+
+As Clarence clasped his benefactor's hand, the tears gushed from his
+eyes.  Is there one being, stubborn as the rock to misfortune, whom
+kindness does not affect?  For my part, kindness seems to me to come
+with a double grace and tenderness from the old; it seems in them the
+hoarded and long purified benevolence of years; as if it had survived
+and conquered the baseness and selfishness of the ordeal it had
+passed; as if the winds, which had broken the form, had swept in vain
+across the heart, and the frosts which had chilled the blood and
+whitened the thin locks had possessed no power over the warm tide of
+the affections.  It is the triumph of nature over art; it is the voice
+of the angel which is yet within us.  Nor is this all: the tenderness
+of age is twice blessed,--blessed in its trophies over the obduracy of
+encrusting and withering years, blessed because it is tinged with the
+sanctity of the grave; because it tells us that the heart will blossom
+even upon the precincts of the tomb, and flatters us with the
+inviolacy and immortality of love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+                          Cannot I create,
+    Cannot I form, cannot I fashion forth
+    Another world, another universe?--KEATS.
+
+The next morning Clarence, in his way out of town, directed his
+carriage (the last and not the least acceptable present from Talbot)
+to stop at Warner's door.  Although it was scarcely sunrise, the aged
+grandmother of the artist was stirring, and opened the door to the
+early visitor.  Clarence passed her with a brief salutation, hurried
+up the narrow stairs, and found himself in the artist's chamber.  The
+windows were closed, and the air of the room was confined and hot.  A
+few books, chiefly of history and poetry, stood in confused disorder
+upon some shelves opposite the window.  Upon a table beneath them lay
+a flute, once the cherished recreation of the young painter, but now
+long neglected and disused; and, placed exactly opposite to Warner, so
+that his eyes might open upon his work, was the high-prized and
+already more than half-finished picture.
+
+Clarence bent over the bed; the cheek of the artist rested upon his
+arm in an attitude unconsciously picturesque; the other arm was tossed
+over the coverlet, and Clarence was shocked to see how emaciated it
+had become.  But ever and anon the lips of the sleeper moved
+restlessly, and words, low and inarticulate, broke out.  Sometimes he
+started abruptly, and a bright but evanescent flush darted over his
+faded and hollow cheek; and once the fingers of the thin hand which
+lay upon the bed expanded and suddenly closed in a firm and almost
+painful grasp; it was then that for the first time the words of the
+artist became distinct.
+
+"Ay, ay," he said, "I have thee, I have thee at last.  Long, very long
+thou hast burnt up my heart like fuel, and mocked me, and laughed at
+my idle efforts; but now, now, I have thee.  Fame, Honour,
+Immortality, whatever thou art called, I have thee, and thou canst not
+escape; but it is almost too late!"  And, as if wrung by some sudden
+pain, the sleeper turned heavily round, groaned audibly, and awoke.
+
+"My friend," said Clarence, soothingly, and taking his hand, "I have
+come to bid you farewell.  I am just setting off for the Continent,
+but I could not leave England without once more seeing you.  I have
+good news, too, for you."  And Clarence proceeded to repeat Talbot's
+wish that Warner should bring the picture to his house on the
+following Thursday, that Sir Joshua might inspect it.  He added also,
+in terms the flattery of which his friendship could not resist
+exaggerating, Talbot's desire to become the purchaser of the picture.
+
+"Yes," said the artist, as his eye glanced delightedly over his
+labour; "yes, I believe when it is once seen there will be many
+candidates!"
+
+"No doubt," answered Clarence; "and for that reason you cannot blame
+Talbot for wishing to forestall all other competitors for the prize;"
+and then, continuing the encouraging nature of the conversation,
+Clarence enlarged upon the new hopes of his friend, besought him to
+take time, to spare his health, and not to injure both himself and his
+performance by over-anxiety and hurry.  Clarence concluded by
+retailing Talbot's assurance that in all cases and circumstances he
+(Talbot) considered himself pledged to be Warner's supporter and
+friend.
+
+With something of impatience, mingled with pleasure, the painter
+listened to all these details; nor was it to Linden's zeal nor to
+Talbot's generosity, but rather to the excess of his own merit, that
+he secretly attributed the brightening prospect offered him.
+
+The indifference which Warner, though of a disposition naturally kind,
+evinced at parting with a friend who had always taken so strong an
+interest in his behalf, and whose tears at that moment contrasted
+forcibly enough with the apathetic coldness of his own farewell, was a
+remarkable instance how acute vividness on a single point will deaden
+feeling on all others.  Occupied solely and burningly with one intense
+thought, which was to him love, friendship, health, peace, wealth,
+Warner could not excite feelings, languid and exhausted with many and
+fiery conflicts, to objects of minor interest, and perhaps he inwardly
+rejoiced that his musings and his study would henceforth be sacred
+even from friendship.
+
+Deeply affected, for his nature was exceedingly unselfish, generous,
+and susceptible, Clarence tore himself away, placed in the
+grandmother's hand a considerable portion of the sum he had received
+from Talbot, hurried into his carriage, and found himself on the high
+road to fortune, pleasure, distinction, and the Continent.
+
+But while Clarence, despite of every advantage before him, hastened to
+a court of dissipation and pleasure, with feelings in which regretful
+affection for those he had left darkened his worldly hopes and mingled
+with the sanguine anticipations of youth, Warner, poor, low-born,
+wasted with sickness, destitute of friends, shut out by his
+temperament from the pleasures of his age, burned with hopes far less
+alloyed than those of Clarence, and found in them, for the sacrifice
+of all else, not only a recompense, but a triumph.
+
+Thursday came.  Warner had made one request to Talbot, which had with
+difficulty been granted: it was that he himself might unseen be the
+auditor of the great painter's criticisms, and that Sir Joshua should
+be perfectly unaware of his presence.  It had been granted with
+difficulty, because Talbot wished to spare Warner the pain of hearing
+remarks which he felt would be likely to fall far short of the
+sanguine self-elation of the young artist; and it had been granted
+because Talbot imagined that, even should this be the case, the pain
+would be more than counterbalanced by the salutary effect it might
+produce.  Alas! vanity calculates but poorly upon the vanity of
+others!  What a virtue we should distil from frailty; what a world of
+pain we should save our brethren, if we would suffer our own weakness
+to be the measure of theirs!
+
+Thursday came: the painting was placed by the artist's own hand in the
+most favourable light; a curtain, hung behind it, served as a screen
+for Warner, who, retiring to his hiding-place, surrendered his heart
+to delicious forebodings of the critic's wonder and golden
+anticipations of the future destiny of his darling work.  Not a fear
+dashed the full and smooth cup of his self-enjoyment.  He had lain
+awake the whole of the night in restless and joyous impatience for the
+morrow.  At daybreak he had started from his bed, he had unclosed his
+shutters, he had hung over his picture with a fondness greater, if
+possible, than he had ever known before! like a mother, he felt as if
+his own partiality was but a part of a universal tribute; and, as his
+aged relative, turning her dim eyes to the painting, and, in her
+innocent idolatry, rather of the artist than his work, praised and
+expatiated and foretold, his heart whispered, "If it wring this
+worship from ignorance, what will be the homage of science?"
+
+He who first laid down the now hackneyed maxim that diffidence is the
+companion of genius knew very little of the workings of the human
+heart.  True, there may have been a few such instances, and it is
+probable that in this maxim, as in most, the exception made the rule.
+But what could ever reconcile genius to its sufferings, its
+sacrifices, its fevered inquietudes, the intense labour which can
+alone produce what the shallow world deems the giant offspring of a
+momentary inspiration: what could ever reconcile it to these but the
+haughty and unquenchable consciousness of internal power; the hope
+which has the fulness of certainty that in proportion to the toil is
+the reward; the sanguine and impetuous anticipation of glory, which
+bursts the boundaries of time and space, and ranges immortality with a
+prophet's rapture?  Rob Genius of its confidence, of its lofty self-
+esteem, and you clip the wings of the eagle: you domesticate, it is
+true, the wanderer you could not hitherto comprehend, in the narrow
+bounds of your household affections; you abase and tame it more to the
+level of your ordinary judgments, but you take from it the power to
+soar; the hardihood which was content to brave the thundercloud and
+build its eyrie on the rock, for the proud triumph of rising above its
+kind, and contemplating with a nearer eye the majesty of heaven.
+
+But if something of presumption is a part of the very essence of
+genius, in Warner it was doubly natural, for he was still in the heat
+and flush of a design, the defects of which he had not yet had the
+leisure to examine; and his talents, self-taught and self-modelled,
+had never received either the excitement of emulation or the chill of
+discouragement from the study of the masterpieces of his art.
+
+The painter had not been long alone in his concealment before he heard
+steps; his heart beat violently, the door opened, and he saw, through
+a small hole which he had purposely made in the curtain, a man with a
+benevolent and prepossessing countenance, whom he instantly recognized
+as Sir Joshua Reynolds, enter the room, accompanied by Talbot.  They
+walked up to the picture, the painter examined it closely, and in
+perfect silence.  "Silence," thought Warner, "is the best homage of
+admiration;" but he trembled with impatience to hear the admiration
+confirmed by words,--those words came too soon.
+
+"It is the work of a clever man, certainly," said Sir Joshua; "but"
+(terrible monosyllable) "of one utterly unskilled in the grand
+principles of his art--look here, and here, and here, for instance;"
+and the critic, perfectly unconscious of the torture he inflicted,
+proceeded to point out the errors of the work.  Oh! the agony, the
+withering agony of that moment to the ambitious artist!  In vain he
+endeavoured to bear up against the judgment,--in vain he endeavoured
+to persuade himself that it was the voice of envy which in those cold,
+measured, defining accents, fell like drops of poison upon his heart.
+He felt at once, and as if by a magical inspiration, the truth of the
+verdict; the scales of self-delusion fell from his eyes; by a hideous
+mockery, a kind of terrible pantomime, his goddess seemed at a word, a
+breath, transformed into a monster: life, which had been so lately
+concentrated into a single hope, seemed now, at once and forever,
+cramped, curdled, blistered into a single disappointment.
+
+"But," said Talbot, who had in vain attempted to arrest the criticisms
+of the painter (who, very deaf at all times, was, at that time in
+particular, engrossed by the self-satisfaction always enjoyed by one
+expatiating on his favourite topic),--"but," said Talbot, in a louder
+voice, "you own there is great genius in the design?"
+
+"Certainly, there is genius," replied Sir Joshua, in a tone of calm
+and complacent good-nature; "but what is genius without culture?  You
+say the artist is young, very young; let him take time: I do not say
+let him attempt a humbler walk; let him persevere in the lofty one he
+has chosen, but let him first retrace every step he has taken; let him
+devote days, months, years, to the most diligent study of the immortal
+masters of the divine art, before he attempts (to exhibit, at least)
+another historical picture.  He has mistaken altogether the nature of
+invention: a fine invention is nothing more than a fine deviation
+from, or enlargement on, a fine model: imitation, if noble and
+general, insures the best hope of originality.  Above all, let your
+young friend, if he can afford it, visit Italy."
+
+"He shall afford it," said Talbot, kindly, "for he shall have whatever
+advantages I can procure him; but you see the picture is only half-
+completed: he could alter it!"
+
+"He had better burn it!" replied the painter, with a gentle smile.
+
+And Talbot, in benevolent despair, hurried his visitor out of the
+room.  He soon returned to seek and console the artist, but the artist
+was gone; the despised, the fatal picture, the blessing and curse of
+so many anxious and wasted hours, had vanished also with its creator.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+    What is this soul, then?  Whence
+    Came it?--It does not seem my own, and I
+    Have no self-passion or identity!
+    Some fearful end must be--
+         .     .     .     .     .     .
+    There never lived a mortal man, who bent
+    His appetite beyond his natural sphere,
+    But starved and died.--KEATS: Endymion.
+
+On entering his home, Warner pushed aside, for the first time in his
+life with disrespect, his aged and kindly relation, who, as if in
+mockery of the unfortunate artist stood prepared to welcome and
+congratulate his return.  Bearing his picture in his arms, he rushed
+upstairs, hurried into his room, and locked the door.  Hastily he tore
+aside the cloth which had been drawn over the picture; hastily and
+tremblingly he placed it upon the frame accustomed to support it, and
+then, with a long, long, eager, searching, scrutinizing glance, he
+surveyed the once beloved mistress of his worship.  Presumption,
+vanity, exaggerated self-esteem, are, in their punishment, supposed to
+excite ludicrous not sympathetic emotion; but there is an excess of
+feeling, produced by whatever cause it may be, into which, in spite of
+ourselves, we are forced to enter.  Even fear, the most contemptible
+of the passions, becomes tragic the moment it becomes an agony.
+
+"Well, well!" said Warner, at last, speaking very slowly, "it is
+over,--it was a pleasant dream,--but it is over,--I ought to be
+thankful for the lesson."  Then suddenly changing his mood and tone,
+he repeated, "Thankful! for what? that I am a wretch,--a wretch more
+utterly hopeless and miserable and abandoned than a man who freights
+with all his wealth, his children, his wife, the hoarded treasures and
+blessings of an existence, one ship, one frail, worthless ship, and,
+standing himself on the shore, sees it suddenly go down!  Oh, was I
+not a fool,--a right noble fool,--a vain fool,--an arrogant fool,--a
+very essence and concentration of all things that make a fool, to
+believe such delicious marvels of myself!  What, man!" (here his eye
+saw in the opposite glass his features, livid and haggard with
+disease, and the exhausting feelings which preyed within him)--"what,
+man! would nothing serve thee but to be a genius,--thee, whom Nature
+stamped with her curse!  Dwarf-like and distorted, mean in stature and
+in lineament, thou wert, indeed, a glorious being to perpetuate grace
+and beauty, the majesties and dreams of art!  Fame for thee, indeed--
+ha-ha!  Glory--ha-ha! a place with Titian, Correggio, Raphael--ha--ha
+--ha!  O, thrice modest, thrice-reasonable fool!  But this vile daub;
+this disfigurement of canvas; this loathed and wretched monument of
+disgrace; this notable candidate for--ha--ha--immortality! this I
+have, at least, in my power."  And seizing the picture, he dashed it
+to the ground, and trampled it with his feet upon the dusty boards,
+till the moist colours presented nothing but one confused and dingy
+stain.
