Tales and Novels Volume IX Part 24

What can be done against a race of beings not capable of being touched even by ridicule? What can we hope when the infant bore and his trainers have stood against the incomparable humour of "Thinks I to myself?"

In time--and as certainly as the grub turns in due season into the winged plague who buzzes and fly-blows--the little reciting bore turns into the _dramatic_ or _theatric_ acting, reading, singing, recitative--and finally into the everlasting-quotation-loving bore--Greek, Latin, and English.

The everlasting quotation-lover doats on the husks of learning. He is the infant reciting bore in second childishness. We wish in vain that it were in mere oblivion. From the ladies' tea-tables the Greek and Latin quoting bores were driven away long ago by the Guardian and the Spectator, and seldom now translate for the country gentlewomen. But the mere English quotation-dealer, a mortal tiresome creature! still prevails, and figures still in certain circles of old blues, who are civil enough still to admire that wonderful memory of his which has a quotation ready for every thing you can say--He usually prefaces or ends his quotations with--"As the poet happily says," or, "as Nature's sweetest woodlark justly remarks;" or, "as the immortal Milton has it."

To prevent the confusion and disgrace consequent upon such mistakes, and for the general advantage of literature, in reclaiming, if possible, what has gone to the bores, it might be a service to point out publicly such quotations as are now too common to be admitted within the pale of good taste.

In the last age, Lord Chesterfield set the mark of the beast, as he called it, on certain vulgarisms in p.r.o.nunciation, which he succeeded in banis.h.i.+ng from good company. I wish we could set the mark of the bore upon all which has been contaminated by his touch,--all those tainted beauties, which no person of taste would prize. They must be hung up viewless, for half a century at least, to bleach out their stains.

I invite every true friend of literature and of good conversation, _blues_ and _antis_, to contribute their a.s.sistance in furnis.h.i.+ng out a list of quotations to be proscribed. Could I but accomplish this object, I should feel I had not written in vain. To make a good beginning, I will give half a dozen of the most notorious.

"The light fantastic toe," has figured so long in the newspapers, that an editor of taste would hardly admit it now into his columns.

"Pity is akin to love,"--sunk to utter contempt; along with--"Grace is in all her steps;" and "Man never _is_, but always _to be blest_;"--"Youth at the prow, and pleasure at the helm;"--no longer safe on a boating party.

The bourgeois gentilhomme has talked prose too long without knowing it.

"No man is a hero to his _valet de chambre_,"--gone to the valets themselves.

"Le secret d'ennyer est celui de tout dire,"--in great danger of the same fate,--it is so tempting!--but, so much the worse,--wit is often its own worst enemy.

Some anatomists, it is said, have, during the operation of dissection, caught from the subject the disease. I feel myself in danger at this moment,--a secret horror thrills through my veins. Often have I remarked that persons who undergo certain transformations are unconscious of the commencement and progress in themselves, though quicksighted, when their enemies, friends, or neighbours, are beginning to turn into bores. Husband and wife,--no creatures sooner!--perceive each other's metamorphoses,--not Baucis and Philemon more surely, seldom like them before the transformation be complete. Are we in time to say the last adieu!

I feel that I am--I fear that I have long been,

A BORE

ORMOND

CHAPTER I.

"What! no music, no dancing at Castle Hermitage to-night; and all the ladies sitting in a formal circle, petrifying into perfect statues?"

cried Sir Ulick O'Shane as he entered the drawing-room, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, accompanied by what he called his _rear-guard_, veterans of the old school of good fellows, who at those times in Ireland--times long since past--deemed it essential to health, happiness, and manly character, to swallow, and show themselves able to stand after swallowing, a certain number of bottles of claret per day or night.

"Now, then," continued Sir Ulick, "of all the figures in nature or art, the formal circle is universally the most obnoxious to conversation, and, to me, the most formidable; all my faculties are spell-bound--here I am like a bird in a circle of chalk, that dare not move so much as its head or its eyes, and can't, for the life of it, take to its legs."

A t.i.tter ran round that part of the circle where the young ladies sat--Sir Ulick was a favourite, and they rejoiced when he came among them; because, as they observed, "he always said something pleasant, or set something pleasant a-going."

"Lady O'Shane, for mercy's sake let us have no more of these permanent circle sittings at Castle Hermitage, my dear!"

"Sir Ulick, I am sure I should be very glad if it were possible,"

replied Lady O'Shane, "to have no more _permanent sittings_ at Castle Hermitage; but when gentlemen are at their bottle, I really don't know what the ladies can do but sit in a circle."

