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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7644.txt b/7644.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f85e55d --- /dev/null +++ b/7644.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1961 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Ernest Maltravers, by Bulwer-Lytton, Book 5 +#72 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: Ernest Maltravers, Book 5 + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7644] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 11, 2004] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST MALTRAVERS, LYTTON, V5 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by Dagny, + and David Widger, + + + + + +BOOK V. + +PARODY. + + My hero, turned author, lies mute in this section, + You may pass by the place if you're bored by reflection: + But if honest enough to be fond of the Muse, + Stay, and read where you're able, and sleep where you choose. + THEOC. /Epig. in Hippon/. + +CHAPTER I. + + "My genius spreads her wing, + And flies where Britain courts the western spring. + + * * * * * + + Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, + I see the lords of human kind pass by, + Intent on high designs."-GOLDSMITH. + +I HAVE no respect for the Englishman who re-enters London after long +residence abroad without a pulse that beats quick and a heart that +heaves high. The public buildings are few, and, for the most part, +mean; the monuments of antiquity not comparable to those which the +pettiest town in Italy can boast of; the palaces are sad rubbish; the +houses of our peers and princes are shabby and shapeless heaps of brick. +But what of all this? the spirit of London is in her thoroughfares--her +population! What wealth--what cleanliness--what order--what animation! +How majestic, and yet how vivid, is the life that runs through her +myriad veins! How, as the lamps blaze upon you at night, and street +after street glides by your wheels, each so regular in its symmetry, so +equal in its civilization--how all speak of the CITY OF FREEMEN. + +Yes, Maltravers felt his heart swell within him as the post-horses +whirled on his dingy carriage--over Westminster Bridge--along +Whitehall--through Regent Street--towards one of the quiet and +private-house-like hotels that are scattered round the neighbourhood of +Grosvenor Square. + +Ernest's arrival had been expected. He had written from Paris to +Cleveland to announce it; and Cleveland had, in reply, informed him that +he had engaged apartments for him at Mivart's. The smiling waiters +ushered him into a spacious and well-aired room--the armchair was +already wheeled by the fire--a score or so of letters strewed the table, +together with two of the evening papers. And how eloquently of busy +England do those evening papers speak! A stranger might have felt that +he wanted no friend to welcome him--the whole room smiled on him a +welcome. + +Maltravers ordered his dinner and opened his letters: they were of no +importance; one from his steward, one from his banker, another about the +county races, a fourth from a man he had never heard of, requesting the +vote and powerful interest of Mr. Maltravers for the county of B------, +should the rumour of a dissolution be verified; the unknown candidate +referred Mr. Maltravers to his "well-known public character." From +these epistles Ernest turned impatiently, and perceived a little +three-cornered note which had hitherto escaped his attention. It was +from Cleveland, intimating that he was in town; that his health still +precluded his going out, but that he trusted to see his dear Ernest as +soon as he arrived. + +Maltravers was delighted at the prospect of passing his evening so +agreeably; he soon despatched his dinner and his newspapers, and walked +in the brilliant lamplight of a clear frosty evening of early December +in London, to his friend's house in Curzon Street: a small house, +bachelor-like and unpretending; for Cleveland spent his moderate though +easy fortune almost entirely at his country villa. The familiar face of +the old valet greeted Ernest at the door, and he only paused to hear +that his guardian was nearly recovered to his usual health, ere he was +in the cheerful drawing-room, and--since Englishmen do not +embrace--returning the cordial gripe of the kindly Cleveland. + +"Well, my dear Ernest," said Cleveland, after they had gone through the +preliminary round of questions and answers, "here you are at last: +Heaven be praised; and how well you are looking--how much you are +improved! It is an excellent period of the year for your /debut/ in +London. I shall have time to make you intimate with people before the +whirl of 'the season' commences." + +"Why, I thought of going to Burleigh, my country-place. I have not seen +it since I was a child." + +"No, no! you have had solitude enough at Como, if I may trust to your +letter; you must now mix with the great London world; and you will enjoy +Burleigh the more in the summer." + +"I fancy this great London world will give me very little pleasure; it +may be pleasant enough to young men just let loose from college, but +your crowded ball-rooms and monotonous clubs will be wearisome to one +who has grown fastidious before his time. /J'ai vecu beaucoup dans peu +d'annees. I have drawn in youth too much upon the capital of existence +to be highly delighted with the ostentatious parsimony with which our +great men economise pleasure." + +"Don't judge before you have gone through the trial," said Cleveland: +"there is something in the opulent splendour, the thoroughly sustained +magnificence, with which the leaders of English fashion conduct even the +most insipid amusements, that is above contempt. Besides, you need not +necessarily live with the butterflies. There are plenty of bees that +will be very happy to make your acquaintance. Add to this, my dear +Ernest, the pleasure of being made of--of being of importance in your +own country. For you are young, well-born, and sufficiently handsome to +be an object of interest to mothers and to daughters; while your name, +and property, and interest, will make you courted by men who want to +borrow your money and obtain your influence in your county. No, +Maltravers, stay in London--amuse yourself your first year, and decide +on your occupation and career the next; but reconnoitre before you give +battle." + +Maltravers was not ill-pleased to follow his friend's advice, since by +so doing he obtained his friend's guidance and society. Moreover, he +deemed it wise and rational to see, face to face, the eminent men in +England, with whom, if he fulfilled his promise to De Montaigne, he was +to run the race of honourable rivalry. Accordingly, he consented to +Cleveland's propositions. + +"And have you," said he, hesitating, as he loitered by the door after +the stroke of twelve had warned him to take his leave--"have you never +heard anything of my--my--the unfortunate Alice Darvil?" + +"Who?--Oh, that poor young woman; I remember!--not a syllable." + +Maltravers sighed deeply and departed. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + "Je trouve que c'est une folie de vouloir etudier le monde en + simple spectateur. * * * Dans l'ecole du monde, comme dans + cette de l'amour, il faut commencer par pratiquer cc qu'on veut + apprendre."*--ROUSSEAU. + +* I find that it is a folly to wish to study the world like a simple +spectator. * * * In the school of the world, as in that of love, it is +necessary to begin by practising what we wish to learn. + +ERNEST MALTRAVERS was now fairly launched upon the wide ocean of London. +Amongst his other property was a house in Seamore Place--that quiet, yet +central street, which enjoys the air without the dust of the park. It +had been hitherto let, and, the tenant now quitting very opportunely, +Maltravers was delighted to secure so pleasant a residence: for he was +still romantic enough to desire to look out upon trees and verdure +rather than brick houses. He indulged only in two other luxuries: his +love of music tempted him to an opera-box, and he had that English +feeling which prides itself in the possession of beautiful horses,--a +feeling that enticed him into an extravagance on this head that baffled +the competition and excited the envy of much richer men. But four +thousand a year goes a great way with a single man who does not gamble, +and is too philosophical to make superfluities wants. + +The world doubled his income, magnified his old country-seat into a +superb chateau, and discovered that his elder brother, who was only +three or four years older than himself, had no children. The world was +very courteous to Ernest Maltravers. + +It was, as Cleveland said, just at that time of year when people are at +leisure to make new acquaintances. A few only of the most difficult +houses in town were open; and their doors were cheerfully expanded to +the accomplished ward of the popular Cleveland. Authors and statesmen, +and orators, and philosophers--to all he was presented;--all seemed +pleased with him, and Ernest became the fashion before he was conscious +of the distinction. But he had rightly foreboded. He had commenced +life too soon; he was disappointed; he found some persons he could +admire, some whom he could like, but none with whom he could grow +intimate, or for whom he could feel an interest. Neither his heart nor +his imagination was touched; all appeared to him like artificial +machines; he was discontented with things like life, but in which +something or other was wanting. He more than ever recalled the +brilliant graces of Valerie de Ventadour, which had thrown a charm over +the most frivolous circles; he even missed the perverse and fantastic +vanity of Castruccio. The mediocre poet seemed to him at least less +mediocre than the worldlings about him. Nay, even the selfish good +spirits and dry shrewdness of Lumley Ferrers would have been an +acceptable change to the dull polish and unrevealed egotism of jealous +wits and party politicians. "If these are the flowers of the parterre, +what must be the weeds?" said Maltravers to himself, returning from a +party at which he had met half a score of the most orthodox lions. + +He began to feel the aching pain of satiety. + +But the winter glided away--the season commenced, and Maltravers was +whirled on with the rest into the bubbling vortex. + + + +CHAPTER III. + + "And crowds commencing mere vexation, + Retirement sent its invitation."