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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Disowned, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, V4
+#62 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 4.
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 2005  [EBook #7634]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 4, 2004]
+
+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DISOWNED, LYTTON, V4 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen
+and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+What a charming character is a kind old man.--STEPHEN MONTAGUE.
+
+"Cheer up, my dear boy," said Talbot, kindly, "we must never despair.
+What though Lady Westborough has forbidden you the boudoir, a boudoir
+is a very different thing from a daughter, and you have no right to
+suppose that the veto extends to both.  But now that we are on this
+subject, do let me reason with you seriously.  Have you not already
+tasted all the pleasures, and been sufficiently annoyed by some of the
+pains, of acting the 'Incognito'?  Be ruled by me: resume your proper
+name; it is at least one which the proudest might acknowledge; and its
+discovery will remove the greatest obstacle to the success which you
+so ardently desire."
+
+Clarence, who was labouring under strong excitement, paused for some
+moments, as if to collect himself, before he replied: "I have been
+thrust from my father's home; I have been made the victim of another's
+crime; I have been denied the rights and name of son; perhaps (and I
+say this bitterly) justly denied them, despite of my own innocence.
+What would you have me do?  Resume a name never conceded to me,--
+perhaps not righteously mine,--thrust myself upon the unwilling and
+shrinking hands which disowned and rejected me; blazon my virtues by
+pretensions which I myself have promised to forego, and foist myself
+on the notice of strangers by the very claims which my nearest
+relations dispute?  Never! never! never!  With the simple name I have
+assumed; the friend I myself have won,--you, my generous benefactor,
+my real father, who never forsook nor insulted me for my misfortunes,--
+with these I have gained some steps in the ladder; with these, and
+those gifts of nature, a stout heart and a willing hand, of which none
+can rob me, I will either ascend the rest, even to the summit, or fall
+to the dust, unknown, but not contemned; unlamented, but not
+despised."
+
+"Well, well," said Talbot, brushing away a tear which he could not
+deny to the feeling, even while he disputed the judgment, of the young
+adventurer,--"well, this is all very fine and very foolish; but you
+shall never want friend or father while I live, or when I have ceased
+to live; but come,--sit down, share my dinner, which is not very good,
+and my dessert, which is: help me to entertain two or three guests who
+are coming to me in the evening, to talk on literature, sup, and
+sleep; and to-morrow you shall return home, and see Lady Flora in the
+drawing-room if you cannot in the boudoir."
+
+And Clarence was easily persuaded to accept the invitation.  Talbot
+was not one of those men who are forced to exert themselves to be
+entertaining.  He had the pleasant and easy way of imparting his great
+general and curious information, that a man, partly humourist, partly
+philosopher, who values himself on being a man of letters, and is in
+spite of himself a man of the world, always ought to possess.
+Clarence was soon beguiled from the remembrance of his mortifications,
+and, by little and little, entirely yielded to the airy and happy flow
+of Talbot's conversation.
+
+In the evening, three or four men of literary eminence (as many as
+Talbot's small Tusculum would accommodate with beds) arrived, and in a
+conversation, free alike from the jargon of pedants and the
+insipidities of fashion, the night fled away swiftly and happily, even
+to the lover.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+We are here (in the country) among the vast and noble scenes of
+Nature; we are there (in the town) among the pitiful shifts of policy.
+We walk here in the light and open ways of the divine bounty,--we
+grope therein the dark and confused labyrinths of human malice; our
+senses are here feasted with all the clear and genuine taste of their
+objects, which are all sophisticated there, and for the most part
+overwhelmed with their contraries: here pleasure, methinks, looks like
+a beautiful, constant, and modest wife; it is there an impudent,
+fickle, and painted harlot.--COWLEY.
+
+Draw up the curtain!  The scene is the Opera.
+
+The pit is crowded; the connoisseurs in the front row are in a very
+ill humour.  It must be confessed that extreme heat is a little trying
+to the temper of a critic.
+
+The Opera then was not what it is now, nor even what it had been in a
+former time.  It is somewhat amusing to find Goldsmith questioning, in
+one of his essays, whether the Opera could ever become popular in
+England.  But on the night--on which the reader is summoned to that
+"theatre of sweet sounds" a celebrated singer from the Continent made
+his first appearance in London, and all the world thronged to "that
+odious Opera-house" to hear, or to say they had heard, the famous
+Sopraniello.
+
+With a nervous step, Clarence proceeded to Lady Westborough's box; and
+it was many minutes that he lingered by the door before he summoned
+courage to obtain admission.
+
+He entered; the box was crowded; but Lady Flora was not there.  Lord
+Borodaile was sitting next to Lady Westborough.  As Clarence entered,
+Lord Borodaile raised his eyebrows, and Lady Westborough her glass.
+However disposed a great person may be to drop a lesser one, no one of
+real birth or breeding ever cuts another.  Lady Westborough,
+therefore, though much colder, was no less civil than usual; and Lord
+Borodaile bowed lower than ever to Mr. Linden, as he punctiliously
+called him.  But Clarence's quick eye discovered instantly that he was
+no welcome intruder, and that his day with the beautiful marchioness
+was over.  His visit, consequently, was short and embarrassed.  When
+he left the box, he heard Lord Borodaile's short, slow, sneering
+laugh, followed by Lady Westborough's "hush" of reproof.
+
+His blood boiled.  He hurried along the passage, with his eyes fixed
+upon the ground and his hand clenched.
+
+"What ho! Linden, my good fellow; why, you look as if all the ferocity
+of the great Figg were in your veins," cried a good-humoured voice.
+Clarence started, and saw the young and high-spirited Duke of
+Haverfield.
+
+"Are you going behind the scenes?" said his grace.  "I have just come
+thence; and you had much better drop into La Meronville's box with me.
+You sup with her to-night, do you not?
+
+"No, indeed!" replied Clarence; "I scarcely know her, except by
+sight."
+
+"Well, and what think you of her?"
+
+"That she is the prettiest Frenchwoman I ever saw."
+
+"Commend me to secret sympathies!" cried the duke.  "She has asked me
+three times who you were, and told me three times you were the
+handsomest man in London and had quite a foreign air; the latter
+recommendation being of course far greater than the former.  So, after
+this, you cannot refuse to accompany me to her box and make her
+acquaintance."
+
+"Nay," answered Clarence, "I shall be too happy to profit by the taste
+of so discerning a person; but it is cruel in you, Duke, not to feign
+a little jealousy,--a little reluctance to introduce so formidable a
+rival."
+
+"Oh, as to me," said the duke, "I only like her for her mental, not
+her personal, attractions.  She is very agreeable, and a little witty;
+sufficient attractions for one in her situation."
+
+"But do tell me a little of her history," said Clarence, "for, in
+spite of her renown, I only know her as La belle Meronville.  Is she
+not living en ami with some one of our acquaintance?"
+
+"To be sure," replied the duke, "with Lord Borodaile.  She is
+prodigiously extravagant; and Borodaile affects to be prodigiously
+fond: but as there is only a certain fund of affection in the human
+heart, and all Lord Borodaile's is centred in Lord Borodaile, that
+cannot really be the case."
+
+"Is he jealous of her?" said Clarence.
+
+"Not in the least! nor indeed, does she give him any cause.  She is
+very gay, very talkative, gives excellent suppers, and always has her
+box at the Opera crowded with admirers; but that is all.  She
+encourages many, and favours but one.  Happy Borodaile!  My lot is
+less fortunate!  You know, I suppose, that Julia has deserted me?"
+
+"You astonish me,--and for what?"
+
+"Oh, she told me, with a vehement burst of tears, that she was
+convinced I did not love her, and that a hundred pounds a month was
+not sufficient to maintain a milliner's apprentice.  I answered the
+first assertion by an assurance that I adored her: but I preserved a
+total silence with regard to the latter; and so I found Trevanion
+tete-a-tete with her the next day."
+
+"What did you?" said Clarence.
+
+"Sent my valet to Trevanion with an old coat of mine, my compliments,
+and my hopes that, as Mr. Trevanion was so fond of my cast-off
+conveniences, he would honour me by accepting the accompanying
+trifle."
+
+"He challenged you, without doubt?"
+
+"Challenged me!  No: he tells all his friends that I am the wittiest
+man in Europe."
+
+"A fool can speak the truth, you see," said Clarence, laughing.
+
+"Thank you, Linden; you shall have my good word with La Meronville for
+that: mais allons."
+
+Mademoiselle de la Meronville, as she pointedly entitled herself, was
+one of those charming adventuresses, who, making the most of a good
+education and a prepossessing person, a delicate turn for letter-
+writing, and a lively vein of conversation, came to England for a year
+or two, as Spaniards were wont to go to Mexico, and who return to
+their native country with a profound contempt for the barbarians whom
+they have so egregiously despoiled.  Mademoiselle de la Meronville was
+small, beautifully formed, had the prettiest hands and feet in the
+world, and laughed musically.  By the by, how difficult it is to
+laugh, or even to smile, at once naturally and gracefully!  It is one
+of Steele's finest touches of character, where he says of Will
+Honeycombe, "He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily."
+
+In a word, the pretty Frenchwoman was precisely formed to turn the
+head of a man like Lord Borodaile, who loved to be courted and who
+required to be amused.  Mademoiselle de la Meronville received
+Clarence with a great deal of grace, and a little reserve, the first
+chiefly natural, the last wholly artificial.
+
+"Well," said the duke (in French), "you have not told me who are to be
+of your party this evening,--Borodaile, I suppose, of course?"
+
+"No, he cannot come to-night."
+
+"Ah, quel malheur! then the hock will not be iced enough: Borodaile's
+looks are the best wine-coolers in the world."
+
+"Fie!" cried La Meronville, glancing towards Clarence, "I cannot
+endure your malevolence; wit makes you very bitter."
+
+"And that is exactly the reason why La belle Meronville loves me so:
+nothing is so sweet to one person as bitterness upon another; it is
+human nature and French nature (which is a very different thing) into
+the bargain."
+
+"Bah! my Lord Duke, you judge of others by yourself."
+
+"To be sure I do," cried the duke; "and that is the best way of
+forming a right judgment.  Ah! what a foot, that little figurante has;
+you don't admire her, Linden?"
+
+"No, Duke; my admiration is like the bird in the cage,--chained here,
+and cannot fly away!" answered Clarence, with a smile at the frippery
+of his compliment.
+
+"Ah, Monsieur," cried the pretty Frenchwoman, leaning back, "you have
+been at Paris, I see: one does not learn those graces of language in
+England.  I have been five months in your country; brought over the
+prettiest dresses imaginable, and have only received three
+compliments, and (pity me!) two out of the three were upon my
+pronunciation of 'How do you do?'"
+
+"Well," said Clarence, "I should have imagined that in England, above
+all other countries, your vanity would have been gratified, for you
+know we pique ourselves on our sincerity, and say all we think."
+
+"Yes? then you always think very unpleasantly.  What an alternative!
+which is the best, to speak ill or to think ill of one?"
+
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu," cried the duke, "don't ask such puzzling
+questions; "you are always getting into those moral subtleties, which
+I suppose you learn from Borodaile.  He is a wonderful metaphysician,
+I hear; I can answer for his chemical powers: the moment he enters a
+room the very walls grow damp; as for me, I dissolve; I should flow
+into a fountain, like Arethusa, if happily his lordship did not freeze
+one again into substance as fast as he dampens one into thaw."
+
+"Fi donc!" cried La Meronville.  "I should be very angry had you not
+taught me to be very indifferent-"
+
+"To him!" said the duke, dryly.  "I'm glad to hear it.  He is not
+worth une grande passion, believe me; but tell me, ma belle, who else
+sups with you?"
+
+"D'abord, Monsieur Linden, I trust," answered La Meronville, with a
+look of invitation, to which Clarence bowed and smiled his assent,
+"Milord D----, and Monsieur Trevanion, Mademoiselle Caumartin, and Le
+Prince Pietro del Ordino."
+
+"Nothing can be better arranged," said the duke.  "But see, they are
+just going to drop the curtain.  Let me call your carriage."
+
+"You are too good, milord," replied La Meronville, with a bow which
+said, "of course;" and the duke, who would not have stirred three
+paces for the first princess of the blood, hurried out of the box
+(despite of Clarence's offer to undertake the commission) to inquire
+after the carriage of the most notorious adventuress of the day.
+
+Clarence was alone in the box with the beautiful Frenchwoman.  To say
+truth, Linden was far too much in love with Lady Flora, and too
+occupied, as to his other thoughts, with the projects of ambition, to
+be easily led into any disreputable or criminal liaison; he therefore
+conversed with his usual ease, though with rather more than his usual
+gallantry, without feeling the least touched by the charms of La
+Meronville or the least desirous of supplanting Lord Borodaile in her
+favour.
+
+The duke reappeared, and announced the carriage.  As, with La
+Meronville leaning on his arm, Clarence hurried out, he accidentally
+looked up, and saw on the head of the stairs Lady Westborough with her
+party (Lord Borodaile among the rest) in waiting for her carriage.
+For almost the first time in his life, Clarence felt ashamed of
+himself; his cheek burned like fire, and he involuntarily let go the
+fair hand which was leaning upon his arm.  However, the weaker our
+course the better face we should put upon it, and Clarence, recovering
+his presence of mind, and vainly hoping he had not been perceived,
+buried his face as well as he was able in the fur collar of his cloak,
+and hurried on.
+
+"You saw Lord Borodaile?" said the duke to La Meronville, as he handed
+her into her carriage.
+
+"Yes, I accidentally looked back after we had passed him, and then I
+saw him."
+
+"Looked back!" said the duke; "I wonder he did not turn you into a
+pillar of salt."
+
+"Fi donc!" cried La belle Meronville, tapping his grace playfully on
+the arm, in order to do which she was forced to lean a little harder
+upon Clarence's, which she had not yet relinquished--" Fi donc!
+Francois, chez moi!"
+
+"My carriage is just behind," said the duke.  "You will go with me to
+La Meronville's, of course?"
+
+"Really, my dear duke," said Clarence, "I wish I could excuse myself
+from this party.  I have another engagement."
+
+"Excuse yourself? and leave me to the mercy of Mademoiselle Caumartin,
+who has the face of an ostrich, and talks me out of breath!  Never, my
+dear Linden, never!  Besides, I want you to see how well I shall
+behave to Trevanion.  Here is the carriage.  Entrez, mon cher."
