Tales and Novels Volume VII Part 32

"Oh, mother! you are _upon your candour_--my dear mother, not only low-bred but low-born: confess you have a--what shall I call it?--an _indisposition_ towards low-born people."

"Since you put me upon my candour," said Mrs. Percy, "I am afraid I must confess that I am conscious of a little of the aristocratic weakness you impute to me."

"Impute!--No imputation, in my opinion," cried Rosamond. "I do not think it any weakness."

"But I do," said Mrs. Percy--"I consider it as a weakness; and bitterly should I reproach myself, if I saw any weakness, any prejudice of mine, influence my children injuriously in the most material circ.u.mstance of their lives, and where their happiness is at stake. So, my dear Rosamond, let me intreat--"

"Oh! mother, don't let the tears come into your eyes; and, without any intreaties, I will do just as you please."

"My love," said Mrs. Percy, "I have no pleasure but that you should please yourself and judge for yourself, without referring to any prepossession of mine. And lest your imagination should deceive you as to the extent of my aristocratic prejudices, let me explain. The _indisposition_, which I have acknowledged I feel towards low-born people, arises, I believe, chiefly from my taking it for granted that they cannot be thoroughly well-bred. I have accidentally seen examples of people of inferior birth, who, though they had risen to high station, and though they had acquired, in a certain degree, polite manners, and had been metamorphosed by fas.h.i.+on, to all outward appearance, into perfect gentry, yet betrayed some marks of their origin, or of their early education, whenever their pa.s.sions or their interests were touched: then some awkward gesture, some vulgar expression, some mean or mercenary sentiment, some habitual contraction of mind, recurred."

"True, true, most true!" said Rosamond. "It requires two generations, at least, to wash out the stain of vulgarity: neither a gentleman nor a gentlewoman can be made in less than two generations; therefore I never will marry a low-born man, if he had every perfection under the sun."

"Nay, my dear, that is too strong," said Mrs. Percy. "Hear me, my dearest Rosamond. I was going to tell you, that my experience has been so limited, that I am not justified in drawing from it any general conclusion. And even to the most positive and rational general rules you know there are exceptions."

"That is a fine general softening clause," said Rosamond; "but now positively, mother, would you have ever consented to marry a merchant?"

"Certainly, my dear, if your father bad been a merchant, I should have married him," replied Mrs. Percy.

"Well, I except my father. To put the question more fairly, may I ask, do you wish that your daughter should marry a merchant?"

"As I endeavoured to explain to you before, _that_ depends entirely upon what the merchant is, and upon what my daughter feels for him."

Rosamond sighed.

"I ought to observe, that merchants are now quite in a different cla.s.s from what they were at the first rise of commerce in these countries,"

continued her mother. "Their education, their habits of thinking, knowledge, and manners, are improved, and, consequently, their _consideration_, their rank in society is raised. In our days, some of the best informed, most liberal, and most respectable men in the British dominions are merchants. I could not therefore object to my daughter's marrying a merchant; but I should certainly inquire anxiously what sort of a merchant he was. I do not mean that I should inquire whether he was concerned in this or that branch of commerce, but whether his mind were free from every thing mercenary and illiberal. I have done so with respect to Mr. Gresham, and I can a.s.sure you solemnly, that Mr. Gresham's want of the advantage of high birth is completely counterbalanced in my opinion by his superior qualities. I see in him a cultivated, enlarged, generous mind. I have seen him tried, where his pa.s.sions and his interests have been nearly concerned, and I never saw in him the slightest tincture of vulgarity in manner or sentiment: therefore, my dear daughter, if he has made an impression on your heart, do not, on my account, conceal or struggle against it; because, far from objecting to Mr. Gresham for a son-in-law, I should prefer him to any gentleman or n.o.bleman who had not his exalted character."

"There!" cried Caroline, with a look of joyful triumph, "there! my dear Rosamond, now your heart must be quite at ease!"

But looking at Rosamond at this moment, she saw no expression of joy or pleasure in her countenance; and Caroline was now convinced that she had been mistaken about Rosamond's feelings.

"Really and truly, mother, you think all this?"

"Really and truly, my dear, no motive upon earth would make me disguise my opinions, or palliate even my prejudices, when you thus consult me, and depend upon my truth. And now that I have said this much, I will say no more, lest I should bias you on the other side: I will leave you to your own feelings and excellent understanding."

Rosamond's affectionate heart was touched so by her mother's kindness, that she could not for some minutes repress her tears. When she recovered her voice, she a.s.sured her mother and Caroline, with a seriousness and an earnest frankness which at once convinced them of her truth, that she had not the slightest partiality for Mr. Gresham; that, on the contrary, his age was to her a serious objection. She had feared that her friends might wish for the match, and that being conscious she had no other objection to make to Mr. Gresham except that she could not love him, she had hesitated for want of a better reason, when her mother first began this cross-examination.

Relieved by this thorough explanation, and by the conviction that her father, mother, and sister, were perfectly satisfied with her decision, Rosamond was at ease as far as she herself was concerned. But she still dreaded to see Mr. Gresham again. She was excessively sorry to have given him pain, and she feared not a little that in rejecting the lover she should lose the friend.