--SHENSTONE. + +THE tench, no doubt, considers the pond in which he lives as the Great +World. There is no place, however stagnant, which is not the great +world to the creatures that move about, in it. People who have lived +all their lives in a village still talk of the world as if they had ever +seen it! An old woman in a hovel does not put her nose out of her door +on a Sunday without thinking she is going amongst the pomps and vanities +of the great world. /Ergo/, the great world is to all of us the little +circle in which we live. But as fine people set the fashion, so the +circle of fine people is called the Great World /par excellence/. Now +this great world is not a bad thing when we thoroughly understand it; +and the London great world is at least as good as any other. But then +we scarcely do understand that or anything else in our /beaux +jours/,--which, if they are sometimes the most exquisite, are also often +the most melancholy and the most wasted portion of our life. Maltravers +had not yet found out either /the set/ that pleased him or the species +of amusement that really amused. Therefore he drifted on and about the +vast whirlpool, making plenty of friends--going to balls and +dinners--and bored with both as men are who have no object in society. +Now the way society is enjoyed is to have a pursuit, a /metier/ of some +kind, and then to go into the world, either to make the individual +object a social pleasure, or to obtain a reprieve from some toilsome +avocation. Thus, if you are a politician--politics at once make an +object in your closet, and a social tie between others and yourself when +you are in the world. The same may be said of literature, though in a +less degree; and though, as fewer persons care about literature than +politics, your companions must be more select. If you are very young, +you are fond of dancing; if you are very profligate, perhaps you are +fond of flirtations with your friend's wife. These last are objects in +their way: but they don't last long, and, even with the most frivolous, +are not occupations that satisfy the whole mind and heart, in which +there is generally an aspiration after something useful. It is not +vanity alone that makes a man of the /mode/ invent a new bit or give his +name to a new kind of carriage; it is the influence of that mystic +yearning after utility, which is one of the master-ties between the +individual and the species. + +Maltravers was not happy--that is a lot common enough; but he was not +amused--and that is a sentence more insupportable. He lost a great part +of his sympathy with Cleveland, for, when a man is not amused, he feels +an involuntary contempt for those who are. He fancies they are pleased +with trifles which his superior wisdom is compelled to disdain. +Cleveland was of that age when we generally grow social--for by being +rubbed long and often against the great loadstone of society, we obtain, +in a thousand little minute points, an attraction in common with our +fellows. Their petty sorrows and small joys--their objects of interest +or employment, at some time or other have been ours. We gather up a +vast collection of moral and mental farthings of exchange: and we +scarcely find any intellect too poor, but what we can deal with it in +some way. But in youth, we are egotists and sentimentalists, and +Maltravers belonged to the fraternity who employ + + "The heart in passion and the head in rhymes." + +At length--just when London begins to grow most pleasant--when +flirtations become tender, and water-parties numerous--when birds sing +in the groves of Richmond, and whitebait refresh the statesman by the +shores of Greenwich,--Maltravers abruptly fled from the gay metropolis, +and arrived, one lovely evening in July, at his own ivy-grown porch of +Burleigh. + +What a soft, fresh, delicious evening it was! He had quitted his +carriage at the lodge, and followed it across the small but picturesque +park alone and on foot. He had not seen the place since childhood--he +had quite forgotten its aspect. He now wondered how he could have lived +anywhere else. The trees did not stand in stately avenues, nor did the +antlers of the deer wave above the sombre fern; it was not the domain of +a grand seigneur, but of an old, long-descended English squire. +Antiquity spoke in the moss-grown palings in the shadowy groves, in the +sharp gable-ends and heavy mullions of the house, as it now came in +view, at the base of a hill covered with wood--and partially veiled by +the shrubs of the neglected pleasure-ground, separated from the park by +the invisible ha-ha. There, gleamed in the twilight the watery face of +the oblong fish-pool, with its old-fashioned willows at each +corner--there, grey and quaint, was the monastic dial--and there was the +long terrace walk, with discoloured and broken vases, now filled with +the orange or the aloe, which, in honour of his master's arrival, the +gardener had extracted from the dilapidated green-house. The very +evidence of neglect around, the very weeds and grass on the +half-obliterated road, touched Maltravers with a sort of pitying and +remorseful affection for his calm and sequestered residence. And it was +not with his usual proud step and erect crest that he passed from the +porch to the solitary library, through a line of his servants:--the two +or three old retainers belonging to the place were utterly unfamiliar to +him, and they had no smile for their stranger lord. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + "/Lucian./ He that is born to be a man neither should nor can + be anything nobler, greater, and better than a man. + + "/Peregrine./ But, good Lucian, for the very reason that he may + not become less than a man, he should be always striving to be + more."--WIELAND'S /Peregrinus Proteus/. + +IT was two years from the date of the last chapter before Maltravers +again appeared in general society. These two years had sufficed to +produce a revolution in his fate. Ernest Maltravers had lost the happy +rights of the private individual; he had given himself to the Public; he +had surrendered his name to men's tongues, and was a thing that all had +a right to praise, to blame, to scrutinise, to spy. Ernest Maltravers +had become an author. + +Let no man tempt Gods and Columns, without weighing well the +consequences of his experiment. He who publishes a book, attended with +a moderate success, passes a mighty barrier. He will often look back +with a sigh of regret at the land he has left for ever. The beautiful +and decent obscurity of hearth and home is gone. He can no longer feel +the just indignation of manly pride when he finds himself ridiculed or +reviled. He has parted with the shadow of his life. His motives may be +misrepresented, his character belied; his manners, his person, his +dress, the "very trick of his walk" are all fair food for the cavil and +the caricature. He can never go back, he cannot even pause; he has +chosen his path, and all the natural feelings that make the nerve and +muscle of the active being urge him to proceed. To stop short is to +fail. He has told the world that he will make a name; and he must be +set down as a pretender, or toil on till the boast be fulfilled. Yet +Maltravers thought nothing of all this when, intoxicated with his own +dreams and aspirations, he desired to make a world his confidant; when +from the living nature, and the lore of books, and the mingled result of +inward study and external observation, he sought to draw forth something +that might interweave his name with the pleasurable associations of his +kind. His easy fortune and lonely state gave him up to his own thoughts +and contemplations; they suffused his mind, till it ran over upon the +page which makes the channel that connects the solitary Fountain with +the vast Ocean of Human Knowledge. The temperament of Maltravers was, +as we have seen, neither irritable nor fearful. He formed himself, as a +sculptor forms, with a model before his eyes and an ideal in his heart. +He endeavoured, with labour and patience, to approach nearer and nearer +with every effort to the standard of such excellence as he thought might +ultimately be attained by a reasonable ambition; and when, at last, his +judgment was satisfied, he surrendered the product with a tranquil +confidence to a more impartial tribunal. + +His first work was successful; perhaps for this reason--that it bore the +stamp of the Honest and the Real. He did not sit down to report of what +he had never seen, to dilate on what he had never felt. A quiet and +thoughtful observer of life, his descriptions were the more vivid, +because his own first impressions were not yet worn away. His +experience had sunk deep; not on the arid surface of matured age, but in +the fresh soil of youthful emotions. Another reason, perhaps, that +obtained success for his essay was, that he had more varied and more +elaborate knowledge than young authors think it necessary to possess. +He did not, like Cesarini, attempt to make a show of words upon a +slender capital of ideas. Whether his style was eloquent or homely; it +was still in him a faithful transcript of considered and digested +thought. A third reason--and I dwell on these points not more to +elucidate the career of Maltravers than as hints which may be useful to +others--a third reason why Maltravers obtained a prompt and favourable +reception from the public was, that he had not hackneyed his +peculiarities of diction and thought in that worst of all schools for +the literary novice--the columns of a magazine. Periodicals form an +excellent mode of communication between the public and an author +/already/ established, who has lost the charm of novelty, but gained the +weight of acknowledged reputation; and who, either upon politics or +criticism, seeks for frequent and continuous occasions to enforce his +peculiar theses and doctrines. But, upon the young writer, this mode of +communication, if too long continued, operates most injuriously both as +to his future prospects and his own present taste and style. With +respect to the first, it familiarises the public to his mannerism (and +all writers worth reading have mannerism) in a form to which the said +public are not inclined to attach much weight. He forestalls in a few +months what ought to be the effect of years; namely, the wearying a +world soon nauseated with the /toujours perdrix/. With respect to the +last, it induces a man to write for momentary effects; to study a false +smartness of style and reasoning; to bound his ambition of durability to +the last day of the month; to expect immediate returns for labour; to +recoil at the "hope deferred" of serious works on which judgment is +slowly formed. The man of talent who begins young at periodicals, and +goes on long, has generally something crude and stunted about both his +compositions and his celebrity. He grows the oracle of small coteries; +and we can rarely get out of the impression that he is cockneyfied and +conventional. Periodicals sadly mortgaged the claims that Hazlitt, and +many others of his contemporaries, had upon a vast reversionary estate +of Fame. But I here speak too politically; to some the /res angustoe +domi/ leave no option. And, as Aristotle and the Greek proverb have it, +we cannot carve out all things with the knife of the Delphic cutler. + +The second work that Maltravers put forth, at an interval of eighteen +months from the first, was one of a graver and higher nature; it served +to confirm his reputation: and that is success enough for a second work, +which is usually an author's "/pons asinorum/." He who, after a +triumphant first book, does not dissatisfy the public with a second, has +a fair chance of gaining a fixed station in literature. But now +commenced the pains and perils of the after-birth. By a maiden effort +an author rarely makes enemies. His fellow-writers are not yet prepared +to consider him as a rival; if he be tolerably rich, they unconsciously +trust that he will not become a regular, or, as they term it, "a +professional" author: he did something just to be talked of; he may +write no more, or his second book may fail. But when that second book +comes out, and does not fail, they begin to look about them; envy +wakens, malice begins. And all the old school--gentlemen who have +retired on their pensions of renown--regard him as an intruder: then the +sneer, then the frown, the caustic irony, the biting review, the +depreciating praise. The novice begins to think that he is further from +the goal than before he set out upon the race. + +Maltravers had, upon the whole, a tolerably happy temperament; but he +was a very proud man, and he had the nice soul of a courageous, +honourable, punctilious gentleman. He thought it singular that society +should call upon him, as a gentleman, to shoot his best friend, if that +friend affronted him with a rude word; and yet that, as an author, every +fool and liar might, with perfect impunity, cover reams of paper with +the most virulent personal abuse of him. + +It was one evening in the early summer that, revolving anxious and +doubtful thoughts, Ernest sauntered gloomily along his terrace, + + "And watched with wistful eyes the setting sun." + +when he perceived a dusty travelling carriage whirled along the road by +the ha-ha, and a hand waved in recognition from the open window. His +guests had been so rare, and his friends were so few, that Maltravers +could not conjecture who was his intended visitant. His brother, he +knew, was in London. Cleveland, from whom he had that day heard, was at +his villa. Ferrers was enjoying himself in Vienna. Who could it be? +We may say of solitude what we please; but, after two years of solitude, +a visitor is a pleasurable excitement. Maltravers retraced his steps, +entered his house, and was just in time to find himself almost in the +arms of De Montaigne. + + + +CHAPTER V. + + "Quid tam dextro pede concipis ut te, + Conatus non poeniteat, votique peracti?"*--JUV. + +* What, under such happy auspices do you conceive that you may not +repent of your endeavour and accomplished wish? + +"YES," said De Montaigne, "in my way I also am fulfilling my destiny. I +am a member of the /Chambre des Deputes/, and on a visit to England upon +some commercial affairs. I found myself in your neighbourhood, and, of +course, could not resist the temptation: so you must receive me as your +guest for some days." + +"I congratulate you cordially on your senatorial honours. I have +already heard of your rising name." + +"I return the congratulations with equal warmth. You are bringing my +prophecies to pass. I have read your works with increased pride at our +friendship." + +Maltravers sighed slightly, and half turned away. + +"The desire of distinction," said he, after a pause, "grows upon us till +excitement becomes disease. The child who is born with the mariner's +instinct laughs with glee when his paper bark skims the wave of a pool. +By and by nothing will content him but the ship and the ocean.--Like the +child is the author." + +"I am pleased with your simile," said De Montaigne, smiling. "Do not +spoil it, but go on with your argument." + +Maltravers continued: "Scarcely do we win the applause of a moment, ere +we summon the past and conjecture the future. Our contemporaries no +longer suffice for competitors, our age for the Court to pronounce on +our claims: we call up the Dead as our only true rivals--we appeal to +Posterity as our sole just tribunal. Is this vain in us? Possibly. +Yet such vanity humbles. 'Tis then only we learn all the difference +between Reputation and Fame--between To-Day and Immortality!" + +"Do you think," replied De Montaigne, "that the dead did not feel the +same when they first trod the path that leads to the life beyond life? +Continue to cultivate the mind, to sharpen by exercise the genius, to +attempt to delight or to instruct your race; and even supposing you fall +short of every model you set before you--supposing your name moulder +with your dust, still yon will have passed life more nobly than the +unlaborious herd. Grant that you win not that glorious accident, 'a +name below,' how can you tell but what you may have fitted yourself for +high destiny and employ in the world not of men, but of spirits? The +powers of the mind are things that cannot be less immortal than the mere +sense of identity; their acquisitions accompany us through the Eternal +Progress; and we may obtain a lower or a higher grade hereafter, in +proportion as we are more or less fitted by the exercise of our +intellect to comprehend and execute the solemn agencies of God. The +wise man is nearer to the angels than the fool is. This may be an +apocryphal dogma, but it is not an impossible theory." + +"But we may waste the sound enjoyments of actual life in chasing the +hope you justly allow to be 'apocryphal;' and our knowledge may go for +nothing in the eyes of the Omniscient." + +"Very well," said De Montaigne, smiling; "but answer me honestly. By +the pursuits of intellectual ambition do you waste the sound enjoyments +of life? If so, you do not pursue the system rightly. Those pursuits +ought only to quicken your sense for such pleasures as are the true +relaxations of life. And this, with you peculiarly, since you are +fortunate enough not to depend for subsistence upon literature;--did you +do so, I might rather advise you to be a trunkmaker than an author. A +man ought not to attempt any of the highest walks of Mind and Art, as +the mere provision of daily bread; not literature alone, but everything +else of the same degree. He ought not to be a statesman, or an orator, +or a philosopher, as a thing of pence and shillings: and usually all +men, save the poor poet, feel this truth insensibly." + +"This may be fine preaching," said Maltravers; "but you may be quite +sure that the pursuit of literature is a pursuit apart from the ordinary +objects of life, and you cannot command the enjoyments of both." + +"I think otherwise," said De Montaigne; "but it is not in a country +house eighty miles from the capital, without wife, guests, or friends, +that the experiment can be fairly made. Come, Maltravers, I see before +you a brave career, and I cannot permit you to halt at the onset." + +"You do not see all the calumnies that are already put forth against me, +to say nothing of all the assurances (and many by clever men) that there +is nothing in me!" + +"Dennis was a clever man, and said the same thing of your Pope. Madame +de Sevigne was a clever woman, but she thought Racine would never be +very famous. Milton saw nothing in the first efforts of Dryden that +made him consider Dryden better than a rhymester. Aristophanes was a +good judge of poetry, yet how ill he judged of Euripides! But all this +is commonplace, and yet you bring arguments that a commonplace answers +in evidence against yourself." + +"But it is unpleasant not to answer attacks--not to retaliate on +enemies." + +"Then answer attacks, and retaliate on enemies." + +"But would that be wise?" + +"If it give you pleasure--it would not please /me/." + +"Come, De Montaigne, you are reasoning Socratically. I will ask you +plainly and bluntly, would you advise an author to wage war on his +literary assailants, or to despise them?" + +"Both; let him attack but few, and those rarely. But it is his policy +to show that he is one whom it is better not to provoke too far. The +author always has the world on his side against the critics, if he +choose his opportunity. And he must always recollect that he is 'A +STATE' in himself, which must sometimes go to war in order to procure +peace. The time for war or for peace must be left to the State's own +diplomacy and wisdom." + +"You would make us political machines." + +"It would make every man's conduct more or less mechanical; for system +is the triumph of mind over matter; the just equilibrium of all the +powers and passions may seem like machinery. Be it so. Nature meant +the world--the creation--man himself, for machines." + +"And one must even be in a passion mechanically, according to your +theories." + +"A man is a poor creature who is not in a passion sometimes; but a very +unjust, or a very foolish one, if he be in a passion with the wrong +person, and in the wrong place and time. But enough of this, it is +growing late." + +"And when will Madame visit England?" + +"Oh, not yet, I fear. But you will meet Cesarini in London this year +or the next. He is persuaded that you did not see justice done to his +poems, and is coming here as soon as his indolence will let him, to +proclaim your treachery in a biting preface to some toothless satire." + +"Satire!" + +"Yes; more than one of your poets made their way by a satire, and +Cesarini is persuaded he shall do the same. Castruccio is not as +far-sighted as his namesake, the Prince of Lucca. Good night, my dear +Ernest." + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + "When with much pains this boasted learning's got, + 'Tis an affront to those who have it not." + CHURCHILL: /The Author/. + +THERE was something in De Montaigne's conversation, which, without +actual flattery, reconciled Maltravers to himself and his career. It +served less, perhaps, to excite than to sober and brace his mind. De +Montaigne could have made no man rash, but he could have made many men +energetic and persevering. The two friends had some points in common; +but Maltravers had far more prodigality of nature and passion about +him--had more of flesh and blood, with the faults and excellences of +flesh and blood. De Montaigne held so much to his favourite doctrine of +moral equilibrium, that he had really reduced himself in much to a +species of clockwork. As impulses are formed from habits, so the +regularity of De Montaigne's habits made his impulses virtuous and just, +and he yielded to them as often as a hasty character might have done; +but then those impulses never urged to anything speculative or daring. +De Montaigne could not go beyond a certain defined circle of action. He +had no sympathy