+
+And Clarence, weakly and foolishly (but he was very young and very
+unhappy, and so, longing for an escape from his own thoughts) entered
+the carriage, and drove to the supper party, in order to prevent the
+Duke of Haverfield being talked out of breath by Mademoiselle
+Caumartin, who had the face of an ostrich.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+    Yet truth is keenly sought for, and the wind
+    Charged with rich words, poured out in thought's defence;
+    Whether the Church inspire that eloquence,
+    Or a Platonic piety, confined
+    To the sole temple of the inward mind;
+    And one there is who builds immortal lays,
+    Though doomed to tread in solitary ways;
+    Darkness before, and danger's voice behind!
+    Yet not alone--                       WORDSWORTH.
+
+London, thou Niobe, who sittest in stone, amidst thy stricken and
+fated children; nurse of the desolate, that hidest in thy bosom the
+shame, the sorrows, the sins of many sons; in whose arms the fallen
+and the outcast shroud their distresses, and shelter from the proud
+man's contumely; Epitome and Focus of the disparities and maddening
+contrasts of this wrong world, that assemblest together in one great
+heap the woes, the joys, the elevations, the debasements of the
+various tribes of man; mightiest of levellers, confounding in thy
+whirlpool all ranks, all minds, the graven labours of knowledge, the
+straws of the maniac, purple and rags, the regalities and the
+loathsomeness of earth,--palace and lazar-house combined!  Grave of
+the living, where, mingled and massed together, we couch, but rest
+not,--"for in that sleep of life what dreams do come,"--each vexed
+with a separate vision,--"shadows" which "grieve the heart," unreal in
+their substance, but faithful in their warnings, flitting from the
+eye, but graving unfleeting memories on the mind, which reproduce new
+dreams over and over, until the phantasm ceases, and the pall of a
+heavier torpor falls upon the brain, and all is still and dark and
+hushed!  "From the stir of thy great Babel," and the fixed tinsel
+glare in which sits pleasure like a star, "which shines, but warms not
+with its powerless rays," we turn to thy deeper and more secret
+haunts.  Thy wilderness is all before us--where to choose our place of
+rest; and, to our eyes, thy hidden recesses are revealed.
+
+The clock of St. Paul's had tolled the second hour of morning.  Within
+a small and humble apartment in the very heart of the city, there sat
+a writer, whose lucubrations, then obscure and unknown, were destined,
+years afterwards, to excite the vague admiration of the crowd and the
+deeper homage of the wise.  They were of that nature which is slow in
+winning its way to popular esteem; the result of the hived and hoarded
+knowledge of years; the produce of deep thought and sublime
+aspirations, influencing, in its bearings, the interests of the many,
+yet only capable of analysis by the judgment of the few.  But the
+stream broke forth at last from the cavern to the daylight, although
+the source was never traced; or, to change the image,--albeit none
+know the hand which executed and the head which designed, the monument
+of a mighty intellect has been at length dug up, as it were, from the
+envious earth, the brighter for its past obscurity, and the more
+certain of immortality from the temporary neglect it has sustained.
+
+The room was, as we before said, very small, and meanly furnished; yet
+were there a few articles of costliness and luxury scattered about,
+which told that the tastes of its owner had not been quite humbled to
+the level of his fortunes.  One side of the narrow chamber was covered
+with shelves, which supported books in various languages, and though
+chiefly on scientific subjects, not utterly confined to them.  Among
+the doctrines of the philosopher, and the golden rules of the
+moralist, were also seen the pleasant dreams of poets, the legends of
+Spenser, the refining moralities of Pope, the lofty errors of
+Lucretius, and the sublime relics of our "dead kings of melody."
+[Shakspeare and Milton]  And over the hearth was a picture, taken in
+more prosperous days, of one who had been and was yet to the tenant of
+that abode, better than fretted roofs and glittering banquets, the
+objects of ambition, or even the immortality of fame.  It was the face
+of one very young and beautiful, and the deep, tender eyes looked
+down, as with a watchful fondness, upon the lucubrator and his
+labours.  While beneath the window, which was left unclosed, for it
+was scarcely June, were simple yet not inelegant vases, filled with
+flowers,--
+
+    "Those lovely leaves, where we
+     May read how soon things have
+     Their end, though ne'er so brave."  [Herrick]
+
+The writer was alone, and had just paused from his employment; he was
+leaning his face upon one hand, in a thoughtful and earnest mood, and
+the air which came chill, but gentle, from the window, slightly
+stirred the locks from the broad and marked brow, over which they fell
+in thin but graceful waves.  Partly owing perhaps to the waning light
+of the single lamp and the lateness of the hour, his cheek seemed very
+pale, and the complete though contemplative rest of the features
+partook greatly of the quiet of habitual sadness, and a little of the
+languor of shaken health; yet the expression, despite the proud cast
+of the brow and profile, was rather benevolent than stern or dark in
+its pensiveness, and the lines spoke more of the wear and harrow of
+deep thought than the inroads of ill-regulated passion.
+
+There was a slight tap at the door; the latch was raised, and the
+original of the picture I have described entered the apartment.
+
+Time had not been idle with her since that portrait had been taken:
+the round elastic figure had lost much of its youth and freshness; the
+step, though light, was languid, and in the centre of the fair, smooth
+cheek, which was a little sunken, burned one deep bright spot,--fatal
+sign to those who have watched the progress of the most deadly and
+deceitful of our national maladies; yet still the form and countenance
+were eminently interesting and lovely; and though the bloom was gone
+forever, the beauty, which not even death could wholly have despoiled,
+remained to triumph over debility, misfortune, and disease.
+
+She approached the student, and laid her hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"Dearest!" said he, tenderly yet reproachfully, "yet up, and the hour
+so late and yourself so weak?  Fie, I must learn to scold you."
+
+"And how," answered the intruder, "how could I sleep or rest while you
+are consuming your very life in those thankless labours?"
+
+"By which," interrupted the writer, with a faint smile, "we glean our
+scanty subsistence."
+
+"Yes," said the wife (for she held that relation to the student), and
+the tears stood in her eyes, "I know well that every morsel of bread,
+every drop of water, is wrung from your very heart's blood, and I--I
+am the cause of all; but surely you exert yourself too much, more than
+can be requisite?  These night damps, this sickly and chilling air,
+heavy with the rank vapours of the coming morning, are not suited to
+thoughts and toils which are alone sufficient to sear your mind and
+exhaust your strength.  Come, my own love, to bed; and yet first come
+and look upon our child, how sound she sleeps!  I have leaned over her
+for the last hour, and tried to fancy it was you whom I watched, for
+she has learned already your smile and has it even when she sleeps."
+
+"She has cause to smile," said the husband, bitterly.
+
+"She has, for she is yours! and even in poetry and humble hopes, that
+is an inheritance which may well teach her pride and joy.  Come, love,
+the air is keen, and the damp rises to your forehead,--yet stay, till
+I have kissed it away."
+
+"Mine own love," said the student, as he rose and wound his arm round
+the slender waist of his wife, "wrap your shawl closer over your
+bosom, and let us look for one instant upon the night.  I cannot sleep
+till I have slaked the fever of my blood: the air has nothing of
+coldness in its breath for me."
+
+And they walked to the window and looked forth.  All was hushed and
+still in the narrow street; the cold gray clouds were hurrying fast
+along the sky; and the stars, weak and waning in their light, gleamed
+forth at rare intervals upon the mute city, like expiring watch-lamps
+of the dead.
+
+They leaned out and spoke not; but when they looked above upon the
+melancholy heavens, they drew nearer to each other, as if it were
+their natural instinct to do so whenever the world without seemed
+discouraging and sad.
+
+At length the student broke the silence; but his thoughts, which were
+wandering and disjointed, were breathed less to her than vaguely and
+unconsciously to himself.  "Morn breaks,--another and another!--day
+upon day!--while we drag on our load like the blind beast which knows
+not when the burden shall be cast off and the hour of rest be come."
+
+The woman pressed her hand to her bosom, but made no rejoinder--she
+knew his mood--and the student continued,--"And so life frets itself
+away!  Four years have passed over our seclusion--four years! a great
+segment in the little circle of our mortality; and of those years what
+day has pleasure won from labour, or what night has sleep snatched
+wholly from the lamp?  Weaker than the miser, the insatiable and
+restless mind traverses from east to west; and from the nooks, and
+corners, and crevices of earth collects, fragment by fragment, grain
+by grain, atom by atom, the riches which it gathers to its coffers--
+for what?--to starve amidst the plenty!  The fantasies of the
+imagination bring a ready and substantial return: not so the treasures
+of thought.  Better that I had renounced the soul's labour for that of
+its hardier frame--better that I had 'sweated in the eye of Phoebus,'
+than 'eat my heart with crosses and with cares,'--seeking truth and
+wanting bread--adding to the indigence of poverty its humiliation;
+wroth with the arrogance of men, who weigh in the shallow scales of
+their meagre knowledge the product of lavish thought, and of the hard
+hours for which health, and sleep, and spirit have been exchanged;--
+sharing the lot of those who would enchant the old serpent of evil,
+which refuses the voice of the charmer!--struggling against the
+prejudice and bigoted delusion of the bandaged and fettered herd to
+whom, in our fond hopes and aspirations, we trusted to give light and
+freedom; seeing the slavish judgments we would have redeemed from
+error clashing their chains at us in ire;--made criminal by our very
+benevolence;--the martyrs whose zeal is rewarded with persecution,
+whose prophecies are crowned with contempt!--Better, oh, better that I
+had not listened to the vanity of a heated brain--better that I had
+made my home with the lark and the wild bee, among the fields and the
+quiet hills, where life, if obscurer, is less debased, and hope, if
+less eagerly indulged, is less bitterly disappointed.  The frame, it
+is true, might have been bowed to a harsher labour, but the heart
+would at least have had its rest from anxiety, and the mind its
+relaxation from thought."
+
+The wife's tears fell upon the hand she clasped.  The student turned,
+and his heart smote him for the selfishness of his complaint.  He drew
+her closer and closer to his bosom; and gazing fondly upon those eyes
+which years of indigence and care might have robbed of their young
+lustre, but not of their undying tenderness, he kissed away her tears,
+and addressed her in a voice which never failed to charm her grief
+into forgetfulness.
+
+"Dearest and kindest," he said, "was I not to blame for accusing those
+privations or regrets which have only made us love each other the
+more?  Trust me, mine own treasure, that it is only in the peevishness
+of an inconstant and fretful humour that I have murmured against my
+fortune.  For, in the midst of all, I look upon you, my angel, my
+comforter, my young dream of love, which God, in His mercy, breathed
+into waking life--I look upon you, and am blessed and grateful.  Nor
+in my juster moments do I accuse even the nature of these studies,
+though they bring us so scanty a reward.  Have I not hours of secret
+and overflowing delight, the triumphs of gratified research--flashes
+of sudden light, which reward the darkness of thought, and light up my
+solitude as a revel?--These feelings of rapture, which nought but
+Science can afford, amply repay her disciples for worse evils and
+severer handships than it has been my destiny to endure.  Look along
+the sky, how the vapours struggle with the still yet feeble stars:
+even so have the mists of error been pierced, though not scattered, by
+the dim but holy lights of past wisdom, and now the morning is at
+hand, and in that hope we journey on, doubtful, but not utterly in
+darkness.  Nor is this all my hope; there is a loftier and more steady
+comfort than that which mere philosophy can bestow.  If the certainty
+of future fame bore Milton rejoicing through his blindness, or cheered
+Galileo in his dungeon, what stronger and holier support shall not be
+given to him who has loved mankind as his brothers, and devoted his
+labours to their cause?--who has not sought, but relinquished, his own
+renown?---who has braved the present censures of men for their future
+benefit, and trampled upon glory in the energy of benevolence?  Will
+there not be for him something more powerful than fame to comfort his
+sufferings and to sustain his hopes?  If the wish of mere posthumous
+honour be a feeling rather vain than exalted, the love of our race
+affords us a more rational and noble desire of remembrance.  Come what
+will, that love, if it animates our toils and directs our studies,
+shall when we are dust make our relics of value, our efforts of avail,
+and consecrate the desire of fame, which were else a passion selfish
+and impure, by connecting it with the welfare of ages and the eternal
+interests of the world and its Creator!  Come, we will to bed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+A man may be formed by nature for an admirable citizen, and yet, from
+the purest motives, be a dangerous one to the State in which the
+accident of birth has placed him.--STEPHEN MONTAGUE.
+
+The night again closed., and the student once more resumed his
+labours.  The spirit of his hope and comforter of his toils sat by
+him, ever and anon lifting her fond eyes from her work to gaze upon
+his countenance, to sigh, and to return sadly and quietly to her
+employment.
+
+A heavy step ascended the stairs, the door opened, and the tall figure
+of Wolfe, the republican, presented itself.  The female rose, pushed a
+chair towards him with a smile and grace suited to better fortunes,
+and, retiring from the table, reseated herself silent and apart.
+
+"It is a fine night," said the student, when the mutual greetings were
+over.  "Whence come you?"
+
+"From contemplating human misery and worse than human degradation,"
+replied Wolfe, slowly seating himself.
+
+"Those words specify no place: they apply universally," said the
+student, with a sigh.
+
+"Ay, Glendower, for misgovernment is universal," rejoined Wolfe.
+
+Glendower made no answer.
+
+"Oh!" said Wolfe, in the low, suppressed tone of intense passion which
+was customary to him, "it maddens me to look upon the willingness with
+which men hug their trappings of slavery,--bears, proud of the rags
+which deck and the monkeys which ride them.  But it frets me yet more
+when some lordling sweeps along, lifting his dull eyes above the fools
+whose only crime and debasement are--what?--their subjection to him!
+Such a one I encountered a few nights since; and he will remember the
+meeting longer than I shall.  I taught that 'god to tremble.'"
+
+The female rose, glanced towards her husband, and silently withdrew.
+
+Wolfe paused for a few moments, looked curiously and pryingly round,
+and then rising went forth into the passage to see that no loiterer or
+listener was near; returned, and drawing his chair close to Glendower,
+fixed his dark eye upon him, and said,--
+
+"You are poor, and your spirit rises against your lot, you are just,
+and your heart swells against the general oppression you behold: can
+you not dare to remedy your ills and those of mankind?"
+
+"I can dare," said Glendower, calmly, though haughtily, all things but
+crime."
+
+"And which is crime?--the rising against, or the submission to, evil
+government?  Which is crime, I ask you?"
+
+"That which is the most imprudent," answered Glendower.
+
+"We may sport in ordinary cases with our own safeties, but only in
+rare cases with the safety of others."
+
+Wolfe rose, and paced the narrow room impatiently to and fro.  He
+paused by the window and threw it open.  "Come here," he cried,--"come
+and look out."
+
+Glendower did so; all was still and quiet.
