*■ -f^ ^^>-^ ::^'^1 UNIVERSIPt' OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN BOOKSTACKS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/verysuccessful01lytt CENTRAL CIRCULATION AND BOOKSTACKS The person borrowing this material is responsible for its renewal or return before the Latest Date stamped belo^v. You may be charged a minimum fee of $75.00 for each non-returned or lost item. Theft, mutilation, or defacement of library materials can be causes for student disciplinary action. All materials owned by the University of Illinois Library are the property of the State of Illinois and are protected by Article 1 6B of Illinois Criminal Law and Procedure. TO RENEW, CALL (217) 333-8400. University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign APR 2 8 2005 When renewing by phone, write new due date below previous due date. LI 62 >, «i^W:7V?//"'^ c^/--;^ ^^ a ^aa^. ~^:/^.a^.a,'tZJ^Aair/'C€^' VERY SUCCESSFUL ! BY LADY BUL^^EPv LYTTOX. IN THEEE VOLUMES. VOL. I. •• There is a twofold fortune wherewith we are to enter the lists • good and ill, prosperetie and adversetie : these are the two combat.«' the two dangerous times, wherein it behoveth us to stand upon our guard and to gather our wits about us: for thev are the two schooles, essayes, and touch-stones of the spirit of man." OfWisdome, the secojid bookej—bi/ Fetep. Chaerox, a.d. 1600. " Perieramus nisi perissemus." " Not from the chance of Fortime's wheel, Xor from the dust — affliction springs 5 The troubles that believers feel Are but God"s blessings in disguise ; And like Ezekiel's visioned rings,* The wheels of Providence have et/es. — Joseph Sxow's "Churchyard Thoughts." *Ezek. i 18. London :— "WHITTAKEE & Co., Ate :Maiiia Laxe. Taunton :—FEEDEEICK E. CLAEEIE, AT THE " GAXTOn's HEAD." 1856. [the iriHOE :EESERTES the eight of TEA2s'SLATI0yr] TATJNTON : FKEDEEICK H. CLARKE, PRIX TEE, AT THE "cAXTON's HEAD." V. 1 NOTICE TO THOSE WHO WILL TXDERSTAXD IT. ^ The joh of going all lengths to abuse tlds work and ^ its Author, in short, of translating right into -^^rong, "^^and of perverting ^rhite into black, is reserved to '' J/y '^Grandmother's Gazette, The Liter ar^/,'' ^'TheAssinceum,^* \| *'jS^o Quarterly'' or '' Kew Quarterly," or whatever that "=- leaden production is called, and the other especial 5 mynnidons of that Literary Inquisition, " The GrnxT of Literature,'' to whom writing scurrilous iLXOXTMOUs letters to the Author, purporting to be from '' Influential Reviewers" (?) is also stringently restricted. For the abuse of 8ucli animalculi, the Author is most grateful, as criticism, or what is called such, really does possess Epictetus's two handles. For example, Scaliger cites the fourth book of Horace as execrable, and Heinsius ^ quotes it as one of the master-pieces of antiquity I Aimiy X, £onsolons nous, quand meme ? for ^ " Pulchrum est accusari, ab accusandis." ^ All the Author hopes is, that it may turn out to be the same gang of male and female Infamies employed before by the great Literary Bombastes, in the too -; blackguardly Llangollen Conspiracy, (of which there • are such reams of proofs, and such clouds of witnesses,) who have again been employed by him, to feloniously obtain her papers from Lord Lyndhurst's porter ; as she i 4. IV. NOTICE, is only a-vraiting the result of the pretended inrestigation through the '* Circumlocution Office," and of the Post Office Prig llaster General being back- stair ed a leetle deeper in the affair, to make public the whole of this last iniquity, so utterly disgraceful to all concerned in it, whether as pretended dupes, or cognisant accom- plices, as this phase of the dastardly and permanent conspii'acy with which she has to contend, once ex- posed — the rest must natiTrally follow past the power of perjury or puffery to refute, or of cant and conven- tionality to vituperate, great as those two bulwai'ks of vice are in English society. For there is a point of persecution and oppresssion beyond which even a woman's legal slave-o^vner is not, by the law, at least of opinion, permitted to go ; or if he does, he must expect that even a wife will share the other earth-worm's prerogative, and turn, when so trampled on, and that too, without being deterred by wa.j fear of the additional sourdes menees of the fulminating Elohim of a not omnipotent, though thoroughly unprincipled. Literary clique on the one side, or those of a routed, ridiculous, disaffected, and demoralised gang of political Bashi- bazouks on the other, as from an intimate and hitter knowledge of the dregs of each, she alike despises, and defies both. But, who, say they, will defend a solitary victim against whom a phalanx of the strong, and a cohort of the ''clever" unscrupulous are leagued? The answer is brief, and to them may appear feeble, but they may yet, to theii' confusion, live to find, that out of such weakness, when too long and too hnitalhj trampled on, springs up a giant's strength. Tacitus tells us, that under the simplicity of Agricola the Eomans failed to discover the great man ; and in like manner, under the apparent helplessness and friendlessness of their victims, tyrants often fail to discover, till it is too late, the small, still, unsuspected sources which Omnipotence converts into the flood-gates of Its Retiibutive Justice, and while exulting in their hitherto invulnerable amiour of IMPUNITY, and tauntingly asking their victim, '' Who, XOTICE. V. poor worm, Tvill avenge yon f the worm, wlieu they least expect it, finds a voice to name the Avenger that shall echo, trumpet-tongued through all posterity, the words — " Moi ! vous dis-je, je moi, plus robuste que moi I" It is further recommended to Bombastes, (by way of a salutary, and above all, an economical change, which has great charms for him, — a saving grace being the only one that he possesses,) that he should try to believe in God, instead of in spirit-rappers ! who have ah'eady so shamefully deceived him; as they positively assured him that his victim's death was to come off last June twelvemonths; whereas she, the semi-immortal wretch, can assure him on far better authority, that there is not the least chance (always baning accidents, or sudden good fortune, such as her brain being turned by a widow's cap I) of her dying these thirty years. So although he has changed the venue from the Pykes and Gettings — sent to scrape acquaintance uith, and administer little Falrneric anodynes to her — to spies of the he-Barnes breed, sent down to "Spread-Eagles" and other pot-houses, to make tender inquiries about her health, and ask if she is not dropsical ! ! ! (Scarcely, consideiing that fi'om Bombastes' ceaseless conspii-acies, ever since he turned his victim and his legitimate children out of their home, to make way for his then mistress, iliss L a D n, the munificent foiu* hundi'ed a year, — minus the Income-tax I I I — which he allows her from his own costly vices and superfluities, has been reduced to a hundred and eighty I so that she is compelled to write in order to meet the expenses his persecutions entail upon her, — she, having no Platonic or other pensions fi'om any one, — which deprives her of the means of having any beverage but water, and that has never yet, even among modem dis- coveries, been accredited for its di'opsical tendencies.) INow, it would be far better and infinitely jRore jjrudent to curtail this terrible expense of ceaseless csimnnage of Tl. ITOTICE, the lowest and most llacl'giiardly description, and not, in order to meet it, deduct the Income-tax from the beggarly pittance he allows his victim, and which she has ahvays such a hard struggle to obtain. Yea, verily I this u'oidd be better and wiser, that is, more politic, than even telling those great bought-and-sold donkeys, ''Free and Independent Electors;" or those bacon-fed tools, the Agriculturists, (whom it is really cruel to cram with more Bacon, though he was a lord,) that it was "that great protestant princess. Queen Elizabeth, who was the first that gave the English people the bible !" as the startling novelty of this piece of information by no means atones for its total deficiency of truth, any more than the pecuniary remuneration the ''Spread-Eagle'* spy may receive, will at all compensate to him for that rough handling he is likely to meet with if he persists in his honorable mission ; as the place where his victim now is, being, as it were, a penal settlement, where Assizes are held and Judges congregate, there are many there, determined vigorously to expose any continuation of this dastardly, dirty work. Let Eombastes be warned, then, in time, and let him remember that "Euror fit laesa, saepius patientia ;" andej-posure is the onli/ defence against, or cure for, such dastardly villainy, — a villainy, which to those who are neither silly Misses, nor imprincipled Profligates, may certainly be easily ac- counted for, but will scarcely be excused by that bundle of bare-faced plagiarisms, steeped in brothel-philosophy, which he calls his works ! gitdipti0n. TO DR PEICE, M.D., F.RC.P.E. so called, are at an end Y Dea£ De. Peice, Ix aTailing myself of your kind permission to dedicate tMs book to you, I must begin witb a re- gret and an apology. A regret that this being a utilitarian, or every-one~ for -himself Age, the days of Dedications, properly as, generally speaking, *' Nos haec novimus esse nihil. For to the good, (as in the present instance,) printed Vm. DEDICATION. panegjTics may, indeed, more widely disclose their virtues, but caimot increase them by a single ray. And, en the other hand, old George Herbert counsels wisely when he says — *• Feed no man in his sinnes : for adulation Doth make thee pareell-devil in damnation." Still, I, on my own account, regret the extinction of the good, old, florid, elaborate Dedication, as in one of those I should have had room for at least an inventory of your good qualities. And yet, I am not sure that they may not all be as effectually summed up in a very brief space, by saying, that no one can see you without suspecting you are a genuinely, and, what is better still, an actively and zealously benevolent person ; and no one can have the privilege of knowing you, without experiencing you to he such, whether they merely re- quire the aid of your professional skill, (in which few equal, and none surpass you,) or whether they want that more general sympathy and aid due fi'om one human being to another, so universally required, though, alas ! by no means so wmxen^^W-j found ; but which in you is, Hke mercy, of that *' unstrained quality" which only avoids granting requests by always anticipating them. iN'or do I think that having made your acquaintance in that little dirty sink of iniquity, Llangollen, at all made me, by the force of contrast, exaggerate your good qualities, as I find that in another and more congenial hemisphere they shine out just as pre-eminently. DEDICATIO:f. IX, And now for my apology. As this Book was ready, and was to have appeared last May but for the place aux Messieurs, which always reigns and rules in England, the publisher, who was to have brought it out, having the works of two gentlemen to produce at the same time, could not venture upon so stupendous (!) an enterprise as pubKshing a third con- secutively ; therefore, mi/ Book was of course to go to the wall till October. Such being the case, I preferred publishing it under my own auspices, which, in a pecuniary point of view, is all the better for me ; though I fear that the Book having been written cur rente calamo up to a certain period, it may, from waiting so long, seem flat as champagne two days opened ; and therefore dedicating it to you under these cii'cumstances, is very like asking you to a rechauffe dinner; but as that is a thing you are very sure I would never do, I hope this conviction will be a sufficient apology for my gracing this tardy arnhigu with your name. As far as you are concerned, I could say a great deal more, but I — but I / have no " enter- prising publishers," a la Eoutledge, to disseminate financial flams for me, which I regret, seeing that the British public greatly resembles the whale in an old line-engraving representing the contretems of Jonah, wherein the said whale is pourtrayed with jaws wide- opened like a triumphal arch, and a throat capacious enough not only to swallow Jonah, but axttbxn'g ! in which latter particular, it must be confessed, the ''pensive (query pence-give) public" is "very like a X. DEDICATION. whale I " But still — as the aforesaid public is, despite its slight obliquity of vision, begiimiiig to get a glimmering as to the sort of dirty rags and glittering tinsel of which Authors, with some few honorable exceptions, are composed — ^were I to expatiate, as I have ample materials for doing, on your many estimable traits, it might simply sum up these indisputable facts, and my appreciation of them, wholely and solely into a total of my (scribbler-like) having, above all things, " an eye to business," by wanting the world to know that I had got A FABULOUSLY GOOD PEICE FOE MY BOOK ! Cela pose, one word on my farrago lihelli. It is the fashion in certain quarters, among other '' weak inventions of the enemy," to accuse me of personality in my books; to which I have only to say, that I should indeed be a bungler, if I were to mould any fictitious character which had not its type in nature, and reality. For instance, I will not attempt to deny that, barring his physique, bay- wig and Hessians, there are a great many things in the conduct of Mr. Phippen so applicable to your own mode of going through the world, that you are quite welcome to take them for personalities, if you please. As for the Fudgesters, Beaucherches, and other minnows composing my dramatis personce, if they feel ''their withers" too much ''wrung," 1 could defend myself as Moleire did, when Mdlle. de Brie urged him, in return for the intrigues of the Hotel de Bourgogne against him, to shew that clique up, more especially its chief, Boursault : — " Vous etes folle, said he, " le beau sujet d divertir la Ville et la Com que XI. DEDICATION. M. BoursauU ! Je voudrois lien savoir de quelle fagon on pourroit Vajuster pour le rendre plaisant ; et si, quand on le lerneroit sur un theatre, il seroit assez heureux de fai/re rire le monde ?"* I could, I repeat, borrow these words for my defence ; but I shall avail myself of no such limited liability . but merely say, if the cap fits, in Heaven's name or that of its antipodes, let them wear it ; for there is a 8ui generis in the unscrupulous blackguardism that has so long and so relentlessly been exercised towards me, that must be dealt with, sui generi. And now, vale, my dear Dr. Price; and sincerely hoping that your health may continue to improve at Brighton, allow me to subscribe myself, as I have so often done before^ and as I hope to do so often again. Your grateful and obliged Friend, KOSi:N^i BULWER LYTTON. November 18th, 1856. * You are mad," said he ; " a fine subject, truly, to amuse the Town and the Court with, 21. Boursault would bo ! I should like to know in what way one could handle hira so :is to render him amusing ; and if, after one had tossed him in a blanket, or turned him into every sort of ridicule, (jne would be lortunate enough to succeed in making people laugh at him ?" CHAPTER I. AT, tat !— Rat, tat! — Rat, tat !— Rat, tat ! — sharply echoed through a dark gloomy wainscoted parlour in one of those erst of old good houses in Church Street, Chel- sea, now portioned out into cheap lodgings for struggling respect- ability, or vice versa f It was the postman's last appeal for that day ; and, like Fate's auctioneer as he is, having always much business on his hands, he seemed in a hurry to despatch it and knock down the different ^' lots " of weal or woe intrusted to him to their respective VOL I, A 2 VERY SUCCESSFUL. owners. So lie kept on, going ! going ! till he was at length gone ! — out of the dull street, and had passed the windows of the dark wainscoted parlour without even vouchsafing a single glance towards them, although behind the small square panes of one of them, was a pair of eyes almost like burning glasses eagerly watching his every move- ment, and the heart that belonged to those eyes was beating nearly as loud and as sharply as the knocks he had been so imperatively distributing on the different doors. But, having sown his divers grains of destiny broad-cast, he went his way, heed- less how they might fructify or blight ; and turned out of the dull street just as the ruddy sun of an English July evening was retiring for the night, enveloped in that most unbecoming of all desha- billes, a London fog. ^' Another day, — and nothing ! " burst from a pair of quivering lips of the same firm as the before- mentioned eyes and heart which indeed belonged to a lady, who, notwithstanding the perfect, nay almost severe, simplicity of her plain grey silk dress and small white linen collar, and the care-worn expression of her face seemed as if she had, at no very distant time, looked through gayer windows on far brighter prospects than that narrow dismal street. But that inexorable distributer of hopes, fears, and disappointments, the postman, had past and left nothing for her but the latter ; — and she VERY SUCCESSFUL. 3 sank down into an old heavy mahogany three- cornered horse-hair chair, covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. Now this old triangular chair, although in the vernacular of that particular lodging-house it went by the fidsomely flatterincr name of the easy chair, yet was as guiltless of affording any of that demo- ralising luxury to its occupants, with which Han- nibal is said to have enervated his troops at Capua, as the steps of a hall-door are to the houseless wretches who convert them into a bed! Indeed, the whole of the furniture was of that cumbrous, hard, heavy style, contemporaneous with Dr. Johnson, and seemed with a sort of silent adu- lation to have aped at least the external contour of the great lexicographer, more especially the three-cornered arm-chair, in wtilch the poor lady was crying so bitterly, for there was in its wooden physiognomy, and the rough heartiness of its extended lion-pawed mahogany arms, a sort of ungracious kindness, such as the chair in which Johnson sat, must have felt when the doctor was fondling and feeding his cat ^' Hodge " with those smuggled oysters which he himself had been out to buy, rather than jeopard ^' Hodge's" popularity with the servants by giving them the additional trouble of being the cat's purveyors. A good trait, a very good trait this, in that Leviathan of litera- ture, who, from disporting himself and taking his 4 VERY SUCCESSFUL. pastime in the deep waters of knowledge, could still find both heart and time to cater for his cat ; this, and his unflagging kindness to poor Gold- smith, are quite sufficient to polish, for posterity, even his three or four rustiest and most one-sided prejudices. But to return to the poor lady, whom w^e left weeping, by that declining light, in that old three- cornered chair. Her history, at least the substance of it, is soon told ; it was one of early disobedience to parents, reaping in the toils and trials of after life that bitter harvest which is invariably sown by such seeds. Mrs. Pemble, as she now called her- self, (though that was not her real name), had been the daughter of an Admiral, and the grand- daughter and niece of a Peer. Early in life she had formed a ball-room attachment for a hand- some young VaU'vien in a dragoon regiment, the only son of a rich brewer ; but, notwithstanding his glut of gold, which, in this commercial country generally gilds all things, from want of worth to want of birth, and, notwithstanding the daily in- creasing examples of Nobility soldered to ^lobility by the all powerful cement of wealth ; still her family had other views for her, and from the roue reputation of the handsome cornet, decidedly op- posed their daughter's union with him, which opposition ended in her eloping with him ; and as her family never would receive her husband, or VERY SUCCESSFUL. 5 even see her afterwards, and as no settlements had been made on her, she was left entirely at her husband's mercy, and had nothing to trust to but his honour ! Poor, poor, woman ! Alas ! my young lady fnends, it should be at least part of your education to know that notwith- standing the much boasted British constitution, it does not contain a single law, for the protection or redress of married women ; unless, indeed, they be the possessors of large property stringently tied up upon themselves; then they or rather theu' money is amply protected: for in England, property being the onhj thing legislated for, the very smallest coin of the realm is far more cared for than a human being with an immortal soul ; and hence it is in our monetary code that a halfpenny will outweigh a heart, and a sovereign a soul, any day. Xow as such laws for the oppression of woman, are cer- tainly not very creditable to us in an age of progression like the present ; and as it is not to be supposed that when ''''the collective icisdom" of a nation could either frame or continue such, the acrcrrecrate of mankind would have a vei*\- nice or chivalric sense of "honor " to counter-balance and neutralize the pernicious prerogatives of such un- equal laws, — young ladies, instead of that vulgar servant -maidish eagerness to be married, or as in kitchen parlance they more elegantly express it, to " get married, " should at all events look 6 VERY SUCCESSFUL. before they leap ; as there is also another consider- ation , which ought to make them doubly cautious before they take this irrevocable, and too often fatal plunge, which is the fearful odds, that accord- ing to the very immoral conventionalities of society exist against them, they, no doubt in the inno- cence of their hearts and the ignorance of their heads imagine that the marriage vows are a dual responsibility, solemn and indissoluble as God ordained them ; and on the woman's side so they are, for as the gravitation of the world would be endangered, were a single atom added to or substracted from the universal whole ; so let a woman without even the slightest moral culpability deviate but a hair' s-hreadth from that beaten track, and the equilibrium of her whole fate is perilled ; but with men it is very different ; they have con- cocted a code of conventional morality (?) adapted to their actions. What used to be wrong, is now right ; for in their system of ethics, like Moliere's Doctors in Anatomy, Us ont chang4 toute cela. For the vows they make at the Altar to love and to cherish a wife in sickness and in health, and for- saking all others, to cleave to her only — according to their reading means to desert her the moment the whim seizes them for any and every other woman. And as for endowing her with all their worldly goods, that^ like Hebrew, they seem to read backwards, and interpret into getting every VERY SUCCESSFUL. 7 single thing they can out of their wives, and then, thinking it is no matter if they, the wives, be left to starve or subjected to every drudgery, privation, and humiliation, provided themselves, the husbands, can wallow in luxury, or riot in pleasure. On the other hand it is certain that those men who do not avail themselves of this broad hard licence, which vice originated, and which that great rivet of all vice, Custom has confirmed, — but, who restrict themselves within the stringent circle of duties which God has imposed, cannot be too highly prized, nor too carefully cherished ; therefore, such men have a right, not only to expect sensible, agreeable, and well-informed companions in the woman they marry, but a help meet in every sense of the word, for a wife, to be worthy of the name, should as thoroughly understand the art (for it is an art and one of the very finest) of domestic economy, in all its branches ; and the science of comfort in each of its myriad phases ; in short, how to be able to make her husband's home happy when he is well, and how to turn illness itself into a luxury by gentle, intelligent, anticipatory, and noiseless nursing. Believe me, my dear young ladies, a little such homel}', womanly lore as this, would place you on a far higher pedestal — than the smat- tering you now receive of those ephemeral and bird-lime accomplishments, which may, indeed, snare a husband, but will never seciu'e him. 8 VERY SUCCESSFUL. Now, Mrs. Pemble was well calculated to in culcate all those excellent but unchartered know- ledges which go to the making of a happy home — all those subtile, unobtrusive, heart-graces which when carefully selected, tempered, polished, and linked, form the electric chain of duties which constitutes the wisdom of woman : for she had acquired them one by one, in the dear, but un- rivalled school of experience; and strengthened them in the moral gymnasium of fortitude and necessity. Soon after her ill-fated marriage her worthless husband began to revenge upon her the neglect with which he was treated by her family ; while his, though many of them were still in trade, looked down upon his well-born but penniless wife, as their members were daily contracting alli- ances with "Lady Janes" and "Lady Julias," whose parents were only too happy to pay every deference to their superior wealtli; and therefore they had no idea that a mere Admiral, only the brother of a Lord, who had not given his daughter a shilling, should give himself such airs, with re- gard to their family who could buy and sell his. So after ten long miserable years God saw fit to release poor Mary Pemble from her bondage, and leave her, at all events unfettered, to swim through a sea of troubles, and stem its adverse tide as best she might, for after considerable losses at New- market, her husband died in a fit of delirium VERY SUCCESSFUL. V tremens, leaving an only son — a fine noble-hearted boy — who, as yet, had not time either to be per- verted or corrupted, and so remained the ^' silver lining" of his poor mothers cloud ; but as he was destined for the army, at the age of fourteen he went to Sandhurst, and as long as war was only theoretical, and military glory but a gorgeous ab- stract, the mother's heart, of course, glowed with a natural pride at the triumphant examinations her son passed, and the honourable testimonials he obtained ; but when this said war, " ambition's gory plaything," became a stern reality — and, Harcourt — her one thought, one feeling, and only hope, though only eighteen, was ordered with his regiment to the Crimea, what would not the wretched mother have given to have gone with the lady nurses to Scutari ? Bat, alas ! even to play the ministering angel efifectually (or rather with impunity) in England, requires the patent of patronage, and the same abnegation of self, which is truly heroic and beyond all praise in one, is obnoxious to every animad- version in another ; rendenng them liable to be branded with that concrete vituperative " a strong minded icoman ! " — and so, the poor mother had only her woman's heritage of tears and endurance to fall back upon ; and after having sold her pretty cottage at Ivor, near Uxbridge, and parted with everything available to give her son a far more 10 VERY SUCCESSFUL. luxurious, because better planned and combined, outfit than many of his superior officers, Mrs. Pemble found herself thrown on the world, with that widely -differing portion, in different persons, her own resources ! And house-rent and the paraphernalia of weekly bills, however moderate, being precisely what she could not afford, she thought if she could but get a situation as a governess — no matter how small the salary — by obtaining food and shelter gratis it would be still in her power to continue to supply Harcourt with many little comforts, which would be, otherwise, unattainable for either of them. Now, though £20 or £30 a year is, certainly, sufficient for teaching young ladies ignorance, bad English, and husband-hunting, Mrs. Pemble's ac- quirements were such as might have justly entitled her to more; yet she was far from viewing the matter in this light, for, thanks to that anti-com- mercial argil, of which all real ladies and gentle men are, unfortunately, composed ; wherever driving a bargain was concerned, she invariably underrated her own pretensions; moreover, she had another difficulty in her way, wdiich made her ready to consent to any additional sacrifice, which was her seeking an engagement under a feigned name; and though she had honestly told all who seemed likely to enter into a negotiation with her that it was not her real name, still she felt, that VERY SUCCESSFUL. 11 witli many, either from principle, or from preju- dice (and how often does the latter conceive itself the former) ; this alone would be an insuperable ob- jection to their engaging her; then why had she adopted this objectionable plan ? The motive was a mixed one, as most motives of expediency, or, at least, of fancied expediency are ; for although neither her own nor her husband's relations had ever recognised her existence since the hour she married; yet as each of them considered them- selves very great people in their different orbits, and, consequently, though they would have felt it no derogation to their grandeur had their rela- tion on the one side, and their connexion on the other, died of starvation, it would have been a very different thing had the escutcheon of her own family, or the rental of her husband's, received such a blot, as to know that anything belonging to them ! was guilty of the virtuous vulgarity of earn- ing their bread ! And however passive relations may be to serve, their activity to injure is gener- ally in an inverse ratio, and one of the last privileges which parentage willingly relinquishes, is that of interfering. It was the knowledge of all these things which induced the widow to lay aside her own name, and adopt the nom de gagne pain of Pemble ; though we will not pretend to deny that in so doing, she was still more influenced by Harcourt's feelings 12 VERY SUCCESSFUL. and Harcourt's interests, for she had suffered too severely herself from the cold stagnant convention- ality of English society, not to be fully aware that should her unpatronaged son prove to unite in his own person the unsullied honor of a Bayard, and tlie unsurpassed daring of the two Scipios, whom Virgil called the Thunderbolts of War, yet once known at the mess, or the Horse Guards, aye, or even at the cannon's mouth, that his mother was a working governess ! good bye to all his chances of preferment and to the just grade of his social posi- tion ; and however much she might have wavered in weighing all these pros, and cons, of trading under a feigned name, — ^yet, no sooner was Har- court throw^n into the balance, than he immediately turned the scale ; and the alternative was resolved upon. And once resolved, — ]Mi's. Pemble, as we shall for the present continue to call her, was a person to act, and not to despair, for truly it is well said by an old writer: "Despair, as it respects the business, and events of life, is an uneasy and im- politic passion ; it antedates a misfortune, and torments the heart before its time. It spreads a gloominess upon the soul, and makes her live in a dungeon. It preys upon the vitals like Prome- theus's vulture, and eats out the heart of all other satisfactions. It cramps the powers of nature and cuts the sinews of enterprize, and gives being to many cross accidents which would never otherwise VERY SUCCESSFUL. 13 happen. To believe a business impossible, is the way to raake it so." Therefore Mrs. Pemble did not suffer the palsy of despair to paralyse her son's and her own pros- pects. No, she put her shoulder bravely to the wheel which is the only manner by which the heavy laden wheel of fortune is ever propelled — came to London — took that gloomy wainscoted parlour, and an adjoining bedroom, in Church Street, Chelsea, at twelve shilhngs a week, and advertised for the situation of a governess ; for she icas, we confess it, not only -^-ithout fear but with much honest pride in our sex, a stroxg-mi>'ded WOMAN I Yea, verily I — and strong-hearted and strong-conscienced too, as all those poor camp- followers in the battle of life — women, have need to be. CHAPTER II. n %htx\kmu\ h ''€\t €mwJ' T is an unfortunate fact, almost without an exception, that hard hearts and soft heads generally go together ; and the only evil of this is, when the head don't take the initiative on the score of hardness, and leave all the down to its better-half the heart, which, in so-called "strong- minded women," is precisely what it does do, and so poor Mrs. Pemble sat in that old three- cornered chair, leaning her hard head in her poor shadowy hands, which her soft heart deluged with tears, for, as we before said, the last Post- man had passed and brought her no letter from Harcourt, if, indeed, such a person was still in existence. It was, also, the last day in the VERY SUCCESSFUL. 