for any reasonings based purely on the hypotheses of the +imagination: he could not endure Plato, and he was dumb to the eloquent +whispers of whatever was refining in poetry or mystical in wisdom. + +Maltravers, on the contrary, not disdaining Reason, ever sought to +assist her by the Imaginative Faculty, and held all philosophy +incomplete and unsatisfactory that bounded its inquiries to the limits +of the Known and Certain. He loved the inductive process; but he +carried it out to Conjecture as well as Fact. He maintained that, by a +similar hardihood, all the triumphs of science, as well as art, had been +accomplished--that Newton, that Copernicus, would have done nothing if +they had not imagined as well as reasoned, guessed as well as +ascertained. Nay, it was an aphorism with him, that the very soul of +philosophy is conjecture. He had the most implicit confidence in the +operations of the mind and the heart properly formed, and deemed that +the very excesses of emotion and thought, in men well trained by +experience and study, are conducive to useful and great ends. But the +more advanced years, and the singularly practical character of De +Montaigne's views, gave him a superiority in argument over Maltravers +which the last submitted to unwillingly. While, on the other hand, De +Montaigne secretly felt that his young friend reasoned from a broader +base, and took in a much wider circumference; and that he was, at once, +more liable to failure and error, and more capable of new discovery and +of intellectual achievement. But their ways in life being different, +they did not clash; and De Montaigne, who was sincerely interested in +Ernest's fate, was contented to harden his friend's mind against the +obstacles in his way, and leave the rest to experiment and to +Providence. They went up to London together: and De Montaigne returned +to Paris. Maltravers appeared once more in the haunts of the gay and +great. He felt that his new character had greatly altered his position. +He was no longer courted and caressed for the same vulgar and +adventitious circumstances of fortune, birth, and connections, as +before--yet for circumstances that to him seemed equally unflattering. +He was not sought for his merit, his intellect, his talents; but for his +momentary celebrity. He was an author in fashion, and run after as +anything else in fashion might have been. He was invited, less to be +talked to than to be stared at. He was far too proud in his temper, and +too pure in his ambition, to feel his vanity elated by sharing the +enthusiasm of the circles with a German prince or an industrious flea. +Accordingly he soon repelled the advances made to him, was reserved and +supercilious to fine ladies, refused to be the fashion, and became very +unpopular with the literary exclusives. They even began to run down the +works, because they were dissatisfied with the author. But Maltravers +had based his experiments upon the vast masses of the general Public. +He had called the PEOPLE of his own and other countries to be his +audience and his judges; and all the coteries in the world could have +not injured him. He was like the member for an immense constituency, +who may offend individuals, so long as he keep his footing with the body +at large. But while he withdrew himself from the insipid and the idle, +he took care not to become separated from the world. He formed his own +society according to his tastes: took pleasure in the manly and exciting +topics of the day; and sharpened his observation and widened his sphere +as an author, by mixing freely and boldly with all classes as a citizen. +But literature became to him as art to the artist--as his mistress to +the lover--an engrossing and passionate delight. He made it his +glorious and divine profession--he loved it as a profession--he devoted +to its pursuits and honours his youth, cares, dreams--his mind, and his +heart, and his soul. He was a silent but intense enthusiast in the +priesthood he had entered. From LITERATURE he imagined had come all +that makes nations enlightened and men humane. And he loved Literature +the more, because her distinctions were not those of the world--because +she had neither ribbands, nor stars, nor high places at her command. A +name in the deep gratitude and hereditary delight of men--this was the +title she bestowed. Hers was the Great Primitive Church of the world, +without Popes or Muftis--sinecures, pluralities and hierarchies. Her +servants spoke to the earth as the prophets of old, anxious only to be +heard and believed. Full of this fanaticism, Ernest Maltravers pursued +his way in the great procession of the myrtle-bearers to the sacred +shrine. He carried the thyrsus, and he believed in the god. By degrees +his fanaticism worked in him the philosophy which De Montaigne would +have derived from sober calculation; it made him indifferent to the +thorns in the path, to the storms in the sky. He learned to despise the +enmity he provoked, the calumnies that assailed him. Sometimes he was +silent, but sometimes he retorted. Like a soldier who serves a cause, +he believed that when the cause was injured in his person, the weapons +confided to his hands might be wielded without fear and without +reproach. Gradually he became feared as well as known. And while many +abused him, none could contemn. + +It would not suit the design of this work to follow Maltravers step by +step in his course. I am only describing the principal events, not the +minute details, of his intellectual life. Of the character of his works +it will be enough to say that, whatever their faults, they were +original--they were his own. He did not write according to copy, nor +compile from commonplace books. He was an artist, it is true,--for what +is genius itself but art? but he took laws, and harmony, and order, from +the great code of Truth and Nature: a code that demands intense and +unrelaxing study--though its first principles are few and simple: that +study Maltravers did not shrink from. It was a deep love of truth that +made him a subtle and searching analyst, even in what the dull world +considers trifles; for he knew that nothing in literature is in itself +trifling--that it is often but a hairsbreadth that divides a truism from +a discovery. He was the more original, because he sought rather after +the True than the New. No two minds are ever the same; and therefore +any man who will give us fairly and frankly the results of his own +impressions, uninfluenced by the servilities of imitation, will be +original. But it was not from originality, which really made his +predominant merit, that Maltravers derived his reputation, for his +originality was not of that species which generally dazzles the +vulgar--it was not extravagant nor /bizarre/--he affected no system and +no school. Many authors of his day seemed more novel and /unique/ to +the superficial. Profound and durable invention proceeds by subtle and +fine gradations--it has nothing to do with those jerks and starts, those +convulsions and distortions, which belong not to the vigour and health, +but to the epilepsy and disease, of Literature. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + "Being got out of town, the first thing I did was to give my + mule her head."--/Gil Blas/. + +ALTHOUGH the character of Maltravers was gradually becoming more hard +and severe,--although as his reason grew more muscular, his imagination +lost something of its early bloom, and he was already very different +from the wild boy who had set the German youths in a blaze, and had +changed into a Castle of Indolence the little cottage tenanted with +Poetry and Alice,--he still preserved many of his old habits; he loved, +at frequent intervals, to disappear from the great world--to get rid of +books and friends, and luxury and wealth, and make solitary excursions, +sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, through this fair garden of +England. + +It was one soft May-day that he found himself on such an expedition, +slowly riding through one of the green lanes of ------shire. His cloak +and his saddle-bags comprised all his baggage, and the world was before +him "where to choose his place of rest." The lane wound at length into +the main road, and just as he came upon it he fell in with a gay party +of equestrians. + +Foremost of its cavalcade rode a lady in a dark green habit, mounted on +a thoroughbred English horse, which she managed with so easy a grace +that Maltravers halted in involuntary admiration. He himself was a +consummate horseman, and he had the quick eye of sympathy for those who +shared the accomplishment. He thought, as he gazed, that he had never +seen but one woman whose air and mien on horseback were so full of that +nameless elegance which skill and courage in any art naturally +bestow--that woman was Valerie de Ventadour. Presently, to his great +surprise, the lady advanced from her companions, neared Maltravers, and +said, in a voice which he did not at first distinctly recognise--" Is it +possible?--do I see Mr. Maltravers?" + +She paused a moment, and then threw aside her veil, and Ernest +beheld--Madame de Ventadour! By this time a tall, thin gentleman had +joined the Frenchwoman. + +"Has /madame/ met with an acquaintance?" said he; "and, if so, will she +permit me to partake her pleasure?" + +The interruption seemed a relief to Valerie;--she smiled and coloured. + +"Let me introduce you to Mr. Maltravers. Mr. Maltravers, this is my +host, Lord Doningdale." + +The two gentlemen bowed, the rest of the cavalcade surrounded the trio, +and Lord Doningdale, with a stately yet frank courtesy, invited +Maltravers to return with the party to his house, which was about four +miles distant. As may be supposed, Ernest readily accepted the +invitation. The cavalcade proceeded, and Maltravers hastened to seek an +explanation from Valerie. It was soon given. Madame de Ventadour had a +younger sister, who had lately married a son of Lord Doningdale. The +marriage had been solemnized in Paris, and Monsieur and Madame de +Ventadour had been in England a week on a visit to the English peer. + +The /rencontre/ was so sudden and unexpected that neither recovered +sufficient self-possession for fluent conversation. The explanation +given, Valerie sank into a thoughtful silence, and Maltravers rode by +her side equally taciturn, pondering on the strange chance which, after +the lapse of years, had thrown them again together. + +Lord Doningdale, who at first lingered with his other visitors, now +joined them, and Maltravers was struck with his high-bred manner, and a +singular and somewhat elaborate polish in his emphasis and expression. +They soon entered a noble park, which attested far more care and +attention than are usually bestowed upon those demesnes, so peculiarly +English. Young plantations everywhere contrasted the venerable +groves--new cottages of picturesque design adorned the outskirts--and +obelisks and columns, copied from the antique, and evidently of recent +workmanship, gleamed upon them as they neared the house--a large pile, +in which the fashion of Queen Anne's day had been altered into the +French roofs and windows of the architecture of the Tuileries. "You +reside much in the country, I am sure, my lord," said Maltravers. + +"Yes," replied Lord Doningdale, with a pensive air, "this place is +greatly endeared to me. Here his Majesty Louis XVIII., when in England, +honoured me with an annual visit. In compliment to him, I sought to +model my poor mansion into an humble likeness of his own palace, so that +he might as little as possible miss the rights he had lost. His own +rooms were furnished exactly like those he had occupied at the +Tuileries. Yes, the place is endeared to me--I think of the old times +with pride. It is something to have sheltered a Bourbon in his +misfortunes." + +"It cost /milord/ a vast sum to make these alterations," said Madame de +Ventadour, glancing archly at Maltravers. + +"Ah, yes," said the old lord; and his face, lately elated, became +overcast--"nearly three hundred thousand pounds: but what then?