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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Ernest Maltravers, by Bulwer-Lytton, Book 6
+#73 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
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+Title: Ernest Maltravers, Book 6
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 2005  [EBook #7645]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 11, 2004]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST MALTRAVERS, LYTTON, V6 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Dagny,
+                and David Widger,
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VI.
+
+   Perchance you say that gold's the arch-exceller,
+   And to be rich is sweet?--EURIP. /Ion./, line 641.
+
+   *  *  *  'Tis not to be endured,
+   To yield our trodden path and turn aside,
+   Giving our place to knaves.--/Ibid./, line 648
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  "L'adresse et l'artifice out passe dans mon coeur;
+   Qu'ou a sous cet habit et d'esprit et de ruse."*--REGNARD.
+
+* Subtility and craft have taken possession of my heart; but under this
+habit one exhibits both shrewdness and wit.
+
+IT was a fine morning in July, when a gentleman who had arrived in town
+the night before--after an absence from England of several years--walked
+slowly and musingly up the superb thoroughfare which connects the
+Regent's park with St. James's.
+
+He was a man, who, with great powers of mind, had wasted his youth in a
+wandering vagabond kind of life, but who had worn away the love of
+pleasure, and began to awaken to a sense of ambition.
+
+"It is astonishing how this city is improved," said he to himself.
+"Everything gets on in this world with a little energy and bustle--and
+everybody as well as everything.  My old cronies, fellows not half so
+clever as I am, are all doing well.  There's Tom Stevens, my very fag at
+Eton--snivelling little dog he was too!--just made under-secretary of
+state.  Pearson, whose longs and shorts I always wrote, is now
+head-master to the human longs and shorts of a public school--editing
+Greek plays, and booked for a bishopric.  Collier, I see by the papers,
+is leading his circuit--and Ernest Maltravers (but /he/ had some talent)
+has made a name in the world.  Here am I, worth them all put together,
+who have done nothing but spend half my little fortune in spite of all
+my economy.  Egad, this must have an end.  I must look to the main
+chance; and yet, just when I want his help the most, my worthy uncle
+thinks fit to marry again.  Humph--I'm too good for this world."
+
+While thus musing, the soliloquist came in direct personal contact with
+a tall gentleman, who carried his head very high in the air, and did not
+appear to see that he had nearly thrown our abstracted philosopher off
+his legs.
+
+"Zounds, sir, what do you mean?" cried the latter.
+
+"I beg your par--" began the other, meekly, when his arm was seized, and
+the injured man exclaimed, "Bless me, sir, is it indeed /you/ whom I
+see?"
+
+"Ha!--Lumley?"
+
+"The same; and how fares it, any dear uncle?  I did not know you were in
+London.  I only arrived last night.  How well you are looking!"
+
+"Why, yes, Heaven be praised, I am pretty well."
+
+"And happy in your new ties?  You must present me to Mrs. Templeton."
+
+"Ehem," said Mr. Templeton, clearing his throat, and with a slight but
+embarrassed smile, "I never thought I should marry again."
+
+"/L'homme propose et Dieu dispose/," observed Lumley Ferrers; for it was
+he.
+
+"Gently, my dear nephew," replied Mr. Templeton, gravely; "those phrases
+are somewhat sacrilegious; I am an old-fashioned person, you know."
+
+"Ten thousand apologies."
+
+"/One/ apology will suffice; these hyperboles of phrase are almost
+sinful."
+
+"Confounded old prig!" thought Ferrers; but he bowed sanctimoniously.
+
+"My dear uncle, I have been a wild fellow in my day; but with years
+comes reflection; and under your guidance, if I may hope for it, I trust
+to grow a wiser and a better man."
+
+"It is well, Lumley," returned the uncle, "and I am very glad to see you
+returned to your own country.  Will you dine with me to-morrow?  I am
+living near Fulham.  You had better bring your carpet-bag, and stay with
+me some days; you will be heartily welcome, especially if you can shift
+without a foreign servant.  I have a great compassion for papists,
+but--"
+
+"Oh, my dear uncle, do not fear; I am not rich enough to have a foreign
+servant, and have not travelled over three-quarters of the globe without
+learning that it is possible to dispense with a valet."
+
+"As to being rich enough," observed Mr. Templeton, with a calculating
+air, "seven hundred and ninety-five pounds ten shillings a year will
+allow a man to keep two servants, if he pleases; but I am glad to find
+you economical at all events.  We meet to-morrow, then, at six o'clock."
+
+"/Au revoir/--I mean, God bless you.
+
+"Tiresome old gentleman that," muttered Ferrers, "and not so cordial as
+formerly; perhaps his wife is /enceinte/, and he is going to do me the
+injustice of having another heir.  I must look to this; for without
+riches, I had better go back and live /au cinquieme/ at Paris."
+
+With this conclusion, Lumley quickened his pace, and soon arrived at
+Seamore Place.  In a few moments more he was in the library well stored
+with books, and decorated with marble busts and images from the studios
+of Canova and Thorwaldsen.
+
+"My master, sir, will be down immediately," said the servant who
+admitted him; and Ferrers threw himself on a sofa, and contemplated the
+apartment with an air half envious and half cynical.
+
+Presently the door opened, and "My dear Ferrers!"  "Well, /mon cher/,
+how are you?" were the salutations hastily exchanged.
+
+After the first sentences of inquiry, gratulation, and welcome, had
+cleared the way for more general conversation,--"Well, Maltravers," said
+Ferrers, "so here we are together again, and after a lapse of so many
+years! both older, certainly; and you, I suppose, wiser.  At all events,
+people think you so; and that's all that's important in the question.
+Why, man, you are looking as young as ever, only a little paler and
+thinner; but look at me--I am not very /much/ past thirty, and I am
+almost an old man; bald at the temples, crows' feet, too, eh!  Idleness
+ages one damnably."
+
+"Pooh, Lumley, I never saw you look better.  And are you really come to
+settle in England?"
+
+"Yes, if I can afford it.  But at my age, and after having seen so much,
+the life of an idle, obscure /garcon/ does not content me.  I feel that
+the world's opinion, which I used to despise, is growing necessary to
+me.  I want to be something.  What can I be?  Don't look alarmed, I
+won't rival you.  I dare say literary reputation is a fine thing, but I
+desire some distinction more substantial and worldly.  You know your own
+country; give me a map of the roads to Power."
+
+"To Power!  Oh, nothing but law, politics, and riches."
+
+"For law I am too old; politics, perhaps, might suit me; but riches, my
+dear Ernest--ah, how I long for a good account with my banker!"
+
+"Well, patience and hope.  Are you are not a rich uncle's heir?"
+
+"I don't know," said Ferrers, very dolorously; "the old gentleman has
+married again, and may have a family."
+
+"Married!--to whom?"
+
+"A widow, I hear; I know nothing more, except that she has a child
+already.  So you see she has got into a cursed way of having children.
+And perhaps, by the time I'm forty, I shall see a whole covey of cherubs
+flying away with the great Templeton property!"
+
+"Ha, ha; your despair sharpens your wit, Lumley; but why not take a leaf
+out of your uncle's book, and marry yourself?"
+
+"So I will when I can find an heiress.  If that is what you meant to
+say--it is a more sensible suggestion than any I could have supposed to
+come from a man who writes books, especially poetry: and your advice is
+not to be despised.  For rich I will be; and as the fathers (I don't
+mean of the Church, but in Horace) told the rising generation, the first
+thing is to resolve to be rich, it is only the second thing to consider
+how."
+
+"Meanwhile, Ferrers, you will be my guest."
+
+"I'll dine with you to-day; but to-morrow I am off to Fulham, to be
+introduced to my aunt.  Can't you fancy her?--grey /gros-de-Naples/
+gown: gold chain with an eyeglass; rather fat; two pugs, and a parrot!
+'Start not, this is fancy's sketch!'  I have not yet seen the
+respectable relative with my physical optics.  What shall we have for
+dinner?  Let me choose, you were always a bad caterer."  As Ferrers thus
+rattled on, Maltravers felt himself growing younger: old times and old
+adventures crowded fast upon him; and the two friends spent a most
+agreeable day together.  It was only the next morning that Maltravers,
+in thinking over the various conversations that had passed between them,
+was forced reluctantly to acknowledge that the inert selfishness of
+Lumley Ferrers seemed now to have hardened into a resolute and
+systematic want of principle, which might, perhaps, make him a dangerous
+and designing man, if urged by circumstances into action.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+  "/Dauph./  Sir, I must speak to you.  I have been long your
+   despised kinsman.
+
+  "/Morose./  Oh, what thou wilt, nephew."--EPICENE.