10 week but one ; she had been a whole month in that gloomy wainscoted room, stared out of countenance by those great, unwieldy, solemn, Samuel-Johnson- looking, horsehair chairs, and she had expended nearly four pounds in advertisements, only three of which had been answered ; one by the " lady^'* (for so they styled themselves,) of a retired dry- salter, another, by the lady of a gentleman, who was a wholesale agent for "Norton's Camomile Pills," and retailed other drugs as well, and the third, by the widow of a retired coach maker, living at "Varnish Villa, Pentonville." She had suited none of these, and none of them had suited her. We verily believe that all exceptional natures have a responding nature in some part of the world, which would tone into harmonious utterances with theirs, and "discourse most ex- cellent music," could they but meet and be attuned together ; but how and where to stumble on them is the question ; for this poor crazy old world seems to be the harp of the Fates, who, between them, (having but this one instrument to play upon,) are always losing, snapping, or mislaying the chords, and hence the terrible and jarring discords of which that Opera Seria, called Life, is composed ; and when the instrument is thus dila- pidated, it becomes almost like an aolian harp, which every breeze that blows affects more or less; and it is for this reason that prisoners in IG VERY SUCCESSFUL. solitary confinement make to themselves com- panions, nay friends, of spiders, of mice, of shadows, of anything save darkness, and so it was that within this weary month, tired of the mono- tonous beatings of her own heart, Mrs. Pemble had learned to w^atch for, at a certain hour of the morning and evening, with an eagerness that almost amounted to excitement, the creaking of an old gentleman's boots who lodged in what the maid of the house called *'the first floor front," as he kept up a sort of quarter-deck perambulation sometimes for hours together, and by way of in- vesting a still farther interest in him, and, indeed, also for the sake of hearing a human voice in reply, she, one evening inquired, when the uni- versal maid brought in tea, followed by her con- stant companion, "Tim," the black cat, "Who lodged above stairs ? " And the reply was : — " Mr. Phillip Phippen, who ad a business of some sort in the city, but she did not 'zacly know what, only that he was quite a helderly gentleman ; " from which an illogical mind might have inferred that his business was 'to be an elderly gentleman ; but, being a " strong-minded woman," Mrs. Pemble had not an illogical mind, and so did not draw this inference, nor indeed any other, from Sarah's information. But whether Sarah, ("or "Sarah Nash," as the old gentleman aforesaid invariably called her with a sort of Parish VERY SUCCESSFUL. 17 Register particularity), had or had not reported the widow's inquiry to Phillip Phippen ; and that he as all old bachelors are bound to do, had felt a certain little flutter of vanity at being inquired about, (although for the last twenty years he had taken refuge from widows, and all other whirl- pools in those creaking Hessians, surmounted by a bay wig,J or whether the act proceeded from mere neighbourly civility, we cannot say ; but certain it is, that from that out, he might be daily heard either in the morning or evening, calling out over the stairs, as the Hessians came creaking down them : — '• Sarali ! — Sarah Nash ! — perhaps the lady in the parlour would like to see The Times ? " Upon the present occasion it was evening, nearly nine o'clock, when "Sarah Nash" was evoked, and that true-born Briton's vade mecum had scarcely rustled between her ruddy fingers ere the hall door was slammed to, after giving egress to Ml'. Phippen who rapidly buttoning the three last buttons of his brown surtout to his throat, giving a sort of pound to the top of his hat, so as to compel its closer allegiance to his bay wig, and bestowing on his somewhat portly and voluminous gingham umbrella another pound with the inner part of his left arm, so as to make sure that it icas, as all old campaigners should be in these militant times, under arras ; he strode hastily up the street, with VOL. I. B 18 VERY SUCCESSFUL. that sort of ^* wind and tide waiting for no man " rapidity, which those who have enhaled the auri- ferous atmosphere of Threadneedle Street for many years, are apt to contract from having imbibed as it were, at every pore, that great commercial truth, TIME IS MONEY ! "Please wm, — Mr. Phippen ^ave sent you the noose paper," said " Sarah Nash," who had it is true gone through the ceremony of knocking, as a sort of Castanet accompaniment to her own entree, but had not waited for the customary permission to come in, and finding the silence still continued, after she had laid the paper on the table, and there was absolutely nothing for silence to give consent to, like a woman of character, resource, and deci- sion, she determined to bring matters to an issue, with a point blank question of, — " Please um — shall I bring candles ? " " If you please," said Mrs. Pemble, raising her head and drying her eyes hastily like a strong- minded woman as she was, who never liked to be caught either weeping or napping, though indeed, during the last three months, it would have been difficult to have surprised her doing the latter. "And Sarah," — added she, as that ubiquitous individual was closing the door, — "Not to have the trouble of coming up again, you may bring tea when you bring the lights." ** Yes, um ! — thank you, wm /" VERT SUCCESSFUL. 19 And again between the interlude of the dark- ness and the light, the occupant of the dull wainscoted parlour leant forward and covered her face with her hands ; for indeed it would have been impossible to lean hack in that three-cornered uneasy easy-chair, and if the people were only half as upright as the furniture was, at the time of the great moralist, verily tliere could have been no backsliding in those days ; but this time no tears trickled between the small white fingers that covered that poor wan face, for the poor must mind their sharp, stringent, economies in all things — even in their sorrow — the free indulgence of which is truly enough called " the luxury of woe," and, consequently, is not for them ; for grief, when given way to, to excess, stupifies and ener- vates quite as much as either alcohol or opiates ; and as poverty must ever be up and doing, it cannot afford to sit ])ondering and ruing. And already, by the burning aching of her head, the poor mourner felt that for that day she had ex- ceeded her pauper allowance of tribulation, and if she did not rouse herself and gird on her woman's armour of moral courage, she should be fit for nothing the next ; at least, not for toihng through muddy streets in quest of that most bitter of all things, the bread of dependence, which, bitter as it is, she almost began to despair of obtaining ; per- haps she had been too honest in proclaiming her 20 VERY SUCCESSFUL. views and plan of education, which were calcuhited to make sensible, rational, useful and loveable Women, and not ignorant, vain, selfish and frivolous ^' Females.'" Moreover she had hitherto found that all the dry-salters, druggists and coach- makers' ^' ladies " whose advertisements she had replied to, seemed to think there was something fine in having a governess, and evidently classed it in the same category as setting up a " foot boy " or a brougham, and did not at all consider the matter in an educational point of view, as it was quite clear that she was to have unlimited respon- sihilityy and no power ; and that, while polking, crocheting and screaming in defiance of nature to a cruelly castigated piano were considered indis- pensable. Morals, manners, general and solid in- formation, with keeping the peace towards the Queen's English and not calling it all sorts of horrible names, were reckoned of no account. And indeed one lady, (the drysalter's,) Mrs. Pemble had almost shocked into a fit of apoplexy by betraying her very vulgar opinion that every ivoman — were she a King's daughter — should be made a thorough good housewife, which, according to her notions, did not end with even an extensive culinary savoii\ but should include evert/ thing that the mother of a family mat/ at some one time of her life have occasion to do, and always in every sphere has occasion to knoiv how it should be done, VERY SUCCESSFUL. 21 from making a shirt to dressing a wound, and from being a visible providence in a sick room, instead of a visible nuisance. Now this, as we before said, so disgusted the aristocratic refine- ment of Mrs. Fitz Smugsby, (it used to be plain Smugsby when they lived in AYhitechapel, but now, as she herself said, they had a iciiler in the Regency Park ; Smugsby did not seem to go with it,) that she could scarcely rise from the sofa, (which she filled like an additional squab covered with claret-coloured velvet and point cuffs and a large assortment of jewellery, though only eleven o'clock in the forenoon,) but when at length she had risen, she waved one very large well-fed hand towards the door saying, with great dignity and a backward toss of her head that — ^' She wanted something much genteeler for her daughters, as Mr. Fitz Smugsby being able to give them £50,000 each to their /or^m, was one of the peticklest men that hever lived about eddication, and didn't hegnidge nothink, so as they was but made uj) to the mark with the rest of the harry- stocraey; and therefore, of course he did not want them made into 'ousehold drudges which was all very well for farmers' daughters and such like ! " This oration finished, she grasped the bell^ adding : " Hi'm sorry as you've ad the trouble to come, has Hi see vou wouldn't suit my establishment at 22 VERY SUCCESSFUL. all ; but my butler shall shew you liout and stop a 'bus for you Idf you ave fur to go." The so-called butler^ with whom nature appeared to have been in a hurry, and rolled into the breadth what should have been in the length, and then in order to laugh off the mistake had played a game of cribbage over his very broad pock-marked face, now made his appearance, inducting himself into a grass-green liveiij with yellow facings and shoulder knots, which looked like wreaths of daffa- downdillies. " Orricks," (the Parish Eegister wrote it Hor- ricks,) " shew this pusson hout, hand tell JEnry to tell Oppner to tell one of the hunder footmen, to stop a 'bus ; " — and, with another majestic wave of the handj this ambulating dome of St. Paul's in claret velvet bowed the governess out. And truly, so comparative a thing is happiness, and so many degrees are there in the comparison, that, wet and weary in body and mind as she was, the gloomy wainscoted parlour, the badly dressed fat mutton chop, and even the blunt blackhandled knives and the slip-shod, clumsy, but ever civil and obliging '^ Sarah Nash," each and all ap- peared so many sybarite luxuries to Mrs. Pemble, compared with the chance of having been domi- ciled from night till morning and morning till night with Mrs. and the Miss Fitz Smugsbys ; and in thinking over all this, and wondering how VERY SUCCESSFUL. 23 many more Mrs. Fitz Smugsbys she would have to encounter before she could obtain the munificent sum of £30 a year, she did not perceive that it was full half an hour before Sarah returned with the hghts and the tea. When the latter did so, it was with an apology for the delay as she placed them on the table, saying : " I'm sorry to have hep you so long, um^ but as you eat no dinner I thought as you'd be a most starved, so I went and got you a Sally Lunn ; but Missus is such a skinflint that there aint never a bit of fire to do notJdnk, and that's the reason as I've been so long a tiying over that tea-spoonful of fire to toast this here cake ; but, as i\Lr. Phippen says, and goodness knows it is a true saying, as long as ^Irs. Pike can only do the lodgers brown that's all she cares for. Now do 'um, try and eat it, for I thmk I managed to toast it pretty' tidily after all ; for as she's off to the play with one of them there free admissions I did mange to get a few lumps of coal out of her scuttle." And with this confession Sarah uncovered the cake, with a little air of conscious triumph, which its beautifully brown, hot and crisp appearance fully justified. "It does indeed look excellent, Sarah, and thank you a thousand times for thinking of it,'' said ]Mrs. Pemble, helping herself to a piece of it with a well-acted alacrity, which she felt would be the best thanks she could offer to the amiable fore- 24 VERY SUCCESSFUL. thought of Sarah, and as she clirJ so, the tears came again into her eyes ; for none feel Uttle attentions so sensibly as those who have no one to care for them, for there is about these alms of itinerant kindness a sort of palpable God-sent air, which not only enhances but sanctifies them ; and never does the poor solitary wayfarer in the flinty high- way, or the thorny bye-ways of life meet with one of these little pure and simple heart flowers peep- in o- out from the surrounding rucjo-edness without thinking what the wise Theognis asserted — " Oh ! in this world how many are there whose vices are concealed by wealth, and how many more whose virtues are concealed by poverty !" Concealed, yes, from the mass ; but as science possesses the sacred and mysterious secret of de- tecting and extracting poisons however subtile and latent, from the most cautiously concealed and foully obstructed sources, so is there an equally in- fallible analytic power in finely organised natures which enables them to discover in others even the very smallest scintilla of the sacred fire of that better world, whicli an undue weight of the mire and moil of this one miiy and does obscure, but never can (where once it has been given) totally extinguish. And as that poor drudge of all work left the room with her stiff new check-apron, (always put on clean to come up to " the lady,") and the latter VERY SUCCESSFUL. 25 turned her eyes from its wearer to her little ofFer- mg, Mrs. Pemble doubted if the most costly brocade upon the loveliest of wearers could have " snatched a grace beyond the reach of art," as that stiff check-apron of the kind-hearted Sarah Nash had done ; fur there is one great and surpass- ing advantage that the kind acts of the poor and loNvly must always have over those of the high and the mighty, for in such matters the poor and Jowly do all they can to help or to serve ; but who ever yet heard of a rich man pushing his benevolence to such an ?«?dimited liability of extent ? And truly it was not the costliness of the poor Magda- lene's spikenard, nor that of the alabaster box that contained it, which found favour in the eyes of the Saviour ; but to use His own blessed and gracious words, it was that " she had done what she couldT All this had scarcely passed through Mrs. Pemble's mind before Sarah returned to ask her if she had not better have a fire, as it was very damp and chilly. But fires cost money, and therefore cold, whether in hearts or hearths, must be home by all the pupils of poverty, such being one of the very first hard lessons in her horn-book ; and so with a slight shiver ^Irs. Pemble said : " Xo thank you, Sarah, I shall be going to bed soon ; but if you will have the goodness to bring me my old Indian shawl out of the next room PlI put it on ; it is on the chair near the window." 26 VERY SUCCESSFUL. "Your cake is delicious, Sarah, and so nicely toasted, only that I am not very well I should have eaten it all, but you must eat the rest, and here is some tea for you to take with it," added Mrs Pemble, filling a large cup out of the tea-chest and another of sugar. " Lawr ! that will last me a week. Oh ! thank you, um ;" and Sarah retreated with her prize in a high state of gratitude ; for decidedly next to green apples, fortune-tellers and policemen, tea and sugar are the royal roads to the hearts of English maid- servants, be they of all-work or of no-work. No sooner had Mrs. Pemble wrapped herself in the comfortable and downy folds of the soft old cashmere and snuffed the candles than she un- furled The Times, and after having first devoured the Crimean news, which nevertheless she always, though so eager to know it, delayed with a sort of sickening incertitude from approaching, lest there might have been a battle, and that battle should have made her, with many thousands more, child- less. After having also read the irrefragable an- nouncement that "" A Newfoundland dog has teeth !" the interesting one to those whom it might concern, that " the Admiral is quite well !" and the sentimental one that "Walter wronged Viola, as she had never entertained one unkind thought of liim /" which certainly would not have been very entertaining to Walter if she VERY SUCCESSFUL. 27 had ; she next glanced, more in sorrow than with envy, over the Hst of those few-and-far-betwecn in- dividuals who, thanks to philanthropic solicitors in invoking the aid of defunct or departing parish clerks and their inedited manuscripts, are always hearing of "something to their advantage I'' but poor Mrs. Pemble being perfectly aware from long experience that she was not in the most distant manner related to that distinguished family which holds such advantageous audits, she was about to lay doAATi the paper and light her hand-candle, when her attention was an^ested by the following Advertisemext : — "Wanted, a Governess, not at £20 a year but at £100. She must be a gentlewoman^ a mamed woman or '\^'idow who has herself had children preferred, or rather indispensable, as no Miss in her teens, or just out of them need apply. She must be a sincere, that is, a practical daily and hourly Christian, neither Pharisaical High Church, nor Puritanical Low Chm'ch, and above all not be- longing to any of the new-fangled ites or flights. "Next to good morals she must have their evidence, good manners. For accomplishments, she must know sufficient of music, drawing and dancing to be able to teach them vdxh masters ; but must be so good a linguist as to be able to teach at least French and Italian ^-ithout masters, by constantly speaking them ; for Spanish and German^ masters 2S VERY SUCCESSFUL. will be allowed; Latin decidedly approved, and Greek by no means objected to ; but above all, a thorough knowledge of English indispensable, as that language is daily becoming more rare. As the pupils are three in number, a^z. : — two little girls, one fifteen and the other twelve, and a boy of seven, who ^Yi\\ all be implicitly confided to the Governess's care and control ; none but a sensible, good tempered and good natured woman need apply ; but all such, desiring the situation, and Avho think they can conscientiously fill it, will have the good ness to apply between the hours of twelve and three at Peele's Coffee-house on ^londa}', Thurs- day and Saturday next, inquiring for ' Hunks.' " "Well, at all events. Hunks, you are an original!" said ^Irs. Pemble with a smile as she put do^vn the paper ; '' yet there is something in your odd adver- tisement that I like amazingly ; a bluff, ^nigorous terseness, in short, that is as refi'eshing as a blow upon the moors, and the fi'esh smell of the heather, after the foetid Margate-steamer vulgarity of a Mrs. Fitz-Smugsby ; and such a frank honesty too in sapng that the children are to be under the control as well as the care of the govevness ; so different from the dividi et imperi system of the diy-salters' Hadies^^ and not only not objecting to, but wishing women to know Greek and Latin ; in short, to ac- quire knowledge through every available portal. Oh ! decidedly * Hunks ' vou are a diamond. VERY SUCCESSFUL. 29 tliougli it may be a rough one ; there is evidently no mascuhne narrow-mindedness about you, or rather all-graspitiveness ; none of the okl IMosaic law so carefully earned on to and stringently insisted upon in the Christian dispensation, which has made men religiously accept as the one article of faith Avhicli they have never violated since the creation, that God made the world for them, and women and all the other inferior animals for their use or abuse, as their sovereign wills might decide. Well, I don't know Greek, I wish I did, nor German ; but Latin, French, Italian and Spanish I plead guilty to ; and dear good Mr. ^ Hunks,' I think I know what you mean by ' English ' being indispensable, having as great a horror as you can possibly have of the rapid way in which oiu- noble language has degenerated AA-ithin the last quarter of a centurv, since an ex- ceedingly clever, but intensel}* \idgar set of A^Titers have sprung up, who have not only endeavoiu'ed, but too well succeeded, in making the slip slop of their own veiy plebeian antecedents patent : I don't mean as to the stamp of cmTency which they have given to slang, for that eveiw one knows to he base coin, and therefore only receives or passes it as such ; but instead of the senate, the stage and the bar, which used to be considered as the stan- dard sources from whence to derive the purest Enghsh, these gentry have changed the venu4 and 30 VERY SUCCESSFUL. taken it from the kitchen, the pot-house and the hulks. But on the other hand, to arrogate to one's self the titles of a ' sensible, good-tempered, good-natured woman, ' which are the credentials you require my dear Mr. ' Hunks ' for presenting one's self as a candidate for your approval, is really placing one in a very delicate and difficult position, by compelling one to put one's modesty in one's pocket. Well, when one has nothing else in it, as in my case, at all events it will be in roomy quar- ters." With another smile at the conclusion of this soliloquy, JVIrs. Pemble arose and lit her bed- room candle, with a genial ray stealing over and brightening her heart, more like that of hope than anything she had experienced since she had been the lonely tenant of these two gloomy rooms. And yet so difficult is it for a chronic misery to have faith in hope, that by the time she had un- bound her hair, her heart had begun once more to jom'ney do^vnwards, and clasping her hands she said aloud : " And if I should not suit this person, whoever he is, more than any of the others, what am I to do?" ^Yhen, as if at once to answer, to reprove, and to reassure her in one of those many mysterious ways, so consistent ^\i\\\ what St. Augustine aptly calls " The severe mercy of God's discipline," her VERY SUCCESSFUL. 31 eye fell upon that precfous little volume entitled " The Faithful Promiser," as it lav open upon her Bible on the toilet ; it had opened at the thhteenth day, and she read it on to the end, beginning at the text : — " All things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose. Rom. viii. 28. " My soul ! be still ! thou art in the hands of thy Covenant God. Were these strange vicissi- tudes in thy history the result of accident or chance, thou mightest Avell be ovei'^dielmed ; but * all things ' and this thing (be it what it may) which is now disquieting thee, is one of those ^ all thmgs ' that are so working mysteriously for thy good. Trust thy God I He will not deceive thee, thy interest are with Him in safe custody. When sight says, ^ all these things are against me,' let faith rebuke the hasty conclusion and say, ' Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? ' How often does God hedge up our way with thorns to elicit simple tinist ! How seldom can we see all things so working for our good ! But it is better disciphne to believe it. Oh ! for faith amid fro^^^lmg pro^^idences to say, ^I hnoio that Thy judgments are good ; ' and reMng in the dark to exclaim ' Though He slay me, yet ^\^\ I trust in Him ! ' Blessed Jesus, to thee are conunitted the reins of this universal empire. The same hand 32 VERY SUCCESSFUL. that was once nailed to tlife cross, is now wielding the sceptre on the throne, ^ all power given nnto Thee in heaven and in earth.' How can I doubt the A\T[sdom, and faithfulness, and love of the most mysterious earthly dealing, when I know that the roll of pro\ddence is thus in the hands of Him who has given the mightiest pledge Omnipotence could give of His tender interest in my soul's well-being, by giving Hhimself for me ? " Remember this word uxto Thy ser- vant, UPON WHICH Thou hast caused me to HOPE ! " That night she prayed more fervently, that night she slept more calmly, for she had left with God the biu-den He had imposed. Oh! how much better and wiser was this than the earthly lullaby she had in vain tried the night before in these quaint old lines, which though they well expressed her sorrows were powerless to relieve them : — " All things within my vie^^, All things that grow and thrive hy nature's care, AEy sorrows must renew ; For by successive change they better' d are ; But to me fortune still Is therefore constant, 'cause she first was ill. "When shall my trouhled years Be to a verdant grave of flowers restor'd ? My injuries, my fears, Too little merited, too mtich deplor'd I When shall my just complaint From equal heaven receive a fuU restraint ?" CHAPTER III. cut hhJi imn nl HERE were Saturday and Sunday to inter- vene before the por- tentous Monday upon which ^Irs. Pemble was to go upon her pilgrimage to Peele's coffee-house ; she, how- ever, resolved, if the writer of the advertisement she had read on the previous evening approved of her, to at once close with his (for these days of flint-skinning and stone-bleeding) munificent terms ; and so, ha^-ing for the present " set her fate upon" this " cast," she thought she woidd wait patiently '' the hazard of the die," and not wear out her heart and her shoes in seeking for any other engagement — at least till Monday's budget should be kno^vn ; and, indeed, not a little glad was she, to have one whole VOL. I. c 34 VERY SUCCESSFUL. uninterrupted day, to once more open her work- box and put her wardrobe in order, for " True as the needle to the pole " is a true woman to her needle ; and heterodox as the assertion may appear, there is no truer woman than she whom men brand as " a strong-minded woman ! " for the poor strong-minded woman, more than any other, has the sense to feel that their " strength is in sitting still," and with the world of ^Tongs heaped upon them, how would it be possible to do that, but for that real Pandora's box, their work-box, which always has hope re- maining in it ; that hope which is the mifailuig and obedient offspring of those who work and pray ; and whether is it mser in a mere worldly point of view to resort to pistols and balls of lead as your strong-minded (?) men so often do even to avoid the gaunt apparition of one great difficulty, or to take to that small polished weapon — a gold-eyed needle, and balls of cotton ; and though compassed by a web of complex difficulties, whose every mesh is tied with a Gordian knot, sit calmly down to await the issue of God's Providence, whicli men call " events," and which truly always do " cast their shadows before ;" but they are not always dark ones ; for as all good cometli from God, so the pre- ceding shadows of good things, like His, are Light ; and as the occupant of that gloomy 'I/O / ■ . /''■■'^ //'' //. /'■ /'^ FUL. 67 mocJcage, as if they would in that way satiate his great and greedy thirst for it;' or when speaking of Caesar leading young Juba, the king of Mauri- tania's son, captive to Rome, another old writer says : ^ However, from his captiWty he gained the benefit of ha^'ing a Roman education, whereby he became one of the learnedest men of the a^e in which he lived ; ' we accept the assertion without stumbling over the wording. But when in the nineteenth century Mr. Thomas Carlyle belabours us with the ' heautifule.st'' ' learnedest'' and ' anti- quatedest' terms, he can excavate and 'the like, we resent being towed along after this obsolete fashion, and feel that he has passed the rubicon of affectation, and plunged into the ridiculous. A still more antiquated historian than these tAvo I have just cited, in speaking of one of the Claudii, says with the greatest possible good faith, and all solemnity unwitting of the ludicrous : ' This Claudius was of that noble family, a young gentle- man of great parts, and of a very bold and enter- prising genius, but excessive lewd I " '^ Now just fancy reading this fact, similarly worded in the pages of Macaulay ! ! But there can be no doubt that had Thomas Carlyle had any- thing to do with ^ The Lays of Antient Rome,' ?ie would, without scruple of remorse, have hatched just such another paragraph." " Well," laughed Mrs. Pemble ; " with no (jS very SUCCESSFrL. offence to the aboriginals, setting aside the matter, the manner is veiy Carlylean ; but do you not also think that a certain class of soi-disant books for children, Avith nothing on earth in them but a set of a propos de hottes religious sentences, strung together on a long string of the most excruciating vulgarisms, have also (from the outrageous manner in which they are puffed, and consequently sold)^ done much to vitiate the taste and manners of the juvenile reading public." " Ah ! the7'e I so cordially agree with you, that I must answer you in four lines that Ponsard, in his fine play of Charlotte Corday, put into the mouth of Marat: — ' Je veux avec un soc, retourner les sillons, A r ombre les habits, au soleil les haillons, Rangez vous grands seigneurs, laquais et valetaille, Le peuple va passer, salut a la canaille ! ' " " Oui, c'est vraiment, bein le cas, de le dire," said Mrs. Pemble ; " but to return to our own literati ; — we must not include them all in one fell swoop, for many, whether in the depths of philo- sophy and science, or the sparkling sui-face of light literature, have acquired a just, and I should say enduring, fame. Now Thackeray, for instance — do you not admire his books ? There is no clumsy journeyman exaggeration about them, no vulgarity, and they are so true to the hollow world that they describe, with yet a leaven of human kindness VERY SUCCESSFUL. ()9 runninfT throucrh them, which we feel is the authors own little bit of reality, making the fiction rise in proportion.'' " I do admire Thackeray's hooks exceedingly, and fonnerly admired the man himself, but latterly, upon the two unemng principles of ' tell me your company, and I'll tell you what you are,' and ' who can touch pitch and not be defiled?' I certainly admire the man less, though not his works. But for Heaven's sake, don't ask me about the politico- literary tribe, and if you ask me no questions as the children say, I will tell you no lies. There is one especial pair of literar^'-politico charlatans, whose ruthless inconsistencies have, as Lord Albe- marle said of Lord Temple and George Grenville, bullied or bored almost every contemporar}' states- man. But this is, essentially, an age of seeming and of shams — in short, of humbug, in every walk of life ; and there being more hard, stick-at-nothing, scientific, ^dllainy abroad than there ever was, in order to cover this adamantine substratum as they do chimney-pieces, with velvet, the reigning cant of the day is an affectation of uncommon softness and summer-morning mildness, and a professed aversion to all acts of cruelty, and still more to all \4olent language ; but unfortunately this verbal millenium, which exacts that we should treat our foes with as much apparent respect as our friends, not only has degenerated into the foulest hypocrisy^ but has driven the tide of popular sympathy into 70 VERY SUCCESSFUL. an inverse cun'ent, so that it generally flows for the aggressor, but seldom for the victim, — thus thanks to pseudo philosophers who wedge themselves amoncr the leaden crudities of German materialism till they have not a single feeling left, from each successively having flowed away in rhetorical small beer ; or thanks to the still worse, because more immediately pernicious, influence of aspirants in the slippery arena of politics, who retail the plausi- ble puerilities of a Brummagen philanthropy, w-hich advocates the abolition of gibbets before it has discovered even an abatement for crime, and would fell the gallows tree but leave the gallows fruit, to constitute a hideous traffic in the mart of nations. We may poison either morally or physically as much as we please, the only unpardonable thing being the victims, or their friends speaking of such deeds in strong language. If a man is guilty of this ^^had taste,'' it is uncharitable; if a woman, it is unfeminine. Why, Madam, would you believe it, a short time ago a young ruffian w^as tried in my county for having thi^ee successive times adminis- tered arsenic to his poor old and most indulgent father, and the third time the parricide had nearly effected his revolting crime ; the evidence against him was strong as that of Holy Writ, including the testimony of a celebrated chemist, and every one in court, beginning with the judge, thought that the wretch must pay the forfeit of his crime, when lo, the sapient jury electrified the court by bringing in VERY SUCCESSFUL. 