--'Les +souvenirs, madame, sont sans prix/!'" + +"Have you visited Paris since the restoration, Lord Doningdale," asked +Maltravers. + +His lordship looked at him sharply, and then turned his eye to Madame de +Ventadour. + +"Nay," said Valerie; laughing, "I did not dictate the question." + +"Yes," said Lord Doningdale, "I have been at Paris." + +"His Majesty must have been delighted to return your lordship's +hospitality." + +Lord Doningdale looked a little embarrassed, and made no reply, but put +his horse into a canter. + +"You have galled our host," said Valerie, smiling. "Louis XVIII. and +his friends lived here as long as they pleased, and as sumptuously as +they could; their visits half ruined the owner, who is the model of a +/gentilhomme/ and /preux chevalier/. He went to Paris to witness their +triumph; he expected, I fancy, the order of the St. Esprit. Lord +Doningdale has royal blood in his veins. His Majesty asked him once to +dinner, and, when he took leave, said to him, 'We are happy, Lord +Doningdale, to have thus requited our obligations to your lordship.' +Lord Doningdale went back in dudgeon, yet he still boasts of his +/souvenirs/, poor man." + +"Princes are not grateful, neither are republics," said Maltravers. + +"Ah, who is grateful," rejoined Valerie, "except a dog and a woman?" + +Maltravers found himself ushered into a vast dressing-room, and was +informed, by a French valet, that in the country Lord Doningdale dined +at six--the first bell would ring in a few minutes. While the valet was +speaking, Lord Doningdale himself entered the room. His lordship had +learned, in the meanwhile, that Maltravers was of the great and ancient +commoner's house whose honours were centred in his brother; and yet +more, that he was the Mr. Maltravers whose writings every one talked of, +whether for praise or abuse. Lord Doningdale had the two +characteristics of a high-bred gentleman of the old school--respect for +birth and respect for talent; he was, therefore, more than ordinarily +courteous to Ernest, and pressed him to stay some days with so much +cordiality, that Maltravers could not but assent. His travelling toilet +was scanty, but Maltravers thought little of dress. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + "It is the soul that sees. The outward eyes + Present the object, but the mind descries; + And thence delight, disgust, or cool indifference rise. + "CRABBE. + +WHEN Maltravers entered the enormous saloon, hung with damask, and +decorated with the ponderous enrichments and furniture of the time of +Louis XIV. (that most showy and barbarous of all tastes, which has +nothing in it of the graceful, nothing of the picturesque, and which, +nowadays, people who should know better imitate with a ludicrous +servility), he found sixteen persons assembled. His host stepped up +from a circle which surrounded him, and formally presented his new +visitor to the rest. He was struck with the likeness which the sister +of Valerie bore to Valerie herself; but it was a sobered and chastened +likeness--less handsome, less impressive. Mrs. George Herbert--such was +the name she now owned--was a pretty, shrinking, timid girl, fond of her +husband, and mightily awed by her father-in-law. Maltravers sat by her, +and drew her into conversation. He could not help pitying the poor +lady, when he found she was to live altogether at Doningdale +Park--remote from all the friends and habits of her childhood--alone, so +far as the affections were concerned, with a young husband, who was +passionately fond of field-sports, and who, from the few words Ernest +exchanged with him, seemed to have only three ideas--his dogs, his +horses, and his wife. Alas! the last would soon be the least in +importance. It is a sad position--that of a lively young Frenchwoman +entombed in an English country-house! Marriages with foreigners are +seldom fortunate experiments. But Ernest's attention was soon diverted +from the sister by the entrance of Valerie herself, leaning on her +husband's arm. Hitherto he had not very minutely observed what change +time had effected in her--perhaps he was half afraid. He now gazed at +her with curious interest. Valerie was still extremely handsome, but +her face had grown sharper, her form thinner and more angular; there was +something in her eye and lip, discontented, restless, almost +querulous:--such is the too common expression in the face of those born +to love, and condemned to be indifferent. The little sister was more to +be envied of the two--come what may, she loved her husband, such as he +was, and her heart might ache, but it was not with a void. + +Monsieur de Ventadour soon shuffled up to Maltravers--his nose longer +than ever. + +"Hein--hein--how d'ye do--how d'ye do?--charmed to see you--saw madame +before me--hein--hein--I suspect--I suspect--" + +"Mr. Maltravers, will you give Madame de Ventadour your arm?" said Lord +Doningdale, as he stalked on to the dining-room with a duchess on his +own. + +"And you have left Naples," said Maltravers: "left it for good?" + +"We do not think of returning." + +"It was a charming place--how I loved it!--how well I remember it!" +Ernest spoke calmly--it was but a general remark. + +Valerie sighed gently. + +During dinner, the conversation between Maltravers and Madame de +Ventadour was vague and embarrassed. Ernest was no longer in love with +her--he had outgrown that youthful fancy. She had exercised influence +over him--the new influences that he had created had chased away her +image. Such is life. Long absences extinguish all the false lights, +though not the true ones. The lamps are dead in the banquet-room of +yesterday; but a thousand years hence, and the stars we look on to-night +will burn as brightly. Maltravers was no longer in love with Valerie. +But Valerie--ah, perhaps /hers/ had been true love! + +Maltravers was surprised when he came to examine the state of his own +feelings--he was surprised to find that his pulse did not beat quicker +at the touch of one whose very glance had once thrilled him to the +soul--he was surprised, but rejoiced. He was no longer anxious to seek, +but to shun excitement, and he was a better and a higher being than he +had been on the shores of Naples. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + "Whence that low voice, a whisper from the heart, + That told of days long past?"--WORDSWORTH. + +ERNEST stayed several days at Lord Doningdale's, and every day he rode +out with Valerie, but it was with a large party; and every evening he +conversed with her, but the whole world might have overheard what they +said. In fact, the sympathy that had once existed between the young +dreamer and the proud, discontented woman had in much passed away. +Awakened to vast and grand objects, Maltravers was a dreamer no more. +Inured to the life of trifles she had once loathed, Valerie had settled +down into the usages and thoughts of the common world--she had no longer +the superiority of earthly wisdom over Maltravers, and his romance was +sobered in its eloquence, and her ear dulled to its tone. Still Ernest +felt a deep interest in her, and still she seemed to feel a sensitive +pride in his career. + +One evening Maltravers had joined a circle in which Madame de Ventadour, +with more than her usual animation, presided--and to which, in her +pretty, womanly, and thoroughly French way, she was lightly laying down +the law on a hundred subjects--Philosophy, Poetry, Sevres china, and the +balance of power in Europe. Ernest listened to her, delighted, but not +enchanted. Yet Valerie was not natural that night--she was speaking +from forced spirits. + +"Well," said Madame de Ventadour at last, tired, perhaps of the part she +had been playing, and bringing to a sudden close an animated description +of the then French court--"well, see now if we ought not to be ashamed +of ourselves--our talk has positively interrupted the music. Did you +see Lord Doningdale stop it with a bow to me, as much as to say, with +his courtly reproof, 'It shall not disturb you, madam'? I will no +longer be accessory to your crime of bad taste!" + +With this the Frenchwoman rose, and, gliding through the circle, retired +to the further end of the room. Ernest followed her with his eyes. +Suddenly she beckoned to him, and he approached and seated himself by +her side. + +"Mr. Maltravers," said Valerie, then, with great sweetness in her +voice,--"I have not yet expressed to you the delight I have felt from +your genius. In absence you have suffered me to converse with you--your +books have been to me dear friends; as we shall soon part again, let me +now tell you of this, frankly and without compliment." + +This paved the way to a conversation that approached more on the +precincts of the past than any they had yet known. But Ernest was +guarded; and Valerie watched his words and looks with an interest she +could not conceal--an interest that partook of disappointment. + +"It is an excitement," said Valerie, "to climb a mountain, though it +fatigue; and though the clouds may even deny us a prospect from its +summit--it is an excitement that gives a very universal pleasure, and +that seems almost as if it were the result of a common human instinct +which makes us desire to rise--to get above the ordinary thoroughfares +and level of life. Some such pleasure you must have in intellectual +ambition, in which the mind is the upward traveller." + +"It is not the /ambition/ that pleases," replied Maltravers, it is the +following a path congenial to our tastes, and made dear to us in a short +time by habit. The moments in which we look beyond our work, and fancy +ourselves seated beneath the Everlasting Laurel, are few. It is the +work itself, whether of action or literature, that interests and excites +us. And at length the dryness of toil takes the familiar sweetness of +custom. But in intellectual labour there is another charm--we become +more intimate with our own nature. The heart and the soul grow friends, +as it were, and the affections and the aspirations unite. Thus, we are +never without society--we are never alone; all that we have read, +learned and discovered, is company to us. This is pleasant," added +Maltravers, "to those who have no clear connections in the world +without." + +"And is that your case?" asked Valerie, with a timid smile. + +"Alas, yes! and since I conquered one affection,--Madame de Ventadour, I +almost think I have outlived the capacity of loving. I believe that +when we cultivate very largely the reason or the imagination, we blunt, +to a certain extent, our young susceptibilities to the fair impressions +of real life. From 'idleness,' says the old Roman poet, 'Love feeds his +torch.'" + +"You are too young to talk thus." + +"I speak as I feel." + +Valerie said no more. Shortly afterwards Lord Doningdale approached +them, and proposed that they should make an excursion the next day to +see the ruins of an old abbey, some few miles distant. + + + +CHAPTER X. + + "If I should meet thee + After long years, + How shall I greet thee?"