+
+This sight seemed to recall him for a moment.  He paused, lifted up
+the picture once more, and placed it on the table.  "But," he
+muttered, "might not this critic be envious? am I sure that he judged
+rightly--fairly?  The greatest masters have looked askant and jealous
+at their pupils' works.  And then, how slow, how cold, how damned
+cold, how indifferently he spoke; why, the very art should have warmed
+him more.  Could he have--No, no, no: it was true, it was!  I felt the
+conviction thrill through me like a searing iron.  Burn it--did he
+say--ay--burn it: it shall be done this instant."
+
+And, hastening to the door, he undid the bolt.  He staggered back as
+he beheld his old and nearest surviving relative, the mother of his
+father, seated upon the ground beside the door, terrified by the
+exclamations she did not dare to interrupt.  She rose slowly, and with
+difficulty as she saw him; and, throwing around him the withered arms
+which had nursed his infancy, exclaimed, "My child!--my poor--poor
+child! what has come to you of late? you, who were so gentle, so mild,
+so quiet,--you are no longer the same,--and oh, my son, how ill you
+look: your father looked so just before he died!"
+
+"Ill!" said he, with a sort of fearful gayety, "ill--no: I never was
+so well; I have been in a dream till now; but I have woke at last.
+Why, it is true that I have been silent and shy, but I will be so no
+more.  I will laugh, and talk, and walk, and make love, and drink
+wine, and be all that other men are.  Oh, we will be so merry!  But
+stay here, while I fetch a light."
+
+"A light, my child, for what?"
+
+"For a funeral!" shouted Warner, and, rushing past her, he descended
+the stairs, and returned almost in an instant with a light.
+
+Alarmed and terrified, the poor old woman had remained motionless and
+weeping violently.  Her tears Warner did not seem to notice; he pushed
+her gently into the room, and began deliberately, and without uttering
+a syllable, to cut the picture into shreds.
+
+"What are you about, my child?" cried the old woman "you are mad; it
+is your beautiful picture that you are destroying!"
+
+Warner did not reply, but going to the hearth, piled together, with
+nice and scrupulous care, several pieces of paper, and stick, and
+matches, into a sort of pyre; then, placing the shreds of the picture
+upon it, he applied the light, and the whole was instantly in a blaze.
+
+"Look, look!" cried he, in an hysterical tone, "how it burns and
+crackles and blazes!  What master ever equalled it now?--no fault now
+in those colours,--no false tints in that light and shade!  See how
+that flame darts up and soars!--that flame is my spirit!  Look--is it
+not restless?--does it not aspire bravely?--why, all its brother
+flames are grovellers to it!--and now,--why don't you look!--it
+falters--fades--droops--and--ha--ha--ha! poor idler, the fuel is
+consumed--and--it is darkness."
+
+As Warner uttered these words his eyes reeled; the room swam before
+him; the excitement of his feeble frame had reached its highest pitch;
+the disease of many weeks had attained its crisis; and, tottering back
+a few paces, he fell upon the floor, the victim of a delirious and
+raging fever.
+
+But it was not thus that the young artist was to die.  He was reserved
+for a death that, like his real nature, had in it more of gentleness
+and poetry.  He recovered by slow degrees, and his mind, almost in
+spite of himself, returned to that profession from which it was
+impossible to divert the thoughts and musings of many years.  Not that
+he resumed the pencil and the easel: on the contrary, he could not
+endure them in his sight; they appeared, to a mind festered and sore,
+like a memorial and monument of shame.  But he nursed within him a
+strong and ardent desire to become a pilgrim to that beautiful land of
+which he had so often dreamed, and which the innocent destroyer of his
+peace had pointed out as the theatre of inspiration and the nursery of
+future fame.
+
+The physicians who, at Talbot's instigation, attended him, looked at
+his hectic cheek and consumptive frame, and readily flattered his
+desire; and Talbot, no less interested in Warner's behalf on his own
+account than bound by his promise to Clarence, generously extended to
+the artist that bounty which is the most precious prerogative of the
+rich.  Notwithstanding her extreme age, his grandmother insisted upon
+attending him: there is in the heart of woman so deep a well of love
+that no age can freeze it.  They made the voyage: they reached the
+shore of the myrtle and the vine, and entered the Imperial City.  The
+air of Rome seemed at first to operate favourably upon the health of
+the English artist. His strength appeared to increase, his spirit to
+expand; and though he had relapsed into more than his original silence
+and reserve, he resumed, with apparent energy, the labours of the
+easel: so that they who looked no deeper than the surface might have
+imagined the scar healed, and the real foundation of future excellence
+begun.
+
+But while Warner most humbled himself before the gods of the pictured
+world; while the true principles of the mighty art opened in their
+fullest glory on his soul; precisely at this very moment shame and
+despondency were most bitter at his heart: and while the enthusiasm of
+the painter kindled, the ambition of the man despaired.  But still he
+went on, transfusing into his canvas the grandeur and simplicity of
+the Italian school; still, though he felt palpably within him the
+creeping advance of the deadliest and surest enemy to fame, he
+pursued, with an unwearied ardour, the mechanical completion of his
+task; still, the morning found him bending before the easel, and the
+night brought to his solitary couch meditation rather than sleep.  The
+fire, the irritability which he had evinced before his illness had
+vanished, and the original sweetness of his temper had returned; he
+uttered no complaint, he dwelt upon no anticipation of success; hope
+and regret seemed equally dead within him; and it was only when he
+caught the fond, glad eyes of his aged attendant that his own filled
+with tears, or that the serenity of his brow darkened into sadness.
+
+This went on for some months; till one evening they found the painter
+by his window, seated opposite to an unfinished picture.  The pencil
+was still in his hand; the quiet of settled thought was still upon his
+countenance; the soft breeze of a southern twilight waved the hair
+livingly from his forehead; the earliest star of a southern sky lent
+to his cheek something of that subdued lustre which, when touched by
+enthusiasm, it had been accustomed to wear; but these were only the
+mockeries of life: life itself was no more!  He had died, reconciled,
+perhaps, to the loss of fame, in discovering that Art is to be loved
+for itself, and not for the rewards it may bestow upon the artist.
+
+There are two tombs close to each other in the strangers' burial-place
+at Rome: they cover those for whom life, unequally long, terminated in
+the same month.  The one is of a woman, bowed with the burden of many
+years: the other darkens over the dust of the young artist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+           Think upon my grief,
+    And on the justice of my flying hence,
+    To keep me from a most unholy match.--SHAKSPEARE.
+
+"But are you quite sure," said General St. Leger, "are you quite sure
+that this girl still permits Mordaunt's addresses?"
+
+"Sure!" cried Miss Diana St. Leger, "sure, General!  I saw it with my
+own eyes.  They were standing together in the copse, when I, who had
+long had my suspicions, crept up, and saw them; and Mr. Mordaunt held
+her hand, and kissed it every moment.  Shocking and indecorous!"
+
+"I hate that man! as proud as Lucifer," growled the General.  "Shall
+we lock her up, or starve her?"
+
+"No, General, something better than that."
+
+"What, my love? flog her?"
+
+"She's too old for that, brother; we'll marry her."
+
+"Marry her!"
+
+"Yes, to Mr. Glumford; you know that he has asked her several times."
+
+"But she cannot bear him."
+
+"We'll make her bear him, General St. Leger."
+
+"But if she marries, I shall have nobody to nurse me when I have the
+gout."
+
+"Yes, brother: I know of a nice little girl, Martha Richardson, your
+second cousin's youngest daughter; you know he has fourteen children,
+and you may have them all, one after another, if you like."
+
+"Very true, Diana; let the jade marry Mr. Glumford."
+
+"She shall," said the sister; "and I'll go about it this very moment:
+meantime I'll take care that she does not see her lover any more."
+
+About three weeks after this conversation, Mordaunt, who had in vain
+endeavoured to see Isabel, who had not even heard from her, whose
+letters had been returned to him unopened, and who, consequently, was
+in despair, received the following note:--
+
+This is the first time I have been able to write to you, at least to
+get my letter conveyed: it is a strange messenger that I have
+employed, but I happened formerly to make his acquaintance; and
+accidentally seeing him to-day, the extremity of the case induced me
+to give him a commission which I could trust to no one else.
+Algernon, are not the above sentences written with admirable calmness?
+are they not very explanatory, very consistent, very cool? and yet do
+you know that I firmly believe I am going mad?  My brain turns round
+and round, and my hand burns so that I almost think that, like our old
+nurse's stories of the fiend, it will scorch the paper as I write.
+And I see strange faces in my sleep and in my waking, all mocking at
+me, and they torture and aunt met and when I look at those faces I see
+no human relenting, no! though I weep and throw myself on my knees and
+implore them to save me.  Algernon, my only hope is in you.  You know
+that I have always hitherto refused to ruin you, and even now, though
+I implore you to deliver me, I will not be so selfish as--as--I know
+not what I write, but if I cannot be your wife--I will not be his!
+No! if they drag me to church, it shall be to my grave, not my bridal.
+                                         ISABEL ST. LEGER.
+
+When Mordaunt had read this letter, which, in spite of its
+incoherence, his fears readily explained, he rose hastily; his eyes
+rested upon a sober-looking man, clad in brown.  The proud love no
+spectators to their emotions.
+
+"Who are you, sir?" said Algernon, quickly.
+
+"Morris Brown," replied the stranger, coolly and civilly.  "Brought
+that letter to you, sir; shall be very happy to serve you with
+anything else; just fitted out a young gentleman as ambassador, a
+nephew to Mrs. Minden,--very old friend of mine.  Beautiful slabs you
+have here, sir, but they want a few knick-knacks; shall be most happy
+to supply you; got a lovely little ape, sir, stuffed by the late Lady
+Waddilove; it would look charming with this old-fashioned carving;
+give the room quite the air of a museum."
+
+"And so," said Mordaunt, for whose ear the eloquence of Mr. Brown
+contained only one sentence, "and so you brought this note, and will
+take back my answer?"
+
+"Yes, sir; anything to keep up family connections; I knew a Lady
+Morden very well,--very well indeed, sir,--a relation of yours, I
+presume, by the similarity of the name; made her very valuable
+presents; shall be most happy to do the same to you, when you are
+married, sir.  You will refurnish the house, I suppose?  Let me see;
+fine proportions to this room, sir; about thirty-six feet by twenty-
+eight; I'll do the thing twenty per cent cheaper than the trade; and
+touching the lovely little--"
+
+"Here," interrupted Mordaunt, "you will take back this note, and be
+sure that Miss Isabel St. Leger has it as soon as possible; oblige me
+by accepting this trifle,--a trifle indeed compared with my gratitude,
+if this note reaches its destination safely."
+
+"I am sure," said Mr. Brown, looking with surprise at the gift, which
+he held with no unwilling hand, "I am sure, sir, that you are very
+generous, and strongly remind me of your relation, Lady Morden; and if
+you would like the lovely little ape as a present--I mean really a
+present--you shall have it, Mr. Mordaunt."
+
+But Mr. Mordaunt had left the room, and the sober Morris, looking
+round, and cooling in his generosity, said to himself, "It is well he
+did not hear me, however; but I hope he will marry the nice young
+lady, for I love doing a kindness.  This house must be refurnished; no
+lady will like these old-fashioned chairs."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+    Squire and fool are the same thing here--FARQUHAR.
+
+                In such a night
+    Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,
+    And, with an unthrift love, did run from Venice.---SHAKSPEARE.
+
+The persecutions which Isabel had undergone had indeed preyed upon her
+reason as well as her health; and, in her brief intervals of respite
+from the rage of the uncle, the insults of the aunt, and, worse than
+all, the addresses of the intended bridegroom, her mind, shocked and
+unhinged, reverted with such intensity to the sufferings she endured
+as to give her musings the character of insanity.  It was in one of
+these moments that she had written to Mordaunt; and had the contest
+continued much longer the reason of the unfortunate and persecuted
+girl would have totally deserted her.
+
+She was a person of acute, and even poignant, sensibilities, and these
+the imperfect nature of her education had but little served to guide
+or to correct; but as her habits were pure and good, the impulses
+which spring from habit were also sinless and exalted, and, if they
+erred, "they leaned on virtue's side," and partook rather of a
+romantic and excessive generosity than of the weakness of womanhood or
+the selfishness of passion.  All the misery and debasement of her
+equivocal and dependent situation had not been able to drive her into
+compliance with Mordaunt's passionate and urgent prayers; and her
+heart was proof even to the eloquence of love, when that eloquence
+pointed towards the worldly injury and depreciation of her lover: but
+this new persecution was utterly unforeseen in its nature and
+intolerable from its cause.  To marry another; to be torn forever from
+one in whom her whole heart was wrapped; to be forced not only to
+forego his love, but to feel that the very thought of him was a
+crime,--all this, backed by the vehement and galling insults of her
+relations, and the sullen and unmoved meanness of her intended
+bridegroom, who answered her candour and confession with a stubborn
+indifference and renewed overtures, made a load of evil which could
+neither be borne with resignation nor contemplated with patience.
