BOOK VI. 

 "I will bring fire to thee--I reek not of the place. " --EURIPIDES: _Andromache_, 214. 

CHAPTER I. 

 . . . THIS ancient city, How wanton sits she amidst Nature's smiles!

 . . . Various nations meet, As in the sea, yet not confined in space, But streaming freely through the spacious streets. --YOUNG. 

 . . . His teeth he still did grind, And grimly gnash, threatening revenge in vain. --SPENSER. 

"PARIS is a delightful place, --that is allowed by all. It is delightfulto the young, to the gay, to the idle; to the literary lion, who likes tobe petted; to the wiser epicure, who indulges a more justifiableappetite. It is delightful to ladies, who wish to live at their ease, and buy beautiful caps; delightful to philanthropists, who wish forlisteners to schemes of colonizing the moon; delightful to the hauntersof balls and ballets, and little theatres and superb _cafes_, where menwith beards of all sizes and shapes scowl at the English, and involvetheir intellects in the fascinating game of dominos. For these, and formany others, Paris is delightful. I say nothing against it. But, for myown part, I would rather live in a garret in London than in a palace inthe Chaussee d'Antin. --'Chacun a son mauvais gout. '

"I don't like the streets, in which I cannot walk but in the kennel; Idon't like the shops, that contain nothing except what's at the window; Idon't like the houses, like prisons which look upon a courtyard; I don'tlike the _beaux jardins_, which grow no plants save a Cupid in plaster; Idon't like the wood fires, which demand as many _petits soins_ as thewomen, and which warm no part of one but one's eyelids, I don't like thelanguage, with its strong phrases about nothing, and vibrating like apendulum between 'rapture' and 'desolation;' I don't like the accent, which one cannot get, without speaking through one's nose; I don't likethe eternal fuss and jabber about books without nature, and revolutionswithout fruit; I have no sympathy with tales that turn on a dead jackass, nor with constitutions that give the ballot to the representatives, andwithhold the suffrage from the people; neither have I much faith in thatenthusiasm for the _beaux arts_, which shows its produce in execrablemusic, detestable pictures, abominable sculpture, and a droll somethingthat I believe the _French_ call POETRY. Dancing and cookery, --these arethe arts the French excel in, I grant it; and excellent things they are;but oh, England! oh, Germany! you need not be jealous of your rival!"

These are not the author's remarks, --he disowns them; they were Mr. Cleveland's. He was a prejudiced man; Maltravers was more liberal, butthen Maltravers did not pretend to be a wit. 

Maltravers had been several weeks in the city of cities, and now he hadhis apartments in the gloomy but interesting Faubourg St. Germain, all tohimself. For Cleveland, having attended eight days at a sale, and havingmoreover ransacked all the curiosity shops, and shipped off bronzes andcabinets, and Genoese silks and _objets de vertu_, enough to have halffurnished Fonthill, had fulfilled his mission, and returned to his villa. Before the old gentleman went, he flattered himself that change of airand scene had already been serviceable to his friend; and that time wouldwork a complete cure upon that commonest of all maladies, --an unrequitedpassion, or an ill-placed caprice. 

Maltravers, indeed, in the habit of conquering, as well as of concealingemotion, vigorously and earnestly strove to dethrone the image that hadusurped his heart. Still vain of his self-command, and still worshippinghis favourite virtue of Fortitude and his delusive philosophy of the calmGolden Mean, he would not weakly indulge the passion, while he so sternlyfled from its object. 

But yet the image of Evelyn pursued, --it haunted him; it came on himunawares, in solitude, in crowds. That smile so cheering, yet so soft, that ever had power to chase away the shadow from his soul; that youthfuland luxurious bloom of pure and eloquent thoughts, which was as theblossom of genius before its fruit, bitter as well as sweet, is born;that rare union of quick feeling and serene temper, which forms the veryideal of what we dream of in the mistress, and exact from the wife, --all, even more, far more, than the exquisite form and the delicate graces ofthe less durable beauty, returned to him, after every struggle withhimself; and time only seemed to grave, in deeper if more latent folds ofhis heart, the ineradicable impression. 

Maltravers renewed his acquaintance with some persons not unfamiliar tothe reader. 

Valerie de Ventadour--how many recollections of the fairer days of lifewere connected with that name! Precisely as she had never reached to hislove, but only excited his fancy (the fancy of twenty-two), had her imagealways retained a pleasant and grateful hue; it was blended with no deepsorrow, no stern regret, no dark remorse, no haunting shame. 

They met again. Madame de Ventadour was still beautiful, and stilladmired, --perhaps more admired than ever; for to the great, fashion andcelebrity bring a second and yet more popular youth. But Maltravers, ifrejoiced to see how gently Time had dealt with the fair Frenchwoman, wasyet more pleased to read in her fine features a more serene and contentedexpression than they had formerly worn. Valerie de Ventadour hadpreceded her younger admirer through the "MYSTERIES of LIFE;" she hadlearned the real objects of being; she distinguished between the Actualand the Visionary, the Shadow and the Substance; she had acquired contentfor the present, and looked with quiet hope towards the future. Hercharacter was still spotless; or rather, every year of temptation andtrial had given it a fairer lustre. Love, that might have ruined, beingonce subdued, preserved her from all after danger. The first meetingbetween Maltravers and Valerie was, it is true, one of some embarrassmentand reserve: not so the second. They did but once, and that slightly, recur to the past, and from that moment, as by a tacit understanding, true friendship between them dated. Neither felt mortified to see thatan illusion had passed away, --they were no longer the same in eachother's eyes. Both might be improved, and were so; but the Valerie andthe Ernest of Naples were as things dead and gone! Perhaps Valerie'sheart was even more reconciled to the cure of its soft and luxuriousmalady by the renewal of their acquaintance. The mature and experiencedreasoner, in whom enthusiasm had undergone its usual change, with thecalm brow and commanding aspect of sober manhood, was a being sodifferent from the romantic boy, new to the actual world of civilizedtoils and pleasures, fresh from the adventures of Eastern wanderings, andfull of golden dreams of poetry before it settles into authorship oraction! She missed the brilliant errors, the daring aspirations, --eventhe animated gestures and eager eloquence, --that had interested andenamoured her in the loiterer by the shores of Baiae, or amidst thetomb-like chambers of Pompeii. For the Maltravers now before her--wiser, better, nobler, even handsomer than of yore (for he was one whom manhoodbecame better than youth)--the Frenchwoman could at any period have feltfriendship without danger. It seemed to her, not as it really was, thenatural _development_, but the very _contrast_, of the ardent, variable, imaginative boy, by whose side she had gazed at night on the moonlitwaters and rosy skies of the soft Parthenope! How does time, after longabsence, bring to us such contrasts between the one we remember and theone we see! And what a melancholy mockery does it seem of our own vainhearts, dreaming of impressions never to be changed, and affections thatnever can grow cool!

And now, as they conversed with all the ease of cordial and guilelessfriendship, how did Valerie rejoice in secret that upon that friendshipthere rested no blot of shame! and that she had not forfeited thoseconsolations for a home without love, which had at last settled intocheerful nor unhallowed resignation, --consolations only to be found inthe conscience and the pride!

M. De Ventadour had not altered, except that his nose was longer, andthat he now wore a peruque in full curl instead of his own straight hair. But somehow or other--perhaps by the mere charm of custom--he had grownmore pleasing in Valerie's eyes; habit had reconciled her to his foibles, deficiencies, and faults; and, by comparison with others, she couldbetter appreciate his good qualities, such as they were, --generosity, good-temper, good-nature, and unbounded indulgence to herself. Husbandand wife have so many interests in common, that when they have jogged onthrough the ups and downs of life a sufficient time, the leash which atfirst galled often grows easy and familiar; and unless the _temper_, orrather the disposition and the heart, of either be insufferable, what wasonce a grievous yoke becomes but a companionable tie. And for the rest, Valerie, now that sentiment and fancy were sobered down, could takepleasure in a thousand things which her pining affections once, as itwere, overlooked and overshot. She could feel grateful for all theadvantages her station and wealth procured her; she could cull the rosesin her reach, without sighing for the amaranths of Elysium. 

If the great have more temptations than those of middle life, and iftheir senses of enjoyment become more easily pampered into a sicklyapathy, so at least (if they can once outlive satiety) they have manymore resources at their command. There is a great deal of justice in theold line, displeasing though it be to those who think of love in acottage, "'Tis best repenting in a coach and six!" If among theEupatrids, the Well Born, there is less love in wedlock, less quiethappiness at home, still they are less chained each to each, --they havemore independence, both the woman and the man, and occupations and thesolace without can be so easily obtained! Madame de Ventadour, inretiring from the mere frivolities of society--from crowded rooms, andthe inane talk and hollow smiles of mere acquaintanceship--became moresensible of the pleasures that her refined and elegant intellect couldderive from art and talent, and the communion of friendship. She drewaround her the most cultivated minds of her time and country. Herabilities, her wit, and her conversational graces enabled her not only tomix on equal terms with the most eminent, but to amalgamate and blend thevarieties of talent into harmony. The same persons, when met elsewhere, seemed to have lost their charm; under Valerie's roof every one breatheda congenial atmosphere. And music and letters, and all that can refineand embellish civilized life, contributed their resources to this giftedand beautiful woman. And thus she found that the _mind_ has excitementand occupation, as well as the heart; and, unlike the latter, the culturewe bestow upon the first ever yields us its return. We talk of educationfor the poor, but we forget how much it is needed by the rich. Valeriewas a living instance of the advantages to women of knowledge andintellectual resources. By them she had purified her fancy, by them shehad conquered discontent, by them she had grown reconciled to life and toher lot! When the heavy heart weighed down the one scale, it was themind that restored the balance. 

The spells of Madame de Ventadour drew Maltravers into this charmedcircle of all that was highest, purest, and most gifted in the society ofParis. There he did not meet, as were met in the times of the old_regime_, sparkling abbes intent upon intrigues; or amorous old dowagers, eloquent on Rousseau; or powdered courtiers, uttering epigrams againstkings and religions, --straws that foretold the whirlwind. Paul Courierwas right! Frenchmen are Frenchmen still; they are full of fine phrases, and their thoughts smell of the theatre; they mistake foil for diamonds, the Grotesque for the Natural, the Exaggerated for the Sublime: but stillI say, Paul Courier was right, --there is more honesty now in a single_salon_ in Paris than there was in all France in the days of Voltaire. Vast interests and solemn causes are no longer tossed about likeshuttlecocks on the battledores of empty tongues. In the_bouleversement_ of Revolutions the French have fallen on their feet!