--BYRON. + +IT was a smaller party than usual the next day, consisting only of Lord +Doningdale, his son George Herbert, Valerie and Ernest. They were +returning from the ruins, and the sun, now gradually approaching the +west, threw its slant rays over the gardens and houses of a small, +picturesque town, or, perhaps, rather village, on the high North Road. +It is one of the prettiest places in England, that town or village, and +boasts an excellent old-fashioned inn, with a large and quaint +pleasure-garden. It was through the long and straggling street that our +little party slowly rode, when the sky became suddenly overcast, and, a +few large hailstones falling, gave notice of an approaching storm. + +"I told you we should not get safely through the day," said George +Herbert. "Now we are in for it." + +"George, that is a vulgar expression," said Lord Doningdale, buttoning +up his coat. While he spoke, a vivid flash of lightning darted across +their very path, and the sky grew darker and darker. + +"We may as well rest at the inn," said Maltravers: "the storm is coming +on apace, and Madame de Ventadour--" + +"You are right," interrupted Lord Doningdale; and he put his horse into +a canter. + +They were soon at the door of the old hotel. Bells rang dogs +barked--hostlers ran. A plain, dark, travelling post-chariot was before +the inn-door; and, roused perhaps by the noise below, a lady in the +"first-floor front, No. 2," came to the window. This lady owned the +travelling-carriage, and was at this time alone in that apartment. As +she looked carelessly at the party, her eyes rested on one form--she +turned pale, uttered a faint cry, and fell senseless on the floor. + +Meanwhile, Lord Doningdale and his guests were shown into the room next +to that tenanted by the lady. Properly speaking, both the rooms made +one long apartment for balls and county meetings, and the division was +formed by a thin partition, removable at pleasure. The hail now came on +fast and heavy, the trees groaned, the thunder roared; and in the large, +dreary room there was a palpable and oppressive sense of coldness and +discomfort. Valerie shivered--a fire was lighted--and the Frenchwoman +drew near to it. + +"You are wet, my dear lady," said Lord Doningdale. "You should take off +that close habit, and have it dried." + +"Oh, no; what matters it?" said Valerie bitterly, and almost rudely. + +"It matters everything," said Ernest; "pray be ruled." + +"And do you care for me?" murmured Valerie. + +"Can you ask that question?" replied Ernest, in the same tone, and with +affectionate and friendly warmth. + +Meanwhile, the good old lord had summoned the chambermaid, and, with the +kindly imperiousness of a father, made Valerie quit the room. The three +gentlemen, left together, talked of the storm, wondered how long it +would last, and debated the propriety of sending to Doningdale for the +carriage. While they spoke, the hail suddenly ceased, though clouds in +the distant horizon were bearing heavily up to renew the charge. George +Herbert, who was the most impatient of mortals, especially of rainy +weather in a strange place, seized the occasion, and insisted on riding +to Doningdale, and sending back the carriage. + +"Surely a groom would do as well, George," said the father. + +"My dear father, no; I should envy the rogue too much. I am bored to +death here. Marie will be frightened about us. Brown Bess will take me +back in twenty minutes. I am a hardy fellow, you know. Good-bye." + +Away darted the young sportsman, and in two minutes they saw him spur +gaily from the inn-door. + +"It is very odd that /I/ should have such a son," said Lord Doningdale, +musingly,--"a son who cannot amuse himself indoors for two minutes +together. I took great pains with his education, too. Strange that +people should weary so much of themselves that they cannot brave the +prospect of a few minutes passed in reflection--that a shower and the +resources of their own thoughts are evils so galling--very strange +indeed. But it is a confounded climate this, certainly. I wonder when +it will clear up." + +Thus muttering, Lord Doningdale walked, or rather marched, to and fro +the room, with his hands in his coat pockets, and his whip sticking +perpendicularly out of the right one. Just at this moment the waiter +came to announce that his lordship's groom was without, and desired much +to see him. Lord Doningdale had then the pleasure of learning that his +favourite grey hackney, which he had ridden, winter and summer, for +fifteen years, was taken with shivers, and, as the groom expressed it, +seemed to have "the colic in its bowels!" + +Lord Doningdale turned pale, and hurried to the stables without saying a +word. + +Maltravers, who, plunged in thought, had not overheard the low and brief +conference between master and groom, remained alone, seated by the fire, +his head buried in his bosom, and his arms folded. + +Meanwhile, the lady, who occupied the adjoining chamber, had recovered +slowly from her swoon. She put both hands to her temples, as if trying +to recollect her thoughts. Hers was a fair, innocent, almost childish +face; and now, as a smile shot across it, there was something so sweet +and touching in the gladness it shed over that countenance, that you +could not have seen it without strong and almost painful interest. For +it was the gladness of a person who has known sorrow. Suddenly she +started up, and said: "No, then! I do not dream. He is come back--he +is here--all will be well again! Ha! it is his voice. Oh, bless him, +it is /his/ voice!" She paused, her finger on her lip, her face bent +down. A low and indistinct sound of voices reached her straining ear +through the thin door that divided her from Maltravers. She listened +intently, but she could not overhear the import. Her heart beat +violently. "He is not alone!" she murmured, mournfully. "I will wait +till the sound ceases, and then I will venture in!" + +And what was the conversation carried on in that chamber? We must +return to Ernest. He was sitting in the same thoughtful posture when +Madame de Ventadour returned. + +The Frenchwoman coloured when she found herself alone with Ernest, and +Ernest himself was not at his ease. + +"Herbert has gone home to order the carriage, and Lord Doningdale has +disappeared, I scarce know whither. You do not, I trust, feel the worse +for the rain?" + +"No," said Valerie. + +"Shall you have any commands in London?" asked Maltravers; "I return to +town to-morrow." + +"So soon!" and Valerie sighed. "Ah!" she added, after a pause, "we +shall not meet again for years, perhaps. Monsieur de Ventadour is to be +appointed ambassador to the Court and so--and so--. Well, it is no +matter. What has become of the friendship we once swore to each other?" + +"It is here," said Maltravers, laying his hand on his heart. "Here, at +least, lies the half of that friendship which was my charge; and more +than friendship, Valerie de Ventadour--respect--admiration--gratitude. +At a time of life when passion and fancy, most strong, might have left +me an idle and worthless voluptuary, you convinced me that the world has +virtue, and that woman is too noble to be our toy--the idol of to-day, +the victim of to-morrow. Your influence, Valerie, left me a more +thoughtful man--I hope a better one." + +"Oh!" said Madame de Ventadour, strongly affected; "I bless you for what +you tell me: you cannot know--you cannot guess how sweet it is to me. +Now I recognise you once more. What--what did my resolution cost me? +Now I am repaid!" + +Ernest was moved by her emotion, and by his own remembrances; he took +her hand, and pressing it with frank and respectful tenderness--"I did +not think, Valerie," said he, "when I reviewed the past, I did not think +that you loved me--I was not vain enough for that; but, if so, how much +is your character raised in my eyes--how provident, how wise your +virtue! Happier and better for both, our present feelings, each to +each, than if we had indulged a brief and guilty dream of passion, at +war with all that leaves passion without remorse, and bliss without +alloy. Now--" + +"Now," interrupted Valerie, quickly, and fixing on him her dark +eyes--"now you love me no longer! Yet it is better so. Well, I will go +back to my cold and cheerless state of life, and forget once more that +Heaven endowed me with a heart!" + +"Ah, Valerie! esteemed, revered, still beloved, not indeed with the +fires of old, but with a deep, undying, and holy tenderness, speak not +thus to me. Let me not believe you unhappy; let me think that, wise, +sagacious, brilliant as you are, you have employed your gifts to +reconcile yourself to a common lot. Still let me look up to you when I +would despise the circles in which you live, and say: 'On that pedestal +an altar is yet placed, to which the heart may bring the offerings of +the soul.'" + +"It is in vain--in vain that I struggle," said Valerie, half-choked with +emotion, and clasping her hands passionately. "Ernest, I love you +still--I am wretched to think you love me no more: I would give you +nothing--yet I exact all; my youth is going--my beauty dimmed--my very +intellect is dulled by the life I lead; and yet I ask from you that +which your young heart once felt for me. Despise me, Maltravers, I am +not what I seemed--I am a hypocrite--despise me." + +"No," said Ernest, again possessing himself of her