+
+She was sitting, after she had sent her letter, with her two
+relations, for they seldom trusted her out of their sight, when Mr.
+Glumford was announced.  Now, Mr. George Glumford was a country
+gentleman of what might be termed a third-rate family in the county:
+he possessed about twelve hundred a year, to say nothing of the odd
+pounds, shillings, and pence, which, however, did not meet with such
+contempt in his memory or estimation; was of a race which could date
+as far back as Charles the Second; had been educated at a country
+school with sixty others, chiefly inferior to himself in rank; and had
+received the last finish at a very small hall at Oxford.  In addition
+to these advantages, he had been indebted to nature for a person five
+feet eight inches high, and stout in proportion; for hair very short,
+very straight, and of a red hue, which even through powder cast out a
+yellow glow; for an obstinate dogged sort of nose, beginning in snub,
+and ending in bottle; for cold, small, gray eyes, a very small mouth,
+pinched up and avaricious; and very large, very freckled, yet rather
+white hands, the nails of which were punctiliously cut into a point
+every other day, with a pair of scissors which Mr. Glumford often
+boasted had been in his possession since his eighth year; namely, for
+about thirty-two legitimate revolutions of the sun.
+
+He was one of those persons who are equally close and adventurous; who
+love the eclat of a little speculation, but take exceeding good care
+that it should be, in their own graceful phrase, "on the safe side of
+the hedge."  In pursuance of this characteristic of mind, he had
+resolved to fall in love with Miss Isabel St. Leger; for she being
+very dependent, he could boast to her of his disinterestedness, and
+hope that she would be economical through a principle of gratitude;
+and being the nearest relation to the opulent General St. Leger and
+his unmarried sister there seemed to be every rational probability of
+her inheriting the bulk of their fortunes.  Upon these hints of
+prudence spake Mr. George Glumford.
+
+Now, when Isabel, partly in her ingenuous frankness, partly from the
+passionate promptings of her despair, revealed to him her attachment
+to another, and her resolution never, with her own consent, to become
+his, it seemed to the slow but not uncalculating mind of Mr. Glumford
+not by any means desirable that he should forego his present
+intentions, but by all means desirable that he should make this
+reluctance of Isabel an excuse for sounding the intentions and
+increasing the posthumous liberality of the East Indian and his
+sister.
+
+"The girl is of my nearest blood," said the Major-General, "and if I
+don't leave my fortune to her, who the devil should I leave it to,
+sir?" and so saying, the speaker, who was in a fell paroxysm of the
+gout, looked so fiercely at the hinting wooer that Mr. George
+Glumford, who was no Achilles, was somewhat frightened, and thought it
+expedient to hint no more.
+
+"My brother," said Miss Diana, "is so odd; but he is the most generous
+of men: besides, the girl has claims upon him."  Upon these speeches
+Mr. Glumford thought himself secure; and inly resolving to punish the
+fool for her sulkiness and bad taste as soon as he lawfully could, he
+continued his daily visits and told his sporting acquaintance that his
+time was coming.
+
+Revenons a nos moutons.  Forgive this preliminary detail, and let us
+return to Mr. Glumford himself, whom we left at the door, pulling and
+fumbling at the glove which covered his right hand, in order to
+present the naked palm to Miss Diana St. Leger.  After this act was
+performed, he approached Isabel, and drawing his chair near to her,
+proceeded to converse with her as the Ogre did with Puss in Boots;
+namely, "as civilly as an Ogre could do."
+
+This penance had not proceeded far, before the door was again opened,
+and Mr. Morris Brown presented himself to the conclave.
+
+"Your servant, General; your servant, Madam.  I took the liberty of
+coming back again, Madam, because I forgot to show you some very fine
+silks, the most extraordinary bargain in the world,--quite presents;
+and I have a Sevres bowl here, a superb article, from the cabinet of
+the late Lady Waddilove."
+
+Now Mr. Brown was a very old acquaintance of Miss Diana St. Leger, for
+there is a certain class of old maids with whom our fair readers are
+no doubt acquainted, who join to a great love of expense a great love
+of bargains, and who never purchase at the regular place if they can
+find any irregular vendor.  They are great friends of Jews and
+itinerants, hand-in-glove with smugglers, Ladies Bountiful to pedlers,
+are diligent readers of puffs and advertisements, and eternal haunters
+of sales and auctions.  Of this class was Miss Diana a most prominent
+individual: judge, then, how acceptable to her was the acquaintance of
+Mr. Brown.  That indefatigable merchant of miscellanies had, indeed,
+at a time when brokers were perhaps rather more rare and respectable
+than now, a numerous country acquaintance, and thrice a year he
+performed a sort of circuit to all his customers and connections;
+hence his visit to St. Leger House, and hence Isabel's opportunity of
+conveying her epistle.
+
+"Pray," said Mr. Glumford, who had heard much of Mr. Brown's
+"presents" from Miss Diana,--"pray don't you furnish rooms, and things
+of that sort?"
+
+"Certainly, sir, certainly, in the best manner possible."
+
+"Oh, very well; I shall want some rooms furnished soon,--a bedroom and
+a dressing-room, and things of that sort, you know.  And so--perhaps
+you may have something in your box that will suit me, gloves or
+handkerchiefs or shirts or things of that sort."
+
+"Yes, sir, everything, I sell everything," said Mr. Brown, opening his
+box.  "I beg pardon, Miss Isabel, I have dropped my handkerchief by
+your chair; allow me to stoop," and Mr. Brown, stooping under the
+table, managed to effect his purpose; unseen by the rest, a note was
+slipped into Isabel's hand, and under pretence of stooping too, she
+managed to secure the treasure.  Love need well be honest if, even
+when it is most true, it leads us into so much that is false!
+
+Mr. Brown's box was now unfolded before the eyes of the crafty Mr.
+Glumford, who, having selected three pair of gloves, offered the exact
+half of the sum demanded.
+
+Mr. Brown lifted up his hands and eyes.
+
+"You see," said the imperturbable Glumford, "that if you let me have
+them for that, and they last me well, and don't come unsewn, and stand
+cleaning, you'll have my custom in furnishing the house, and rooms,
+and--things of that sort."
+
+Struck with the grandeur of this opening, Mr. Brown yielded, and the
+gloves were bought.
+
+"The fool!" thought the noble George, laughing in his sleeve, "as if I
+should ever furnish the house from his box!"  Strange that some men
+should be proud of being mean!  The moment Isabel escaped to dress for
+dinner, she opened her lover's note.  It was as follows.--
+
+Be in the room, your retreat, at nine this evening.  Let the window be
+left unclosed.  Precisely at that hour I will be with you.  I shall
+have everything in readiness for your flight.  Be sure, dearest
+Isabel, that nothing prevents your meeting me there, even if all your
+house follow or attend you.  I will bear you from all.  Oh, Isabel! in
+spite of the mystery and wretchedness of your letter, I feel too
+happy, too blest at the thought that our fates will be at length
+united, and that the union is at hand.  Remember nine.
+                                                    A. M.
+
+Love is a feeling which has so little to do with the world, a passion
+so little regulated by the known laws of our more steady and settled
+emotions, that the thoughts which it produces are always more or less
+connected with exaggeration and romance.  To the secret spirit of
+enterprise which, however chilled by his pursuits and habits, still
+burned within Mordaunt's breast, there was a wild pleasure in the
+thought of bearing off his mistress and his bride from the very home
+and hold of her false friends and real foes; while in the
+contradictions of the same passion, Isabel, so far from exulting at
+her approaching escape, trembled at her danger and blushed for her
+temerity; and the fear and the modesty of woman almost triumphed over
+her brief energy and fluctuating resolve.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+    We haste,-the chosen and the lovely bringing;
+      Love still goes with her from her place of birth;
+    Deep, silent joy, within her soul is springing,
+      Though in her glance the light no more is mirth.--Mrs. HEMANS.
+
+"Damn it!" said the General.
+
+"The vile creature!" cried Miss Diana.
+
+"I don't understand things of that sort," ejaculated the bewildered
+Mr. Glumford.
+
+"She has certainly gone," said the valiant General.
+
+"Certainly!" grunted Miss Diana.
+
+"Gone!" echoed the bridegroom not to be.
+
+And she was gone!  Never did more loving and tender heart forsake all,
+and cling to a more loyal and generous nature.  The skies were
+darkened with clouds,--
+
+    "And the dim stars rushed through them rare and fast;"
+
+and the winds wailed with a loud and ominous voice; and the moon came
+forth, with a faint and sickly smile, from her chamber in the mist,
+and then shrank back, and was seen no more; but neither omen nor fear
+was upon Mordaunt's breast, as it swelled beneath the dark locks of
+Isabel, which were pressed against it.
+
+As Faith clings the more to the cross of life, while the wastes deepen
+around her steps, and the adders creep forth upon her path, so love
+clasps that which is its hope and comfort the closer, for the desert
+which encompasses and the dangers which harass its way.
+
+They had fled to London, and Isabel had been placed with a very
+distant and very poor, though very high-born, relative of Algernon,
+till the necessary preliminaries could be passed and the final bond
+knit.  Yet still the generous Isabel would have refused, despite the
+injury to her own fame, to have ratified a union which filled her with
+gloomy presentiments for Mordaunt's fate; and still Mordaunt by little
+and little broke down her tender scruples and self-immolating
+resolves, and ceased not his eloquence and his suit till the day of
+his nuptials was set and come.
+
+The morning was bright and clear; the autumn was drawing towards its
+close, and seemed willing to leave its last remembrance tinged with
+the warmth and softness of its parent summer, rather than with the
+stern gloom and severity of its chilling successor.
+
+And they stood beside the altar, and their vows were exchanged.  A
+slight tremor came over Algernon's frame, a slight shade darkened his
+countenance; for even in that bridal hour an icy and thrilling
+foreboding curdled to his heart; it passed,--the ceremony was over,
+and Mordaunt bore his blushing and weeping bride from the church.  His
+carriage was in attendance; for, not knowing how long the home of his
+ancestors might be his, he was impatient to return to it.  The old
+Countess d'Arcy, Mordaunt's relation, with whom Isabel had been
+staying, called them back to bless them; for, even through the
+coldness of old age, she was touched by the singularity of their love
+and affected by their nobleness of heart.  She laid her wan and
+shrivelled hand upon each, as she bade them farewell, and each shrank
+back involuntarily, for the cold and light touch seemed like the
+fingers of the dead.
+
+Fearful, indeed, is the vicinity of death and life,--the bridal
+chamber and the charnel.  That night the old woman died.  It appeared
+as if Fate had set its seal upon the union it had so long forbidden,
+and had woven a dark thread even in the marriage-bond.  At least, it
+tore from two hearts, over which the cloud and the blast lay couched
+in a "grim repose," the last shelter, which, however frail and
+distant, seemed left to them upon the inhospitable earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+    Live while ye may, yet happy pair; enjoy
+    Short pleasures, for long woes are to succeed.--MILTON.
+
+The autumn and the winter passed away; Mordaunt's relation continued
+implacable.  Algernon grieved for this, independent of worldly
+circumstances; for, though he had seldom seen that relation, yet he
+loved him for former kindness--rather promised, to be sure, than yet
+shown--with the natural warmth of an affection which has but few
+objects.  However, the old gentleman (a very short, very fat person;
+very short and very fat people, when they are surly, are the devil and
+all; for the humours of their mind, like those of their body, have
+something corrupt and unpurgeable in them) wrote him one bluff,
+contemptuous letter, in a witty strain,--for he was a bit of a
+humourist,--disowned his connection, and very shortly afterwards died,
+and left all his fortune to the very Mr. Vavasour who was at law with
+Mordaunt, and for whom he had always openly expressed the strongest
+personal dislike: spite to one relation is a marvellous tie to
+another.  Meanwhile the lawsuit went on less slowly than lawsuits
+usually do, and the final decision was very speedily to be given.
+
+We said the autumn and the winter were gone; and it was in one of
+those latter days in March, when, like a hoyden girl subsiding into
+dawning womanhood, the rude weather mellows into a softer and tenderer
+month, that, by the side of a stream, overshadowed by many a brake and
+tree, sat two persons.
+
+"I know not, dearest Algernon," said one, who was a female, "if this
+is not almost the sweetest month in the year, because it is the month
+of Hope."
+
+"Ay, Isabel; and they did it wrong who called it harsh, and dedicated
+it to Mars.  I exult even in the fresh winds which hardier frames than
+mine shrink from, and I love feeling their wild breath fan my cheek as
+I ride against it.  I remember," continued Algernon, musingly, "that
+on this very day three years ago, I was travelling through Germany,
+alone and on horseback, and I paused, not far from Ens, on the banks
+of the Danube; the waters of the river were disturbed and fierce, and
+the winds came loud and angry against my face, dashing the spray of
+the waves upon me, and filling my spirit with a buoyant and glad
+delight; and at that time I had been indulging old dreams of poetry,
+and had laid my philosophy aside; and, in the inspiration of the
+moment, I lifted up my hand towards the quarter whence the winds came,
+and questioned them audibly of their birthplace and their bourne; and,
+as the enthusiasm increased, I compared them to our human life, which
+a moment is, and then is not; and, proceeding from folly to folly, I
+asked them, as if they were the interpreters of heaven, for a type and
+sign of my future lot."