Meeting men of all parties and all classes, Maltravers was struck withthe heightened tone of public morals, the earnest sincerity of feelingwhich generally pervaded all, as compared with his first recollections ofthe Parisians. He saw that true elements for national wisdom were atwork, though he saw also that there was no country in which theiroperations would be more liable to disorder, more slow and irregular intheir results. The French are like the Israelites in the Wilderness, when, according to a Hebrew tradition, every morning they seemed on theverge of Pisgah, and every evening they were as far from it as ever. Butstill time rolls on, the pilgrimage draws to its close, and the Canaanmust come at last!

At Valerie's house, Maltravers once more met the De Montaignes. It was apainful meeting, for they thought of Cesarini when they met. 

It is now time to return to that unhappy man. Cesarini had been removedfrom England when Maltravers quitted it after Lady Florence's death; andMaltravers had thought it best to acquaint De Montaigne with all thecircumstances that had led to his affliction. The pride and the honourof the high-spirited Frenchman were deeply shocked by the tale of fraudand guilt, softened as it was; but the sight of the criminal, his awfulpunishment, merged every other feeling in compassion. Placed under thecare of the most skilful practitioners in Paris, great hopes ofCesarini's recovery had been at first entertained. Nor was it long, indeed, before he appeared entirely restored, so far as the external andsuperficial tokens of sanity could indicate a cure. He testifiedcomplete consciousness of the kindness of his relations, and clearremembrance of the past: but to the incoherent ravings of delirium, anintense melancholy, still more deplorable, succeeded. In this state, however, he became once more the inmate of his brother-in-law's house;and though avoiding all society, except that of Teresa, whoseaffectionate nature never wearied of its cares, he resumed many of hisold occupations. Again he appeared to take delight in desultory andunprofitable studies, and in the cultivation of that luxury of solitarymen, "the thankless muse. " By shunning all topics connected with thegloomy cause of his affliction, and talking rather of the sweetrecollections of Italy and childhood than of more recent events, hissister was enabled to soothe the dark hour, and preserve some kind ofinfluence over the ill-fated man. One day, however, there fell into hishands an English newspaper, which was full of the praises of LordVargrave; and the article in lauding the peer referred to his services asthe commoner Lumley Ferrers. 

This incident, slight as it appeared, and perfectly untraceable by hisrelations, produced a visible effect on Cesarini; and three daysafterwards he attempted his own life. The failure of the attempt wasfollowed by the fiercest paroxysms. His disease returned in all itsdread force: and it became necessary to place him under yet stricterconfinement than he had endured before. Again, about a year from thedate now entered upon, he had appeared to recover; and again he wasremoved to De Montaigne's house. His relations were not aware of theinfluence which Lord Vargrave's name exercised over Cesarini; in themelancholy tale communicated to them by Maltravers, that name had notbeen mentioned. If Maltravers had at one time entertained some vaguesuspicions that Lumley had acted a treacherous part with regard toFlorence, those suspicions had long since died away for want ofconfirmation; nor did he (nor did therefore the De Montaignes) connectLord Vargrave with the affliction of Cesarini. De Montaigne himself, therefore, one day at dinner, alluding to a question of foreign politicswhich had been debated that morning in the Chamber, and in which hehimself had taken an active part, happened to refer to a speech ofVargrave upon the subject, which had made some sensation abroad, as wellas at home. Teresa asked innocently who Lord Vargrave was; and DeMontaigne, well acquainted with the biography of the principal Englishstatesmen, replied that he had commenced his career as Mr. Ferrers, andreminded Teresa that they had once been introduced to him in Paris. Cesarini suddenly rose and left the room; his absence was not noted, forhis comings and goings were ever strange and fitful. Teresa soonafterwards quitted the apartment with her children, and De Montaigne, whowas rather fatigued by the exertions and excitement of the morning, stretched himself in his chair to enjoy a short _siesta_. He wassuddenly awakened by a feeling of pain and suffocation, --awakened in timeto struggle against a strong grip that had fastened itself at his throat. The room was darkened in the growing shades of the evening; and, but forthe glittering and savage eyes that were fixed on him, he could scarcelydiscern his assailant. He at length succeeded, however, in freeinghimself, and casting the intended assassin on the ground. He shouted forassistance; and the lights borne by the servants who rushed into the roomrevealed to him the face of his brother-in-law. Cesarini, though instrong convulsions, still uttered cries and imprecations of revenge; hedenounced De Montaigne as a traitor and a murderer! In the darkconfusion of his mind, he had mistaken the guardian for the distant foe, whose name sufficed to conjure up the phantoms of the dead, and plungereason into fury. 

It was now clear that there was danger and death in Cesarini's disease. His madness was pronounced to be capable of no certain and permanentcure; he was placed at a new asylum (the superintendents of which werecelebrated for humanity as well as skill), a little distance fromVersailles, and there he still remained. Recently his lucid intervalshad become more frequent and prolonged; but trifles that sprang from hisown mind, and which no care could prevent or detect, sufficed to renewhis calamity in all its fierceness. At such times he required the mostunrelaxing vigilance, for his madness ever took an alarming and ferociouscharacter; and had he been left unshackled, the boldest and stoutest ofthe keepers would have dreaded to enter his cell unarmed, or alone. 

What made the disease of the mind appear more melancholy and confirmedwas, that all this time the frame seemed to increase in health andstrength. This is not an uncommon case in instances of mania--and it isgenerally the worst symptom. In earlier youth, Cesarini had beendelicate even to effeminacy; but now his proportions were enlarged, hisform, though still lean and spare, muscular and vigorous, --as if in thetorpor which usually succeeded to his bursts of frenzy, the animalportion gained by the repose or disorganization of the intellectual. When in his better and calmer mood--in which indeed none but theexperienced could have detected his malady--books made his chief delight. But then he complained bitterly, if briefly, of the confinement heendured, of the injustice be suffered; and as, shunning all companions, he walked gloomily amidst the grounds that surrounded that House of Woe, his unseen guardians beheld him clenching his hands, as at some visionaryenemy, or overheard him accuse some phantom of his brain of the tormentshe endured. 

Though the reader can detect in Lumley Ferrers the cause of the frenzy, and the object of the imprecation, it was not so with the De Montaignes, nor with the patient's keepers and physicians; for in his delirium heseldom or never gave name to the shadows that he invoked, --not even tothat of Florence. It is, indeed, no unusual characteristic of madness toshun, as by a kind of cunning, all mention of the names of those by whomthe madness has been caused. It is as if the unfortunates imagined thatthe madness might be undiscovered if the images connected with it wereunbetrayed. 

Such, at this time, was the wretched state of the man, whose talents hadpromised a fair and honourable career, had it not been the wretchedtendency of his mind, from boyhood upward, to pamper every unwholesomeand unhallowed feeling as a token of the exuberance of genius. DeMontaigne, though he touched as lightly as possible upon this darkdomestic calamity in his first communications with Maltravers, whoseconduct in that melancholy tale of crime and woe had, he conceived, beenstamped with generosity and feeling, still betrayed emotions that toldhow much his peace had been embittered. 

"I seek to console Teresa, " said he, turning away his manly head, "and topoint out all the blessings yet left to her; but that brother so beloved, from whom so much was so vainly expected, --still ever and ever, thoughshe strives to conceal it from me, this affliction comes back to her, andpoisons every thought! Oh, better a thousand times that he had died!When reason, sense, almost the soul, are dead, how dark and fiend-like isthe life that remains behind! And if it should be in the blood--ifTeresa's children--dreadful thought!"

De Montaigne ceased, thoroughly overcome. 

"Do not, my dear friend, so fearfully exaggerate your misfortune, greatas it is; Cesarini's disease evidently arose from no physicalconformation, --it was but the crisis, the development, of along-contracted malady of mind, passions morbidly indulged, the reasoningfaculty obstinately neglected; and yet too he may recover. The furthermemory recedes from the shock he has sustained, the better the chancethat his mind will regain its tone. "

De Montaigne wrung his friend's hand. 

"It is strange that from you should come sympathy and comfort!--you whomhe so injured; you whom his folly or his crime drove from your proudcareer, and your native soil! But Providence will yet, I trust, redeemthe evil of its erring creature, and I shall yet live to see you restoredto hope and home, a happy husband, an honoured citizen. Till then, Ifeel as if the curse lingered upon my race. "

"Speak not thus. Whatever my destiny, I have recovered from that wound;and still, De Montaigne, I find in life that suffering succeeds tosuffering, and disappointment to disappointment, as wave to wave. Toendure is the only philosophy; to believe that we shall live again in abrighter planet, is the only hope that our reason should accept from ourdesires. "

CHAPTER II. 

 MONSTRA evenerunt mihi: Introit in aedes ater alienus canis, Anguis per impluvium decidit de tegulis, Gallina cecinit!*--TERENCE. 

 * "Prodigies have occurred: a strange black dog came into the house; a snake glided from the tiles, through the court; the hen crowed. "

WITH his constitutional strength of mind, and conformably with hisacquired theories, Maltravers continued to struggle against the latestand strongest passion of his life. It might be seen in the paleness ofhis brow, and that nameless expression of suffering which betrays itselfin the lines about the mouth, that his health was affected by theconflict within him; and many a sudden fit of absence and abstraction, many an impatient sigh, followed by a forced and unnatural gayety, toldthe observant Valerie that he was the prey of a sorrow he was too proudto disclose. He compelled himself, however, to take, or to affect, aninterest in the singular phenomena of the social state aroundhim, --phenomena that, in a happier or serener mood, would indeed havesuggested no ordinary food for conjecture and meditation. 

The state of _visible transition_ is the state of nearly all theenlightened communities in Europe. But nowhere is it so pronounced as inthat country which may be called the Heart of European Civilization. There, all to which the spirit of society attaches itself appears broken, vague, and half developed, --the Antique in ruins, and the New not formed. It is, perhaps, the only country in which the Constructive principle hasnot kept pace with the Destructive. The Has Been is blotted out; the ToBe is as the shadow of a far land in a mighty and perturbed sea. *

 * The reader will remember that these remarks were written long before the last French Revolution, and when the dynasty of Louis Philippe was generally considered most secure. 

Maltravers, who for several years had not examined the progress of modernliterature, looked with mingled feelings of surprise, distaste, andoccasional and most reluctant admiration, on the various works which thesuccessors of Voltaire and Rousseau have produced, and are pleased tocall the offspring of Truth united to Romance. 

