  Title: Kenelm Chillingly, Book 4. Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton Edition: 10 Language: English This eBook was produced by and David Widger BOOK IV.CHAPTER I.IT is somewhat more than a year and a half since Kenelm Chillingly left England, and the scene now is in London, during that earlier and more sociable season which precedes the Easter holidays,—season in which the charm of intellectual companionship is not yet withered away in the heated atmosphere of crowded rooms,—season in which parties are small, and conversation extends beyond the interchange of commonplace with one's next neighbour at a dinner-table,—season in which you have a fair chance of finding your warmest friends not absorbed by the superior claims of their chilliest acquaintances. There was what is called a /conversazione/ at the house of one of those Whig noblemen who yet retain the graceful art of bringing agreeable people together, and collecting round them the true aristocracy, which combines letters and art and science with hereditary rank and political distinction,—that art which was the happy secret of the Lansdownes and Hollands of the last generation. Lord Beaumanoir was himself a genial, well-read man, a good judge of art, and a pleasant talker. He had a charming wife, devoted to him and to her children, but with enough love of general approbation to make herself as popular in the fashionable world as if she sought in its gayeties a refuge from the dulness of domestic life. Amongst the guests at the Beaumanoirs, this evening were two men, seated apart in a small room, and conversing familiarly. The one might be about fifty-four; he was tall, strongly built, but not corpulent, somewhat bald, with black eyebrows, dark eyes, bright and keen, mobile lips round which there played a shrewd and sometimes sarcastic smile. This gentleman, the Right Hon. Gerard Danvers, was a very influential member of Parliament. He had, when young for English public life, attained to high office; but—partly from a great distaste to the drudgery of administration; partly from a pride of temperament, which unfitted him for the subordination that a Cabinet owes to its chief; partly, also, from a not uncommon kind of epicurean philosophy, at once joyous and cynical, which sought the pleasures of life and held very cheap its honours—he had obstinately declined to re-enter office, and only spoke on rare occasions. On such occasions he carried great weight, and, by the brief expression of his opinions, commanded more votes than many an orator infinitely more eloquent. Despite his want of ambition, he was fond of power in his own way,—power over the people who /had/ power; and, in the love of political intrigue, he found an amusement for an intellect very subtle and very active. At this moment he was bent on a new combination among the leaders of different sections in the same party, by which certain veterans were to retire, and certain younger men to be admitted into the Administration. It was an amiable feature in his character that he had a sympathy with the young, and had helped to bring into Parliament, as well as into office, some of the ablest of a generation later than his own. He gave them sensible counsel, was pleased when they succeeded, and encouraged them when they failed,—always provided that they had stuff enough in them to redeem the failure; if not, he gently dropped them from his intimacy, but maintained sufficiently familiar terms with them to be pretty sure that he could influence their votes whenever he so desired. The gentleman with whom he was now conversing was young, about five-and-twenty; not yet in Parliament, but with an intense desire to obtain a seat in it, and with one of those reputations which a youth carries away from school and college, justified, not by honours purely academical, but by an impression of ability and power created on the minds of his contemporaries and endorsed by his elders. He had done little at the University beyond taking a fair degree, except acquiring at the debating society the fame of an exceedingly ready and adroit speaker. On quitting college he had written one or two political articles in a quarterly review, which created a sensation; and though belonging to no profession, and having but a small yet independent income, society was very civil to him, as to a man who would some day or other attain a position in which he could damage his enemies and serve his friends. Something in this young man's countenance and bearing tended to favour the credit given to his ability and his promise. In his countenance there was no beauty; in his bearing no elegance. But in that countenance there was vigour, there was energy, there was audacity. A forehead wide but low, protuberant in those organs over the brow which indicate the qualities fitted for perception and judgment,—qualities for every-day life; eyes of the clear English blue, small, somewhat sunken, vigilant, sagacious, penetrating; a long straight upper lip, significant of resolute purpose; a mouth in which a student of physiognomy would have detected a dangerous charm. The smile was captivating, but it was artificial, surrounded by dimples, and displaying teeth white, small, strong, but divided from each other. The expression of that smile would have been frank and candid to all who failed to notice that it was not in harmony with the brooding forehead and the steely eye; that it seemed to stand distinct from the rest of the face, like a feature that had learned its part. There was that physical power in the back of the head which belongs to men who make their way in life,—combative and destructive. All gladiators have it; so have great debaters and great reformers,—that is, reformers who can destroy, but not necessarily reconstruct. So, too, in the bearing of the man there was a hardy self-confidence, much too simple and unaffected for his worst enemy to call it self-conceit. It was the bearing of one who knew how to maintain personal dignity without seeming to care about it. Never servile to the great, never arrogant to the little; so little over-refined that it was never vulgar,—a popular bearing. The room in which these gentlemen were seated was separated from the general suite of apartments by a lobby off the landing-place, and served for Lady Beaumanoir's boudoir. Very pretty it was, but simply furnished, with chintz draperies. The walls were adorned with drawings in water-colours, and precious specimens of china on fanciful Parian brackets. At one corner, by a window that looked southward and opened on a spacious balcony, glazed in and filled with flowers, stood one of those high trellised screens, first invented, I believe, in Vienna, and along which ivy is so trained as to form an arbour. The recess thus constructed, and which was completely out of sight from the rest of the room, was the hostess's favourite writing-nook. The two men I have described were seated near the screen, and had certainly no suspicion that any one could be behind it. "Yes," said Mr. Danvers, from an ottoman niched in another recess of the room, "I think there will be an opening at Saxboro' soon: Milroy wants a Colonial Government; and if we can reconstruct the Cabinet as I propose, he would get one. Saxboro' would thus be vacant. But, my dear fellow, Saxboro' is a place to be wooed through love, and only won through money. It demands liberalism from a candidate,—two kinds of liberalism seldom united; the liberalism in opinion which is natural enough to a very poor man, and the liberalism in expenditure which is scarcely to be obtained except from a very rich one. You may compute the cost of Saxboro' at L3000 to get in, and about L2000 more to defend your seat against a petition,—the defeated candidate nearly always petitions. L5000 is a large sum; and the worst of it is, that the extreme opinions to which the member for Saxboro' must pledge himself are a drawback to an official career. Violent politicians are not the best raw material out of which to manufacture fortunate placemen." "The opinions do not so much matter; the expense does. I cannot afford L5000, or even L3000." "Would not Sir Peter assist? He has, you say, only one son; and if anything happen to that son, you are the next heir." "My father quarrelled with Sir Peter, and harassed him by an imprudent and ungracious litigation. I scarcely think I could apply to him for money to