Mr. Gresham, however, was of too generous a character to cease to be the friend of the woman he loved, merely because she could not return his pa.s.sion: it is wounded pride, not disappointed affection, that turns immediately from love to hatred.

Rosamond was spared the pain of seeing Mr. Gresham again at this time, for he left the Hills, and set out immediately for London, where he was recalled by news of the sudden death of his partner. Old Mr. Panton had been found dead in his bed, after having supped inordinately the preceding night upon eel-pie. It was indispensably necessary that Mr.

Gresham should attend at the opening of Panton's will, and Mrs.

Panton wrote to represent this in urgent terms. Mr. Henry was gone to Amsterdam; he had, for some time previously to the death of Mr. Panton, obtained the partners.h.i.+p's permission to go over to the Dutch merchants, their correspondents in Amsterdam, to fill a situation in their house, for which his knowledge of the Dutch, French, and Spanish languages eminently qualified him.

When Mr. Henry had solicited this employment, Mr. Gresham had been unwilling to part with him, but had yielded to the young man's earnest entreaties, and to the idea that this change would, in a lucrative point of view, be materially for Mr. Henry's advantage.

Some apology to the lovers of romance may be expected for this abrupt transition from the affairs of the heart to the affairs of the counting-house--but so it is in real life. We are sorry, but we cannot help it--we have neither sentiments nor sonnets, ready for every occasion.

CHAPTER XXII.

LETTER FROM ALFRED.

_This appears to have been written some months after the vacation spent at the Hills_.

'Oh! thoughtless mortals, ever blind to fate, Too soon dejected, and too soon elate.'

"You remember, I am sure, my dear father, how angry we were some time ago with that man, whose name I never would tell you, the man whom Rosamond called Counsellor _Nameless_, who s.n.a.t.c.hed a _good point_ from me in arguing Mr. Hauton's cause. This very circ.u.mstance has been the means of introducing me to the notice of three men, all eminent in their profession, and each with the same inclination to serve me, according to their respective powers--a solicitor, a barrister, and a judge.

Solicitor Babington (by-the-by, pray tell Rosamond in answer to her question whether there is an honest attorney, that there are no such things as _attorneys_ now in England--they are all turned into solicitors and agents, just as every _shop_ is become a _warehouse_, and every _service_ a _situation_), Babington the solicitor employed against us in that suit a man who knows, without practising them, all the tricks of the trade, and who is a thoroughly honest man. He saw the trick that was played by _Nameless_, and took occasion afterwards to recommend me to several of his own clients. Upon the strength of this _point_ briefs appeared on my table day after day--two guineas, three guineas, five guineas! comfortable sight! But far more comfortable, more gratifying, the kindness of Counsellor Friend: a more benevolent man never existed.

I am sure the profession of the law has not contracted his heart, and yet you never saw or can conceive a man more intent upon his business. I believe he eats, drinks, and sleeps upon law: he has the reputation, in consequence, of being one of the soundest of our lawyers--the best opinion in England. He seems to make the cause of every client his own, and is as anxious as if his private property depended on the fate of each suit. He sets me a fine example of labour, perseverance, professional enthusiasm and rect.i.tude. He is one of the very best friends a young lawyer like me could have; he puts me in the way I should go, and keeps me in it by showing that it is not a matter of chance, but of certainty, that this is the right road to fortune and to fame.

"Mr. Friend has sometimes a way of paying a compliment as if he were making a reproach, and of doing a favour as a matter of course. Just now I met him, and apropos to some observations I happened to make on a cause in which he is engaged, he said to me, as if he were half angry, though I knew he was thoroughly pleased, 'Quick parts! Yes, so I see you have: but take care--in your profession 'tis often "Most haste, worst speed;" not but what there are happy exceptions, examples of lawyers, who have combined judgment with wit, industry with genius, and law with eloquence. But these instances are rare, very rare; for the rarity of the case, worth studying. Therefore dine with me to-morrow, and I will introduce you to one of these exceptions.'

"The person in question, I opine, is the lord chief justice--and Friend could not do me a greater favour than to introduce me to one whom, as you know, I have long admired in public, and with whom, independently of any professional advantage, I have ardently wished to be acquainted.

"I have been told--I cannot tell you what--for here's the bell-man. I don't wonder 'the choleric man' knocked down the postman for blowing his horn in his ear.

"Abruptly yours,

"ALFRED PERCY."