Profoundly versed in the mechanism and elements of those masterpieces ofGermany and England, from which the French have borrowed so largely whilepretending to be original, Maltravers was shocked to see the monsterswhich these Frankensteins had created from the relics and the offal ofthe holiest sepulchres. The head of a giant on the limbs of a dwarf, incongruous members jumbled together, parts fair and beautiful, --thewhole a hideous distortion!

"It may be possible, " said he to De Montaigne, "that these works areadmired and extolled; but how they can be vindicated by the examples ofShakspeare and Goethe, or even of Byron, who redeemed poor andmelodramatic conceptions with a manly vigour of execution, an energy andcompleteness of purpose, that Dryden himself never surpassed, is to meutterly inconceivable. "

"I allow that there is a strange mixture of fustian and maudlin in allthese things, " answered De Montaigne; "but they are but the windfalls oftrees that may bear rich fruit in due season; meanwhile, any new schoolis better than eternal imitations of the old. As for criticalvindications of the works themselves, the age that produces the phenomenais never the age to classify and analyze them. We have had a deluge, andnow new creatures spring from the new soil. "

"An excellent simile: they come forth from slime and mud, --fetid andcrawling, unformed and monstrous. I grant exceptions; and even in theNew School, as it is called, I can admire the real genius, the vital andcreative power of Victor Hugo. But oh, that a nation which has known aCorneille should ever spawn forth a -----! And with these rickety anddrivelling abortions--all having followers and adulators--your Public canstill bear to be told that they have improved wonderfully on the day whenthey gave laws and models to the literature of Europe; they can bear tohear ----- proclaimed a sublime genius in the same circles which sneerdown Voltaire!"

Voltaire is out of fashion in France, but Rousseau still maintains hisinfluence, and boasts his imitators. Rousseau was the worse man of thetwo; perhaps he was also the more dangerous writer. But his reputationis more durable, and sinks deeper into the heart of his nation; and thedanger of his unstable and capricious doctrines has passed away. InVoltaire we behold the fate of all writers purely destructive; their usescease with the evils they denounce. But Rousseau sought to construct aswell as to destroy; and though nothing could well be more absurd than hisconstructions, still man loves to look back and see even delusiveimages--castles in the air--reared above the waste where cities havebeen. Rather than leave even a burial-ground to solitude, we populate itwith ghosts. 

By degrees, however, as he mastered all the features of the Frenchliterature, Maltravers become more tolerant of the present defects, andmore hopeful of the future results. He saw in one respect that thatliterature carried with it its own ultimate redemption. 

Its general characteristic--contradistinguished from the literature ofthe old French classic school--is to take the _heart_ for its study; tobring the passions and feelings into action, and let the Within have itsrecord and history as well as the Without. In all this our contemplativeanalyst began to allow that the French were not far wrong when theycontended that Shakspeare made the fountain of their inspiration, --afountain which the majority of our later English Fictionists haveneglected. It is not by a story woven of interesting incidents, relievedby delineations of the externals and surface of character, humorousphraseology, and every-day ethics, that Fiction achieves its grandestends. 

In the French literature, thus characterized, there is much falsemorality, much depraved sentiment, and much hollow rant; but still itcarries within it the germ of an excellence, which, sooner or later, mustin the progress of national genius arrive at its full development. Meanwhile, it is a consolation to know that nothing really immoral isever permanently popular, or ever, therefore, long deleterious; what isdangerous in a work of genius cures itself in a few years. We can nowread "Werther, " and instruct our hearts by its exposition of weakness andpassion, our taste by its exquisite and unrivalled simplicity ofconstruction and detail, without any fear that we shall shoot ourselvesin top-boots! We can feel ourselves elevated by the noble sentiments of"The Robbers, " and our penetration sharpened as to the wholesaleimmorality of conventional cant and hypocrisy, without any danger ofturning banditti and becoming cutthroats from the love of virtue. Providence, that has made the genius of the few in all times andcountries the guide and prophet of the many, and appointed Literature asthe sublime agent of Civilization, of Opinion, and of Law, has endowedthe elements it employs with a divine power of self-purification. Thestream settles of itself by rest and time; the impure particles fly off, or are neutralized by the healthful. It is only fools that call theworks of a master-spirit immoral. There does not exist in the literatureof the world one _popular_ book that is immoral two centuries after it isproduced. For, in the heart of nations, the False does not live so long;and the True is the Ethical to the end of time. 

From the literary Maltravers turned to the political state of France hiscurious and thoughtful eye. He was struck by the resemblance which thisnation--so civilized, so thoroughly European--bears in one respect to thedespotisms of the East: the convulsions of the capital decide the fate ofthe country; Paris is the tyrant of France. He saw in this inflammableconcentration of power, which must ever be pregnant with great evils, oneof the causes why the revolutions of that powerful and polished peopleare so incomplete and unsatisfactory, why, like Cardinal Fleury, systemafter system, and Government after Government--

 . . . "floruit sine fructu, Defloruit sine luctu. "*

 * "Flourished without fruit, and was destroyed without regret. "

Maltravers regarded it as a singular instance of perverse ratiocination, that, unwarned by experience, the French should still persist inperpetuating this political vice; that all their policy should still bethe policy of Centralization, --a principle which secures the momentarystrength, but ever ends in the abrupt destruction of States. It is, infact, the perilous tonic, which seems to brace the system, but drives theblood to the head, --thus come apoplexy and madness. By centralizationthe provinces are weakened, it is true, --but weak to assist as well as tooppose a government, weak to withstand a mob. Nowhere, nowadays, is amob so powerful as in Paris: the political history of Paris is thehistory of snobs. Centralization is an excellent quackery for a despotwho desires power to last only his own life, and who has but alife-interest in the State; but to true liberty and permanent ordercentralization is a deadly poison. The more the provinces govern theirown affairs, the more we find everything, even to roads and post-horses, are left to the people; the more the Municipal Spirit pervades every veinof the vast body, the more certain may we be that reform and change mustcome from universal opinion, which is slow, and constructs ere itdestroys, --not from public clamour, which is sudden, and not only pullsdown the edifice but sells the bricks!

Another peculiarity in the French Constitution struck and perplexedMaltravers. This people so pervaded by the republican sentiment; thispeople, who had sacrificed so much for Freedom; this people, who, in thename of Freedom, had perpetrated so much crime with Robespierre, andachieved so much glory with Napoleon, --this people were, as a people, contented to be utterly excluded from all power and voice in the State!Out of thirty-three millions of subjects, less than two hundred thousandelectors! Where was there ever an oligarchy equal to this? What astrange infatuation, to demolish an aristocracy and yet to exclude apeople! What an anomaly in political architecture, to build an invertedpyramid! Where was the safety-valve of governments, where the naturalvents of excitement in a population so inflammable? The people itselfwere left a mob, --no stake in the State, no action in its affairs, nolegislative interest in its security. *

 * Has not all this proved prophetic?

On the other hand, it was singular to see how--the aristocracy of birthbroken down--the aristocracy of letters had arisen. A Peerage, halfcomposed of journalists, philosophers, and authors! This was thebeau-ideal of Algernon Sidney's Aristocratic Republic, of the Helvetianvision of what ought to be the dispensation of public distinctions; yetwas it, after all, a desirable aristocracy? Did society gain; didliterature lose? Was the priesthood of Genius made more sacred and morepure by these worldly decorations and hollow titles; or was aristocracyitself thus rendered a more disinterested, a more powerful, or a moresagacious element in the administration of law, or the elevation ofopinion? These questions, not lightly to be answered, could not fail toarouse the speculation and curiosity of a man who had been familiar withthe closet and the forum; and in proportion as he found his interestexcited in these problems to be solved by a foreign nation, did thethoughtful Englishman feel the old instinct--which binds the citizen tothe fatherland--begin to stir once more earnestly and vividly within him. 

"You, yourself individually, are passing like us, " said De Montaigne oneday to Maltravers, "through a state of transition. You have forever leftthe Ideal, and you are carrying your cargo of experience over to thePractical. When you reach that haven, you will have completed thedevelopment of your forces. "

"You mistake me, --I am but a spectator. "

"Yes; but you desire to go behind the scenes; and he who once growsfamiliar with the green-room, longs to be an actor. "

With Madame de Ventadour and the De Montaignes Maltravers passed thechief part of his time. They knew how to appreciate his nobler and tolove his gentler attributes and qualities; they united in a warm interestfor his future fate; they combated his Philosophy of Inaction; and theyfelt that it was because he was not happy that he was not wise. Experience was to him what ignorance had been to Alice. His facultieswere chilled and dormant. As affection to those who are unskilled in allthings, so is affection to those who despair of all things. The mind ofMaltravers was a world without a sun!

CHAPTER III. 

 COELEBS, quid agam?*--HORACE. 

 * "What shall I do, a bachelor?"

IN a room at Fenton's Hotel sat Lord Vargrave and Caroline LadyDoltimore, --two months after the marriage of the latter. 

"Doltimore has positively fixed, then, to go abroad on your return fromCornwall?"

"Positively, --to Paris. You can join us at Christmas, I trust?"

"I have no doubt of it; and before then I hope that I shall have arrangedcertain public matters, which at present harass and absorb me even morethan my private affairs. "

"You have managed to obtain terms with Mr. Douce, and to delay therepayment of your debt to him?"

"Yes, I hope so, till I touch Miss Cameron's income; which will be mine, I trust, by the time she is eighteen. "

"You mean the forfeit money of thirty thousand pounds?"

"Not I; I mean what I said!"

"Can you really imagine she will still accept your hand?"

"With your aid, I do imagine it! Hear me. You must take Evelyn with youto Paris. I have no doubt but that she will be delighted to accompanyyou; nay, I have paved the way so far. For, of course, as a friend ofthe family, and guardian to Evelyn, I have maintained a correspondencewith Lady Vargrave. She informs me that Evelyn has been unwell andlow-spirited; that she fears Brook-Green is dull for her, etc. I wrote, in reply, to say that the more my ward saw of the world, prior to heraccession, when of age, to the position she would occupy in it, the moreshe would fulfil my late uncle's wishes with respect to her education andso forth. I added that as you were going to Paris, and as you loved herso much, there could not be a better opportunity for her entrance intolife under the most favourable auspices. Lady Vargrave's answer to thisletter arrived this morning: she will consent to such an arrangementshould you propose it. "

"But what good will result to yourself in this project? At Paris youwill be sure of rivals, and--"

"Caroline, " interrupted Lord Vargrave, "I know very well what you wouldsay: I also know all the danger I must incur. But it is a choice ofevils, and I choose the least. You see that while she is at Brook-Green, and under the eye of that sly old curate, I can effect nothing with her. There, she is entirely removed from my influence: not so abroad; not sounder your roof. Listen to me still further. In this country, andespecially in the seclusion and shelter of Brook-Green, I have no scopefor any of those means which I shall be compelled to resort to, infailure of all else. "

"What can you intend?" said Caroline, with a slight shudder. 