"Can't they dance in a circle, or any way? or have not they an elegant resource in their music? There's many here who, to my knowledge, can caper as well as they modulate," said Sir Ulick, "to say nothing of cards for those that like them."

"Lady Annaly does not like cards," said Lady O'Shane, "and I could not ask any of these young ladies to waste their breath and their execution, singing and playing before the gentlemen came out."

"These young ladies would not, I'm sure, do us old fellows the honour of waiting for us; and the young beaux deserted to your tea-table a long hour ago--so why you have not been dancing is a mystery beyond my comprehension."

"Tea or coffee, Sir Ulick O'Shane, for the third time of asking?" cried a sharp female voice from the remote tea-table.

"Wouldn't you swear to that being the voice of a presbyterian?"

whispered Sir Ulick, over his shoulder to the curate: then aloud he replied to the lady, "Miss Black, you are three times too obliging.

Neither tea nor coffee I'll take from you to-night, I thank you kindly."

"Fortunate for yourself, sir--for both are as cold as stones--and no wonder!" said Miss Black.

"No wonder!" echoed Lady O'Shane, looking at her watch, and sending forth an ostentatious sigh.

"What o'clock is it by your ladys.h.i.+p?" asked Miss Black. "I have a notion it's tremendously late."

"No matter--we are not pinned to hours in this house, Miss Black," said Sir Ulick, walking up to the tea-table, and giving her a look, which said as plainly as look could say, "You had better be quiet."

Lady O'Shane followed her husband, and putting her arm within his, began to say something in a fondling tone; and in a most conciliatory manner she went on talking to him for some moments. He looked absent, and replied coldly.

"I'll take a cup of coffee from you now, Miss Black," said he, drawing away his arm from his wife, who looked much mortified.

"We are too long, Lady O'Shane," added he, "standing here like lovers, talking to no one but ourselves--awkward in company."

"_Like lovers!_" The sound pleased poor Lady O'Shane's ear, and she smiled for the first time this night--Lady O'Shane was perhaps the last woman in the room whom a stranger would have guessed to be Sir Ulick's wife.

He was a fine gallant _off-hand_ looking Irishman, with something of _dash_ in his tone and air, which at first view might lead a common observer to p.r.o.nounce him to be vulgar; but at five minutes after sight, a good judge of men and manners would have discovered in him the power of a.s.suming whatever manner he chose, from the audacity of the callous profligate to the deference of the accomplished courtier--the capability of adapting his conversation to his company and his views, whether his object were "to set the senseless table in a roar," or to insinuate himself into the delicate female heart. Of this latter power, his age had diminished but not destroyed the influence. The fame of former conquests still operated in his favour, though he had long since pa.s.sed his splendid meridian of gallantry.

