Tales and Novels Volume X Part 21

"I hear the loud voice of universal execration," said Beauclerc; "you have all abused me, but whom have I abused? What have I said?"

"Nothing." replied Lady Cecilia; "that is what we complain of. I could have better borne any abuse than indifference to Sir Walter Scott."

"Indifference!" exclaimed Beauclerc--"what did I say Lady Cecilia, from which you could infer that I felt indifference? Indifferent to him whose name I cannot p.r.o.nounce without emotion! I alone, of all the world, indifferent to that genius, pre-eminent and unrivalled, who has so long commanded the attention of the whole reading public, arrested at will the instant order of the day by tales of other times, and in this commonplace, this every-day existence of ours, created a holiday world, where, undisturbed by vulgar cares, we may revel in a fancy region of felicity, peopled with men of other times--shades of the historic dead, more ill.u.s.trious and brighter than in life!"

"Yes, the great Enchanter," cried Cecilia.

"Great and good Enchanter," continued Beauclerc, "for in his magic there is no dealing with unlawful means. To work his ends, there is never aid from any one of the bad pa.s.sions of our nature. In his writings there is no private scandal--no personal satire--no bribe to human frailty--no libel upon human nature. And among the lonely, the sad, and the suffering, how has he medicined to repose the disturbed mind, or elevated the dejected spirit!--perhaps fanned to a flame the unquenched spark, in souls not wholly lost to virtue. His morality is not in purple patches, ostentatiously obtrusive, but woven in through the very texture of the stuff. He paints man as he is, with all his faults, but with his redeeming virtues--the world as it goes, with all its compensating good and evil, yet making each man better contented with his lot. Without our well knowing how, the whole tone of our minds is raised--for, thinking n.o.bly of our kind, he makes us think more n.o.bly of ourselves!"

Helen, who had sympathised with Beauclerc in every word he had said, felt how true it is that

"----Next to genius, is the power Of feeling where true genius lies."

"Yet after all this, Granville," said Lady Cecilia, "you would make us believe you never wished to have seen this great man?"

Beauclerc made no answer.

"Oh! how I wish I had seen him!" said Helen to Lady Davenant, the only person present who had had that happiness.

"If you have seen Raeburn's admirable pictures, or Chantrey's speaking bust," replied Lady Davenant, "you have as complete an idea of Sir Walter Scott as painting or sculpture can give. The first impression of his appearance and manner was surprising to me, I recollect, from its quiet, unpretending good nature; but scarcely had that impression been made before I was struck with something of the chivalrous courtesy of other times. In his conversation you would have found all that is most delightful in all his works--the combined talent and knowledge of the historian, novelist, antiquary, and poet. He recited poetry admirably, his whole face and figure kindling as he spoke: but whether talking, reading, or reciting, he never tired me, even with admiring; and it is curious that, in conversing with him, I frequently found myself forgetting that I was speaking to Sir Walter Scott; and, what is even more extraordinary, forgetting that Sir Walter Scott was speaking to me, till I was awakened to the conviction by his saying something which no one else could have said. Altogether he was certainly the most perfectly agreeable and perfectly amiable great man I ever knew."

"And now, mamma," said Lady Cecilia, "do make Granville confess honestly he would give the world to have seen him."

"Do, Lady Davenant," said Helen, who saw, or thought she saw, a singular emotion in Beauclerc's countenance, and fancied he was upon the point of yielding; but Lady Davenant, without looking at him, replied,--"No, my dear, I will not ask him--I will not encourage him in _affectation_."

At that word dark grew the brow of Beauclerc, and he drew back, as it were, into his sh.e.l.l, and out of it came no more that night, nor the next morning at breakfast. But, as far as could be guessed, he suffered internally, and no effort made to relieve did him any good, so every one seemed to agree that it was much better to let him alone, or let him be moody in peace, hoping that in time the mood would change; but it changed not till the middle of that day, when, as Helen was sitting working in Lady Davenant's room, while she was writing, two quick knocks were heard at the door.

"Come in!" said Lady Davenant.

Mr. Beauclerc stood pausing on the threshold----

"Do not go, Miss Stanley," said he, looking very miserable and ashamed, and proud, and then ashamed again.

"What is the matter, Granville?" said Lady Davenant.

"I am come to have a thorn taken out of my mind," said he--"two thorns which have sunk deep, kept me awake half the night. Perhaps, I ought to be ashamed to own I have felt pain from such little things. But so it is; though, after all, I am afraid they will be invisible to you, Lady Davenant."

"I will try with a magnifying-gla.s.s," said she; "lend me that of your imagination, Granville--a high power, and do not look so very miserable, or Miss Stanley will laugh at you."

"Miss Stanley is too good to laugh."