"I don't know what I intend yet. But this, at least, I can tellyou, --that Miss Cameron's fortune I must and will have. I am a desperateman; and I can play a desperate game, if need be. "

"And do you think that _I_ will aid, will abet?"

"Hush, not so loud! Yes, Caroline, you will, and you must aid and abetme in any project I may form. "

"Must! Lord Vargrave?"

"Ay, " said Lumley, with a smile, and sinking his voice into awhisper, --"ay! _you are in my power_!"

"Traitor!--you cannot dare! you cannot mean--"

"I mean nothing more than to remind you of the ties that exist betweenus, --ties which ought to render us the firmest and most confidential offriends. Come, Caroline, recollect all the benefit must not lie on oneside. I have obtained for you rank and wealth; I have procured you ahusband, --you must help me to a wife!"

Caroline sank back, and covered her face with her hands. 

"I allow, " continued Vargrave, coldly, --"I allow that your beauty andtalent were sufficient of themselves to charm a wiser man than Doltimore;but had I not suppressed jealousy, sacrificed love, had I dropped a hintto your liege lord, --nay, had I not fed his lap-dog vanity by all thecream and sugar of flattering falsehoods, --you would be Caroline Mertonstill!"

"Oh, would that I were! Oh that I were anything but your tool, yourvictim! Fool that I was! wretch that I am! I am rightly punished!"

"Forgive me, forgive me, dearest, " said Vargrave, soothingly; "I was toblame, forgive me: but you irritated, you maddened me, by your seemingindifference to my prosperity, my fate. I tell you again and again, pride of my soul, I tell you, that you are the only being I love! and ifyou will allow me, if you will rise superior, as I once fondly hoped, toall the cant and prejudice of convention and education, the only woman Icould ever respect, as well as love. Oh, hereafter, when you see me atthat height to which I feel that I am born to climb, let me think that toyour generosity, your affection, your zeal, I owed the ascent. Atpresent I am on the precipice; without your hand I fall forever. My ownfortune is gone; the miserable forfeit due to me, if Evelyn continues toreject my suit, when she has arrived at the age of eighteen, is deeplymortgaged. I am engaged in vast and daring schemes, in which I mayeither rise to the highest station or lose that which I now hold. Ineither case, how necessary to me is wealth: in the one instance, tomaintain my advancement; in the other, to redeem my fall. "

"But did you not tell me, " said Caroline, "that Evelyn proposed andpromised to place her fortune at your disposal, even while rejecting yourhand?"

"Absurd mockery!" exclaimed Vargrave; "the foolish boast of a girl, --animpulse liable to every caprice. Can you suppose that when she launchesinto the extravagance natural to her age and necessary to her position, she will not find a thousand demands upon her rent-roll not dreamed ofnow; a thousand vanities and baubles that will soon erase my poor andhollow claim from her recollection? Can you suppose that, if she marryanother, her husband will ever consent to a child's romance? And evenwere all this possible, were it possible that girls were not extravagant, and that husbands had no common-sense, is it for me, Lord Vargrave, to bea mendicant upon reluctant bounty, --a poor cousin, a pensionedled-captain? Heaven knows I have as little false pride as any man, butstill this is a degradation I cannot stoop to. Besides, Caroline, I amno miser, no Harpagon: I do not want wealth for wealth's sake, but forthe advantages it bestows, --respect, honour, position; and these I get asthe husband of the great heiress. Should I get them as her dependant?No: for more than six years I have built my schemes and shaped my conductaccording to one assured and definite object; and that object I shall notnow, at the eleventh hour, let slip from my hands. Enough of this: youwill pass Brook-Green in returning from Cornwall; you will take Evelynwith you to Paris, --leave the rest to me. Fear no folly, no violence, from my plans, whatever they may be: I work in the dark. Nor do Idespair that Evelyn will love, that Evelyn will voluntarily accept meyet: my disposition is sanguine; I look to the bright side of things; dothe same!"

Here their conference was interrupted by Lord Doltimore, who loungedcarelessly into the room, with his hat on one side. "Ah, Vargrave, howare you? You will not forget the letters of introduction? Where are yougoing, Caroline?"

"Only to my own room, to put on my bonnet; the carriage will be here in afew minutes. " And Caroline escaped. 

"So you go to Cornwall to-morrow, Doltimore?"

"Yes; cursed bore! but Lady Elizabeth insists on seeing us, and I don'tobject to a week's good shooting. The old lady, too, has something toleave, and Caroline had no dowry, --not that I care for it; but stillmarriage is expensive. "

"By the by, you will want the five thousand pounds you lent me?"

"Why, whenever it is convenient. "

Say no more, --it shall be seen to. Doltimore, I am very anxious thatLady Doltimore's _debut_ at Paris should be brilliant: everything dependson falling into the right set. For myself, I don't care about fashion, and never did; but if I were married, and an idle man like you, it mightbe different. "

"Oh, you will be very useful to us when we return to London. Meanwhile, you know, you have my proxy in the Lords. I dare say there will be somesharp work the first week or two after the recess. "

"Very likely; and depend on one thing, my dear Doltimore, that when I amin the Cabinet, a certain friend of mine shall be an earl. Adieu. "

"Good-by, my dear Vargrave, good-by; and, I say, --I say, don't distressyourself about that trifle; a few months hence it will suit me just aswell. "

"Thanks. I will just look into my accounts, and use you withoutceremony. Well, I dare say we shall meet at Paris. Oh, I forgot, --Iobserve that you have renewed your intimacy with Legard. Now, he is avery good fellow, and I gave him that place to oblige you; still, as youare no longer a _garcon_--but perhaps I shall offend you?"

"Not at all. What is there against Legard?"

"Nothing in the world, --but he is a bit of a boaster. I dare say hisancestor was a Gascon, poor fellow!--and he affects to say that you can'tchoose a coat, or buy a horse, without his approval and advice, --that hecan turn you round his finger. Now this hurts your consequence in theworld, --you don't get credit for your own excellent sense and taste. Take my advice, avoid these young hangers-on of fashion, these club-roomlions. Having no importance of their own, they steal the importance oftheir friends. _Verbum sap_. "

"You are very right, --Legard _is_ a coxcomb; and now I see why he talkedof joining us at Paris. "

"Don't let him do any such thing! He will be telling the Frenchmen thather ladyship is in love with him, ha, ha!"

"Ha, ha!--a very good joke--poor Caroline!--very good joke!"

"Well, good-by, once more. " And Vargrave closed the door. 

"Legard go to Paris--not if Evelyn goes there!" muttered Lumley. "Besides, I want no partner in the little that one can screw out of thisblockhead. "

CHAPTER IV. 

 MR. BUMBLECASE, a word with you--I have a little business. Farewell, the goodly Manor of Blackacre, with all its woods, underwoods, and appurtenances whatever. --WYCHERLEY: _Plain Dealer_. 

IN quitting Fenton's Hotel, Lord Vargrave entered into one of the clubsin St. James's Street: this was rather unusual with him, for he was not aclub man. It was not his system to spend his time for nothing. But itwas a wet December day; the House was not yet assembled, and he had donehis official business. Here, as he was munching a biscuit and reading anarticle in one of the ministerial papers--the heads of which he himselfhad supplied--Lord Saxingham joined and drew him to the window. 

"I have reason to think, " said the earl, "that your visit to Windsor didgood. "

"Ah, indeed; so I fancied. "

"I do not think that a certain personage will ever consent to the -----question; and the premier, whom I saw to-day, seems chafed andirritated. "

"Nothing can be better; I know that we are in the right boat. "

"I hope it is not true, Lumley, that your marriage with Miss Cameron isbroken off; such was the _on dit_ in the club, just before you entered. "

"Contradict it, my dear lord, --contradict it. I hope by the spring tointroduce Lady Vargrave to you. But who broached the absurd report?"

"Why, your _protege_, Legard, says he heard so from his uncle, who heardit from Sir John Merton. "

"Legard is a puppy, and Sir John Merton a jackass. Legard had betterattend to his office, if he wants to get on; and I wish you'd tell himso. I have heard somewhere that he talks of going to Paris, --you canjust hint to him that he must give up such idle habits. Publicfunctionaries are not now what they were, --people are expected to workfor the money they pocket; otherwise Legard is a cleverish fellow, anddeserves promotion. A word or two of caution from you will do him a vastdeal of good. "

"Be sure I will lecture him. Will you dine with me to-day, Lumley?"

"No. I expect my co-trustee, Mr. Douce, on matters of business, --a_tete-a-tete_ dinner. "

Lord Vargrave had, as he conceived, very cleverly talked over Mr. Douceinto letting his debt to that gentleman run on for the present; and inthe meanwhile, he had overwhelmed Mr. Douce with his condescensions. That gentleman had twice dined with Lord Vargrave, and Lord Vargrave hadtwice dined with him. The occasion of the present more familiarentertainment was in a letter from Mr. Douce, begging to see LordVargrave on particular business; and Vargrave, who by no means liked theword _business_ from a gentleman to whom he owed money, thought that itwould go off more smoothly if sprinkled with champagne. 

Accordingly, he begged "My dear Mr. Douce" to excuse ceremony, and dinewith him on Thursday at seven o'clock, --he was really so busy all themornings. 

At seven o'clock, Mr. Douce came. The moment he entered Vargrave calledout, at the top of his voice, "Dinner immediately!" And as the littleman bowed and shuffled, and fidgeted and wriggled (while Vargrave shookhim by the hand), as if he thought he was going himself to be spitted, his host said, "With your leave, we'll postpone the budget till afterdinner. It is the fashion nowadays to postpone budgets as long as wecan, --eh? Well, and how are all at home? Devilish cold; is it not? Soyou go to your villa every day? That's what keeps you in such capitalhealth. You know I had a villa too, --though I never had time to gothere. "

"Ah, yes; I think, I remember, at Ful-Ful-Fulham!" gasped out Mr. Douce. "Your poor uncle's--now Lady Var-Vargrave's jointure-house. So--so--"

"She don't live there!" burst in Vargrave (far too impatient to bepolite). "Too cockneyfied for her, --gave it up to me; very pretty place, but d-----d expensive. I could not afford it, never went there, and so Ihave let it to my wine-merchant; the rent just pays his bill. You willtaste some of the sofas and tables to-day in his champagne. I don't knowhow it is, I always fancy my sherry smells like my poor uncle's oldleather chair: very odd smell it had, --a kind of respectable smell! Ihope you're hungry, --dinner's ready. "

Vargrave thus rattled away in order to give the good banker to understandthat his affairs were in the most flourishing condition: and he continuedto keep up the ball all dinnertime, stopping Mr. Douce's little, miserable, gasping, dacelike mouth, with "a glass of wine, Douce?" or "bythe by, Douce, " whenever he saw that worthy gentleman about to make theAEschylean improvement of a second person in the dialogue. 