+
+  "Her silence is dowry eno'--exceedingly soft spoken; thrifty
+   of her speech, that spends but six words a day."--/Ibid./
+
+THE coach dropped Mr. Ferrers at the gate of a villa about three miles
+from town.  The lodge-keeper charged himself with the carpet-bag, and
+Ferrers strolled, with his hands behind him (it was his favourite mode
+of disposing of them), through the beautiful and elaborate
+pleasure-grounds.
+
+"A very nice, snug little box (jointure-house, I suppose)!  I would not
+grudge that, I'm sure, if I had but the rest.  But here, I suspect,
+comes madam's first specimen of the art of having a family."  This last
+thought was extracted from Mr. Ferrers's contemplative brain by a lovely
+little girl, who came running up to him, fearless and spoilt as she was;
+and, after indulging a tolerable stare, exclaimed, "Are you come to see
+papa, sir?"
+
+"Papa!--the deuce!"--thought Lumley; "and who is papa, my dear?"
+
+"Why, mamma's husband.  He is not my papa by rights."
+
+"Certainly not, my love; not by rights--I comprehend."
+
+"Eh!"
+
+"Yes, I am going to see your papa by wrongs--Mr. Templeton."
+
+"Oh, this way, then."
+
+"You are very fond of Mr. Templeton, my little angel."
+
+"To be sure I am.  You have not seen the rocking-horse he is going to
+give me."
+
+"Not yet, sweet child!  And how is mamma?"
+
+"Oh, poor, dear mamma," said the child, with a sudden change of voice,
+and tears in her eyes. "Ah, she is not well!"
+
+"In the family way, to a dead certainty!" muttered Ferrers with a groan:
+"but here is my uncle.  Horrid name!  Uncles were always wicked fellows.
+Richard the Third and the man who did something or other to the babes in
+the wood were a joke to my hard-hearted old relation, who has robbed me
+with a widow!  The lustful, liquorish old--My /dear/ sir, I'm so glad to
+see you!"
+
+Mr. Templeton, who was a man very cold in his manners, and always either
+looked over people's heads or down upon the ground, just touched his
+nephew's outstretched hand, and telling him he was welcome, observed
+that it was a very fine afternoon.
+
+"Very, indeed; sweet place this; you see, by the way, that I have
+already made acquaintance with my fair cousin-in-law.  She is very
+pretty."
+
+"I really think she is," said Mr. Templeton, with some warmth, and
+gazing fondly at the child, who was now throwing buttercups up in the
+air, and trying to catch them.  Mr. Ferrers wished in his heart that
+they had been brickbats!
+
+"Is she like her mother?" asked the nephew.
+
+"Like whom, sir?"
+
+"Her mother--Mrs. Templeton."
+
+"No, not very; there is an air, perhaps, but the likeness is not
+remarkably strong.  Would you not like to go to your room before
+dinner?"
+
+"Thank you.  Can I not first be presented to Mrs. Tem--"
+
+"She is at her devotions, Mr. Lumley," interrupted Mr. Templeton,
+grimly.
+
+"The she-hypocrite!" thought Ferrers.  "Oh, I am delighted that your
+pious heart has found so congenial a helpmate!"
+
+"It is a great blessing, and I am grateful for it.  This is the way to
+the house."
+
+Lumley, now formally installed in a grave bedroom, with dimity curtains
+and dark-brown paper with light-brown stars on it, threw himself into a
+large chair, and yawned and stretched with as much fervour as if he
+could have yawned and stretched himself into his uncle's property.  He
+then slowly exchanged his morning dress for a quiet suit of black, and
+thanked his stars that, amidst all his sins, he had never been a dandy,
+and had never rejoiced in a fine waistcoat--a criminal possession that
+he well knew would have entirely hardened his uncle's conscience against
+him.  He tarried in his room till the second bell summoned him to
+descend; and then, entering the drawing-room, which had a cold look even
+in July, found his uncle standing by the mantelpiece, and a young,
+slight, handsome woman, half-buried in a huge but not comfortable
+/fauteuil/.
+
+"Your aunt, Mrs. Templeton; madam, my nephew, Mr. Lumley Ferrers," said
+Templeton, with a wave of the hand.
+
+"John,--dinner!"
+
+"I hope I am not late!"
+
+"No," said Templeton, gently, for he had always liked his nephew, and
+began now to thaw towards him a little on seeing that Lumley put a good
+face upon the new state of affairs.
+
+"No, my dear boy--no; but I think order and punctuality cardinal virtues
+in a well-regulated family."
+
+"Dinner, sir," said the butler, opening the folding-doors at the end of
+the room.
+
+"Permit me," said Lumley, offering his arm to his aunt.  "What a lovely
+place this is!"
+
+Mrs. Templeton said something in reply, but what it was Ferrers could
+not discover, so low and choked was the voice.
+
+"Shy," thought he: "odd for a widow! but that's the way those
+husband-buriers take us in!"
+
+Plain as was the general furniture of the apartment, the natural
+ostentation of Mr. Templeton broke out in the massive value of the
+plate, and the number of the attendants.  He was a rich man, and he was
+proud of his riches: he knew it was respectable to be rich, and he
+thought it was moral to be respectable. As for the dinner, Lumley knew
+enough of his uncle's tastes to be prepared for viands and wines that
+even he (fastidious gourmand as he was) did not despise.
+
+Between the intervals of eating, Mr. Ferrers endeavoured to draw his
+aunt into conversation, but he found all his ingenuity fail him.  There
+was, in the features of Mrs. Templeton, an expression of deep but calm
+melancholy, that would have saddened most persons to look upon,
+especially in one so young and lovely.  It was evidently something
+beyond shyness or reserve that made her so silent and subdued, and even
+in her silence there was so much natural sweetness, that Ferrers could
+not ascribe her manner to haughtiness or the desire to repel.  He was
+rather puzzled; "for though," thought he, sensibly enough, "my uncle is
+not a youth, he is a very rich fellow; and how any widow, who is married
+again to a rich old fellow, can be melancholy, passes my understanding!"
+
+Templeton, as if to draw attention from his wife's taciturnity, talked
+more than usual.  He entered largely into politics, and regretted that
+in times so critical he was not in parliament.
+
+"Did I possess your youth and your health, Lumley, I would not neglect
+my country--Popery is abroad."
+
+"I myself should like very much to be in parliament," said Lumley,
+boldly.
+
+"I dare say you would," returned the uncle, drily.  "Parliament is very
+expensive--only fit for those who have a large stake in the country.
+Champagne to Mr. Ferrers."
+
+Lumley bit his lip, and spoke little during the rest of the dinner.  Mr.
+Templeton, however, waxed gracious by the time the dessert was on the
+table; and began cutting up a pineapple, with many assurances to Lumley
+that gardens were nothing without pineries.  "Whenever you settle in the
+country, nephew, be sure you have a pinery."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Lumley, almost bitterly, "and a pack of hounds, and a
+French cook; they will all suit my fortune very well."
+
+"You are more thoughtful on pecuniary matters than you used to be," said
+the uncle.
+
+"Sir," replied Ferrers, solemnly, "in a very short time I shall be what
+is called a middle-aged man."
+
+"Humph!" said the host.
+
+There was another silence.  Lumley was a man, as we have said, or
+implied before, of great knowledge of human nature, at least the
+ordinary sort of it, and he now revolved in his mind the various courses
+it might be wise to pursue towards his rich relation.  He saw that, in
+delicate fencing, his uncle had over him the same advantage that a tall
+man has over a short one with the physical sword-play;--by holding his
+weapon in a proper position, he kept the other at arm's length.  There
+was a grand reserve and dignity about the man who had something to give
+away, of which Ferrers, however actively he might shift his ground and
+flourish his rapier, could not break the defence.  He determined,
+therefore, upon a new game, for which his frankness of manner admirably
+adapted him.  Just as he formed this resolution, Mrs. Templeton rose,
+and with a gentle bow, and soft though languid smile, glided from the
+room.  The two gentlemen resettled themselves, and Templeton pushed the
+bottle to Ferrers.
+
+"Help yourself, Lumley! your travels seem to have deprived you of your
+high spirits--you are pensive."
+
+"Sir," said Ferrers, abruptly, "I wish to consult you."
+
+"Oh, young man! you have been guilty of some excess--you have
+gambled--you have--"
+
+"I have done nothing, sir, that should make me less worthy your esteem.
+I repeat, I wish to consult you; I have outlived the hot days of my
+youth--I am now alive to the claims of the world.  I have talents, I
+believe; and I have application, I know.  I wish to fill a position in
+the world that may redeem my past indolence, and do credit to my family.
+Sir, I set your example before me, and I now ask your counsel, with the
+determination to follow it."
+
+Templeton was startled; he half shaded his face with his hand, and gazed
+searchingly upon the high forehead and bold eyes of his nephew.  "I
+believe you are sincere," said he, after a pause.
+
+"You may well believe so, sir."