71 a verdict of ^ NOT guilty ! ' The next day the foreman of the jury publicly declared that every one of them to a man, knew and believed the pri- soner to be guilty, but that they did not like the idea of his being hanged, and so they brought him in * NOT GUILTY ! ! ' Their benevolence being such that thev thouoht it better to let him loose upon society to accomplish the murder of his father, and God knows how many more, as it is a well authenticated fact in the statistics of crime, that poisoners always GO ON, one murder never sufficing them, for it is the dram-drinking of crime, the appetite for which ^ grows upon what it feeds.' A dark portentous sign of the times truly, when her pretended friends take advantage of the ban- dage that is over the eyes of Justice, to blunt her sword and slip false weights into her scales, so that she metes out to the victim the punishment of the culprit, and to the criaiinal the impunity of in- nocence ; but no wonder, when we have ^ gifted authors' writing disgusting manuals of crime made easy that may serve as poisonings for the million, while the cantahile with which they accompany these revolting dramas, is the abolition of the gallows. But each man is the complex god of his ow^n idolatry, and the high priest of his own altar ; and therefore, as regards hanging, They best can rail against it Who deserve it most I 72 VERY SUCCESSFUL. But I am forgetting all this time, Madam, that I asked you a question and never gave you time to answer it ; being bo exceedingly pleased with the little I have seen of you, I am naturally anxious to know the name of the lady whom I have the honor of addressing, and as many of her antecedents as she may choose to favor me with." For a moment Mrs. Pemble hesitated, looked down and coloured to her very temples, as she felt the kind but still scrutinizing glance of her com- panion fixed upon her ; but at length summoning all her coui'age to do what she knew must be done, she said — " Certainly, Sir, and even were my confidence not attracted towards you as it is, our relative positions demand that I should deal in every w^ay candidly with you ; I must, therefore, begin by making a confession, which I fear will preiudice you against me, and that is that I have hitherto sought to obtain an engagement under a feigned name." Here her auditor looked a little disconcerted, and slightly knit his brows. " But," continued she, ha\'ing noticed both the expression and the movement, " as I have — that is — as I think I may have, a firm reliance upon your honour that whether you engage me or not, you will preserve my secret inviolate, as a gentleman ; I Avill acquaint you with my real name, which -■ AVr ^-v VERY SUCCESSFUL. 73 may perhaps in some degree palliate my former subterfuge of assuming a name to which I have no right." " Stop, Madam," inteiTupted he, taking a card- case from his pocket, and as he finished speaking, handing her one of his cards, " flattered as I am by your good opinion, before you bestow your con- fidence it is but fair that you should know on whom you do so ; and as my verv^ — I suppose your ' clever ' men would call it mediocre and home — ambition has been merely to deserve to be con- sidered that untelhng, untrumpeted thing, an HONEST MAX, I believe I have tolerably well achieved my Httle aim in the world, which I tell you not so much in the way of self-praise, which is always not only an odious but a suspicious thing, as to re-assure you." ;Mrs. Pemble glanced at the card, and vdth a deeper blush than had yet suffused her face, while the tears welled up into her eyes as slie read — 74 VERY SUCCESSFUL. said, '^ Oh ! Sir, how often I have heard my father speak of you, and in what terms ! " " Your father ! pray, Madam, what is, or rather Avhat was your maiden name ? " ^' Dan vers," murmured Mrs. Pemble, covering her face with her handkerchief to stifle one or two hysterical sobs. " God bless me ! is it possible ! What, a daugh- ter, or rather the daughter of my old friend Benbow Danvers t" " Yes, he was my father, and when I tell you he never forgave my ill-fated marriage, and would not even see me on his death-bed, where I had no mother to stand between me and his anger, you may guess. Sir, that I have some reason to conceal my name." " Ah, poor Ben ! poor Ben ! that confounded obstinacy which he misnomered firmness, was his ONE fault, but it was great enough to have made half a dozen large sized ones. Yes, yes, I heard all about your marriage, and only wished I had been in England instead of India at the time, or that poor Ben had not died before my return home ; and though I have tried to find you out through every channel, to think I should never have suc- ceeded ; till lo ! this lucky turn of Providence, which we err materially \n calling chance, has at once brought about what all my efforts failed to do; for that d d flint of an uncle of yours, Mel- VERY SUCCESSFUL. 75 ville Danvers, affected to have no suspicion where you were to be found ; and as for your maternal uncle, Lord Dunnington, though I don't know him, I wrote to him, but he also was one of the know nothings ! But come, my dear child," added he, taking her hand in the kindest manner, as he seated himself beside her, " now that I have found you, let me hear your whole history from yourself." And accordingly, after a little more veiy natural emotion, Mrs. Pemble began at the beginning, and gave him her whole history since her marriaore down to Harcourt's departure for the Crimea, dwelling very slightly both upon her own sacrifices and privations, and her husband's misconduct ; for his sins had been more those of omission than of commission, as he had never personally brutalised or persecuted her ; and after all, that is the Alpha and Omega of unpardonable marital sin with most women. In conclusion she put forward the same family reasons for her assumed name that she had previously given Mr. Phlppen. For a few seconds after she had ceased speaking there was a profound silence, and Sir Gregory Kempenfelt seemed lost in thought. "Ah! sir," said Mrs. Pemble timidly, '"I fear after what I have told you, you will not take me." " Not certainly, my dear, as a governess, but as I know no one who has taken such high and 76 VERY SUCCESSFUL. honorable degrees in the most severe but best of all training schools, — that of misfortune, there is no one whom I should feel so glad to entrust my three treasures to, or so grateful for her care of them." " Oh ! only on one condition my dear Sir Gregory indeed, indeed, I cannot accept your kindness on any other, and that is, that I am their governess ; nothing more, nor nothing less." " What ! you will not consent to be the honored guest of your father's oldest friend." " No, my dear Sir Gregory, I — I — will not, that is I cannot ; for guests neither do nor can perform conscientiously and respectably the duties of a governess." *' You are right, my dear ; it shall be as you wish," said he, as if a thought had suddenly struck him, and he paused in the act of taking a pinch of snuff; ^' And besides, your incognita will be better preserved; I had nearly forgotten that; and no w^onder, for you have not yet told me either your real name or your nom de guerre." " My no7n de grammaire you should rather say ; well, m}'' governess name is Pemble, my real name Penrhyn." "Ah! yes, I remember," said Sir Gregory, touching his forehead with the fore-finger of his right hand ; " your husband was in some dragoon regiment, was he not ? " VERY SUCCESSFUL. 77 "Yes, the 14th Light Dragoons; I fear if his sennces had been longer or greater than a pro- tracted peace ever affords an opportunity, for, they would avail nought in favour of poor Harcouii: ; there appears to be such terrible mismanagement in ever}' way in the present war." " Nay, for that matter, my dear, don't you know that the present times always miraculously unite the two apparently incompatible extremes, of being the best and the worst in the world ; but really, not only is history always repeating itself in its broad outline of great events, but if any one had the patience to carefully read over the debates and foreign and domestic intelligence for the last two hundred years, he would be very apt to think that neither a man, a minister, nor a measure had been changed since then ; so exactly does the very wording of these documents even to the pasqui- nades of those times, fit and suit these ; for in- stance, I have here in my pocket-book an extract from the London Gazette, of 1790, describing the loss of ' the Royal George ' at Spithead, the very ship in which your father served as a midshipman, and in which my poor uncle. Admiral Kempenfelt, lost his very valuable life in so provoking a man- ner ; not to bore you \\ii\i the wdiole of it, just listen to the conclusion \\\i\\ the cut at the govern- ment, and the rap over the knuckles for the Lords of the Admiralty, which would do admirably for 78 VERY SUCCESSFUL. an article in ' The Times' of 1855, touching the Baltic Fleet. Here it is : — ' The loss of the Royal George must be recent in the minds of every one, and affords a dreadful instance of the un- certainty of human life. At the time she foundered in Spithead, the unfortunate Admiral Kempenfelt was shaving himself in the quarter gallery of his cabin. Many have been the conjectures on this extraordinary event, and the late Captain Martin Waghorn, who commanded her, was tried by a court martial, and most honourably acquitted. It appeared that the ship was upon the keel for the purpose of having her sides caulked and payed, when without any previous alarm she instantly went doA\Ti ! What went very much in favour of Captain Waghorn on his trial, was the following circumstance, — that at the time this devoted ship was undergoing a fasldonable repair at Plymouth, her timbers were so very rotten that a common walking cane penetrated her sides, so that there was not strength sufficient to fasten the ring-bolts. Such being (as it was) absolutely the case, it is but reasonable to apprehend that the guns on the weather side gave way, and consigned at least 800 souls to a premature grave! Humanity prompts me at this moment of my feeling to suggest the propriety of embarking at least the first Lord of the Admiralty, the Sui'veyor of the Navy, and the Master Shipwright of the King's Yard in one of VERY SUCCESSFUL. 79 these partiaUy repaired ships for the pleasure of a mouth's cruise in the Bay of Biscay. • Xauticus Junior.' " And some seven and twenty years prior to this, the news from Russia, and the speculations upon her policy touching Turkey and the Crimea, and the little reliance to be placed in her good faith as to concluding a peace with Great Britain, might be stereotyped as our Crimean news in 1855. Then again, I, as a young man, can re- member when the fever of the day was the moot point of some perverted or pervertible sentence of the King of Spain, in some knotty treaty of which the Brights and Cobdens of that day took one side, and ' the Heaven-born Minister ' ano- ther ; and then in the opposition joiu'nals we'd liave this sort of barometer paragraphs : 'Laboured dissertations have appeared in several newspapers, avowedly on the side of the ^linister. explaining and proving the exclusive right of the Spaniards to Nootka vSound, and all the coast of Xorth California. AATierefore is all this ? Quormm hrec tarn putida tendunt ? ^' ^ ^Ir. Pitt, we sincerely believe, has more spiiit as well as more sense, than to make peace with the Spaniards without some concession more marked, some sacrifice more substantial, than equivocal words in an equivocal manifesto. He vdW never 80 VERY SUCCESSFUL. expose himself to the inteq^retation that his ad- versaries would give to a mighty armament raised on the eve, nay during the time, of a general election, but dispersed re infecta on the meeting of Parliament, to the observation that all that has yet been conceded by Spain even without menaces of hostility, and above all, to the direct contrast between his own tameness and the prudent firm- ness of our ally the King of Prussia, who has obtained one million six hundred thousand pounds sterling as an indemnification for those expensive preparations by which he enforced a pacification between Austria and the Porte, and maintained the balance of Europe.' — It is true that we must now substitute Russia for Spain, our prudent ally Napoleon the Third for our potational ally the King of Prussia, and Lord Panmure for Mr. Pitt ; but au Teste you see, our paper wars at least, were always waged much after the same fashion, except that there is more strongly developed and per- fectionised intellect in one column of the Times alone in 1855, than could have been extracted from the whole periodical press at the beginning of this century. But not to take up more of your morning, which I have no doubt would be other- wise much better employed, I must now tell you about your pupils, who are, as I before told you, orphans ; — they are the children of my poor daughter ; for I, like your father, had but an only VERT SUCCESSFUL. 81 child, and though her mother died when she was bat three years old, I nevei married again ; for I never yet saw the woman whom I thought worthy of filling the place either in my heart or my home which she had filled so entirely and so admirably ? Neither am I one of those who think it indis- pensable that landed property should go in the male line, and that girls should be brought up full of artificial wants and refinements with perfectly empty pockets, so that they generally either sink, or sell themselves to supply those wants : yet on the other hand, considering the stagnant con- ventionality and the rampant ^-ice of the haute volee of Enixhsh society — an heiress is a sort of magazine of human gunpowder, running ten'ible risks from ever}^ spark that comes in her way, and generally fired at last by the match of some de- signing plotter ; however, there is but one security against such and all other contingencies, which is, to take every reasonable precaution and leave the issue to God. Being ordered with my regiment out to India in 1825, I left Linda, my daughter, in England to be educated ; and as ten years after there was no chance of my immediate return home, I had her sent out to me, and as she inherited both her mother's beauty (which had neither a fault nor an equal) and her loveable disposition, my affection and my pride were alike gratified. Far less beauty than my poor Linda possessed, goes a VOL. I. F 82 VERY SUCCESSFUL. great way in India, where admiration is plentiful and personal attractions rare, so that she soon became the reigning belle of Calcutta ; and, as you may suppose, I was more fearful than anxious that she should marry ; — not that I had the slightest ob- jection to her making the fortune as w^ell as the happiness of even an honest subaltern — provided he was honest and every way worthy of her, and a gentleman by birth ; but she did not keep me nor her numerous admirers long in suspense, for her choice soon fell upon the handsome and all- accomplished Charles Egerton, (a son of Lord George Egerton) who was then on the Governor General's staff, though he had nothing but his staff appointment; still as Linda, as the heiress of Baron's Court, had enough for both, I never thought of making that an objection; and a finer young fellow in every way it was impossible to see anywhere ; moreover exceedingly handsome, ge que ne gate rien, as the French say ; indeed, he possessed the very rare test of superiority — that of being an idol among women not preventing his unbounded po- pularity among men, under the title of "The BEST Fellow in the Woeld ! " Well, they were married, and for four years they were as happy as it is possible to be on this side the grave ; but towards the beginning of the eighth year, that skeleton, which the Italians say is in every family, left its niche to wander through their elysium and TERY SUCCESSFUL. 83 cast its cold dark shadow across their threshold; for Linda had just made the discover)', and what was even worse, Linda's father that Charles Egerton was a gambler; and the reason this discovery had not been made sooner was that he had hitherto been a successful one ; but Fortune played him false at last, and on one fatal cast he lost £50,000 ; the winner was a plodding, money-scraping, almost money- coining Anglo-East-Indian, who had come out some ten years before as a writer, without (as the story went) having five pounds in his pocket, and was then one of the richest ^Nabob's in the Presidency, and on the eve of returning to England to become an East-India Director, which he has since done and been made a baronet of besides ; as baronets, like blackberries, have been plentiful of late years. Well, this personage kindly accepted a mortgage upon Baron's Court ; in four years that mortgage must either be paid off or it will be foreclosed, and that is the reason I live entirely in the country. Poor Egerton did not blow his brains out, which is generally the last act of the tragedy of the gamester; for nature was beforehand Tvith him, by caiTying him off in a brain fever ; and that nothing might be wanting to comj^lete the drama, my poor Linda died a month after in giving birth to a son ; the little fellow who \^'ill be your third pupil, for as he is now only seven, I wish to have a little Chris- tian principle and human feeling ingrafted on hi» 84 VERY SUCCESSFUL. original nature before he goes to a public school to have Terence, Horace, Ovid, Sophocles, a'Eschylus, and other Greek and Latin immoralities and inhumanities flogged into him. His two sisters, Linda and May, are dear little things, with no organic faults of disposition, only a few superficial ones of manner and humour. Charley, too, I think, has an excellent heart, which his sisters, with their over-weening affection and giving way to him on all occasions, have done their uttermost to pervert, by tm'ning him into an embryo Turk, as his will with them is law, and the only preventative yet discovered for this by the wisdom of the maids, is in its turn making his tyranny the slave of his cowardice, for I am sorry to say he is a bit of a coward ; — an attribute he certainly does not inherit from the Kempenfelts, though he may do so fi'om the chce-box, — as his poor mother trembled at the whispering of the mnd among the leaves for several months before he was born. You must know that my signatm-e of Hunks to that advertisement in ^ The TimeSy is a punishment to Master Charley ; for having refused to give him five shillings to buy a ship fi'om the carpenter's boy ; he for three days called me an ' Old Hunks ; ' I told him if he said that again I would advertise for a governess for him and his sisters under the signature of ^ Hunks ;' at first he laughed and thought this a capital joke, but when he found it converted into ' a great fact, ' VERY SUCCESSFUL. 85 and actually read it in print, he got into a dreadful state, as, from what I could make out through his sobs, it appears that his idee fixe is that nothing less than an ogress could reply to an advertisement signed ' Hunks.' " " Poor little fellow," said Mrs. Pemble, a smile on her lip, but the tears, which had gathered as • she listened to the account of the ill-fated parents of these poor children, still trembling in her eyes. " But,'' resumed Sir Gregory Kempenfelt, " I have not yet given you the whole of the dramatis personce of Baron's Court, for though I am a single man I am not exactly \\-ithout incum- brances, for I have a maiden sister living with me ; which, indeed, I should be very glad of if one could only induce her to put her temper out, instead of which, unfortunately, the least thing puts her out, so that she has nothing of charity but her name, which has long since distanced faith and hope — at least of any amendment ; and what I fear is, that this moral Chili Ainegar of their aimt Charity's may have a pernicious effect upon the tempers of May and Linda." " I don't know," said Mrs. Pemble ; " I think glaring defects or ^-ices, which affect, or rather militate against the happiness of others, if properly managed as warnings, serve as mithridates against their ovra poison." " To a certain extent perhaps they do, but like the constant dropping of water on a stone, there is 86 VERY SUCCESSFUL. a fretting influence in ceaseless ill-temper that will at last wear through the most adamantine patience. But enough of the bane ; now let us think of the antidote. So when, my dear IMrs. Pemble, — since ^Irs. Pemble you are to be — can you conveniently come down to Baron's Court ? wiiich, by the bye, I forgot to tell you is in Flintshire, Mold being the post town. Would next Thursday be too soon for you ? as that is the day I return home, and as the journey even by the express train is rather a long one, I could (should that day suit you) have the pleasure of escorting you." "You are very kind; Thursday will suit me perfectly, for as my poor Harcourt used to say, one of the advantages of having nothing, or perhaps the only advantage of that unincumbered estate is, that one is always in marching order. So, as I suppose you will go by the nine o'clock morning train, I will be at Euston Square a quarter before 5 and now, my dear Sir Gregor}^, before I wish you good morning, allow me to say what sincere pleasure this unexpected, nay quite romantic meeting with my father's oldest and best friend has given me ; as his praises, I learnt almost with my creed, as a child. As for my gratitude for your most kind reception even before you knew who I was, the best way in which I can evince that will be by my unremitting devotion to your dear little grand-children." " Come, come, my dear," said he, with a smile VERY SUCCESSFUL. 87 to hide the emotion that trembled iii his voice, " You and I shall quarrel if you begin by talking of gratitude and those odious debtor and creditor benevolences which English people call " claims ; " we have all claims, or ought to have upon one another, if we call ourselves Christians ; the same claim that he ^' who fell among thieves " had upon the way-faring Samaritan." Mary Penrhyn's heart had risen to her throat ; so she could only press this fine old English gen- tleman's hand in silence, as she moved towards the door. " Will you not allow me to see you home in a cab ? Chelsea is a long way from this, and I don't like the idea of your going alone in an omnibus." " No, my dear Sir Gregory, many thanks ; but you had better not for my sake ; for all the world don't know that I have so suddenly and strangely had the good fortune to find in you one of my father's oldest fiiends ; and the people of this coffee-house do know that I came here to be hii-ed as a governess ; and as persons in your sphere of life, and still less in inferior ones, are not generally so considerate and well-bred to those poor edu- cational pack-horses, your doing so might have an equivocal appearance." " You are right my dear, and I both accept and respect your objection, for decidedly in a woman discretion is the wisest part of virtue ; but — but'' — 88 VERY SUCCESSFUL. (and here this veteran hero of a thousand fights coloured like a young girl, as he took her hand and pressed within it a £20 note) '^you remind me that I must begin and practise how to treat my friend Ben Danvers's daughter as my governess ! and I liave always found that in hurrying my governess off at a moment's notice, as I have done you, that they — that I — in short — that the engage- ment was not considered binding without a trifling advance of salary ; — ha ! ha ! ha ! you see I'm quite au fait to the ^wswess part of the transaction." '^ Perhaps so, my dear, kind Sir Gregory, for I should think acts of kindness had been the business of your life ; but, indeed, I am in no want of your present thoughtful generosity ; if I were, it would be a pleasure and a privilege to be indebted to your '^ Well, it's very odd I" said he, with one of his •oyous smiles, as, too delicately well-bred to force it on her acceptance he replaced the note in his waistcoat pocket, ' ' it's very odd ! but whenever I have received my pay at Cox and Greenwood's, though, 'egad, I have often overdra^\ai my account, I have never once thought of making them such a pretty speech on the occasion as you have just made me, — ^but never too old to learn, — so I have no doubt that /, as well as the children, shall improve in time. Waiter ! shew this lady out ; — good morning, Madam," added he, with a profound VERY SUCCESSFUL. 89 bow, as he held the door open for ^' the governess " to pass. A young poet of the present day has eloquently and truly said — " "STherever there is beauty There's a temple and a creed." And what so beautiful as the incense of spon- taneous prayer, rising from the living altar of a grateful heart to the uncreated light of God's Eternal Throne ; and had she been kneeling in the most crorcreous fane ever erected by human hands, Mary Penrhyn could not have prayed more fer- vently than she did for some seconds, as she hurried along that densely crowded, bustling-thoroughfare, nor have evoked sublimer vistas of the staiTy home of ransomed spirits, than she did through that smoky sky above her. " For heaven reveals great mysteries To truthful hearts and loving eyes ; To them each providence is clear, Old things are new, the distant near, The crooked straight, the darkest bright : They walk by faith, and not by sight." and it was not till she was rudely jostled by a porter carrying an immense round hamper on his head, that she was recalled to earth ; and then her joy, like all those flowers of paradise, which never can take deep root here below, began to be shaded off with a tinrre of ref^ret. as she thoufrht of the 90 VERY SUCCESSFUL. poor drudge, Sarah Nash, in that gloomy house in Church Street, who had been so kind to her when she had no one else to be so ! — and that poor old Mr. Phippen, too, who had lent her the paper, and, above all, who had promised, if ever an oppor- tunity should occur, to be of any service he could to Harcourt. She almost wished she' could have taken them both with her, for it seemed actually ungrateful to go away and leave them in that gloomy house. For Sarah she could indeed buy a dress as a little memento of her gratitude, and she determined that it should be the very best French Merino that could be got ; as, though poor Sarah had a silken heart, she did not think, though used to much dirty work, that as she was not a barrister, a silk gown would be either profitable or becoming to her. But Mr. Phippen — what could she give him ? She could not afford anything very costly ; and if she could, he w^as no dandy to be chained and ringed, or studded like a winter sky of ^ frosty night. Aye, "there was the rub!" and \\ath this last thought pocket-handkerchiefs naturally' suggested themselves; and so she decided upon getting him half-a-dozen voluminous Indian-silk ones and hemming them for him herself, in order to make that the excuse for so trifling a gift ; and, having come to this important decision, she entered a shop in Fleet Street where we shall leave her to select her purchases ; and will, with the reader's VERY SUCCESSFUL. 91 permission, not being particularly fond of that locale, take a short stroll in a pleasanter part of the town ; and, like Bruce, go in quest, not exactly of the source of the Nile, but of the Penrhyns ; happy that, for once in her life at least, poor Mary Penrhyn had been very successful ! CHAPTER V. Oh! mystery of Man, from what a depth Proceed thine honours !" N a fair suburb of the Modem Babylon, far west (where palaces rise on the one hand facing the verdant splendours of patriar- chal trees on the other, whose regal branches, like sylvan kings, have bowed gracefully to all the beauties of the metro- polis for the last three centuries, and whose branches, like a complex protocol, have diverted the intente cordials of our somewhat uncertain sun from their complexions), might be distinguished one goodly edifice in particular, for it was even more vast than its neighbours, and the exotics that filled its large stone balconies like the hanging gardens of Ancient Babylon, embalmed the whole atmos- VERY SUCCESSFUL. 93 phere of the causeway ; so that pedestrian Cockneys plodding their way, Notting-hill-ward, without any great stretch of imagination, might fancy that the countr}' had kindly come up to town to meet them, and escort them " a bit of the way." Over the portico of tliis great house were emblazoned some right royally supported arms surmounted by an Earl's coronet, whose stone strawberry leaves had a very imposing effect : and doubtless it is because anything in tl e shape of rank always imposes so much upon English people, that the Enghsh (who are too generous to allow themselves to be out-done) return the compliment, and always impose so much upon anything in the shape of rank. But although the house in question belonged to a peer — in fact to my Lord Dunnington — yet it was not (at this time) occupied by its owner, ha\ang been let by him, or rather by his agent, to a milhonnaire Lancashire Baronet, a Sir Titaniferous Thompson ; but greatness, even when greatly housed, cannot be despatched at the fag end of a paragraph, but demands, and therefore should obtain, a chapter to itself, setting forth its birth, parentage, and educa- tion, and unravelling its origin, which, like that of evil, is often ven^ small. CHAPTER VI. -Altmatee. — "Cotton, cotton, some cotton here." Birch' $ Translation of Faust. HE by no means common or every day cognomen of "Titani- ferous" had been be- stowed upon its present illustrious o\\Tier on his entrance into the Thompson's family by his maternal uncle, a chemist, and one of the fifteen Aldermen of Manchester, who struck with the coppery hue of his nephew's complexion on his first arrival, had suggested this scientific and symbolical name which continued to be equally appropriate to this prosperous scion of the house of Thompson through all the progressive ascensions of his golden career. A small, a very small tenement on the banks of the Irk had been the sphere in which this VERT SUCCESSFUL. 95 great luminary had risen, and although his mother had been an heiress in possession of five whole HUXDRED POUNDS ! and more-over sister to Alder- man Penrhyn the chemist, and niece to Mr. Perkins Penrhyn the great brewer, the alderman's uncle, yet it was the old storv' of " all for love, OR the world well lost." So she had made a mesalliance and married Eichard Thompson, work- ing at the mills, while her 3^ounger sister, ^IIss Dora Penrh}Ti, was not alone the beauty of the family, but, contrary to that usual fatality, was also the fortunate one, and held her head so high that she was not only engaged to be married to the eldest son of the chief mill o^^^ler, where Richard Thomp- son worked, but had eventually an opportunity of jilting him for the liberal member for Manchester ; and as virtue generally is rewarded in this world — at least the wtue of self-interest — she ultimately became the Honorable ^Irs. Palmytongue Andover, and consequently the great lady of the family. Xevertheless, despite all this growing grandem' of the Penrh\Tis, her brother the alder- man did not entirely abandon Mrs. Eichard Thomp- son, but limited his displeasure to the preparation of a sort of perpetual blister, by which he made her upon all occasions feel and fruitlessly lament the foolish step she had taken ; for, sooth to say, Eichard Thompson was an ill-disposed, reckless, dissolute man, whose brain was quite turned by Q'iy VERY SUCCESSFUL. the fortune he had married ; and he, therefore, pre- ferred any Jennies to spinning-jennies. Nor did the birth of a little girl, about a year after his marriage, either sober him or soften the Penrhyn family towards his \\dfe ; for except in the Celestial Empire no where is the advent of inferior animals, to wit, a female human being of less account than in the British Empire. So that Mrs. Thompson had her little Janet all to herself; the mother could weep and the child cry at their ease — and who should gainsay them? And in that same, there is a comfort ; for as for sympathy, " Good lack," as Mr. Samuel Pepys was wont to exclaim, that is a phase of the ideal which few succeed in obtaining; whereas, sorrow is the work-a-day REALITY of most livcs, and it is something to have uninterrupted time to do one's work;" and this luxury Mrs. Thompson and her little future drudge enjoyed to the fullest extent. But the case was altered when, three years later, a HE Thompson was born into the world ; for it occasioned what astronomers term an heliecal rising in the house of Penrhyn. Mrs. Alderman Penrhyn, as she called herself, and as her " select circle " called her, hav- ing the same evening presented her liege lord also with a small scarlet screaming machine; whose arrival, however, had not been expected for fall two months later, as, in fact, it was a seven months child. The Alderman was naturally a little flurried VERY SUCCESSFUL. 