At length, dinner being fairly over, and the servants withdrawn, LordVargrave, knowing that sooner or later Douce would have his say, drew hischair to the fire, put his feet on the fender, and cried, as he tossedoff his claret, "NOW, DOUCE, WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?"

Mr. Douce opened his eyes to their full extent, and then as rapidlyclosed them; and this operation he continued till, having snuffed them somuch that they could by no possibility burn any brighter, he wasconvinced that he had not misunderstood his lordship. 

"Indeed, then, " he began, in his most frightened manner, "indeed--I--really, your lordship is very good--I--I wanted to speak toyou on business. "

"Well, what can I do for you, --some little favour, eh? Snug sinecure fora favourite clerk, or a place in the Stamp-Office for your fatfootman--John, I think you call him? You know, my dear Douce, you maycommand me. "

"Oh, indeed, you are all good-good-goodness--but--but--"

Vargrave threw himself back, and shutting his eyes and pursing up hismouth, resolutely suffered Mr. Douce to unbosom himself withoutinterruption. He was considerably relieved to find that the businessreferred to related only to Miss Cameron. 

Mr. Douce having reminded Lord Vargrave, as he had often done before, ofthe wishes of his uncle, that the greater portion of the money bequeathedto Evelyn should be invested in land, proceeded to say that a mostexcellent opportunity presented itself for just such a purchase as wouldhave rejoiced the heart of the late lord, --a superb place, in the styleof Blickling, --deer-park six miles round, ten thousand acres of land, bringing in a clear eight thousand pounds a year, purchase money only twohundred and forty thousand pounds. The whole estate was, indeed, muchlarger, --eighteen thousand acres; but then the more distant farms couldbe sold in different lots, in order to meet the exact sum Miss Cameron'strustees were enabled to invest. 

"Well, " said Vargrave, "and where is it? My poor uncle was after DeClifford's estate, but the title was not good. "

"Oh! this--is much--much--much fi-fi-finer; famous investment--but ratherfar off--in--in the north, Li-Li-Lisle Court. "

"Lisle Court! Why, does not that belong to Colonel Maltravers?"

"Yes. It is, indeed, quite, I may say, a secret-yes--really--ase-se-secret--not in the market yet--not at all--soon snapped up. "

"Humph! Has Colonel Maltravers been extravagant?"

"No; but he does not--I hear--or rather Lady--Julia--so I'm told, yes, indeed--does not li-like--going so far, and so they spend the winter inItaly instead. Yes--very odd--very fine place. "

Lumley was slightly acquainted with the elder brother of his oldfriend, --a man who possessed some of Ernest's faults, --very proud, andvery exacting, and very fastidious; but all these faults were developedin the ordinary commonplace world, and were not the refined abstractionsof his younger brother. 

Colonel Maltravers had continued, since he entered the Guards, to bethoroughly the man of fashion, and nothing more. But rich and well-born, and highly connected, and thoroughly _a la mode_ as he was, his pridemade him uncomfortable in London, while his fastidiousness made himuncomfortable in the country. He was _rather_ a great person, but hewanted to be a _very_ great person. This he was at Lisle Court; but thatdid not satisfy him. He wanted not only to be a very great person, but avery great person among very great persons--and squires and parsons boredhim. Lady Julia, his wife, was a fine lady, inane and pretty, who saweverything through her husband's eyes. He was quite master _chez lui_, was Colonel Maltravers! He lived a great deal abroad; for on theContinent his large income seemed princely, while his high character, thorough breeding, and personal advantages, which were remarkable, secured him a greater position in foreign courts than at his own. Twothings had greatly disgusted him with Lisle Court, --trifles they might bewith others, but they were not trifles to Cuthbert Maltravers; in thefirst place, a man who had been his father's attorney, and who was thevery incarnation of coarse unrepellable familiarity, had bought an estateclose by the said Lisle Court, and had, _horresco referens_, been made abaronet! Sir Gregory Gubbins took precedence of Colonel Maltravers! Hecould not ride out but he met Sir Gregory; he could not dine out but hehad the pleasure of walking behind Sir Gregory's bright blue coat withits bright brass buttons. In his last visit to Lisle Court, which he hadthen crowded with all manner of fine people, he had seen--the very firstmorning after his arrival--seen from the large window of his statesaloon, a great staring white, red, blue, and gilt thing, at the end ofthe stately avenue planted by Sir Guy Maltravers in honour of the victoryover the Spanish armada. He looked in mute surprise, and everybody elselooked; and a polite German count, gazing through his eye-glass, said, "Ah! dat is vat you call a vim in your _pays_, --the vim of ColonelMaltravers!"

This "vim" was the pagoda summer-house of Sir Gregory Gubbins, erected inimitation of the Pavilion at Brighton. Colonel Maltravers was miserable:the _vim_ haunted him; it seemed ubiquitous; he could not escape it, --itwas built on the highest spot in the county. Ride, walk, sit where hewould, the _vim_ stared at him; and he thought he saw little mandarinsshake their round little heads at him. This was one of the great cursesof Lisle Court; the other was yet more galling. The owners of LisleCourt had for several generations possessed the dominant interest in thecounty town. The colonel himself meddled little in politics, and was toofine a gentleman for the drudgery of parliament. He had offered the seatto Ernest, when the latter had commenced his public career; but theresult of a communication proved that their political views weredissimilar, and the negotiation dropped without ill-feeling on eitherside. Subsequently a vacancy occurred; and Lady Julia's brother (justmade a Lord of the Treasury) wished to come into parliament, so thecounty town was offered to him. Now, the proud commoner had married intothe family of a peer as proud as himself, and Colonel Maltravers wasalways glad whenever he could impress his consequence on his connectionsby doing them a favour. He wrote to his steward to see that the thingwas properly settled, and came down on the nomination-day "to share thetriumph and partake the gale. " Guess his indignation, when he found thenephew of Sir Gregory Gubbins was already in the field! The result ofthe election was that Mr. Augustus Gubbins came in, and that ColonelMaltravers was pelted with cabbage-stalks, and accused of attempting tosell the worthy and independent electors to a government nominee! Inshame and disgust, Colonel Maltravers broke up his establishment at LisleCourt, and once more retired to the Continent. 

About a week from the date now touched upon, Lady Julia and himself hadarrived in London from Vienna; and a new mortification awaited theunfortunate owner of Lisle Court. A railroad company had beenestablished, of which Sir Gregory Gubbins was a principal shareholder;and the speculator, Mr. Augustus Gubbins, one of the "most useful men inthe House, " had undertaken to carry the bill through parliament. ColonelMaltravers received a letter of portentous size, inclosing the map of theplaces which this blessed railway was to bisect; and lo! just at thebottom of his park ran a portentous line, which informed him of thesacrifice he was expected to make for the public good, --especially forthe good of that very county town, the inhabitants of which had peltedhim with cabbage-stalks!

Colonel Maltravers lost all patience. Unacquainted with our wiselegislative proceedings, he was not aware that a railway planned is avery different thing from a railway made; and that parliamentarycommittees are not by any means favourable to schemes for carrying thepublic through a gentleman's park. 

"This country is not to be lived in, " said he to Lady Julia; "it getsworse and worse every year. I am sure I never had any comfort in LisleCourt. I've a great mind to sell it. "

"Why, indeed, as we have no sons, only daughters, and Ernest is so wellprovided for, " said Lady Julia, "and the place is so far from London, andthe neighbourhood is so disagreeable, I think we could do very wellwithout it. "

Colonel Maltravers made no answer, but he revolved the pros and cons; andthen he began to think how much it cost him in gamekeepers and carpentersand bailiffs and gardeners and Heaven knows whom besides; and then thepagoda flashed across him; and then the cabbage-stalks, and at last hewent to his solicitor. 

"You may sell Lisle Court, " said he, quietly. 

The solicitor dipped his pen in the ink. "The particulars, Colonel?"

"Particulars of Lisle Court! everybody, that is, every gentleman, knowsLisle Court!"

"Price, sir?"

"You know the rents; calculate accordingly. It will be too large apurchase for one individual; sell the outlying woods and farms separatelyfrom the rest. "

"We must draw up an advertisement, Colonel. "

"Advertise Lisle Court! out of the question, sir. I can have nopublicity given to my intention: mention it quietly to any capitalist;but keep it out of the papers till it is all settled. In a week or twoyou will find a purchaser, --the sooner the better. "

Besides his horror of newspaper comments and newspaper puffs, ColonelMaltravers dreaded that his brother--then in Paris--should learn hisintention, and attempt to thwart it; and, somehow or other, the colonelwas a little in awe of Ernest, and a little ashamed of his resolution. He did not know that, by a singular coincidence, Ernest himself hadthought of selling Burleigh. 

The solicitor was by no means pleased with this way of settling thematter. However, he whispered it about that Lisle Court was in themarket; and as it really was one of the most celebrated places of itskind in England, the whisper spread among bankers and brewers andsoap-boilers and other rich people--the Medici of the New Noblesse risingup amongst us--till at last it reached the ears of Mr. Douce. 

Lord Vargrave, however bad a man he might be, had not many of those vicesof character which belong to what I may call the _personal class ofvices_, --that is, he had no ill-will to individuals. He was not, ordinarily, a jealous man, nor a spiteful, nor a malignant, nor avindictive man: his vices arose from utter indifference to all men, andall things--except as conducive to his own ends. He would not haveinjured a worm if it did him no good; but he would have set any house onfire if he had no other means of roasting his own eggs. Yet still, ifany feeling of personal rancour could harbour in his breast, it was, first, towards Evelyn Cameron, and, secondly, towards Ernest Maltravers. For the first time in his life, he did long for revenge, --revenge againstthe one for stealing his patrimony, and refusing his hand; and thatrevenge he hoped to gratify. 