obtain a seat in Parliament upon the democratic side of the question; for, though I know little of his politics, I take it for granted that a country gentleman of old family and L10,000 a year cannot well be a democrat." "Then I presume you would not be a democrat if, by the death of your cousin, you became heir to the Chillinglys." "I am not sure what I might be in that case. There are times when a democrat of ancient lineage and good estates could take a very high place amongst the aristocracy." "Humph! my dear Gordon, /vous irez loin/." "I hope to do so. Measuring myself against the men of my own day, I do not see many who should outstrip me." "What sort of a fellow is your cousin Kenelm? I met him once or twice when he was very young, and reading with Welby in London. People then said that he was very clever; he struck me as very odd." "I never saw him, but from all I hear, whether he be clever or whether he be odd, he is not likely to do anything in life,—a dreamer." "Writes poetry perhaps?" "Capable of it, I dare say." Just then some other guests came into the room, amongst them a lady of an appearance at once singularly distinguished and singularly prepossessing, rather above the common height, and with a certain indescribable nobility of air and presence. Lady Glenalvon was one of the queens of the London world, and no queen of that world was ever less worldly or more queen-like. Side by side with the lady was Mr. Chillingly Mivers. Gordon and Mivers interchanged friendly nods, and the former sauntered away and was soon lost amid a crowd of other young men, with whom, as he could converse well and lightly on things which interested them, he was rather a favourite, though he was not an intimate associate. Mr. Danvers retired into a corner of the adjoining lobby, where he favoured the French ambassador with his views on the state of Europe and the reconstruction of Cabinets in general. "But," said Lady Glenalvon to Chillingly Mivers, "are you quite sure that my old young friend Kenelm is here? Since you told me so, I have looked everywhere for him in vain. I should so much like to see him again." "I certainly caught a glimpse of him half an hour ago; but before I could escape from a geologist who was boring me about the Silurian system, Kenelm had vanished." "Perhaps it was his ghost!" "Well, we certainly live in the most credulous and superstitious age upon record; and so many people tell me that they converse with the dead under the table that it seems impertinent in me to say that I don't believe in ghosts." "Tell me some of those incomprehensible stories about table-rapping," said Lady Glenalvon. "There is a charming, snug recess here behind the screen." Scarcely had she entered the recess when she drew back with a start and an exclamation of amaze. Seated at the table within the recess, his chin resting on his hand, and his face cast down in abstracted revery, was a young man. So still was his attitude, so calmly mournful the expression of his face, so estranged did he seem from all the motley but brilliant assemblage which circled around the solitude he had made for himself, that he might well have been deemed one of those visitants from another world whose secrets the intruder had wished to learn. Of that intruder's presence he was evidently unconscious. Recovering her surprise, she stole up to him, placed her hand on his shoulder, and uttered his name in a low gentle voice. At that sound Kenelm Chillingly looked up. "Do you not remember me?" asked Lady Glenalvon. Before he could answer, Mivers, who had followed the marchioness into the recess, interposed. "My dear Kenelm, how are you? When did you come to London? Why have you not called on me; and what on earth are you hiding yourself for?" Kenelm had now recovered the self-possession which he rarely lost long in the presence of others. He returned cordially his kinsman's greeting, and kissed with his wonted chivalrous grace the fair hand which the lady withdrew from his shoulder and extended to his pressure. "Remember you!" he said to Lady Glenalvon with the kindliest expression of his soft dark eyes; "I am not so far advanced towards the noon of life as to forget the sunshine that brightened its morning. My dear Mivers, your questions are easily answered. I arrived in England two weeks ago, stayed at Exmundham till this morning, to-day dined with Lord Thetford, whose acquaintance I made abroad, and was persuaded by him to come here and be introduced to his father and mother, the Beaumanoirs. After I had undergone that ceremony, the sight of so many strange faces frightened me into shyness. Entering this room at a moment when it was quite deserted, I resolved to turn hermit behind the screen." "Why, you must have seen your cousin Gordon as you came into the room." "But you forget I don't know him by sight. However, there was no one in the room when I entered; a little later some others came in, for I heard a faint buzz, like that of persons talking in a whisper. However, I was no eavesdropper, as a person behind a screen is on the dramatic stage." This was true. Even had Gordon and Danvers talked in a louder tone, Kenelm had been too absorbed in his own thoughts to have heard a word of their conversation. "You ought to know young Gordon; he is a very clever fellow, and has an ambition to enter Parliament. I hope no old family quarrel between his bear of a father and dear Sir Peter will make you object to meet him." "Sir Peter is the most forgiving of men, but he would scarcely forgive me if I declined to meet a cousin who had never offended him." "Well said. Come and meet Gordon at breakfast to-morrow,—ten o'clock. I am still in the old rooms." While the kinsmen thus conversed, Lady Glenalvon had seated herself on the couch beside Kenelm, and was quietly observing his countenance. Now she spoke. "My dear Mr. Mivers, you will have many opportunities of talking with Kenelm; do not grudge me five minutes' talk with him now." "I leave your ladyship alone in your hermitage. How all the men in this assembly will envy the hermit!" CHAPTER II."I AM glad to see you once more in the world," said Lady Glenalvon; "and I trust that you are now prepared to take that part in it which ought to be no mean one if you do justice to your talents and your nature." KENELM.—"When you go to the theatre, and see one of the pieces which appear now to be the fashion, which would you rather be,—an actor or a looker-on?" LADY GLENALVON.—"My dear young friend, your question saddens me." (After a pause.)—"But though I used a stage metaphor when I expressed my hope that you would take no mean part in the world, the world is not really a theatre. Life admits of no lookers-on. Speak to me frankly, as you used to do. Your face retains its old melancholy expression. Are you not happy?" KENELM.—"Happy, as mortals go, I ought to be. I do not think I am unhappy. If my temper be melancholic, melancholy has a happiness of its own. Milton shows that there are as many charms in life to be found on the /Penseroso/ side of it as there are on the /Allegro/." LADY GLENALVON.—"Kenelm, you saved the life of my poor son, and when, later, he was taken from me, I felt as if he had commended you to my care. When at the age of sixteen, with a boy's years and a man's heart, you came to London, did I not try to be to you almost as a mother? and did you not often tell me that you could confide to me the secrets of your heart more readily than to any other?" "You were to me," said Kenelm, with emotion, "that most precious and sustaining good genius which a youth can find at the threshold of life,—a woman gently wise, kindly sympathizing, shaming him by the spectacle of her own purity from all grosser errors, elevating him from mean tastes and objects by the exquisite, ineffable loftiness of soul which is only found in the noblest order of womanhood. Come, I will open my heart to you still. I fear it is more wayward than ever. It still feels estranged from the companionship and pursuits natural to my age and station. However, I have been seeking to brace and harden my nature, for the practical ends of life, by travel and adventure, chiefly among rougher varieties of mankind than we meet in drawing-rooms. Now, in compliance with the duty I owe to my dear father's wishes, I come back to these circles, which under your auspices I entered in boyhood, and which even then seemed to me so inane and