97 at the event, for though confinements are nothing in estabhshments that are used to them, yet such ^vas not the case in the Penrhyn family, in which, for three generations the census had never exceeded an only son and t\YO daughters ; and doubtless it was this statute of limitation which had caused them to set so high a value upon what each gentle- man, in his own person, knew to be a rarity. No wonder then, that, notwithstanding he bore the fifteenth segment of the import axce of 3L\x- CHESTER Atlas-wise on his own shoulders, the alderman should feel somewdiat taken a-back at this sudden and unexpected arrival of, perhaps, a future ornament to the corporation, more especially as the Honorable Palmytongue Andover, not at that time married to Miss Dora Penrh^Ti, had promised to stand sponsor to this Penrin-nian olive- branch, or cotton-cone, as the aforesaid Palmy- tongue was wont irreverently to designate his im- pending god-child, when safe beyond the banks of the Irk and all its irksome trammels, and within the purlieus of St. James's. " Oh, Sir ! ^Ir. Haldemian Penrhyn, sh' ! your ^ lady* was took't bad, and afore hever I could hinform you of the awrspicious ewent, or send for the doctor, she 'ave persented you with the beauti- fullest babby as hever I see, thof it have come into this here wale of tears by the short cut of a seven months tower, has the nobility hand gentry VOL, I. G 98 VERY SUCCI^SSFUL. of tlie metroplus calls their travels ; hand what's more, ]\Ir. Penrlmi, Sir, hit's a son hand hair, and the very moral of yourself; for Penrhyn his printed hon every f eater has plain hand hindellible as HoiTocks hand Miller his on the fag hends of the best white cotton goods." This volley burst upon the alderman, as he was carefully spelling over the evening papers, from the volmninous and voluble Mrs. Flinks, the London monthly nurse who had come all the way from Whitechapel five months before (that is from the first moment the " awrspicious ewenf could with any probability be anticipated^ to sustain by her skill, and solace by her society the alderman's lady^ as the commercial phrase for wife runs. " Bless me, Flinks, you don't say so," cried Mr. Alderman Penrhyn, starting to his feet .as perpen- dicularly as if he had been galvanised, and flinging down the journal that had heretofore so exclusively engrossed his attention ; for what were even politics, compared to paternity at such a moment. This announcement had been made in the little back- parlour at the rear of the shop, in the very midst of the storming of Seringapatam, and indeed the hurried entrance of Mrs. Flinks not only made all the China bowls and Nankin cups in the semi- circular glass and mahogany closet or buffet rattle as if tMy also were besieged, but the decanter of port and its satellite glasses, that were ranged on VEEY SUCCESSFUL. 99 the table before the alderman, rincr to that decree that for a few seconds their contents rather ap- peared to be grape shot than grape juice. " Lawr, bless you, Mr. Penrhyn, sir," exclaimed Mrs. Flinks, in a preventive-service tone of au- thority, as she eyed with the glance of a connoisseur the port on the table in which the bees-wing in- ^dtingly fluttered, while at the same time she caught the vanishing alderman by the tails of his coat, " Pray, be careful not to fluster your lady, by yom* too-sudden hand permiscus happearance afore her hat this 'ere criticallest time, hand arter hall she haive a gone through for your sake, and that hof the noble hand 'spectable Penrhpi family hand though ^eaven forbid has /, \-irriet Flinks should hever go for to dispute has you was master, Mr. Penrhyn, su', bin your hown 'ouse, yet you will please remember that lion this hoccasion / must be missus hof hall that relates to hupstairs, heven hof your missus — hexcuse my familarity — of your dear lady, I should say, hand the little stranger ; 'Eaven bless them both, hand their dear 'usban hand par, who I 'ope wo'nt be no stranger to many more sich awrspicious ewents ; but pray, take a little wine hand hendeavour to suhjue your feelings — honorable has they hare to your present critical circumstances — afore you rushes huncalled hinto the presence of your lady hand the hinno- cent babe." 100 VERY SUCCESi^FUL. Clearing liis throat, as if at a corporation dinner, the alderman not only took this advice, but also the hint ; and pouring out a bumper of port for Mrs. Flinks, and another for himself, gave — if not ^vith equal dignity, at all events with more sin- cerity, the health of his wife and son, than that with w^hich he was wont to propose prosperity to Church and State at civic feeds. " A sentiment, ^Ir. Penrhyn, sir, which 'Arriet Flinks his proud and 'appy to respond to, and many hof them." " What ! wives as well as sons, Mrs. Flinks ?" chuckled the Alderman, as he replenished that po- tentate's glass as well as his own. " Well, to be sure, you hare the pleasantest, facetiousest gent has hever was, but I never holds with 'usbans a taking hadwantage of their ladies' 'elpless sittiations to hindulge in they sort hof pro- fligate bigamy kind of jokes like ; I don't hendeed, you may bleeve me Mr. Penrhyn, sir, cause hof course wives 'as their feelings, whether they knows it or not, and likewise sich should be considered, whether has habsent friends hor present company, which has you know his halways hexcepted, so no hoflfence, but you'll hexcuse me, sir, for being so plain spoken, has Mother and Little Stranger afore hall, his 'Arriet Flinks' s motter.''^ Alderman Penrhyn had scarcely greeted his heir, and congratulated Mrs. P on "that VERY SUCCESSFUL. 101 great," or rather, for the present, extremely small " fact" of his Majesty George the Third being a subject the richer, when he was summoned from the snug room in which he was expanding as a hus- band and buddincp as a father, bv the announce- ment that Sally Cleaver was below, entreating for the love of Heaven, that he would come with- out delay to Mrs. Thompson, who was not expected to live ; the said Sarah Cleaver humbly setting forth that she had made a voyage of discovery through every public-house in Manchester in quest of Richard Thompson, before she had taken the liberty of intruding upon the Alderman at such an hour ; but these voyages, like those to the North Pole, having produced no satisfactory result, she had come to report her failm-e at head-quarters, and solicit further assistance. Alderman Penrhyn was a little pompous and a little proud, but he was not a bad-hearted man ; indeed, few aldermen are, for the rich \'iands and generous wines that distend into anti-Apolline physical disproportions the contour of their figures, we firmlv believe at the same time expand and mollify their hearts, so that by imbibing the turtle they also partake of the dove ; not, however, that they are the more easily pigeoned on that account. -Now, Alderman Pen- rhyn was one of those ancient Britons who pa- tronised powder and persisted in a pig-tail, and the contrast of the snow}* powder against his ru- 102 VERY SUCCESSFUL. bicuncl, not to say purple, face, gave him tliat sort of zoophite a])pearance which might have made a tongue and turnips, smoking on his own hospitable board, pass for a striking likeness of him. He was, of course, overflowing with shirt frill; ge- nerally wore a white waistcoat, in the right pocket of which was a silver snuff-box, a thick gold chain, to which were appended from his fob like a jack- chain and weights, three huge seals, while the balance of power was maintained by an equally Patagonian gold watch within the gulf of his pep- per and salt onlv-to-be-hinted-ats, which were composed of an elastic web called, during the Pen- insular war, Heaven and the tailors only knew why, " Emanuels ;" this fabric was of so vigorous, not to say tough a constitution, that no amount or length of service could take the shine out of it; on the contrary, the longer these garments were worn the more they shone, especially at the knees. They buttoned tightly at the ankles, but this could only have been discovered when the Alderman indulged in the otium cum dignitate of dressing-gown and slippers ; for upon all the ordinary and set oc- casions of life he sported Hessians, and now their silken tassels, and the clinking gold of his great watch-seals received the sudden impetus of an im- patient jerk as tlieir wearer uncrossed his legs, upon Mrs. Flinks's communicating in her most official manner, that '^ a pusson of the name of Cleaver VERY SUCCESSFUL. 103 was below, and would not have tooJd the Hberty of calling at sich an hour, but that one ^Irs. Thomp- son was dying, and her good-for-nothink ^ushan was not to be found no where." " Dying I — bless me ! — you don't say so '? — poor thing ! — poor Anne ! My dear," turning to his wife, "you'll excuse me for leaving you, but I can't let poor Anne die down there all by herself" " Certainly not, Mr. Penrhyn," acquiesced a feeble voice from the bed, " and do say, if there is anything she wants she shall have it ; Mrs. Flinks had better give you a parcel of babv's clothes to take to her, for he has plenty ; and I dare say poor Anne has hardly anything to cover the poor child." " Thank you, Fanny my dear, you always were a good, kind creature — none better," said the alderman, as he imprinted a kiss on his wife's forehead; and while Mrs. Flinks made up the packet of baby-clothes, he slipped a bottle of brandy into his pocket, which caused that shrewd obsen'er, Mrs. Flinks, to say, as soon as the door had closed upon honest Samuel Penrhyn, while she performed the dramatic little pantomime of wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron — " Well ! it's beautiful, to be sure, to see a gentleman hand his lady both a helping hon a feller-creeter hin distress, by what they heach feels, 104 VERY SUCCESSFUL. liaccorcling to their hown iiaturs, that feller-creeter most wants ! " Upon going down stairs, Samuel Penrhyn found Sally Cleaver, a gaunt, bony, miserable woman, all angles, and arteries swollen like cords, though certainly not with blood ; for the little there Avas in her body seemed to have got up a revolution, flown in her face, and established a provisional government at the tip of her nose and round the rims of her eyes. On her head she wore, in guise of bonnet, one of those old brown-black cotton crow's nests, peculiar to washerwomen and char- women, but wore it in a manner the very antipodes of the present fashion, as it kicked up behind as if it had fallen suddenly into a fit, descending per- pendicularly in front over her forehead and nose like a lightning conductor. Her dress was of purple cotton, with white spots on it, very short, so that it fully displayed — either as a warning or an example, as the spectator chose to take it — a pair of very thiciv-soled black leather boots, laced up the front some inches above the ankle. Over this gown (not so much to preserve it immaculate as to conceal the spots, of every possible origin — from tea to tallow, and from beer to butter — with which it was already polluted) she wore a clean check apron, tied nearly under the arms of her very short, broad, and curiously flat waist ; while across her shoulders was one of those mule • VERY SUCCESSFUL. 105 draperies that are neither kerchief nor shawl, being too large for the former and too small for the latter, while its texture was equally mongrel, as it was impossible to decide which predominated in its fabric — worsted or cotton; and as for its hues of dingy crimson contending with yellow green, they made it look like a panoramic travesty of the feuds of the Guelphs and Ghibbelines, with a dramatis person^e of turnip and mangel-wurzel tops ; and in this scanty gannent she was vainly endeavouring to wrap, or rather roll, her poor, thin, bare arms. Her '^ local habitation " was on the bank of the Irk, in a small and much-dilapidated hovel, next door to ]Mi's. Thompson. Her name, as we are already aware, was Sally Cleaver; her occupation — when she could get one — was to take in washing or to go out '' charing ; " and her pleasure was — to render to her equally miserable neighbours any of those little innumerable good offices in which the poor excel ; for in such matters it is indeed the " fellow feeling " that makes them ''wondrous kind;" and there was not in all Lancashire a more skilful hand at speeding a parting soul or hushing the wailings of a recently- arrived one, alias laying out the cold clay of an emancipated spirit, or receiving into this still colder world a newly-imprisoned one ; and in the absence of the nowhere-to-be-found ^Irs. Grigg, the official lady in that department, she had just rendered her 106 VERY SUCCESSFUL. services to Mrs. Thompson, and afterwards made lier fruitless voyage of discovery in quest of Mr. Thompson, as before narrated, whose bachelor bacchanals were a disgrace to the guild of Pater- familii to which he now belonged. The alderman only stopped in the narrow passage called " the hall," to take down his hat and great coat, and into the latter he was still inducting himself, and hastily buttoning it as he went, when he opened the door leading into the shop where Sally Cleaver was standing, actually forgetting to shiver, as she basked in the splendours of the oil lamps (for then gas was not), and looked from them, to the pm'ple, ruby, and amber jars of coloured waters in the window, with almost as much admiration, if not with as much wonder, as Aladdin may have done when he w^as transported into the enchanted garden, whose flowers and fruits were all of precious stones glittering with diamond dew-drops; but no sooner did the alderman appear than she quitted these imaginary wanderings to concentrate all her identity into the realization of bobbing her very lowest and most reverential curtsey. Now, as the peculiarities of Royalty, like those of Genius, ne tirent pas a consequence^ they may be safely indulged in ; for though Lord Byron lay in bed all day, wooed cataiThs by wearing his gills turned down, and eschewed limited liabilities as regarded brandy and soda water, and many VERY SUCCESSFUL. 107 young gentlemen have therefore since done the same, yet it has not followed on that account that the world is a poet the richer, though it may have acquired a fool the more ; and with regard to more modern instances, though an equal nmnber of young would-be geniuses may have driven their friends and relations nearly into Bedlam by their inveterately slovenly and desultory habits, and have smoked themselves into ambulating chimneys, there is no evidence that they have even maudled up to "Maud," or elicited a single puff, beyond the self- sufficing ones of their own cigars or meerschaums ; and so, in like manner, though Alderman Penrhyn affected boiled mutton, and even wondered at second hand how the apples were got into a dumpling, and said "^liat? ■\Aliat? What?" unsparingly to his inferiors, yet nothing could be farther from that loyal and worthy subject's inten- tion (even theoretically) than to usurp the crown of His Majesty George the Third, much less in any way to endanger the Hanoverian Succession, therefore it was without the shghest taint of regici- dical or revolution aiy armere pensees, as he tied a shawl round his neck, and further secured his hat against any unwarrantable escapade by tying it down more safely than becomingly with a red silk pocket handherchief, that he addressed the following queries to Sally Cleaver : — " Eh ! — What ? ^Miat ? What ? — Mi-s. 108 VERY .SUCCESSFUL. Thompson so ill? — in labour, I suppose? — when was she taken ill ? " "Xoj Sir, she baint in labour now, for the hobby's born, but she be like to die from Aveakness, poor soul, and there aint never a single thing to give her ; and afore I'd trouble your worship I've a bin to every public-house in Manchester looking for that good-for-nothing Richard Thompson, and he aint to be found nowhere." And with this, after having rubbed the back of her right hand hastily across her nose, she pro- ceeded to re-light the two inches of tallow candle, in a horn lantern which she carried, which, with the sleepless and homoepathic economy of the poovy she had blown out on her arrival. But whether it was that the alderman entertained a morbidly marital aversion to the material of which this lantern w^as composed, or that he had literal ideas about letting " his light shine before men," is too analytic a matter to decide upon positively ; but certain it is that he waived Sally Cleaver's dim receptacle for hei^ small light aside with great dignity, and turning to the young man behind the counter, said — " Eh !— No !— What ? What? What? My good woman, don't trouble yourself; Fairfax, light me my lantern ! " And Fairfax accordingly produced from under the counter a splendid plate-glass octagon, con- VEEY SUCCESSFUL. 109 tainlng within, four pieces of wax lights of a goodly lenorth, the outside of which lantern was surmounted by a sort of perforated scalloped Japan circle, ha^^ng much the appearance of a mural crown. When the illumination was completed within it, Sally Cleaver's usual humility attained a culmi- nating point, for rolling her apron which was clean, round her hand, she dropped an involuntary' curtsey to its splendours, as she received it from the hand of the grinning Fan-fax, and said — ^* I hain't 'most fit to carry such a grand un as this." However, with all due reverence, she preceded the alderman, almost backwards, so side-long was her movement, as she held this (to her) Koh-i-noor or Mountain of Light before him, that he might not make a false step over his own threshold. It was one of those dark, gusty nights in !March, when winter, like a t^Tant whose reign is dra^-in^j to a close, seems to double the severity of its edicts, and the wind, as if annoyed at the impotence of its fury, in not being able to dislodge the stars from the firmament, appears determined, at all events, to shake them in their orbits, as, from their tremu- lous motion, they look as if they were blowTi about in the lurid sky, and knew not in which cloud they should take shelter against the loud ra™gs of the hurricane. "Bless me, what a night I'' shivered the alderman, 110 VERY SUCCESSFUL. as one big round drop of rain, aimed by a whirl- wind, descended with sufficient force upon the tid of his nose to have put it out, had the fire in it been real instead of only apparent. '^ Ahem ! I suppose," continued he, with an accent in which contempt was happily blended w^ith conscious superiority as well as the wind would permit the inflection of the tone to be heard — "I suppose it's another girl ^Ii's. Thompson has got ?" " No, Sir, it be a son ; but I never see such a queer-looking babby as it be ; it ain't like nothing as ever I see afore." '^Pooh!" rejoined Samuel Penrhyn, deciding the matter with a sort of paterfamilias extensive knowledge of the subject, '^ all babies are like half- boiled lobsters." ^' Oh ! it hain't that. Sir, for that's naitrel to them poor little dears ; but this here babby of Mrs. Thompson's is, for all the world, the color of strong beer." " Ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! " grunted the alderman, as a compromise between a laugh and a sneer, '^ that's out of compliment to his grand-uncle, Perkins, I suppose, so I hope he won't think small beer of him, but will do something for him." At length, after about a quarter of an hour's rapid w^alking under great stress of weather, so that the alderman with his substantial habiliments, and poor Sally Cleaver, with Iier tliread paper figure VERY SUCCESSFUL. Ill and garments, and the four wax-llglits in the gor- geous lantern, had great difficulty in weathering the stonn ; they all seven arrived at the miserable hovel on the banks of the Irk, which poor Anne Thomp- son conventionally called her '^ home.'^ Sally Cleaver pressed down the latch of the old black door, which was divided in the centre so as to fonn a gate at the basement part, where, when bolted from within, the children could lean over of a summer's evening, and learn by instalments that there was such a thing as a blue sky above this murky earth, while their mother received enough of its light into her hovel to dnidge by. " Be careful, Sir, if you please," whispered Sally Cleaver, holding do^A^l the lantern, " for there's a step as goes do^^^l here," and so saying, with her left hand and shoulder^ she held back both gate and door as wide as they would go to give ingress to Samuel Penrhyn's portly dimensions; after which, as soon as she had fastened the door, she carefully placed the " wonderful lamp" — -vulgo lantern — on a long deal table that stood under the window, the said lantem causing a perfect and most unusual illumination, and displaying all that was to be seen, namely — a large Bible and Prayer- book, in green baize covers, on another table under an opposite window, four whitewashed walls, four low-seated, high-backed, rush-bottomed chairs, a large old-fashioned cliimney, on the stone hearth 112 VERY SUCCESSFUL. V ■ of which were two small iron clogs, w^hich com- pressed rather than supported the little fabric of fuel that was built up between them, composed of a mosaic of refuse pieces of coal, wood, peat, wal- nut shells, and any other ignitable materials, well imbedded in long accumulated ashes ; over this consumptive fire was suspended a black kettle to an iron hook, whose feeble attempt to sing under difficulties was more like a parody upon the faint mewing of a hungry kitten than the sociable getting up of its steam for a tea-party. Underneath the suspended kettle, in the front of the fire was a flat iron, and on one side was a small saucepan containing some oatmeal and water, which on the shortest notice had kindly consented to act the part of srnel. Within this wide hearth on each side of it, were two walnut tree benches, worn perfectly smooth and dark in the course of years, and at the foot of one was a little three-legged child's stool, upon which for the time being was curled, neither wdiolly asleep nor yet quite awake, a very respectable staid-looking, but by no means too corpulent tortoiseshell cat, of the name of Fudge, who seemed to be philosophically apathetic concerning all things — milk and mice excepted — but if he had a decided opinion it was probably of the wholesale nature of Leo the Tenth's as to what a very little wisdom is necessary for govern- ing this world. The high chimney-piece itself was VERY SUCCESSFUL. 113 totally devoid of all the pauper knick-knackery of strung birds' eggs, peacocks' feathers, bottle-shaped gourds and shell castles, with a happy couple made out of the surplus of the building materials ; in lieu of which cottage objects of veriu were two or three long clay pipes, a blue jar containing shag tobacco, a tinder box, and a small brass pestle and mortar ; and in truth the only attempt at ornament in the place was a large nettle plant in each win- dow trained on a sort of fan-shaped espalier, for a much-diminished flitch of bacon in the rafter, flanked by two old newspaper bags fidl of dried herbs, came more under the head of the useful than the ornamental. Beyond this l-dtchen, as it might be called, was an inner room, before the door of which, running on a piece of tape, was a red and white check curtain, to keep out the draught, for in that room lay Anne Thompson with her new-bom son, w^ho already seemed to have found out the real secret of getting on in the world, which consists in making use of every one indiscriminately ; for his mother being unavailable at the time, he had immediately accepted the kind offices of another charitable neighbour, who had come in to play the good Samaritan, while Sally Cleaver had gone in quest of the master of the house among publicans and sinners. " Anne, my dear, it's me — your brother Sam," said the alderman, approaching the bed gently. VOL. I. H 114 VEllY SUCCESSFUL, Anne opened her eyes for a moment, and her lips moved, but no sound issued from them. " What? what? what? Have you no such thing as a spoon here? Get me a spoon," said he, looking from one to the other of the two women ; "a teaspoon will do." And accordingly a teaspoon was brought, and taking the bottle of brandy from his pocket, he poured some into it, and got it between his sister's lips, further saturating the corner of a handkerchief with some, and holding it to her nose, which appeared to revive her, and at the end of a quarter of an liour she was able to speak and thank her brother for his kindness. " Don't speak, my dear, it's not I w ho am kind, but Fanny, for she has sent you some baby-linen ; perhaps you are not aware that, quite unexpectedly, she this evening presented me with a SON ! The latter was the only word that the alderman uttered aloud ; but that w as of too much importance to be mumbled sotto voce, though it was no sooner uttered, with all the sonorousness that it deserved, than he returned to the ohligato pianissimo of a sick room, as he added — "And though two months before we expected him (he would not have said it for the world), he really could not be finer were he an eighteen months' cliild ! Now^, my dear, let me see your's ! " Whereupon Mrs. Wolfe, the charitable neigh- bour, produced the Thompsonian Romulus, to whom she had become purveyor. VERY SrCCES>iFUL. 115 " Bless my soul ! " was the uncle's only excla- mation — when he beheld the coppery hue of his nephew's complexion,^ns liands involuntarily flying behind his back as if with a spring, to keep them out of harm's way, lest there should be contagion in the touch. The mother being in doubt whether this excla- mation was one of admiration or surprise, or both, rallied so far as to say, " It is more than I either expect or desen^e ; but if you would, Samuel, be godfather to my poor child, I should die happy." " Eh ! what ? what ? what ? my dear Anne, don't talk about dying ; well, well, if it is any comfort to you, I will be godfather to it ; *' — and here the alderman felt the neuter gender was peculiarly appropriate, for as he himself said aftenvards, in confidence to his %\'ife, he should as soon have thought of bestowing a sex on six 'penvHorth of half- pence ! However, Mrs. Thompson did not die that time, but lived to struggle through many a hard day ; while Samuel Penrhyn, after that ten- derness of feeling which the prospect of his sister's death occasioned had subsided, resolved at all events to have his joke for his condescension ; and therefore, at one and the same time, astonished the curate and displayed his o^vn science by bestowing on his nephew at the baptismal font the very outlandish, not to say heathenish, christian name of Titaniferous ! Meanwhile hb own son was, at 116 VERY SUCCESSFUL. an almost co-equal period, christened by the rector, with great pomp, by the more aristocratic name of Andover, the Hon. Palmytongue standing sponsor in person ; and it was then and there that he met with that shockino; accident of fallino; in love with Miss Dora ; and, clever as he was at electioneering, he found that in that quarter no bribery was sufficient to produce corruption, and that the only way to secure her vote and interest for his election as her declared admirer w^as by making her Mrs. Andover ! Well, there was nothing for it but to make the best of it, and of course cut Manchester, in a Parliamentary point of \aew^, and set up for some other place, where only his wife's beauty would be seen, and her antecedents ignored. It was never clearly ascertained whether her jilted lover, the son of the great mill-owner, had committed suicide or not, but what - was quite certain was, that from the day she became The Honble. Mrs. Andover he never was seen or heard of more in Manchester, which did not, however, prevent the bells ringing out merrily upon that joyous occasion, or Mr. Perkins Penrhyn, her bachelor uncle, the great brewer, from coming most unexpectedly doAMi with a pretty little contribution to her trousseau of £30,000, of which she generously sent £10 to her sister, Mrs. Thompson, with a short letter saying that, as she had so disgraced herself and her whole family by her marriage, she VERY SUCCESSFUL. 117 must beg that she would never intrude upon her, as she should die if ever Mr. Andover discovered that she had a sister in such a sphere of life I It appeared that the star of the Penrhyns was in the ascendant, for six months after the marriage of ]Miss Dora, Perkins Penrhpi died, lea^-ing the whole of his property, amounting to £150,000, to his nephew Samuel, on condition that he gave up his shop and continued the brewery — a proviso of which the latter only too gladly availed himself, and in the flush of his fortunes munificently allowed his sister Anne £20 a year, making her husband's worthlessness a plausible pretext for not giving her more, but promising that if Titaniferous turned out well he mio^ht eventuallv do somethino- for liim. " The first most notable and universal distinction of men," saith a quaint old wTiter, whose ortho- graphy we will take the liberty of modernising, " which concemeth the soul, and body, and whole essence of man is taken and drawn from the divers sites of the world, according to which the aspect and influences of heaven, and the sun, the air, the chmate, the country are divers ; so likewise not only the color, the feature, the complexion, the counte- nance, the manners are divers, but also the faculties of the soul — plaga cceli non solum ad rohur corpo- rum sed animorum facit. Atlienis temie ccelum, ex quo etiam acutiores Attici; Crassum Thehis, ideo pingues Thehani et Valentes. And, therefore, Plato 118 VERY SUCCESSFUL. thanked God that he was an Athenian and not a Theban." In like manner might the yonng Titaniferous, whose whole and sole aim from his earliest dawn was to make and scrape money, have thanked heaven that he had not been born in any less commercial city than Manchester, the very air of which seemed to act as a whet-stone to his calcu- lating orgars, and its fumes as a hot-bed to his financial genius, which first began strongly to develope itself between seven and eight years of age. When from the robbing of orchards, and the invasion of hen-roosts, other boys reaped colics and canings, he only acquired pence and power ; and the secret of his negotiations was this — his superior genius marked down the particular roost or orchard to be pillaged ; he then called a council of war of all his contemporaneous ragamuffins in his oya\ locale^ told them where the treasure was to be found, and professed himself perfectly ready to risk his ragged corduroys, and his equally dilapidated re- putation in obtaining it, provided they (and they were never less than twelve, though oftener double that number) would give him a half-penny each to indemnify him for the double danger he might incur of a fall and a flogging. Of course it was not to be supposed that these young gentlemen could always collectively command such a large sum of ready money as a half-penny a piece — a Vimproviste; but then Titaniferous ever obligingly VERY SUCCESSFUL. 119 adjourned the adventure for the number of days requisite, according to their different circumstances, to the coaxing or bullying their tough or tender parents, as the case might be, out of the necessary funds ; and when they were duly collected and as duly transferred to his pocket, then, and not until then, would ''Nefarious'^ (as they not inappro- priately called him, from inability to achieve such a mouthful as Titaniferous) put himself at the head of his gallant (?) rifles and march upon the place to be attacked, where, feeling that he w^as born to climb, he, basket in hand, " did the daring deed" alone, while the rest kept ward and w^atch below. Then would he distribute the fruits of his valor, first binding each recipient to promise that if any one of them " should be cotched " he w^ould die before he would give up the names of any of his confederates, concluding with an heroic protest that he would; and then they separated, the in- cautious horticulturists taking the highway and thoroughfares, and the more prudent speculator skulking home some bye-way, jingling his wealth in both pockets as he w^ent, and little heeding tlie uncomfortable bumps he was receiving from some half-dozen of the best apples or peari that he had secreted in his cap, and which he w^ould take home and dutifully present as a present to his mother, begging she w^ould roast them for supper, and saying they had been bought with some half-pence 120 VERY SUCCESSFUL. •which a gentleman had given him for holding his horse. It was true that all this diplomacy, clever and orthodox as it was from being so utterly rascally and hollow, did not blind the authorities, who had already bestowed upon the hope of the house of Thompson the sobriquet of *' the Eoot of all E\il ; " not that he was ever idle. Heaven only knows, but he was impervious to birch, and untangible to beadles, for, as they despairingly remarked, " There was no catching on a boy with such a slippery trip-up-your-heels, trick-the-stocks sort of name as TiTANiFEROUS. But, besides orchards and hen- roosts, the young financial genius had other re- sources ; but is not resource, in fact, a synonyme for genius ? — one of the chief of which he derived from the paternal pipes, for lie soon came to that great and satisfactory solution in modern ethics of " Wliat are fathers for hut to pay the piper ?" Now it so happened that when Richard Thompson received his wages of a Saturday night he generally bought a provision of pipes — say two or three dozen, — but no sooner were these pipes put away in a side-cupboard than the young financier would daily abstract one from the hoard, which of course greatly though gradually diminished it, and then he knew that his father's monetary dearths were periodical and by no means far between, and upon the evening that the closet was pipeless Titaniferous was siu'e to be at his post, on the three-legged stool VERY SUCCESSFUL. 