As to the other, it was not so much dislike he felt, as an uneasysentiment of inferiority. However well he himself had got on in theworld, he yet grudged the reputation of a man whom he had remembered awayward, inexperienced boy: he did not love to hear any one praiseMaltravers. He fancied, too, that this feeling was reciprocal, and thatMaltravers was pained at hearing of any new step in his own career. Infact, it was that sort of jealousy which men often feel for thecompanions of their youth, whose characters are higher than their own, and whose talents are of an order they do not quite comprehend. Now, itcertainly did seem at that moment to Lord Vargrave that it would be amost splendid triumph over Mr. Maltravers of Burleigh to be lord of LisleCourt, the hereditary seat of the elder branch of the family to be, as itwere, in the very shoes of Mr. Ernest Maltravers's elder brother. Heknew, too, that it was a property of great consequence. Lord Vargrave ofLisle Court would hold a very different post in the peerage from LordVargrave of -----, Fulham! Nobody would call the owner of Lisle Court anadventurer; nobody would suspect such a man of caring three straws aboutplace and salary. And if he married Evelyn, and if Evelyn bought LisleCourt, would not Lisle Court be his? He vaulted over the _ifs_, stiffmonosyllables though they were, with a single jump. Besides, even shouldthe thing come to nothing, there was the very excuse he sought forjoining Evelyn at Paris, for conversing with her, consulting her. It wastrue that the will of the late lord left it solely at the discretion ofthe trustees to select such landed investment as seemed best to them; butstill it was, if not legally necessary, at least but a proper courtesy toconsult Evelyn. And plans, and drawings, and explanations, andrent-rolls, would justify him in spending morning after morning alonewith her. 

Thus cogitating, Lord Vargrave suffered Mr. Douce to stammer out sentenceupon sentence, till at length, as he rang for coffee, his lordshipstretched himself with the air of a man stretching himself intoself-complacency or a good thing, and said, --

"Mr. Douce, I will go down to Lisle Court as soon as I can; I will seeit; I will ascertain all about it; I will consider favourably of it. Iagree with you, I think it will do famously. "

"But, " said Mr. Douce, who seemed singularly anxious about the matter, "we must make haste, my lord; for really--yes, indeed--if--if--if BaronRoths--Rothschild should--that is to say--"

"Oh, yes, I understand; keep the thing close, my dear Douce; make friendswith the colonel's lawyer; play with him a little, till I can run down. "

"Besides, you see, you are such a good man of business, my lord--that yousee, that--yes, really--there must be time to draw out thepurchase-money--sell out at a prop--prop--"

"To be sure, to be sure! Bless me, how late it is! I am afraid mycarriage is ready. I must go to Madame de L-----'s. "

Mr. Douce, who seemed to have much more to say, was forced to keep it foranother time, and to take his leave. Lord Vargrave went to Madame deL-----'s. His position in what is called Exclusive Society was ratherpeculiar. By those who affected to be the best judges, the frankness ofhis manner and the easy oddity of his conversation were pronounced atvariance with the tranquil serenity of thorough breeding. But still hewas a great favourite both with fine ladies and dandies. His handsomekeen countenance, his talents, his politics, his intrigues, and ananimated boldness in his bearing, compensated for his constant violationof all the minutiae of orthodox conventionalism. 

At this house he met Colonel Maltravers, and took an opportunity to renewhis acquaintance with that gentleman. He then referred, in aconfidential whisper, to the communication he had received touching LisleCourt. 

"Yes, " said the colonel, "I suppose I must sell the place, if I can do soquietly. To be sure, when I first spoke to my lawyer it was in a momentof vexation, on hearing that the ----- railroad was to go through thepark, but I find that I overrated that danger. Still, if you will do methe honour to go and look over the place, you will find very goodshooting; and when you come back, you can see if it will suit you. Don'tsay anything about it when you are there; it is better not to publish myintention all over the county. I shall have Sir Gregory Gubbins offeringto buy it if you do!"

"You may depend on my discretion. Have you heard anything of yourbrother lately?"

"Yes; I fancy he is going to Switzerland. He would soon be in England, if he heard I was going to part with Lisle Court!"

"What, it would vex him so?"

"I fear it would; but he has a nice old place of his own, not half solarge, and therefore not half so troublesome as Lisle Court. "

"Ay! and he _did_ talk of selling that nice old place. "

"Selling Burleigh! you surprise me. But really country places in England_are_ a bore. I suppose he has his Gubbins as well as myself!"

Here the chief minister of the government adorned by Lord Vargrave'svirtues passed by, and Lumley turned to greet him. 

The two ministers talked together most affectionately in a closewhisper, --so affectionately, that one might have seen, with half an eye, that they hated each other like poison!

CHAPTER V. 

 INSPICERE tanquam in speculum, in vitas omnium Jubeo. *--TERENCE. 

 * "I bid you look into the lives of all men, as it were into a mirror. "

ERNEST MALTRAVERS still lingered at Paris: he gave up all notion ofproceeding farther. He was, in fact, tired of travel. But there wasanother reason that chained him to that "Navel of the Earth, "--there isnot anywhere a better sounding-board to London rumours than the English_quartier_ between the Boulevard des Italiennes and the Tuileries; here, at all events, he should soonest learn the worst: and every day, as hetook up the English newspapers, a sick feeling of apprehension and fearcame over him. No! till the seal was set upon the bond, till the Rubiconwas passed, till Miss Cameron was the wife of Lord Vargrave, he couldneither return to the home that was so eloquent with the recollections ofEvelyn, nor, by removing farther from England, delay the receipt of anintelligence which he vainly told himself he was prepared to meet. 

He continued to seek such distractions from thought as were within hisreach; and as his heart was too occupied for pleasures which had, indeed, long since palled, those distractions were of the grave and noblecharacter which it is a prerogative of the intellect to afford to thepassions. 

De Montaigne was neither a Doctrinaire nor a Republican, --and yet, perhaps, he was a little of both. He was one who thought that thetendency of all European States is towards Democracy; but he by no meanslooked upon Democracy as a panacea for all legislative evils. He thoughtthat, while a writer should be in advance of his time, a statesman shouldcontent himself with marching by its side; that a nation could not beripened, like an exotic, by artificial means; that it must be developedonly by natural influences. He believed that forms of government arenever universal in their effects. Thus, De Montaigne conceived that wewere wrong in attaching more importance to legislative than to socialreforms. He considered, for instance, that the surest sign of ourprogressive civilization is in our growing distaste to capitalpunishments. He believed, not in the ultimate _perfection_ of mankind, but in their progressive _perfectibility_. He thought that improvementwas indefinite; but he did not place its advance more under Republicanthan under Monarchical forms. "Provided, " he was wont to say, "all ourchecks to power are of the right kind, it matters little to what handsthe power itself is confided. "

"AEgina and Athens, " said he, "were republics--commercial andmaritime--placed under the same sky, surrounded by the same neighbours, and rent by the same struggles between Oligarchy and Democracy. Yet, while one left the world an immortal heirloom of genius, where are thepoets, the philosophers, the statesmen of the other? Arrian tells us ofrepublics in India, still supposed to exist by modern investigators; butthey are not more productive of liberty of thought, or ferment ofintellect, than the principalities. In Italy there were commonwealths asliberal as the Republic of Florence; but they did not produce aMachiavelli or a Dante. What daring thought, what gigantic speculation, what democracy of wisdom and genius, have sprung up amongst thedespotisms of Germany! You cannot educate two individuals so as toproduce the same results from both; you cannot, by similar constitutions(which are the education of nations) produce the same results fromdifferent communities. The proper object of statesmen should be to giveevery facility to the people to develop themselves, and every facility tophilosophy to dispute and discuss as to the ultimate objects to beobtained. But you cannot, as a practical legislator, place your countryunder a melon-frame: it must grow of its own accord. "

I do not say whether or not De Montaigne was wrong! but Maltravers saw atleast that he was faithful to his theories; that all his motives weresincere, all his practice pure. He could not but allow, too, that in hisoccupations and labours, De Montaigne appeared to feel a sublimeenjoyment; that, in linking all the powers of his mind to active anduseful objects, De Montaigne was infinitely happier than the Philosophyof Indifference, the scorn of ambition, had made Maltravers. Theinfluence exercised by the large-souled and practical Frenchman over thefate and the history of Maltravers was very peculiar. 

De Montaigne had not, apparently and directly, operated upon his friend'soutward destinies; but he had done so indirectly, by operating on hismind. Perhaps it was he who had consolidated the first wavering anduncertain impulses of Maltravers towards literary exertion; it was he whohad consoled him for the mortifications at the earlier part of hiscareer; and now, perhaps he might serve, in the full vigour of hisintellect, permanently to reconcile the Englishman to the claims of life. 

There were, indeed, certain conversations which Maltravers held with DeMontaigne, the germ and pith of which it is necessary that I should placebefore the reader, --for I write the inner as well as the outer history ofa man; and the great incidents of life are not brought about only by thedramatic agencies of others, but also by our own reasonings and habits ofthought. What I am now about to set down may be wearisome, but it is notepisodical; and I promise that it shall be the last didactic conversationin the work. 

One day Maltravers was relating to De Montaigne all that he had beenplanning at Burleigh for the improvement of his peasantry, and all histheories respecting Labour-Schools and Poor-rates, when De Montaigneabruptly turned round, and said, --

"You have, then, really found that in your own little village yourexertions--exertions not very arduous, not demanding a tenth part of yourtime--have done practical good?"

"Certainly I think so, " replied Maltravers, in some surprise. 

"And yet it was but yesterday that you declared that all the labours ofPhilosophy and Legislation were labours vain; their benefits equivocaland uncertain; that as the sea, where it loses in one place, gains inanother, so civilization only partially profits us, stealing away onevirtue while it yields another, and leaving the large proportions of goodand evil eternally the same. "

"True; but I never said that man might not relieve individuals byindividual exertion: though he cannot by abstract theories--nay, even bypractical action in the wide circle--benefit the mass. "

"Do you not employ on behalf of individuals the same moral agencies thatwise legislation or sound philosophy would adopt towards the multitude?For example, you find that the children of your village are happier, moreorderly, more obedient, promise to be wiser and better men in their ownstation of life, from the new, and, I grant, excellent system of schooldiscipline and teaching that you have established. What you have done inone village, why should not legislation do throughout a kingdom? Again, you find that, by simply holding out hope and emulation to industry, bymaking stern distinctions between the energetic and the idle, theindependent exertion and the pauper-mendicancy, you have found a lever bywhich you have literally moved and shifted the little world around you. But what is the difference here between the rules of a village lord andthe laws of a wise legislature? The moral feelings you have appealed toexist universally, the moral remedies you have practised are as open tolegislation as to the individual proprietor. "

"Yes; but when you apply to a nation the same principles which regeneratea village, new counterbalancing principles arise. If I give education tomy peasants, I send them into the world with advantages _superior_ totheir fellows, --advantages which, not being common to their class, enablethem to _outstrip_ their fellows. But if this education were universalto the whole tribe, no man would have an advantage superior to theothers; the knowledge they would have acquired being shared by all, wouldleave all as they now are, hewers of wood and drawers of water: theprinciple of individual hope, which springs from knowledge, would soon bebaffled by the vast competition that _universal_ knowledge would produce. Thus by the universal improvement would be engendered a universaldiscontent. 