artificial. Take a part in the world of these circles; such is your wish. My answer is brief. I have been doing my best to acquire a motive power, and have not succeeded. I see nothing that I care to strive for, nothing that I care to gain. The very times in which we live are to me, as to Hamlet, out of joint; and I am not born like Hamlet to set them right. Ah! if I could look on society through the spectacles with which the poor hidalgo in 'Gil Blas' looked on his meagre board,—spectacles by which cherries appear the size of peaches, and tomtits as large as turkeys! The imagination which is necessary to ambition is a great magnifier." "I have known more than one man, now very eminent, very active, who at your age felt the same estrangement from the practical pursuits of others." "And what reconciled those men to such pursuits?" "That diminished sense of individual personality, that unconscious fusion of one's own being into other existences, which belong to home and marriage." "I don't object to home, but I do to marriage." "Depend on it there is no home for man where there is no woman." "Prettily said. In that case I resign the home." "Do you mean seriously to tell me that you never see the woman you could love enough to make her your wife, and never enter any home that you do not quit with a touch of envy at the happiness of married life?" "Seriously, I never see such a woman; seriously, I never enter such a home." "Patience, then; your time will come, and I hope it is at hand. Listen to me. It was only yesterday that I felt an indescribable longing to see you again,—to know your address that I might write to you; for yesterday, when a certain young lady left my house after a week's visit, I said this girl would make a perfect wife, and, above all, the exact wife to suit Kenelm Chillingly." "Kenelm Chillingly is very glad to hear that this young lady has left your house." "But she has not left London: she is here to-night. She only stayed with me till her father came to town, and the house he had taken for the season was vacant; those events happened yesterday." "Fortunate events for me: they permit me to call on you without danger." "Have you no curiosity to know, at least, who and what is the young lady who appears to me so well suited to you?" "No curiosity, but a vague sensation of alarm." "Well, I cannot talk pleasantly with you while you are in this irritating mood, and it is time to quit the hermitage. Come, there are many persons here, with some of whom you should renew old acquaintance, and to some of whom I should like to make you known." "I am prepared to follow Lady Glenalvon wherever she deigns to lead me,—except to the altar with another." CHAPTER III.THE rooms were now full,—not overcrowded, but full,—and it was rarely even in that house that so many distinguished persons were collected together. A young man thus honoured by so /grande/ a dame as Lady Glenalvon could not but be cordially welcomed by all to whom she presented him, Ministers and Parliamentary leaders, ball-givers, and beauties in vogue,—even authors and artists; and there was something in Kenelm Chillingly, in his striking countenance and figure, in that calm ease of manner natural to his indifference to effect, which seemed to justify the favour shown to him by the brilliant princess of fashion and mark him out for general observation. That first evening of his reintroduction to the polite world was a success which few young men of his years achieve. He produced a sensation. Just as the rooms were thinning, Lady Glenalvon whispered to Kenelm,— "Come this way: there is one person I must reintroduce you to; thank me for it hereafter." Kenelm followed the marchioness, and found himself face to face with Cecilia Travers. She was leaning on her father's arm, looking very handsome, and her beauty was heightened by the blush which overspread her cheeks as Kenelm Chillingly approached. Travers greeted him with great cordiality; and Lady Glenalvon asking him to escort her to the refreshment-room, Kenelm had no option but to offer his arm to Cecilia. Kenelm felt somewhat embarrassed. "Have you been long in town, Miss "A little more than a week, but we only settled into our house yesterday." "Ah, indeed! were you then the young lady who—" He stopped short, and his face grew gentler and graver in its expression. "The young lady who—what?" asked Cecilia with a smile. "Who has been staying with Lady Glenalvon?" "Yes; did she tell you?" "She did not mention your name, but praised that young lady so justly that I ought to have guessed it." Cecilia made some not very audible answer, and on entering the refreshment-room other young men gathered round her, and Lady Glenalvon and Kenelm remained silent in the midst of a general small-talk. When Travers, after giving his address to Kenelm, and, of course, pressing him to call, left the house with Cecilia, Kenelm said to Lady Glenalvon, musingly, "So that is the young lady in whom I was to see my fate: you knew that we had met before?" "Yes, she told me when and where. Besides, it is not two years since you wrote to me from her father's house. Do you forget?" "Ah," said Kenelm, so abstractedly that he seemed to be dreaming, "no man with his eyes open rushes on his fate: when he does so his sight is gone. Love is blind. They say the blind are very happy, yet I never met a blind man who would not recover his sight if he could." CHAPTER IV.Mr. CHILLINGLY MIVERS never gave a dinner at his own rooms. When he did give a dinner it was at Greenwich or Richmond. But he gave breakfast-parties pretty often, and they were considered pleasant. He had handsome bachelor apartments in Grosvenor Street, daintily furnished, with a prevalent air of exquisite neatness, a good library stored with books of reference, and adorned with presentation copies from authors of the day, very beautifully bound. Though the room served for the study of the professed man of letters, it had none of the untidy litter which generally characterizes the study of one whose vocation it is to deal with books and papers. Even the implements for writing were not apparent, except when required. They lay concealed in a vast cylinder bureau, French made, and French polished. Within that bureau were numerous pigeon-holes and secret drawers, and a profound well with a separate patent lock. In the well were deposited the articles intended for publication in "The Londoner," proof-sheets, etc.; pigeon-holes were devoted to ordinary correspondence; secret drawers to confidential notes, and outlines of biographies of eminent men now living, but intended to be completed for publication the day after their death. No man wrote such funeral compositions with a livelier pen than that of Chillingly Mivers; and the large and miscellaneous circle of his visiting acquaintances allowed him to ascertain, whether by authoritative report or by personal observation, the signs of mortal disease in the illustrious friends whose dinners he accepted, and whose failing pulses he instinctively felt in returning the pressure of their hands; so that he was often able to put the finishing-stroke to their obituary memorials days, weeks, even months, before their fate took the public by surprise. That cylinder bureau was in harmony with the secrecy in which this remarkable man shrouded the productions of his brain. In his literary life Mivers had no "I," there he was ever the inscrutable, mysterious "We." He was only "I" when you met him in the world, and called him Mivers. Adjoining the library on one side was a small dining or rather breakfast room, hung with valuable pictures,—presents from living painters. Many of these painters had been severely handled by Mr. Mivers in his existence as "We,"—not always in "The Londoner." His most pungent criticisms were often contributed to other intellectual journals conducted by members of the same intellectual clique. Painters knew not how contemptuously "We" had treated them when they met Mr. Mivers. His "I" was so complimentary that they sent him a tribute of their gratitude. On the other side was his drawing-room, also enriched by many gifts, chiefly from fair hands,—embroidered cushions and table-covers, bits of Sevres or old Chelsea, elegant knick-knacks of all kinds. Fashionable authoresses paid great court to Mr. Mivers; and in the course of his life as a single man, he had other female adorers besides fashionable