+
+"And what said they?" inquired Isabel, smiling, yet smiling timidly.
+
+"They answered not," replied Mordaunt; "but a voice within me seemed
+to say, 'Look above!' and I raised my eyes,--but I did not see thee,
+love,--so the Book of Fate lied."
+
+"Nay, Algernon, what did you see?" asked Isabel, more earnestly than
+the question deserved.
+
+"I saw a thin cloud, alone amidst many dense and dark ones scattered
+around; and as I gazed it seemed to take the likeness of a funeral
+procession--coffin, bearers, priests, all--as clear in the cloud as I
+have seen them on the earth: and I shuddered as I saw; but the winds
+blew the vapour onwards, and it mingled with the broader masses of
+cloud; and then, Isabel, the sun shone forth for a moment, and I
+mistook, love, when I said you were not there, for that sun was you;
+but suddenly the winds ceased, and the rain came on fast and heavy: so
+my romance cooled, and my fever slacked; I thought on the inn at Ens,
+and the blessings of a wood fire, which is lighted in a moment, and I
+spurred on my horse accordingly."
+
+"It is very strange," said Isabel.
+
+"What, love?" whispered Algernon, kissing her cheek.
+
+"Nothing, dearest, nothing."
+
+At that instant, the deer, which lay waving their lordly antlers to
+and fro beneath the avenue which sloped upward from the stream to the
+house, rose hurriedly and in confusion, and stood gazing, with
+watchful eyes, upon a man advancing towards the pair.
+
+It was one of the servants with a letter.  Isabel saw a faint change
+(which none else could have seen) in Mordaunt's countenance, as he
+recognized the writing and broke the seal.  When he had read the
+letter, his eyes fell upon the ground, and then, with a slight start,
+he lifted them up, and gazed long and eagerly around.  Wistfully did
+he drink, as it were, into his heart the beautiful and expanded scene
+which lay stretched on either side; the noble avenue which his
+forefathers had planted as a shelter to their sons, and which now in
+its majestic growth and its waving boughs seemed to say, "Lo! ye are
+repaid!" and the never silent and silver stream, by which his boyhood
+had sat for hours, lulled by its music, and inhaling the fragrance of
+the reed and wild flower that decoyed the bee to its glossy banks; and
+the deer, to whose melancholy belling be had listened so often in the
+gray twilight with a rapt and dreaming ear; and the green fern waving
+on the gentle hill, from whose shade his young feet had startled the
+hare and the infant fawn; and far and faintly gleaming through the
+thick trees, which clasped it as with a girdle, the old Hall, so
+associated with vague hopes and musing dreams, and the dim legends of
+gone time, and the lofty prejudices of ancestral pride,--all seemed to
+sink within him, as he gazed, like the last looks of departing
+friends; and when Isabel, who had not dared to break a silence which
+partook so strongly of gloom, at length laid her hand upon his arm,
+and lifted her dark, deep, tender eyes to his, he said, as he drew her
+towards him, and a faint and sickly smile played upon his lips,--
+
+"It is past, Isabel: henceforth we have no wealth but in each other.
+The cause has been decided--and--and--we are beggars!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+We expose our life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences, which
+would make a wise man tremble to think of.--COWLEY.
+
+We must suppose a lapse of four years from the date of those events
+which concluded the last chapter; and, to recompence the reader, who I
+know has a little penchant for "High Life," even in the last century,
+for having hitherto shown him human beings in a state of society not
+wholly artificial, I beg him to picture to himself a large room,
+brilliantly illuminated, and crowded "with the magnates of the land."
+Here, some in saltatory motion, some in sedentary rest, are dispersed
+various groups of young ladies and attendant swains, talking upon the
+subject of Lord Rochester's celebrated poem,--namely, "Nothing!"--and
+lounging around the doors, meditating probably upon the same subject,
+stand those unhappy victims of dancing daughters, denominated "Papas."
+
+The music has ceased; the dancers have broken up; and there is a
+general but gentle sweep towards the refreshment-room.  In the crowd--
+having just entered--there glided a young man of an air more
+distinguished and somewhat more joyous than the rest.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Linden?" said a tall and (though somewhat passe)
+very handsome woman, blazing with diamonds; "are you just come?"
+
+And, here, by the way, I cannot resist pausing to observe that a
+friend of mine, meditating a novel, submitted a part of the manuscript
+to a friendly publisher.  "Sir," said the bookseller, "your book is
+very clever, but it wants dialogue."
+
+"Dialogue!" cried my friend: "you mistake; it is all dialogue."
+
+"Ay, sir, but not what we call dialogue; we want a little conversation
+in fashionable life,--a little elegant chit-chat or so: and, as you
+must have seen so much of the beau monde, you could do it to the life:
+we must have something light and witty and entertaining."
+
+"Light, witty, and entertaining!" said our poor friend; "and how the
+deuce, then, is it to be like conversation in 'fashionable life'?
+When the very best conversation one can get is so insufferably dull,
+how do you think people will be amused by reading a copy of the very
+worst?"
+
+"They are amused, sir," said the publisher; "and works of this kind
+sell!"
+
+"I am convinced," said my friend; for he was a man of a placid temper:
+he took the hint, and his book did sell!
+
+Now this anecdote rushed into my mind after the penning of the little
+address of the lady in diamonds,--"How do you do, Mr. Linden?  Are you
+just come?"--and it received an additional weight from my utter
+inability to put into the mouth of Mr. Linden--notwithstanding my
+desire of representing him in the most brilliant colours--any more
+happy and eloquent answer than, "Only this instant!"
+
+However, as this is in the true spirit of elegant dialogue, I trust my
+readers find it as light, witty, and entertaining as, according to the
+said publisher, the said dialogue is always found by the public.
+
+While Clarence was engaged in talking with this lady, a very pretty,
+lively, animated girl, with laughing blue eyes, which, joined to the
+dazzling fairness of her complexion, gave a Hebe-like youth to her
+features and expression, was led up to the said lady by a tall young
+man, and consigned, with the ceremonious bow of the vieille tour, to
+her protection.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Linden," cried the young lady, "I am very glad to see you,--
+such a beautiful ball!--Everybody here that I most like.  Have you had
+any refreshments, Mamma?  But I need not ask, for I am sure you have
+not; do come, Mr. Linden will be our cavalier."
+
+"Well, Flora, as you please," said the elderly lady, with a proud and
+fond look at her beautiful daughter; and they proceeded to the
+refreshment-room.
+
+No sooner were they seated at one of the tables, than they were
+accosted by Lord St. George, a nobleman whom Clarence, before he left
+England, had met more than once at Mr. Talbot's.
+
+"London," said his lordship to her of the diamonds, "has not seemed
+like the same place since Lady Westborough arrived; your presence
+brings out all the other luminaries: and therefore a young
+acquaintance of mine--God bless me, there he is, seated by Lady Flora--
+very justly called you the 'evening star.'"
+
+"Was that Mr. Linden's pretty saying?" said Lady Westborough, smiling.
+
+"It was," answered Lord St. George; "and, by the by, he is a very
+sensible, pleasant person, and greatly improved since he left England
+last."
+
+"What!" said Lady Westborough, in a low tone (for Clarence, though in
+earnest conversation with Lady Flora, was within hearing), and making
+room for Lord St. George beside her, "what! did you know him before he
+went to ----?  You can probably tell me, then, who--that is to say--
+what family he is exactly of--the Lindens of Devonshire, or--or--"
+
+"Why, really," said Lord St. George, a little confused, for no man
+likes to be acquainted with persons whose pedigree he cannot explain,
+"I don't know what may be his family: I met him at Talbot's four or
+five years ago; he was then a mere boy, but he struck me as being very
+clever, and Talbot since told me that he was a nephew of his own."
+
+"Talbot," said Lady Westborough, musingly, "what Talbot?"
+
+"Oh! the Talbot--the ci-devant jeune homme!"
+
+"What, that charming, clever, animated old gentleman, who used to
+dress so oddly, and had been so celebrated a beau garcon in his day?"
+
+"Exactly so," said Lord St. George, taking snuff, and delighted to
+find he had set his young acquaintance on so honourable a footing.
+
+"I did not know he was still alive," said Lady Westborough, and then,
+turning her eyes towards Clarence and her daughter, she added
+carelessly, "Mr. Talbot is very rich, is he not?"
+
+"Rich as Croesus," replied Lord St. George, with a sigh.
+
+"And Mr. Linden is his heir, I suppose?"
+
+"In all probability," answered Lord St. George; "though I believe I
+can boast a distant relationship to Talbot.  However, I could not make
+him fully understand it the other day, though I took particular pains
+to explain it."
+
+While this conversation was going on between the Marchioness of
+Westborough and Lord St. George, a dialogue equally interesting to the
+parties concerned, and I hope, equally light, witty, and entertaining
+to readers in general, was sustained between Clarence and Lady Flora.
+
+"How long shall you stay in England?" asked the latter, looking down.
+
+"I have not yet been able to decide," replied Clarence, "for it rests
+with the ministers, not me.  Directly Lord Aspeden obtains another
+appointment, I am promised the office of Secretary of Legation; but
+till then, I am--
+
+    "'A captive in Augusta's towers
+      To beauty and her train.'"
+
+"Oh!" cried Lady Flora, laughing, "you mean Mrs. Desborough and her
+train: see where they sweep!  Pray go and render her homage."
+
+"It is rendered," said Linden, in a low voice, "without so long a
+pilgrimage, but perhaps despised."
+
+Lady Flora's laugh was hushed; the deepest blushes suffused her
+cheeks, and the whole character of that face, before so playful and
+joyous, seemed changed, as by a spell, into a grave, subdued, and even
+timid look.
+
+Linden resumed, and his voice scarcely rose above a whisper.  A
+whisper!  O delicate and fairy sound! music that speaketh to the
+heart, as if loth to break the spell that binds it while it listens!
+Sigh breathed into words, and freighting love in tones languid, like
+homeward bees, by the very sweets with which they are charged!  "Do
+you remember," said he, "that evening at ---- when we last parted? and
+the boldness which at that time you were gentle enough to forgive?"
+
+Lady Flora replied not.
+
+"And do you remember," continued Clarence, "that I told you that it
+was not as an unknown and obscure adventurer that I would claim the
+hand of her whose heart as an adventurer I had won?"
+
+Lady Flora raised her eyes for one moment, and encountering the ardent
+gaze of Clarence, as instantly dropped them.
+
+"The time is not yet come," said Linden, "for the fulfilment of this
+promise; but may I--dare I hope, that when it does, I shall not be--"
+
+"Flora, my love," said Lady Westborough, "let me introduce to you Lord
+Borodaile."
+
+Lady Flora turned: the spell was broken; and the lovers were instantly
+transformed into ordinary mortals.  But, as Flora, after returning
+Lord Borodaile's address, glanced her eye towards Clarence, she was
+struck with the sudden and singular change of his countenance; the
+flush of youth and passion was fled, his complexion was deadly pale,
+and his eyes were fixed with a searching and unaccountable meaning
+upon the face of the young nobleman, who was alternately addressing,
+with a quiet and somewhat haughty fluency, the beautiful mother, and
+the more lovely though less commanding daughter.  Directly Linden
+perceived that he was observed, he rose, turned away, and was soon
+lost among the crowd.
+
+Lord Borodaile, the son and heir of the powerful Earl of Ulswater, was
+about the age of thirty, small, slight, and rather handsome than
+otherwise, though his complexion was dark and sallow; and a very
+aquiline nose gave a stern and somewhat severe air to his countenance.
+He had been for several years abroad, in various parts of the
+Continent, and (no other field for an adventurous and fierce spirit
+presenting itself) had served with the gallant Earl of Effingham, in
+the war between the Turks and Russians, as a volunteer in the armies
+of the latter.  In this service he had been highly distinguished for
+courage and conduct; and, on his return to England about a twelvemonth
+since, had obtained the command of a cavalry regiment.  Passionately
+fond of his profession, he entered into its minutest duties with a
+zeal not exceeded by the youngest and poorest subaltern in the army.
+
+His manners were very cold, haughty, collected, and self-possessed,
+and his conversation that of a man who has cultivated his intellect
+rather in the world than the closet.  I mean, that, perfectly ignorant
+of things, he was driven to converse solely upon persons, and, having
+imbibed no other philosophy than that which worldly deceits and
+disappointments bestow, his remarks, though shrewd, were bitterly
+sarcastic, and partook of all the ill-nature for which a very scanty
+knowledge of the world gives a sour and malevolent mind so ready an
+excuse.
+
+"How very disagreeable Lord Borodaile is!" said Lady Flora, when the
+object of the remark turned away and rejoined some idlers of his
+corps.
+
+"Disagreeable!" said Lady Westborough.  "I think him charming: he is
+so sensible.  How true his remarks on the world are!"
+
+Thus is it always; the young judge harshly of those who undeceive or
+revolt their enthusiasm; and the more advanced in years, who have not
+learned by a diviner wisdom to look upon the human follies and errors
+by which they have suffered with a pitying and lenient eye, consider
+every maxim of severity on those frailties as the proof of a superior
+knowledge, and praise that as a profundity of thought which in reality
+is but an infirmity of temper.
+
+Clarence is now engaged in a minuet de la tour with the beautiful
+Countess of ----, the best dancer of the day in England.  Lady Flora
+is flirting with half a dozen beaux, the more violently in proportion
+as she observes the animation with which Clarence converses, and the
+grace with which his partner moves; and, having thus left our two
+principal personages occupied and engaged, let us turn for a moment to
+a room which we have not entered.