Alfred had good reason to desire to be acquainted with this lord chief justice. Some French writer says, "_Qu'il faut plier les grandes ailes de l'eloquence pour entrer dans un salon._" The chief justice did so with peculiar ease. He possessed perfect conversational _tact_, with great powers of wit, humour, and all that felicity of allusion, which an uncommonly recollective memory, acting on stores of varied knowledge, can alone command. He really conversed; he did not merely tell stories, or make bonmots, or confine himself to the single combat of close argument, or the flourish of declamation; but he alternately followed and led, threw out and received ideas, knowing how to listen full as well as how to talk, remembering always Lord Chesterfield's experienced maxim, "That it is easier to hear than to talk yourself into the good opinion of your auditors." It was not, however, from policy, but from benevolence, that the chief justice made so good a hearer. It has been said, and with truth, that with him a _good point_ never pa.s.sed unnoticed in a public court, nor was a _good thing_ ever lost upon him in private company. Of the number of his own good things fewer are in circulation than might be expected. The best conversation, that which rises from the occasion, and which suits the moment, suffers most from repet.i.tion. Fitted precisely to the peculiar time and place, the best things cannot bear transplanting.

The day Alfred Percy was introduced to the chief justice, the conversation began, from some slight remarks made by one of the company, on the acting of Mrs. Siddons. A lady who had just been reading the memoirs of the celebrated French actress, Mademoiselle Clairon, spoke of the astonis.h.i.+ng pains which she took to study her parts, and to acquire what the French call _l'air n.o.ble_, continually endeavouring, on the most common occasions, when she was off the stage, to avoid all awkward motions, and in her habitual manner to preserve an air of grace and dignity. This led the chief justice to mention the care which Lord Chatham, Mr. Pitt, and other great orators, have taken to form their habits of speaking, by unremitting attention to their language in private as well as in public. He maintained that no man _can_ speak with ease and security in public till custom has brought him to feel it as a moral impossibility that he could be guilty of any petty vulgarism, or that he could be convicted of any capital sin against grammar.

Alfred felt anxious to hear the chief justice farther on this subject, but the conversation was dragged back to Mademoiselle Clairon. The lady by whom she was first mentioned declared she thought that all Mademoiselle Clairon's studying must have made her a very unnatural actress. The chief justice quoted the answer which Mademoiselle Clairon gave, when she was reproached with having too much art.--"_De l'art!

et que voudroit-on done que j'eusse? Etois-je Andromaque? Etois-je Phedre?_"

Alfred observed that those who complained of an actress's having too much art should rather complain of her having too little--of her not having art enough to conceal her art.

The chief justice honoured Alfred by a nod and a smile.

The lady, however, protested against this doctrine, and concluded by confessing that she always did and always should prefer nature to art.

From this commonplace confession, the chief justice, by a playful cross-examination, presently made it apparent that we do not always know what we mean by art and what by nature; that the ideas are so mixed in civilized society, and the words so inaccurately used, both in common conversation, and in the writings of philosophers, that no metaphysical prism can separate or reduce them to their primary meaning. Next he touched upon the distinction between art and artifice. The conversation branched out into remarks on grace and affectation, and thence to the different theories of beauty and taste, with all which he _played_ with a master's hand.

A man accustomed to speak to numbers perceives immediately when his auditors seize his ideas, and knows instantly, by the a.s.sent and expression of the eye, to whom they are new or to whom they are familiar. The chief justice discovered that Alfred Percy had superior knowledge, literature, and talents, even before he spoke, by his manner of listening. The conversation presently pa.s.sed from _l'air n.o.ble_ to _le style n.o.ble_, and to the French laws of criticism, which prohibit the descending to allusions to arts and manufactures. This subject he discussed deeply, yet rapidly observed how taste is influenced by different governments and manners--remarked how the strong line of demarcation formerly kept in France between the n.o.bility and the citizens had influenced taste in writing and in eloquence, and how our more _popular_ government not only admitted allusions to the occupations of the lower cla.s.ses, but required them. Our orators at elections, and in parliament, must speak so as to come home to the feelings and vocabulary of const.i.tuents. Examples from Burke and others, the chief justice said, might be brought in support of this opinion.

Alfred was so fortunate as to recollect some apposite ill.u.s.trations from Burke, and from several of our great orators, Wyndham, Erskine, Mackintosh, and Romilly. As Alfred spoke, the chief justice's eye brightened with approbation, and it was observed that he afterwards addressed to him particularly his conversation; and, more flattering still, that he went deeper into the subject which he had been discussing. From one of the pa.s.sages which had been mentioned, he took occasion to answer the argument of the French critics, who justify their taste by a.s.serting that it is the taste of the ancients. Skilled in cla.s.sical as in modern literature, he showed that the ancients had made allusions to arts and manufactures, as far as their knowledge went; but, as he observed, in modern times new arts and sciences afford fresh subjects of allusion unknown to the ancients; consequently we ought not to restrict our taste by exclusive reverence for cla.s.sical precedents.

On these points it is requisite to reform the pandects of criticism.

Another pa.s.sage from Burke, to which Alfred had alluded, the chief justice thought too rich in ornament. "Ornaments," he said, "if not kept subordinate, however intrinsically beautiful, injure the general effect--therefore a judicious orator will sacrifice all such as draw the attention from his princ.i.p.al design."

Alfred Percy, in support of this opinion, cited the example of the Spanish painter, who obliterated certain beautiful silver vases, which he had introduced in a picture of the Lord's Supper, because he found, that at first view, every spectator's eye was caught by these splendid ornaments, and every one extolled their exquisite finish, instead of attending to the great subject of the piece.