authoresses. Mr. Mivers had already returned from his early constitutional walk in the Park, and was now seated by the cylinder /secretaire/ with a mild-looking man, who was one of the most merciless contributors to "The Londoner" and no unimportant councillor in the oligarchy of the clique that went by the name of the "Intellectuals." "Well," said Mivers, languidly, "I can't even get through the book; it is as dull as the country in November. But, as you justly say, the writer is an 'Intellectual,' and a clique would be anything but intellectual if it did not support its members. Review the book yourself; mind and make the dulness of it the signal proof of its merit. Say: 'To the ordinary class of readers this exquisite work may appear less brilliant than the flippant smartness of'—any other author you like to name; 'but to the well educated and intelligent every line is pregnant with,' etc. By the way, when we come by and by to review the exhibition at Burlington House, there is one painter whom we must try our best to crush. I have not seen his pictures myself, but he is a new man; and our friend, who has seen him, is terribly jealous of him, and says that if the good judges do not put him down at once, the villanous taste of the public will set him up as a prodigy. A low-lived fellow too, I hear. There is the name of the man and the subject of the pictures. See to it when the time comes. Meanwhile, prepare the way for onslaught on the pictures by occasional sneers at the painter." Here Mr. Mivers took out of his cylinder a confidential note from the jealous rival and handed it to his mild-looking /confrere/; then rising, he said, "I fear we must suspend our business till to-morrow; I expect two young cousins to breakfast." As soon as the mild-looking man was gone, Mr. Mivers sauntered to his drawing-room window, amiably offering a lump of sugar to a canary-bird sent to him as a present the day before, and who, in the gilded cage which made part of the present, scanned him suspiciously and refused the sugar. Time had remained very gentle in its dealings with Chillingly Mivers. He scarcely looked a day older than when he was first presented to the reader on the birth of his kinsman Kenelm. He was reaping the fruit of his own sage maxims. Free from whiskers and safe in wig, there was no sign of gray, no suspicion of dye. Superiority to passion, abnegation of sorrow, indulgence of amusement, avoidance of excess, had kept away the crow's-feet, preserved the elasticity of his frame and the unflushed clearness of his gentlemanlike complexion. The door opened, and a well-dressed valet, who had lived long enough with Mivers to grow very much like him, announced Mr. Chillingly Gordon. "Good morning," said Mivers; "I was much pleased to see you talking so long and so familiarly with Danvers: others, of course, observed it, and it added a step to your career. It does you great good to be seen in a drawing-room talking apart with a Somebody. But may I ask if the talk itself was satisfactory?" "Not at all: Danvers throws cold water on the notion of Saxboro', and does not even hint that his party will help me to any other opening. Party has few openings at its disposal nowadays for any young man. The schoolmaster being abroad has swept away the school for statesmen as he has swept away the school for actors,—an evil, and an evil of a far greater consequence to the destinies of the nation than any good likely to be got from the system that succeeded it." "But it is of no use railing against things that can't be helped. If I were you, I would postpone all ambition of Parliament and read for the bar." "The advice is sound, but too unpalatable to be taken. I am resolved to find a seat in the House, and where there is a will there is a way." "I am not so sure of that." "But I am." "Judging by what your contemporaries at the University tell me of your "I am no fanatic in politics. There is much to be said on all sides: /coeteris paribus/, I prefer the winning side to the losing; nothing succeeds like success." "Ay, but in politics there is always reaction. The winning side one day may be the losing side another. The losing side represents a minority, and a minority is sure to comprise more intellect than a majority: in the long run intellect will force its way, get a majority and then lose it, because with a majority it will become stupid." "Cousin Mivers, does not the history of the world show you that a single individual can upset all theories as to the comparative wisdom of the few or the many? Take the wisest few you can find, and one man of genius not a tithe so wise crushes them into powder. But then that man of genius, though he despises the many, must make use of them. That done, he rules them. Don't you see how in free countries political destinations resolve themselves into individual impersonations? At a general election it is one name around which electors rally. The candidate may enlarge as much as he pleases on political principles, but all his talk will not win him votes enough for success, unless he says, 'I go with Mr. A.,' the minister, or with Mr. Z., the chief of the opposition. It was not the Tories who beat the Whigs when Mr. Pitt dissolved Parliament. It was Mr. Pitt who beat Mr. Fox, with whom in general political principle—slave-trade, Roman Catholic emancipation, Parliamentary reform—he certainly agreed much more than he did with any man in his own cabinet." "Take care, my young cousin," cried Mivers, in accents of alarm; "don't set up for a man of genius. Genius is the worst quality a public man can have nowadays: nobody heeds it, and everybody is jealous of it." "Pardon me, you mistake; my remark was purely objective, and intended as a reply to your argument. I prefer at present to go with the many because it is the winning side. If we then want a man of genius to keep it the winning side, by subjugating its partisans to his will, he will be sure to come. The few will drive him to us, for the few are always the enemies of the one man of genius. It is they who distrust,—it is they who are jealous,—not the many. You have allowed your judgment, usually so clear, to be somewhat dimmed by your experience as a critic. The critics are the few. They have infinitely more culture than the many. But when a man of real genius appears and asserts himself, the critics are seldom such fair judges of him as the many are. If he be not one of their oligarchical clique, they either abuse, or disparage, or affect to ignore him; though a time at last comes when, having gained the many, the critics acknowledge him. But the difference between the man of action and the author is this, that the author rarely finds this acknowledgment till he is dead, and it is necessary to the man of action to enforce it while he is alive. But enough of this speculation: you ask me to meet Kenelm; is he not coming?" "Yes, but I did not ask him till ten o'clock. I asked you at half-past nine, because I wished to hear about Danvers and Saxboro', and also to prepare you somewhat for your introduction to your cousin. I must be brief as to the last, for it is only five minutes to the hour, and he is a man likely to be punctual. Kenelm is in all ways your opposite. I don't know whether he is cleverer or less clever; there is no scale of measurement between you: but he is wholly void of ambition, and might possibly assist yours. He can do what he likes with Sir Peter; and considering how your poor father—a worthy man, but cantankerous—harassed and persecuted Sir Peter, because Kenelm came between the estate and you, it is probable that Sir Peter bears you a grudge, though Kenelm declares him incapable of it; and it would be well if you could annul that grudge in the father by conciliating the goodwill of the son." "I should be glad so to annul it; but what is Kenelm's weak side?