+
+"Why did you call me?" said he; "I see nothing."
+
+"Nothing!" exclaimed Wolfe; "look again; look on yon sordid and
+squalid huts; look at yon court, that from this wretched street leads
+to abodes to which these are as palaces; look at yon victims of vice
+and famine, plying beneath the midnight skies their filthy and
+infectious trade.  Wherever you turn your eyes, what see you?  Misery,
+loathsomeness, sin!  Are you a man, and call you these nothing?  And
+now lean forth still more; see afar off, by yonder lamp, the mansion
+of ill-gotten and griping wealth.  He who owns those buildings, what
+did he that he should riot while we starve?  He wrung from the negro's
+tears and bloody sweat the luxuries of a pampered and vitiated taste;
+he pandered to the excesses of the rich; he heaped their tables with
+the product of a nation's groans.  Lo!--his reward!  He is rich,
+prosperous, honoured!  He sits in the legislative assembly; he
+declaims against immorality; he contends for the safety of property
+and the equilibrium of ranks.  Transport yourself from this spot for
+an instant; imagine that you survey the gorgeous homes of aristocracy
+and power, the palaces of the west. What see you there?--the few
+sucking, draining, exhausting the blood, the treasure, the very
+existence of the many.  Are we, who are of the many, wise to suffer
+it?"
+
+"Are we of the many?" said Glendower.
+
+"We could be," said Wolfe, hastily.
+
+"I doubt it;" replied Glendower.
+
+"Listen," said the republican, laying his hand upon Glendower's
+shoulder, "listen to me.  There are in this country men whose spirits
+not years of delayed hope, wearisome persecution, and, bitterer than
+all, misrepresentation from some and contempt from others, have yet
+quelled and tamed.  We watch our opportunity; the growing distress of
+the country, the increasing severity and misrule of the
+administration, will soon afford it us.  Your talents, your
+benevolence, render you worthy to join us.  Do so, and--"
+
+"Hush!" interrupted the student; "you know not what you say: you weigh
+not the folly, the madness of your design!  I am a man more fallen,
+more sunken, more disappointed than you.  I, too, have had at my heart
+the burning and lonely hope which, through years of misfortune and
+want, has comforted me with the thought of serving and enlightening
+mankind,--I, too, have devoted to the fulfilment of that hope, days
+and nights, in which the brain grew dizzy and the heart heavy and
+clogged with the intensity of my pursuits.  Were the dungeon and the
+scaffold my reward Heaven knows that I would not flinch eye or hand or
+abate a jot of heart and hope in the thankless prosecution of my
+toils.  Know me, then, as one of fortunes more desperate than your
+own; of an ambition more unquenchable; of a philanthropy no less
+ardent; and, I will add, of a courage no less firm: and behold the
+utter hopelessness of your projects with others, when to me they only
+appear the visions of an enthusiast."
+
+Wolfe sank down in the chair.
+
+"Is it even so?" said he, slowly and musingly.  "Are my hopes but
+delusions?  Has my life been but one idle, though convulsive dream?
+Is the goddess of our religion banished from this great and populous
+earth to the seared and barren hearts of a few solitary worshippers,
+whom all else despise as madmen or persecute as idolaters?  And if so,
+shall we adore her the less?---No! though we perish in her cause, it
+is around her altar that our corpses shall be found!"
+
+"My friend," said Glendower, kindly, for he was touched by the
+sincerity though opposed to the opinions of the republican, "the night
+is yet early: we will sit down to discuss our several doctrines calmly
+and in the spirit of truth and investigation."
+
+"Away!" cried Wolfe, rising and slouching his hat over his bent and
+lowering brows; "away!  I will not listen to you: I dread your
+reasonings; I would not have a particle of my faith shaken.  If I err,
+I have erred from my birth,--erred with Brutus and Tell, Hampden and
+Milton, and all whom the thousand tribes and parties of earth
+consecrate with their common gratitude and eternal reverence.  In that
+error I will die!  If our party can struggle not with hosts, there may
+yet arise some minister with the ambition of Caesar, if not his
+genius,--of whom a single dagger can rid the earth!"
+
+"And if not?" said Glendower.
+
+"I have the same dagger for myself!" replied Wolfe, as he closed the
+door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+Bolingbroke has said that "Man is his own sharper and his own bubble;"
+and certainly he who is acutest in duping others is ever the most
+ingenious in outwitting himself.  The criminal is always a sophist;
+and finds in his own reason a special pleader to twist laws human and
+divine into a sanction of his crime.  The rogue is so much in the
+habit of cheating, that he packs the cards even when playing at
+Patience with himself.--STEPHEN MONTAGUE.
+
+The only two acquaintances in this populous city whom Glendower
+possessed who were aware that in a former time he had known a better
+fortune were Wolfe and a person of far higher worldly estimation, of
+the name of Crauford.  With the former the student had become
+acquainted by the favour of chance, which had for a short time made
+them lodgers in the same house.  Of the particulars of Glendower's
+earliest history Wolfe was utterly ignorant; but the addresses upon
+some old letters, which he had accidentally seen, had informed him
+that Glendower had formerly borne another name; and it was easy to
+glean from the student's conversation that something of greater
+distinction and prosperity than he now enjoyed was coupled with the
+appellation he had renounced.  Proud, melancholy, austere,--brooding
+upon thoughts whose very loftiness received somewhat of additional
+grandeur from the gloom which encircled it,--Glendower found, in the
+ruined hopes and the solitary lot of the republican, that congeniality
+which neither Wolfe's habits nor the excess of his political fervour
+might have afforded to a nature which philosophy had rendered moderate
+and early circumstances refined.  Crauford was far better acquainted
+than Wolfe with the reverses Glendower had undergone.  Many years ago
+he had known and indeed travelled with him upon the Continent; since
+then they had not met till about six months prior to the time in which
+Glendower is presented to the reader.  It was in an obscure street of
+the city that Crauford had then encountered Glendower, whose haunts
+were so little frequented by the higher orders of society that
+Crauford was the first, and the only one of his former acquaintance
+with whom for years he had been brought into contact.  That person
+recognized him at once, accosted him, followed him home, and three
+days afterwards surprised him with a visit.  Of manners which, in
+their dissimulation, extended far beyond the ordinary ease and
+breeding of the world, Crauford readily appeared not to notice the
+altered circumstances of his old acquaintance; and, by a tone of
+conversation artfully respectful, he endeavoured to remove from
+Glendower's mind that soreness which his knowledge of human nature
+told him his visit was calculated to create.
+
+There is a certain species of pride which contradicts the ordinary
+symptoms of the feeling, and appears most elevated when it would be
+reasonable to expect it should be most depressed.  Of this sort was
+Glendower's.  When he received the guest who had known him in his
+former prosperity, some natural sentiment of emotion called, it is
+true, to his pale cheek a momentary flush, as he looked round his
+humble apartment, and the evident signs of poverty it contained; but
+his address was calm and self-possessed, and whatever mortification he
+might have felt, no intonation of his voice, no tell-tale
+embarrassment of manner, revealed it.  Encouraged by this air, even
+while he was secretly vexed by it, and perfectly unable to do justice
+to the dignity of mind which gave something of majesty rather than
+humiliation to misfortune, Crauford resolved to repeat his visit, and
+by intervals, gradually lessening, renewed it, till acquaintance
+seemed, though little tinctured, at least on Glendower's side, by
+friendship, to assume the semblance of intimacy.  It was true,
+however, that he had something to struggle against in Glendower's
+manner, which certainly grew colder in proportion to the repetition of
+the visits; and at length Glendower said, with an ease and quiet which
+abashed for a moment an effrontery of mind and manner which was almost
+parallel, "Believe me, Mr. Crauford, I feel fully sensible of your
+attentions; but as circumstances at present are such as to render an
+intercourse between us little congenial to the habits and sentiments
+of either, you will probably understand and forgive my motives in
+wishing no longer to receive civilities which, however I may feel
+them, I am unable to return."
+
+Crauford coloured and hesitated before he replied.  "Forgive me then,"
+said he, "for my fault.  I did venture to hope that no circumstances
+would break off an acquaintance to me so valuable.  Forgive me if I
+did imagine that an intercourse between mind and mind could be equally
+carried on, whether the mere body were lodged in a palace or a hovel;"
+and then suddenly changing his tone into that of affectionate warmth,
+Crauford continued, "My dear Glendower, my dear friend, I would say,
+if I durst, is not your pride rather to blame here?  Believe me, in my
+turn, I fully comprehend and bow to it; but it wounds me beyond
+expression.  Were you in your proper station, a station much higher
+than my own, I would come to you at once, and proffer my friendship:
+as it is, I cannot; but your pride wrongs me, Glendower,--indeed it
+does."
+
+And Crauford turned away, apparently in the bitterness of wounded
+feeling.
+
+Glendower was touched: and his nature, as kind as it was proud,
+immediately smote him for conduct certainly ungracious and perhaps
+ungrateful.  He held out his hand to Crauford; with the most
+respectful warmth that personage seized and pressed it: and from that
+time Crauford's visits appeared to receive a license which, if not
+perfectly welcome, was at least never again questioned.
+
+"I shall have this man now," muttered Crauford, between his ground
+teeth, as he left the house, and took his way to his counting-house.
+There, cool, bland, fawning, and weaving in his close and dark mind
+various speculations of guilt and craft, he sat among his bills and
+gold, like the very gnome and personification of that Mammon of gain
+to which he was the most supple though concealed adherent.
+
+Richard Crauford was of a new but not unimportant family.  His father
+had entered into commerce, and left a flourishing firm and a name of
+great respectability in his profession to his son.  That son was a man
+whom many and opposite qualities rendered a character of very singular
+and uncommon stamp.  Fond of the laborious acquisition of money, he
+was equally attached to the ostentatious pageantries of expense.
+Profoundly skilled in the calculating business of his profession, he
+was devoted equally to the luxuries of pleasure; but the pleasure was
+suited well to the mind which pursued it.  The divine intoxication of
+that love where the delicacies and purities of affection consecrate
+the humanity of passion was to him a thing of which not even his
+youngest imagination had ever dreamed.  The social concomitants of the
+wine-cup (which have for the lenient an excuse, for the austere a
+temptation), the generous expanding of the heart, the increased
+yearning to kindly affection, the lavish spirit throwing off its
+exuberance in the thousand lights and emanations of wit,--these, which
+have rendered the molten grape, despite of its excesses, not unworthy
+of the praises of immortal hymns, and taken harshness from the
+judgment of those averse to its enjoyment,--these never presented an
+inducement to the stony temperament and dormant heart of Richard
+Crauford.
+
+He looked upon the essences of things internal as the common eye upon
+outward nature, and loved the many shapes of evil as the latter does
+the varieties of earth, not for their graces, but their utility.  His
+loves, coarse and low, fed their rank fires from an unmingled and
+gross depravity.  His devotion to wine was either solitary and unseen--
+for he loved safety better than mirth--or in company with those whose
+station flattered his vanity, not whose fellowship ripened his crude
+and nipped affections.  Even the recklessness of vice in him had the
+character of prudence; and in the most rapid and turbulent stream of
+his excesses, one might detect the rocky and unmoved heart of the
+calculator at the bottom.
+
+Cool, sagacious, profound in dissimulation, and not only observant of,
+but deducing sage consequences from, those human inconsistencies and
+frailties by which it was his aim to profit, he cloaked his deeper
+vices with a masterly hypocrisy; and for those too dear to forego and
+too difficult to conceal he obtained pardon by the intercession of
+virtues it cost him nothing to assume.  Regular in his attendance at
+worship; professing rigidness of faith beyond the tenets of the
+orthodox church; subscribing to the public charities, where the common
+eye knoweth what the private hand giveth; methodically constant to the
+forms of business; primitively scrupulous in the proprieties of
+speech; hospitable, at least to his superiors, and, being naturally
+smooth, both of temper and address, popular with his inferiors,--it
+was no marvel that one part of the world forgave to a man rich and
+young the irregularities of dissipation, that another forgot real
+immorality in favour of affected religion, or that the remainder
+allowed the most unexceptionable excellence of words to atone for the
+unobtrusive errors of a conduct which did not prejudice them.
+
+"It is true," said his friends, "that he loves women too much: but he
+is young; he will marry and amend."
+
+Mr. Crauford did marry; and, strange as it may seem, for love,--at
+least for that brute-like love, of which alone he was capable.  After
+a few years of ill-usage on his side, and endurance on his wife's,
+they parted.  Tired of her person, and profiting by her gentleness of
+temper, he sent her to an obscure corner of the country, to starve
+upon the miserable pittance which was all he allowed her from his
+superfluities.  Even then--such is the effect of the showy proprieties
+of form and word--Mr. Crauford sank not in the estimation of the
+world.
+
+"It was easy to see," said the spectators of his domestic drama, "that
+a man in temper so mild, in his business so honourable, so civil of
+speech, so attentive to the stocks and the sermon, could not have been
+the party to blame.  One never knew the rights of matrimonial
+disagreements, nor could sufficiently estimate the provoking
+disparities of temper.  Certainly Mrs. Crauford never did look in good
+humour, and had not the open countenance of her husband; and certainly
+the very excesses of Mr. Crauford betokened a generous warmth of
+heart, which the sullenness of his conjugal partner might easily chill
+and revolt."
+
+And thus, unquestioned and unblamed, Mr. Crauford walked onward in his
+beaten way; and, secretly laughing at the toleration of the crowd,
+continued at his luxurious villa the orgies of a passionless yet
+brutal sensuality.
+
+So far might the character of Richard Crauford find parallels in
+hypocrisy and its success.  Dive we now deeper into his soul.
+Possessed of talents which, though of a secondary rank, were in that
+rank consummate, Mr. Crauford could not be a villain by intuition or
+the irregular bias of his nature: he was a villain upon a grander
+scale; he was a villain upon system.  Having little learning and less
+knowledge, out of his profession his reflection expended itself upon
+apparently obvious deductions from the great and mysterious book of
+life.  He saw vice prosperous in externals, and from this sight his
+conclusion was drawn.  "Vice," said he, "is not an obstacle to
+success; and if so, it is at least a pleasanter road to it than your
+narrow and thorny ways of virtue."  But there are certain vices which
+require the mask of virtue, and Crauford thought it easier to wear the
+mask than to school his soul to the reality.  So to the villain he
+added the hypocrite.  He found the success equalled his hopes, for he
+had both craft and genius; nor was he naturally without the minor
+amiabilities, which to the ignorance of the herd seem more valuable
+than coin of a more important amount.  Blinded as we are by prejudice,
+we not only mistake but prefer decencies to moralities; and, like the
+inhabitants of Cos, when offered the choice of two statues of the same
+goddess, we choose, not that which is the most beautiful, but that
+which is the most dressed.