+
+"Well, I will think of this.  I like an honourable ambition--not too
+extravagant a one,--/that/ is sinful; but a /respectable/ station in the
+world is a proper object of desire, and wealth is a blessing; because,"
+added the rich man, taking another slice of the pineapple,--"it enables
+us to be of use to our fellow-creatures!"
+
+"Sir, then," said Ferrers, with daring animation--"then I avow that my
+ambition is precisely of the kind you speak of.  I am obscure, I desire
+to be reputably known; my fortune is mediocre, I desire it to be great.
+I ask you for nothing--I know your generous heart; but I wish
+independently to work out my own career."
+
+"Lumley," said Templeton, "I never esteemed you so much as I do now.
+Listen to me--I will confide in you; I think the government are under
+obligations to me."
+
+"I know it," exclaimed Ferrers, whose eyes sparkled at the thought of a
+sinecure--for sinecures then existed!
+
+"And," pursued the uncle, "I intend to ask them a favour in return."
+
+"Oh, sir!"
+
+"Yes; I think--mark me--with management and address, I may--"
+
+"Well, my dear sir!"
+
+"Obtain a barony for myself and heirs; I trust I shall soon have a
+family!"
+
+Had somebody given Lumley Ferrers a hearty cuff on the ear, he would
+have thought less of it than of this wind-up of his uncle's ambitious
+projects.  His jaws fell, his eyes grew an inch larger, and he remained
+perfectly speechless.
+
+"Ay," pursued Mr. Templeton, "I have long dreamed this; my character is
+spotless, my fortune great.  I have ever exerted my parliamentary
+influence in favour of ministers; and, in this commercial country, no
+man has higher claims than Richard Templeton to the honours of a
+virtuous, loyal, and religious state.  Yes, my boy,--I like your
+ambition--you see I have some of it myself; and since you are sincere in
+your wish to tread in my footsteps, I think I can obtain you a junior
+partnership in a highly respectable establishment.  Let me see; your
+capital now is--
+
+"Pardon me, sir," interrupted Lumley, colouring with indignation despite
+himself; "I honour commerce much, but my paternal relations are not such
+as would allow me to enter into trade.  And permit me to add," continued
+he, seizing with instant adroitness the new weakness presented to
+him--"permit me to add, that those relations, who have been ever kind to
+me, would, properly managed, be highly efficient in promoting your own
+views of advancement; for your sake I would not break with them.  Lord
+Saxingham is still a minister--nay, he is in the cabinet."
+
+"Hem--Lumley--hem!" said Templeton, thoughtfully; "we will consider--we
+will consider.  Any more wine?"
+
+"No, I thank you, sir."
+
+"Then I'll just take my evening stroll, and think over matters.  You can
+rejoin Mrs. Templeton.  And I say, Lumley,--I read prayers at nine
+o'clock.  Never forget your Maker, and He will not forget you.  The
+barony will be an excellent thing--eh?--an English peerage--yes--an
+English peerage! very different from your beggarly countships abroad!"
+
+So saying, Mr. Templeton rang for his hat and cane, and stepped into the
+lawn from the window of the dining-room.
+
+"'The world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open,'" muttered
+Ferrers; "I would mould this selfish old man to my purpose; for, since I
+have neither genius to write nor eloquence to declaim, I will at least
+see whether I have not cunning to plot and courage to act.
+Conduct--conduct--conduct--there lies my talent; and what is conduct but
+a steady walk from a design to its execution?"
+
+With these thoughts Ferrers sought Mrs. Templeton.  He opened the
+folding-doors very gently, for all his habitual movements were quick and
+noiseless, and perceived that Mrs. Templeton sat by the window, and that
+she seemed engrossed with a book which lay open on a little work-table
+before her.
+
+"Fordyce's /Advice to Young Married Women/, I suppose.  Sly jade!
+However, I must not have her against me."
+
+He approached; still Mrs. Templeton did not note him; nor was it till he
+stood facing her that he himself observed that her tears were falling
+fast over the page.
+
+He was a little embarrassed, and, turning towards the window, affected
+to cough, and then said, without looking at Mrs. Templeton, "I fear I
+have disturbed you."
+
+"No," answered the same low, stifled voice that had before replied to
+Lumley's vain attempts to provoke conversation; "it was a melancholy
+employment, and perhaps it is not right to indulge in it."
+
+"May I inquire what author so affected you."
+
+"It is but a volume of poems, and I am no judge of poetry; but it
+contains thoughts which--which--"  Mrs. Templeton paused abruptly, and
+Lumley quietly took up the book.
+
+"Ah!" said he, turning to the title-page--"my friend ought to be much
+flattered."
+
+"Your friend?"
+
+"Yes: this, I see, is by Ernest Maltravers, a very intimate ally of
+mine."
+
+"I should like to see him," cried Mrs. Templeton, almost with animation.
+"I read but little; it was by chance that I met with one of his books,
+and they are as if I heard a dear friend speaking to me.  Ah! I should
+like to see him!"
+
+"I'm sure, madam," said the voice of a third person, in an austere and
+rebuking accent, "I do not see what good it would do your immortal soul
+to see a man who writes idle verses, which appear to me, indeed, highly
+immoral.  I just looked into that volume this morning and found nothing
+but trash--love-sonnets, and such stuff."
+
+Mrs. Templeton made no reply, and Lumley, in order to change the
+conversation, which seemed a little too matrimonial for his taste, said,
+rather awkwardly, "You are returned very soon, sir."
+
+"Yes, I don't like walking in the rain!"
+
+"Bless me, it rains, so, it does--I had not observed--"
+
+"Are you wet, sir? had you not better--" began the wife timidly.
+
+"No, ma'am, I'm not wet, I thank you.  By the by, nephew, this new
+author is a friend of yours.  I wonder a man of his family should
+condescend to turn author.  He can come to no good.  I hope you will
+drop his acquaintance--authors are very unprofitable associates, I'm
+sure.  I trust I shall see no more of Mr. Maltravers's books in my
+house."
+
+"Nevertheless, he is well thought of, sir, and makes no mean figure in
+the world," said Lumley, stoutly; for he was by no means disposed to
+give up a friend who might be as useful to him as Mr. Templeton himself.
+
+"Figure or no figure--I have not had many dealings with authors in my
+day; and when I had I always repented it.  Not sound, sir, not
+sound--all cracked somewhere.  Mrs. Templeton, have the kindness to get
+the Prayer-book--my hassock must be fresh stuffed, it gives me quite a
+pain in my knee.  Lumley, will you ring the bell?  Your aunt is very
+melancholy.  True religion is not gloomy; we will read a sermon on
+Cheerfulness."
+
+"So, so," said Mr. Ferrers to himself, as he undressed that night--"I
+see that my uncle is a little displeased with my aunt's pensive face--a
+little jealous of her thinking of anything but himself: /tant mieux/.  I
+must work upon this discovery; it will not do for them to live too
+happily with each other.  And what with that lever, and what with his
+ambitious projects, I think I see a way to push the good things of this
+world a few inches nearer to Lumley Ferrers."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  "The pride too of her step, as light
+   Along the unconscious earth she went,
+   Seemed that of one born with a right
+   To walk some heavenlier element."
+               /Loves of the Angels./
+
+          "Can it be
+   That these fine impulses, these lofty thoughts
+   Burning with their own beauty, are but given
+   To make me the low slave of vanity?"--/Erinna./
+
+          "Is she not too fair
+   Even to think of maiden's sweetest care?
+   The mouth and brow are contrasts."--/Ibid./
+
+IT was two or three evenings after the date of the last chapter, and
+there was what the newspapers call "a select party" in one of the
+noblest mansions in London.  A young lady, on whom all eyes were bent,
+and whose beauty might have served the painter for a model of Semiramis
+or Zenobia, more majestic than became her years, and so classically
+faultless as to have something cold and statue-like in its haughty
+lineaments, was moving through the crowd that murmured applauses as she
+passed.  This lady was Florence Lascelles, the daughter of Lumley's
+great relation, the Earl of Saxingham, and supposed to be the richest
+heiress in England.  Lord Saxingham himself drew aside his daughter as
+she swept along.
+
+"Florence," said he in a whisper, "the Duke of ------ is greatly struck
+with you--be civil to him--I am about to present him."
+
+So saying, the earl turned to a small, dark, stiff-looking man, of about
+twenty-eight years of age, at his left, and introduced the Duke of
+------ to Lady Florence Lascelles. The duke was unmarried; it was an
+introduction between the greatest match and the wealthiest heiress in
+the peerage.
+
+"Lady Florence," said Lord Saxingham, "is as fond of horses as yourself,
+duke, though not quite so good a judge."
+
+"I confess I /do/ like horses," said the duke, with an ingenuous air.
+
+Lord Saxingham moved away.