—the turf? the hunting-field? women? poetry? One can only conciliate a man by getting on his weak side." "Hist! I see him from the windows. Kenelm's weak side was, when I knew him some years ago, and I rather fancy it still is—" "Well, make haste! I hear his ring at your door-bell." "A passionate longing to find ideal truth in real life." "Ah!" said Gordon, "as I thought,—a mere dreamer" CHAPTER V.KENELM entered the room. The young cousins were introduced, shook hands, receded a step, and gazed at each other. It is scarcely possible to conceive a greater contrast outwardly than that between the two Chillingly representatives of the rising generation. Each was silently impressed by the sense of that contrast. Each felt that the contrast implied antagonism, and that if they two met in the same arena it must be as rival combatants; still, by some mysterious intuition, each felt a certain respect for the other, each divined in the other a power that he could not fairly estimate, but against which his own power would be strongly tasked to contend. So might exchange looks a thorough-bred deer-hound and a half-bred mastiff: the bystander could scarcely doubt which was the nobler animal; but he might hesitate which to bet on, if the two came to deadly quarrel. Meanwhile the thorough-bred deer-hound and the half-bred mastiff sniffed at each other in polite salutation. Gordon was the first to give tongue. "I have long wished to know you personally," said he, throwing into his voice and manner that delicate kind of deference which a well-born cadet owes to the destined head of his house. "I cannot conceive how I missed you last night at Lady Beaumanoir's, where Mivers tells me he met you; but I left early," Here Mivers led the way to the breakfast-room, and, there seated, the host became the principal talker, running with lively glibness over the principal topics of the day,—the last scandal, the last new book, the reform of the army, the reform of the turf, the critical state of Spain, and the debut of an Italian singer. He seemed an embodied Journal, including the Leading Article, the Law Reports, Foreign Intelligence, the Court Circular, down to the Births, Deaths, and Marriages. Gordon from time to time interrupted this flow of soul with brief, trenchant remarks, which evinced his own knowledge of the subjects treated, and a habit of looking on all subjects connected with the pursuits and business of mankind from a high ground appropriated to himself, and through the medium of that blue glass which conveys a wintry aspect to summer landscapes. Kenelm said little, but listened attentively. The conversation arrested its discursive nature, to settle upon a political chief, the highest in fame and station of that party to which Mivers professed—not to belong, he belonged to himself alone, but to appropinquate. Mivers spoke of this chief with the greatest distrust, and in a spirit of general depreciation. Gordon acquiesced in the distrust and the depreciation, adding, "But he is master of the position, and must, of course, be supported through thick and thin for the present." "Yes, for the present," said Mivers, "one has no option. But you will see some clever articles in 'The Londoner' towards the close of the session, which will damage him greatly, by praising him in the wrong place, and deepening the alarm of important followers,—an alarm now at work, though suppressed." Here Kenelm asked, in humble tones, why Gordon thought that a minister he considered so untrustworthy and dangerous must for the present be supported through thick and thin. "Because at present a member elected so to support him would lose his seat if he did not: needs must when the devil drives." KENELM.—"When the devil drives, I should have thought it better to resign one's seat on the coach; perhaps one might be of some use, out of it, in helping to put on the drag." MIVERS.—"Cleverly said, Kenelm. But, metaphor apart, Gordon is right. A young politician must go with his party; a veteran journalist like myself is more independent. So long as the journalist blames everybody, he will have plenty of readers." Kenelm made no reply, and Gordon changed the conversation from men to measures. He spoke of some Bills before Parliament with remarkable ability, evincing much knowledge of the subject, much critical acuteness, illustrating their defects, and proving the danger of their ultimate consequences. Kenelm was greatly struck with the vigour of this cold, clear mind, and owned to himself that the House of Commons was a fitting place for its development. "But," said Mivers, "would you not be obliged to defend these Bills if you were member for Saxboro'?" "Before I answer your question, answer me this: dangerous as the Bills are, is it not necessary that they shall pass? Have not the public so resolved?" "There can be no doubt of that." "Then the member for Saxboro' cannot be strong enough to go against the public." "Progress of the age!" said Kenelm, musingly. "Do you think the class of gentlemen will long last in England?" "What do you call gentlemen? The aristocracy by birth?—the /gentilshommes/?" "Nay, I suppose no laws can take away a man's ancestors, and a class of well-born men is not to be exterminated. But a mere class of well-born men—without duties, responsibilities, or sentiment of that which becomes good birth in devotion to country or individual honour—does no good to a nation. It is a misfortune which statesmen of democratic creed ought to recognize, that the class of the well-born cannot be destroyed: it must remain as it remained in Rome and remains in France, after all efforts to extirpate it, as the most dangerous class of citizens when you deprive it of the attributes which made it the most serviceable. I am not speaking of that class; I speak of that unclassified order peculiar to England, which, no doubt, forming itself originally from the ideal standard of honour and truth supposed to be maintained by the /gentilshommes/, or well-born, no longer requires pedigrees and acres to confer upon its members the designation of gentleman; and when I hear a 'gentleman' say that he has no option but to think one thing and say another, at whatever risk to his country, I feel as if in the progress of the age the class of gentleman was about to be superseded by some finer development of species." Therewith Kenelm rose, and would have taken his departure, if Gordon had not seized his hand and detained him. "My dear cousin, if I may so call you," he said, with the frank manner which was usual to him, and which suited well the bold expression of his face and the clear ring of his voice, "I am one of those who, from an over-dislike to sentimentality and cant, often make those not intimately acquainted with them think worse of their principles than they deserve. It may be quite true that a man who goes with his party dislikes the measures he feels bound to support, and says so openly when among friends and relations, yet that man is not therefore devoid of loyalty and honour; and I trust, when you know me better, you will not think it likely I should derogate from that class of gentlemen to which we both belong." "Pardon me if I seemed rude," answered Kenelm; "ascribe it to my ignorance of the necessities of public life. It struck me that where a politician thought a thing evil, he ought not to support it as good. But I dare say I am mistaken." "Entirely mistaken," said Mivers, "and for this reason: in politics formerly there was a direct choice between good and evil. That rarely exists now. Men of high education, having to choose whether to accept or reject a measure forced upon their option by constituent bodies of very low education, are called upon to weigh evil against evil,—the evil of accepting or the evil of rejecting; and if they resolve on the first, it is as the lesser evil of the two." "Your definition is perfect," said Gordon, "and I am contented to rest on it my excuse for what my cousin deems insincerity." "I suppose that is real life," said Kenelm, with his mournful smile. "Of course it is," said Mivers. "Every day I live," sighed Kenelm, "still more confirms my conviction that real life is a phantasmal sham. How absurd it is in philosophers to deny the existence of apparitions! what apparitions we, living men, must seem to the ghosts! "'The spirits of the wise CHAPTER VI.CHILLINGLY GORDON did not fail to confirm his acquaintance with Kenelm. He very often looked in upon him of a morning, sometimes joined him in his afternoon rides, introduced him to men of his own set who were mostly busy members of Parliament, rising barristers, or political journalists, but not without a proportion of brilliant idlers,—club men, sporting men, men of fashion, rank, and fortune. He did so with a purpose, for these persons spoke well of him,—spoke well not only of his talents, but of his honourable character. His general nickname amongst them was "HONEST GORDON." Kenelm at first thought this sobriquet