+
+This is a forlorn, deserted chamber, destined to cards, which are
+never played in this temple of Terpsichore.  At the far end of this
+room, opposite to the fireplace, are seated four men, engaged in
+earnest conversation.
+
+The tallest of these was Lord Quintown, a nobleman remarkable at that
+day for his personal advantages, his good fortune with the beau sexe,
+his attempts at parliamentary eloquence, in which he was lamentably
+unsuccessful, and his adherence to Lord North.  Next to him sat Mr.
+St. George, the younger brother of Lord St. George, a gentleman to
+whom power and place seemed married without hope of divorce; for,
+whatever had been the changes of ministry for the last twelve years,
+he, secure in a lucrative though subordinate situation, had "smiled at
+the whirlwind and defied the storm," and, while all things shifted and
+vanished round him, like clouds and vapours, had remained fixed and
+stationary as a star.  "Solid St. George," was his appellative by his
+friends, and his enemies did not grudge him the title.  The third was
+the minister for ----; and the fourth was Clarence's friend, Lord
+Aspeden.  Now this nobleman, blessed with a benevolent, smooth, calm
+countenance, valued himself especially upon his diplomatic elegance in
+turning a compliment.
+
+Having a great taste for literature as well as diplomacy, this
+respected and respectable peer also possessed a curious felicity for
+applying quotation; and nothing rejoiced him so much as when, in the
+same phrase, he was enabled to set the two jewels of his courtliness
+of flattery and his profundity of erudition.  Unhappily enough, his
+compliments were seldom as well taken as they were meant; and, whether
+from the ingratitude of the persons complimented or the ill fortune of
+the noble adulator, seemed sometimes to produce indignation in place
+of delight.  It has been said that his civilities had cost Lord
+Aspeden four duels and one beating; but these reports were probably
+the malicious invention of those who had never tasted the delicacies
+of his flattery.
+
+Now these four persons being all members of the Privy Council, and
+being thus engaged in close and earnest conference were, you will
+suppose, employed in discussing their gravities and secrets of state:
+no such thing; that whisper from Lord Quintown, the handsome nobleman,
+to Mr. St. George, is no hoarded and valuable information which would
+rejoice the heart of the editor of an Opposition paper, no direful
+murmur, "perplexing monarchs with the dread of change;" it is only a
+recent piece of scandal, touching the virtue of a lady of the court,
+which (albeit the sage listener seems to pay so devout an attention to
+the news) is far more interesting to the gallant and handsome
+informant than to his brother statesman; and that emphatic and
+vehement tone with which Lord Aspeden is assuring the minister for
+---- of some fact, is merely an angry denunciation of the chicanery
+practised at the last Newmarket.
+
+"By the by, Aspeden," said Lord Quintown, "who is that good-looking
+fellow always flirting with Lady Flora Ardenne,--an attache of yours,
+is he not?"
+
+"Oh! Linden, I suppose you mean.  A very sensible, clever young
+fellow, who has a great genius for business and plays the flute
+admirably.  I must have him for my secretary, my dear lord, mind
+that."
+
+"With such a recommendation, Lord Aspeden," said the minister, with a
+bow, "the state would be a great loser did it not elect your attache,
+who plays so admirably on the flute, to the office of your secretary.
+Let us join the dancers."
+
+"I shall go and talk with Count B----," quoth Mr. St. George.
+
+"And I shall make my court to his beautiful wife," said the minister,
+sauntering into the ballroom, to which his fine person and graceful
+manners were much better adapted than was his genius to the cabinet or
+his eloquence to the senate.
+
+The morning had long dawned, and Clarence, for whose mind pleasure was
+more fatiguing than business, lingered near the door, to catch one
+last look of Lady Flora before he retired.  He saw her leaning on the
+arm of Lord Borodaile, and hastening to join the dancers with her
+usual light step and laughing air; for Clarence's short conference
+with her had, in spite of his subsequent flirtations, rendered her
+happier than she had ever felt before.  Again a change passed over
+Clarence's countenance,--a change which I find it difficult to express
+without borrowing from those celebrated German dramatists who could
+portray in such exact colours "a look of mingled joy, sorrow, hope,
+passion, rapture, and despair;" for the look was not that of jealousy
+alone, although it certainly partook of its nature, but a little also
+of interest, and a little of sorrow; and when he turned away, and
+slowly descended the stairs, his eyes were full of tears, and his
+thoughts far--far away;--whither?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+    Quae fert adolescentia
+    Ea ne me celet consuefeci filium.--TERENCE.
+
+    ["The things which youth proposes I accustomed
+    my son that he should never conceal from me."]
+
+The next morning Clarence was lounging over his breakfast, and
+glancing listlessly now at the pages of the newspapers, now at the
+various engagements for the week, which lay confusedly upon his table,
+when he received a note from Talbot, requesting to see him as soon as
+possible.
+
+"Had it not been for that man," said Clarence to himself, "what should
+I have been now?  But, at least, I have not disgraced his friendship.
+I have already ascended the roughest because the lowest steps on the
+hill where Fortune builds her temple.  I have already won for the name
+I have chosen some 'golden opinions' to gild its obscurity.  One year
+more may confirm my destiny and ripen hope into success: then--then, I
+may perhaps throw off a disguise that, while it befriended, has not
+degraded me, and avow myself to her!  Yet how much better to dignify
+the name I have assumed than to owe respect only to that which I have
+not been deemed worthy to inherit!  Well, well, these are bitter
+thoughts; let me turn to others.  How beautiful Flora looked last
+night! and, he--he--but enough of this: I must dress, and then to
+Talbot."
+
+Muttering these wayward fancies, Clarence rose, completed his toilet,
+sent for his horses, and repaired to a village about seven miles from
+London, where Talbot, having yielded to Clarence's fears and
+solicitations, and left his former insecure tenement, now resided
+under the guard and care of an especial and private watchman.
+
+It was a pretty, quiet villa, surrounded by a plantation and pleasure-
+ground of some extent for a suburban residence, in which the old
+philosopher (for though in some respects still frail and prejudiced,
+Talbot deserved that name) held his home.  The ancient servant, on
+whom four years had passed lightly and favouringly, opened the door to
+Clarence, with his usual smile of greeting and familiar yet respectful
+salutation, and ushered our hero into a room, furnished with the usual
+fastidious and rather feminine luxury which characterized Talbot's
+tastes.  Sitting with his back turned to the light, in a large easy-
+chair, Clarence found the wreck of the once gallant, gay Lothario.
+
+There was not much alteration in his countenance since we last saw
+him; the lines, it is true, were a little more decided, and the cheeks
+a little more sunken; but the dark eye beamed with all its wonted
+vivacity, and the delicate contour of the mouth preserved all its
+physiognomical characteristics of the inward man.  He rose with
+somewhat more difficulty than he was formerly wont to do, and his
+limbs had lost much of their symmetrical proportions; yet the kind
+clasp of his hand was as firm and warm as when it had pressed that of
+the boyish attache four years since; and the voice which expressed his
+salutation yet breathed its unconquered suavity and distinctness of
+modulation.  After the customary greetings and inquiries were given
+and returned, the young man drew his chair near to Talbot's, and
+said,--
+
+"You sent for me, dear sir; have you anything more important than
+usual to impart to me?--or--and I hope this is the case--have you at
+last thought of any commission, however trifling, in the execution of
+which I can be of use?"
+
+"Yes, Clarence, I wish your judgment to select me some strawberries,--
+you know that I am a great epicure in fruit,--and get me the new work
+Dr. Johnson has just published.  There, are you contented?  And now,
+tell me all about your horse; does he step well?  Has he the true
+English head and shoulder?  Are his legs fine, yet strong?  Is he full
+of spirit and devoid of vice?"
+
+"He is all this, sir, thanks to you for him."
+
+"Ah!" cried Talbot,--
+
+    "'Old as I am, for riding feats unfit,
+     The shape of horses I remember yet'"
+
+"And now let us hear how you like Ranelagh; and above all how you liked
+the ball last night."
+
+And the vivacious old man listened with the profoundest appearance of
+interest to all the particulars of Clarence's animated detail.  His
+vanity, which made him wish to be loved, had long since taught him the
+surest method of becoming so; and with him, every visitor, old, young,
+the man of books, or the disciple of the world, was sure to find the
+readiest and even eagerest sympathy in every amusement or occupation.
+But for Clarence, this interest lay deeper than in the surface of
+courtly breeding.  Gratitude had first bound to him his adopted son,
+then a tie yet unexplained, and lastly, but not least, the pride of
+protection.  He was vain of the personal and mental attractions of his
+protege, and eager for the success of one whose honours would reflect
+credit on himself.
+
+But there was one part of Clarence's account of the last night to
+which the philosopher paid a still deeper attention, and on which he
+was more minute in his advice; what this was, I cannot, as yet, reveal
+to the reader.
+
+The conversation then turned on light and general matters,--the
+scandal, the literature, the politics, the on dits of the day; and
+lastly upon women; thence Talbot dropped into his office of Mentor.
+
+"A celebrated cardinal said, very wisely, that few ever did anything
+among men until women were no longer an object to them.  That is the
+reason, by the by, why I never succeeded with the former, and why
+people seldom acquire any reputation, except for a hat, or a horse,
+till they marry.  Look round at the various occupations of life.  How
+few bachelors are eminent in any of them!  So you see, Clarence, you
+will have my leave to marry Lady Flora as soon as you please."
+
+Clarence coloured, and rose to depart.  Talbot followed him to the
+door, and then said, in a careless way, "By the by, I had almost
+forgotten to tell you that, as you have now many new expenses, you
+will find the yearly sum you have hitherto received doubled.  To give
+you this information is the chief reason why I sent for you this
+morning.  God bless you, my dear boy."
+
+And Talbot shut the door, despite his politeness, in the face and
+thanks of his adopted son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+There is a great difference between seeking to raise a laugh from
+everything, and seeking in everything what justly may be laughed at.
+                                             LORD SHAFTESBURY.
+
+Behold our hero, now in the zenith of distinguished dissipations!
+Courteous, attentive, and animated, the women did not esteem him the
+less for admiring them rather than himself; while, by the gravity of
+his demeanour to men,--the eloquent, yet unpretending flow of his
+conversation, whenever topics of intellectual interest were discussed,
+the plain and solid sense which he threw into his remarks, and the
+avidity with which he courted the society of all distinguished for
+literary or political eminence,--he was silently but surely
+establishing himself in esteem as well as popularity, and laying the
+certain foundation of future honour and success.
+
+Thus, although he had only been four months returned to England, he
+was already known and courted in every circle, and universally spoken
+of as among "the most rising young gentlemen" whom fortune and the
+administration had marked for their own.  His history, during the four
+years in which we have lost sight of him, is briefly told.
+
+He soon won his way into the good graces of Lord Aspeden; became his
+private secretary and occasionally his confidant.  Universally admired
+for his attraction of form and manner, and, though aiming at
+reputation, not averse to pleasure, he had that position which fashion
+confers at the court of ----, when Lady Westborough and her beautiful
+daughter, then only seventeen, came to ----, in the progress of a
+Continental tour, about a year before his return to England.  Clarence
+and Lady Flora were naturally brought much together in the restricted
+circle of a small court, and intimacy soon ripened into attachment.
+
+Lord Aspeden being recalled, Clarence accompanied him to England; and
+the ex-minister, really liking much one who was so useful to him, had
+faithfully promised to procure him the office and honour of secretary
+whenever his lordship should be reappointed minister.
+
+Three intimate acquaintances had Clarence Linden.  The one was the
+Honourable Henry Trollolop, the second Mr. Callythorpe, and the third
+Sir Christopher Findlater.  We will sketch them to you in an instant.
+Mr. Trollolop was a short, stout gentleman, with a very thoughtful
+countenance,-that is to say, he wore spectacles and took snuff.
+
+Mr. Trollolop--we delight in pronouncing that soft liquid name--was
+eminently distinguished by a love of metaphysics,--metaphysics were in
+a great measure the order of the day; but Fate had endowed Mr.
+Trollolop with a singular and felicitous confusion of idea.  Reid,
+Berkeley, Cudworth, Hobbes, all lay jumbled together in most edifying
+chaos at the bottom of Mr. Trollolop's capacious mind; and whenever he
+opened his mouth, the imprisoned enemies came rushing and scrambling
+out, overturning and contradicting each other in a manner quite
+astounding to the ignorant spectator.  Mr. Callythorpe was meagre,
+thin, sharp, and yellow.  Whether from having a great propensity for
+nailing stray acquaintances, or being particularly heavy company, or
+from any other cause better known to the wits of the period than to
+us, he was occasionally termed by his friends the "yellow hammer."
+The peculiar characteristics of this gentleman were his sincerity and
+friendship.  These qualities led him into saying things the most
+disagreeable, with the civilest and coolest manner in the world,--
+always prefacing them with, "You know, my dear so-and-so, I am your
+true friend."  If this proof of amity was now and then productive of
+altercation, Mr. Callythorpe, who was ha great patriot, had another and
+a nobler plea,--"Sir," he would say, putting his hand to his heart,--
+"sir, I'm an Englishman: I know not what it is to feign."  Of a very
+different stamp was Sir Christopher Findlater.  Little cared he for
+the subtleties of the human mind, and not much more for the
+disagreeable duties of "an Englishman."  Honest and jovial, red in the
+cheeks, empty in the head, born to twelve thousand a year, educated in
+the country, and heir to an earldom, Sir Christopher Findlater piqued
+himself, notwithstanding his worldly advantages, usually so
+destructive to the kindlier affections, on having the best heart in
+the world, and this good heart, having a very bad head to regulate and
+support it, was the perpetual cause of error to the owner and evil to
+the public.