+
+Accustomed easily to dupe mankind, Crauford soon grew to despise them;
+and from justifying roguery by his own interest, he now justified it
+by the folly of others; and as no wretch is so unredeemed as to be
+without excuse to himself, Crauford actually persuaded his reason that
+he was vicious upon principle, and a rascal on a system of morality.
+But why the desire of this man, so consummately worldly and heartless,
+for an intimacy with the impoverished and powerless student?  This
+question is easily answered.  In the first place, during Crauford's
+acquaintance with Glendower abroad, the latter had often, though
+innocently, galled the vanity and self-pride of the parvenu affecting
+the aristocrat, and in poverty the parvenu was anxious to retaliate.
+But this desire would probably have passed away after he had satisfied
+his curiosity, or gloated his spite, by one or two insights into
+Glendower's home,--for Crauford, though at times a malicious, was not
+a vindictive, man,--had it not been for a much more powerful object
+which afterwards occurred to him.  In an extensive scheme of fraud,
+which for many years this man had carried on and which for secrecy and
+boldness was almost unequalled, it had of late become necessary to his
+safety to have a partner, or rather tool.  A man of education, talent,
+and courage was indispensable, and Crauford had resolved that
+Glendower should be that man.  With the supreme confidence in his own
+powers which long success had given him; with a sovereign contempt
+for, or rather disbelief in, human integrity; and with a thorough
+conviction that the bribe to him was the bribe with all, and that none
+would on any account be poor if they had the offer to be rich,--
+Crauford did not bestow a moment's consideration upon the difficulty
+of his task, or conceive that in the nature and mind of Glendower
+there could exist any obstacle to his design.
+
+Men addicted to calculation are accustomed to suppose those employed
+in the same mental pursuit arrive, or ought to arrive, at the same
+final conclusion.  Now, looking upon Glendower as a philosopher,
+Crauford looked upon him as a man who, however he might conceal his
+real opinions, secretly laughed, like Crauford's self, not only at the
+established customs, but at the established moralities of the world.
+Ill-acquainted with books, the worthy Richard was, like all men
+similarly situated, somewhat infected by the very prejudices he
+affected to despise; and he shared the vulgar disposition to doubt the
+hearts of those who cultivate the head.  Glendower himself had
+confirmed this opinion by lauding, though he did not entirely
+subscribe to, those moralists who have made an enlightened self-
+interest the proper measure of all human conduct; and Crauford,
+utterly unable to comprehend this system in its grand, naturally
+interpreted it in a partial, sense.  Espousing self-interest as his
+own code, he deemed that in reality Glendower's principles did not
+differ greatly from his; and, as there is no pleasure to a hypocrite
+like that of finding a fit opportunity to unburden some of his real
+sentiments, Crauford was occasionally wont to hold some conference and
+argument with the student, in which his opinions were not utterly
+cloaked in their usual disguise; but cautious even in his candour, he
+always forbore stating such opinions as his own: he merely mentioned
+them as those which a man beholding the villanies and follies of his
+kind, might be tempted to form; and thus Glendower, though not greatly
+esteeming his acquaintance, looked upon him as one ignorant in his
+opinions, but not likely to err in his conduct.
+
+These conversations did, however, it is true, increase Crauford's
+estimate of Glendower's integrity, but they by no means diminished his
+confidence of subduing it.  Honour, a deep and pure sense of the
+divinity of good, the steady desire of rectitude, and the supporting
+aid of a sincere religion,--these he did not deny to his intended
+tool: he rather rejoiced that he possessed them.  With the profound
+arrogance, the sense of immeasurable superiority, which men of no
+principle invariably feel for those who have it, Crauford said to
+himself, "Those very virtues will be my best dupes; they cannot resist
+the temptations I shall offer; but they can resist any offer to betray
+me afterwards; for no man can resist hunger: but your fine feelings,
+your nice honour, your precise religion,--he! he! he!--these can teach
+a man very well to resist a common inducement; they cannot make him
+submit to be his own executioner; but they can prevent his turning
+king's evidence and being executioner to another.  No, no: it is not
+to your common rogues that I may dare trust my secret,--my secret,
+which is my life!  It is precisely of such a fine, Athenian, moral
+rogue as I shall make my proud friend that I am in want.  But he has
+some silly scruples; we must beat them away: we must not be too rash;
+and above all, we must leave the best argument to poverty.  Want is
+your finest orator; a starving wife, a famished brat,--he! he!--these
+are your true tempters,--your true fathers of crime, and fillers of
+jails and gibbets.  Let me see: he has no money, I know, but what he
+gets from that bookseller.  What bookseller, by the by?  Ah, rare
+thought!  I'll find out, and cut off that supply.  My lady wife's
+cheek will look somewhat thinner next month, I fancy--he! he!  But 't
+is a pity, for she is a glorious creature!  Who knows but I may serve
+two purposes?  However, one at present! business first, and pleasure
+afterwards; and, faith, the business is damnably like that of life and
+death."
+
+Muttering such thoughts as these, Crauford took his way one evening to
+Glendower's house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+Iago.--Virtue; a fig!--'t is in ourselves that we are thus and thus.--
+Othello.
+
+"So, so, my little one, don't let me disturb you.  Madam, dare I
+venture to hope your acceptance of this fruit?  I chose it myself, and
+I am somewhat of a judge.  Oh! Glendower, here is the pamphlet you
+wished to see."
+
+With this salutation, Crauford drew his chair to the table by which
+Glendower sat, and entered into conversation with his purposed victim.
+A comely and a pleasing countenance had Richard Crauford! the lonely
+light of the room fell upon a face which, though forty years of guile
+had gone over it, was as fair and unwrinkled as a boy's.  Small, well-
+cut features; a blooming complexion; eyes of the lightest blue; a
+forehead high, though narrow; and a mouth from which the smile was
+never absent,--these, joined to a manner at once soft and confident,
+and an elegant though unaffected study of dress, gave to Crauford a
+personal appearance well suited to aid the effect of his hypocritical
+and dissembling mind.
+
+"Well, my friend," said he, "always at your books, eh?  Ah! it is a
+happy taste; would that I had cultivated it more; but we who are
+condemned to business have little leisure to follow our own
+inclinations.  It is only on Sundays that I have time to read; and
+then (to say truth) I am an old-fashioned man, whom the gayer part of
+the world laughs at, and then I am too occupied with the Book of Books
+to think of any less important study."
+
+Not deeming that a peculiar reply was required to this pious speech,
+Glendower did not take that advantage of Crauford's pause which it was
+evidently intended that he should.  With a glance towards the
+student's wife, our mercantile friend continued: "I did once--once in
+my young dreams--intend that whenever I married I would relinquish a
+profession for which, after all, I am but little calculated.  I
+pictured to myself a country retreat, well stored with books; and
+having concentrated in one home all the attractions which would have
+tempted my thoughts abroad, I had designed to surrender myself solely
+to those studies which, I lament to say, were but ill attended to in
+my earlier education.  But--but" (here Mr. Crauford sighed deeply, and
+averted his face) "fate willed it otherwise!"
+
+Whatever reply of sympathetic admiration or condolence Glendower might
+have made was interrupted by one of those sudden and overpowering
+attacks of faintness which had of late seized the delicate and
+declining health of his wife.  He rose, and leaned over her with a
+fondness and alarm which curled the lip of his visitor.
+
+"Thus it is," said Crauford to himself, "with weak minds, under the
+influence of habit.  The love of lust becomes the love of custom, and
+the last is as strong as the first."
+
+When--she had recovered, she rose, and (with her child) retired to
+rest, the only restorative she ever found effectual for her complaint.
+Glendower went with her, and, after having seen her eyes, which swam
+with tears of gratitude at his love, close in the seeming slumber she
+affected in order to release him from his watch, he returned to
+Crauford.  He found that gentleman leaning against the chimney-piece
+with folded arms, and apparently immersed in thought.  A very good
+opportunity had Glendower's absence afforded to a man whose boast it
+was never to lose one.  Looking over the papers on the table, he had
+seen and possessed himself of the address of the bookseller the
+student dealt with.  "So much for business, now for philanthropy,"
+said Mr. Crauford, in his favorite antithetical phrase, throwing
+himself in his attitude against the chimney-piece.
+
+As Glendower entered, Crauford started from his revery, and with a
+melancholy air and pensive voice said,--
+
+"Alas, my friend, when I look upon this humble apartment, the weak
+health of your unequalled wife, your obscurity, your misfortunes; when
+I look upon these, and contrast them with your mind, your talents, and
+all that you were born and fitted for, I cannot but feel tempted to
+believe with those who imagine the pursuit of virtue a chimera, and
+who justify their own worldly policy by the example of all their
+kind."
+
+"Virtue," said Glendower, "would indeed be a chimera, did it require
+support from those whom you have cited."
+
+"True,--most true," answered Crauford, somewhat disconcerted in
+reality, though not in appearance; "and yet, strange as it may seem, I
+have known some of those persons very good, admirably good men.  They
+were extremely moral and religious: they only played the great game
+for worldly advantage upon the same terms as the other players; nay,
+they never made a move in it without most fervently and sincerely
+praying for divine assistance."
+
+"I readily believe you," said Glendower, who always, if possible,
+avoided a controversy: "the easiest person to deceive is one's own
+self."
+
+"Admirably said," answered Crauford, who thought it nevertheless one
+of the most foolish observations he had ever heard, "admirably said!
+and yet my heart does grieve bitterly for the trials and distresses it
+surveys.  One must make excuses for poor human frailty; and one is
+often placed in such circumstances as to render it scarcely possible
+without the grace of God" (here Crauford lifted up his eyes) "not to
+be urged, as it were, into the reasonings and actions of the world."
+
+Not exactly comprehending this observation, and not very closely
+attending to it, Glendower merely bowed, as in assent, and Crauford
+continued,--
+
+"I remember a remarkable instance of this truth.  One of my partner's
+clerks had, through misfortune or imprudence, fallen into the greatest
+distress.  His wife, his children (he had a numerous family), were on
+the literal and absolute verge of starvation.  Another clerk, taking
+advantage of these circumstances, communicated to the distressed man a
+plan for defrauding his employer.  The poor fellow yielded to the
+temptation, and was at last discovered.  I spoke to him myself, for I
+was interested in his fate, and had always esteemed him.  'What,' said
+I, 'was your motive for this fraud?'  'My duty!' answered the man,
+fervently; 'my duty!  Was I to suffer my wife, my children, to starve
+before my face, when I could save them at a little personal risk?  No:
+my duty forbade it!' and in truth, Glendower, there was something very
+plausible in this manner of putting the question."
+
+"You might, in answering it," said Glendower, "have put the point in a
+manner equally plausible and more true: was he to commit a great crime
+against the millions connected by social order, for the sake of
+serving a single family, and that his own?"
+
+"Quite right," answered Crauford: "that was just the point of view in
+which I did put it; but the man, who was something of a reasoner,
+replied, 'Public law is instituted for public happiness.  Now if mine
+and my children's happiness is infinitely and immeasurably more served
+by this comparatively petty fraud than my employer's is advanced by my
+abstaining from, or injured by my committing it, why, the origin of
+law itself allows me to do it.'  What say you to that, Glendower?  It
+is something in your Utilitarian, or, as you term it, Epicurean [See
+the article on Mr. Moore's "Epicurean" in the "Westminster Review."
+Though the strictures on that work are harsh and unjust, yet the part
+relating to the real philosophy of Epicurus is one of the most
+masterly things in criticism.] principle; is it not?" and Crauford,
+shading his eyes, as if from the light, watched narrowly Glendower's
+countenance, while he concealed his own.
+
+"Poor fool!" said Glendower; "the man was ignorant of the first lesson
+in his moral primer.  Did he not know that no rule is to be applied to
+a peculiar instance, but extended to its most general bearings?  Is it
+necessary even to observe that the particular consequence of fraud in
+this man might, it is true, be but the ridding his employer of
+superfluities, scarcely missed, for the relief of most urgent want in
+two or three individuals; but the general consequences of fraud and
+treachery would be the disorganization of all society?  Do not think,
+therefore, that this man was a disciple of my, or of any, system of
+morality."
+
+"It is very just, very," said Mr. Crauford, with a benevolent sigh;
+"but you will own that want seldom allows great nicety in moral
+distinctions, and that when those whom you love most in the world are
+starving, you may be pitied, if not forgiven, for losing sight of the
+after laws of Nature and recurring to her first ordinance, self-
+preservation."
+
+"We should be harsh, indeed," answered Glendower, "if we did not pity;
+or, even while the law condemned, if the individual did not forgive."
+
+"So I said, so I said," cried Crauford; "and in interceding for the
+poor fellow, whose pardon I am happy to say I procured, I could not
+help declaring that, if I were placed in the same circumstances, I am
+not sure that my crime would not have been the same."
+
+"No man could feel sure!" said Glendower, dejectedly.  Delighted and
+surprised with this confession, Crauford continued: "I believe,--I
+fear not; thank God, our virtue can never be so tried: but even you,
+Glendower, even you, philosopher, moralist as you are,--just, good,
+wise, religious,--even you might be tempted, if you saw your angel
+wife dying for want of the aid, the very sustenance, necessary to
+existence, and your innocent and beautiful daughter stretch her little
+hands to you and cry in the accents of famine for bread."
+
+The student made no reply for a few moments, but averted his
+countenance, and then in a slow tone said, "Let us drop this subject:
+none know their strength till they are tried; self-confidence should
+accompany virtue, but not precede it."
+
+A momentary flash broke from the usually calm, cold eye of Richard
+Crauford.  "He is mine," thought he: "the very name of want abases his
+pride: what will the reality do?  O human nature, how I know and mock
+thee!"
+
+"You are right," said Crauford, aloud; "let us talk of the pamphlet."
+
+And after a short conversation upon indifferent subjects, the visitor
+departed.  Early the next morning was Mr. Crauford seen on foot,
+taking his way to the bookseller whose address he had learnt.  The
+bookseller was known as a man of a strongly evangelical bias.  "We
+must insinuate a lie or two," said Crauford, inly, "about Glendower's
+principles.  He! he! it will be a fine stroke of genius to make the
+upright tradesman suffer Glendower to starve out of a principle of
+religion.  But who would have thought my prey had been so easily
+snared? why, if I had proposed the matter last night, I verily think
+he would have agreed to it."
+
+Amusing himself with these thoughts, Crauford arrived at the
+bookseller's.  There he found Fate had saved him from one crime at
+least. The whole house was in confusion: the bookseller had that
+morning died of an apoplectic fit.