"Take a broader view of the subject. Advantages given to the _few_around me--superior wages, lighter toils, a greater sense of the dignityof man--are not productive of any change in society. Give theseadvantages to the _whole mass_ of the labouring classes, and what in thesmall orbit is the desire of the _individual_ to rise becomes in thelarge circumference the desire of the _class_ to rise; hence socialrestlessness, social change, revolution, and its hazards. Forrevolutions are produced but by the aspirations of one order, and theresistance of the other. Consequently, legislative improvement differswidely from individual amelioration; the same principle, the same agency, that purifies the small body, becomes destructive when applied to thelarge one. Apply the flame to the log on the hearth, or apply it to theforest, is there no distinction in the result? The breeze that freshensthe fountain passes to the ocean, current impels current, wave urgeswave, and the breeze becomes the storm. "

"Were there truth in this train of argument, " replied De Montaigne, "hadwe ever abstained from communicating to the Multitude the enjoyments andadvantages of the Few, had we shrunk from the good, because the good is aparent of the change and its partial ills, what now would be society? Isthere no difference in collective happiness and virtue between thepainted Picts and the Druid worship, and the glorious harmony, light, andorder of the great English nation?"

"The question is popular, " said Maltravers, with a smile; "and were youmy opponent in an election, would be cheered on any hustings in thekingdom. But I have lived among savage tribes, --savage, perhaps, as therace that resisted Caesar; and their happiness seems to me, not perhapsthe same as that of the few whose sources of enjoyment are numerous, refined, and, save by their own passions, unalloyed; but equal to that ofthe mass of men in States the most civilized and advanced. The artisans, crowded together in the fetid air of factories, with physical illsgnawing at the core of the constitution, from the cradle to the grave;drudging on from dawn to sunset and flying for recreation to the dreadexcitement of the dram-shop, or the wild and vain hopes of politicalfanaticism, --are not in my eyes happier than the wild Indians with hardyframes and calm tempers, seasoned to the privations for which you pitythem, and uncursed with desires of that better state never to be theirs. The Arab in his desert has seen all the luxuries of the pasha in hisharem; but he envies them not. He is contented with his barb, his tent, his desolate sands, and his spring of refreshing water. 

"Are we not daily told, do not our priests preach it from their pulpits, that the cottage shelters happiness equal to that within the palace? Yetwhat the distinction between the peasant and the prince, differing fromthat between the peasant and the savage? There are more enjoyments andmore privations in the one than in the other; but if, in the latter case, the enjoyments, though fewer, be more keenly felt, --if the privations, though apparently sharper, fall upon duller sensibilities and hardierframes, --your gauge of proportion loses all its value. Nay, incivilization there is for the multitude an evil that exists not in thesavage state. The poor man sees daily and hourly all the vastdisparities produced by civilized society; and reversing the divineparable, it is Lazarus who from afar, and from the despondent pit, looksupon Dives in the lap of Paradise: therefore, his privations, hissufferings, are made more keen by comparison with the luxuries of others. Not so in the desert and the forest. There but small distinctions, andthose softened by immemorial and hereditary usage--that has in it thesanctity of religion--separate the savage from his chief. The fact is, that in civilization we behold a splendid aggregate, --literature andscience, wealth and luxury, commerce and glory; but we see not themillion victims crushed beneath the wheels of the machine, --the healthsacrificed, the board breadless, the jails filled, the hospitals reeking, the human life poisoned in every spring, and poured forth like water!Neither do we remember all the steps, marked by desolation, crime, andbloodshed, by which this barren summit has been reached. Take thehistory of any civilized state, --England, France, Spain before she rottedback into second childhood, the Italian Republics, the GreekCommonwealths, the Empress of the Seven Hills--what struggles, whatpersecutions, what crimes, what massacres! Where, in the page ofhistory, shall we look back and say, 'Here improvement has diminished thesum of evil'? Extend, too, your scope beyond the State itself: eachState has won its acquisitions by the woes of others. Spain springsabove the Old World on the blood-stained ruins of the New; and the groansand the gold of Mexico produce the splendours of the Fifth Charles!

"Behold England, the wise, the liberal, the free England--through whatstruggles she has passed; and is she yet contented? The sullen oligarchyof the Normans; our own criminal invasions of Scotland and France; theplundered people, the butchered kings; the persecutions of the Lollards;the wars of Lancaster and York; the new dynasty of the Tudors, that atonce put back Liberty, and put forward Civilization! the Reformation, cradled in the lap of a hideous despot, and nursed by violence andrapine; the stakes and fires of Mary, and the craftier cruelties ofElizabeth, --England, strengthened by the desolation of Ireland, the CivilWars, the reign of hypocrisy, followed by the reign of naked vice; thenation that beheaded the graceful Charles gaping idly on the scaffold ofthe lofty Sidney; the vain Revolution of 1688, which, if a jubilee inEngland, was a massacre in Ireland; the bootless glories of Marlborough;the organized corruption of Walpole, the frantic war with our ownAmerican sons, the exhausting struggles with Napoleon!

"Well, we close the page; we say, Lo! a thousand years of incessantstruggles and afflictions! millions have perished, but Art has survived;our boors wear stockings, our women drink tea, our poets read Shakspeare, and our astronomers improve on Newton! Are we now contented? No! morerestless than ever. New classes are called into power; new forms ofgovernment insisted on. Still the same catchwords, --Liberty here, Religion there; Order with one faction, Amelioration with the other. Where is the goal, and what have we gained? Books are written, silks arewoven, palaces are built, --mighty acquisitions for the few--but thepeasant is a peasant still! The crowd are yet at the bottom of thewheel; better off, you say. No, for they are not more contented! Theartisan is as anxious for change as ever the serf was; and thesteam-engine has its victims as well as the sword. 

"Talk of legislation: all isolated laws pave the way to wholesale changesin the form of government! Emancipate Catholics, and you open the doorto democratic principle, that Opinion should be free. If free with thesectarian, it should be free with the elector. The Ballot is a corollaryfrom the Catholic Relief-bill. Grant the Ballot, and the new corollaryof enlarged suffrage. Suffrage enlarged is divided but by a yieldingsurface (a circle widening in the waters) from universal suffrage. Universal suffrage is Democracy. Is Democracy better than thearistocratic commonwealth? Look at the Greeks, who knew both forms; arethey agreed which is the best? Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon, Aristophanes--the Dreamer, the Historian, the Philosophic Man of Action, the penetrating Wit--have no ideals in Democracy. Algernon Sidney, themartyr of liberty, allows no government to the multitude. Brutus diedfor a republic, but a republic of Patricians! What form of government isthen the best? All dispute, the wisest cannot agree. The many still say'a Republic;' yet, as you yourself will allow, Prussia, the Despotism, does all that Republics do. Yes, but a good despot is a lucky accident;true, but a just and benevolent Republic is as yet a monster equallyshort-lived. When the People have no other tyrant, their own publicopinion becomes one. No secret espionage is more intolerable to a freespirit than the broad glare of the American eye. 

"A rural republic is but a patriarchal tribe--no emulation, no glory;peace and stagnation. What Englishman, what Frenchman, would wish to bea Swiss? A commercial republic is but an admirable machine for makingmoney. Is man created for nothing nobler than freighting ships andspeculating on silk and sugar? In fact, there is no certain goal inlegislation; we go on colonizing Utopia, and fighting phantoms in theclouds. Let us content ourselves with injuring no man, and doing goodonly in our own little sphere. Let us leave States and senates to fillthe sieve of the Danaides, and roll up the stone of Sisyphus. "

"My dear friend, " said De Montaigne, "you have certainly made the most ofan argument, which, if granted, would consign government to fools andknaves, and plunge the communities of mankind into the Slough of Despond. But a very commonplace view of the question might suffice to shake yoursystem. Is life, mere animal life, on the whole, a curse or a blessing?"

"The generality of men in all countries, " answered Maltravers, "enjoyexistence, and apprehend death; were it otherwise, the world had beenmade by a Fiend, and not a God!"

"Well, then, observe how the progress of society cheats the grave! Ingreat cities, where the effect of civilization must be the most visible, the diminution of mortality in a corresponding ratio with the increase ofcivilization is most remarkable. In Berlin, from the year 1747 to 1755, the annual mortality was as one to twenty-eight; but from 1816 to 1822, it was as one to thirty-four! You ask what England has gained by herprogress in the arts? I will answer you by her bills of mortality. InLondon, Birmingham, and Liverpool, deaths have decreased in less than acentury from one to twenty, to one to forty (precisely one-half!). Again, whenever a community--nay, a single city, decreases incivilization, and in its concomitants, activity and commerce, itsmortality instantly increases. But if civilization be favourable to theprolongation of life, must it not be favourable to all that blesseslife, --to bodily health, to mental cheerfulness, to the capacities forenjoyment? And how much more grand, how much more sublime, becomes theprospect of gain, if we reflect that, to each life thus called forth, there is a soul, a destiny beyond the grave, multiplied immortalities!What an apology for the continued progress of States! But you say that, however we advance, we continue impatient and dissatisfied: can youreally suppose that, because man in every state is discontented with hislot, there is no difference in the _degree_ and _quality_ of hisdiscontent, no distinction between pining for bread and longing for themoon? Desire is implanted within us, as the very principle of existence;the physical desire fills the world, and the moral desire improves it. Where there is desire, there must be discontent: if we are satisfied withall things, desire is extinct. But a certain degree of discontent is notincompatible with happiness, nay, it has happiness of its own; whathappiness like hope, --what is hope but desire? The European serf, whoseseigneur could command his life, or insist as a right on the chastity ofhis daughter, desires to better his condition. God has compassion on hisstate; Providence calls into action the ambition of leaders, the contestsof faction, the movement of men's aims and passions: a change passesthrough society and legislation, and the serf becomes free! He desiresstill, but what? No longer personal security, no longer the privilegesof life and health; but higher wages, greater comforts, easier justicefor diminished wrongs. Is there no difference in the quality of thatdesire? Was one a greater torment than the other is? Rise a scalehigher: a new class is created--the Middle Class, --the express creatureof Civilization. Behold the burgher and the citizen, and stillstruggling, still contending, still desiring, and therefore stilldiscontented. But the discontent does not prey upon the springs of life:it is the discontent of _hope_, not _despair_; it calls forth faculties, energies, and passions, in which there is more joy than sorrow. It isthis desire which makes the citizen in private life an anxious father, acareful master, an _active_, and therefore not an unhappy, man. Youallow that individuals can effect individual good: this veryrestlessness, this very discontent with the exact place that he occupies, makes the citizen a benefactor in his narrow circle. Commerce, betterthan Charity, feeds the hungry and clothes the naked. Ambition, betterthan brute affection, gives education to our children, and teaches themthe love of industry, the pride of independence, the respect for othersand themselves!