121 within the grate, either innocently nursing tlie cat (for the tortoiseshell had not died A\-ithoiit issue, though it had only enjoyed the Hfe title of Fudge), or else affectionately teasing his sister, but at the same time never losinor siirht of his fathers move- ments, who, after haWng groped iq vain for a pipe on the liigh chunney- piece, would then go to the cupboard, and finding " all barren there too, *' having slammed to the door and said, " Here's a go !" would, after much diving in all his pockets, at length fish up a half-penny and call out, ''' Here • Tight-un, go and fetch me a pipe." For so it was that he called his hopeful son, having abandoned Titaniferous as impracticable from the first ; and lo, that ministering angel woidd vanish, mounting first into the loft ostensibly for his cap, but in reahty to add the fresh dividend to his capital and take out one of his sire's own pipes, with which he would make the tour of the suburb, and, with that constant eye to business which never deserted him, if he met any of his "pals," arrange for the comiag-off of another predator}^ expedition, and then run back breathless with the pipe, saving ^Irs. Meadows (the nearest emporium) was out of pipes, so he had been obhged to go on to '• The Man in the Moon " for it. But at length, when Titaniferous was only ten years old, his father departed this life, via delirium tremens ; and in justice to his heir, it must be stated that he realbj 122 VERY SUCCESSFUL. regretted liim as a serious commercial loss, though his filial affection found a safety-valve in being able to afford his widowed mother pecuniary assistance on the melancholy occasion, as he told her he knew " a cove as could lend her ten shillings, if she would pay him threepence a week for it, and promise to repay it in six weeks ;" which, never dreaming that she w^as indebted to the ''prudence^' and providence of her o^^^l son for this accommo- dation, the poor woman gladly agreed to do ; so there was eighteen pence made by one great specu- lation ! — for hitherto he had never risked more than single pence to his companions, for which he obtained the usurious interest of a halfpenny on each penny. But at length his honest godfather and uncle began to be scandalized at the reports that reached him from all quarters touching his nephew's utter incapacity for distinguishing bej:ween meum and tuum — reports which were not the less injurious because the facts they set forth could never actually be brought home to him ; for, as the alderman truly observed, he had the copper of a man-of-w^ar and the brass of the very d 1, so that his maternal uncle was truly perplexed what to do with him, the more so that, although the Penrhyns had been by no means backward in tiying to avail themselves of the family and political interest of the Honble. Palmytongue Andover, yet they were begiiming to weary of his VERY SUCCESSFUL. 123 kind offers of getting them appointments either at Ceylon, Guinea, or in the interior of Africa, and at length ventured to suggest to the Honourable Gentleman that, if it were all the same to him, they, for their own indi\'idual parts, should prefer even three feet above ground in any other quarter of the globe. But at length matters began to wear such a sinister aspect in and about Man- chester (from which Alderman Fenrhyn was about to remove to a fine house in Grosvenor Place, London), that he wrote a most urgent letter to his brother-in-law, impressing upon him that it was absolutely necessaiy that the young Titaniferous should " leave his country for his country's good," and saving that he would pay for his schooling for six years, and give him an outfit if ^Ir. Andover would get him a writership. And the chief stumbling-block, Richard Thompson, being now removed, Samuel Penrhyn had the less scruple in making this appeal to his aristocratic connexion, who upon his part entertained the pro- position by opportunely recollecting that India was one of the very best smkuig-firnds for vulgar relations, and if they did return after a time they would not, or rather could not, do so unless Fortune smiled upon them, and then it was unimportant what they had been or were, for the Honorable Palmytongue Andover knew his Rule Britannia too well not to know that, no matter how common 124 VERY SUCCESSFUL. or how dirty the clay was, if it were but well gilt, English society was a Horeb that always bows down and worships the golden calf wherever it appears. In due time, then, Titaniferons Thompson was shipped out to Calcutta ; in due time (or as some whispered, in undue time) he flourished there ; in due time he it was who had eased Charles Egerton of £50,000, and encumbered Baron's Court with a mortgage to that amount to pay it ; in due time he returned to England and became an East India Director, a Baronet, a Member of Parliament, and a shareholder in every lucrative speculation of the day; and as his poor uncle Samuel had died prematurely, broken-hearted at his son's extrava- gance, whose debts he had paid over and over again, till he had nothing left to live upon but his wife's pin-money while she lived, and an annuity from the brewery when she died, the plate, and the few other personals he had to leave, he would not leave to the two victims his prodigal son had made, viz., ^irs. Penrhyn and her son Harcourt, but, with that strange inverted justice peculiar to fathers, mothers-in-law and millionnaires, he still further revenged his son's misconduct on them, and left the little he had to leave — which, little as it was, would have been much to them — to his rich, and therefore ^'prudenf^ and praiseworthy, nephew Titaniferous, who did not need it, though he always wanted everything that was to be got, and therefore VERY SUCCESSFUL. 125 got it ; for the fickle goddess, like many other silly women — no, ^^ females ! " — for there is as wide a distinction between women and "■ females ^^ as there is between a lady and a fine lady — but, like a silly '' female J ^ Fortune exacts and requires an immense amount of adulation, and always favors those who are guilty of unimaginable meannesses to get into her good graces, whereas, those who slight her by an honest, independent spirit she is sure to wTeak her vengeance upon, by taking care that they never shall have any other sort of indepen- dence. But as the sea, in its ebbs and flows, is ever bringing to the surface divers objects long hidden within its depths, so the tide of Time, in each succeeding age, casts upon the world's surface the pecuhar characters most suited to the exigency of the epoch in which they appear ; and the present being the milleniimi of meanness, wherein all thinsfs good and great are out of place, Sir Titaniferous Thompson was just the man to grow out of, and to flourish upon, the reigning system of moral and monetary- littleness, as the oak apple does out of and upon the oak — an ungainly excrescence, it is true, cleHving everything and yielding nothing. It is also true that occasionally ugly little anecdotes of his early years would float about, like motes in his sunshine; but it is ''had taste'' to believe or to repeat anything injurious to persons who have succeeded, for there is no material like gold for 126 VERY SUCCESSFUL. stopping tongues, as well as teeth. And true it was likewise that the bran-new Baronet's heart was as hard as his cash — that he would foreclose a mortgage to a day — nay, to an hour — and, if a stringent necessity threw the opportunity in his way, Avould engulf for a hundred pounds a picture, a horse or a necklace that was worth several hundreds, and even accommodate his less fortunate fellow-creatures with pecuniary loans at a rate which, in the Minories, might have been called usury. But in England we never apply ugly words to persons in high places or good positions; and who could be in a better than Sir Titaniferous Thompson, for he had irons in every fire throughout the country? — in the political fire, which, being slack, requires more time to heat the particular iron invested in it — in the fire of the press, which, being wild, runs rapidly through the countiy, leading the public a pretty dance, hither, thither, and every^\diere ; and in the commercial fire, which, being brisk, made him quick returns for his pains. Finally, never having been troubled with any of the puerilities of love, he could afford to speculate in a wife, and did so accordingly by marrying Lady Georgiana Giraffe, a very ugly and portionless niece of the Premieres, which might be considered as a sort of financial tour de force, as it was getting high interest where there was no capital, except that capital VERY SUCCESSFUL. 127 house of my Lord Dunnington's, described at the beginning of this very long chapter, which " the distinguished miUionnaire," as the "Morning Post" or " Court Journal " would style him, had taken on the occasion of his marriage. His mother and sister, it was supposed, had both had the goodness to die out of the way about two years after liia return from India — it might have been from want ; but gentlemen's private affairs — at least rich gentlemen's — in "moral England" are sacred ! — so heaven forbid that we should have the vulgarity and "bad taste" to pry into those of Sir Titaniferous Thompson, who now began to hold his head as high as his wife's name, and to enjoy that universal homage which is better than mere respect, being, as it were, the state carriage of respect, which WEALTH, no matter how acquired, never fails to command throughout the British Empire. Oh ! neutralising indifference of the Pyrrhonians ! Oh ! sovereign good of Pythagoras ! Oh ! magnanimity of Aristotle ! it was reserved for the middle of the nineteenth century to furnish sufficient material (despite its gigantic strides in the physical sciences) for really carrying out your Nil admirari projje est res tma, Numici, Solaque jwssit facere, et servare heatum. With regard to the other star of the Penrhyn family, the gi-devant Miss Dora, her liege lord 128 VERY SUCCESSFUL. had been gathered to his fathers some five years before the Crimean war, but not before he had left his wife a Countess's coronet (and suitable join- ture) to console her for her widow's cap, for, through a gun-accident that had happened to his elder brother on the moors he had become Lord de Basker\dlle, in which title he was succeeded by his eldest son, the present peer, while the second, another and by no means degenerate Palmytongue Andover, was one of the under-secretaries of state, a third son, Grrafton Andover, being already a Lieutenant-colonel in the Grenadier Guards. With regard to his two daughters, the eldest, Lady Mabel, had married the heir-apparent to a dukedom. Lord Cranford ; but her sister. Lady Florinda Andover, though also a beauty, was still in the market ; (what a pity it is that there is not a sort of Matrimonial Tattersall's, where the diplomacy of match-making dowagers might be brought to a focus, instead of being weakened by its rays being indiscriminately scattered over every salon and watering-place in Europe ;) but Lady de Baskerville was just the sort of woman, with regard to her daughters, to parody in their behalf the vulgar proverb of not selling her hen of a rainy day, for there are no women so worldly, without perhaps ever acquiring the fine tact requisite to make a woman of the world, as those of plebeian origin, who, having begun by making a scaling ladder of VERY SUCCESSFUL. 129 their ovjn hearts, A-iew all things but from one point, namely, the height to which they have attained, and consequently deem that all beneath that height are but so many paths to be trampled on in attaining it ; but having duked her eldest daughter. Lady de Baskerville began seriously to consider, that as in the market matrimonial the supply of Dukes is by no means equal to the demand, and what with the war, and the march of intellect, and the dreadful sort of people that got into parliament now, and those horrid railroads that compelled everybody to travel in the same way, whether somebodys or nobodys, she began, we say, to accustom herself to the idea as a pis aller that, perhaps after all, some petty reigning German Prince would be the best point Florinda could steer for. How very unlucky that she had not cultivated Louis Napoleon more at the time he was to be had, at least to dinner, for the asking, and one memc- rable evening, somewhere about the year 1847, haunted the retrospect of her regrets more than any other ! It was at the St. James's Theatre ; there were a great many royalties " in want of situations " just then, from the Conde de MontemouHn down- wards, and on that particular evening the latter was in one of the stalls ; the Due de Nemours, then on a visit to Her Majesty, was in the Queen's box; and presently Louis Napoleon Bonaparte sauntered into the foyer. Boulogne was fresh in everybody's VOL. I. I 130 VERY SUCCESSFUL. memoiy, and no sooner had he appeared than an ill-bred and ill-suppressed titter ran through the house, and like electric fluid prevaded even the royal box. Never could Lady de Baskenille forget the look of sovereign disdain which the embryo Majesty of France on that occasion flung, like an earnest of his future largesses among that aristo- cratic crowd, or the Imperitor air Avith which he twirled his moustache ; but, having been born and bred in Manchester during the Peninsular War, Lady de Baskerville was no linguist; therefore, how should she have read in that moustache a future imperial, or known that that contemptuous twirl of it, being interpreted, meant '■'Laugh away good people — chaqu\m a son tour — hut the time is ap- proaching when you will boio down and worship mey and the faintest of my smiles will have a more world- loide weight than all yours put together. Mind^ I say ALL ! " Impossible ! And as she argued the matter with herself, between the parentheses of a sigh and an " Ah ! had I only invited him into my box on that evening ! — but no, I nor no one else could have foreseen all that has since happened ;" and then she would turn away from this forlorn hope, and, though neither a genius nor a philoso- pher, begin muddying her brains with the mystic materialisms of the above-mentioned German speculations, more especially as her eldest son, the present peer, was not wedded, except to his beauti- VERY SUCCESSFUL. 131 ful yacht, " The Esmeralda," and, much to his mo- ther's disappointment, he appeared not to have the least idea of giving himself either heirs or airs, for he was perfectly unaffected and good-natured, and said he had no notion of marrying, unless for love ; and as for the title, "^vhy, if he did chance to be eaten up by a shark, or to break his neck out hunting, it would not die with him, as there were Palmytongue and Grafton, his two brothers ; " and let them have a chance, poor de^dls," were generally the concluding words with which he turned off his lady mother's matrimonial exhortations. Now poor Mrs. Penrh}Ti knew very weU that if her humble and toiling existence was not absolutely ignored by her husband's aunt, Lady de Baskerville, and by his rich cousin, Sir Titaniferous Thompson, yet that it was so far forgotten that she, or rather her chief self, Harcourt, might remain unscathed, but that to remind them of it, in her present posi- tion, would be to arouse the dormant adders of low ambition and puerile pride, and cause them to dart their venom into the, as yet, healthy because un- fettered career of her son, for whom all she asked was a fair field and no favor. Then decidedly he should not have chosen a battle-field, where, in the British army at least, there is oio field for the recompense of the most heroic deeds without favor. And yet, who shall say that the poor widow and her son, down in the cold shade, unnoticed and 132 VERY SUCCESSFUL. unknown, had not the best of it, if it be true, as it most assuredly is, that — " Le monde n'est dangereux, que quand on en aime les maximes. Lorsque ^e que s'y passe, n'est point regarde d'un faux jour ; c'est une le9on con- tinuelle pour ftder le Vice, et embrasser la Vertu." Nevertheless, the Titaniferous' of this work-a-day world are always sure to be — at least for a while — VERY SUCCESSFUL ! CHAPTER VII. 3n mljirlj J0r. f jjipjrrn ptja jjia £r5|i?rt5 to anii ARAH, Sarah Nash ! called Mr. Phippen, as he descended the creakincr stairs in Church Street, his hessians accompany- ing their basso with a squeaking falsetto at every step he pro- ceeded. He had rung, but as usual did not give Sarah Nash time to answer his appeal, had she been the wind, or a \vire from an electric telegraph, instead of that slow and wear^'-footed animal — a maid of all work ; but upon this particular morning he seemed, if possible, in a greater state of precipi- tation and presto-begone speed than usual, for it was the day prior to Mrs. Pemble's departure for Baron's Coiui;, and he had just received a note of thanks from her for all his kindness, and the 134 VERY SUCCESSFUL. pocket-handkerchiefs she had hemmed for him, of which she begged his acceptance as a little remem- brance of her ; and as, like most men of business, he detested writing if he could avoid it, he was now hurrying down stairs with her note open in one hand and the packet of handkerchiefs in the other, in quest of Sarah to despatch her as chargi d'affaires to " the parlour" to know whether Mrs. Pemble would allow him to " pay his respects to her." At the foot of the stairs he met the nymph he was in quest of, sobbing and making her eyes still redder by scrubbing the tears out of them with the comer of a very coarse canvas apron, in which she had been performing the ablutions of the kitchen dresser. "Eh! what's the matter, S^rah Nash?" said Mr. Phippen, pulling up suddenly, as he nearly tumbled over her, and must, but for a timely grasping of the bannister, have inevitably been involved in her fall, " Been peeling onions, eh ! my good girl — or quarrelling with Tim ? " " No, Sir, but the lady in the parlour have give me such a beautiful dress, to be sure, and I be so sorry as she's leaving ; for no one in them parlours ever give me anything before but trouble, and p'raps half-a-crown on leaving; and I dare say when she's gone, Mrs. Pyke will go on a letting on 'em again to some of them there smoking, mustashered gents, that pisons a house before they VERY SUCCESSFUL. 135 are five minutes in it, and there ain't no getting it sweet again, even when they're out of it." "Pooh ! pooh I never m^ at getting anew go^Ti, girl, or else I shall be afraid you'll go into deep mourning if I give you the shawl I intended. Gadzooksl you're not the only one; look here! look at my presents I " And so sa^-ing, ^Ir. Phippen rolled one of the ver}' gorgeous-looking kerchiefs round his head a la Turc^ threw two more lightly and gracefully over his shoulders in guise of draper}', and held the other two, one in each hand, out at arm's length, as aeronauts wave small flags out of a balloon during their ascension. The result was that Sarah bui-st out laucrhinor. " Sarah Nash ! what are you laughing at ? Did you never see new silk pocket-handkerchiefs before? Oh! I understand," continued he, undecorating himself, and restoring all the handkerchiefs once more to the grasp of his right hand, " you think perhaps that way of wearing them makes me look too like the Great Mogul on the ^\Tappers of the playing-cards, ^ Duty, One Shilling and Sixpence ! ' Now go and give my compliments to Mrs. Pemble, and ask her if she will allow me to come and pay my respects to her." '^ In a minute, Sir, when I've sHpped on a clean apron." ^' Right, Sarah Nash, to put on a clean apron 136 VERY SUCCESSFUL. for the lady ; but I 'v\'ish, for the good of their health, you'd sometimes give those clean aprons an airing up-stairs too.'' " Well, Sir, so I would ; but you always rings in such a huny, and comes down afore I can git up." " Aye, aye, Sarah Nash, I understand ! No time for washing, and ironing, and getting up fine things, eh ! There, away with you, and make haste back!" For the few seconds that it took Sarah to go down stairs, Mr. Phippen, as a sort of anodyne to his impatience, took to folding up the handkerchiefs one by one, and lapng them, when folded, sym- metrically one over the other on the turn of the bannister ; and when Sarah returned to say that ^Irs. Pemble would be very happy to see him he was in the very act of ejaculating, as he took them up— "'Egad ! I think I did that very well ! " Even when !Mr. Phippen's face was in repose, there was a peculiarity about the right side of his upper lip which shewed two of his front teeth, and gave a facetious expression to his face, which otherwise would have been severe, from the serious gravity of his intensely brown eyes (for they were not black) ; but now a real hond-Jide smile illu- mined his whole countenance as he entered Mrs. Pemble's room, and even his bay-wig shone brightly like a gleam of svuishine, as he held out both his hands, full as one already was, and said — VERY SUCCESSFUL. 137 " How am I to thank yon, my good lady, for your kind present ? The very thing I wanted, too I 'Egad ! I wish 1 had half-a-dozen noses, to use them all at once — ha ! ha ! ha ! — for they are uncommon pretty patterns, 'pon my life ! So we're going to lose you '? " added he, as he, with some little difficulty, and not ^^dthout a shght expression of regret at the hardness of the struggle, wedged himself into the chair, the three-cornered, adamantine horse-hair, which Mrs. PemLle had hospitably advanced for his reception. " 'Egad ! " he continued, as soon as the struggle was over, " it's bad enoucrh to lose one's handkerchief, but it's too bad to lose the donor." ^' As you have so kindly interested yourself in my behalf, Mr. Phippen, I am very happy to tell you that I have not only succeeded in getting a situation, but one that has surpassed my most sanguine expectations." " Oh ! indeed ! I'm veiy glad of it ; but as self always predominates more or less with us all, I hope it's in Lunnon, for my sake, that I may have the pleasure of seeing you sometimes." " Indeed, I sincerely hope that we shall meet again, for I shall not easily forget your kindness to me in this miserable lodging." "No, no, my good lady, not so miserable neither," interrupted ^Ir. Phippen, " on the principle of Socrates' young gentleman. I'm no scholar, but 138 VERY SUCCESSFUL. you know Socrates' young gentleman, don't you ? It's a wonder that / know him though, as he's not in Shakspeare, who's, egad ! about the only author I do know." Of course Mrs. Pemble had not the pleasure of Socrates' young gentlemarC s acquaintance, for no well-bred person ever does know any story that an elderly gentleman or lady is about to tell. " No I do not," smiled she, " so I hope you'll introduce him to me." "Oh! well," resumed Mr. Phippen, evidently delighted to think that his anecdote was " looking up,^ " 'Egad ! as I told you, I'm no scholar, and I suppose this is what you learned folk would call a classical Joe Miller, but I heard it many years ago ; and I've never forgotten it, as every day of my life I see chaps it's so aj)plicable to. The story is this : — ^A young fellow at Athens, where it seems they had Tom Noddys as well as we have in Lunnon, was saying, one day, that he did not think after all travelling was any advantage to people, as he had travelled a great deal and did not find himself a bit the better for it. ' Ah ! ' says Socrates, * that's because you took yourself with you.' Now / mean just the reverse — that you could not have found this lodging so bad after all for the very same reason that you had yourself with you ; but egad !" con- tinued he, hitching up on one side of the very un- comfortable sedentary pillory he was in, and nervously anxious to waive the applause due to a VERY SUCCESSFUL. 139 man who had said a good thing, though only at second hand, " had you remained, I should have begged your acceptance of an easy chair, for this is a confounded machine." *^ Thank you, dear Mr. Phippen, for the com- pliment, I think I may believe that it's sincere." " 'Egad ! yes, I'm no Chesterfield." *' Except that I'm sure you agree with Lord Chesterfield, that flattery is the disgrace of good breeding, as brutality often is of truth and sincerity." " Does he say that ? Well, come, that's not so bad ; I'll make an entry of that, for I don't like bears neither, except on ^Change — he ! he ! he I' " chuckled Mr. Phippen, as he consigned the Chesterfieldian mot to his pocket-book, for this pleasantry about the bears was his own. " Does he say any more on that head, or is that all?" ^' No ; he adds, what is equally true, that good breeding is the middle point between these two odious extremes. Ceremony is the superstition of good breeding as well as of religion ; but yet, being an out-work to both, should not be absolutely demolished. He also says, in which I most per- fectly agree, that many a passion and many a friendship is degraded and wholly slatterned away by an unguarded and illiberal familiarity. And most truly of all, he says, ^ Great talents may make a man famous ; great merit make him respected ; 140 VERY SUCCESSFUL. and great learning make him esteemed ; but good breeding can alone make him beloved.' " " 'Egad ! I'll read Lord Chesterfield ; I don't suppose at my time of life there is any fear of his corrupting my morals ? — ha ! ha ! ha ! — and he nisij improve my manners ; but tell me, my good lady, for I interrupted you, which was not very good manner, is it in Lunnon that you are going to live?" "No, in Flintshire, at Sii' Gregory Kempen- felt's." " Sir Gregory Kempenfelt's ! — Whew !" " Do you know him ? " *^ But very slightly ; I once did some India bonds for him ; but I know that if report says true, he is an excellent person and a thorough gentleman; — what I mean by that is. Christian within and Chesterfield without, so that I really Avish you joy at having lighted upon him. Bless me ! here's that confounded omnibus already," said he, starting to his feet as rapidly, as the preventive check of the lion-pawed-amis of the three-cornered chair into which he was so geometrically wedged would allow him ; " but here, my good lady," putting a card into her hand," is the number of my office in Thread- needle Street, in case you might ever want to write to me. For instance, you can't do better than send me what you can spare out of your salary, and I'll see what I can make of it for you, for as I once VERY SUCCESSFUL. 141 told the Colonial Secretary, the great thing is to try and increase the population of guinea — ha ! ha ! ha I Now with regard to the young man, your son, you know, what I told you was, that if ever I had an opportunity I would sen^e liim, for in making promises, to avoid the pie-crust Goodwin Sands, I always stand out for the chops of the Channel of Limited Liability, which is the safest channel for all promisers." "Indeed, my dear Sir, I do not consider that you are bound by any promise to me, and I shall always feel equally grateftil for the kindness of your inten- tions towards me." ** Yes, yes, you find the opportunity, and I'll find the help, and so no more about intentions, for if I must turn paviour I'd rather it was not for the infernal regions. 'Pon my life, though, I'm sorry you're going. Well, its all for the best. I don't think I shall remain in this lodging when you're gone, but I shan't leave Sarah Nash here ; I'll take a lease of her — with fixtures, her aprons, the cat, round- eared caps, and the gow^n you gave her — from old Mother Pyke. I think it would be too much for her and Tim to be left here, after you and I were both gone, for I don't think there is any philosophy either about Tim or Sarah Nash, so that they would be of no support to each other, and as Sarah Nash could not go and take the air on the house- tops with Tim, I think she'd mope herself to death. 142 VERY SUCCESSFUL. Well, God bless 3^ou ! Good bye ! and if ever you want a friend, remember, something of the sort may be found at No. — , Threadneedle Street, by the name of Philip Phippen ; " and, cordially wringing her hand, Mr. Phippen hurried out of the room, silently snatching his hat from " Sarah Nash," and butted, rather than got, into the om- nibus, without a single jest or a single order, which did not, however, prevent his whistUng "Cheer, boys, cheer " with great energy as the cad closed the door. Untversus mundus exercet hiatroniam ! And if Mr. Phippen's object was, despite the unwonted absence of quip or crank, to make the cad think he was in a high state of hilarity, we are happy to record that in producing that impression he had not paid too dear for his whistle, as it was VERY SUCCESSFUL ! CHAPTER VIII. flt n Eailinai( Itctinn. LL the way to Euston Square the sobs of poor Sarah tolled like a knell in Mrs. Pem- ble's ears, and the kind brown eyes of Mr. Phippen haunted her, and her only consolation about the former was his promise of taking the poor girl with him if he went away ; and although he had said this in a jocular manner, she felt certain from the kindliness of his heart that it was a promise. On arri\T[ng at the terminus the cab she was in had to stop while some one was alighting from another cab immediately before it, which had that moment arrived from the opposite direction ; and as the gentleman alighted from it in turning round to give some directions to his servant about the lug- 144 VERY SUCCESSFUL. gage, he saw IVIrs. Pemble. It was Sir Gregory Kempenfelt. " Ah ! " cried he, upon recognizing her, as he advanced to shake hands with her, 'Ho the minute ! We deserve to go through a campaign together. I respect punctuaUty, for it is the probity of social intercoui'se. Allow me," added he, offering his hand to help her out of the cab, and then giving her his arm as soon as she had reached the pave- ment, after which, turning to his servant, he said — • " Here, Clayton, see to ^Irs. Pemble's luggage, and pay the man." " Where from, Sir ?" asked he, again touching his hat as he looked towards Mrs. Pemble for the answer to the question he had asked his master. '' From Church Street, Chelsea," said she, putting the money into his hand ; " here is his fare." " I see," said Sir Gregory, with his quiet smile, as they walked on, " that you are not half up in 3-our part yet: don't you know that the gover- nesses " (and he emphasised the word) " travelling expenses are always paid by those who engage them?" " Yes, I know that in that respect they are on a par with servants ; but it is all your fault. Sir Gregory, you are so very kind that I forget I am your governess." " I hope so." VERY SUCCESSFUL. 145 " / hope not, and that I shall prove, by a con- scientious discharge of my duties, that I have never forgotten it : and indeed, when duty and pleasure are so closely united, there is not much fear of either being neglected, much less forgotten." They had scarcely reached the platform, in their way to the waiting-room, when Clayton came running after them. " I beg your pardon, ma'am ; but is this brooch youi-'s? — for in looking to see that you had left nothing, I found this on the floor of the cab." " Oh I thank you a thousand times ! I would not have lost it for the world I " said she, takinor it eagerly. '^ How stupid of me I I forgot to fasten it to my chain." It was, in fact, a very beautiful miniature of Harcourt, in no costume, but with the collar rather open, shewing a very white and finely-shaped throat, with a cloak, thrown in the Spanish way over the left shoulder, which formed an easy and graceful drapery. " May I ? " said Sir Gregory, holding out his hand for it, as ^Irs. Pemble was about to replace it in her shawl. Oh, certainly ! it is my dear boy's portrait." " What an uncommonly handsome young fellow ! — veiy like you I " " Do you think so ? I always thought him like his father; but perhaps there may be a look of both," sighed the mother. VOL. I. K 146 VERY SUCCESSFUL. '^ Charming countenance ! something so rayonante and ingenuous about it, as if, having nothing to conceal, all the windows of his heart were thrown wide open, and gave out quite as much sunshine as they took in." " Well that he is I open as the day, thank God ! — or was ; — for who knows ? " — and here the tears choked her utterance, and though she could not finish the sentence, her kind and sympathizing companion guessed her thought, and as he pressed her arm said — '* Come ! come ! don't be ungrateful to Provi- dence : don't you know we Kempenfelts are of Swedish origin ? and, like a true old Norseman as I am, or ought to be, I have a glimmering of second-sight about me ; and I am greatly mistaken if the halo that I see radiating round that young head will not be won, beam by beam, from the refracted rays of earthly glory." " Ah ! even could I think so, my dear Sir, it is but right that I should school myself in time, and ever remember that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, and that * Death, which all meaner bliss destroys, Bobs not the spirit of its joys ; And if his stroke can sever The fleshly seal, 'tis but to bring The living -waters from their spring, A'ad bid them gush for ever.' Again her companion pressed her arm ; but this VERY successful: 147 time lie was silent, for there are sorrows which, being unto death, become sacred, and" to attempt by puerile consolations to roll away the sepulchral stone which covers them is sacrilege, not sympathy. " Have the goodness to give me a cup of hot and very strong coffee, if you have it," said Sir Gregory Kempenfelt to one of the elaborately-got- up young ladies standing behind the archaeological sand^N-iches and stale maids of honor on the counter, as he entered the refreshment room ; and as he handed the St)'gian-looking flood, in a large blue bucket-shaped cup to Mrs. Pemble, the whole room suddenly became vocal with many sounds and much movement, like an emeute waking up in a silent city of a morning. This was occasioned by the entrance of two ladies — one a fiill-blowTi dowager, of full sixty years of equally-diA-ided summers and winters, with an amount of resolute and indomitable beauty that, up to a certain point, seemed to have bid defiance to both This lady, though large, was languishing, and consequently w^as all Cashmeres, casolettes, flacons, and flounces. The other was a lovely girl of eighteen, with the figure of a sylph and the face of a Hebe. Her luxuriant hair, of the darkest possible chestnut, was wreathed in tliick cable plaits round her beautifully-shaped head, which, thanks to the present fashion of wearing the bonnets on the shoulders, could be seen to the greatest advantage. 