+
+"Good God! how shocking!" said Crauford to the foreman; but he was a
+most worthy man, and Providence could no longer spare him.  The ways
+of Heaven are inscrutable!  Oblige me with three copies of that
+precious tract termed the 'Divine Call.'  I should like to be allowed
+permission to attend the funeral of so excellent a man.  Good morning,
+sir.  Alas! alas!" and, shaking his head piteously, Mr. Crauford left
+the shop.
+
+"Hurra!" said he, almost audibly, when he was once more in the street,
+"hurra! my victim is made; my game is won: death or the devil fights
+for me.  But, hold: there are other booksellers in this monstrous
+city!--ay, but not above two or three in our philosopher's way.  I
+must forestall him there,--so, so,--that is soon settled.  Now, then,
+I must leave him a little while, undisturbed, to his fate.  Perhaps my
+next visit may be to him in jail: your debtor's side of the Fleet is
+almost as good a pleader as an empty stomach,--he! he! He!--but the
+stroke must be made soon, for time presses, and this d--d business
+spreads so fast that if I don't have a speedy help, it will be too
+much for my hands, griping as they are.  However, if it holds on a
+year longer, I will change my seat in the Lower House for one in the
+Upper; twenty thousand pounds to the minister may make a merchant a
+very pretty peer.  O brave Richard Crauford, wise Richard Crauford,
+fortunate Richard Crauford, noble Richard Crauford!  Why, if thou art
+ever hanged, it will be by a jury of peers.  'Gad, the rope would then
+have a dignity in it, instead of disgrace.  But stay, here comes the
+Dean of ----; not orthodox, it is said,--rigid Calvinist! out with the
+'Divine Call'!"
+
+When Mr. Richard Crauford repaired next to Glendower, what was his
+astonishment and dismay at hearing he had left his home, none knew
+whither nor could give the inquirer the slightest clew.
+
+"How long has he left?" said Crauford to the landlady.
+
+"Five days, sir."
+
+"And will he not return to settle any little debts he may have
+incurred?" said Crauford.
+
+"Oh, no, sir: he paid them all before he went.  Poor gentleman,--for
+though he was poor, he was the finest and most thorough gentleman I
+ever saw!--my heart bled for him.  They parted with all their
+valuables to discharge their debts: the books and instruments and
+busts,--all went; and what I saw, though he spoke so indifferently
+about it, hurt him the most,--he sold even the lady's picture.  'Mrs.
+Croftson,' said he, 'Mr. ----, the painter, will send for that picture
+the day after I leave you.  See that he has it, and that the greatest
+care is taken of it in delivery.'"
+
+"And you cannot even guess where he has gone to?"
+
+"No, sir; a single porter was sufficient to convey his remaining
+goods, and he took him from some distant part of the town."
+
+"Ten thousand devils!" muttered Crauford, as he turned away; "I should
+have foreseen this!  He is lost now.  Of course he will again change
+his name; and in the d--d holes and corners of this gigantic puzzle of
+houses, how shall I ever find him out? and time presses too!  Well,
+well, well! there is a fine prize for being cleverer, or, as fools
+would say, more rascally than others; but there is a world of trouble
+in winning it.  But come; I will go home, lock myself up, and get
+drunk!  I am as melancholy as a cat in love, and about as stupid; and,
+faith, one must get spirits in order to hit on a new invention.  But
+if there be consistency in fortune, or success in perseverance, or wit
+in Richard Crauford, that man shall yet be my victim--and preserver!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+    Revenge is now the cud
+    That I do chew.--I'll challenge him.
+                            BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
+
+We return to "the world of fashion," as the admirers of the polite
+novel of would say.  The noon-day sun broke hot and sultry through
+half-closed curtains of roseate silk, playing in broken beams upon
+rare and fragrant exotics, which cast the perfumes of southern summers
+over a chamber, moderate, indeed, as to its dimensions, but decorated
+with a splendour rather gaudy than graceful, and indicating much more
+a passion for luxury than a refinement of taste.
+
+At a small writing-table sat the beautiful La Meronville.  She had
+just finished a note, written (how Jean Jacques would have been
+enchanted) upon paper couleur de rose, with a mother-of-pearl pen,
+formed as one of Cupid's darts, dipped into an ink-stand of the same
+material, which was shaped as a quiver, and placed at the back of a
+little Love, exquisitely wrought.  She was folding this billet when a
+page, fantastically dressed, entered, and, announcing Lord Borodaile,
+was immediately followed by that nobleman.  Eagerly and almost
+blushingly did La Meronville thrust the note into her bosom, and
+hasten to greet and to embrace her adorer.  Lord Borodaile flung
+himself on one of the sofas with a listless and discontented air.  The
+experienced Frenchwoman saw that there was a cloud on his brow.
+
+"My dear friend," said she, in her own tongue, "you seem vexed: has
+anything annoyed you?"
+
+"No, Cecile, no.  By the by, who supped with you last night?"
+
+"Oh! the Duke of Haverfield, your friend."
+
+"My friend!" interrupted Borodaile, haughtily: "he's no friend of
+mine; a vulgar, talkative fellow; my friend, indeed!"
+
+"Well, I beg your pardon: then there was Mademoiselle Caumartin, and
+the Prince Pietro del Orbino, and Mr. Trevanion, and Mr. Lin--Lin--
+Linten, or Linden."
+
+"And pray, will you allow me to ask how you became acquainted with Mr.
+Lin--Lin--Linten, or Linden?"
+
+"Assuredly; through the Duke of Haverfield."
+
+"Humph! Cecile, my love, that young man is not fit to be the
+acquaintance of my friend: allow me to strike him from your list."
+
+"Certainly, certainly!" said La Meronville, hastily; and stooping as
+if to pick up a fallen glove, though, in reality, to hide her face
+from Lord Borodaile's searching eye, the letter she had written fell
+from her bosom.  Lord Borodaile's glance detected the superscription,
+and before La Meronville could regain the note he had possessed
+himself of it.
+
+"A Monsieur, Monsieur Linden!" said he, coldly, reading the address;
+"and, pray, how long have you corresponded with that gentleman?"
+
+Now La Meronville's situation at that moment was by no means
+agreeable.  She saw at one glance that no falsehood or artifice could
+avail her; for Lord Borodaile might deem himself fully justified in
+reading the note, which would contradict any glossing statement she
+might make.  She saw this.  She was a woman of independence; cared not
+a straw for Lord Borodaile at present, though she had had a caprice
+for him; knew that she might choose her bon ami out of all London, and
+replied,--
+
+"That is the first letter I ever wrote to him; but I own that it will
+not be the last."
+
+Lord Borodaile turned pale.
+
+"And will you suffer me to read it?" said he; for even in these cases
+he was punctiliously honourable.
+
+La Meronville hesitated.  She did not know him.  "If I do not
+consent," thought she, "he will do it without the consent: better
+submit with a good grace.--Certainly!" she  answered, with an air of
+indifference.
+
+Borodaile opened and read the note; it was as follows:--
+
+You have inspired me with a feeling for you which astonishes myself.
+Ah, why should that love be the strongest which is the swiftest in its
+growth?  I used to love Lord Borodaile: I now only esteem him; the
+love has flown to you.  If I judge rightly from your words and your
+eyes, this avowal will not be unwelcome to you.  Come and assure me,
+in person, of a persuasion so dear to my heart.           C. L. M.
+
+"A very pretty effusion!" said Lord Borodaile, sarcastically, and only
+showing his inward rage by the increasing paleness of his complexion
+and a slight compression of his lip.  "I thank you for your confidence
+in me.  All I ask is that you will not send this note till to-morrow.
+Allow me to take my leave of you first, and to find in Mr. Linden a
+successor rather than a rival."
+
+"Your request, my friend," said La Meronville, adjusting her hair, "is
+but reasonable.  I see that you understand these arrangements; and,
+for my part, I think that the end of love should always be the
+beginning of friendship: let it be so with us!"
+
+"You do me too much honour," said Borodaile, bowing profoundly.
+"Meanwhile I depend upon your promise, and bid you, as a lover,
+farewell forever."
+
+With his usual slow step Lord Borodaile descended the stairs, and
+walked towards the central quartier of town.  His meditations were of
+no soothing nature.  "To be seen by that man in a ridiculous and
+degrading situation; to be pestered with his d--d civility; to be
+rivalled by him with Lady Flora; to be duped and outdone by him with
+my mistress!  Ay, all this have I been; but vengeance shall come yet.
+As for La Meronville, the loss is a gain; and, thank Heaven, I did not
+betray myself by venting my passion and making a scene.  But it was I.
+who ought to have discarded her, not the reverse; and--death and
+confusion--for that upstart, above all men!  And she talked in her
+letter about his eyes and words.  Insolent coxcomb, to dare to have
+eyes and words for one who belonged to me.  Well, well, he shall smart
+for this.  But let me consider: I must not play the jealous fool, must
+not fight for a ----, must not show the world that a man, nobody knows
+who, could really outwit and outdo me,--me,--Francis Borodaile!  No,
+no: I must throw the insult upon him, must myself be the aggressor and
+the challenged; then, too, I shall have the choice of weapons,--
+pistols of course.  Where shall I hit him, by the by?  I wish I shot
+as well as I used to do at Naples.  I was in full practice then.
+Cursed place, where there was nothing else to do but to practise!"
+
+Immersed in these or somewhat similar reflections did Lord Borodaile
+enter Pall Mall.
+
+"Ah, Borodaile!" said Lord St. George, suddenly emerging from a shop.
+"This is really fortunate: you are going my way exactly; allow me to
+join you."
+
+Now Lord Borodaile, to say nothing of his happening at that time to be
+in a mood more than usually unsocial, could never at any time bear the
+thought of being made an instrument of convenience, pleasure, or good
+fortune to another.  He therefore, with a little resentment at Lord
+St. George's familiarity, coldly replied, "I am sorry that I cannot
+avail myself of your offer.  I am sure my way is not the same as
+yours."
+
+"Then," replied Lord St. George, who was a good-natured, indolent man,
+who imagined everybody was as averse to walking alone as he was, "then
+I will make mine the same as yours."
+
+Borodaile coloured: though always uncivil, he did not like to be
+excelled in good manners; and therefore replied, that nothing but
+extreme business at White's could have induced him to prefer his own
+way to that of Lord St. George.
+
+The good-natured peer took Lord Borodaile's arm.  It was a natural
+incident, but it vexed the punctilious viscount that any man should
+take, not offer, the support.
+
+"So, they say," observed Lord St. George, "that young Linden is to
+marry Lady Flora Ardenne."
+
+"Les on-dits font la gazette des fous," rejoined Borodaile with a
+sneer.  "I believe that Lady Flora is little likely to contract such a
+misalliance."
+
+"Misalliance!" replied Lord St. George.  "I thought Linden was of a
+very old family; which you know the Westboroughs are not, and he has
+great expectations--"
+
+"Which are never to be realized," interrupted Borodaile, laughing
+scornfully.
+
+"Ah, indeed!" said Lord St. George, seriously.  "Well, at all events
+he is a very agreeable, unaffected young man: and, by the by,
+Borodaile, you will meet him chez moi to-day; you know you dine with
+me?"
+
+"Meet Mr. Linden!  I shall be proud to have that honour," said
+Borodaile, with sparkling eyes; "will Lady Westborough be also of the
+party?"
+
+"No, poor Lady St. George is very ill, and I have taken the
+opportunity to ask only men."
+
+"You have done wisely, my lord," said Borodaile, secum multa
+revolvens; "and I assure you I wanted no hint to remind me of your
+invitation."
+
+Here the Duke of Haverfield joined them.  The duke never bowed to any
+one of the male sex; he therefore nodded to Borodaile, who, with a
+very supercilious formality, took off his hat in returning the
+salutation.  The viscount had at least this merit in his pride,--that
+if it was reserved to the humble, it was contemptuous to the high: his
+inferiors he wished to remain where they were; his equals he longed to
+lower.
+
+"So I dine with you, Lord St. George, to-day," said the duke; "whom
+shall I meet?"
+
+"Lord Borodaile, for one," answered St. George; "my brother, Aspeden,
+Findlater, Orbino, and Linden."
+
+"Linden!" cried the duke; "I'm very glad to hear it, c'est un homme
+fait expres pour moi.  He is very clever, and not above playing the
+fool; has humour without setting up for a wit, and is a good fellow
+without being a bad man.  I like him excessively."
+
+"Lord St. George;" said Borodaile, who seemed that day to be the very
+martyr of the unconscious Clarence, "I wish you good morning.  I have
+only just remembered an engagement which I must keep before I go to
+White's."
+
+And with a bow to the duke, and a remonstrance from Lord St. George,
+Borodaile effected his escape.  His complexion was, insensibly to
+himself, more raised than usual, his step more stately; his mind, for
+the first time for years, was fully excited and engrossed.  Ah, what a
+delightful thing it is for an idle man, who has been dying of ennui,
+to find an enemy!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+    You must challenge him
+    There's no avoiding; one or both must drop.
+                                 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
+
+"Ha! ha! ha! bravo, Linden!" cried Lord St. George, from the head of
+his splendid board, in approbation of some witticism of Clarence's;
+and ha! ha! ha! or he! he! he! according to the cachinnatory
+intonations of the guests rang around.
+
+"Your lordship seems unwell," said Lord Aspeden to Borodaile; "allow
+me to take wine with you."
+
+Lord Borodaile bowed his assent.
+
+"Pray," said Mr. St. George to Clarence, "have you seen my friend
+Talbot lately?"
+
+"This very morning," replied Linden: "indeed, I generally visit him
+three or four times a week; he often asks after you."
+
+"Indeed!" said Mr. St. George, rather flattered; "he does me much
+honour; but he is a distant connection of mine, and I suppose I must
+attribute his recollection of me to that cause.  He is a near relation
+of yours, too, I think: is he not?"
+
+"I am related to him," answered Clarence, colouring.
+
+Lord Borodaile leaned forward, and his lip curled.  Though, in some
+respects, a very unamiable man, he had, as we have said, his good
+points.  He hated a lie as much as Achilles did; and he believed in
+his heart of hearts that Clarence had just uttered one.
+
+"Why," observed Lord Aspeden, "why, Lord Borodaile, the Talbots of
+Scarsdale are branches of your genealogical tree; therefore your
+lordship must be related to Linden; "you are two cherries on one
+stalk'!"
+
+"We are by no means related," said Lord Borodaile, with a distinct and
+clear voice, intended expressly for Clarence; "that is an honour which
+I must beg leave most positively to disclaim."