+
+Lady Florence stood mute--one glance of bright contempt shot from her
+large eyes; her lip slightly curled, and she then half turned aside, and
+seemed to forget that her new acquaintance was in existence.
+
+His grace, like most great personages, was not apt to take offence; nor
+could he, indeed, ever suppose that any slight towards the Duke of
+------ could be intended; still he thought it would be proper in Lady
+Florence to begin the conversation; for he himself, though not shy, was
+habitually silent, and accustomed to be saved the fatigue of defraying
+the small charges of society.  After a pause, seeing, however, that Lady
+Florence remained speechless, he began:
+
+"You ride sometimes in the Park, Lady Florence?"
+
+"Very seldom."
+
+"It is, indeed, too warm for riding at present."
+
+"I did not say so."
+
+"Hem--I thought you did."
+
+Another pause.
+
+"Did you speak, Lady Florence?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, I beg pardon--Lord Saxingham is looking very well."
+
+"I am glad you think so."
+
+"Your picture in the exhibition scarcely does you justice, Lady
+Florence; yet Lawrence is usually happy."
+
+"You are very flattering," said Lady Florence, with a lively and
+perceptible impatience in her tone and manner.  The young beauty was
+thoroughly spoilt--and now all the scorn of a scornful nature was drawn
+forth, by observing the envious eyes of the crowd were bent upon one
+whom the Duke of ------ was actually talking to.  Brilliant as were her
+own powers of conversation, she would not deign to exert them--she was
+an aristocrat of intellect rather than birth, and she took it into her
+head that the duke was an idiot.  She was very much mistaken.  If she
+had but broken up the ice, she would have found that the water below was
+not shallow.  The duke, in fact, like many other Englishmen, though he
+did not like the trouble of showing forth, and had an ungainly manner,
+was a man who had read a good deal, possessed a sound head and an
+honourable mind, though he did not know what it was to love anybody, to
+care much for anything, and was at once perfectly sated and yet
+perfectly contented; for apathy is the combination of satiety and
+content.
+
+Still Florence judged of him as lively persons are apt to judge of the
+sedate; besides, she wanted to proclaim to him and to everybody else,
+how little she cared for dukes and great matches; she, therefore, with a
+slight inclination of her head, turned away, and extended her hand to a
+dark young man, who was gazing on her with that respectful but
+unmistakable admiration which proud women are never proud enough to
+despise.
+
+"Ah, signor," said she, in Italian, "I am so glad to see you; it is a
+relief, indeed, to find genius in a crowd of nothings."
+
+So saying, the heiress seated herself on one of those convenient couches
+which hold but two, and beckoned the Italian to her side.  Oh, how the
+vain heart of Castruccio Cesarini beat!--what visions of love, rank,
+wealth, already flitted before him!
+
+"I almost fancy," said Castruccio, "that the old days of romance are
+returned, when a queen could turn from princes and warriors to listen to
+a troubadour."
+
+"Troubadours are now more rare than warriors and princes," replied
+Florence, with gay animation, which contrasted strongly with the
+coldness she had manifested to the Duke of ------, "and therefore it
+would not now be a very great merit in a queen to fly from dulness and
+insipidity to poetry and wit."
+
+"Ah, say not wit," said Cesarini; "wit is incompatible with the grave
+character of deep feelings;--incompatible with enthusiasm, with
+worship;--incompatible with the thoughts that wait upon Lady Florence
+Lascelles."
+
+Florence coloured and slightly frowned; but the immense distinction
+between her position and that of the young foreigner, with her own
+inexperience, both of real life and the presumption of vain hearts, made
+her presently forget the flattery that would have offended her in
+another.  She turned the conversation, however, into general channels,
+and she talked of Italian poetry with a warmth and eloquence worthy of
+the theme.  While they thus conversed, a new guest had arrived, who,
+from the spot where he stood, engaged with Lord Saxingham, fixed a
+steady and scrutinising gaze upon the pair.
+
+"Lady Florence has indeed improved," said this new guest.  "I could not
+have conceived that England boasted any one half so beautiful."
+
+"She certainly is handsome, my dear Lumley,--the Lascelles cast of
+countenance," replied Lord Saxingham," and so gifted!  She is positively
+learned--quite a /bas bleu/.  I tremble to think of the crowd of poets
+and painters who will make a fortune out of her enthusiasm.  /Entre
+nous/, Lumley, I could wish her married to a man of sober sense, like
+the Duke of ------; for sober sense is exactly what she wants.  Do
+observe, she has been sitting just half an hour flirting with that
+odd-looking adventurer, a Signor Cesarini, merely because he writes
+sonnets and wears a dress like a stage-player!"
+
+"It is the weakness of the sex, my dear lord," said Lumley; "they like
+to patronise, and they dote upon all oddities, from China monsters to
+cracked poets.  But I fancy, by a restless glance cast every now and
+then around the room, that my beautiful cousin has in her something of
+the coquette."
+
+"There you are quite right, Lumley," returned Lord Saxingham, laughing;
+"but I will not quarrel with her for breaking hearts and refusing hands,
+if she do but grow steady at last, and settle into the Duchess of
+------."
+
+"Duchess of ------!" repeated Lumley, absently; "well, I will go and
+present myself.  I see she is growing tired of the signor.  I will sound
+her as to the ducal impressions, my dear lord."
+
+"Do--I dare not," replied the father; "she is an excellent girl, but
+heiresses are always contradictory.  It was very foolish to deprive me
+of all control over her fortune.  Come and see me again soon, Lumley.  I
+suppose you are going abroad?"
+
+"No, I shall settle in England; but of my prospects and plans more
+hereafter."
+
+With this, Lumley quietly glided away to Florence.  There was something
+in Ferrers that was remarkable from its very simplicity.  His clear,
+sharp features, with the short hair and high brow--the absolute
+plainness of his dress, and the noiseless, easy, self-collected calm of
+all his motions, made a strong contrast to the showy Italian, by whose
+side he now stood.  Florence looked up at him with some little surprise
+at his intrusion.
+
+"Ah, you don't recollect me!" said Lumley, with his pleasant laugh.
+"Faithless Imogen, after all your vows of constancy!  Behold your
+Alonzo!
+
+     'The worms they crept in and the worms they crept out.'
+
+"Don't you remember how you trembled when I told you that true story, as
+we
+
+     'Conversed as we sat on the green"?
+
+"Oh!" cried Florence, "it is indeed you, my dear cousin--my dear Lumley!
+What an age since we parted!"
+
+"Don't talk of age--it is an ugly word to a man of my years.  Pardon,
+signor, if I disturb you."
+
+And here Lumley, with a low bow, slid coolly into the place which
+Cesarini, who had shyly risen, left vacant for him.  Castruccio looked
+disconcerted; but Florence had forgotten him in her delight at seeing
+Lumley, and Cesarini moved discontentedly away, and seated himself at a
+distance.
+
+"And I come back," continued Lumley, "to find you a confirmed beauty and
+a professional coquette--don't blush!"
+
+"Do they, indeed, call me a coquette?"
+
+"Oh, yes,--for once the world is just."
+
+"Perhaps I do deserve the reproach.  Oh, Lumley, how I despise all that
+I see and hear!"
+
+"What, even the Duke of ------?"
+
+"Yes, I fear even the Duke of ------ is no exception!"
+
+"Your father will go mad if he hear you."
+
+"My father!--my poor father!--yes, he thinks the utmost that I, Florence
+Lascelles, am made for, is to wear a ducal coronet, and give the best
+balls in London."
+
+"And pray what was Florence Lascelles made for?"
+
+"Ah! I cannot answer the question.  I fear for Discontent and Disdain."
+
+"You are an enigma--but I will take pains and not rest till I solve
+you."
+
+"I defy you."
+
+"Thanks--better defy than despise.
+
+"Oh, you must be strangely altered, if I can despise you."
+
+"Indeed! what do you remember of me?"
+
+"That you were frank, bold, and therefore, I suppose, true!--that you
+shocked my aunts and my father by your contempt for the vulgar
+hypocrisies of our conventional life.  Oh, no! I cannot despise you."
+
+Lumley raised his eyes to those of Florence--he gazed on her long and
+earnestly--ambitious hopes rose high within him.
+
+"My fair cousin," said he, in an altered and serious tone, "I see
+something in your spirit kindred to mine; and I am glad that yours is
+one of the earliest voices which confirm my new resolves on my return to
+busy England!"
+
+"And those resolves?"
+
+"Are an Englishman's--energetic and ambitious."
+
+"Alas, ambition!  How many false portraits are there of the great
+original!"
+
+Lumley thought he had found a clue to the heart of his cousin, and he
+began to expatiate, with unusual eloquence, on the nobleness of that
+daring sin which "lost angels heaven."  Florence listened to him with
+attention, but not with sympathy.  Lumley was deceived.  His was not an
+ambition that could attract the fastidious but high-souled Idealist.