must be ironical; not a bit of it. It was given to him on account of the candour and boldness with which he expressed opinions embodying that sort of cynicism which is vulgarly called "the absence of humbug." The man was certainly no hypocrite; he affected no beliefs which he did not entertain. And he had very few beliefs in anything, except the first half of the adage, "Every man for himself,—and God for us all." But whatever Chillingly Gordon's theoretical disbeliefs in things which make the current creed of the virtuous, there was nothing in his conduct which evinced predilection for vices: he was strictly upright in all his dealings, and in delicate matters of honour was a favourite umpire amongst his coevals. Though so frankly ambitious, no one could accuse him of attempting to climb on the shoulders of patrons. There was nothing servile in his nature; and, though he was perfectly prepared to bribe electors if necessary, no money could have bought himself. His one master-passion was the desire of power. He sneered at patriotism as a worn-out prejudice, at philanthropy as a sentimental catch-word. He did not want to serve his country, but to rule it. He did not want to raise mankind, but to rise himself. He was therefore unscrupulous, unprincipled, as hungerers after power for itself too often are; yet still if he got power he would probably use it well, from the clearness and strength of his mental perceptions. The impression he made on Kenelm may be seen in the following letter:— TO SIR PETER CHILLINGLY, BART., ETC.MY DEAR FATHER,—You and my dear mother will be pleased to hear that London continues very polite to me: that "arida nutrix leonum" enrolls me among the pet class of lions which ladies of fashion admit into the society of their lapdogs. It is somewhere about six years since I was allowed to gaze on this peep-show through the loopholes of Mr. Welby's retreat. It appears to me, perhaps erroneously, that even within that short space of time the tone of "society" is perceptibly changed. That the change is for the better is an assertion I leave to those who belong to the /progressista/ party. I don't think nearly so many young ladies six years ago painted their eyelids and dyed their hair: a few of them there might be, imitators of the slang invented by schoolboys and circulated through the medium of small novelists; they might use such expressions as "stunning," "cheek," "awfully jolly," etc. But now I find a great many who have advanced to a slang beyond that of verbal expressions,—a slang of mind, a slang of sentiment, a slang in which very little seems left of the woman and nothing at all of the lady. Newspaper essayists assert that the young men of the day are to blame for this; that the young men like it; and the fair husband-anglers dress their flies in the colours most likely to attract a nibble. Whether this excuse be the true one I cannot pretend to judge; but it strikes me that the men about my own age who affect to be fast are a more languid race than the men from ten to twenty years older, whom they regard as /slow/. The habit of dram-drinking in the morning is a very new idea, an idea greatly in fashion at the moment. Adonis calls for a "pick-me-up" before he has strength enough to answer a /billet-doux/ from Venus. Adonis has not the strength to get nobly drunk, but his delicate constitution requires stimulants, and he is always tippling. The men of high birth or renown for social success belonging, my dear father, to your time, are still distinguished by an air of good breeding, by a style of conversation more or less polished and not without evidences of literary culture, from men of the same rank in my generation, who appear to pride themselves on respecting nobody and knowing nothing, not even grammar. Still we are assured that the world goes on steadily improving. /That/ new idea is in full vigour. Society in the concrete has become wonderfully conceited as to its own progressive excellences, and the individuals who form the concrete entertain the same complacent opinion of themselves. There are, of course, even in my brief and imperfect experience, many exceptions to what appear to me the prevalent characteristics of the rising generation in "society." Of these exceptions I must content myself with naming the most remarkable. /Place aux dames/, the first I name is Cecilia Travers. She and her father are now in town, and I meet them frequently. I can conceive no civilized era in the world which a woman like Cecilia Travers would not grace and adorn, because she is essentially the type of woman as man likes to imagine woman; namely, on the fairest side of the womanly character. And I say "woman" rather than "girl," because among "Girls of the Period" Cecilia Travers cannot be classed. You might call her damsel, virgin, maiden, but you could no more call her girl than you could call a well-born French demoiselle /fille/. She is handsome enough to please the eye of any man, however fastidious, but not that kind of beauty which dazzles all men too much to fascinate one man; for—speaking, thank Heaven, from mere theory—I apprehend that the love for woman has in it a strong sense of property; that one requires to individualize one's possession as being wholly one's own, and not a possession which all the public are invited to admire. I can readily understand how a rich man, who has what is called a show place, in which the splendid rooms and the stately gardens are open to all inspectors, so that he has no privacy in his own demesnes, runs away to a pretty cottage which he has all to himself, and of which he can say, "/This/ is home; /this/ is all mine." But there are some kinds of beauty which are eminently show places,—which the public think they have as much a right to admire as the owner has; and the show place itself would be dull and perhaps fall out of repair, if the public could be excluded from the sight of it. The beauty of Cecilia Travers is not that of a show place. There is a feeling of safety in her. If Desdemona had been like her, Othello would not have been jealous. But then Cecilia would not have deceived her father; nor I think have told a blackamoor that she wished "Heaven had made her such a man." Her mind harmonizes with her person: it is a companionable mind. Her talents are not showy, but, take them altogether, they form a pleasant whole: she has good sense enough in the practical affairs of life, and enough of that ineffable womanly gift called tact to counteract the effects of whimsical natures like mine, and yet enough sense of the humouristic views of life not to take too literally all that a whimsical man like myself may say. As to temper, one never knows what a woman's temper is—till one puts her out of it. But I imagine hers, in its normal state, to be serene, and disposed to be cheerful. Now, my dear father, if you were not one of the cleverest of men you would infer from this eulogistic mention of Cecilia Travers that I was in love with her. But you no doubt will detect the truth that a man in love with a woman does not weigh her merits with so steady a hand as that which guides this steel pen. I am not in love with Cecilia Travers. I wish I were. When Lady Glenalvon, who remains wonderfully kind to me, says, day after day, "Cecilia Travers would make you a perfect wife," I have no answer to give; but I don't feel the least inclined to ask Cecilia Travers if she would waste her perfection on one who so coldly concedes it. I find that she persisted in rejecting the man whom her father wished her to marry, and that he has consoled himself by marrying somebody else. No doubt other suitors as worthy will soon present themselves. Oh, dearest of all my friends,—sole friend whom I regard as a confidant,—shall I ever be in love? and if not, why not? Sometimes I feel as if, with love as with ambition, it is because I have some impossible ideal in each, that I must always remain indifferent to the sort of love and the sort of ambition which are within my reach. I have an idea that if I did love, I should love as intensely as Romeo, and that thought inspires me with vague forebodings of terror; and if I did find an object to arouse my ambition, I could be as earnest in its pursuit as—whom shall I name?