While Sir Ulick is drinking his cup of cold coffee, we may look back a little into his family history. To go no farther than his legitimate loves, he had successively won three wives, who had each, in her turn, been desperately enamoured: the first he loved, and married imprudently for love, at seventeen; the second he admired, and married prudently, for ambition, at thirty; the third he hated, but married, from necessity, for money, at five-and-forty. The first wife, Miss Annaly, after ten years' martyrdom of the heart, sank, childless,--a victim, it was said, to love and jealousy. The second wife, Lady Theodosia, struggled stoutly for power, backed by strong and high connexions; having, moreover, the advantage of being a mother, and mother of an only son and heir, the representative of a father in whom ambition had, by this time, become the ruling pa.s.sion: the Lady Theodosia stood her ground, wrangling and wrestling through a fourteen years' wedlock, till at last, to Sir Ulick's great relief, not to say joy, her ladys.h.i.+p was carried off by a bad fever, or a worse apothecary. His present lady, formerly Mrs. Scraggs, a London widow of very large fortune, happened to see Sir Ulick when he went to present some address, or settle some point between the English and Irish government:--he was in deep mourning at the time, and the widow pitied him very much. But she was not the sort of woman he would ever have suspected could like him--she was a strict pattern lady, severe on the times, and, not unfrequently, lecturing young men gratis. Now Sir Ulick O'Shane was a sinner; how then could he please a saint? He did, however--but the saint did not please him--though she set to work for the good of his soul, and in her own person relaxed, to please his taste, even to the wearing of rouge and pearl-powder, and false hair, and false eyebrows, and all the falsifications which the _setters-up_ could furnish. But after she had purchased all of youth which age can purchase for money, it would not do. The Widow Scraggs might, with her "lack l.u.s.tre" eyes, have speculated for ever in vain upon Sir Ulick, but that, fortunately for her pa.s.sion, at one and the same time, the Irish ministry were turned out, and an Irish ca.n.a.l burst. Sir Ulick losing his place by the change of ministry, and one half of his fortune by the ca.n.a.l, in which it had been sunk; and having spent in unsubstantial schemes and splendid living more than the other half; now, in desperate misery, laid hold of the Widow Scraggs. After a nine days' courts.h.i.+p she became a bride, and she and her plum in the stocks--but not her messuage, house, and lands, in Kent--became the property of Sir Ulick O'Shane. "Love was then lord of all" with her, and she was now to accompany Sir Ulick to Ireland. Late in life she was carried to a new country, and set down among a people whom she had all her previous days been taught to hold in contempt or aversion: she dreaded Irish disturbances much, and Irish dirt more; she was persuaded that nothing could be right, good, or genteel, that was not English. Her habits and tastes were immutably fixed. Her experience had been confined to a London life, and in proportion as her sphere of observation had been contracted, her disposition was intolerant. She made no allowance for the difference of opinion, customs, and situation, much less for the faults or foibles of people who were to her strangers and foreigners--her ladys.h.i.+p was therefore little likely to please or be pleased in her new situation. Her husband was the only individual, the only thing, animate or inanimate, that she liked in Ireland--and while she was desperately in love with an Irishman, she disliked Ireland and the Irish: even the Irish talents and virtues, their wit, humour, generosity of character, and freedom of manner, were lost upon her--her country neighbours were repelled by her air of taciturn self-sufficiency--and she, for her part, declared she would have been satisfied to have lived alone at Castle Hermitage with Sir Ulick. But Sir Ulick had no notion of living alone with her, or for any body. His habits were all social and convivial--he loved show and company: he had been all his life in the habit of entertaining all ranks of people at Castle Hermitage, from his excellency the Lord-Lieutenant and the commander-in-chief for the time being, to Tim the gauger, and honest Tom Kelly, the _stalko_.

He talked of the necessity of keeping up a neighbourhood, and maintaining his interest in the county, as the first duties of man.

Ostensibly Sir Ulick had no motive in all this, but the hospitable wish of seeing Castle Hermitage one continued scene of festivity; but under this good fellows.h.i.+p and apparent thoughtlessness and profusion, there was an eye to his own interest, and a keen view to the improvement of his fortune and the advancement of his family. With these habits and views, it was little likely that he should yield to the romantic, jealous, or economic tastes of his new lady--a bride ten years older than himself! Lady O'Shane was, soon after her arrival in Ireland, compelled to see her house as full of company as it could possibly hold; and her ladys.h.i.+p was condemned eternally, to do the honours to successive troops of _friends_, of whom she knew nothing, and of whom she disliked all she saw or heard. Her dear Sir Ulick was, or seemed, so engrossed by the business of pleasure, so taken up with his guests, that but a few minutes in the day could she ever obtain of his company. She saw herself surrounded by the young, the fair, and the gay, to whom Sir Ulick devoted his a.s.siduous and gallant attentions; and though his age, and his being a married man, seemed to preclude, in the opinion of the cool or indifferent spectator, all idea of any real cause for jealousy, yet it was not so with poor Lady O'Shane's magnifying imagination. The demon of jealousy tortured her; and to enhance her sufferings, she was obliged to conceal them, lest they should become subjects of private mockery or public derision. It is the peculiar misfortune or punishment of misplaced, and yet more of unseasonable, pa.s.sions, that in their distresses they obtain no sympathy; and while the pa.s.sion is in all its consequence tragics to the sufferer, in all its exhibitions it is--ludicrous to the spectator. Lady O'Shane could not be young, and would not be old: so without the charms of youth, or the dignity of age, she could neither inspire love, nor command respect; nor could she find fit occupation or amus.e.m.e.nt, or solace or refuge, in any combination of company or cla.s.s of society. Unluckily, as her judgment, never discriminating, was now blinded by jealousy, the two persons of all his family connexions upon whom she pitched as the peculiar objects of her fear and hatred were precisely those who were most disposed to pity and befriend her--to serve her in private with Sir Ulick, and to treat her with deference in public: these two persons were Lady Annaly and her daughter. Lady Annaly was a distant relation of Sir Ulick's first wife, during whose life some circ.u.mstances had occurred which had excited her ladys.h.i.+p's indignation against him. For many years all commerce between them had ceased. Lady Annaly was a woman of generous indignation, strong principles, and warm affections. Her rank, her high connexions, her high character, her having, from the time she was left a young and beautiful widow, devoted herself to the education and the interests of her children; her having persevered in her lofty course, superior to all the numerous temptations of love, vanity, or ambition, by which she was a.s.sailed; her long and able administration of a large property, during the minority of her son; her subsequent graceful resignation of power; his affection, grat.i.tude, and deference for his mother, which now continued to prolong her influence, and exemplify her precepts in every act of his own; altogether placed this lady high in public consideration--high as any individual could stand in a country, where national enthusiastic attachment is ever excited by certain n.o.ble qualities congenial with the Irish nature. Sir Ulick O'Shane, sensible of the disadvantage of having estranged such a family connexion, and fully capable of appreciating the value of her friends.h.i.+p, had of late years taken infinite pains to redeem himself in Lady Annaly's opinion.