+
+One evening, when Clarence was alone in his rooms, Mr. Trollolop
+entered.
+
+"My dear Linden," said the visitor, "how are you?"
+
+"I am, as I hope you are, very well," answered Clarence.
+
+"The human mind," said Trollolop, taking off his greatcoat,--
+
+"Sir Christopher Findlater and Mr. Callythorpe, sir," said the valet.
+
+"Pshaw! What has Sir Christopher Findlater to do with the human mind?"
+muttered Mr. Trollolop.
+
+Sir Christopher entered with a swagger and a laugh.  "Well, old
+fellow, how do you do?  Deuced cold this evening."
+
+"Though it is an evening in May," observed Clarence; "but then, this
+cursed climate."
+
+"Climate!" interrupted Mr. Callythorpe, "it is the best climate in the
+world: I am an Englishman, and I never abuse my country."
+
+    "'England, with all thy faults, I love thee still!'"
+
+"As to climate," said Trollolop, "there is no climate, neither here
+nor elsewhere: the climate is in your mind, the chair is in your mind,
+and the table too, though I dare say you are stupid enough to think
+the two latter are in the room; the human mind, my dear Findlater--"
+
+"Don't mind me, Trollolop," cried the baronet, "I can't bear your
+clever heads: give me a good heart; that's worth all the heads in the
+world; d--n me if it is not!  Eh, Linden?"
+
+"Your good heart," cried Trollolop, in a passion (for all your self-
+called philosophers are a little choleric), "your good heart is all
+cant and nonsense: there is no heart at all; we are all mind."
+
+"I be hanged if I'm all mind," said the baronet.
+
+"At least," quoth Linden, gravely, "no one ever accused you of it
+before."
+
+"We are all mind," pursued the reasoner; "we are all mind, un moulin a
+raisonnement.  Our ideas are derived from two sources, sensation or
+memory.  That neither our thoughts nor passions, nor our ideas formed
+by the imagination, exist without the mind, everybody will allow;
+[Berkeley, Sect. iii., "Principles of Human Knowledge."] therefore,
+you see, the human mind is--in short, there is nothing in the world
+but the human mind!"
+
+"Nothing could be better demonstrated," said Clarence.
+
+"I don't believe it," quoth the baronet.
+
+"But you do believe it, and you must believe it," cried Trollolop;
+"for 'the Supreme Being has implanted within us the principle of
+credulity,' and therefore you do believe it!"
+
+"But I don't," cried Sir Christopher.
+
+"You are mistaken," replied the metaphysician, calmly; "because I must
+speak truth."
+
+"Why must you, pray?" said the baronet.
+
+"Because," answered Trollolop, taking snuff, "there is a principle of
+veracity implanted in our nature."
+
+"I wish I were a metaphysician," said Clarence, with a sigh.
+
+"I am glad to hear you say so; for you know, my dear Linden," said
+Callythorpe, "that I am your true friend, and I must therefore tell
+you that you are shamefully ignorant.  You are not offended?"
+
+"Not at all!" said Clarence, trying to smile.
+
+"And you, my dear Findlater" (turning to the baronet), "you know that
+I wish you well; you know that I never flatter; I'm your real friend,
+so you must not be angry; but you really are not considered a
+Solomon."
+
+"Mr. Callythorpe!" exclaimed the baronet in a rage (the best-hearted
+people can't always bear truth), "what do you mean?"
+
+"You must not be angry, my good sir; you must not, really.  I can't
+help telling you of your faults; for I am a true Briton, sir, a true
+Briton, and leave lying to slaves and Frenchmen."
+
+"You are in an error," said Trollolop; "Frenchmen don't lie, at least
+not naturally, for in the human mind, as I before said, the Divine
+Author has implanted a principle of veracity which--"
+
+"My dear sir," interrupted Callythorpe, very affectionately, "you
+remind me of what people say of you."
+
+"Memory may be reduced to sensation, since it is only a weaker
+sensation," quoth Trollolop; "but proceed."
+
+"You know, Trollolop," said Callythorpe, in a singularly endearing
+intonation of voice, "you know that I never flatter; flattery is
+unbecoming a true friend,--nay, more, it is unbecoming a native of our
+happy isles, and people do say of you that you know nothing
+whatsoever, no, not an iota, of all that nonsensical, worthless
+philosophy of which you are always talking.  Lord St. George said the
+other day 'that you were very conceited.'--'No, not conceited,'
+replied Dr. ----, 'only ignorant;' so if I were you, Trollolop, I
+would cut metaphysics; you're not offended?"
+
+"By no means," cried Trollolop, foaming at the mouth.
+
+"For my part," said the good-hearted Sir Christopher, whose wrath had
+now subsided, rubbing his hands,--"for my part, I see no good in any
+of those things: I never read--never--and I don't see how I'm a bit
+the worse for it.  A good man, Linden, in my opinion, only wants to do
+his duty, and that is very easily done."
+
+"A good man; and what is good?" cried the metaphysician, triumphantly.
+"Is it implanted within us?  Hobbes, according to Reid, who is our
+last, and consequently best, philosopher, endeavours to demonstrate
+that there is no difference between right and wrong."
+
+"I have no idea of what you mean," cried Sir Christopher.
+
+"Idea!" exclaimed the pious philosopher.  "Sir, give me leave to tell
+you that no solid proof has ever been advanced of the existence of
+ideas: they are a mere fiction and hypothesis.  Nay, sir, 'hence
+arises that scepticism which disgraces our philosophy of the mind.'
+Ideas!--Findlater, you are a sceptic and an idealist."
+
+"I?" cried the affrighted baronet; "upon my honour I am no such thing.
+Everybody knows that I am a Christian, and--"
+
+"Ah!" interrupted  Callythorpe, with a solemn look, "everybody knows
+that you are not one of those horrid persons,--those atrocious deists
+and atheists and sceptics, from whom the Church and freedom of old
+England have suffered such danger.  I am a true Briton of the good old
+school; and I confess, Mr. Trollolop, that I do not like to hear any
+opinions but the right ones."
+
+"Right ones being only those which Mr. Callythorpe professes," said
+Clarence.
+
+"Exactly so!" rejoined Mr. Callythorpe.
+
+"The human mind," commenced Mr. Trollolop, stirring the fire; when
+Clarence, who began to be somewhat tired of this conversation, rose.
+"You will excuse me," said he, "but I am particularly engaged, and it
+is time to dress.  Harrison will get you tea or whatever else you are
+inclined for."
+
+"The human mind," renewed Trollolop, not heeding the interruption; and
+Clarence forthwith left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+You blame Marcius for being proud.--Coriolanus.
+Here is another fellow, a marvellous pretty hand at fashioning a
+compliment.-The Tanner of Tyburn.
+
+There was a brilliant ball at Lady T----'s, a personage who, every one
+knows, did in the year 17-- give the best balls, and have the best-
+dressed people at them, in London.  It was about half-past twelve,
+when Clarence, released from his three friends, arrived at the
+countess's.  When he entered, the first thing which struck him was
+Lord Borodaile in close conversation with Lady Flora.
+
+Clarence paused for a few moments, and then, sauntering towards them,
+caught Flora's eye,--coloured, and advanced.  Now, if there was a
+haughty man in Europe, it was Lord Borodaile.  He was not proud of his
+birth, nor fortune, but he was proud of himself; and, next to that
+pride, he was proud of being a gentleman.  He had an exceeding horror
+of all common people; a Claverhouse sort of supreme contempt to
+"puddle blood;" his lip seemed to wear scorn as a garment; a lofty and
+stern self-admiration, rather than self-love, sat upon his forehead as
+on a throne.  He had, as it were, an awe of himself; his thoughts were
+so many mirrors of Viscount Borodaile dressed en dieu.  His mind was a
+little Versailles, in which self sat like Louis XIV., and saw nothing
+but pictures of its self, sometimes as Jupiter and sometimes as Apollo.
+What marvel then, that Lord Borodaile was a very unpleasant companion?
+for every human being he had "something of contempt."  His eye was
+always eloquent in disdaining; to the plebeian it said, "You are not a
+gentleman;" to the prince, "You are not Lord Borodaile."
+
+Yet, with all this, he had his good points.  He was brave as a lion;
+strictly honourable; and though very ignorant, and very self-
+sufficient, had that sort of dogged good sense which one very often
+finds in men of stern hearts, who, if they have many prejudices, have
+little feeling, to overcome.
+
+Very stiffly and very haughtily did Lord Borodaile draw up, when
+Clarence approached and addressed Lady Flora; much more stiffly and
+much more haughtily did he return, though with old-fashioned precision
+of courtesy, Clarence's bow, when Lady Westborough introduced them to
+each other.  Not that this hauteur was intended as a particular
+affront: it was only the agreeability of his lordship's general
+manner.
+
+"Are you engaged?" said Clarence to Flora.
+
+"I am, at present, to Lord Borodaile."
+
+"After him, may I hope?"
+
+Lady Flora nodded assent, and disappeared with Lord Borodaile.
+
+His Royal Highness the Duke of ---- came up to Lady Westborough; and
+Clarence, with a smiling countenance and an absent heart, plunged into
+the crowd.  There he met Lord Aspeden, in conversation with the Earl
+of Holdenworth, one of the administration.
+
+"Ah, Linden," said the diplomatist, "let me introduce you to Lord
+Holdenworth,--a clever young man, my dear lord, and plays the flute
+beautifully."  With this eulogium, Lord Aspeden glided away; and Lord
+Holdenworth, after some conversation with Linden, honoured him by an
+invitation to dinner the next day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+    'T is true his nature may with faults abound;
+    But who will cavil when the heart is sound?--STEPHEN MONTAGUE.
+
+    Dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currant.-HORACE.
+    ["The foolish while avoiding vice run into the opposite
+    extremes."]
+
+The next day Sir Christopher Findlater called on Clarence.  "Let us
+lounge in the park," said he.
+
+"With pleasure," replied Clarence; and into the park they lounged.
+
+By the way they met a crowd, who were hurrying a man to prison.  The
+good-hearted Sir Christopher stopped: "Who is that poor fellow?" said
+he.
+
+"It is the celebrated" (in England all criminals are celebrated.
+Thurtell was a hero, Thistlewood a patriot, and Fauntleroy was
+discovered to be exactly like Buonaparte!) "it is the celebrated
+robber, John Jefferies, who broke into Mrs. Wilson's house, and cut
+the throats of herself and her husband, wounded the maid-servant, and
+split the child's skull with the poker."  Clarence pressed forward: "I
+have seen that man before," thought he.  He looked again, and
+recognized the face of the robber who had escaped from Talbot's house
+on the eventful night which had made Clarence's fortune.  It was a
+strongly-marked and rather handsome countenance, which would not be
+easily forgotten; and a single circumstance of excitement will stamp
+features on the memory as deeply as the commonplace intercourse of
+years.
+
+"John Jefferies!" exclaimed the baronet; "let us come away."
+
+"Linden," continued Sir Christopher, "that fellow was my servant once.
+He robbed me to some considerable extent.  I caught him.  He appealed
+to my heart; and you know, my dear fellow, that was irresistible, so I
+let him off.  Who could have thought he would have turned out so?"
+And the baronet proceeded to eulogize his own good-nature, by which it
+is just necessary to remark that one miscreant had been saved for a
+few years from transportation, in order to rob and murder ad libitum,
+and, having fulfilled the office of a common pest, to suffer on the
+gallows at last.  What a fine thing it is to have a good heart!  Both
+our gentlemen now sank into a revery, from which they were awakened,
+at the entrance of the park, by a young man in rags who, with a
+piteous tone, supplicated charity.  Clarence, who, to his honour be it
+spoken, spent an allotted and considerable part of his income in
+judicious and laborious benevolence, had read a little of political
+morals, then beginning to be understood, and walked on.  The good-
+hearted baronet put his hand in his pocket, and gave the beggar half a
+guinea, by which a young, strong man, who had only just commenced the
+trade, was confirmed in his imposition for the rest of his life; and,
+instead of the useful support, became the pernicious incumbrance of
+society.
+
+Sir Christopher had now recovered his spirits.  "What's like a good
+action?" said he to Clarence, with a swelling breast.
+
+The park was crowded to excess; our loungers were joined by Lord St.
+George.  His lordship was a stanch Tory.  He could not endure Wilkes,
+liberty, or general education.  He launched out against the
+enlightenment of domestics.  [The ancestors of our present footmen, if
+we may believe Sir William Temple, seem to have been to the full as
+intellectual as their descendants.  "I have had," observes the
+philosophic statesman, "several servants far gone in divinity, others
+in poetry; have known, in the families of some friends; a keeper deep
+in the Rosicrucian mysteries and a laundress firm in those of
+Epicurus."]
+
+"What has made you so bitter?" said Sir Christopher.
+
+"My valet," cried Lord St. George,--"he has invented a new toasting-
+fork, is going to take out a patent, make his fortune, and leave me;
+that's what I call ingratitude, Sir Christopher; for I ordered his
+wages to be raised five pounds but last year."
+
+"It was very ungrateful," said the ironical Clarence.
+
+"Very!" reiterated the good-hearted Sir Christopher.
+
+"You cannot recommend me a valet, Findlater," renewed his lordship, "a
+good, honest, sensible fellow, who can neither read nor write?"
+
+"N-o-o,--that is to say, yes!  I can; my old servant Collard is out of
+place, and is as ignorant as--as--"
+
+"I--or you are?" said Lord St. George, with a laugh.