—Caesar or Cato? I like Cato's ambition the better of the two. But people nowadays call ambition an impracticable crotchet, if it be invested on the losing side. Cato would have saved Rome from the mob and the dictator; but Rome could not be saved, and Cato falls on his own sword. Had we a Cato now, the verdict at a coroner's inquest would be, "suicide while in a state of unsound mind;" and the verdict would have been proved by his senseless resistance to a mob and a dictator! Talking of ambition, I come to the other exception to the youth of the day; I have named a /demoiselle/, I now name a /damoiseau/. Imagine a man of about five-and-twenty, and who is morally about fifty years older than a healthy man of sixty,—imagine him with the brain of age and the flower of youth; with a heart absorbed into the brain, and giving warm blood to frigid ideas: a man who sneers at everything I call lofty, yet would do nothing that he thinks mean; to whom vice and virtue are as indifferent as they were to the Aesthetics of Goethe; who would never jeopardize his career as a practical reasoner by an imprudent virtue, and never sully his reputation by a degrading vice. Imagine this man with an intellect keen, strong, ready, unscrupulous, dauntless,—all cleverness and no genius. Imagine this man, and then do not be astonished when I tell you he is a Chillingly. The Chillingly race culminates in him, and becomes Chillinglyest. In fact, it seems to me that we live in a day precisely suited to the Chillingly idiosyncrasies. During the ten centuries or more that our race has held local habitation and a name, it has been as airy nothings. Its representatives lived in hot-blooded times, and were compelled to skulk in still water with their emblematic daces. But the times now, my dear father, are so cold-blooded that you can't be too cold-blooded to prosper. What could Chillingly Mivers have been in an age when people cared twopence-halfpenny about their religious creeds, and their political parties deemed their cause was sacred and their leaders were heroes? Chillingly Mivers would not have found five subscribers to "The Londoner." But now "The Londoner" is the favourite organ of the intellectual public; it sneers away all the foundations of the social system, without an attempt at reconstruction; and every new journal set up, if it keep its head above water, models itself on "The Londoner." Chillingly Mivers is a great man, and the most potent writer of the age, though nobody knows what he has written. Chillingly Gordon is a still more notable instance of the rise of the Chillingly worth in the modern market. There is a general impression in the most authoritative circles that He said to me the other day, with a /sang-froid/ worthy of the iciest Chillingly, "I mean to be Prime Minister of England: it is only a question of time." Now, if Chillingly Gordon is to be Prime Minister, it will be because the increasing cold of our moral and social atmosphere will exactly suit the development of his talents. He is the man above all others to argue down the declaimers of old-fashioned sentimentalities,—love of country, care for its position among nations, zeal for its honour, pride in its renown. (Oh, if you could hear him philosophically and logically sneer away the word "prestige"!) Such notions are fast being classified as "bosh." And when that classification is complete,—when England has no colonies to defend, no navy to pay for, no interest in the affairs of other nations, and has attained to the happy condition of Holland,—then Chillingly Gordon will be her Prime Minister. Yet while, if ever I am stung into political action, it will be by abnegation of the Chillingly attributes, and in opposition, however hopeless, to Chillingly Gordon, I feel that this man cannot be suppressed, and ought to have fair play; his ambition will be infinitely more dangerous if it become soured by delay. I propose, my dear father, that you should have the honour of laying this clever kinsman under an obligation, and enabling him to enter Parliament. In our last conversation at Exmundham, you told me of the frank resentment of Gordon /pere/, when my coming into the world shut him out from the Exmundham inheritance; you confided to me your intention at that time to lay by yearly a sum that might ultimately serve as a provision for Gordon /fils/, and as some compensation for the loss of his expectations when you realized your hope of an heir; you told me also how this generous intention on your part had been frustrated by a natural indignation at the elder Gordon's conduct in his harassing and costly litigation, and by the addition you had been tempted to make to the estate in a purchase which added to its acreage, but at a rate of interest which diminished your own income, and precluded the possibility of further savings. Now, chancing to meet your lawyer, Mr. Vining, the other day, I learned from him that it had been long a wish which your delicacy prevented your naming to me, that I, to whom the fee-simple descends, should join with you in cutting off the entail and resettling the estate. He showed me what an advantage this would be to the property, because it would leave your hands free for many improvements in which I heartily go with the progress of the age, for which, as merely tenant for life, you could not raise the money except upon ruinous terms; new cottages for labourers, new buildings for tenants, the consolidation of some old mortgages and charges on the rent-roll, etc. And allow me to add that I should like to make a large increase to the jointure of my dear mother. Vining says, too, that there is a part of the outlying land which, as being near a town, could be sold to considerable profit if the estate were resettled. Let us hasten to complete the necessary deeds, and so obtain the L20,000 required for the realization of your noble and, let me add, your just desire to do something for Chillingly Gordon. In the new deeds of settlement we could insure the power of willing the estate as we pleased, and I am strongly against devising it to Chillingly Gordon. It may be a crotchet of mine, but one which I think you share, that the owner of English soil should have a son's love for the native land, and Gordon will never have that. I think, too, that it will be best for his own career, and for the establishment of a frank understanding between us and himself, that he should be fairly told that he would not be benefited in the event of our death. Twenty thousand pounds given to him now would be a greater boon to him than ten times the sum twenty years later. With that at his command, he can enter Parliament, and have an income, added to what he now possesses, if modest, still sufficient to make him independent of a minister's patronage. Pray humour me, my dearest father, in the proposition I venture to submit to you. Your affectionate son, KENELM. FROM SIR PETER CHILLINGLY TO KENELM CHILLINGLY.MY DEAR BOY,—You are not worthy to be a Chillingly; you are decidedly warm-blooded: never was a load lifted off a man's mind with a gentler hand. Yes, I have wished to cut off the entail and resettle the property; but, as it was eminently to my advantage to do so, I shrank from asking it, though eventually it would be almost as much to your own advantage. What with the purchase I made of the Faircleuch lands—which I could only effect by money borrowed at high interest on my personal security, and paid off by yearly instalments, eating largely into income—and the old mortgages, etc., I own I have been pinched of late years. But what rejoices me the most is the power to make homes for our honest labourers more comfortable, and nearer to their work, which last is the chief point, for the old cottages in themselves are not bad; the misfortune is, when you build an extra room for the children, the silly people let it out to a lodger. My dear boy, I am very much touched by your wish to increase your mother's jointure,—a very proper wish, independently of filial feeling, for she brought to the estate a very pretty fortune, which, the trustees consented to my investing in land; and though the land completed our ring-fence, it does not bring in two per cent, and the conditions of the entail limited the right of jointure to an amount below that which a widowed Lady Chillingly may fairly expect. I care more about the provision on these points than I do for the interests of old Chillingly Gordon's son. I had meant to behave very handsomely to the father; and when the return for behaving handsomely is being put into