hand, and falling on +his knee by her side. "No, never-to-be-forgotten, ever-to-be-honoured +Valerie, hear me." As he spoke, he kissed the hand he held; with the +other, Valerie covered her face and wept bitterly, but in silence. +Ernest paused till the burst of her feelings had subsided, her hand +still in his--still warmed by his kisses--kisses as pure as cavalier +ever impressed on the hand of his queen. + +At this time, the door communicating with the next room gently opened. +A fair form--a form fairer and younger than that of Valerie de +Ventadour--entered the apartment; the silence had deceived her--she +believed that Maltravers was alone. She had entered with her heart upon +her lips; love, sanguine, hopeful love, in every vein, in every +thought--she had entered dreaming that across that threshold life would +dawn upon her afresh--that all would be once more as it had been, when +the common air was rapture. Thus she entered; and now she stood +spell-bound, terror-stricken, pale as death--life turned to +stone--youth--hope--bliss were for ever over to her! Ernest kneeling to +another was all she saw! For this had she been faithful and true amidst +storm and desolation; for this had she hoped--dreamed--lived. They did +not note her; she was unseen--unheard. And Ernest, who would have gone +barefoot to the end of the earth to find her, was in the very room with +her, and knew it not! + +"Call me again /beloved/!" said Valerie, very softly. + +"Beloved Valerie, hear me." + +These words were enough for the listener; she turned noiselessly away: +humble as that heart was, it was proud. The door closed on her--she had +obtained the wish of her whole being--Heaven had heard her prayer--she +had once more seen the lover of her youth; and thenceforth all was night +and darkness to her. What matter what became of her? One moment, what +an effect it produces upon years!--ONE MOMENT!--virtue, crime, glory, +shame, woe, rapture, rest upon moments! Death itself is but a moment, +yet Eternity is its successor! + +"Hear me!" continued Ernest, unconscious of what had passed--" hear me; +let us be what human nature and worldly forms seldom allow those of +opposite sexes to be--friends to each other, and to virtue also--friends +through time and absence--friends through all the vicissitudes of +life--friends on whose affection shame and remorse never cast a +shade--friends who are to meet hereafter! Oh! there is no attachment so +true, no tie so holy, as that which is founded on the old chivalry of +loyalty and honour; and which is what love would be, if the heart and +the soul were unadulterated by clay." + +There was in Ernest's countenance an expression so noble, in his voice a +tone so thrilling, that Valerie was brought back at once to the nature +which a momentary weakness had subdued. She looked at him with an +admiring and grateful gaze, and then said, in a calm but low voice, +"Ernest, I understand you; yes, your friendship is dearer to me than +love." + +At this time they heard the voice of Lord Doningdale on the stairs. +Valerie turned away. Maltravers, as he rose, extended his hand; she +pressed it warmly, and the spell was broken, the temptation conquered, +the ordeal passed. While Lord Doningdale entered the room, the +carriage, with Herbert in it, drove to the door. In a few minutes the +little party were within the vehicle. As they drove away, the hostlers +were harnessing the horses to the dark green travelling-carriage. From +the window, a sad and straining eye gazed upon the gayer equipage of the +peer--that eye which Maltravers would have given his whole fortune to +meet again. But he did not look up; and Alice Darvil turned away, and +her fate was fixed! + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + "Strange fits of passion I have known. + And I will dare to tell."--WORDSWORTH. + + "* * * * * The food of hope + Is meditated action."--WORDSWORTH. + +MALTRAVERS left Doningdale the next day. He had no further conversation +with Valerie; but when he took leave of her, she placed in his hand a +letter, which he read as he rode slowly through the beech avenues of the +park. Translated, it ran thus: + + +"Others would despise me for the weakness I showed--but you will not! +It is the sole weakness of a life. None can know what I have passed +through--what hours of dejection and gloom. I, whom so many envy! +Better to have been a peasant girl, with love, than a queen whose life +is but a dull mechanism. You, Maltravers, I never forgot in absence; +and your image made yet more wearisome and trite the things around me. +Years passed, and your name was suddenly on men's lips. I heard of you +wherever I went--I could not shut you from me. Your fame was as if you +were conversing by my side. We met at last, suddenly and unexpectedly. +I saw that you loved me no more, and that thought conquered all my +resolves: anguish subdues the nerves of the mind as sickness those of +the body. And thus I forgot, and humbled, and might have undone myself. +Juster and better thoughts are once more awakened within me, and when we +meet again I shall be worthy of your respect. I see how dangerous are +that luxury of thought, that sin of discontent which I indulged. I go +back to life, resolved to vanquish all that can interfere with its +claims and duties. Heaven guide and preserve you, Ernest. Think of me +as one whom you will not blush to have loved--whom you will not blush +hereafter to present to your wife. With so much that is soft, as well +as great within you, you were not formed like me--to be alone. + + "FAREWELL!" + + +Maltravers read, and re-read this letter; and when he reached his home, +he placed it carefully amongst the things he most valued. A lock of +Alice's hair lay beside it--he did not think that either was dishonoured +by the contact. + +With an effort, he turned himself once more to those stern yet high +connections which literature makes with real life. Perhaps there was a +certain restlessness in his heart which induced him ever to occupy his +mind. That was one of the busiest years of his life--the one in which +he did most to sharpen jealousy and confirm fame. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + "In effect he entered my apartment."--/Gil Blas/. + + "'I am surprised,' said he, 'at the caprice of Fortune, + who sometimes delights in loading an execrable author + with favours, whilst she leaves good writers to perish + for want.'"--/Gil Blas/. + +IT was just twelve months after his last interview with Valerie, and +Madame de Ventadour had long since quitted England, when one morning, as +Maltravers sat alone in his study, Castruccio Cesarini was announced. + +"Ah, my dear Castruccio, how are you?" cried Maltravers, eagerly, as the +opening door presented the form of the Italian. + +"Sir," said Castruccio, with great stiffness, and speaking in French, +which was his wont when he meant to be distant--"sir, I do not come to +renew our former acquaintance--you are a great man [here a bitter +sneer], I an obscure one [here Castruccio drew himself up]--I only come +to discharge a debt to you which I find I have incurred." + +"What tone is this, Castruccio; and what debt do you speak of?" + +"On my arrival in town yesterday," said the poet solemnly, "I went to +the man whom you deputed some years since to publish my little volume, +to demand an account of its success; and I found that it had cost one +hundred and twenty pounds, deducting the sale of forty-nine copies which +had been sold. /Your/ books sell some thousands, I am told. It is well +contrived--mine fell still-born, no pains were taken with it--no +matter--[a wave of the hand]. You discharged this debt, I repay you: +there is a cheque for the money. Sir, I have done! I wish you a good +day, and health to enjoy /your/ reputation." + +"Why, Cesarini, this is folly." + +"Sir--" + +"Yes, it is folly; for there is no folly equal to that of throwing away +friendship in a world where friendship is so rare. You insinuate that I +am to blame for any neglect which your work experienced. Your publisher +can tell you that I was more anxious about your book than I have ever +been about my own." + +"And the proof is that forty-nine copies were sold!" + +"Sit down, Castruccio; sit down, and listen to reason;" and Maltravers +proceeded to explain, and soothe, and console. He reminded the poor +poet that his verses were written in a foreign tongue--that even English +poets of great fame enjoyed but a limited sale for their works--that it +was impossible to make the avaricious public purchase what the stupid +public would not take an interest in--in short, he used all those +arguments which naturally suggested themselves as best calculated to +convince and soften Castruccio; and he did this with so much evident +sympathy and kindness, that at length the Italian could no longer +justify his own resentment. A reconciliation took place, sincere on the +part of Maltravers, hollow on the part of Cesarini; for the disappointed +author could not forgive the successful one. + +"And how long shall you stay in London?" + +"Some months." + +"Send for your luggage, and be my guest." + +"No; I have taken lodgings that suit me. I am formed for solitude." + +"While you stay here, you will, however, go into the world." + +"Yes, I have some letters of introduction, and I hear that the English +can honour merit, even in an Italian." + +"You hear the truth, and it will amuse you, at least, to see our eminent +men. They will receive you most hospitably. Let me assist you as a +cicerone." + +"Oh, your /valuable/ time!" + +"Is at your disposal: but where are you going?" + +"It is Sunday, and I have had my curiosity excited to hear a celebrated +preacher--Mr. ------, who they tell me, is now more talked of than /any +author/ in London." + +"They tell you truly--I will go with you--I myself have not yet heard +him, but proposed to do so this very day." + +"Are you not jealous of a man so much spoken of?" + +"Jealous!--why, I never set up for a popular preacher!