+The selfishness of his nature broke out in all the sentiments that he
+fancied would seem to her most elevated.  Place--power--titles--all
+these objects were low and vulgar to one who saw them daily at her feet.
+
+At a distance the Duke of ------ continued from time to time to direct
+his cold gaze at Florence.  He did not like her the less for not seeming
+to court him.  He had something generous within him, and could
+understand her.  He went away at last, and thought seriously of Florence
+as a wife.  Not a wife for companionship, for friendship, for love; but
+a wife who could take the trouble of rank off his hands--do him honour,
+and raise him an heir, whom he might flatter himself would be his own.
+
+From his corner also, with dreams yet more vain and daring, Castruccio
+Cesarini cast his eyes upon the queen-like brow of the great heiress.
+Oh, yes, she had a soul--she could disdain rank and revere genius!  What
+a triumph over De Montaigne--Maltravers--all the world, if he, the
+neglected poet, could win the hand for which the magnates of the earth
+sighed in vain!  Pure and lofty as he thought himself, it was her birth
+and her wealth which Cesarini adored in Florence.  And Lumley, nearer
+perhaps to the prize than either--yet still far off--went on conversing,
+with eloquent lips and sparkling eyes, while his cold heart was planning
+every word, dictating every glance, and laying out (for the most worldly
+are often the most visionary) the chart for a royal road to fortune.
+And Florence Lascelles, when the crowd had dispersed and she sought her
+chamber, forgot all three; and with that morbid romance often peculiar
+to those for whom Fate smiles the most, mused over the ideal image of
+the one she /could/ love--"in maiden meditation /not/ fancy-free!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  "In mea vesanas habui dispendia vires,
+   Et valui poenas fortis in ipse meas."*--OVID.
+
+* I had the strength of a madman to my own cost, and employed that
+strength in my own punishment.
+
+  "Then might my breast be read within,
+   A thousand volumes would be written there."
+               EARL OF STIRLING.
+
+ERNEST MALTRAVERS was at the height of his reputation; the work which he
+had deemed the crisis that was to make or mar him was the most
+brilliantly successful of all he had yet committed to the public.
+Certainly, chance did as much for it as merit, as is usually the case
+with works that become instantaneously popular.  We may hammer away at
+the casket with strong arm and good purpose, and all in vain; when some
+morning a careless stroke hits the right nail on the head, and we secure
+the treasure.
+
+It was at this time, when in the prime of youth--rich, courted,
+respected, run after--that Ernest Maltravers fell seriously ill.  It was
+no active or visible disease, but a general irritability of the nerves,
+and a languid sinking of the whole frame.  His labours began, perhaps,
+to tell against him.  In earlier life he had been as active as a hunter
+of the chamois, and the hardy exercise of his frame counteracted the
+effects of a restless and ardent mind.  The change from an athletic to a
+sedentary habit of life--the wear and tear of the brain--the absorbing
+passion for knowledge which day and night kept all his faculties in a
+stretch; made strange havoc in a constitution naturally strong.  The
+poor author! how few persons understand; and forbear with, and pity him!
+He sells his health and youth to a rugged taskmaster.  And, O blind and
+selfish world, you expect him to be as free of manner, and as pleasant
+of cheer, and as equal of mood, as if he were passing the most agreeable
+and healthful existence that pleasure could afford to smooth the
+wrinkles of the mind, or medicine invent to regulate the nerves of the
+body.  But there was, besides all this, another cause that operated
+against the successful man!--His heart was too solitary.  He lived
+without the sweet household ties--the connections and amities he formed
+excited for a moment, but possessed no charm to comfort or to soothe.
+Cleveland resided so much in the country, and was of so much calmer a
+temperament, and so much more advanced in age, that, with all the
+friendship that subsisted between them, there was none of that daily and
+familiar interchange of confidence which affectionate natures demand as
+the very food of life.  Of his brother (as the reader will conjecture
+from never having been formally presented to him) Ernest saw but little.
+Colonel Maltravers, one of the gayest and handsomest men of his time,
+married a fine lady, lived principally at Paris, except when, for a few
+weeks in the shooting season, he filled his country house with
+companions who had nothing in common with Ernest: the brothers
+corresponded regularly every quarter, and saw each other once a
+year--this was all their intercourse.  Ernest Maltravers stood in the
+world alone, with that cold but anxious spectre--Reputation.
+
+It was late at night.  Before a table covered with the monuments of
+erudition and thought sat a young man with a pale and worn countenance.
+The clock in the room told with a fretting distinctness every moment
+that lessened the journey to the grave.  There was an anxious and
+expectant expression on the face of the student, and from time to time
+he glanced to the clock, and muttered to himself.  Was it a letter from
+some adored mistress--the soothing flattery from some mighty arbiter of
+arts and letters--that the young man eagerly awaited?  No; the aspirer
+was forgotten in the valetudinarian.  Ernest Maltravers was waiting the
+visit of his physician, whom at that late hour a sudden thought had
+induced him to summon from his rest.  At length the well-known knock was
+heard, and in a few moments the physician entered.  He was one well
+versed in the peculiar pathology of book men, and kindly as well as
+skilful.
+
+"My dear Mr. Maltravers, what is this?  How are we?--not seriously ill,
+I hope--no relapse--pulse low and irregular, I see, but no fever.  You
+are nervous."
+
+"Doctor," said the student, "I did not send for you at this time of
+night from the idle fear or fretful caprice of an invalid.  But when I
+saw you this morning, you dropped some hints which have haunted me ever
+since.  Much that it befits the conscience and the soul to attend to
+without loss of time depends upon my full knowledge of my real state.
+If I understand you rightly, I may have but a short time to live--is it
+so?"
+
+"Indeed!" said the doctor, turning away his face; "you have exaggerated
+my meaning.  I did not say that you were in what we technically call
+danger."
+
+"Am I then likely to be a /long/-lived man?"
+
+The doctor coughed--"That is uncertain, my dear young friend," said he,
+after a pause.
+
+"Be plain with me.  The plans of life must be based upon such
+calculations as we can reasonably form of its probable duration.  Do not
+fancy that I am weak enough or coward enough to shrink from any abyss
+which I have approached unconsciously; I desire--I adjure--nay, I
+command you to be explicit."
+
+There was an earnest and solemn dignity in his patient's voice and
+manner which deeply touched and impressed the good physician.
+
+"I will answer you frankly," said he; "you overwork the nerves and the
+brain; if you do not relax, you will subject yourself to confirmed
+disease and premature death.  For several months--perhaps for years to
+come--you should wholly cease from literary labour.  Is this a hard
+sentence?  You are rich and young--enjoy yourself while you can."
+
+Maltravers appeared satisfied--changed the conversation--talked easily
+on other matters for a few minutes: nor was it till he had dismissed his
+physician that he broke forth with the thoughts that were burning in
+him.
+
+"Oh!" cried he aloud, as he rose and paced the room with rapid strides;
+"now, when I see before me the broad and luminous path, am I to be
+condemned to halt and turn aside?  A vast empire rises on my view,
+greater than that of Caesars and conquerors--an empire durable and
+universal in the souls of men, that time itself cannot overthrow; and
+Death marches with me, side by side, and the skeleton hand waves me back
+to the nothingness of common men."
+
+He paused at the casement--he threw it open, and leant forth and gasped
+for air.  Heaven was serene and still, as morning came coldly forth
+amongst the waning stars; and the haunts of men, in their thoroughfare
+of idleness and of pleasure, were desolate and void.  Nothing, save
+Nature, was awake.
+
+"And if, O stars!"  murmured Maltravers, from the depth of his excited
+heart--"if I have been insensible to your solemn beauty--if the Heaven
+and the Earth had been to me but as air and clay--if I were one of a
+dull and dim-eyed herd--I might live on, and drop into the grave from
+the ripeness of unprofitable years.  It is because I yearn for the great
+objects of an immortal being, that life shrinks and shrivels up like a
+scroll.  Away!  I will not listen to these human and material monitors,
+and consider life as a thing greater than the things that I would live
+for.  My choice is made, glory is more persuasive than the grave."
+
+He turned impatiently from the casement--his eyes flashed--his chest
+heaved--he trod the chamber with a monarch's air.  All the calculations
+of prudence, all the tame and methodical reasonings with which, from
+time to time, he had sought to sober down the impetuous man into the
+calm machine, faded away before the burst of awful and commanding
+passions that swept over his soul.  Tell a man, in the full tide of his
+triumphs, that he bears death within him; and what crisis of thought can
+be more startling and more terrible!