Chancery—A Worm Will Turn. Nevertheless, I agree with you that a son should not be punished for his father's faults; and, if the sacrifice of L20,000 makes you and myself feel that we are better Christians and truer gentlemen, we shall buy that feeling very cheaply. Sir Peter then proceeded, half jestingly, half seriously, to combat Kenelm's declaration that he was not in love with Cecilia Travers; and, urging the advantages of marriage with one whom Kenelm allowed would be a perfect wife, astutely remarked that unless Kenelm had a son of his own it did not seem to him quite just to the next of kin to will the property from him, upon no better plea than the want of love for his native country. "He would love his country fast enough if he had 10,000 acres in it." Kenelm shook his head when he came to this sentence. "Is even then love for one's country but cupboard-love after all?" said he; and he postponed finishing the perusal of his father's letter. CHAPTER VII.KENELM CHILLINGLY did not exaggerate the social position he had acquired when he classed himself amongst the lions of the fashionable world. I dare not count the number of three-cornered notes showered upon him by the fine ladies who grow romantic upon any kind of celebrity; or the carefully sealed envelopes, containing letters from fair Anonymas, who asked if he had a heart, and would be in such a place in the Park at such an hour. What there was in Kenelm Chillingly that should make him thus favoured, especially by the fair sex, it would be difficult to say, unless it was the two-fold reputation of being unlike other people, and of being unaffectedly indifferent to the gain of any reputation at all. He might, had he so pleased, have easily established a proof that the prevalent though vague belief in his talents was not altogether unjustified. For the articles he had sent from abroad to "The Londoner" and by which his travelling expenses were defrayed, had been stamped by that sort of originality in tone and treatment which rarely fails to excite curiosity as to the author, and meets with more general praise than perhaps it deserves. But Mivers was true to his contract to preserve inviolable the incognito of the author, and Kenelm regarded with profound contempt the articles themselves and the readers who praised them. Just as misanthropy with some persons grows out of benevolence disappointed, so there are certain natures—and Kenelm Chillingly's was perhaps one of them—in which indifferentism grows out of earnestness baffled. He had promised himself pleasure in renewing acquaintance with his old tutor, Mr. Welby,—pleasure in refreshing his own taste for metaphysics and casuistry and criticism. But that accomplished professor of realism had retired from philosophy altogether, and was now enjoying a holiday for life in the business of a public office. A minister in favour of whom, when in opposition, Mr. Welby, in a moment of whim, wrote some very able articles in a leading journal, had, on acceding to power, presented the realist with one of those few good things still left to ministerial patronage,—a place worth about L1,200 a year. His mornings thus engaged in routine work, Mr. Welby enjoyed his evenings in a convivial way. "/Inveni portum/," he said to Kenelm; "I plunge into no troubled waters now. But come and dine with me to-morrow, tete-a-tete. My wife is at St. Leonard's with my youngest born for the benefit of sea-air." Kenelm accepted the invitation. The dinner would have contented a Brillat-Savarin: it was faultless; and the claret was that rare nectar, the Lafitte of 1848. "I never share this," said Welby, "with more than one friend at a time." Kenelm sought to engage his host in discussion on certain new works in vogue, and which were composed according to purely realistic canons of criticism. "The more realistic; these books pretend to be, the less real they are," said Kenelm. "I am half inclined to think that the whole school you so systematically sought to build up is a mistake, and that realism in art is a thing impossible." "I dare say you are right. I took up that school in earnest because I was in a passion with pretenders to the Idealistic school; and whatever one takes up in earnest is generally a mistake, especially if one is in a passion. I was not in earnest and I was not in a passion when I wrote those articles to which I am indebted for my office." Mr. Welby here luxuriously stretched his limbs, and lifting his glass to his lips, voluptuously inhaled its bouquet. "You sadden me," returned Kenelm. "It is a melancholy thing to find that one's mind was influenced in youth by a teacher who mocks at his own teachings." Welby shrugged his shoulders. "Life consists in the alternate process of learning and unlearning; but it is often wiser to unlearn than to learn. For the rest, as I have ceased to be a critic, I care little whether I was wrong or right when I played that part. I think I am right now as a placeman. Let the world go its own way, provided the world lets you live upon it. I drain my wine to the lees, and cut down hope to the brief span of life. Reject realism in art if you please, and accept realism in conduct. For the first time in my life I am comfortable: my mind, having worn out its walking-shoes, is now enjoying the luxury of slippers. Who can deny the realism of comfort?" "Has a man a right," Kenelm said to himself, as he entered his brougham, "to employ all the brilliancy of a rare wit, all the acquisitions of as rare a scholarship, to the scaring of the young generation out of the safe old roads which youth left to itself would take,—old roads skirted by romantic rivers and bowery trees,— directing them into new paths on long sandy flats, and then, when they are faint and footsore, to tell them that he cares not a pin whether they have worn out their shoes in right paths or wrong paths, for that he has attained the /summum bonum/ of philosophy in the comfort of easy slippers?" Before he could answer the question he thus put to himself, his brougham stopped at the door of the minister whom Welby had contributed to bring into power. That night there was a crowded muster of the fashionable world at the great man's house. It happened to be a very critical moment for the minister. The fate of his cabinet depended on the result of a motion about to be made the following week in the House of Commons. The great man stood at the entrance of the apartments to receive his guests, and among the guests were the framers of the hostile motion and the leaders of the opposition. His smile was not less gracious to them than to his dearest friends and stanchest supporters. "I suppose this is realism," said Kenelm to himself; "but it is not truth, and it is not comfort." Leaning against the wall near the doorway, he contemplated with grave interest the striking countenance of his distinguished host. He detected beneath that courteous smile and that urbane manner the signs of care. The eye was absent, the cheek pinched, the brow furrowed. Kenelm turned away his looks, and glanced over the animated countenances of the idle loungers along commoner thoroughfares in life. Their eyes were not absent; their brows were not furrowed; their minds seemed quite at home in exchanging nothings. Interest many of them had in the approaching struggle, but it was much such an interest as betters of small sums may have on the Derby day,—just enough to give piquancy to the race; nothing to make gain a great joy, or loss a keen anguish. "Our host is looking ill," said Mivers, accosting Kenelm. "I detect symptoms of suppressed gout. You know my aphorism, 'nothing so gouty as ambition,' especially Parliamentary ambition." "You are not one of those friends who press on my choice of life that source of disease; allow me to thank you." "Your thanks are misplaced. I strongly advise you to devote yourself to a political career." "Despite the gout?" "Despite the gout. If you could take the world as I do, my advice might be different. But your mind is overcrowded with doubts and fantasies and crotchets, and you have no choice but to give them vent in active life." "You had something to do in making me what I am,—an idler; something to answer for as to my doubts, fantasies, and crotchets. It was by your recommendation that I was placed under the tuition of Mr. Welby, and at that critical age in which the bent of the twig forms the shape of the tree." |
|