148 VERY SUCCESSFUL. In the delicate outline of her faultless features there was a harmony that made of her whole face a concerted loveliness of form, color, and expression that was irresistible. Hackneyed as the simile is, her skin was literally like snow, upon which blush rose-leaves seemed to have fallen. Her long-cut oriental-looking eyes were " Deeply, darkly, beautifully blue," while their heavy, snowy, sleepy lids were fringed with long, black, silken lashes, that seemed to be continually trying to kiss her cheeks, for which no one could possibly blame them. Her nose was white and transparent as ivory, with little crive cceur dimples at each tip. Then came the rich, red, pouting under, and the short, chiselled, piquante upper lip; the pearly, beautifully-arched teeth within them ; the little, round, velvety chin ; and the perfectly oval, peach-like cheeks. In short, any one with plenty of time and money at command might have followed the advertising columns of "The Times," and gone from "Piccadilly to Pera," or " May Fair to Marathon," and not seen so pretty a creature. The full-blown rose to which this bud belonged was followed by a whole procession of suivants, two of them being very tall footmen, whose hats being cased in oil-skin foi travelling, and the powder pretty well blown out of their hair, gave them the appearance of being surmounted by a huge French plum ; and to define their exact VERY SUCCESSFUL. 149 position in the procession, one might have been called Rouge Croix, inasmuch as he carried a large cushion of Berlin work, on which, upon a scarlet ground, were embroidered some armorial bearings, with supporters, surmounted by a coronet ; while his companion might have desen'edly acquired the sobriquet of Blue Mantle, on account of his carrying a velvet cloak of that colour. Bringing up the rear were two souhrettes — one unmistakeably English, from her boa, boots, black veil, and other be-dangle- ments, crowned with a convulsed look of superero- gatory modesty, derived from the illusive idea that every one was looking at her: the other was as unmistakeably French, from her very plain but symmetrically-fitting dark green merino dress, ditto gloves, small, but not outre bonnet, perfectly smooth and well-arranged hair, and verv^ neat little feet, in equally neat shoes, and open-worked thread stockings ; while, neither impertinently nor boldly, her ubiquitous eyes looked at everybody and at everything. All these were the appendages of the great lady, for the young lady not only appeared to have the full use of her limbs, and be able to take care of herself, but further extended her sur^ veillance to a httle fluff)" white Cuba dog that she carried under her arm, with a chime of little perfo- rated golden bells roimd his neck, set off with pom^ pons of blue ribbon. No sooner was the great lady seated tlian Rouge Croix advanced and placed the coroneted cushion 150 VERY SUCCESSFUL. at her back, Blue Mantle following with a honey- comb Iambs-wool squab for her feet. These ar- rangements completed, she said languidly, though not quite with a Parisian accent, to the French femme de chambre, " Natalie, mon aumoniere f " JEst-ge que milady ne Id pas ? " *^ Ah ! c'est Meeses Tompkins qui Id soignee ge rC est pas moi.'^ "Nong Mumzelle, her ladyship, nong donny k me," disclaimed the boaed and booted Mrs. Tompkins. *^ No, Tompkins, I've got it, la void Natalie,'' in- terposed the young lady in a voice as sweet as her face, as she handed the little green silk and steel head purse to her lady mother, off of her pretty little w^rist, where it had been dangling. The commotion of this gorgeous entree caused Mrs. Pemble to keep her cup of coffee in abeyance, and Sir Gregory Kempenfelt to raise his glass, the better to ascertain who, and what, this procession might be composed of. The great lady actually condescending to look around her, at the same time, their eyes met, she bowing very graciously and saying, " How do, Sir Gregory ? " Letting his glass fall he raised his hat with an <'Ah ! how d'ye do. Lady de Baskerville ? " as he went to shake hands with her. " The last place I should have expected to have had the honor of meeting you in — I mean on this line." " One must do penance sometimes, and I never VERY SUCCESSFUL. 151 can get De Baskerville to interest himself about his Irish estates ; and Purcell, his agent, has wTit- ten over that he has some wonderfiil scheme for doubling the rental of Mount Andover — something about setting up a manufactory for peat, or poplins, or potatoes, or something, I don't exactly know what, only it's something with a P." " The improvements on Irish estates are generally pis allerSf I'm afraid," smiled Sir Gregor^\ *' Oh, no, I'm sure it was either poplin or peat that he said," rejoined Lady de Baskerville, who was as literal as England and Manchester could make her, and then added, with a yawn behind her handkerchief, ^' Are you going to Ireland too ? " " No, I'm going down to Barons Court." " Oh ! I don't think you know my youngest daughter, Sir Gregory ? She was not out when you were in town two years ago." " No, I have not that honor," said he, bowing low in just homage to the young divinity before him. *^ Flo, dear. Sir Gregory Kempenfelt, an old friend of your poor papa's. My second daughter, Florinda, Sir Gregory." " Then, I hope, as a friend of poor dear papa's, he will allow me to shake hands with him," replied she, holding out her pretty little hand to the old man \^T[th a winning grace that would have made her beautiful if she had been plain, but that, as it was, might have converted a stoic into an idolater. 152 VERY SUCCESSFUL. " Aiid may I hope," said he, his eyes sparkling as he gallantly raised her hand to his lips, " that, upon coming to my title of her father's friend, Lady Florinda Andover \Adll allow me to kiss hands ? " But Pattapouffp .ne Cuban apology for a poodle, being accust'^- ^ to have all the kisses going, now set up a .a[ bark, asserting his privileges and voting gainst this innovation with all his lungs. The moment the laugh had subsided which his protest had occasioned, Lady Florinda, whose good breeding sprang from the right source, a good heart, seeing that Mrs. Pemble was left standing alone, said to her mother — '^ I fear, mamma, we are detaining Sir Gregory Kempenfelt from the lady who is with him." "Is it ]VIiss Kempenfelt f asked Lady de Bas- kerville. "Pray, present us to her." " No, it's not my sister, but a very great friend of mine ; I wish she were my sister." " Oh," said Lady de BaskerviDe, somewhat taken a-back, lest she should be imprudently risking an introduction to a nobody, for nobodys are human burrs — never to be got rid of when they fasten themselves on somebody. However, the episode of the St. James's theatre, in 1847, when she might have forestalled all the elite of London by rescuing Louis Napoleon from the stalls, where he was then in the wrong box, and sheltering him in hers, and had not done so, had been a salutary^ VERY SUCCESSFUL. 153 though too late lesson to her (as far as a tabouret Sit the Tuilleries went); and ever since, in all public places, she had made a point of remember- ing that most veracious adage, that " civility buys everything and costs nothing." Sir Gregorv, who determmed she should not solicit the favor of being introduced to her nephew's neglected wife in vain, took the latter by the hand, and leading her forward, said — " Lady de Baskerville, allow me to present to you my friend, Mrs. Pemble — Lady de Baskerville — Lady Florinda Andover." He watched her narrowly during this strange and unexpected and, to her, nervous introduction, and though she could not prevent the truant and slighted blood mounting for a moment to her cheeks, yet was he charmed at the perfect self- possession and quiet thorough-bred ease with which she went through this trvdng ordeal ; and certainly never was there a greater triumph of natural and hereditary superiority over that which is merely conventional and acquired ; but that ease which was at first but assumed, though so well assumed as to defy detection from the most critical scinitiny, was soon made real by the charming t lorinda, for while Lady de Baskerville was humming and hawincr — ^having alreadv forgotten the humble name of Pemble, though it was so like Penrhyn that one would think she might have remembered 154 VERT SUCCESSFUL. it — her daughter said, with one of her most en- chanting smiles — " Mrs. Pemble, I was admiring your courage in making such a gallant entry into the Black Sea just now ; but as I am really in a state of starvation, and therefore ready to do anything, I want to hear your report of the soundings ; in plain English, do you think I may venture upon a cup of that coffee, without adding another to the numerous poisoning cases, and implicating you in the affair ? " And so saying, she walked with Mrs. Pemble back to the counter, lea\dng Sir Gregory to entertain her mother, and thus with one kind Httle stratagem freed two persons from an awkward and uncom- fortable embarras. " Well," laughed Mrs. Pemble, " if you have ever been at Constantinople, and Hke your coffee 6M vrai Turcj you will have ample grounds for fancying this has been made at Stamboul, more especially as its scalding heat will prevent your being critical as to its aroma ; but these rusks are really very good," added she, handing a plate of them to her beautiful companion. " What a charming portrait you have there ! " said Lady Florinda, bending forward to examine it, as she pantomimically sipped the soi-disant coffee. *' You will make me \Qvy vain," said the delighted mother with a smile, " for it is my son.'' VERY SUCCESSFUL. 155 A blush of the most charming modesty suffused the beautiful girl's cheeks on hearing this, for, having none of the intense max-worship of most " British females " about her, she felt almost as unaffectedly abashed as if the original had been before her and she had inadvertently paid the same point-blank compliment to 1dm ; so, quickly adding, " it is so exquisitely painted," she immediately changed the subject to the usual common-place topics which form the staple of conversation with a new acquaintance, in the midst of which the train-bell rang, and beckoning to Rouge Croix ^ who had just re-appeared in the doorway, she told him to pay for the things she had had, and then, putting out her hand to ^Irs. Pemble, said, '' Having met, I am soiTy we must part so soon, but I can only hope that we may meet again." But, seeing that her mother had taken Sir Gregor}' Kempenfelt's arm, she gracefully offered hers to ^Irs. Pemble ; " For," said she, '^ it seems, at least as far as the platform, that our way is the same." " Will you allow me to carry your little dog for you?" " Thanks, but I vdW not trouble you, as there would be two individuals to be consulted upon the transfer, and I know before-hand that Pattapouffe would decidedly object. I am quite of the old 156 VERY SUCCESSFUL. bachelor's way of thinking, who always, when his evil destiny led him to stay in a house where there were children, said he preferred naughty ones to good, because the naughty ones were sure to be turned out of the room, whereas there was no earthly chance of escape from the good ones. But unfortunately this rule does not extend to dogs since the good ones, like good people, have every advantage taken of them ; whereas, such spitfires as Master Pattapouffe, like biped tyrants and ter- magants, are sure to get their own way in all things, and bully the whole world ; apropos of good people, what a dear old man Sir Gregory Kempenfelt appears ! " " Most excellent, indeed." "You have kno^N-n him a very long time, I suppose?-" '^ He was my father's oldest and best friend," rejoined !Mrs. Pemble, telling the exact truth, though not the whole truth, and thereby jesuitically avoiding to compromise her veracity as to the chronology of her own acquaintance with him. Though they were hurrying along with the stream that was flo^^dng towards the platform as fast as they could, Blue ^lantle now appeared, clearincr the human tide on all sides as he elbowed his way through the crowd, and at length got near enough to say, by leaning over the clerical hat of a Right Reverend Prelate, as the devil is said to VERY SUCCESSFUL. 157 overlook Lincoln Cathedral, "My lady begged I would tell your ladyship that she's afraid you'll be late, as she's already in the carriage." "Here, Murray, take Pattapouffe, and tell mamma that I'm comincr as fast as I can." And when they had advanced in sight of the carnage in which Lady de Baskerv^lle was seated, Sir Gregory standing beside the open door talking to her, Lady Florinda again hastily shook hands with ^Irs. Pemble and hurried on to join her mother, who, not at all liking the intimacy she had improvise with a person they knew nothing about, not morally but socially — for, for aught they knew, she might have been a tradesman's daughter, like Lady de Basker\dlle herself, only without a coronet to conceal the ugly fact — " My dear Flo, how veiy imprudent you are, lagging so behind," were the maternal words ; but the tone it was in which they were uttered which, like Hebrew points, gave them their real meaning, which the daughter knew full well, was, ^' How can you make acquaintance with ])ersons before you know who they are, and what they have — where they live — and, above all, the set they are in J' But as her mother's thoughts were not sense to require an answer, she turned a callous face to them, but a very cordial one to Sir Gregory Kempenfelt, as she shook hands with him, as soon as she was seated, saying — 158 VERY SUCCESSFUL. " I ivo7it say good bye, so it 7nust be au revoir.^^ " With all my heart ! anywhere to meet Lady Florinda Andover, even au reservoir ! as a certain lady is reported to make assignations with her friends." " Fie done ! Sir Gregoiy, that is very zVon-ical ; " and while she laughed Lady de Baskerville made a dignified and distant bow to Mrs. Pemble, as much as to say, " There, stay where you are, and don't presume upon Florinda's thoughtless folly and approach me any nearer." And the guard coming the next moment to lock up this precious casket carriage, that contained a real peeress and allegorical strawberry-leaves, Sir Gregory handed IMrs. Pemble into the next but one, which luckily they had all to themselves. " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed he, as soon as they were seated ; " how little does poor Lady de Bas- kerville dream how * More than kin and less than kind' she has been to you this morning ; but I must say you got through that introduction most marvel- lously, and you made the quicksilver of my conceit rise so high that I felt as proud of you as if I had unlimited shares in your good breeding ; and so indeed, I have, if you succeed in imparting a tithe of it to May and Linda, for I take good manners to be the available currency of a capital of good VERY SUCCESSFUL. 159 breeding, which is equal to whatever run may he made upon it." " Oh ! my dear Sir Gregor}^, I begin to think that all the romance of my life has been reserved for my old age and a romantic elderly lady ! — ca donne un peu dans le ridicule I But it was only the beginning of the w^eek that I fell in with you, in the most extraordinary and unforeseen manner imaginable and by the merest chance; and now again, this morning, the rencontre with ^ my Aunt Dora,' as poor Penrhyn used to call her I" " My dear lady ! you may rely upon two things ; first, that Truth is invariably stranger than Fiction ; for Fiction affects the vrai semblable, in order to keep the unities, which Truth, that is Reality^ both in characters and events, often boldly disdains to do. Could we but unroll the polygramic pap}TTis of every life from the first birth of Time, we should, from world-old proofs, be convinced of this. Next, that there is no such thing as Chance. I like, because I fully subscribe to it, that graphic expression of Wordsworth's, ''\hQ procession of our fate," for it implies that every situation and cir- cumstance of it is marshalled by a Higher Power; for the pageant, in fact, is God's, and what we call Time and Fate are merely His heralds, who see to and superintend the proper acting, dressing, and timing of the incidents which go to the development and denouement of the solemn " morality " we call 160 VEEY SUCCESSFUL. Life. That those incidents should be all mis- judged mysteries to us is no wonder, since even in human matters, which can be investigated and compared, and consequently summed up and judged, we are eternally falsifying, by fragmentary and ex parte decisions, and the precipitancy with which we mar the order of things: it is only Omnipotence that can will events into existence. All human good, to deserve the name, must be progressive : the physical world teaches this great lesson to the moral one, if we would but learn it. We sow our grain to-day, but it is useless to go with scythes and reapers to-morrow to cut down the wheat that has not yet sprung up ; long must the seed be hidden, and seemingly rot and wither, before it can germinate and fructify — for all things have their appointed stages. Euclid neither in- vented nor solved a problem the day after he had mastered his letters; and Sir Isaac Newton ate many apples before he discovered the gra\dtation of the world ; oars were invented before sails, rudders before compasses, and all and each of them before steam ; Magna Charta preceded Catholic Emanci- pation and Parliamentary Reform by many cen- turies; and now, because the dark barbaric old social fabric, built for expediency long ago in the night of ages, is beginning to fall in and crumble about us, and so lets in light through its ruined cre- vices sufficient to detect all its defects, and we talk VERY SUCCESSFUL. 161 incessantly about them, straight we wisely wonder that constantly animadverting upon them has not ah'eady raised up a new, more commodious, and more healthy edifice. We talk religion, we talk morality, we talk justice, we talk intellectual pro- gression, and, indeed, make more way in that than in anything else ; we talk National Schools, we talk, as our individual bias may set, Chris- tian, Sectarian, or Sadducee Sabbaths, and we have peers, parliament-men, and all Grub Street lecturing about the country, more, it is to be feared, from vanity than virtue ; but still, no thanks to them ; they are doing good, for they are, unknown to themselves, working in their vocation ; for as no house can be built ^^dthout a certain amount of rubbish for its basement, so is the legislative, legal, literary, and municipal talk of one century the foundation-stuff upon which the solid fabrics of its successors are raised. Only consider how many hundred years it has taken us to TALK Christianity ; but the millenium ivill come at last, when every one will act as Christians ; the few who have the courage and the conscience to do so now are looked upon either as insane or as great oddities, because they are ripe before the time, as we are still in the transition stage of theory.^' "And a most disagreeable stage it is," said Mrs. Pemble, "for it causes that total want of all sincerity and reality, which is the master-curse of VOL. I. L 162 VERY SUCCESSFUL. this age. People do not now disseminate opinions because, being strongly imbued with and convinced by them, they are overflowing with them, and are therefore impelled to take the initiative in pro- pagating them and proselytizing others; on the contrary, they invariably wait to see which bubble lasts the longest — in a word, wdiich is the most popular, in sects, science, politics, literature, or art — and therij goaded by an insane craving for notoriety^ they immediately set about adding their individual breath to its inflation." "All true, but still without any such high intent, they are doing a work of utihty, just as the poor rooks, who are so ungrateftilly shot by the farmers for the few grains they purloin, nevertheless render them and the rest of the community an incalcu- lable service in the number of pernicious grubs and worms they destroy ; so in like manner, whoever serves, though merely as an echo, to point out an ABUSE, or though only as a parrot to proclaim a TRUTH, is most unquestionably the right man in the right place. This is a railing age, exclusive of steam, and the system of universal fault-finding now going on is only the preliminary breaking up of inconvenient old roads, to prepare them for a better train of things ; for it is a maxim of philoso- phers, that truths are oftener discovered by their contraries than in any other way, and that when there are but a certain number of accidents or VERY SUCCESSFUL. 163 causes from which a thing can arise, we shall make as many advances at the discovering ichich is Hght, as we give explanations of which is wrong. Con- sequently, if there are hut six causes, which can have place in producing an event, and we shew five do not effect it, we may be sure the sixth doesj without more inquiry' ; and our social machine, difficult as the rust of neglect and the cobwebs of ignorance have made it to work, is not so complex after all but that it must have a mains[irinorj and, that once found and kept thoroughly lubricated by public opinion, the dirty rags of cant, humbug, self- interest, mammon worship, Brummagem philan- thropy, with all their motley patches of other vices with which we are now continually plying it, must come out at last — the smooth, white, spotless pages fit for the age of deeds, when there will he justice without laiu, and Christianity without sects ; the Sabbatarian controversy itself ha^'ing ended in those Right Reverend Fathers in God (whose ideas of Sabbath sanctity consist in Sabbath stagna- tion.) breakfastincr ofiP of drv bread and dinincr off ditto ; walking to church three times a day, in all weathers, and sending their carriages to the work- house to convey to the sacred edifice those poor old phthisicy paupers, whose devotion might not only be damped by the elements, but to whom wet feet and wet clothes would be certain death, and so burden the parish with the charge of their obser|mes. 164 VERY SUCCESSFUL. Nay more, in the age of deeds, I can fancy the regenerated looking back to ovir present bitumi- nously barbaric ecclesiastical laws (which are not only a disgi'ace but a ridicule to any soi-disant civilized country) with as much wondering horror as we now do to the female flesh and blood traffic * under the Heptarchy, when ever}" peasant girl could be seized at mil by the commercial travellers of the slave merchants, to sell at Bristol, Lewes, or any other mart, and outraged at their pleasure ; for if about to become mothers they brought a higher price in the market, till this infernal human traffic was put a stop to by Ina, the " wisest, virtuousest, best " of all the Saxon kings, not excepting Alfred. Yes, I can fancy the incredible horror A^dth which English people liAdng under a more advanced state * A-las ! tbat it should be so ; but succeeding ages, like contem- porary individuals, can always see the motes in tlieir predecessors' eyes witbo\it even suspecting the beams in their own ; and that the nineteenth century, up to the very recent period of March the 24lh, 1856, has very beaming eyes will be amply proved by the following and hereto -appended, admirable, able, and fearlessly- true letter of " A. J." to The Times. Oh ! that England had more A. J.'s and fewer '■'■females /" — and then she would have wo.MEX to appeal to, for there are plenty of good, honest and honorable men to make common cause with them against the chartered band of leprous profligates, who promote and have or- ganised by their own studied, invented and irresponsible vices, this revolting and disgraceful state of our moral society. A . J. asks, " shall we stone those who minister to vice, and spare those who practise it ?" God forbid ; but were a law passed that these vile free-trade intermediaires should be branded on the forehead with the old scarlet letter (only not one taken so far down in the alphabet) unless they gave up the names of their employers and patrons, depend upon it it wouM soon stop M«s branch of infamy. The only fear is, that the awful expose that it might give rise to amongst some of our literary-politico Lycurguses and self-styled moralists (Heaven save the mark !) would effectually throw out VERY SUCCESSFUL. 105 of Christian equity will look back to these our times, when marriage vows are merely deemed sacred for women, at least among the higher orders, and when men can not only ^4olate them with impunity, but with triumph ; and the more re- voltingly profligate they are, and the more notori- ously infamously they have behaved to one woman, the more they are ran after and adulated by your regular "British i^^ma/e;" and when, no matter what amount of moral and physical brutalization a woman receive from her lecral slaveholder — no matter with what complex conspiracy of utter blackguardisqi she may be hunted by him — no matter how inhumanly deserted — no desertion can loosen her fetters, no amount of wrong be sufficient to procure 7ier redi'ess, unless, indeed, she has suf- the bill, and prevent their voting for so suicidal a measure. How- ever, thongh we may, I fear, despair of this salutary revival of a scarlet letter, those of A. J. should be graven by gratitude on every woman's heart in England. But gratitude is a plant of slow and uncertain growth, especially when raised fi-om the seed of immeasurable benefits. Laurels are for those who fight icith the mass ; but those who have the isolated and god-like courage to lead the forlorn hope of a great social truth against a GREAT SOCIAL EVIL must Only expect tho stones or the faggot of the martjT ; for truly says Sir "NValter Raleigh — " There is no mistress or guide that hath led her followers and servants into greater misfortunes and miseries than truth ; he that goes after her too far off Icseth her sigiit and loseth himself, and he that shall follow her too near the heels she may haply strike out his teeth." But, in spite of our teeth, let us persevere, noble-minded A. J., and heed no more the vituperations of the vicious and the hypocritical than Luther and Melancthon did the anathemas of the Monks. If our much-boasted liberty of the press were a realitij^ and not a solemn sham, like marriage vows for men, professing one thing and meaning another — that is, diametrically opposite — • then, indeed, by a public appeal to the justice and mercy of the mass, women by erposing the cowardly persecutions with which 16G VERY SUCCESSFUL. ficicnt money, and, above all, sufficient interest to get her emancipation liocus-pocussed through the House of Lords, at the fiat of a set of superannuated adulterers ; and, most monstrous of all, as regards these said ecclesiastical laws, when cruelty has branded with cupidity on its unnatural statutes, that ^A MOTHER IS NO RELATION TO HER CHILD ! ! ! ' " " Ah ! my dear sir, that Is the only part of your ])rophecy that I don't think will ever come to pass, at least in England ; for in every other country the era of the elevation of w^omen to the position of rational and responsible human beings and co-equal heirs of immortality has already dawned. But you some are hunted by their slave-owners, might end them ; hut no, *' truth is a lihel," that is to say — an unvarnished statement of revolting facts with their proofs appended ; for the nucleus of both our social and legal code is the protection and screening of masculine vice, which is ever held, more especially by the cant of conventionality, as a thing too sacred to be even alluded to ; and in that cant every profligate finds a safe and impregnable citadel. 1; es, were there really a free press, wrongs, when too outrageous, could no longer skulk in darkness, for causes will produce effects, and commensurate eff'ects too ; if the caxise be unparalleled, the eff'ect must be unprecedented, and there comes to individuals, as to nations, a culminating point of misery and outrage, which produces revolution— the only difference between the two being that in the nation it is a wholesale butchery, while with the individual it is a mortal single combat, but yet one for which even the weakest woman so outraged has all that heroism can give or exigency require ; and the very point where cow- ardice retreats and quails is that where courage penetrates and conquers, for "L' imprudence n'est pas dans la temerite, EUe est dans un projet faux, et mal concerfe, Mais s'il est bien suivi c'est un trait de pnidence, tiu d'aller quelq'ie fois jusques a I'insolence, Et je sais pour donipter Iks plus imperieux, Qu'il faut souvent moins d'art, que de inepris pour eux." J 'V'EP.Y SUCCESSFUL. 1G7 must recollect that Injustice to our sex began with the world, aud it is the 07ie tradition that men most inviolately preserve. The ridiculous doctrine of Aristotle and Almericus that the female sex was an error in nature, and that had not Adam sinned the whole human race would have been men, cre- ated immediately from God as the first man was, was not one whit too ridiculous for the Fathers of the early Church to push still further, by main- taining that at the general resurrection, women, as imperfect animals, would be finished and perfec- tionized (?) by being transmuted into men, so that then Grace would complete the work which Natm'e had so blunderingly begun. It is true that St. Augustine, in his Be Civitate I)ei,'\ opposes this, " THE TRAFFIC IX WOMEN. " To the Editor of the Tones. "Sir, — In a leading article of The Times (Thursday, March 20), you have commented with just horror and indignation on the in- famous traffic in young girls, at this time carried on to a greater extent than can be conceived or believed by those who sit at home, intrenched round by all the sanctities of domestic life and all the safeguards of virtue. In the course of the judicial in- quiry which gave rise to your remarks, it was stated publicly that this traffic has become a " system," and a source of profit ; that the law cannot reach it, and that without the intervention of our Foreign Minister it is rot likely to be put down. " That such an infamous traffic does exist has long been well known to me and to others. Not only is it true that English girls are inveigled out of this country in. such numbers that, as I remember, an association was formed in Paris to protect them ; but it is not less true that for the same horrible purpose girls are brought over to England from France, from Belgium, from Germany ; it is, in fact, a trade under all the conditions of ex- port and import — a trade which, if not legalized, is tolerated ; and I have myself heard it, I will not say defended, but ac- t Lib. xxii., Cap. 17. 168 VERY SUCCESSFUL. though I confess / rather incline to it, not, indeed, as a matter of grace, but as a doctrine of compensation^ " Pooh ! and who are the men, from the begin- ning of the world — whether Je^^^sh Rabbis, or Pagan philosophers — who tried most to lower women in the scale of humanity and depreciate them morally, but those, who like Aristotle and Eu- ripides, were the most notorious profligates ? — and certainly a profligate, considering the som'ces from whence he naturally draws his inferences, cannot have any opinion of women but a vicious and a degraded one. Plutarch indeed aflects a chari- table incredulity touching some of Aristotle's worst debaucheries ; but I confess I am so uncharitable with regard to all this sort of gentry, that I incline counted for, excused as the necessary, inevitable result of certain permitted social vices. When several trials relative to these foreign victims were reported two or three years ago, and sent a strong shudder of horror and disgust througli our virtuous so- ciety, The Times was blamed by some persons for the publicity given to the circumstances and the severity of its comments ; but others who recoiled from such details felt wisely grateful for the exposure of such unmanly vice, and for the manly scorn and detestation with which it was visited. " In this recent case, not women only, but all right-minded and generous men have reason to thank you for the part you have taken. You conclude your denunciation by an appeal to English women, and (printing the word in capitals to enforce your ap- peal) you require that Englishwomen should " lay to heart" such a state of things, and use their utmost power to stop the progress of this enormous wrong. " I am an Englishwoman, and, in common with many other Englishwomen, feel the shame and horror of such a state of things; but will you, who thiis appeal to us, or Avill any of your correspondents point out what it is our duty to do ? — how we are expected to act, to speak, or even to think on such subjects ? "We have been told heretofore by men whom we respect that it be- VERY SUCCESSFUL. 