--/ce n'est pas +mon metier/." + +"If I were a /successful/ author, I should be jealous if the +dancing-dogs were talked of." + +"No, my dear Cesarini, I am sure you would not. You are a little +irritated at present by natural disappointment; but the man who has as +much success as he deserves is never morbidly jealous, even of a rival +in his own line. Want of success sours us; but a little sunshine smiles +away the vapours. Come, we have no time to lose." + +Maltravers took his hat, and the two young men bent their way to ------ +Chapel. Cesarini still retained the singular fashion of his dress, +though it was now made of handsomer materials, and worn with more +coxcombry and pretension. He had much improved in person--had been +admired in Paris, and told that he looked like a man of genius--and, +with his black ringlets flowing over his shoulders, his long moustache, +his broad Spanish-shaped hat, and eccentric garb, he certainly did not +look like other people. He smiled with contempt at the plain dress of +his companion. "I see," said he, "that you follow the fashion, and look +as if you passed your life with /elegans/ instead of students. I wonder +you condescend to such trifles as fashionably-shaped hats and coats." + +"It would be worse trifling to set up for originality in hats and coats, +at least in sober England. I was born a gentleman, and I dress my +outward frame like others of my order. Because I am a writer, why +should I affect to be different from other men?" + +"I see that you are not above the weakness of your countryman Congreve," +said Cesarini, "who deemed it finer to be a gentleman than an author." + +"I always thought that anecdote misconstrued. Congreve had a proper and +manly pride, to my judgment, when he expressed a dislike to be visited +merely as a raree-show." + +"But is it policy to let the world see that an author is like other +people? Would he not create a deeper personal interest if he showed +that even in person alone he was unlike the herd? He ought to be seen +seldom--not to stale his presence--and to resort to the arts that belong +to the royalty of intellect as well as the royalty of birth." + +"I dare say an author, by a little charlatanism of that nature, might be +more talked of--might be more adored in the boarding-schools, and make a +better picture in the exhibition. But I think, if his mind be manly, he +would lose in self-respect at every quackery of the sort. And my +philosophy is, that to respect oneself is worth all the fame in the +world." + +Cesarini sneered and shrugged his shoulders; it was quite evident that +the two authors had no sympathy with each other. + +They arrived at last at the chapel, and with some difficulty procured +seats. + +Presently the service began. The preacher was a man of unquestionable +talent and fervid eloquence; but his theatrical arts, his affected +dress, his artificial tones and gestures; and, above all, the fanatical +mummeries which he introduced into the House of God, disgusted +Maltravers, while they charmed, entranced, and awed Cesarini. The one +saw a mountebank and impostor--the other recognised a profound artist +and an inspired prophet. + +But while the discourse was drawing towards a close, while the preacher +was in one of his most eloquent bursts--the ohs! and ahs! of which were +the grand prelude to the pathetic peroration--the dim outline of a +female form, in the distance, riveted the eyes and absorbed the thoughts +of Maltravers. The chapel was darkened, though it was broad daylight; +and the face of the person that attracted Ernest's attention was +concealed by her head-dress and veil. But that bend of the neck, so +simply graceful, so humbly modest, recalled to his heart but one image. +Every one has, perhaps, observed that there is a physiognomy (if the +bull may be pardoned) of /form/ as well as face, which it rarely happens +that two persons possess in common. And this, with most, is peculiarly +marked in the turn of the head, the outline of the shoulders, and the +ineffable something that characterises the postures of each individual +in repose. The more intently he gazed, the more firmly Ernest +was persuaded that he saw before him the long-lost, the +never-to-be-forgotten mistress of his boyish days, and his first love. +On one side of the lady in question sat an elderly gentleman, whose eyes +were fixed upon the preacher; on the other, a beautiful little girl, +with long fair ringlets, and that cast of features which, from its +exquisite delicacy and expressive mildness, painters and poets call the +"angelic." These persons appeared to belong to the same party. +Maltravers literally trembled, so great were his impatience and +agitation. Yet still, the dress of the supposed likeness of Alice, the +appearance of her companions, were so evidently above the ordinary rank, +that Ernest scarcely ventured to yield to the suggestions of his own +heart. Was it possible that the daughter of Luke Darvil, thrown upon +the wide world, could have risen so far beyond her circumstances and +station? At length the moment came when he might resolve his +doubts--the discourse was concluded--the extemporaneous prayer was at an +end--the congregation broke up, and Maltravers pushed his way, as well +as he could, through the dense and serried crowd. But every moment some +vexatious obstruction, in the shape of a fat gentleman or three +close-wedged ladies, intercepted his progress. He lost sight of the +party in question amidst the profusion of tall bonnets and waving +plumes. He arrived at last, breathless and pale as death (so great was +the struggle within him), at the door of the chapel. He arrived in time +to see a plain carriage with servants in grey undress liveries, driving +from the porch--and caught a glimpse, within the vehicle, of the golden +ringlets of a child. He darted forward, he threw himself almost before +the horses. The coachman drew in, and with an angry exclamation, very +much like an oath, whipped his horses aside and went off. But that +momentary pause sufficed.--"It is she--it is! O Heaven, it is Alice!" +murmured Maltravers. The whole place reeled before his eyes, and he +clung, overpowered and unconscious, to a neighbouring lamp-post for +support. But he recovered himself with an agonising effort, as the +thought struck upon this heart that he was about to lose sight of her +again for ever. And he rushed forward, like one frantic, in pursuit of +the carriage. But there was a vast crowd of other carriages, besides +stream upon stream of foot-passengers,--for the great and the gay +resorted to that place of worship, as a fashionable excitement in a dull +day. And after a weary and a dangerous chase, in which he had been +nearly run over three times, Maltravers halted at last, exhausted and in +despair. Every succeeding Sunday, for months, he went to the same +chapel, but in vain; in vain, too, he resorted to every public haunt of +dissipation and amusement. Alice Darvil he beheld no more! + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + "Tell me, sir, + Have you cast up your state, rated your land, + And find it able to endure the charge?" + /The Noble Gentleman/. + +By degrees, as Maltravers sobered down from the first shock of that +unexpected meeting, and from the prolonged disappointment that followed +it, he became sensible of a strange kind of happiness or contentment. +Alice was not in poverty, she was not eating the unhallowed bread of +vice, or earning the bitter wages of laborious penury. He saw her in +reputable, nay, opulent circumstances. A dark nightmare, that had +often, amidst the pleasures of youth, or the triumphs of literature, +weighed upon his breast, was removed. He breathed more freely--he could +sleep in peace. His conscience could no longer say to him, "She who +slept upon thy bosom is a wanderer upon the face of the earth--exposed +to every temptation, perishing perhaps for want." That single sight of +Alice had been like the apparition of the injured Dead conjured up at +Heraclea--whose sight could pacify the aggressor and exorcise the +spectres of remorse. He was reconciled with himself, and walked on to +the Future with a bolder step and a statelier crest. Was she married to +that staid and sober-looking personage whom he had beheld with her? was +that child the offspring of their union? He almost hoped so--it was +better to lose than to destroy her. Poor Alice! could she have dreamed, +when she sat at his feet gazing up into his eyes, that a time would come +when Maltravers would thank Heaven for the belief that she was happy +with another? + +Ernest Maltravers now felt a new man: the relief of conscience operated +on the efforts of his genius. A more buoyant and elastic spirit entered +into them--they seemed to breathe as with a second youth. + +Meanwhile, Cesarini threw himself into the fashionable world, and to his +own surprise was /feted/ and caressed. In fact, Castruccio was exactly +the sort of person to be made a lion of. The letters of introduction +that he had brought from Paris were addressed to those great personages +in England between whom and personages equally great in France politics +makes a bridge of connection. Cesarini appeared to them as an +accomplished young man, brother-in-law to a distinguished member of the +French Chamber. Maltravers, on the other hand, introduced him to the +literary dilettanti, who admire all authors that are not rivals. The +singular costume of Cesarini, which would have revolted persons in an +Englishman, enchanted them in an Italian. He looked, they said, like a +poet. Ladies like to have verses written to them, and Cesarini, who +talked very little, made up for it by scribbling eternally. The young +man's head soon grew filled with comparisons between himself in London +and Petrarch at Avignon. As he had always thought that fame was in the +gift of lords and ladies, and had no idea of the multitude, he fancied +himself already famous. And, since one of his strongest feelings was +his jealousy of Maltravers, he was delighted at being told he was a much +more interesting creature than that haughty personage, who wore his +neckcloth like other people, and had not even those indispensable +attributes of genius--black curls and a sneer. Fine society, which, as +Madame de Stael well says, depraves the frivolous mind and braces the +strong one, completed the ruin of all that was manly in Cesarini's +intellect. He soon learned to limit his desire of effect or distinction +to gilded saloons; and his vanity contented itself upon the scraps and +morsels from which the lion heart of true ambition turns in disdain. +But this was not all. Cesarini was envious of the greater affluence of +Maltravers. His own fortune was in a small capital of eight or nine +thousand pounds: but, thrown in the midst of the wealthiest society in +Europe, he could not bear to sacrifice a single claim upon its esteem. +He began to talk of the satiety of wealth, and young ladies listened to +him with remarkable interest when he did so--he obtained the reputation +of riches--he was too vain not to be charmed with it. He endeavoured to +maintain the claim by adopting the extravagant excesses of the day. He +bought horses--he gave away jewels--he made love to a marchioness of +forty-two, who was very kind to him and very fond of /ecarte/--he +gambled--he was in the high road to destruction. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST MALTRAVERS, LYTTON, V5 *** + +********* This file should be named 7644.txt or 7644.zip ********* + +This eBook was produced by Dagny, + and David Widger, + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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