+
+Maltravers had, as we have seen, cared little for fame, till fame had
+been brought within his reach: then, with every step he took, new Alps
+had arisen.  Each new conjecture brought to light a new truth that
+demanded enforcement or defence.  Rivalry and competition chafed his
+blood, and kept his faculties at their full speed.  He had the generous
+race-horse spirit of emulation.  Ever in action, ever in progress,
+cheered on by the sarcasms of foes, even more than by the applause of
+friends, the desire of glory had become the habit of existence.  When we
+have commenced a career, what stop is there till the grave?--where is
+the definite barrier of that ambition which, like the eastern bird,
+seems ever on the wing, and never rests upon the earth?  Our names are
+not settled till our death: the ghosts of what we have done are made our
+haunting monitors--our scourging avengers--if ever we cease to do, or
+fall short of the younger past.  Repose is oblivion; to pause is to
+unravel all the web that we have woven--until the tomb closes over us,
+and men, just when it is too late, strike the fair balance between
+ourselves and our rivals; and we are measured, not by the least, but by
+the greatest triumphs we have achieved.  Oh, what a crushing sense of
+impotence comes over us, when we feel that our frame cannot support our
+mind--when the hand can no longer execute what the soul, actively as
+ever, conceives and desires!--the quick life tied to the dead form--the
+ideas fresh as immortality, gushing forth rich and golden, and the
+broken nerves, and the aching frame, and the weary eyes!--the spirit
+athirst for liberty and heaven--and the damning, choking consciousness
+that we are walled up and prisoned in a dungeon that must be our
+burial-place!  Talk not of freedom--there is no such thing as freedom to
+a man whose body is the gaol, whose infirmities are the racks, of his
+genius!
+
+Maltravers paused at last, and threw himself on his sofa, wearied and
+exhausted.  Involuntarily, and as a half unconscious means of escaping
+from his conflicting and profitless emotions, he turned to several
+letters, which had for hours lain unopened on his table.  Every one, the
+seal of which he broke, seemed to mock his state--every one seemed to
+attest the felicity of his fortunes.  Some bespoke the admiring sympathy
+of the highest and wisest--one offered him a brilliant opening into
+public life--another (it was from Cleveland) was fraught with all the
+proud and rapturous approbation of a prophet whose auguries are at last
+fulfilled.  At that letter Maltravers sighed deeply, and paused before
+he turned to the others.  The last he opened was in an unknown hand, nor
+was any name affixed to it.  Like all writers of some note, Maltravers
+was in the habit of receiving anonymous letters of praise, censure,
+warning, and exhortation--especially from young ladies at boarding
+schools, and old ladies in the country; but there was that in the first
+sentences of the letter, which he now opened with a careless hand, that
+riveted his attention.  It was a small and beautiful handwriting, yet
+the letters were more clear and bold than they usually are in feminine
+caligraphy.
+
+"Ernest Maltravers," began this singular effusion, "have you weighed
+yourself?  Are you aware of your capacities?  Do you feel that for you
+there may be a more dazzling reputation that that which appears to
+content you?  You who seem to penetrate into the subtlest windings of
+the human heart, and to have examined nature as through a glass--you,
+whose thoughts stand forth like armies marshalled in defence of truth,
+bold and dauntless, and without a stain upon their glittering
+armour;--are you, at your age, and with your advantages, to bury
+yourself amidst books and scrolls?  Do you forget that action is the
+grand career for men who think as you do?  Will this word-weighing and
+picture-writing--the cold eulogies of pedants--the listless praises of
+literary idlers, content all the yearnings of your ambition?  You were
+not made solely for the closet; 'The Dreams of Pindus, and the Aonian
+Maids' cannot endure through the noon of manhood.  You are too practical
+for the mere poet, and too poetical to sink into the dull tenor of a
+learned life.  I have never seen you, yet I know you--I read your spirit
+in your page; that aspiration for something better and greater than the
+great and the good, which colours all your passionate revelations of
+yourself and others--cannot be satisfied merely by ideal images.  You
+cannot be contented, as poets and historians mostly are, by becoming
+great only from delineating great men, or imagining great events, or
+describing a great era.  Is it not worthier of you to be what you fancy
+or relate?  Awake, Maltravers, awake!  Look into your heart, and feel
+your proper destinies.  And who am I that thus address you?--a woman
+whose soul is filled with you--a woman in whom your eloquence has
+awakened, amidst frivolous and vain circles, the sense of a new
+existence--a woman who would make you, yourself, the embodied ideal of
+your own thoughts and dreams, and who would ask from earth no other lot
+than that of following you on the road of fame with the eyes of her
+heart.  Mistake me not; I repeat that I have never seen you, nor do I
+wish it; you might be other than I imagine, and I should lose an idol,
+and be left without a worship.  I am a kind of visionary Rosicrucian: it
+is a spirit that I adore, and not a being like myself.  You imagine,
+perhaps, that I have some purpose to serve in this--I have no object in
+administering to your vanity; and if I judge you rightly, this letter is
+one that might make you vain without a blush.  Oh, the admiration that
+does not spring from holy and profound sources of emotion--how it
+saddens us or disgusts!  I have had my share of vulgar homage, and it
+only makes me feel doubly alone.  I am richer than you are--I have
+youth--I have what they call beauty.  And neither riches, youth, nor
+beauty ever gave me the silent and deep happiness I experience when I
+think of you.  This is a worship that might, I repeat, well make even
+you vain.  Think of these words, I implore you.  Be worthy, not of my
+thoughts, but of the shape in which they represent you: and every ray of
+glory that surrounds you will brighten my own way, and inspire me with a
+kindred emulation.  Farewell.--I may write to you again, but you will
+never discover me; and in life I pray that we may never meet!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+  "Our list of nobles next let Amri grace."
+               /Absalom and Achitophel.
+
+  "Sine me vacivum tempus ne quod dem mihi Laboris."*--TER.
+
+* Suffer me to employ my spare time in some kind of labour.
+
+"I CAN'T think," said one of a group of young men, loitering by the
+steps of a clubhouse in St. James's Street--"I can't think what has
+chanced to Maltravers.  Do you observe (as he walks--there--the other
+side of the way) how much he is altered?  He stoops like an old man, and
+hardly ever lifts his eyes from the ground.  He certainly seems sick and
+sad."
+
+"Writing books, I suppose."
+
+"Or privately married."
+
+"Or growing too rich--rich men are always unhappy beings."
+
+"Ha, Ferrers, how are you?"
+
+"So-so.  What's the news?" replied Lumley.
+
+"Rattler pays forfeit."
+
+"O! but in politics?"
+
+"Hang politics--are you turned politician?"
+
+"At my age, what else is there left to do?"
+
+"I thought so, by your hat; all politicians sport odd-looking hats: it
+is very remarkable, but that is the great symptom of the disease."
+
+"My hat!--/is/ it odd?" said Ferrers, taking off the commodity in
+question, and seriously regarding it.
+
+"Why, who ever saw such a brim?"
+
+"Glad you think so."
+
+"Why, Ferrers?"
+
+"Because it is a prudent policy in this country to surrender something
+trifling up to ridicule.  If people can abuse your hat or your carriage,
+or the shape of your nose, or a wart on your chin, they let slip a
+thousand more important matters.  'Tis the wisdom of the camel-driver,
+who gives up his gown for the camel to trample on, that he may escape
+himself."
+
+"How droll you are, Ferrers!  Well, I shall turn in, and read the
+papers; and you--"
+
+"Shall pay my visits and rejoice in my hat."
+
+"Good day to you; by the by, your friend, Maltravers, has just passed,
+looking thoughtful, and talking to himself.  What's the matter with
+him?"
+
+"Lamenting, perhaps, that he, too, does not wear an odd hat for
+gentlemen like you to laugh at, and leave the rest of him in peace.
+Good day."
+
+On went Ferrers, and soon found himself in the Mall of the Park.  Here
+he was joined by Mr. Templeton.
+
+"Well, Lumley," said the latter (and it may be here remarked that Mr.
+Templeton now exhibited towards his nephew a greater respect of manner
+and tone than he had thought it necessary to observe before)--"well,
+Lumley, and have you seen Lord Saxingham?"
+
+"I have, sir; and I regret to say--"
+
+"I thought so--I thought it," interrupted Templeton: "no gratitude in
+public men--no wish, in high place, to honour virtue!"
+
+"Pardon me; Lord Saxingham declares that he should be delighted to
+forward your views--that no man more deserves a peerage; but that--"
+
+"Oh, yes; always /buts/!"
+
+"But that there are so many claimants at present whom it is impossible
+to satisfy; and--and--but I feel I ought not to go on."
+
+"Proceed, sir, I beg."
+
+"Why, then, Lord Saxingham is (I must be frank) a man who has a great
+regard for his own family.  Your marriage (a source, my dear uncle, of
+the greatest gratification to /me/) cuts off the probable chance of your
+fortune and title, if you acquire the latter, descending to--"
+
+"Yourself!" put in Templeton, drily.  "Your relation seems, for the
+first time, to have discovered how dear your interests are to him."