+
+There was a dead silence; the eyes of all who heard a remark so
+intentionally rude were turned immediately towards Clarence.  His
+cheek burned like fire; he hesitated a moment, and then said, in the
+same key, though with a little trembling in his intonation,--
+
+"Lord Borodaile cannot be more anxious to disclaim it than I am."
+
+"And yet," returned the viscount, stung to the soul, "they who advance
+false pretensions ought at least to support them!"
+
+"I do not understand you, my lord," said Clarence.
+
+"Possibly not," answered Borodaile, carelessly: "there is a maxim
+which says that people not accustomed to speak truth cannot comprehend
+it in others."
+
+Unlike the generality of modern heroes, who are always in a passion,--
+off-hand, dashing fellows, in whom irascibility is a virtue,--Clarence
+was peculiarly sweet-tempered by nature, and had, by habit, acquired a
+command over all his passions to a degree very uncommon in so young a
+man.  He made no reply to the inexcusable affront he had received.
+His lip quivered a little, and the flush of his countenance was
+succeeded by an extreme paleness; this was all: he did not even leave
+the room immediately, but waited till the silence was broken by some
+well-bred member of the party; and then, pleading an early engagement
+as an excuse for his retiring so soon, he rose and departed.
+
+There was throughout the room a universal feeling of sympathy with the
+affront and indignation against the offender; for, to say nothing of
+Clarence's popularity and the extreme dislike in which Lord Borodaile
+was held, there could be no doubt as to the wantonness of the outrage
+or the moderation of the aggrieved party.  Lord Borodaile already felt
+the punishment of his offence: his very pride, while it rendered him
+indifferent to the spirit, had hitherto kept him scrupulous as to the
+formalities of social politeness; and he could not but see the
+grossness with which he had suffered himself to violate them and the
+light in which his conduct was regarded.  However, this internal
+discomfort only rendered him the more embittered against Clarence and
+the more confirmed in his revenge.  Resuming, by a strong effort, all
+the external indifference habitual to his manner, he attempted to
+enter into a conversation with those of the party who were next to him
+but his remarks produced answers brief and cold; even Lord Aspeden
+forgot his diplomacy and his smile; Lord St. George replied to his
+observations by a monosyllable; and the Duke of Haverfield, for the
+first time in his life, asserted the prerogative which his rank gave
+him of setting the example,--his grace did not reply to Lord Borodaile
+at all.  In truth, every one present was seriously displeased.  All
+civilized societies have a paramount interest in repressing the rude.
+Nevertheless, Lord Borodaile bore the brunt of his unpopularity with a
+steadiness and unembarrassed composure worthy of a better cause; and
+finding, at last, a companion disposed to be loquacious in the person
+of Sir Christopher Findlater (whose good heart, though its first
+impulse resented more violently than that of any heart present the
+discourtesy of the viscount, yet soon warmed to the desagremens of his
+situation, and hastened to adopt its favourite maxim of forgive and
+forget), Lord Borodaile sat the meeting out; and if he did not leave
+the latest, he was at least not the first to follow Clarence:
+"L'orgueil ou donne le courage, ou il y supplee."  ["Pride either
+gives courage or supplies the place of it."]
+
+Meanwhile Linden had returned to his solitary home.  He hastened to
+his room, locked the door, flung himself on his sofa, and burst into a
+violent and almost feminine paroxysm of tears.  This fit lasted for
+more than an hour; and when Clarence at length stilled the indignant
+swellings of his heart, and rose from his supine position, he started,
+as his eye fell upon the opposite mirror, so haggard and exhausted
+seemed the forced and fearful calmness of his countenance.  With a
+hurried step; with arms now folded on his bosom, now wildly tossed
+from him; and the hand so firmly clenched that the very bones seemed
+working through the skin; with a brow now fierce, now only dejected;
+and a complexion which one while burnt as with the crimson flush of a
+fever, and at another was wan and colourless, like his whose cheek a
+spectre has blanched,--Clarence paced his apartment, the victim not
+only of shame,--the bitterest of tortures to a young and high mind,--
+but of other contending feelings, which alternately exasperated and
+palsied his wrath, and gave to his resolves at one moment an almost
+savage ferocity and at the next an almost cowardly vacillation.
+
+The clock had just struck the hour of twelve when a knock at the door
+announced a visitor.  Steps were heard on the stairs and presently a
+tap at Clarence's room-door.  He unlocked it and the Duke of
+Haverfield entered.  "I am charmed to find you at home," cried the
+duke, with his usual half kind, half careless address.  "I was
+determined to call upon you, and be the first to offer my services in
+this unpleasant affair."
+
+Clarence pressed the duke's hand, but made no answer.
+
+"Nothing could be so unhandsome as Lord Borodaile's conduct,"
+continued the duke.  "I hope you both fence and shoot well.  I shall
+never forgive you, if you do not put an end to that piece of
+rigidity."
+
+Clarence continued to walk about the room in great agitation; the duke
+looked at him with some surprise.  At last Linden paused by the
+window, and said, half unconsciously, "It must be so: I cannot avoid
+fighting!"
+
+"Avoid fighting!" cried his grace, in undisguised astonishment.  "No,
+indeed: but that is the least part of the matter; you must kill as
+well as fight him."
+
+"Kill him!" cried Clarence, wildly, "whom?" and then sinking into a
+chair, he covered his face with his hands for a few moments, and
+seemed to struggle with his emotions.
+
+"Well," thought the duke, "I never was more mistaken in my life.  I
+could have bet my black horse against Trevanion's Julia, which is
+certainly the most worthless thing I know, that Linden had been a
+brave fellow: but these English heroes almost go into fits at a duel;
+one manages such things, as Sterne says, better in France."
+
+Clarence now rose, calm and collected.  He sat down; wrote a brief
+note to Borodaile, demanding the fullest apology, or the earliest
+meeting; put it into the duke's hands, and said with a faint smile,
+"My dear duke, dare I ask you to be a second to a man who has been so
+grievously affronted and whose genealogy has been so disputed?"
+
+"My dear Linden," said the duke, warmly, "I have always been grateful
+to my station in life for this advantage,--the freedom with which it
+has enabled me to select my own acquaintance and to follow my own
+pursuits.  I am now more grateful to it than ever, because it has
+given me a better opportunity than I should otherwise have had of
+serving one whom I have always esteemed.  In entering into your
+quarrel I shall at least show the world that there are some men not
+inferior in pretensions to Lord Borodaile who despise arrogance and
+resent overbearance even to others.  Your cause I consider the common
+cause of society; but I shall take it up, if you will allow me, with
+the distinguishing zeal of a friend."
+
+Clarence, who was much affected by the kindness of this speech,
+replied in a similar vein; and the duke, having read and approved the
+letter, rose.  "There is, in my opinion," said he, "no time to be
+lost. I will go to Borodaile this very evening: adieu, mon cher! you
+shall kill the Argus, and then carry off the Io.  I feel in a double
+passion with that ambulating poker, who is only malleable when he is
+red-hot, when I think how honourably scrupulous you were with La
+Meronville last night, notwithstanding all her advances; but I go to
+bury Caesar, not to scold him.  Au revoir."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XLV.
+
+Conon.--You're well met, Crates.
+Crates.--If we part so, Conon.-Queen of Corinth.
+
+It was as might be expected from the character of the aggressor.  Lord
+Borodaile refused all apology, and agreed with avidity to a speedy
+rendezvous.  He chose pistols (choice, then, was not merely nominal),
+and selected Mr. Percy Bobus for his second, a gentleman who was much
+fonder of acting in that capacity than in the more honourable one of a
+principal.  The author of "Lacon" says "that if all seconds were as
+averse to duels as their principals, there would be very little blood
+spilt in that way;" and it was certainly astonishing to compare the
+zeal with which Mr. Bobus busied himself about this "affair" with that
+testified by him on another occasion when he himself was more
+immediately concerned.
+
+The morning came.  Mr. Bobus breakfasted with his friend.  "Damn it,
+Borodaile," said he, as the latter was receiving the ultimate polish
+of the hairdresser, "I never saw you look better in my life.  It will
+be a great pity if that fellow shoots you."
+
+"Shoots me!" said Lord Borodaile, very quietly,--"me! no! that is
+quite out of the question; but joking apart, Bobus, I will not kill
+the young man.  Where shall I hit him?"
+
+"In the cap of the knee," said Mr. Percy, breaking an egg.
+
+"Nay, that will lame him for life," said Lord Borodaile, putting on
+his cravat with peculiar exactitude.
+
+"Serve him right," said Mr. Bobus.  "Hang him, I never got up so early
+in my life: it is quite impossible to eat at this hour.  Oh!--a
+propos, Borodaile, have you left any little memoranda for me to
+execute?"
+
+"Memoranda!--for what?" said Borodaile, who had now just finished his
+toilet.
+
+"Oh!" rejoined Mr. Percy Bobus, "in case of accident, you know: the
+man may shoot well, though I never saw him in the gallery."
+
+"Pray," said Lord Borodaile, in a great though suppressed passion,
+"pray, Mr. Bobus, how often have I to tell you that it is not by Mr.
+Linden that my days are to terminate: you are sure that Carabine saw
+to that trigger?"
+
+"Certain," said Mr. Percy, with his mouth full, "certain.  Bless me,
+here's the carriage, and breakfast not half done yet."
+
+"Come, come," cried Borodaile, impatiently, "we must breakfast
+afterwards.  Here, Roberts, see that we have fresh chocolate and some
+more cutlets when we return."
+
+"I would rather have them now," said Mr. Bobus, foreseeing the
+possibility of the return being single: "Ibis! redibis?" etc.
+
+"Come, we have not a moment to lose," exclaimed Borodaile, hastening
+down the stairs; and Mr. Percy Bobus followed, with a strange mixture
+of various regrets, partly for the breakfast that was lost and partly
+for the friend that might be.
+
+When they arrived at the ground, Clarence and the duke were already
+there: the latter, who was a dead shot, had fully persuaded himself
+that Clarence was equally adroit, and had, in his providence for
+Borodaile, brought a surgeon.  This was a circumstance of which the
+viscount, in the plenitude of his confidence for himself and
+indifference for his opponent, had never once dreamed.
+
+The ground was measured; the parties were about to take the ground.
+All Linden's former agitation had vanished; his mien was firm, grave,
+and determined: but he showed none of the careless and fierce
+hardihood which characterized his adversary; on the contrary, a close
+observer might have remarked something sad and dejected amidst all the
+tranquillity and steadiness of his brow and air.
+
+"For Heaven's sake," whispered the duke, as he withdrew from the spot,
+"square your body a little more to your left and remember your exact
+level.  Borodaile is much shorter than you."
+
+There was a brief, dread pause: the signal was given; Borodaile fired;
+his ball pierced Clarence's side; the wounded man staggered one step,
+but fell not.  He raised his pistol; the duke bent eagerly forward; an
+expression of disappointment and surprise passed his lips; Clarence
+had fired in the air.  The next moment Linden felt a deadly sickness
+come over him; he fell into the arms of the surgeon.  Borodaile,
+touched by a forbearance which he had so little right to expect,
+hastened to the spot.  He leaned over his adversary in greater remorse
+and pity than he would have readily confessed to himself.  Clarence
+unclosed his eyes; they dwelt for one moment upon the subdued and
+earnest countenance of Borodaile.
+
+"Thank God," he said faintly, "that you were not the victim," and with
+those words he fell back insensible.  They carried him to his
+lodgings.  His wound was accurately examined.  Though not mortal, it
+was of a dangerous nature; and the surgeons ended a very painful
+operation by promising a very lingering recovery.
+
+What a charming satisfaction for being insulted!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+Je me contente de ce qui peut s'ecrire, et je reve tout ce qui peut se
+rever.--DE SEVIGNE.
+
+["I content myself with writing what I am able, and I dream all I
+possibly can dream."]
+
+
+About a week after his wound, and the second morning of his return to
+sense and consciousness, when Clarence opened his eyes, they fell upon
+a female form seated watchfully and anxiously by his bedside.  He
+raised himself in mute surprise, and the figure, startled by the
+motion, rose, drew the curtain, and vanished.  With great difficulty
+he rang his bell.  His valet, Harrison, on whose mind, though it was
+of no very exalted order, the kindness and suavity of his master had
+made a great impression, instantly appeared.
+
+"Who was that lady?" asked Linden.  "How came she here?"
+
+Harrison smiled: "Oh, sir, pray please to lie down, and make yourself
+easy: the lady knows you very well and would come here; she insists
+upon staying in the house, so we made up a bed in the drawing-room and
+she has watched by you night and day.  She speaks very little English
+to be sure, but your honour knows, begging your pardon, how well I
+speak French."
+
+"French?" said Clarence, faintly,--"French?  In Heaven's name, who is
+she?"
+
+"A Madame--Madame--La Melonveal, or some such name, sir," said the
+valet.
+
+Clarence fell back.  At that moment his hand was pressed.  He turned,
+and saw Talbot by his side.  The kind old man had not suffered La
+Meronville to be Linden's only nurse: notwithstanding his age and
+peculiarity of habits, he had fixed his abode all the day in
+Clarence's house, and at night, instead of returning to his own home,
+had taken up his lodgings at the nearest hotel.
+
+With a jealous and anxious eye to the real interest and respectability
+of his adopted son, Talbot had exerted all his address, and even all
+his power, to induce La Meronville, who had made her settlement
+previous to Talbot's, to quit the house, but in vain.  With that
+obstinacy which a Frenchwoman when she is sentimental mistakes for
+nobility of heart, the ci-devant amante of Lord Borodaile insisted
+upon watching and tending one of whose sufferings she said and
+believed she was the unhappy though innocent cause: and whenever more
+urgent means of removal were hinted at La Meronville flew to the
+chamber of her beloved, apostrophized him in a strain worthy of one of
+D'Arlincourt's heroines, and in short was so unreasonably outrageous
+that the doctors, trembling for the safety of their patient, obtained
+from Talbot a forced and reluctant acquiescence in the settlement she
+had obtained.
+
+Ah! what a terrible creature a Frenchwoman is, when, instead of
+coquetting with a caprice, she insists upon conceiving a grande
+passion.  Little, however, did Clarence, despite his vexation when he
+learned of the bienveillance of La Meronville, foresee the whole
+extent of the consequences it would entail upon him: still less did
+Talbot, who in his seclusion knew not the celebrity of the handsome
+adventuress, calculate upon the notoriety of her motions or the ill
+effect her ostentatious attachment would have upon Clarence's
+prosperity as a lover to Lady Flora.  In order to explain these
+consequences the more fully, let us, for the present, leave our hero
+to the care of the surgeon, his friends, and his would-be mistress;
+and while he is more rapidly recovering than the doctors either hoped
+or presaged, let us renew our acquaintance with a certain fair
+correspondent.