1G9 more readily to accept as truth the anything but favourable version given of his morals (I) by Theocritus, the Chian, who was his contemporary, in preference to Plutarch's version, who lived so long after him. But leaA'Ing all this, to shew the consistency of philosophers, the virulent manner in which Aristotle blazoned not only all the moral, but also all the physical defects of women, did not prevent his being a most uxorious husband to both his wives ; and indeed to Pythais, his first wife, his impious folly reached the height of offering incense to her as to a di^'inity — so that one can only conclude that, like most men who are immorally the abject slaves of yom* sex, whenever he met with a rebuff, he became their most miscrupulous satirist. But it is curious to mark how every comes women to be absohitelr silent on such revolting topics — to ignore, or rather to affect to ignore, such a " state of things" as you allude to. We have been told that in virtuous \romen it is a breach of feminine delicacy even to suppose the existence of certain outcasts of our ovra sex, or of certain exemptions in regard to vicious indulgence assumed by yours ; in short, that, as women of virtue, we have nothing to do with such questions, though we know, too well, how deeply they affect us, how terribly near they approach us personally, how the far-reaching contagion of such covert vice involves in some form or other the peace of our " virtuous" homes, the fidelity of our husbands, the health and morality of our sons, the innocence of our daugh- ters. We have been allowed, indeed, to patronize penitentiaries, to read chapters of the Bible, and distribute lugubrious tracts to wretched, sullen, disordered victims; but, meantime, we are told — I have myself been told, half pityingly, half sneeringly— that for every one unhappy creature we rescue cut of the streets two will be at once supplied to fill up the vacancy ; that this " state of things" is a necessary social evil ; and tiiat we virtuous women had better not meddle with it, lest worse befall us. " So it has been said in former times ; but it seems, from the appeal you make to us, that in these days Englishwomen may 170 VERY SUCCESSFUL. extravagant absurdity in the moral and intellectual world has its pendent in the physical and scientific one, for precisely the same paramount theory of the super-excellence of the male sex, broached by the twelfth-centur}^ Paris Doctor Almericus, Aristotle, and the Fathers, which you allude to, was also held by the Alchymists, with regard to metals — at least a parallel doctrine; for they actually asserted that Nature always intended the generation of gold, and, through sheer defect, stops in another and inferior metal, which, say they, their art has alone the secret of remedying. But, to tell you the truth, the chief barrier that I see in England to the amelioration of the social position of women is, the narrow selfishness and vapid inanity of the women themselves — a state of things feci, may think, may speak out on such subjects ; may, without reproach, take such a part in their discussion as becomes the members of a Christian and civilized community. But what ars we to do, where law is weak, where custom is strong, where opinion is cowardly or wavering, where our very knowledge in- volves an imputation on our feminine decorum — what are we to do ? A popular journal, in reference to this trial, intimated that where the law cannot reach them it is permitted to take the chastisement of such vile panders and procuresses into our own hands. Does this mean that they should bo pilloried or pum- melled io death in our public streets } I believe this would be their fate if they were once recognized ; but where would be the j ustice of it ? Shall we stone those who minister to vice, and spare those who practise it ? That class of wretches whose sole and profitable occupation it is to himt down and ensnare victims becomes, we are told, more and more numerous, more and more audacious ; but for whom are the victims hunted down and en- snared, imported and exported as so much merchandise? So long as the market exists the article will be supplied. Tell us, therefore, what are we to do ? The education of your sons does not rest witii us. In the schools where boys are collected to- gether, generally far out of the reach of pure, healthy female VERY SUCCESJ=IFUL. 171 wliich the efrotism, and mammon-worship, and the W7?-self-relying system of their purblind education, does everything not only to create, but to increase." " There I quite agree with you, for the ge- nerality of women in this country — unless they happen to be personally brutalized themselves, have no esprit de corps or SATnpathy for other women ; and indeed those who are anion cr the victims of the disgracefully one-sided ecclesiastical laws only know how to complain, but do not know either how to resist or to redress, and for the most part seem to cling to the parcel of passive en- durance and total ignorance which men have al- lotted to them, with a sort of superstitious fana- ticism." " Aye, like that of Queen Mary ; (who, by the bye, with all her faults, being more of a woman than her execrable sister Elizabeth, did not deserve the sanguinary sobriquet attached to her name half as much as her all-vice of a sister). Don't you re- member, when Ridley called on her at Hunsdon, on society and influence, the first thing they learn is to despise girls ; and the second, to regard the impetticoated half of the human species as destined for their service or their pleasure. Hence in the higher and better educated classes early impressions which lead to the n-.ost selfish and cruel mistakes in regard to the true position of -n-omcn, and in the lower more ignorant classes, to the most terrible tyianny and brutality. Against the latter, it is said, our Legislature is preparing stringent measures ; but against the former what is to defend us } I speak in the name of Englishwomen to whom you have appealed, and ask counsel and help from generous and thoughtful men — what are we to do ? " "A.J." 172 VERY SUCCESSFUL. his return from Cambridge, when she was Princess Mary, and after dinner asked her permission to preach before her the following Snnday ; she con- tinued for some time silent, a gloomy shade passing over her countenance, and at length she replied, ' As for this matter, I pray you, my lord, make the answer yourself.' ' Madam,' said he, ' I trust you will not refuse God's word ! ' * I cannot tell,' she rejoined, * what you call God's word; that is not God's word now that was God's word in my father's day.' Whereupon the Bishop observed that God's word is ONE at all times, but had been better understood and practised in some ages than others, upon which she could restrain her anger no longer, but said, ' You durst not for your ears have avouched tliat for God's word in my father's days that you do now.' And then, to show how com- petent a judge slie was in the controversy, she added, " As for your new books, I thank God I never read any of them ; I never did, and I never icill ; and upon this rational and logical model, with I'egard to a bigoted and uninvestigating adhesion to all long-established and conventionally-patented errors, your genuine 'British Female^ is to this day ' constructed.' " " That arises from their intense man-worship," said Mrs. Pemble ; '^ and in order to adulate their lords and masters the more, and thereby insure a few temporary and trumpery personal and indi- VERY SLXCESSFUL. 173 vidual immunities, tliey are always the most active in endeavouring to keep down their sex, and in swelling the hue-and-cry against Bloomerism and strong-minded women. Since that is the jack- boot, pugilistic sort of nicknames the present age has hit upon wherewith to brand all women two degrees removed from idiotcy, and who have suf- ficient moral courage to think and to act rightly, although in so doing they may be in a vituperated minority." " And don't you know w^hy ? Men, with a very few rare exceptions, that prove the rule, have no moral courage ; consequently there is nothing they dread so much, as it aAves them quite as effectually as the fixedly determined gaze of a sane person does a lunatic, and from the same cause, that both are the trimnph of reason over the reverse. There- fore men have agreed, by the calumnious ridicule of affecting to confound moral courage W\i\\ physical violence in a woman, and branding all who possess it as shrews and termagants, to endeavoui', if pos- sible, to lapidate it out of the catalogue of female virtues ; the superior virtues they arrogate to them- selves being prudence and ' common sense ; ' and there never yet was a person revolting from his avarice who did not dignify that mean, miserable vice with the name of ^ prudence,^ or one cautious to pusillanimity who did not plume himself on his ' common sense. ' I think it is Freyjoo, that 174 VERY SUCCESSFUL. very sagacious old Spanish philosopher, who says that ' much which is called prudence in men is fallacy, deceit, and treachery, which is a great deal worse than even that indiscreet frankness with which women sometimes manifest their hearts ; for though the latter may sin against the rules of prudence, it is good^ considered as a symptom, inasmuch as that no one is ignorant of their own proper vices, and those who find any great amount of such in themselves shut up carefully all the crannies of their heart ; moreover, nohody ever made the golden age to consist of prudent men, but of candid ones ; because then it was to be supposed that, having no ugly things to hide, men could afford to be candid. But to return to those said ecclesiastical laws, though women have a much greater and deeper stake in them, inasmuch as that women, however deserted, are still fettered if they are women of principle and termagants with moral courage to resist all the snares by wdiich they are compassed, whereas neither the laws of God nor man fetter our sex, if it be their pleasure to have recourse to the skeleton key of vice to break through every barrier, and their doing so never injures them in Church, State, or Society ; on the contrary, I think I may with truth assert that in "moral England" the more shamelessly profligate and immoral a man's private character is, the more he flourishes in that clap-trap bubble called public VERY SUCCESSFUL.* 175 life. And yet for the last two centuries men have been beginning to kick against the iniquitous costliness of the ecclesiastical laws, which prevents any but a rich man getting rid of a frail rib ; but there is not a word of compassion for a poor woman not being able to get rid of, or even to get any redress for any amomit of infamy a brute of a husband may think fit to inflict upon her ! But all this is upon the same equitable and one-sided prin- ciple that if a man catches his wife with a paramour, and in his indignation slays them both, it is justi- fiable homicide ! — but if a poor, wTetched woman has her house polluted and herself outraged by ha\dng her husband's mistresses brought into it, or better still, is turned out of it to make way for them, she is only ridiculed if she winces under it, aud excomunicated by the canons of English con- ventionality if she complains of it I But of all the one-sided fallacies, that which amnses me the most is the old-established masculine palliation of mas- cuHne sin, in contradLstinction to the unpardon- ableness of the slightest refraction of their sin in women : for God of com*se is put entirely out of the question, further than as a God of vengeance to redress the wrongs of injured husbands, by executing judgment upon women. ' Oh I ' say we lords of the creation, ' the reason adultery- is a so much more heinous crime in women, and only a venal peccacUllo in us is, that a woman may 176 VERY SUCCESSFUL. bring a spmious race into her husband's family.' Veiy true ; and that is precisely the reason why God has forbidden that sin. But pray when my Lord A. intrigues with my Lady B., and my Lord A. returns the compliment, or else goes farther in the alphabet, does not my Lord A. inflict a spurious ])rogeny on my Lord B. ? to say nothing of colonising Brighton, Brompton, and the German Baths with other spui'ious oif- shoots, who, though their victim-mothers may have been nobodies, yet theijj still in their turn, had fathers' and mothers' hearts to break by their delinquency, although they were not Lords and Ladies. So that when this grand and, as they think, clenching argument comes to be summed up it amounts to this : — ^ It is a crime,' says my Lord B., ' of the blackest die for Lord A. to bring dis- honour into my family, and one for which Lady B. at least deserves to be broken on the wheel, and afterwards thrown a la Jezebel to the dogs, as she has chosen to go there. It is true / have often played the same game in Lord C.'s household, and have over-populated Joneses, Smiths and Browns wdthout end ; so that I have been obliged, w ith the expense I have been at in hushing up these ' little affairs ' alone, to screw my wife and my legitimate incumbrances down to the low^est possible figure. But that is very different ; men -will be men. " " I fear so to the end of the cha])ter," sighed VERY SUCCESSFUL. 177 Mrs. Pemble, "for, as you say, that is precisely their fallacious argument, and equally fallacious self-extenuation for making and breaking laws as they please." " For a ' moral country ' as we call ourselves^ vice, and more especially that particular A^ice, holds strange sway among us, and the reason is evident : both laws and punishments, to be eflPectual, must be two-sided ; it is for that reason that the sword of justice is represented as a two-edged one ; but as our social and ecclesiastical laws noio stand, it would be just as wise to enable a father, at pleasure, to murder his children ; but making it death by torture for a child to mm'der his parent. Such an iniquitous law might and would create parricides, but never would or could prevent parricide ; for evil out of evil ever springs, directly or indirectly ; and in like manner till religion ceases to be considered, as it at present is by our legislators, as a mere necessary pin in the wheel of the State, and men are brought to believe that it is quite as heinous and as judgment-entailing for them to violate God's law, premeditatedly and spontaneously , as it is for weak, silly women to be betrayed, cajoled, or entrapped into doing so, there will or can be no such thing as real morality among us. Why even in Sparta, where they had neither the light nor the law of Christianity, they had more sense, and infinitely more justice, for, like parricide, they looked upon VOL. I. M 178 VERY SUCCESSFUL. adultery in either sex as a crime so horrible that they had no la^y whereby to punish it, thus paying tlie Spartans the compliment of believing it im- possible, for we all know the story of the Spartan, who, being asked by a stranger, ^ What was the punishment for adulterers ? ' — replied, ' We are not acquainted with such a crime in Sparta.' * But suppose,' persisted the stranger, * that such a crime were actually committed, what would be the penalty ? ' * The adulterer,' answered he, ' must give to the injured party an ox, with a neck long enough to reach over the mountain Taygetus, so that he may drink of the river Eurotas on the other side.' 'But it is impossible,' said the stranger smiling, ' to find such an ox.' ^ It is just os possible,' replied Garadas, the Spartan, ^ as to find an adulterer among us.' And even in ancient Home, not certainly during tlie dynasty of those ' clever men, ' the Caesars, but at one period of her Commonwealth, for six hundred years the crime was unknown ; so that the solitary instance, at the end of that time, of Corvilius Sj^uriosus repudiating his wife has sent his name down to posterity.' But a:nong us, if ever there is a little gentle whispering about framing a law for the protection of women, it either careful! v avoids o'oinij to the moral root of the question, or else quietly dies out as a parergy beneath the notice of the legislature. And, such being the case, I confess I never see a lovely young VEP.Y SUCCESSFUL. 179 creature — one of Heaven's best liostages for making a right-minrled, noble-hearted woman, like that charming gu'l we have just parted from for instance, — that I do not shudder to think ichat her fate may be ; for certain it is, and sad as true, that the darkest fates are generally meted out in this world to the fairest women — I mean fair within as well as without." ' '^ Ah ! is she not lovely ? I can't tell you how my heart warmed to her, and how I longed to throw my arms about her neck, and tell her I had a right to do so." " And whv did vou not ?" t. 1/ "No, no; I know my ^etiquette to ladies' and for governesses better than that ; and I assure you the timely recollection of my position passed be- tween her and me like the cold, deadly, but all- conquering shade of Theseus on Marathon, and at once smote me down into my lower sphere of poor relation." " Though infinitely better born than the relation by mamage you were speaking to, yet I cannot, in truth, say better bred ; as Lady Florinda is really a most charming girl, who would even provoke a mother-in-law to love her, and fascinate a son-in- law into almost forrrettintr that her mother was a parvenu to the uttermost length and breadth of the term." " My dear Sir Gregory," smiled Mrs. Pemble, 180 VERY SUCCESSFUL. "you forget tliat Lady de Baskerville's father and brother, the worthy Manchester druggists, were also my husband's father and grandfather." "Aye! and above all we must not forget out ^Morning Post' and ^ Court Journal,' or Courr Booby Jumper as it ought to be called, by not at the same taking into the account the chymistry of heraldr}^, which has transmuted the gi-devant Lancashire witch, ^liss Dora Penrhyn, into a countess." '' Who, to do her justice, has gone beyond the ancestral chymistry, and achieved a perfect alchy- mistic tou7' de force in that golden girl of hers." " Granted ; and what charming manners she has ! — which assort with her beauty as well as her ribbons did with her complexion." "Yes, and in England, I am sorry to say, charming manners are far more rare than charm- ing faces." '^ Do you know, the only good that I can con- template as resulting from this horrid war is that the fusion w4th the French will shame us out of our accursed selfishness; which, after all, is the real mildew of our manners, as well as of our morals." " And above all, I hope it will shame us out of our rusty cant of attributing a supei-ficial hollow- ness to the never-failing politeness of the French ; for look at the accounts of their tenderness, ge- nerosity and abnegation of self, amid all the hor- VERY SUCCESSFUL, 181 rible privations and perils of the Crimea ; and while in hugging our own bearishness we sneer at this charm of manner, it is to be hoped that we shall have both the gratitude and the generosity to sneer no longer, when we find that though it is guilty of lending grace to a ball-room, it positively gives an additional glory to a battle-field." " My good ladv, the grace is the very thing we don't forgive, for, being unable to emulate it, we find it shorter and sharper to call it insincerity ; and yet it is this very grace which gives the guinea- stamp of value to every kindness and to every com- pliment. I believe no one ever thought Napoleon the First a fop or a fribble ; yet I can remember when I, as a lad of eighteen, being in Paris with my tutor, for the fetes in celebration of the peace of Amiens, Lord Cornwallis, who was our Am- bassador on the occasion, upon going on the day they commenced to the Tuilleries, was greatly sur- prised not to see another vehicle or equipage of any description in the usually over-crowded streets but his own. Upon expressing his surprise at this singular and ver}' unwonted circumstance, he was then for the first time informed that the First Con- sul had given orders that no carriage (including his own) but that of the English Ambassador should be allowed to traverse the streets of Paris during the crowded throng, collected by the fetes. Lord Cornwallis said, as well he might, that it 182 VERY SUCCESSFUL. was the finest, because the most delicate, compli- ment he had ever received in his Ufe." "Charming!" said ^Irs. Pemble; "truly, as you say, the grace is the guinea-stamp. I suppose you know that anecdote of Dr. Young straying into the French cam[) dming the war in Flanders ? " " No, I do not. You mean the Night Thoughts Dr. Young?" " Yes." " Pray let me hear it." " Well, i think tJiat was another instance of the grace with which they enhance a favor. Dr. Young, daring the then war in Flanders, attended the English army as almoner. One day, being deeply absorbed in a volume of xEschylus, he entered in his reverie the camp of the enemy ; he was disagreeably surprised at finding himself seized as a spy, and taken before the French General. Dr. Young informed him of his name, upon which the Marechal bowed and said ' that was a name fame had long made known to him,' and thereupon had refreshments brought, enter- tained him with the greatest distinction, and finally had him led out of the camp by a guard of honor." " Just like them I Had a French author, of fifty times Dr. Young's celebrity, and a hundred times his genius, strayed into our camp, provided we had ever heard of his name, and were convinced VERY SUCCESSFUL. 183 he was only guilty of the minor crime of author- ship, and was not a spy, we might have said, ' Let the poor devil go ;' but as for fetding and feasting him, and sending him out of the camp "sWtli a guard of honor, we are by far too much occupied with ourselves, whether in peace or war, to waste so much time and trouble on another, and that other an enemy. But, to return to what I was saying, as to the want of moral courage which exists in us men as a rule — I am now going honestly to confess that I, Gregory Kempenfelt, old soldier though I be, am no exception to that rule ; and I assure you I would rather mount a breach any day than incur one with my sister Charity ; and it is astonishing the Httle tempo- risings, half measures, and tergiversations my pusillanimity is guilty of, rather than have the courage to brave the storm, by o-s\^iing to her at first any little hitch in the family cabinet, that must be o^med at last.'^ '^ Ah, my dear vSir Gregory ! you are indeed no exception to the rule ; but what strikes me as most strange in this want of moral courage in men is, that they not only succumb, not to say cower, to regular despotic viragoes, but are far more tolerant to, and of, them than they are of the slightest resolution and strength of character in other women, however trampling and outrage may have goaded them into a honest resistance and aroused 184 VERY SUCCESSFUL. this dormant firmness. As to the termagant by nature and practice, they seldom apply any oppro- brious epithets, but suffer and submit in silence ; whereas, for the woman who has no constitutional ill-temper, only a lion-hearted moral courage to resist, by exposing, the autocratic villainy that may have become too dastardly for even a worm to bear without turning upon the superior, but cowardly, force which attempts, under the Avarrant of impu- nity, to crush it, no vocabulary^ contains sufficient vituperatives, or no rubric sufficient anathemas, not only to satisfy the particular lord of the creation opposed, but all his peers, who, considering that if ever women are allowed even the most feeble resistance under such circumstances, or the slightest freedom of speech, their fiatical omni- potence as the superior sex will be considerably jeopardized, and therefore they instantly make common cause of it, and join in doing all they can, by calumny, invective, and the projectiles and battering-rams of ' vixens,' ' furies,' ' devils,' ^tartars,' and * strong-minded women,' to blacken and blight such insubordinate spirits." " Very true ; and yet in signalling out some, alas ! too many of you, for victims and martyrs to THE PRIVILEGES OF OUR ORDER, it is yet a great compliment we, in spite of ourselves, are paying you as a sex. There is an exquisite piece of verbal enamel painting in Ruskin's ' Modern Painters,' VERY SUCCESSFUL. 185 not on copper, but on grass. I know no gem like it in ancient or modem prose or verse. It has about it all the freshness of the daisy, all the sweetness of the violet, all the pureness of the morning dew, and all the truth of the nature to which, like the kisses of a south wind, it gives back to the full as many charms as it has borrowed from it. After much that is equally beautiful he says, ' Look up towards the higher hills, where the waves of ever- lasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines ; and we may perhaps at last know the meaning of those quiet words of the 147th Psalm, ' He maketh the grass to grow upon the mountains.' There are also several lessons symbolically connected with this subject which we must not aUow to escape us. Observe the peculiar characters of the grass which adapt it especially for the service of man are its apparent humility and cheerfuLuess — its humihty, in that it seems created only for lowest service, appointed to be trodden on and fed upon . its cheerfulness, in that it seems to exult, under all kinds of violence and suffering. You roll it, and it is stronger the next day ; you mow it, and it multiplies its shoots as if it were grateful ; you trample upon it, and it only sends up a richer perfume ; Spring comes, and it rejoices Avith all the earth, glowing with variegated flame of flowers, waving in soft depth of fruitful strength ; Winter 186 VERY SUCCESSFUL. comes, and thougli it will not mock its fellow-plants by growing tlien, it will not pine and mourn, or tarn colorless, or leafless as they do ; it is always green, and is only the brighter and gayer for the hoar frost.' Xow, with a few verv' trifling alterations, this beautiful description would do for your sex, and the relative position OURS have assigned you. Your gentleness, your sweetness, and your humility being precisely the attributes which we consider Jits you pecxdiarly for our service ; and the more you are trampled on, the more we expect you should, grass-like, only rise up in grateful and additional sweetness, which, to do you justice, for a long, long, time, and under a great many and oft-repeated tramplings, is exactly what you do. Then again, how applicable to the moral courage of your sex, its cheerfulness under its own misfor- tunes and its sympathy with those of others, is the pretty simile about the grass not mocking its fellow plants by growing in winter, but still not pining and mourning, and turning colorless and leafless — in short, becoming useless as they do under the chilling influences of a sad change. But one thing tliat sometimes occurs to the poor, innocent, humble, much-enduring grass, even Mr. Ruskin has for- gotten to enumerate. I do not mean its gentle sheen being scathed occasionally by lightning, for so much more tempering mercy is there ever in the afliiclions that come direct from God, compared VLRV SUCCESSFUL. 187 with those Imposed by man, that pityhig Heaven has only to weep a few showers upon its withered hopes, for a paraclete of new flowers to spring up around it. But wlio has not seen certain Ijarren patches where no verdiu'e icill sprmg agam for all the planting, all the irrigating, and all the sun- shine in the world ? — not only on wild desolate heaths, but through highways and byeways. And who has not been told the reason is, that some dark deed of crime was once enacted there ; — and from the same fell cause it is equally possible to iiTevo" cably destroy the humble, patient sweetness and oppression-defying elasticity of the human herb ; and when such is the case ; ice have nothing to do but rail at it as an ungrateftd, and uiij^rofitable servant.*' *^I must say," said }kli-s. Pemble, ^* that the beauty of your simile does not at all derogate from its truth. 13ut I wish you would give me a silhouette of my pupils." " Xo, I'll tell you nothing about them, as I wish you to find them out for yoiu-self, except that as 1 think I before told you, Charley is a bit of a coward, but has a kind heart ; only the worst of it is, he can't be quiet about what he does, whether it is giving a penny to a l^eggar or saving a pup from drowning. Like many older people, he must take out his good deeds in publicity ; — but I shall leave you to tui'u that to account. May and Linda are 188 VERY SUCCESSFUL. decidedly pretty, and I only think it fair to tell you that any little vulgarisms you may detect in them are more acquired than natural to them, and therefore whenever you correct them you'll be sure to hear ^Miss Prosser used to say; or Mss Prosser used to do it.' " '^ And who w^as Mss Prosser f " " Their last teacher of modern slip-slop." "And what w^as she like?" *' If you mean physically, it's not so easy to tell you, as slie was very brown, and very broad, and very short, surmounted by a very wdiite cap — so that she immediately gave one the idea of being a moving panorama of a very large molehill, with a mushroom growing on the top of it. She had kept an ^Establishment for young ladies' in a county town, of which she was, or fancied she was, one of the magnates, and was as vulgar as those three facts could make her; in short, what she would have called her 'genteel manners^ consisted in sitting upon the precipice of her chair, that is its extreme edge, carefully placing her knife and fork in parallel lines on her plate to announce that she had finished her dinner, and when she wanted bread or anything else at dinner, instead of calling for it in the assured voice that less ' genteel ' people do, she would say to whatever servant happened to be near her in her most subdued voice, ' I'll take a small piece more bread, pZejase;' which gave rise VERY SUCCESSFUL. 189 to a ridiculous scene once, of which the children told me. Charity and I were passing the day in Chester to go to the race-ball, and Gifford, my butler, had had leave to go out, so that Sims, a footman I have since discharged for drunkenness, waited at their dinner, and being more or less in that happy state at the time, upon Miss Prosser -vNdth her usual moderation and hu- mility, resting on her oars — that is, laying down her knife and fork and saying — ^ I'll take a small piece more cauliflower, please, Sims ; ' he did not hand her the vegetable dish, but putting it over her shoulder emptied its triple contents on her plate, saying — ' Take as much as you like, old girl ! ' Of course she rode to church, and all that sort of thing, and did not 5e-grudge the young ladies anything when they had said their lessons well, and was always asking one or the other of them to help her fetch some forgotten parcel of books or work — so that Charley gave her the sobriquet of ' The Fetch,' though never was ghost so like a feather bed." ^'May I ask," said Mrs. Pemble, "whether you have told ^liss Kempenfelt who I am f ' " Apropos ! I'm glad you have reminded me of that. No, I have not, for without your permission I did not like to do so; and perhaps it is better not, though her ignoring the truth may subject you to more than is pleasant of her captious caprices ; for 190 VEKY SUCCESSFUL. I'll do her the justice to say, that did she know, not even the badness of her temper, I think, would predominate over the goodness of her heart." " For that matter, my dear Sir Gregory, depend upon it, it would take a great deal to make me resent an}i:hing your sister could say or do to me." Here they stopped at ShreAvsbury, and a tropical- looking gentleman got in, who, from the innume- rable hands he had to shake on the platform, and the unusual heat of the weather, looked as the artist has made ^^ that popular singer " Mr. Henry Russell look, in the portrait that " looms " above one of his songs — namely, the victim of perspiration and popularity. To a contemplative mind, even a stout gentleman on a sultrv dav frettinfi into a railway-carriage, can furnish additional instances of the symmetrical, equipoise Avith ^vhich nature balances her own superfluities and counterbalances her own deficiencies; and this was peculiarly exemplified in the ™le expanse of broad-cloth now gradually developing itself before the two travellers, for its lining, after having hung up its hat and unfurled " The Times," nay, " the very body of the times, its form and pressure," which nearly put out Mrs. Pemble's left eye, while Sir Gregory was almost equally blinded by a flash from Golconda, w^hich darted from the facets of an enor- mous diamond-ring that adorned the little finger (if anything so large could be so called) of the very TET^Y SUCCESSFUL. 