+
+"For me, individually, sir, my relation does not care a rush--but he
+cares a great deal for any member of his house being rich and in high
+station.  It increases the range and credit of his connections; and Lord
+Saxingham is a man whom connections help to keep great.  To be plain
+with you, he will not stir in this business, because he does not see how
+his kinsman is to be benefited, or his house strengthened."
+
+"Public virtue!" exclaimed Templeton.
+
+"Virtue, my dear uncle, is a female: as long as she is private property,
+she is excellent; but public virtue, like any other public lady, is a
+common prostitute."
+
+"Pshaw!" grunted Templeton, who was too much out of humour to read his
+nephew the lecture he might otherwise have done upon the impropriety of
+his simile; for Mr. Templeton was one of those men who hold it vicious
+to talk of vice as existing in the world; he was very much shocked to
+hear anything called by its proper name.
+
+"Has not Mrs. Templeton some connections that may be useful to you?"
+
+"No, sir!" cried the uncle, in a voice of thunder.
+
+"Sorry to hear it--but we cannot expect all things: you have married for
+love--you have a happy home, a charming wife--this is better than a
+title and a fine lady."
+
+"Mr. Lumley Ferrers, you may spare me your consolations.  My wife--"
+
+"Loves you dearly, I dare say," said the imperturbable nephew.  "She has
+so much sentiment, is so fond of poetry.  Oh, yes, she must love one who
+has done so much for her."
+
+"Done so much; what do you mean?"
+
+"Why, with your fortune--your station--your just ambition--you, who
+might have married any one; nay, by remaining unmarried, have
+conciliated all my interested, selfish relations--hang them--you have
+married a lady without connections--and what more could you do for her?"
+
+"Pooh, pooh; you don't know all."
+
+Here Templeton stopped short, as if about to say too much, and frowned;
+then, after a pause, he resumed, "Lumley, I have married, it is true.
+You may not be my heir, but I will make it up to you--that is, if you
+deserve my affection."
+
+"My dear unc--"
+
+"Don't interrupt me, I have projects for you.  Let our interests be the
+same.  The title may yet descend to you.  I may have no male
+offspring--meanwhile, draw on me to any reasonable amount--young men
+have expenses--but be prudent, and if you want to get on in the world,
+never let the world detect you in a scrape.  There, leave me now."
+
+"My best, my heartfelt thanks!"
+
+"Hush--sound Lord Saxingham again; I must and will have this bauble--I
+have set my heart on it."  So saying, Templeton waved away his nephew,
+and musingly pursued his path towards Hyde Park Corner, where his
+carriage awaited him.  As soon as he entered his demesnes, he saw his
+wife's daughter running across the lawn to greet him.  His heart
+softened; he checked the carriage and descended: he caressed her, he
+played with her, he laughed as she laughed.  No parent could be more
+fond.
+
+"Lumley Ferrers has talent to do me honour," said he, anxiously, "but
+his principles seem unstable.  However, surely that open manner is the
+sign of a good heart."
+
+Meanwhile, Ferrers, in high spirits, took his way to Ernest's house.
+His friend was not at home, but Ferrers never wanted a host's presence
+in order to be at home himself.  Books were round him in abundance, but
+Ferrers was not one of those who read for amusement.  He threw himself
+into an easy-chair, and began weaving new meshes of ambition and
+intrigue.  At length the door opened, and Maltravers entered.
+
+"Why, Ernest, how ill you are looking!"
+
+"I have not been well, but I am now recovering.  As physicians recommend
+change of air to ordinary patients--so I am about to try change of
+habit.  Active I must be--action is the condition of my being; but I
+must have done with books from the present.  You see me in a new
+character."
+
+"How?"
+
+"That of a public man--I have entered parliament."
+
+"You astonish me!--I have read the papers this morning.  I see not even
+a vacancy, much less an election."
+
+"It is all managed by the lawyer and the banker.  In other words, my
+seat is a close borough."
+
+"No bore of constituents.  I congratulate you, and envy.  I wish I were
+in parliament myself."
+
+"You!  I never fancied you bitten by the political mania."
+
+"Political!--no.  But it is the most respectable way, with luck, of
+living on the public.  Better than swindling."
+
+"A candid way of viewing the question.  But I thought at one time you
+were half a Benthamite, and that your motto was, 'The greatest happiness
+of the greatest number.'"
+
+"The greatest number to me is number /one/.  I agree with the
+Pythagoreans--unity is the perfect principle of creation!  Seriously,
+how can you mistake the principles of opinion for the principles of
+conduct?  I am a Benthamite, a benevolist, as a logician--but the moment
+I leave the closet for the world, I lay aside speculation for others,
+and act for myself."
+
+"You are, at least, more frank than prudent in these confessions."
+
+"There you are wrong.  It is by affecting to be worse than we are that
+we become popular--and we get credit for being both honest and practical
+fellows.  My uncle's mistake is to be a hypocrite in words: it rarely
+answers.  Be frank in words, and nobody will suspect hypocrisy in your
+designs."
+
+Maltravers gazed hard at Ferrers--something revolted and displeased his
+high-wrought Platonism in the easy wisdom of his old friend.  But he
+felt, almost for the first time, that Ferrers was a man to get on in the
+world--and he sighed; I hope it was for the world's sake.
+
+After a short conversation on indifferent matters, Cleveland was
+announced; and Ferrers, who could make nothing out of Cleveland, soon
+withdrew.  Ferrers was now becoming an economist in his time.
+
+"My dear Maltravers," said Cleveland, when they were alone, "I am so
+glad to see you; for, in the first place, I rejoice to find you are
+extending your career of usefulness."
+
+"Usefulness--ah, let me think so!  Life is so uncertain and so short,
+that we cannot too soon bring the little it can yield into the great
+commonwealth of the Beautiful or the Honest; and both belong to and make
+up the Useful.  But in politics, and in a highly artificial state, what
+doubts beset us! what darkness surrounds!  If we connive at abuses, we
+juggle with our own reason and integrity--if we attack them, how much,
+how fatally we may derange that solemn and conventional ORDER which is
+the mainspring of the vast machine!  How little, too, can one man, whose
+talents may not be in that coarse road--in that mephitic atmosphere, be
+enabled to effect!"
+
+"He may effect a vast deal even without eloquence or labour:--he may
+effect a vast deal, if he can set one example, amidst a crowd of selfish
+aspirants and heated fanatics, of an honest and dispassionate man.  He
+may effect more, if he may serve among the representatives of that
+hitherto unrepresented thing--Literature; if he redeem, by an ambition
+above place and emolument, the character for subservience that
+court-poets have obtained for letters--if he may prove that speculative
+knowledge is not disjoined from the practical world, and maintain the
+dignity of disinterestedness that should belong to learning.  But the
+end of a scientific morality is not to serve others only, but also to
+perfect and accomplish our individual selves; our own souls are a solemn
+trust to our own lives.  You are about to add to your experience of
+human motives and active men; and whatever additional wisdom you acquire
+will become equally evident and equally useful, no matter whether it be
+communicated through action or in books.  Enough of this, my dear
+Ernest.  I have come to dine with you, and make you accompany me
+to-night to a house where you will be welcome, and I think interested.
+Nay, no excuses.  I have promised Lord Latimer that he shall make your
+acquaintance, and he is one of the most eminent men with whom political
+life will connect you."
+
+And to this change of habits, from the closet to the senate, had
+Maltravers been induced by a state of health, which, with most men,
+would have been an excuse for indolence.  Indolent he could not be; he
+had truly said to Ferrers, that "action was the condition of his being."
+If THOUGHT, with its fever and aching tension, had been too severe a
+taskmaster on the nerves and brain, the coarse and homely pursuit of
+practical politics would leave the imagination and intellect in repose,
+while it would excite the hardier qualities and gifts, which animate
+without exhausting.  So, at least, hoped Maltravers.  He remembered the
+profound saying in one of his favourite German authors, "that to keep
+the mind and body in perfect health, it is necessary to mix habitually
+and betimes in the common affairs of men."  And the anonymous
+correspondent;--had her exhortations any influence on his decision?  I
+know not.  But when Cleveland left him, Maltravers unlocked his desk,
+and re-perused the last letter he had received from the Unknown.  The
+/last/ letter!--yes, those epistles had now become frequent.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+  *  *  *  *  "Le brillant de votre esprit donne un si grand
+   eclat a votre teint et a vos yeux, que quoiqu'il semble
+   que l'esprit ne doit toucher que les oreilles, il est
+   pourtaut certain que la votre eblouit les yeux."*
+               /Lettres de Madame de Sevigne/.
+
+* The brilliancy of your wit gives so great a lustre to your complexion
+and your eyes, that, though it seems that wit should only reach the
+ears, it is altogether certain that yours dazzles the eyes.