His consummate address, aided and abetted and concealed as it was by his off-hand manner, would scarcely have succeeded, had it not been supported also by some substantial good qualities, especially by the natural candour and generosity of his disposition. In favour of the originally strong, and, through all his errors, wonderfully surviving taste for virtue, some of his manifold transgressions might be forgiven: there was much hope and promise of amendment; and besides, to state things just as they were, he had propitiated the mother, irresistibly, by his enthusiastic admiration of the daughter--so that Lady Annaly had at last consented to revisit Castle Hermitage. Her ladys.h.i.+p and her daughter were now on this reconciliation visit; Sir Ulick was extremely anxious to make it agreeable. Besides the credit of her friends.h.i.+p, he had other reasons for wis.h.i.+ng to conciliate her: his son Marcus was just twenty--two years older than Miss Annaly--in course of time, Sir Ulick thought it might be a match--his son could not possibly make a better--beauty, fortune, family connexions, every thing that the hearts of young and old desire. Besides (for in Sir Ulick's calculations _besides_ was a word frequently occurring), besides, Miss Annaly's brother was not as strong in body as in mind--in two illnesses his life had been despaired of--a third might carry him off--the estate would probably come to Miss Annaly. _Besides_, be this hereafter as it might, there was at this present time a considerable debt due by Sir Ulick to these Annalys, with acc.u.mulated interest, since the time of his first marriage; and this debt would be merged in Miss Annaly's portion, should she become his son's wife. All this was well calculated; but to say nothing of the character or affections of the son, Sir Ulick had omitted to consider Lady O'Shane, or he had taken it for granted that her love for him would induce her at once to enter into and second his views. It did not so happen. On the contrary, the dislike which Lady O'Shane took at sight to both the mother and daughter--to the daughter instinctively, at sight of her youth and beauty; to the mother reflectively, on account of her matronly dress and dignified deportment, in too striking contrast to her own frippery appearance--increased every day, and every hour, when she saw the attentions, the adoration, that Sir Ulick paid to Miss Annaly, and the deference and respect he showed to Lady Annaly, all for qualities and accomplishments in which Lady O'Shane was conscious that she was irremediably deficient. Sir Ulick thought to extinguish her jealousy, by opening to her his views on Miss Annaly for his son; but the jealousy, taking only a new direction, strengthened in its course.