+
+"Precisely," replied the baronet.
+
+"Well, then, I take your recommendation: send him to me to-morrow at
+twelve."
+
+"I will," said Sir Christopher.
+
+"My dear Findlater," cried Clarence, when Lord St. George was gone,
+"did you not tell me, some time ago, that Collard was a great rascal,
+and very intimate with Jefferies? and now you recommend him to Lord
+St. George!"
+
+"Hush, hush, hush!" said the baronet; "he was a great rogue to be
+sure: but, poor fellow, he came to me yesterday with tears in his
+eyes, and said he should starve if I would not give him a character;
+so what could I do?"
+
+"At least, tell Lord St. George the truth," observed Clarence.
+
+"But then Lord St. George would not take him!" rejoined the good-
+hearted Sir Christopher, with forcible naivete.  "No, no, Linden, we
+must not be so hard-hearted; we must forgive and forget;" and so
+saying, the baronet threw out his chest, with the conscious exultation
+of a man who has uttered a noble sentiment.  The moral of this little
+history is that Lord St. George, having been pillaged "through thick
+and thin," as the proverb has it, for two years, at last missed a gold
+watch, and Monsieur Collard finished his career as his exemplary
+tutor, Mr. John Jefferies, had done before him.  Ah! what a fine thing
+it is to have a good heart!
+
+But to return.  Just as our wanderers had arrived at the farther end
+of the park, Lady Westborough and her daughter passed them.  Clarence,
+excusing himself to his friend, hastened towards them, and was soon
+occupied in saying the prettiest things in the world to the prettiest
+person, at least in his eyes; while Sir Christopher, having done as
+much mischief as a good heart well can do in a walk of an hour,
+returned home to write a long letter to his mother, against "learning
+and all such nonsense, which only served to blunt the affections and
+harden the heart."
+
+"Admirable young man!" cried the mother, with tears in her eyes.  "A
+good heart is better than all the heads in the world."
+
+Amen!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+"Make way, Sir Geoffrey Peveril, or you will compel me to do that I
+may be sorry for!"
+
+"You shall make no way here but at your peril," said Sir Geoffrey;"
+this is my ground."--Peveril of the Peak.
+
+
+One night on returning home from a party at Lady Westborough's in
+Hanover Square, Clarence observed a man before him walking with an
+uneven and agitated step.  His right hand was clenched, and he
+frequently raised it as with a sudden impulse, and struck fiercely as
+if at some imagined enemy.
+
+The stranger slackened his pace.  Clarence passed him, and, turning
+round to satisfy the idle curiosity which the man's eccentric gestures
+had provoked, his eye met a dark, lowering, iron countenance, which,
+despite the lapse of four years, he recognized on the moment: it was
+Wolfe, the republican.
+
+Clarence moved, involuntarily, with a quicker step; but in a few
+minutes, Wolfe, who was vehemently talking to himself, once more
+passed him; the direction he took was also Clarence's way homeward,
+and he therefore followed the republican, though at some slight
+distance, and on the opposite side of the way.  A gentleman on foot,
+apparently returning from a party, met Wolfe, and, with an air half
+haughty, half unconscious, took the wall; though, according to old-
+fashioned rules of street courtesy, he was on the wrong side for
+asserting the claim.  The stern republican started, drew himself up to
+his full height, and sturdily and doggedly placed himself directly in
+the way of the unjust claimant.  Clarence was now nearly opposite to
+the two, and saw all that was going on.
+
+With a motion a little rude and very contemptuous, the passenger
+attempted to put Wolfe aside, and win his path.  Little did he know of
+the unyielding nature he had to do with; the next instant the
+republican, with a strong hand, forced him from the pavement into the
+very kennel, and silently and coldly continued his way.
+
+The wrath of the discomfited passenger was vehemently kindled.
+
+"Insolent dog!" cried he, in a loud and arrogant tone, "your baseness
+is your protection."  Wolfe turned rapidly, and made but two strides
+before he was once more by the side of his defeated opponent.
+
+"What did you say?" he asked, in his low, deep, hoarse voice.
+
+Clarence stopped.  "There will be mischief done here," thought he, as
+he called to mind the stern temper of the republican.
+
+"Merely," said the other, struggling with his rage, "that it is not
+for men of my rank to avenge the insults offered us by those of
+yours!"
+
+"Your rank!" said Wolfe, bitterly retorting the contempt of the
+stranger, in a tone of the loftiest disdain; "your rank! poor
+changeling!  And what are you, that you should lord it over me?  Are
+your limbs stronger? your muscles firmer? your proportions juster?
+your mind acuter? your conscience clearer?  Fool! fool! go home and
+measure yourself with lackeys!"
+
+The republican ceased, and pushing the stranger aside, turned slowly
+away.  But this last insult enraged the passenger beyond all prudence.
+Before Wolfe had proceeded two paces, he muttered a desperate but
+brief oath, and struck the reformer with a strength so much beyond
+what his figure (which was small and slight) appeared to possess, that
+the powerful and gaunt frame of Wolfe recoiled backward several steps,
+and, had it not been for the iron railing of the neighbouring area,
+would have fallen to the ground.
+
+Clarence pressed forward: the face of the rash aggressor was turned
+towards him; the features were Lord Borodaile's.  He had scarcely time
+to make this discovery, before Wolfe had recovered himself.  With a
+wild and savage cry, rather than exclamation, he threw himself upon
+his antagonist, twined his sinewy arms round the frame of the
+struggling but powerless nobleman, raised him in the air with the easy
+strength of a man lifting a child, held him aloft for one moment with
+a bitter and scornful laugh of wrathful derision, and then dashed him
+to the ground, and planting his foot upon Borodaile's breast said,--
+
+"So shall it be with all of you: there shall be but one instant
+between your last offence and your first but final debasement.  Lie
+there! it is your proper place!  By the only law which you yourself
+acknowledge, the law which gives the right divine to the strongest; if
+you stir limb or muscle, I will crush the breath from your body."
+
+But Clarence was now by the side of Wolfe, a new and more powerful
+opponent.
+
+"Look you," said he: "you have received an insult, and you have done
+justice yourself.  I condemn the offence, and quarrel not with you for
+the punishment; but that punishment is now past: remove your foot, or--"
+
+"What?" shouted Wolfe, fiercely, his lurid and vindictive eye flashing
+with the released fire of long-pent and cherished passions.
+
+"Or," answered Clarence, calmly, "I will hinder you from committing
+murder."
+
+At that instant the watchman's voice was heard, and the night's
+guardian himself was seen hastening from the far end of the street
+towards the place of contest. Whether this circumstance, or Clarence's
+answer, somewhat changed the current of the republican's thoughts, or
+whether his anger, suddenly raised, was now as suddenly subsiding, it
+is not easy to decide; but he slowly and deliberately moved his foot
+from the breast of his baffled foe, and bending down seemed
+endeavouring to ascertain the mischief he had done.  Lord Borodaile
+was perfectly insensible.
+
+"You have killed him!" cried Clarence in a voice of horror, "but you
+shall not escape;" and he placed a desperate and nervous hand on the
+republican.
+
+"Stand off," said Wolfe, "my blood is up!  I would not do more
+violence to-night than I have done.  Stand off! the man moves; see!"
+
+And Lord Borodaile, uttering a long sigh, and attempting to rise,
+Clarence released his hold of the republican, and bent down to assist
+the fallen nobleman.  Meanwhile, Wolfe, muttering to himself, turned
+from the spot, and strode haughtily away.
+
+The watchman now came up, and, with his aid, Clarence raised Lord
+Borodaile.  Bruised, stunned, half insensible as he was, that
+personage lost none of his characteristic stateliness; he shook off
+the watchman's arm, as if there was contamination in the touch; and
+his countenance, still menacing and defying in its expression, turned
+abruptly towards Clarence, as if he yet expected to meet and struggle
+with a foe.
+
+"How are you, my lord?" said Linden; "not severely hurt, I trust?"
+
+"Well, quite well," cried Borodaile.  "Mr. Linden, I think?--I thank
+you cordially for your assistance; but the dog, the rascal, where is
+he?"
+
+"Gone," said Clarence.
+
+"Gone!  Where--where?" cried Borodaile; "that living man should insult
+me, and yet escape!"
+
+"Which way did the fellow go?" said the watchman, anticipative of
+half-a-crown.  "I will run after him in a trice, your honour: I
+warrant I nab him."
+
+"No--no--" said Borodaile, haughtily,  "I leave my quarrels to no man;
+if I could not master him myself, no one else shall do it for me.  Mr.
+Linden, excuse me, but I am perfectly recovered, and can walk very
+well without your polite assistance.  Mr. Watchman, I am obliged to
+you: there is a guinea to reward your trouble."
+
+With these words, intended as a farewell, the proud patrician,
+smothering his pain, bowed with extreme courtesy to Clarence, again
+thanked him, and walked on unaided and alone.
+
+"He is a game blood," said the watchman, pocketing the guinea.
+
+"He is worthy his name," thought Clarence; "though he was in the
+wrong, my heart yearns to him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+Things wear a vizard which I think to like not.--Tanner of Tyburn.
+
+Clarence, from that night, appeared to have formed a sudden attachment
+to Lord Borodaile.  He took every opportunity of cultivating his
+intimacy, and invariably treated him with a degree of consideration
+which his knowledge of the world told him was well calculated to gain
+the good will of his haughty and arrogant acquaintance; but all this
+was in effectual in conquering Borodaile's coldness and reserve.  To
+have been once seen in a humiliating and degrading situation is quite
+sufficient to make a proud man hate the spectator, and, with the
+confusion of all prejudiced minds, to transfer the sore remembrance of
+the event to the association of the witness.  Lord Borodaile, though
+always ceremoniously civil, was immovably distant; and avoided as well
+as he was able Clarence's insinuating approaches and address.  To add
+to his indisposition to increase his acquaintance with Linden, a
+friend of his, a captain in the Guards, once asked him who that Mr.
+Linden was? and, on his lordship's replying that he did not know, Mr.
+Percy Bobus, the son of a wine-merchant, though the nephew of a duke,
+rejoined, "Nobody does know."
+
+"Insolent intruder!" thought Lord Borodaile: "a man whom nobody knows
+to make such advances to me!"
+
+A still greater cause of dislike to Clarence arose from jealousy.
+Ever since the first night of his acquaintance with Lady Flora, Lord
+Borodaile had paid her unceasing attention.  In good earnest, he was
+greatly struck by her beauty, and had for the last year meditated the
+necessity of presenting the world with a Lady Borodaile.  Now, though
+his lordship did look upon himself in as favourable a light as a man
+well can do, yet he could not but own that Clarence was very handsome,
+had a devilish gentlemanlike air, talked with a better grace than the
+generality of young men, and danced to perfection.  "I detest that
+fellow!" said Lord Borodaile, involuntarily and aloud, as these
+unwilling truths forced themselves upon his mind.
+
+"Whom do you detest?" asked Mr. Percy Bobus, who was lying on the sofa
+in Lord Borodaile's drawing-room, and admiring a pair of red-heeled
+shoes which decorated his feet.
+
+"That puppy Linden!" said Lord Borodaile, adjusting his cravat.
+
+"He is a deuced puppy, certainly!" rejoined Mr. Percy Bobus, turning
+round in order to contemplate more exactly the shape of his right
+shoe.  "I can't bear conceit, Borodaile."
+
+"Nor I: I abhor it; it is so d--d disgusting!" replied Lord Borodaile,
+leaning his chin upon his two hands, and looking full into the glass.
+"Do you use MacNeile's divine pomatum?"
+
+"No, it's too hard; I get mine from Paris: shall I send you some?"
+
+"Do," said Lord Borodaile.
+
+"Mr. Linden, my lord," said the servant, throwing open the door; and
+Clarence entered.
+
+"I am very fortunate," said he, with that smile which so few ever
+resisted, "to find you at home, Lord Borodaile; but as the day was wet,
+I thought I should have some chance of that pleasure; I therefore
+wrapped myself up in my roquelaure, and here I am."
+
+Now, nothing could be more diplomatic than the compliment of choosing
+a wet day for a visit, and exposing one's self to "the pitiless
+shower," for the greater probability of finding the person visited at
+home.  Not so thought Lord Borodaile; he drew himself up, bowed very
+solemnly, and said, with cold gravity,--
+
+"You are very obliging, Mr. Linden."
+
+Clarence coloured, and bit his lip as he seated himself.  Mr. Percy
+Bobus, with true insular breeding, took up the newspaper.
+
+"I think I saw you at Lady C.'s last night," said Clarence; "did you
+stay there long?"
+
+"No, indeed," answered Borodaile; "I hate her parties."
+
+"One does meet such odd people there," observed Mr. Percy Bobus;
+"creatures one never sees anywhere else:"
+
+"I hear," said Clarence, who never abused any one, even the givers of
+stupid parties, if he could help it, and therefore thought it best to
+change the conversation,--"I hear, Lord Borodaile, that some hunters
+of yours are to be sold.  I purpose being a bidder for Thunderbolt."
+
+"I have a horse to sell you, Mr. Linden," cried Mr. Percy Bobus,
+springing from the sofa into civility; "a superb creature."
+
+"Thank you," said Clarence, laughing; "but I can only afford to buy
+one, and I have taken a great fancy to Thunderbolt."
+
+Lord Borodaile, whose manners were very antiquated in their
+affability, bowed.  Mr. Bobus sank back into his sofa, and resumed the
+paper.