+
+AT Lord Latimer's house were assembled some hundreds of those persons
+who are rarely found together in London society; for business, politics,
+and literature draught off the most eminent men, and usually leave to
+houses that receive the world little better than indolent rank or
+ostentatious wealth.  Even the young men of pleasure turn up their noses
+at parties now-a-days, and find society a bore.  But there are some
+dozen or two of houses, the owners of which are both apart from and
+above the fashion, in which a foreigner may see, collected under the
+same roof, many of the most remarkable men of busy, thoughtful, majestic
+England.  Lord Latimer himself had been a cabinet minister.  He retired
+from public life on pretence of ill-health; but, in reality, because its
+anxious bustle was not congenial to a gentle and accomplished, but
+somewhat feeble, mind.  With a high reputation and an excellent cook he
+enjoyed a great popularity, both with his own party and the world in
+general; and he was the centre of a small, but distinguished circle of
+acquaintances, who drank Latimer's wine, and quoted Latimer's sayings,
+and liked Latimer much better, because, not being author or minister, he
+was not in their way.
+
+Lord Latimer received Maltravers with marked courtesy, and even
+deference, and invited him to join his own whist-table, which was one of
+the highest compliments his lordship could pay to his intellect.  But
+when his guest refused the proffered honour, the earl turned him over to
+the countess, as having become the property of the womankind; and was
+soon immersed in his aspirations for the odd trick.
+
+Whilst Maltravers was conversing with Lady Latimer, he happened to raise
+his eyes, and saw opposite to him a young lady of such remarkable
+beauty, that he could scarcely refrain from an admiring
+exclamation.--"And who," he asked, recovering himself, "is that lady?
+It is strange that even I, who go so little into the world, should be
+compelled to inquire the name of one whose beauty must already have made
+her celebrated."
+
+"Oh, Lady Florence Lascelles--she came out last year.  She is, indeed,
+most brilliant, yet more so in mind and accomplishments than face.  I
+must be allowed to introduce you."
+
+At this offer, a strange shyness, and as it were reluctant distrust,
+seized Maltravers--a kind of presentiment of danger and evil.  He drew
+back, and would have made some excuse, but Lady Latimer did not heed his
+embarrassment, and was already by the side of Lady Florence Lascelles.
+A moment more, and beckoning to Maltravers, the countess presented him
+to the lady.  As he bowed and seated himself beside his new
+acquaintance, he could not but observe that her cheeks were suffused
+with the most lively blushes, and that she received him with a confusion
+not common even in ladies just brought out, and just introduced to "a
+lion."  He was rather puzzled than flattered by these tokens of an
+embarrassment, somewhat akin to his own; and the first few sentences of
+their conversation passed off with a certain awkwardness and reserve.
+At this moment, to the surprise, perhaps to the relief, of Ernest, they
+were joined by Lumley Ferrers.
+
+"Ah, Lady Florence, I kiss your hands--I am charmed to find you
+acquainted with my friend Maltravers."
+
+"And Mr. Ferrers, what makes him so late to-night?" asked the fair
+Florence, with a sudden ease, which rather startled Maltravers.
+
+"A dull dinner, /voila tout/--I have no other excuse."  And Ferrers,
+sliding into a vacant chair on the other side of Lady Florence,
+conversed volubly and unceasingly, as if seeking to monopolise her
+attention.
+
+Ernest had not been so much captivated with the manner of Florence as he
+had been struck with her beauty, and now, seeing her apparently engaged
+with another, he rose and quietly moved away.  He was soon one of a knot
+of men who were conversing on the absorbing topics of the day; and as by
+degrees the exciting subject brought out his natural eloquence and
+masculine sense, the talkers became listeners, the knot widened into a
+circle, and he himself was unconsciously the object of general attention
+and respect.
+
+"And what think you of Mr. Maltravers?" asked Ferrers, carelessly; "does
+he keep up your expectations?"
+
+Lady Florence had sunk into a reverie, and Ferrers repeated his
+question.
+
+"He is younger than I imagined him,--and--and--"
+
+"Handsomer, I suppose, you mean."
+
+"No! calmer and less animated."
+
+"He seems animated enough now," said Ferrers; "but your ladylike
+conversation failed in striking the Promethean spark.  'Lay that
+flattering unction to your soul.'"
+
+"Ah, you are right--he must have thought me very--"
+
+"Beautiful, no doubt."
+
+"Beautiful!--I hate the word, Lumley.  I wish I were not handsome--I
+might then get some credit for my intellect."
+
+"Humph!" said Ferrers, significantly.
+
+"Oh, you don't think so, sceptic," said Florence, shaking her head with
+a slight laugh, and an altered manner.
+
+"Does it matter what I think," said Ferrers, with an attempted touch at
+the sentimental, "when Lord This, and Lord That, and Mr. So-and-so, and
+Count What-d'ye-call-him, are all making their way to you, to dispossess
+me of my envied monopoly?"
+
+While Ferrers spoke, several of the scattered loungers grouped around
+Florence, and the conversation, of which she was the cynosure, became
+animated and gay.  Oh, how brilliant she was, that peerless
+Florence!--with what petulant and sparkling grace came wit and wisdom,
+and even genius, from those ruby lips!  Even the assured Ferrers felt
+his subtle intellect as dull and coarse to hers, and shrank with a
+reluctant apprehension from the arrows of her careless and prodigal
+repartees.  For there was a scorn in the nature of Florence Lascelles
+which made her wit pain more frequently than it pleased.  Educated even
+to learning--courageous even to a want of feminacy--she delighted to
+sport with ignorance and pretension, even in the highest places; and the
+laugh that she excited was like lightning;--no one could divine where
+next it might fall.
+
+But Florence, though dreaded and unloved, was yet courted, flattered,
+and the rage.  For this there were two reasons: first, she was a
+coquette, and secondly, she was an heiress.
+
+Thus the talkers in the room were divided into two principal groups,
+over one of which Maltravers may be said to have presided; over the
+other, Florence.  As the former broke up, Ernest was joined by
+Cleveland.
+
+"My dear cousin," said Florence, suddenly, and in a whisper, as she
+turned to Lumley, "your friend is speaking of me--I see it.  Go, I
+implore you, and let me know what he says!"
+
+"The commission is not flattering," said Ferrers, almost sullenly.
+
+"Nay, a commission to gratify a woman's curiosity is ever one of the
+most flattering embassies with which we can invest an able negotiator."
+
+"Well, I must do your bidding, though I disown the favour."  Ferrers
+moved away, and joined Cleveland and Maltravers.
+
+"She is, indeed, beautiful: so perfect a contour I never beheld: she is
+the only woman I ever saw in whom the aquiline features seem more
+classical than even the Greek."
+
+"So, that is your opinion of my fair cousin!" cried Ferrers, "you are
+caught."
+
+"I wish he were," said Cleveland.  "Ernest is now old enough to settle,
+and there is not a more dazzling prize in England--rich, high-born,
+lovely, and accomplished."
+
+"And what say you?" asked Lumley, almost impatiently, to Maltravers.
+
+"That I never saw one whom I admire more or could love less," replied
+Ernest, as he quitted the rooms.
+
+Ferrers looked after him, and muttered to himself; he then rejoined
+Florence, who presently rose to depart, and taking Lumley's arm, said,
+"Well, I see my father is looking round for me--and so for once I will
+forestall him.  Come, Lumley, let us join him; I know he wants to see
+you.
+
+"Well?" said Florence, blushing deeply, and almost breathless, as they
+crossed the now half-empty apartments.
+
+"Well, my cousin?"
+
+"You provoke me--well, then, what said your friend?"
+
+"That you deserved your reputation of beauty, but that you were not his
+style.  Maltravers is in love, you know."
+
+"In love?"
+
+"Yes, a pretty Frenchwoman! quite romantic--an attachment of some years'
+standing."
+
+Florence turned away her face, and said no more.
+
+"That's a good fellow, Lumley," said Lord Saxingham; "Florence is never
+more welcome to my eyes than at half-past one o'clock A.M., when I
+associate her with thoughts of my natural rest, and my unfortunate
+carriage-horses.  By the by, I wish you would dine with me next
+Saturday."
+
+"Saturday: unfortunately I am engaged to my uncle."
+
+"Oh! he has behaved handsomely to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Mrs. Templeton pretty well?"
+
+"I fancy so."
+
+"As ladies wish to be, etc.?" whispered his lordship.
+
+"No, thank Heaven!"
+
+"Well, if the old man could but make you his heir, we might think twice
+about the title."
+
+"My dear lord, stop! one favour--write me a line to hint that
+delicately."
+
+"No--no letters; letters always get into the papers."
+
+"But cautiously worded--no danger of publication, on my honour."
+
+"I'll think of it.  Good night."
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST MALTRAVERS, LYTTON, V6 ***
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