+
+LETTER FROM THE LADY FLORA ARDENNE TO MISS ELEANOR TREVANION.
+
+My Dearest Eleanor,--I have been very ill, or you would sooner have
+received an answer to your kind,-too kind and consoling letter.
+Indeed I have only just left my bed: they say that I have been
+delirious, and I believe it; for you cannot conceive what terrible
+dreams I have had.  But these are all over now, and everyone is so
+kind to me,--my poor mother above all!  It is a pleasant thing to be
+ill when we have those who love us to watch our recovery.
+
+I have only been in bed a few days; yet it seems to me as if a long
+portion of my existence were past,--as if I had stepped into a new
+era.  You remember that my last letter attempted to express my
+feelings at Mamma's speech about Clarence, and at my seeing him so
+suddenly.  Now, dearest, I cannot but look on that day, on these
+sensations, as on a distant dream.  Every one is so kind to me, Mamma
+caresses and soothes me so fondly, that I fancy I must have been under
+some illusion.  I am sure they could not seriously have meant to
+forbid his addresses.  No, no: I feel that all will yet be well,--so
+well, that even you, who are of so contented a temper, will own that
+if you were not Eleanor you would be Flora.
+
+I wonder whether Clarence knows that I have been ill?  I wish you knew
+him.  Well, dearest, this letter--a very unhandsome return, I own, for
+yours--must content you at present, for they will not let me write
+more; though, so far as I am concerned, I am never so weak, in frame I
+mean, but what I could scribble to you about him.
+
+Addio, carissima.                                        F. A.
+
+I have prevailed on Mamma, who wished to sit by me and amuse me, to go
+to the Opera to-night, the only amusement of which she is particularly
+fond.  Heaven forgive me for my insincerity, but he always comes into
+our box, and I long to hear some news of him.
+
+LETTER II.
+
+FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
+
+Eleanor, dearest Eleanor, I am again very ill, but not as I was
+before, ill from a foolish vexation of mind: no, I am now calm and
+even happy.  It was from an increase of cold only that I have suffered
+a relapse.  You may believe this, I assure you, in spite of your well
+meant but bitter jests upon my infatuation, as you very rightly call
+it, for Mr. Linden.  You ask me what news from the Opera?  Silly girl
+that I was, to lie awake hour after hour, and refuse even to take my
+draught, lest I should be surprised into sleep, till Mamma returned.
+I sent Jermyn down directly I heard her knock at the door (oh, how
+anxiously I had listened for it!) to say that I was still awake and
+longed to see her.  So, of course, Mamma came up, and felt my pulse,
+and said it was very feverish, and wondered the draught had not
+composed me; with a great deal more to the same purpose, which I bore
+as patiently as I could, till it was my turn to talk; and then I
+admired her dress and her coiffure, and asked if it was a full house,
+and whether the prima donna was in voice, etc.: till, at last, I won
+my way to the inquiry of who were her visitors.  "Lord Borodaile,"
+said she, "and the Duke of ----, and Mr. St. George, and Captain
+Leslie, and Mr. De Retz, and many others."  I felt so disappointed,
+Eleanor, but did not dare ask whether he was not of the list; till, at
+last, my mother observing me narrowly, said, "And by the by, Mr.
+Linden looked in for a few minutes.  I am glad, my dearest Flora, that
+I spoke to you so decidedly about him the other day."  "Why, Mamma?"
+said I, hiding my face under the clothes.  "Because," said she, in
+rather a raised voice, "he is quite unworthy of you! but it is late
+now, and you should go to sleep; to-morrow I will tell you more."  I
+would have given worlds to press the question then, but could not
+venture.  Mamma kissed and left me.  I tried to twist her words into a
+hundred meanings, but in each I only thought that they were dictated
+by some worldly information,--some new doubts as to his birth or
+fortune; and, though that supposition distressed me greatly, yet it
+could not alter my love or deprive me of hope; and so I cried and
+guessed, and guessed and cried, till at last I cried myself to sleep.
+
+When I awoke, Mamma was already up, and sitting beside me: she talked
+to me for more than an hour upon ordinary subjects, till at last,
+perceiving how absent or rather impatient I appeared, she dismissed
+Jermyn, and spoke to me thus:--
+
+"You know, Flora, that I have always loved you, more perhaps than I
+ought to have done, more certainly than I have loved your brothers and
+sisters; but you were my eldest child, my first-born, and all the
+earliest associations of a mother are blent and entwined with you.
+You may be sure therefore that I have ever had only your happiness in
+view, and that it is only with a regard to that end that I now speak
+to you."
+
+I was a little frightened, Eleanor, by this opening, but I was much
+more touched, so I took Mamma's hand and kissed and wept silently over
+it; she continued: "I observed Mr. Linden's attention to you, at ----;
+I knew nothing more of his rank and birth then than I do at present:
+but his situation in the embassy and his personal appearance naturally
+induced me to suppose him a gentleman of family, and, therefore, if
+not a great at least not an inferior match for you, so far as worldly
+distinctions are concerned.  Added to this, he was uncommonly
+handsome, and had that general reputation for talent which is often
+better than actual wealth or hereditary titles.  I therefore did not
+check, though I would not encourage any attachment you might form for
+him; and nothing being declared or decisive on either side when we
+left--, I imagined that if your flirtation with him did even amount to
+a momentary and girlish phantasy, absence and change of scene would
+easily and rapidly efface the impression.  I believe that in a great
+measure it was effaced when Lord Aspeden returned to England, and with
+him Mr. Linden.  You again met the latter in society almost as
+constantly as before; a caprice nearly conquered was once more
+renewed; and in my anxiety that you should marry, not for
+aggrandizement, but happiness, I own to my sorrow that I rather
+favoured than forbade his addresses.  The young man--remember, Flora--
+appeared in society as the nephew and heir of a gentleman of ancient
+family and considerable property; he was rising in diplomacy, popular
+in the world, and, so far as we could see, of irreproachable
+character; this must plead my excuse for tolerating his visits,
+without instituting further inquiries respecting him, and allowing
+your attachment to proceed without ascertaining how far it had yet
+extended.  I was awakened to a sense of my indiscretion by an inquiry
+which Mr. Linden's popularity rendered general; namely, if Mr. Talbot
+was his uncle, who was his father? who his more immediate relations?
+and at that time Lord Borodaile informed us of the falsehood he had
+either asserted or allowed to be spread in claiming Mr. Talbot as his
+relation.  This you will observe entirely altered the situation of Mr.
+Linden with respect to you.  Not only his rank in life became
+uncertain, but suspicious.  Nor was this all: his very personal
+respectability was no longer unimpeachable.  Was this dubious and
+intrusive person, without a name and with a sullied honour, to be your
+suitor?  No, Flora; and it was from this indignant conviction that I
+spoke to you some days since.  Forgive me, my child, if I was less
+cautious, less confidential than I am now.  I did not imagine the
+wound was so deep, and thought that I should best cure you by seeming
+unconscious of your danger.  The case is now changed; your illness has
+convinced me of my fault, and the extent of your unhappy attachment:
+but will my own dear child pardon me if I still continue, if I even
+confirm, my disapproval of her choice?  Last night at the Opera Mr.
+Linden entered my box.  I own that I was cooler to him than usual.  He
+soon left us, and after the Opera I saw him with the Duke of
+Haverfield, one of the most incorrigible roues of the day, leading out
+a woman of notoriously bad character and of the most ostentatious
+profligacy.  He might have had some propriety, some decency, some
+concealment at least, but he passed just before me,--before the mother
+of the woman to whom his vows of honourable attachment were due and
+who at that very instant was suffering from her infatuation for him.
+Now, Flora, for this man, an obscure and possibly a plebeian
+adventurer, whose only claim to notice has been founded on falsehood,
+whose only merit, a love of you, has been, if not utterly destroyed,
+at least polluted and debased,--for this man, poor alike in fortune,
+character, and honour, can you any longer profess affection or
+esteem?"
+
+"Never, never, never!" cried I, springing from the bed, and throwing
+myself upon my mother's neck.  "Never: I am your own Flora once more.
+I will never suffer any one again to make me forget you," and then I
+sobbed so violently that Mamma was frightened, and bade me lie down
+and left me to sleep.  Several hours have passed since then, and I
+could not sleep nor think, and I would not cry, for he is no longer
+worthy of my tears; so I have written to you.
+
+Oh, how I despise and hate myself for having so utterly, in my vanity
+and folly, forgotten my mother, that dear, kind, constant friend, who
+never cost me a single tear, but for my own ingratitude!  Think,
+Eleanor, what an affront to me,--to me, who, he so often said, had
+made all other women worthless in his eyes.  Do I hate him?  No, I
+cannot hate.  Do I despise?  No, I will not despise, but I will forget
+him, and keep my contempt and hatred for myself.
+
+God bless you!  I am worn out.  Write soon, or rather come, if
+possible, to your affectionate but unworthy friend,         F. A.
+
+Good Heavens!  Eleanor, he is wounded.  He has fought with Lord
+Borodaile.  I have just heard it; Jermyn told me.  Can it, can it be
+true?  What,--what have I said against him?  Hate? forget?  No, no: I
+never loved him till now.
+
+LETTER III.
+
+FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
+
+(After an interval of several weeks.)
+
+Time has flown, my Eleanor, since you left me, after your short but
+kind visit, with a heavy but healing wing.  I do not think I shall
+ever again be the giddy girl I have been; but my head will change, not
+my heart; that was never giddy, and that shall still be as much yours
+as ever.  You are wrong in thinking I have not forgotten, at least
+renounced all affection for Mr. Linden.  I have, though with a long
+and bitter effort.  The woman for whom he fought went, you know, to
+his house, immediately on hearing of his wound.  She has continued
+with him ever since.  He had the audacity to write to me once; my
+mother brought me the note, and said nothing.  She read my heart
+aright.  I returned it unopened.  He has even called since his
+convalescence.  Mamma was not at home to him.  I hear that he looks
+pale and altered.  I hope not,--at least I cannot resist praying for
+his recovery.  I stay within entirely; the season is over now, and
+there are no parties: but I tremble at the thought of meeting him even
+in the Park or the Gardens.  Papa talks of going into the country next
+week.  I cannot tell you how eagerly I look forward to it: and you
+will then come and see me; will you not, dearest Eleanor?
+
+Ah! what happy days we will have yet: we will read Italian together,
+as we used to do; you shall teach me your songs, and I will instruct
+you in mine; we will keep birds as we did, let me see, eight years
+ago.  You will never talk to me of my folly: let that be as if it had
+never been; but I will wonder with you about your future choice, and
+grow happy in anticipating your happiness.  Oh, how selfish I was some
+weeks ago! then I could only overwhelm you with my egotisms: now,
+Eleanor, it is your turn; and you shall see how patiently I will
+listen to yours.  Never fear that you can be too prolix: the diffuser
+you are, the easier I shall forgive myself.
+
+Are you fond of poetry, Eleanor?  I used to say so, but I never felt
+that I was till lately.  I will show you my favourite passages in my
+favourite poets when you come to see me.  You shall see if yours
+correspond with mine.  I am so impatient to leave this horrid town,
+where everything seems dull, yet feverish,--insipid, yet false.  Shall
+we not be happy when we meet?  If your dear aunt will come with you,
+she shall see how I (that is my mind) am improved.
+
+Farewell.
+         Ever your most affectionate,
+                                                         F. A.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+Brave Talbot, we will follow thee.--Henry the Sixth.
+
+"My letter insultingly returned--myself refused admittance; not a
+single inquiry made during my illness; indifference joined to positive
+contempt.  By Heaven, it is insupportable!"
+
+"My dear Clarence," said Talbot to his young friend, who, fretful from
+pain and writhing beneath his mortification, walked to and fro his
+chamber with an impatient stride; "my dear Clarence, do sit down, and
+not irritate your wound by such violent exercise.  I am as much
+enraged as yourself at the treatment you have received, and no less at
+a loss to account for it.  Your duel, however unfortunate the event,
+must have done you credit, and obtained you a reputation both for
+generosity and spirit; so that it cannot be to that occurrence that
+you are to attribute the change.  Let us rather suppose that Lady
+Flora's attachment to you has become evident to her father and mother;
+that they naturally think it would be very undesirable to marry their
+daughter to a man whose family nobody knows, and whose respectability
+he is forced into fighting in order to support.  Suffer me then to
+call upon Lady Westborough, whom I knew many years ago, and explain
+your origin, as well as your relationship to me."
+
+Linden paused irresolutely.
+
+"Were I sure that Lady Flora was not utterly influenced by her
+mother's worldly views, I would gladly consent to your proposal, but--
+"
+
+"Forgive me, Clarence," cried Talbot; "but you really argue much more
+like a very young man than I ever heard you do before,--even four
+years ago.  To be sure Lady Flora is influenced by her mother's views.
+Would you have her otherwise?  Would you have her, in defiance of all
+propriety, modesty, obedience to her parents, and right feeling for
+herself, encourage an attachment to a person not only unknown, but who
+does not even condescend to throw off the incognito to the woman he
+addresses?  Come, Clarence, give me your instructions, and let me act
+as your ambassador to-morrow."
+
+Clarence was silent.
+
+"I may consider it settled then," replied Talbot: "meanwhile you shall
+come home and stay with me; the pure air of the country, even so near
+town, will do you more good than all the doctors in London; and,
+besides, you will thus be enabled to escape from that persecuting
+Frenchwoman."
+
+"In what manner?" said Clarence.
+
+"Why, when you are in my house, she cannot well take up her abode with
+you; and you shall, while I am forwarding your suit with Lady Flora,
+write a very flattering, very grateful letter of excuses to Madame la
+Meronville.  But leave me alone to draw it up for you: meanwhile, let
+Harrison pack up your clothes and medicines; and we will effect our
+escape while Madame la Meronville yet sleeps."
+
+Clarence rang the bell; the orders were given, executed, and in less
+than an hour he and his friends were on their road to Talbot's villa.
+
+As they drove slowly through the grounds to the house, Clarence was
+sensibly struck with the quiet and stillness which breathed around.