"That is being too good indeed," said Lady Davenant. "Well, now to the point."

"You were very unjust to me, Lady Davenant, yesterday, and unkind."

"Unkind is a woman's word; but go on."

"Surely man may mark 'unkindness' altered eye' as well as woman," said Beauclerc; "and from a woman and a friend he may and must feel it, or he is more or less than man."

"Now what can you have to say, Granville, that will not be anticlimax to this exordium?"

"I will say no more if you talk of exordiums and anti-climaxes," cried he. "You accused me yesterday of affectation--twice, when I was no more affected than you are."

"Oh! is that my crime? Is that, what has hurt you so dreadfully? Here is the thorn that has gone in so deep! I am afraid that, as is usual, the accusation hurt the more because it was----"

"Do not say 'true,'" interrupted Beauclerc, "for you really cannot believe it, Lady Davenant. You know me, and all my faults, and I have plenty; but you need not accuse me of one that I have not, and which from the bottom of my soul I despise. Whatever are my faults, they are at least real, and my own."

"You may allow him that," said Helen.

"Well I will--I do," said Lady Davenant; "to appease you, poor injured innocence; though anyone in the world might think you affected at this moment. Yet I, who know you, know that it is pure real folly. Yes, yes, I acquit you of affectation."

Beauclerc's face instantly cleared up.

"But you said two thorns had gone into your mind--one is out, now for the other."

"I do not feel that other, now," said Beauclerc, "it was only a mistake.

When I began with 'No man,' I was not going to say, 'No man is a hero to his valet de chambre.' If I had been allowed to finish my sentence, it would have saved a great deal of trouble, I was going to say that no man admires excellence more fervently than I do, and that my very reason for wis.h.i.+ng not to see celebrated people is, lest the illusion should be dispelled.

"No description ever gives us an exact idea of any person, so that when any one has been much described and talked of, before we see them we form in our mind's eye some image, some notion of our own, which always proves to be unlike the reality; and when we do afterwards see it, even if it be fairer or better than our imagination, still at first there is a sort of disappointment, from the non-agreement with our previously formed conception. Every body is disappointed the first time they see Hamlet, or Falstaff, as I think Dugald Stewart observes."

"True; and I remember," said Lady Davenant, "Madame de la Rochejaquelin once said to me, 'I hate that people should come to see me. I know it destroys the illusion.'"

"Yes," cried Beauclerc; "how much I dread to destroy any of those blessed illusions, which make the real happiness of life. Let me preserve the objects of my idolatry; I would not approach too near the shrine; I fear too much light. I would not know that they were false!"

"Would you then be deceived?" said Lady Davenant.

"Yes," cried he; "sooner would I believe in all the fables of the Talmud than be without the ecstasy of veneration. It is the curse of age to be thus miserably disenchanted; to outlive all our illusions, all our hopes. That may be my doom in age, but, in youth, the high spring-time of existence, I will not be cursed with such a premature ossification of the heart. Oh! rather, ten thousand times rather, would I die this instant!"

"Well! but there is not the least occasion for your dying," said Lady Davenant, "and I am seriously surprised that you should suffer so much from such slight causes; how will you ever get through the world if you stop thus to weigh every light word?"

"The words of most people," replied he, "pa.s.s by me like the idle wind; but I do weigh every word from the very few whom I esteem, admire, and love; with my friends, perhaps, I am too susceptible, I love them so deeply."

This is an excuse for susceptibility of temper which flatters friends too much to be easily rejected. Even Lady Davenant admitted it, and Helen thought it was all natural.

CHAPTER XIII.

Lady Cecilia was now impatient to have the house filled with company.

She gave Helen a _catalogue raisonne_ of all who were expected at Clarendon Park, some for a fas.h.i.+onable three days' visit; some for a week; some for a fortnight or three weeks, be the same more or less. "I have but one fixed principle," said she, "but I _have_ one,--never to have tiresome people when it can possibly be avoided. Impossible, you know, it is sometimes. One's own and one's husband's relations one must have; but, as for the rest, it's one's own fault if one fails in the first and last maxim of hospitality--to welcome the coming and speed the parting guest."

The first party who arrived were of Lady Davenant's particular friends, to whom Cecilia had kindly given the precedence, if not the preference, that her mother might have the pleasure of seeing them, and that they might have the honour of taking leave of her, before her departure from England.

They were political, fas.h.i.+onable, and literary; some of ascendency in society, some of parliamentary promise, and some of ministerial eminence--the aristocracy of birth and talents well mixed.

The aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy of talents are words now used more as a commonplace ant.i.thesis, than as denoting a real difference or contrast. In many instances, among those now living, both are united in a manner happy for themselves and glorious for their country. England may boast of having among her young n.o.bility