Lady O'Shane did not like her stepson--had indeed no great reason to like him; Marcus disliked her, and was at no pains to conceal his dislike. She dreaded the accession of domestic power and influence he would gain by such a marriage. She could not bear the thoughts of having a daughter-in-law brought into the house--placed in eternal comparison with her. Sir Ulick O'Shane was conscious that his marriage exposed him to some share of ridicule; but hitherto, except when his taste for raillery, and the diversion of exciting her causeless jealousy, interfered with his purpose, he had always treated her ladys.h.i.+p as he conceived that Lady O'Shane ought to be treated. Naturally good-natured, and habitually attentive to the s.e.x, he had indeed kept up appearances better than could have been expected, from a man of his former habits, to a woman of her ladys.h.i.+p's present age; but if she now crossed his favourite scheme, it would be all over with her--her submission to his will had hitherto been a sufficient and a convenient proof, and the only proof he desired, of her love. Her ladys.h.i.+p's evil genius, in the shape of Miss Black, her humble companion, was now busily instigating her to be refractory. Miss Black had frequently whispered, that if Lady O'Shane would show more spirit, she would do better with Sir Ulick; that his late wife, Lady Theodosia, had ruled him, by showing proper spirit; that in particular, she should make a stand against the encroachments of Sir Ulick's son Marcus, and of his friend and companion, young Ormond. In consequence of these suggestions, Lady O'Shane had most judiciously thwarted both these young men in trifles, till she had become their aversion: this aversion Marcus felt more than he expressed, and Ormond expressed more strongly than he felt. To Sir Ulick, his son and heir was his first great object in life; yet, though in all things he preferred the interest of Marcus, he was not as fond of Marcus as he was of young Ormond. Young Ormond was the son of the friend of Sir Ulick O'Shane's youthful and warm-hearted days--the son of an officer who had served in the same regiment with him in his first campaign. Captain Ormond afterwards made an unfortunate marriage--that is, a marriage without a fortune--his friends would not see him or his wife--he was soon in debt, and in great distress. He was obliged to leave his wife and go to India. She had then one child at nurse in an Irish cabin. She died soon afterwards. Sir Ulick O'Shane took the child, that had been left at nurse, into his own house. From the time it was four years old, little Harry Ormond became his darling and grew up his favourite. Sir Ulick's fondness, however, had not extended to any care of his education--quite the contrary; he had done all he could to spoil him by the most injudicious indulgence, and by neglect of all instruction or discipline.

Marcus had been sent to school and college; but Harry Ormond, meantime, had been let to run wild at home: the gamekeeper, the huntsman, and a cousin of Sir Ulick, who called himself the King of the Black Islands, had had the princ.i.p.al share in his education. Captain Ormond, his father, was not heard of for many years; and Sir Ulick always argued, that there was no use in giving Harry Ormond the education of an estated gentleman, when he was not likely to have an estate. Moreover, he prophesied that Harry would turn out the cleverest man of the two; and in the progress of the two boys towards manhood Sir Ulick had shown a strange sort of double and inconsistent vanity in his son's acquirements, and in the orphan Harry's natural genius. Harry's extremely warm, generous, grateful temper, delighted Sir Ulick; but he gloried in the superior polish of his own son. Harry Ormond grew up with all the faults that were incident to his natural violence of pa.s.sions, and that might necessarily be expected from his neglected and deficient education. His devoted grat.i.tude and attachment to his guardian father, as he called Sir Ulick, made him amenable in an instant, even in the height and tempest of his pa.s.sions, to whatever Sir Ulick desired; but he was ungovernable by most other people, and rude even to insolence, where he felt tyranny or suspected meanness. Miss Black and he were always at open war; to Lady O'Shane he submitted, though with an ill grace; yet he did submit, for his guardian's sake, where he himself only was concerned; but most imprudently and fiercely he contended upon every occasion where Marcus, when aggrieved, had declined contending with his mother-in-law.

Upon the present occasion the two youths had been long engaged to dine with, and keep the birthday of, Mr. Cornelius O'Shane, the King of the Black Islands--next to Sir Ulick the being upon earth to whom Harry Ormond thought himself most obliged, and to whom he felt himself most attached. This he had represented to Lady O'Shane, and had earnestly requested that, as the day for the intended dance was a matter of indifference to her, it might not be fixed on this day; but her ladys.h.i.+p had purposely made it a trial of strength, and had insisted upon their returning at a certain hour. She knew that Sir Ulick would be much vexed by their want of punctuality on this occasion, where the Annalys were concerned, though, in general, punctuality was a virtue for which he had no regard.

Sir Ulick had finished his cup of coffee. "Miss Black, send away the tea-things--send away all these things," cried he. "Young ladies, better late than never, you know--let's have dancing now; clear the decks for action."

The young ladies started from their seats immediately. All was now in happy motion. The servants answered promptly--the tea-things retired in haste--tables rolled away--chairs swung into the back-ground--the folding-doors of the dancing-room were thrown open--the pyramids of wax-candles in the chandeliers (for this was ere argands were on earth) started into light--the musicians tuning, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, sc.r.a.ping, sounded, discordant as they were, joyful notes of preparation.

"But where's my son--where's Marcus?" said Sir Ulick, drawing Lady O'Shane aside. "I don't see him any where."

"No," said Lady O'Shane; "you know that he would go to dine to-day with that strange cousin of yours, and neither he nor his companion have thought proper to return yet."

"I wish you had given me a hint," said Sir Ulick, "and I would have waited; for Marcus ought to lead off with Miss Annaly."