+On either side of the road the honeysuckle and rose cast their sweet
+scents to the summer wind, which, though it was scarcely noon, stirred
+freshly among the trees, and waved as if it breathed a second youth
+over the wan cheek of the convalescent.  The old servant's ear had
+caught the sound of wheels, and he came to the door, with an
+expression of quiet delight on his dry countenance, to welcome in his
+master.  They had lived together for so many years that they were
+grown like one another.  Indeed, the veteran valet prided himself on
+his happy adoption of his master's dress and manner.  A proud man, we
+ween, was that domestic, whenever he had time and listeners for the
+indulgence of his honest loquacity; many an ancient tale of his
+master's former glories was then poured from his unburdening
+remembrance.  With what a glow, with what a racy enjoyment, did he
+expand upon the triumphs of the past; how eloquently did he
+particularize the exact grace with which young Mr. Talbot was wont to
+enter the room, in which he instantly became the cynosure of ladies'
+eyes; how faithfully did he minute the courtly dress, the exquisite
+choice of colour, the costly splendour of material, which were the
+envy of gentles, and the despairing wonder of their valets; and then
+the zest with which the good old man would cry, "I dressed the boy!"
+Even still, this modern Scipio (Le Sage's Scipio, not Rome's) would
+not believe that his master's sun was utterly set: he was only in a
+temporary retirement, and would, one day or other, reappear and
+reastonish the London world.  "I would give my right arm," Jasper was
+wont to say, "to see Master at court.  How fond the King would be of
+him!  Ah! well, well; I wish he was not so melancholy-like with his
+books, but would go out like other people!"
+
+Poor Jasper!  Time is, in general, a harsh wizard in his
+transformations; but the change which thou didst lament so bitterly
+was happier for thy master than all his former "palmy state" of
+admiration and homage.  "Nous avons recherche le plaisir," says
+Rousseau, in one of his own inimitable antitheses, "et le bonheur a
+fui loin de nous."  ["We have pursued pleasure, and happiness has fled
+far from our reach."]  But in the pursuit of Pleasure we sometimes
+chance on Wisdom, and Wisdom leads us to the right track, which, if it
+take us not so far as Happiness, is sure at least of the shelter of
+Content.
+
+Talbot leaned kindly upon Jasper's arm as he descended from the
+carriage, and inquired into his servant's rheumatism with the anxiety
+of a friend.  The old housekeeper, waiting in the hall, next received
+his attention; and in entering the drawing-room, with that
+consideration, even to animals, which his worldly benevolence had
+taught him, he paused to notice and caress a large gray cat which
+rubbed herself against his legs.  Doubtless there is some pleasure in
+making even a gray cat happy!
+
+Clarence having patiently undergone all the shrugs, and sighs, and
+exclamations of compassion at his reduced and wan appearance, which
+are the especial prerogatives of ancient domestics, followed the old
+man into the room.  Papers and books, though carefully dusted, were
+left scrupulously in the places in which Talbot had last deposited
+them (incomparable good fortune! what would we not give for such
+chamber handmaidens!); fresh flowers were in all the stands and vases;
+the large library chair was jealously set in its accustomed place, and
+all wore, to Talbot's eyes, that cheerful yet sober look of welcome
+and familiarity which makes a friend of our house.  The old man was in
+high spirits.
+
+"I know not how it is," said he, "but I feel younger than ever!  You
+have often expressed a wish to see my family seat at Scarsdale: it is
+certainly a great distance hence; but as you will be my travelling
+companion, I think I will try and crawl there before the summer is
+over; or, what say you, Clarence, shall I lend it to you and Lady
+Flora for the honeymoon?  You blush!  A diplomatist blush!  Ah, how
+the world has changed since my time!  But come, Clarence, suppose you
+write to La Meronville?"
+
+"Not to-day, sir, if you please," said Linden: "I feel so very weak."
+
+"As you please, Clarence; but some years hence you will learn the
+value of the present.  Youth is always a procrastinator, and,
+consequently, always a penitent."  And thus Talbot ran on into a
+strain of conversation, half serious, half gay, which lasted till
+Clarence went upstairs to lie down and muse on Lady Flora Ardenne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+La vie eat un sommeil.  Les vieillards sont ceux dont le sommeil a ete
+plus long: ils ne commencent a se reveiller que quand il faut mourir.
+--LA BRUYERE.
+
+["Life is a sleep.  The aged are those whose sleep has been the
+longest they begin to awaken themselves just as they are obliged to
+die."]
+
+
+"You wonder why I have never turned author, with my constant love of
+literature and my former desire of fame," said Talbot, as he and
+Clarence sat alone after dinner, discussing many things: "the fact is,
+that I have often intended it, and as often been frightened from my
+design.  Those terrible feuds; those vehement disputes; those
+recriminations of abuse, so inseparable from literary life,--appear to
+me too dreadful for a man not utterly hardened or malevolent
+voluntarily to encounter.  Good Heavens! what acerbity sours the blood
+of an author!  The manifestoes of opposing generals, advancing to
+pillage, to burn, to destroy, contain not a tithe of the ferocity
+which animates the pages of literary oontroversialists!  No term of
+reproach is too severe, no vituperation too excessive! the blackest
+passions, the bitterest, the meanest malice, pour caustic and poison
+upon every page!  It seems as if the greatest talents, the most
+elaborate knowledge, only sprang from the weakest and worst-regulated
+mind, as exotics from dung.  The private records, the public works of
+men of letters, teem with an immitigable fury!  Their histories might
+all be reduced into these sentences: they were born; they quarrelled;
+they died!"
+
+"But," said Clarence, "it would matter little to the world if these
+quarrels were confined merely to poets and men of imaginative
+literature, in whom irritability is perhaps almost necessarily allied
+to the keen and quick susceptibilities which constitute their genius.
+These are more to be lamented and wondered at among philosophers,
+theologians, and men of science; the coolness, the patience, the
+benevolence, which ought to characterize their works, should at least
+moderate their jealousy and soften their disputes."
+
+"Ah!" said Talbot, "but the vanity of discovery is no less acute than
+that of creation: the self-love of a philosopher is no less self-love
+than that of a poet.  Besides, those sects the most sure of their
+opinions, whether in religion or science, are always the most bigoted
+and persecuting.  Moreover, nearly all men deceive themselves in
+disputes, and imagine that they are intolerant, not through private
+jealousy, but public benevolence: they never declaim against the
+injustice done to themselves; no, it is the terrible injury done to
+society which grieves and inflames them.  It is not the bitter
+expressions against their dogmas which give them pain; by no means: it
+is the atrocious doctrines (so prejudicial to the country, if in
+polities; so pernicious to the world, if in philosophy), which their
+duty, not their vanity, induces them to denounce and anathematize."
+
+"There seems," said Clarence, "to be a sort of reaction in sophistry
+and hypocrisy: there has, perhaps, never been a deceiver who was not,
+by his own passions, himself the deceived."
+
+"Very true," said Talbot; "and it is a pity that historians have not
+kept that fact in view: we should then have had a better notion of the
+Cromwells and Mohammeds of the past than we have now, nor judged those
+as utter impostors who were probably half dupes.  But to return to
+myself.  I think you will already be able to answer your own question,
+why I did not turn author, now that we have given a momentary
+consideration to the penalties consequent on such a profession.  But
+in truth, as I near the close of my life, I often regret that I had
+not more courage, for there is in us all a certain restlessness in the
+persuasion, whether true or false, of superior knowledge or intellect,
+and this urges us on to the proof; or, if we resist its impulse;
+renders us discontented with our idleness and disappointed with the
+past. I have everything now in my possession which it has been the
+desire of my later years to enjoy: health, retirement, successful
+study, and the affection of one in whose breast, when I am gone, my
+memory will not utterly pass away.  With these advantages, added to
+the gifts of fortune, and an habitual elasticity of spirit, I confess
+that my happiness is not free from a biting and frequent regret: I
+would fain have been a better citizen; I would fain have died in the
+consciousness not only that I had improved my mind to the utmost, but
+that I had turned that improvement to the benefit of my fellow-
+creatures.  As it is, in living wholly for myself, I feel that my
+philosophy has wanted generosity; and my indifference to glory has
+proceeded from a weakness, not, as I once persuaded myself, from a
+virtue but the fruitlessness of my existence has been the consequence
+of the arduous frivolities and the petty objects in which my early
+years were consumed; and my mind, in losing the enjoyments which it
+formerly possessed, had no longer the vigour to create for itself a
+new soil, from which labour it could only hope for more valuable
+fruits.  It is no contradiction to see those who most eagerly courted
+society in their youth shrink from it the most sensitively in their
+age; for they who possess certain advantages, and are morbidly vain of
+them, will naturally be disposed to seek that sphere for which those
+advantages are best calculated: and when youth and its concomitants
+depart, the vanity so long fed still remains, and perpetually
+mortifies them by recalling not so much the qualities they have lost,
+as the esteem which those qualities conferred; and by contrasting not
+so much their own present alteration, as the change they experience in
+the respect and consideration of others.  What wonder, then, that they
+eagerly fly from the world, which has only mortification for their
+self-love, or that we find, in biography, how often the most assiduous
+votaries of pleasure have become the most rigid of recluses?  For my
+part, I think that that love of solitude which the ancients so
+eminently possessed, and which, to this day, is considered by some as
+the sign of a great mind, nearly always arises from a tenderness of
+vanity, easily wounded in the commerce of the rough world; and that it
+is under the shadow of Disappointment that we must look for the
+hermitage.  Diderot did well, even at the risk of offending Rousseau,
+to write against solitude.  The more a moralist binds man to man, and
+forbids us to divorce our interests from our kind, the more
+effectually is the end of morality obtained.  They only are
+justifiable in seclusion who, like the Greek philosophers, make that
+very seclusion the means of serving and enlightening their race; who
+from their retreats send forth their oracles of wisdom, and render the
+desert which surrounds them eloquent with the voice of truth.  But
+remember, Clarence (and let my life, useless in itself, have at least
+this moral), that for him who in no wise cultivates his talent for the
+benefit of others; who is contented with being a good hermit at the
+expense of being a bad citizen; who looks from his retreat upon a life
+wasted in the difficiles nugae of the most frivolous part of the
+world, nor redeems in the closet the time he has misspent in the
+saloon,--remember that for him seclusion loses its dignity, philosophy
+its comfort, benevolence its hope, and even religion its balm.
+Knowledge unemployed may preserve us from vice; but knowledge
+beneficently employed is virtue.  Perfect happiness, in our present
+state, is impossible; for Hobbes says justly that our nature is
+inseparable from desires, and that the very word desire (the craving
+for something not possessed) implies that our present felicity is not
+complete.  But there is one way of attaining what we may term, if not
+utter, at least mortal, happiness; it is this,--a sincere and
+unrelaxing activity for the happiness of others.  In that one maxim is
+concentrated whatever is noble in morality, sublime in religion, or
+unanswerable in truth.  In that pursuit we have all scope for whatever
+is excellent in our hearts, and none for the petty passions which our
+nature is heir to.  Thus engaged, whatever be our errors, there will
+be nobility, not weakness, in our remorse; whatever our failure,
+virtue, not selfishness, in our regret; and, in success, vanity itself
+will become holy and triumph eternal.  As astrologers were wont to
+receive upon metals 'the benign aspect of the stars, so as to detain
+and fix, as it were, the felicity of that hour which would otherwise
+be volatile and fugitive,' [Bacon] even so will that success leave
+imprinted upon our memory a blessing which cannot pass away; preserve
+forever upon our names, as on a signet, the hallowed influence of the
+hour in which our great end was effected, and treasure up 'the relics
+of heaven' in the sanctuary of a human fane."
+
+As the old man ceased, there was a faint and hectic flush over his
+face, an enthusiasm on his features, which age made almost holy, and
+which Clarence had never observed there before.  In truth, his young
+listener was deeply affected, and the advice of his adopted parent was
+afterwards impressed with a more awful solemnity upon his remembrance.
+Already he had acquired much worldly lore from Talbot's precepts and
+conversation.  He had obtained even something better than worldly
+lore,--a kindly and indulgent disposition to his fellow-creatures; for
+he had seen that foibles were not inconsistent with generous and great
+qualities, and that we judge wrongly of human nature when we ridicule
+its littleness.  The very circumstances which make the shallow
+misanthropical incline the wise to be benevolent.  Fools discover that
+frailty is not incompatible with great men; they wonder and despise:
+but the discerning find that greatness is not incompatible with
+frailty; and they admire and indulge.
+
+But a still greater benefit than this of toleration did Clarence
+derive from the commune of that night.  He became strengthened in his
+honourable ambition and nerved to unrelaxing exertion.  The
+recollection of Talbot's last words, on that night, occurred to him
+often and often, when sick at heart and languid with baffled hope, it
+roused him from that gloom and despondency which are always
+unfavourable to virtue, and incited him once more to that labour in
+the vineyard which, whether our hour be late or early, will if earnest
+obtain a blessing and reward.
+
+The hour was now waxing late; and Talbot, mindful of his companion's
+health, rose to retire.  As he pressed Clarence's hand and bade him
+farewell for the night, Linden thought there was something more than
+usually impressive in his manner and affectionate in his words.
+Perhaps this was the natural result of their conversation.
+
+The next morning, Clarence was awakened by a noise.  He listened, and
+heard distinctly an alarmed cry proceeding from the room in which
+Talbot slept, and which was opposite to his own.  He rose hastily and
+hurried to the chamber.  The door was open; the old servant was
+bending over the bed: Clarence approached, and saw that he supported
+his master in his arms.
+
+"Good God!" he cried, "what is the matter?"  The faithful old man
+lifted up his face to Clarence, and the big tears rolled fast from
+eyes in which the sources of such emotion were well-nigh dried up.
+
+"He loved you well, sir!" he said, and could say no more.  He dropped
+the body gently, and throwing himself on the floor sobbed aloud.  With
+a foreboding and chilled heart, Clarence bent forward; the face of his
+benefactor lay directly before him, and the hand of death was upon it.
+The soul had passed to its account hours since, in the hush of night,
+--passed, apparently, without a struggle or a pang, like the wind,
+which animates the harp one moment, and the next is gone.
+
+Linden seized his hand; it was heavy and cold: his eye rested upon the
+miniature of the unfortunate Lady Merton, which, since the night of
+the attempted robbery, Talbot had worn constantly round his neck.
+Strange and powerful was the contrast of the pictured face--in which
+not a colour had yet faded, and where the hues and fulness and prime
+of youth dwelt, unconscious of the lapse of years--with the aged and
+shrunken countenance of the deceased.
+
+In that contrast was a sad and mighty moral: it wrought, as it were, a
+contract between youth and age, and conveyed a rapid but full history
+of our passions and our life.
+
+The servant looked up once more on the countenance; he pointed towards
+it, and muttered, "See, see how awfully it is changed!"
+
+"But there is a smile upon it!" said Clarence, as he flung himself
+beside the body and burst into tears.
+
+
+
+
+
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