"In other words, a deference to such qualities as can best fit them toget on in the world, and make the most money!"

"Take that view if you will; but the wiser, the more civilized the State, the worse chances for the rogue to get on! There may be some art, somehypocrisy, some avarice, --nay, some hardness of heart, --in paternalexample and professional tuition. But what are such sober infirmities tothe vices that arise from defiance and despair? Your savage has hisvirtues, but they are mostly physical, --fortitude, abstinence, patience:mental and moral virtues must be numerous or few, in proportion to therange of ideas and the exigencies of social life. With the savage, therefore, they must be fewer than with civilized men; and they areconsequently limited to those simple and rude elements which the safetyof his state renders necessary to him. He is usually hospitable;sometimes honest. But vices are necessary to his existence as well asvirtues: he is at war with a tribe that may destroy his own; andtreachery without scruple, cruelty without remorse, are essential to him;he feels their necessity, and calls them _virtues_! Even thehalf-civilized man, the Arab whom you praise, imagines he has a necessityfor your money; and his robberies become virtues to him. But incivilized States, vices are at least not necessary to the existence ofthe majority; they are not, therefore, worshipped as virtues. Societyunites against them; treachery, robbery, massacre, are not essential tothe strength or safety of the community: they exist, it is true, but theyare not cultivated, but punished. The thief in St. Giles's has thevirtues of your savage: he is true to his companions, he is brave indanger, he is patient in privation; he practises the virtues necessary tothe bonds of his calling and the tacit laws of his vocation. He mighthave made an admirable savage: but surely the mass of civilized men arebetter than the thief?"

Maltravers was struck, and paused a little before he replied; and then heshifted his ground. "But at least all our laws, all our efforts, mustleave the multitude in every State condemned to a labour that deadensintellect, and a poverty that embitters life. "

"Supposing this were true, still there are multitudes besides _the_multitude. In each State Civilization produces a middle class, morenumerous to-day than the whole peasantry of a thousand years ago. WouldMovement and Progress be without their divine uses, even if they limitedtheir effect to the production of such a class? Look also to the effectof art, and refinement, and just laws, in the wealthier and higherclasses. See how their very habits of life tend to increase the sum ofenjoyment; see the mighty activity that their very luxury, the veryfrivolity of their pursuits, create! Without an aristocracy, would therehave been a middle class? Without a middle class, would there ever havebeen an interposition between lord and slave? Before commerce produces amiddle class, Religion creates one. The Priesthood, whatever its errors, was the curb to Power. But, to return to the multitude, --you say that inall times they are left the same. Is it so? I come to statistics again:I find that not only civilization, but liberty, has a prodigious effectupon human life. It is, as it were, by the instinct of self-preservationthat liberty is so passionately desired by the multitude. A negro slave, for instance, dies annually as one to five or six, but a free African inthe English service only as one to thirty-five! Freedom is not, therefore, a mere abstract dream, a beautiful name, a Platonicaspiration: it is interwoven with the most practical of allblessings, --life itself! And can you say fairly that by laws labourcannot be lightened and poverty diminished? We have granted already thatsince there are degrees in discontent, there is a difference between thepeasant and the serf: how know you what the peasant a thousand yearshence may be? Discontented, you will say, --still discontented. Yes; butif he had not been discontented, he would have been a serf still! Farfrom quelling this desire to better himself, we ought to hail it as thesource of his perpetual progress. That desire to him is often likeimagination to the poet, it transports him into the Future--

 'Crura sonant ferro, sed canit inter opus. '

It is, indeed, the gradual transformation from the desire of Despair tothe desire of Hope, that makes the difference between man and man, between misery and bliss. "

"And then comes the crisis. Hope ripens into deeds; the stormyrevolution, perhaps the armed despotism; the relapse into the secondinfancy of States!"

"Can we, with new agencies at our command, new morality, new wisdom, predicate of the Future by the Past? In ancient States, the mass wereslaves; civilization and freedom rested with oligarchies; in Athenstwenty thousand citizens, four hundred thousand slaves! How easydecline, degeneracy, overthrow in such States, --a handful of soldiers andphilosophers without a People! Now we have no longer barriers to thecirculation of the blood of States. The absence of slavery, theexistence of the Press; the healthful proportions of kingdoms, neithertoo confined nor too vast, have created new hopes, which history cannotdestroy. As a proof, look to all late revolutions: in England the CivilWars, the Reformation, --in France her awful Saturnalia, her militarydespotism! Has either nation fallen back? The deluge passes, and, behold, the face of things more glorious than before! Compare the Frenchof to-day with the French of the old _regime_. You are silent; well, andif in all States there is ever some danger of evil in their activity, isthat a reason why you are to lie down inactive; why you are to leave thecrew to battle for the helm? How much may individuals by the diffusionof their own thoughts in letters or in action regulate the order of vastevents, --now prevent, now soften, now animate, now guide! And is a manto whom Providence and Fortune have imparted such prerogatives to standaloof, because he can neither foresee the Future nor create Perfection?And you talk of no certain and definite goal! How know we that there isa certain and definite goal, even in heaven? How know we that excellencemay not be illimitable? Enough that we improve, that we proceed. Seeingin the great design of earth that benevolence is an attribute of theDesigner, let us leave the rest to Posterity and to God. "

"You have disturbed many of my theories, " said Maltravers, candidly; "andI will reflect on our conversation; but, after all, is every man toaspire to influence others; to throw his opinion into the great scales inwhich human destinies are weighed? Private life is not criminal. It isno virtue to write a book, or to make a speech. Perhaps, I should be aswell engaged in returning to my country village, looking at my schools, and wrangling with the parish overseers--"

"Ah, " interrupted the Frenchman, laughing; "if I have driven you to thispoint, I will go no further. Every state of life has its duties; everyman must be himself the judge of what he is most fit for. It is quiteenough that he desires to be active, and labours to be useful; that heacknowledges the precept, 'Never to be weary in well-doing. ' The divineappetite once fostered, let it select its own food. But the man who, after fair trial of his capacities, and with all opportunity for theirfull development before him, is convinced that he has faculties whichprivate life cannot wholly absorb, must not repine that Human Nature isnot perfect, when he refuses even to exercise the gifts he himselfpossesses. "

Now these arguments have been very tedious; in some places they have beenold and trite; in others they may appear too much to appertain to theabstract theory of first principles. Yet from such arguments, _pro_ and_con_, unless I greatly mistake, are to be derived corollaries equallypractical and sublime, --the virtue of Action, the obligations of Genius, and the philosophy that teaches us to confide in the destinies, andlabour in the service, of mankind. 

CHAPTER VI. 

 I'LL tell you presently her very picture; Stay--yes, it is so--Lelia. _The Captain_, Act V. Sc. I. 

MALTRAVERS had not shrunk into a system of false philosophy from waywardand sickly dreams, from resolute self-delusion; on the contrary, hiserrors rested on his convictions: the convictions disturbed, the errorswere rudely shaken. 

But when his mind began restlessly to turn once more towards the dutiesof active life; when he recalled all the former drudgeries and toils ofpolitical conflict, or the wearing fatigues of literature, with its smallenmities, its false friendships, and its meagre and capriciousrewards, --ah, then, indeed, he shrank in dismay from the thoughts of thesolitude at home! No lips to console in dejection, no heart tosympathize in triumph, no love within to counterbalance the hatewithout, --and the best of man, his household affections, left to witheraway, or to waste themselves on ideal images, or melancholy remembrance. 

It may, indeed, be generally remarked (contrary to a common notion), thatthe men who are most happy at home are the most active abroad. Theanimal spirits are necessary to healthful action; and dejection and thesense of solitude will turn the stoutest into dreamers. The hermit isthe antipodes of the citizen; and no gods animate and inspire us like theLares. 

One evening, after an absence from Paris of nearly a fortnight, at DeMontaigne's villa, in the neighbourhood of St. Cloud, Maltravers, who, though he no longer practised the art, was not less fond than heretoforeof music, was seated in Madame de Ventadour's box at the Italian Opera;and Valerie, who was above all the woman's jealousy of beauty, wasexpatiating with great warmth of eulogium upon the charms of a youngEnglish lady whom she had met at Lady G-----'s the preceding evening. 

"She is just my beau-ideal of the true English beauty, " said Valerie: "itis not only the exquisite fairness of the complexion, nor the eyes sopurely blue, --which the dark lashes relieve from the coldness common tothe light eyes of the Scotch and German, --that are so beautifullynational, but the simplicity of manner, the unconsciousness ofadmiration, the mingled modesty and sense of the expression. No, I haveseen women more beautiful, but I never saw one more lovely: you aresilent; I expected some burst of patriotism in return for my complimentto your countrywoman!"

"But I am so absorbed in that wonderful Pasta--"

"You are no such thing; your thoughts are far away. But can you tell meanything about my fair stranger and her friends? In the first place, there is a Lord Doltimore, whom I knew before--you need say nothing abouthim; in the next there is his new married bride, handsome, dark--but youare not well!"

"It was the draught from the door; go on, I beseech you, the young lady, the friend, her name?"

"Her name I do not remember; but she was engaged to be married to one ofyour statesmen, Lord Vargrave; the marriage is broken off--I know not ifthat be the cause of a certain melancholy in her countenance, --amelancholy I am sure not natural to its Hebe-like expression. But whohave just entered the opposite box? Ah, Mr. Maltravers, do look, thereis the beautiful English girl!"

And Maltravers raised his eyes, and once more beheld the countenance ofEvelyn Cameron!