+
+A pause ensued.  Clarence was chilled in spite of himself.  Lord
+Borodaile played with a paper-cutter.
+
+"Have you been to Lady Westborough's lately?" said Clarence, breaking
+silence.
+
+"I was there last night," replied Lord Borodaile.
+
+"Indeed!" cried Clarence.  "I wonder I did not see you there, for I
+dined with them."
+
+Lord Borodaile's hair curled of itself.  "He dined there, and I only
+asked in the evening!" thought he; but his sarcastic temper suggested
+a very different reply.
+
+"Ah," said he, elevating his eyebrows, "Lady Westborough told me she
+had had some people to dinner whom she had been obliged to ask.
+Bobus, is that the 'Public Advertiser'?  See whether that d--d fellow
+Junius has been writing any more of his venomous letters."
+
+Clarence was not a man apt to take offence, but he felt his bile rise.
+"It will not do to show it," thought he; so he made some further
+remark in a jesting vein; and, after a very ill-sustained conversation
+of some minutes longer, rose, apparently in the best humour possible,
+and departed, with a solemn intention never again to enter the house.
+Thence he went to Lady Westborough's.
+
+The marchioness was in her boudoir: Clarence was as usual admitted;
+for Lady Westborough loved amusement above all things in the world,
+and Clarence had the art of affording it better than any young man of
+her acquaintance.  On entering, he saw Lady Flora hastily retreating
+through an opposite door.  She turned her face towards him for one
+moment: that moment was sufficient to freeze his blood: the large
+tears were rolling down her cheeks, which were as white as death, and
+the expression of those features, usually so laughing and joyous, was
+that of utter and ineffable despair.
+
+Lady Westborough was as lively, as bland, and as agreeable as ever:
+but Clarence thought he detected something restrained and embarrassed
+lurking beneath all the graces of her exterior manner; and the single
+glance he had caught of the pale and altered face of Lady Flora was
+not calculated to reassure his mind or animate his spirits.  His visit
+was short; when he left the room, he lingered for a few moments in the
+ante-chamber in the hope of again seeing Lady Flora.  While thus
+loitering, his ear caught the sound of Lady Westborough's voice: "When
+Mr. Linden calls again, you have my orders never to admit him into
+this room; he will be shown into the drawing-room."
+
+With a hasty step and a burning cheek Clarence quitted the house, and
+hurried, first to his solitary apartments, and thence, impatient of
+loneliness, to the peaceful retreat of his benefactor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+    A maiden's thoughts do check my trembling hand.--DRAYTON.
+
+There is something very delightful in turning from the unquietness and
+agitation, the fever, the ambition, the harsh and worldly realities of
+man's character to the gentle and deep recesses of woman's more secret
+heart.  Within her musings is a realm of haunted and fairy thought, to
+which the things of this turbid and troubled life have no entrance.
+What to her are the changes of state, the rivalries and contentions
+which form the staple of our existence?  For her there is an intense
+and fond philosophy, before whose eye substances flit and fade like
+shadows, and shadows grow glowingly into truth.  Her soul's creations
+are not as the moving and mortal images seen in the common day: they
+are things, like spirits steeped in the dim moonlight, heard when all
+else are still, and busy when earth's labourers are at rest!  They are
+
+                   "Such stuff
+    As dreams are made of, and their little life
+    Is rounded by a sleep."
+
+Hers is the real and uncentred poetry of being, which pervades and
+surrounds her as with an air, which peoples her visions and animates
+her love, which shrinks from earth into itself, and finds marvel and
+meditation in all that it beholds within, and which spreads even over
+the heaven in whose faith she so ardently believes the mystery and the
+tenderness of romance.
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+FROM LADY FLORA ARDENNE TO MISS ELEANOR TREVANION.
+
+You say that I have not written to you so punctually of late as I used
+to do before I came to London, and you impute my negligence to the
+gayeties and pleasures by which I am surrounded.  Eh bien! my dear
+Eleanor, could you have thought of a better excuse for me?  You know
+how fond we--ay, dearest, you as well as I--used to be of dancing, and
+how earnestly we were wont to anticipate those children's balls at my
+uncle's, which were the only ones we were ever permitted to attend.  I
+found a stick the other day, on which I had cut seven notches,
+significant of seven days more to the next ball; we reckoned time by
+balls then, and danced chronologically.  Well, my dear Eleanor, here I
+am now, brought out, tolerably well-behaved, only not dignified
+enough, according to Mamma,--as fond of laughing, talking, and dancing
+as ever; and yet, do you know, a ball, though still very delightful,
+is far from being the most important event in creation; its
+anticipation does not keep me awake of a night: and what is more to
+the purpose, its recollection does not make me lock up my writing-
+desk, burn my portefeuille, and forget you, all of which you seem to
+imagine it has been able to effect.
+
+No, dearest Eleanor, you are mistaken; for, were she twice as giddy
+and ten times as volatile as she is, your own Flora could never, never
+forget you, nor the happy hours we have spent together, nor the pretty
+goldfinches we had in common, nor the little Scotch duets we used to
+sing together, nor our longings to change them into Italian, nor our
+disappointment when we did so, nor our laughter at Signor Shrikalini,
+nor our tears when poor darling Bijou died.  And do you remember,
+dearest, the charming green lawn where we used to play together, and
+plan tricks for your governess?  She was very, very cross, though, I
+think, we were a little to blame too.  However, I was much the worst!
+And pray, Eleanor, don't you remember how we used to like being called
+pretty, and told of the conquests we should make?  Do you like all
+that now?  For my part, I am tired of it, at least from the generality
+of one's flatterers.
+
+Ah! Eleanor, or "heigho!" as the young ladies in novels write, do you
+remember how jealous I was of you at ----, and how spiteful I was, and
+how you were an angel, and bore with me, and kissed me, and told me
+that--that I had nothing to fear?  Well, Clar--I mean Mr. Linden, is
+now in town and so popular, and so admired!  I wish we were at ----
+again, for there we saw him every day, and now we don't meet more than
+three times a week; and though I like hearing him praised above all
+things, yet I feel very uncomfortable when that praise comes from
+very, very pretty women.  I wish we were at ---- again!  Mamma, who is
+looking more beautiful than ever, is, very kind! she says nothing to
+be sure, but she must see how--that is to say--she must know that--
+that I--I mean that Clarence is very attentive to me, and that I blush
+and look exceedingly silly whenever he is; and therefore I suppose
+that whenever Clarence thinks fit to ask me, I shall not be under the
+necessity of getting up at six o'clock, and travelling to Gretna
+Green, through that odious North Road, up the Highgate Hill, and over
+Finchley Common.
+
+"But when will he ask you?"  My dearest Eleanor, that is more than I
+can say.  To tell you the truth, there is something about Linden which
+I cannot thoroughly understand.  They say he is nephew and heir to the
+Mr. Talbot whom you may have heard Papa talk of; but if so, why the
+hints, the insinuations, of not being what he seems, which Clarence
+perpetually throws out, and which only excite my interest without
+gratifying my curiosity?  'It is not,' he has said, more than once,
+'as an obscure adventurer that I will claim your love;' and if I
+venture, which is very seldom (for I am a little afraid of him), to
+question his meaning, he either sinks into utter silence, for which,
+if I had loved according to book, and not so naturally, I should be
+very angry with him, or twists his words into another signification,
+such as that he would not claim me till he had become something higher
+and nobler than he is now.  Alas, my dear Eleanor, it takes a long
+time to make an ambassador out of an attache.
+
+See now if you reproached me justly with scanty correspondences.  If I
+write a line more, I must begin a new sheet, and that will be beyond
+the power of a frank,--a thing which would, I know, break the heart of
+your dear, good, generous, but a little too prudent aunt, and
+irrevocably ruin me in her esteem.  So God bless you, dearest Eleanor,
+and believe me most affectionately yours,           FLORA ARDENNE.
+
+LETTER II.
+
+FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
+
+Pray, dearest Eleanor, does that good aunt of yours--now don't frown,
+I am not going to speak disrespectfully of her--ever take a liking to
+young gentlemen whom you detest, and insist upon the fallacy of your
+opinion and the unerring rectitude of hers?  If so, you can pity and
+comprehend my grief.  Mamma has formed quite an attachment to a very
+disagreeable person!  He is Lord Borodaile, the eldest, and I believe,
+the only son of Lord Ulswater.  Perhaps you may have met him abroad,
+for he has been a great traveller: his family is among the most
+ancient in England, and his father's estate covers half a county.  All
+this Mamma tells me, with the most earnest air in the world, whenever
+I declaim upon his impertinence or disagreeability (is there such a
+word? there ought to be).  "Well," said I to-day, "what's that to me?"
+"It may be a great deal to you," replied Mamma, significantly, and the
+blood rushed from my face to my heart.  She could not, Eleanor, she
+could not mean, after all her kindness to Clarence, and in spite of
+all her penetration into my heart,--oh, no, no,--she could not.  How
+terribly suspicious this love makes one!
+
+But if I disliked Lord Borodaile at first, I have hated him of late;
+for, somehow or other, he is always in the way.  If I see Clarence
+hastening through the crowd to ask me to dance, at that very instant
+up steps Lord Borodaile with his cold, changeless face, and his
+haughty old-fashioned bow, and his abominable dark complexion; and
+Mamma smiles; and he hopes he finds me disengaged; and I am hurried
+off; and poor Clarence looks so disappointed and so wretched!  You
+have no idea how ill-tempered this makes me.  I could not help asking
+Lord Borodaile yesterday if he was never going abroad again, and the
+hateful creature played with his cravat, and answered "Never!"  I was
+in hopes that my sullenness would drive his lordship away: tout au
+contraire; "Nothing," said he to me the other day, when he was in full
+pout, "nothing is so plebeian as good-humour!"
+
+I wish, then, Eleanor, that he could see your governess: she must be
+majesty itself in his eyes!
+
+Ah, dearest, how we belie ourselves!  At this moment, when you might
+think, from the idle, rattling, silly flow of my letter, that my heart
+was as light and free as it was when we used to play on the green
+lawn, and under the sunny trees, in the merry days of our childhood,
+the tears are running down my cheeks; see where they have fallen on
+the page, and my head throbs as if my thoughts were too full and heavy
+for it to contain.  It is past one!  I am alone, and in my own room.
+Mamma is gone to a rout at H---- House, but I knew I should not meet
+Clarence there, and so said I was ill, and remained at home.  I have
+done so often of late, whenever I have learned from him that he was
+not going to the same place as Mamma.  Indeed, I love much better to
+sit alone and think over his words and looks; and I have drawn, after
+repeated attempts, a profile likeness of him; and oh, Eleanor, I
+cannot tell you how dear it is to me; and yet there is not a line, not
+a look of his countenance which I have not learned by heart, without
+such useless aids to my memory.  But I am ashamed of telling you all
+this, and my eyes ache so, that I can write no more.
+
+Ever, as ever, dearest Eleanor, your affectionate friend.      F. A.
+
+LETTER III.
+
+FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
+
+Eleanor, I am undone!  My mother--my mother has been so cruel; but she
+cannot, she cannot intend it, or she knows very little of my heart.
+With some ties may be as easily broken as formed; with others they are
+twined around life itself.
+
+Clarence dined with us yesterday, and was unusually animated and
+agreeable.  He was engaged on business with Lord Aspeden afterwards,
+and left us early.  We had a few people in the evening, Lord Borodaile
+among the rest; and my mother spoke of Clarence, and his relationship
+to and expectations from Mr. Talbot.  Lord Borodaile sneered; "You are
+mistaken," said he, sarcastically; "Mr. Linden may feel it convenient
+to give out that he is related to so old a family as the Talbots; and
+since Heaven only knows who or what he is, he may as well claim
+alliance with one person as another; but he is certainly not the
+nephew of Mr. Talbot of Scarsdale Park, for that gentleman had no
+sisters and but one brother, who left an only daughter; that daughter
+had also but one child, certainly no relation to Mr. Linden.  I can
+vouch for the truth of this statement; for the Talbots are related to,
+or at least nearly connected with, myself; and I thank Heaven that I
+have a pedigree, even in its collateral branches, worth learning by
+heart."  And then Lord Borodaile--I little thought, when I railed
+against him, what serious cause I should have to hate him--turned to
+me and harassed me with his tedious attentions the whole of the
+evening.
+
+This morning Mamma sent for me into her boudoir.  "I have observed,"
+said she, with the greatest indifference, "that Mr. Linden has, of
+late, been much too particular in his manner towards you: your foolish
+and undue familiarity with every one has perhaps given him
+encouragement.  After the gross imposition which Lord Borodaile
+exposed to us last night, I cannot but consider the young man as a
+mere adventurer, and must not only insist on your putting a total
+termination to civilities which we must henceforth consider
+presumption, but I myself shall consider it incumbent upon me greatly
+to limit the advances he has thought proper to make towards my
+acquaintance."
+
+You may guess how thunderstruck I was by this speech.  I could not
+answer; my tongue literally clove to my mouth, and I was only relieved
+by a sudden and violent burst of tears.  Mamma looked exceedingly
+displeased, and was just going to speak, when the servant threw open
+the door and announced Mr. Linden.  I rose hastily, and had only just
+time to escape, as he entered; but when I heard that dear, dear voice,
+I could not resist turning for one moment.  He saw me; and was struck
+mute, for the agony of my soul was stamped visibly on my countenance.
+That moment was over: with a violent effort I tore myself away.
+
+Eleanor, I can now write no more.  God bless you! and me too; for I am
+very, very unhappy.                              F. A.
+
+
+
+
+
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