191 Ethiopian-looking linnd of tlie stout gentleman, >vho, having already plnnged deep into the leading article, his companions had an opportnnity of taking an inventory of his personals ; and the first thing that stnick them both simnltaneously was his harsh, very dark brown hair, which was not only the very best imitation of a wig which real hair had ever achieved, but was also so dry and parched that it made one thirsty to look at it : and it seemed to have the same effect upon his own very swarthy face, as, with the before- alluded- to beautiful counterbalancing system of nature, that was sending forth innumerable little mean- dering rills. " At all events," thought Mrs. Penrhvn, as she contemplated this curious juxta-position of the arid and the fertile before her, " In the desert a fountain is springing I " ^' Xo doubt," thought Sir Gregory, as the residt of his conclusions on the same subject, " the trath of it is that our friend the hippopotamus there was modelled after Plutarch's dictum of the poems of Aristophanes, and that he also was not composed for the pleasure of any ordinary mortal." An opinion in which he was confirmed l.)}' the stout gentleman, after carefully eyeing him and ^Irs. Penrhvn witli the scrutiny of a detective, preserving a profound and discreet silence for the rest of the wav. 192 VERY SUCCESSFUL. "You know the story of Trefungiis, I suppose?" said Sir Gregory, leaning across and speaking sotto voce to Mrs. Penrliyn, at the expiration of a three hours' silence. '^Xo, I do not," smiled she, "but I dare say it's very applicable." " Trefungus," resumed Sir Gregory, " was once travelling for four days, with only one victim, in the mail (for it was in the days of mail coaches) during wdiich ninety-four hours Trefungus never uttered a word, and looked so formidable that the victim dared not venture to do so either. At length, on the fourth morning, being awakened by a bright sun, and seeing they were rattling through the place of their destination, victim pulls off his nightcap, and, joyously rubbing his hands ventures in the exuberance of his delight to pointedly address his companion with the incon- trovertible observation of ^ A fine morning, Sir ? ' * I didn't say it wasn't ! ' growled Trefungus ; and so ended this ineffectual attempt at conversation, — and our journey too, for here we are, thank goodness ! at Mold. CHAPTER IX. fit Jninr. POX arriving at the Mold station, there ) were there assembled the usual number of expectant friends and waiting vehicles, and among the latter, in an open carriage, the first in the line, Mrs. Pemble espied two lovely faces, wliich differed more in kind than in degree ; for there was in the slightly elder of the two a loveliness, as it were, and loftiness of expression, which, like a star, seemed to float apart, in a higher and purer atmosphere of its own ; and yet, though the beauty of the other came nearer to that of earth, it was not " of the earth, earthy," but like one of those soft, luxuriant blushes which the warm kisses of the sun, stealthily conveyed through the low whis- voL. r. N 194 VERY SUCCESSFUL. perings of the summer air, cause earth to glow with, when she answers him in flowers. Oh, Beauty! sl fatal gift thou mayest be, from being the most potent which Fate, in all her vast treasmy, has to bestow, since " that divinity which doth (but) hedge a king " straight hierarchs thee into omnipotence ! — for what heart under the subtle influences of thy unfathomable spells but silently hjanns thy praise, and subscribes to thy ritual as Spenser* wrote it ! — from indeed feeling that " every spirit, as it is most pure, And bath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer bodie doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly delight With chearful grace and amiable sight ; For of the soule the bodie form doth take — ■ The soule is forme, and doth the bodie make. " Therefore wherever that thou dost behold A comelie corpsef with beautie fair endewed, Knows this for certaine, that the same doth hold A beauteous soule, with fair conditions thewed, Fit to receive the seed of virtue strewed ; For all that faire is, is by nature good — That is a sign to know the gentle blood." " Oh, what two lovely faces ! " exclaimed Mrs. Pemble, pointing them out to Sir Gregory as soon as she had got out of the railway carriage. " Why, those are my two monkeys," said he, hastening on towards them ; but before he could * See his " Hymn in Honour of Beauty." t Body. VERY SUCCESSFUL. 195 reach the carriage they had ahghted, and ah-eady their arms were round his neck. " And where's Charley ? " he inquired, as soon as he had kissed ttiem both. '^ Oh ! " rephed the youngest girl, ■v^'ith difficulty suppressing a laugh, and coloring till her cheeks literally became like — " A red, red rose that's newly sprung in June," as she slightly and timidly glanced at ^Ii's. Pemble, " we could not get him to come." " Oh ! I understand," laughed Sir Gregory ; ^^ but see ! — here is the formidable ogress Tve brought you. ^Irs. Pemble, here are only two of your fold, — this is May, and this Linda ; the black sheep remained at home." May Egerton took Mrs. Pemble's ])rofFered hand with a natural grace and kindhness of manner which ^liss Prosser's provincialism had not been able either to prim or parse out of her, and little Linda was so far Hke a sheep that she immediately followed her sister's lead ; and as soon as the introduction was over and they were all seated, and the horses' heads turned towards Baron's Court, which was about two miles from the station. May said — " Grandpapa was only jesting, Mrs. Pemble, for indeed Charley is not a black sheep ; but the maids frighten him with all sorts of foolish tales, and last 196 A^ERY SUCCESSFUL. night, because he would not go to bed, they told him the governess that grandpapa was to bring back was a great deal uglier than IMiss Prosser, and knew very well how to manage naughty boys." ^'Come, then, at that rate," laughed Sir Gregory, " there is every excuse for Charley ; for I don't know any amount of courage, including that of Mars himself, that would voluntarily face anything uglier than Miss Prosser." *^ Don't be alarmed, my dear Miss Egerton ; not even Sir Gregory, w^hose opinions I so much respect upon all other subjects, shall prejudice me against your little brother, as I am obstinacy itself about my pupils, and never allow any one's judg- ment to interfere with my own." " Which I am not surprised at in a person who has had so many pupils, and, therefore, has neces- sarily so large an experience," bowed he, with a degree of mock solemnity that nearly made Mrs. Pemble laugh out loud ; so to relieve her from her embarrassment he said, turning to his grand- daughters, " And how is Aunt Charity ? " " Oh, she's got one of her bad headaches," re- plied Linda, biting her pretty lips, as if to bite into an expression of suitable concern an insubordinate little smile that was playing round the corners of her mouth. " Ah I that means," said Sir Gregory-, sotto voce VERY SUCCESSFUL. 197 to Mrs. Pemble, " that the barometer is at stormy ; nervous indicates wet, and we are sure of hysteiics, but want of sleep is the most portentous of all I for that foretells thunder. Poor Charity ! after her pains and aches, literature is her hobby ; and as she fancies herself a Mecaenas in muslin, and that this crotchet is pretty well known throughout the country, there is not a parish clerk who thinks fit to do any of the Psalms into doggerel, or an usher who, without benefit of clergy, neglects boys and birch (the alliteration should be inseparable) to filter or filch from Potter's exquisite translations of Sophocles, ^schylus, or Eui'ipides, who cannot to a certainty calculate upon keeping off' all plethoric symptoms from her exchequer ; but when any of these intellectual minnows solicit the favor of a personal inter^-iew, in order to have the benefit of her censorship, we sometimes have the richest scenes imaguiable ; for Charity is very deaf — not, indeed, to the appeals made on the virtue whose name she bears — but organically so. And as she will not use a trumpet, at least to her ear, the quid pro quos which sometimes arise in these * literary and scientific ' conversations are inconceivably ridiculous. She caught the blues in early life from an unfortunate contact with Madame de Stael and Sir Humphry Davey. I used rather to encourage her intercourse with him, thinking he might, perhaps, charitably give, or lend her, a safety lanij) 198 VERY SUCCESSFUL. to avoid the Corinne precipice ; but no, and to this day, though now sixty-two, poor Charity is draped and turbaned as if she also were perched as a warning to the crows on the top of Cape Mecsenas ; and, I verily believe, if it were not for a wholesome fear of Bedlam and strait waistcoats, which I do all 1 can to encourage, we should not escape even the lyre, or the palm branch." Though Mrs. Pemble could not help smiling at Sir Gregor/s sketch of his sister, as she was too well bred to join in such a theme, in order to change the conversation, she remarked on the extreme beauty of the surrounding scenery. *' Why, yes," replied he, "it would be difficult in North Wales to discover anything that was ugly except the character of the people, who are selfish, uncouth, and imgrateful to a degree ; indeed, it is to me one of the many anomalies of Nature, which, like Nature's God, are ' past finding out^ why it is that, speaking nationally, the natives of mountain- oas countries, born and bred amid beautiful scenery, instead of being more elevated and refined in their moral attributes, and more poetical and expanded in their intellectual ones, under the influences of such external beauty and grandeur, (which if it did not quite steep, would at least, one should think, stimulate their spirits to a nobler standard of ex- cellence,) are, on the contrary, with the few excep- tions that prove the rule, the most money-scraping, VEBY SUCCESSFUL. 199 money-hoarding, selfish, saturnine, matter-of-fact, literal, unimaginative, coarse-minded, coarse- mannered, and, without going to the extremes of Alpine and Apennine cretinism — if we except their sleepless shrewdness and a\-idity for gain — the most intellectually-helow-par people in the world." " It does, indeed, at the first view of the matter seem strange ; but I think the reason of it is," said ^Irs. Pemble, ''that amid all the prodigality luxuriance, grandeur and beauty of mountainous countries, human existence is difficult in the ex- treme, and human intercourse 'few and far be- tween.' In the first instance, the ever-strainincp to supply mere physical wants, and the strict economy requisite for the hoarding and eking them out when supplied, by putting the human animal much on a par with beasts and birds of prey, must of necessity engender those two most unamiable and repulsive qualities — acquisitiveness and selfishness. With regard to the second, as " The proper study of mankind is man/' so is it the only study that can develop and im- prove the two apparently antagonistic principles, but in reality parallel ones, of social and self-love, implanted more or less in every human being. It is this intercourse with our fellow-creatures which can alone make us find our o^\n level, or rise above that of others. As, stones, however thev 200 VERY SUCCESSFUL. may differ in size or genus, all appear equally ungainly and useless in the bed of a dried-up river ; so are our very virtues and capacities rugged and unavailing till they have been in some degree smoothed and moulded into their pioper places by the full current of human events, and the alternate ebb and flow of human opinions ; for I don't believe that anything can either impart or supply the place of those hard lessons in which the world teaches such true and universal knowledge ■ — no, not even the flights of genius itself, whose pinions for the most part are more like those of Icarus than of eagles ; besides, Geniuses are by no means as common as cowslips, for truly saysYirgil — " Jpjjarent rari nantes in giirgito vasto ;" and we don't so much care for what we meet with here and there in the great gulf of Time, adown which we ourselves are hurried too rapidly to pause long over its wonders. What we want is, the genial atmosphere of every-day social inter- course, which enables us not only to breathe more freely, but also lightens the burden of life we have to bear ; and the reason, I think, that we seldom find this social reciprocity among moun- taineers is, as I before said, from their individuality being too much cultivated, and their never having learnt humanity in the only school it can be acquired, namely, among their fellow-creatiu'es." VERY SUCCESSFUL. 201 "I don't doubt but you are rigbt/' said Sir Gregory, " for everj^tliing that contracts tbe heart and narrows the mind must deteriorate both, and it is this which makes the society of provincial towns and all small places so offensively detestable. ' Oil nous charmons, nous sommes charmes,'' says M. Adolphe Houditot, a very graceful modem French writer ; and of course vice versa ; and in all narrow circles, sets, cliques, colonies, and provinces, the ^ local habitation and the name ' is the thing. Consequently, as interlopers, the four cardinal Virtues, the three Gi'nces, and the nine Muses would have no chance acrainst those ' oldest o inhabitants,' the seven deadly Sins." " Oh, what a charming place I " exclaimed ^Irs. Pemble, as the carriage entered the lodcre-o-ates at Baron's Court." " It is a nice old place ; at least I like it." "But there is nothing grandpapa is so fond of as his trees," said May. " No, now that's not time, ^lay," cried Linda, starting up and throwing her arms round her grandfather's neck, "■ for you love May, and Charley, and me better ; don't you, grandpapa ? " '' Well, I rather think I do, when you are good ; but I plead guilty to being ^'ery proud of my timber. I have some oaks which are thirteen hundred years old, which I'll show you to-mon*ow, ^Irs. Pemble. It will be a pity if "' 202 VEKY SUCCESSFUL. He sighed, and did not finish the sentence ; but Mrs. Pemble guessed he was thinking of that heavy mortgage which was not yet paid off, and so, as a turn in the di'ive through the park brought them in view of the lake on one side, and of the house at some distance off on the other, she now began to admire both, but more especially the latter, which was an Early Tudor pile of building, with its sprucely-fretted gables, gilt vanes and mulKon windows all now standing boldly out, under the beautifying influence of the evening sun. As they approached the house the air was embalmed with the perfume of new-mown hay, and that piney- strawberry odour peculiar to the purple clover flowers. " You see," said Sir Gregory, " how late we are with om' hay here, this year — indeed, later than usual, as we generally have it in by the latter end of June." As he was speaking, and as the carriage approached the house, a tall figure of a lady dressed in Avhite, flung down a rake, with which she had been gracefully doing a little amateur haymaking, and walked majestically towards the house, followed, or rather preceded, by a little boy, who bomided on before her with the velocity of a mountain goat. " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed Sh' Gregory, " there goes Charley, flying from the ogress, and Corinne VERY SUCCESSFUL. 203 has actually been making hay; disappointed in finding an Oswald (for which /, as might-have-been brother-in-law, am truly thankful) or some other heau iddal, I suppose, like too many other women, she took the first rake that came in her way." ^* I am sorry if I have frightened Miss Kem- penfelt away," said Mrs. Pemble. " Oh, no I I'm sm'e aunt Charity is gone in to dress for dinner, for I dare say, till she saw the cari'iage, she had no idea how late it was," rejoined May, at which her grandfather looked his approval, and, in alighting, patted her cheek. " I must admire the outside of the house before I go into it," said ^Irs. Pemble, standing oat on the lawTi in order to do so. " The other side is much the prettiest," cried little Linda, holding out her hand, " if you'll come with me." 'Q shall be very happy to go with you," assented Mrs. Pemble, taking the little hand thus offered to her ; " but will not ^liss Egerton be of our party too ? " added she, mvino; her anu to !Mav. " The reason that Linda thinks the other side of the house the prettiest — and I'm not sure but what she is right — is, that it is perfectly embowered in foliage of one kind or another," put in Sir Gregory. And ^Irs. Pemble could not refrain from an exclamation of delicrht when she beheld the maf^ni- ficent Westeria, with its luxuriant clusters of 204 VERY SUCCESSFUL. purple, gi'ape-like flowers, which covered one side of the house, including the gables and chimney- stacks ; "but, added she, "I must confess my icpuorance, for I don't know the name of that beautiful creeper on the other side, with its large, heart-shaped, leaves of so velvety a texture, and its curious tufts of flowers ; but I dare say my little pupils will kindly enlighten me ? " " Oh ! what is the name of it, May 1 for I never can remember it." " And I'm like you, Linda, for / never can either," said Sir Gregory. May, thus unanimously appealed to, said — ^' Aberfield calls it an Aristollochia." "Aberfield is my head gardener," said Sir Gregoiy ; " and as his father w^as head gardener at Hampton Court in George the Third's time, he fancies himself an oracle — though, indeed, like most Scotchmen, he is a veiy good gardener." While they were still admiring the luxuriant beauty of the Aristollochia a dinner-gong, sounded. " There is the half-hoiu' bell, ^lay, love ; you had better shew ISlrs. Pemble to her room," said Sir Gregory. " Stay," added he, addressing the latter, " I dare say you won't mind going in at the back of the house, and it will save you the trouble of going round." They then entered, going down a few old steps, into a low, gothic, wainscoted hall hung VERY SUCCESSFUL. 205 T\itli fisliing and shooting tackle of every des- cription, and, besides antlers, vdih several stuffed birds, including owls, herons, an albatross, and an eaorle, while on the w-all on either side the hio^h mantle-piece were two enormous prints five feet long, glazed and framed in plain black oak frames^ but much discolored bv time, fi'om having no crlass over them. One of these prints represented the egregious vanity of that equally egregious old hypocrite. Queen Elizabeth, dancing a La Yolta at Lord Northampton's Avedding, to refute the Due D'Anjou's true bill of her ha^^ing the evil in her ankles, which, had it been confined to them, and had not raged in her heart as it did, would have done little harm to any one but herself. And this wedding ball, be it remembered for the sake of the admirers of that great Protestant Piincess and the benefit of modern Sabbatarians, took place of a Sunday I The pendant print represented the greatest enormity in the reign of her \\le old pedant of a successor, James the First, in the exe- cution of Sir AYalter Ealeigli. The artist had chosen the moment where that great, because good, man (w^th the one exception of his having whiffed tobacco into England) had ascended the scaffold, and w^s in the act of testing the sharpness of the c\xe, while his memorable words of " this is a sharp medicine, but one which cures all complaints,'^ figured on a scroll proceeding from his mouth, 206 VERY SUCCESSFUL. according to the Bartholomew-Fair taste of those times. This, however, did not prevent the grouping of the crowd below, and the universal yet varied expression of grief and consternation in their different countenances from being admirably depicted. But as they walked through this hall, Mrs. Pemble was particularly struck, on looking into a long wainscoted room, the door of which was open, at its genuine Elizabethan appearance, for besides the old carved high-backed arras chairs, the gold of which w^as nearly obliterated by time, and the leather rendered as smooth and polished as the wood, this room was strewed with fresh green rushes; and on the long oak table, which had a frame all round the bottom of it for those who sat at it to put their feet upon, .stood at either end two high pew^ter flaggons, such as are now seldom seen except in Teniers' ])ictures and in Bohemia, or in Wardoiu'-street. " Ob, what a dear old room!" said Mrs, Pemble, looking into it. " Ah, that's the steward's room," said Sir Gregory, "and, as you perceive, I persist in pewter, as I really believe all the old farmers think the audit-ale tastes better out of it. As for the rushes, tJiey are a fancy of mine, that there might t)e one room in the house garnished in its pristine fashion." " Only that I rather think," said Mrs. Pemble, " that, except within the actual precincts of the VERY SUCCESSFUL. 207 Court, or ill the old Baronial Halls, during one of Elizabeth's progresses, our ancestors seldom enjoyed the luxury of rushes as fresh as these." " Quant a gela, as to the freshness I am some- what epicurean, as I don't care a rush for them unless they are fresh ; so the rule is that every morning by eight o'clock this room is fresh strewed, or else Jenkins, my steward, might sing — " The ' hardest' time that e'er I spent I spent among the rushes ! ' " The stairs leadino; from this hall, althoucfh a back flight, were veiy wide and flat, of old dark oak, \N'ith those exceedingly thick torsade balus- strades, with a flat bannister, a foot and a half wide, which date from the beginning of Henry the Eighth's time and the larcre lattice-window on the first landing, was so high from the ground that it had to be opened and shut, like a chui'ch ^^-indow, with pulhes. At this landing Sir Gregory left them, and turned down the left galleiy, while ^lay and Linda conducted !Mrs. Pemble do^^ii the opposite one which led to her bedroom ; but, as in most houses of that date, there were windows all alono; one side of this gallery, looking down upon the great hall, till it came to the music gallery, which was of course open, ]Mrs. Pemble now stopped and looked down upon the really old armour, banners, and portraits below ; and what particularly attracted her attention, as she could not well make out what 208 VERY SUCCESSFUL. they were, were two massive blocks of silver on two brackets on either side of a large sea-piece, repre- senting an engagement between an old English vessel and a Spanish galleon of the same date ; so, honestly confessing her ignorance, she asked her young companions what they w^ere. *' You recollect, no doubt," said May, '^ the first prize that Sii* Francis Drake took was a Spanish galleon — the ' San Antonio ' — which, when he boarded he found full of gold doubloons and silver bricks. Well, that picture represents the action, and those two wedges of silver that you see on those brackets are two of those identical silver bricks found in the San Antonio. The way in which they came into Grandpapa's possession, was through an uncle of his — poor Admiral Kem- penfelt, w^ho went down in the ' Royal George,' as his grandfather had married a descendant of Sir Francis Drake, who had those bricks, with many other things, as heirlooms." " How very interesting ! " said Mrs. Pemble. "I'm 50 glad they should have come to Sir Gre- gory, who has so much good taste that he deserves them. I see, now, that those brackets are in bronze, and in the shape of culverins ; but I think he evinces such good taste in keeping up that rush- strewed room below !" " I don't think," rejoined May, " that that is a mere piece of good taste of grandpapa's. I think it VERY SUCCESSFUL. 209 is more one of his inventions to do an act of kind- ness, without appearing to do it ; for he says mere alms(Ti\-inoj onlv encourao-es idleness, and degrades poor people lo\^-er than those who are better off have any right to degrade them, and so he is al- ways contriving something to be done about the place that the poor may fency they are earning the money he gives them. I don't think in all Baron's Comt, anything approaching to a weed is to be found, from the numbers of old women em- ployed in up-rooting them. Then the hospital at Chester requires an incessant supply of snails and plum-tree gum. Neither will any of us ever have goitres, if eating watercresses will prevent them ; and those rushes were never thought of till last year, when there was literally nothing left to give poor old Taflfey and Tamar Lloyd to do, until grandpapa took a sudden fancy for having the steward's room strewed every morning with fresh rushes, which gives these poor old souls a shilling a day for gathering them just at the back of their cottage ; and as their grandson, Davey, gets a shillinor a dozen for all the shrew mice he can catch, they do pretty well." "My dear Miss Egerton, you have only given me an additional proof of Sir Gregory's good taste, for good feeling is the source of all such." And she thought, as she entered the large and comfortable, though tapestried bed-room appointed VOL. I. O 210 VERY SUCCESSFUL. for her, how much more genial and A'ivifylng was the quiet but glorious sun of this fine old English gentleman's spherical benevolence, than the Brum- raagen pyrotechnic, but withal, most profitable, philanthropy (?) which explodes in three-halfpenny weekly, or shilling monthly serials ; or evm than the pantheistic spiritualism, or the bearish egotism and smoky synecdoches of German muddle-a- PHYSICS ! although he had the misfortune to be well-born, and icas guilty of flunke^asm, as the, alas ! usual sequence of that original sin. May, having promised to come for Mrs. Pemble to shew her the way to the drawing-room, after having asked her if she should not send Grant, their maid, to her, now left her to change her own di'ess, for it was what Miss Kempenfelt called one of Sir Gregory's extraordinary crotchets, that May, and Linda, and the governess should always dine with them ; and, for her part, she was tired of those governesses, who were each one more ignorant, vulgar, and illiterate than the other; and it was hard that she who had listeiied to Madame de Stael, conversed with Sh' Humphrey Davey, reparteed with Rogers, moonhghted with Moore, caballed with Campbell, and been in love with Lord Byron for four and twenty hours under the conscientious conviction that the passion was re- ciprocal, should be condemned to such society; and consequently it was to the atmosphere being YEP.Y SUCCESSFUL, 211 surcliaro^ed with more froAernesses that !Miss Charity attributed her headache on that particular day — so sympathetically did she feel for the manner in which these modern slip-slopians broke poor Priscian's head. Therefore, when Mrs. Pemble made her appearance in the draAA-ing-room and was presented to ]Miss Charity, that lady was dignified and distant in the extreme, but, having watched her narrowly with both her eyes and ears during dinner, she said to herself, for she was not yet arrived at that pitch of candour which could have induced her to make such a declaration j^ro hono publico, " Well really, wherever he got her, Gregory seems to have picked up a gentlewoman at last." Moreover, Miss Charity, ha^^ng been a beauty herself, appreciated and admired beauty in others, and of that Mrs. Pemble, (who was but nine-and-thirty, and who did not look so old by ten years,) had a considerable share. With regard to Miss Charity herself, she had elongated into a sort of human thread-paper, and the superfluity of lace falals and lappets which, after a weeping willow fashion, she always wore about her head, added to the similitude, as they gave her the appearance of the thread at the top being untidily kept, and pulled out with that degree of haste, which in all things militates against neatness. All epitaphs are more or less false, and those which Time with his hard stylus graves on the '^ human face divine'' or 212 VERY SUCCESSFUL. otherwise, as the case may be, is no exception to the general rule, as age he sometimes mellows with a comely fading, which leads to the erroneous belief that beauty must have dwelt there in youth, whereas the most radiant loveliness he as often causes totally to vanish, till, " Like the baseless fabric of a vision, It leaves not a wrack behind." Now the autocrat had not dealt quite so harshly with Miss Charity Kempenfelt, as he had sur- rounded her pale, shadowy features with a sort of aqueous, moon-beamy halo, which allowed wan- dering imagination to still find beauty among their ruins. Winter and summer her evening costume was white muslin (and no crinoline), from which she never deviated. Time, indeed, had thinned her flowing hair, but as it was still uiisilvered by his touch, the dark, lank, disconsolate braids that descended irregularly about her cheeks only added by their invidious contrast to the pallor of the latter, and to that of her lack-lustre (once dark blue) eyes. Upon the whole, considering how far she had advanced in the virgin-thorn blight, she was by no means venomous, having— such as they were — resources within herself; for, as she was wont to say, the autumn of her days was divided between Hygea and Helicon, or, as her brother less sentimentally expressed it, between poetry and pills. VERY SUCCESSFUL. 213 After dinner, as soon as the dessert appeared, and just as Miss Cliarity had condescended to address a bucoHc remark to Mi*s. Pemble about the hay, a somewhat fierce struggle appeared to be going on at the dining-room door, and the following fragments of an altercation were heard : — " Come now, Master Charles ; don't be so silly ; you shan't have no dessert if you don't go in directly." " No, no, I iconH ! Tell Gilford to ask Linda to bring me up two apricots and a good big bit of cake." " I tell vou what, Sir," said Sir Grecjorv, risincr and. going to the door, and m et armis dragging in the kicking, struggling, anti Carlo dolce, " you'll either come in or go to bed directly." At which fiat Master Charley hung his head, and nearly pulled one of the little gold Spanish buttons off his very pretty dark blue velvet blouse, but made no further resistance, and at length quietly anchored beside his grandpa]:!a's chair. He was very" like his younger sister, though not quite so pretty; still, with the same dazzling skin and complexion, dark blue eyes, with long lashes, peach-like cheeks, and thick golden hair, with what his sisters called " such an innocent wave in it." Having eaten some strawbeny ice, which ap- parently had imparted a little cool courage to him, he ventured to raise his eyes and look fiu'tively 214 VERY SUCCESSFUL. round the table, and then via that interdicted channel, a whisper, he said to Sir Gregory — " Grandpapa, where is the new governess?" " There she is," replied he, out loud, to the querist's gi'eat consternation — " that lady in black, with a large rose in the bosom of her dress. Go over and speak to her." " Come ! " said Mrs. Pemble, seconding the invitation, "for Tm very anxious to see that little Charley, who, I hear, believes in ogresses. He jnust be such a funny little fellow to have such ridiculous ideas ! " Charley, modestly triumphant at being among so large a majority as those who have ridiculous ideas, without further demur w^alked over tvi her, and first staring at her from head to foot, as if he had been taking an inventory of her for a police report, and seemingly much re-assured by his investigation, though he still cautiously kept his hands behind his back, at length said, in a voice perfectly audible and assured — ^' But are you really the governess though ?" ^' I am, indeed; and now, notwithstanding that terrible confession, will you give me a kiss ? " '* Oh, yes ; as many as you like, for you look very nice to kiss ; but, on account of Miss Prosser, I made it a rule I never ivould kiss governesses." '^Ha! Ha! ha! — a 'rule' you can't do better than keep to, as you get on in the w^orld. Master Charley," laughed Sir Gregory. VERY SUCCESSFUL. 215 But Charley, putting the laugh on the wrong fact, thought they were laughmg at his having kissed Mrs. Pemble ; and as children invariably fancy that when any of their sayings or doings create a laugh, that their wit is admired, he now encored himself by throwing his arms round her neck, and giving her half-a-dozen sonorous salutes. '' Hey day, Mr. Charley! it seems there is no rule, even when made by such matured wisdom as yours, without an exception ; and I'm only afraid you'll go from one extreme to the other, and devour the ogress instead of her devouring you," said Sir Gregory. '^ She's not an ogress," vehemently protested Charley. ^' / never said she was, but I know who did. Neither do I consider myself a huxks." " Ai'e you fond of dogs ? " inquired Charley, laying both his hands on ]Mrs. Pemble's shoulders as he sat on her lap, and in his loudest voice, so as to dro^^^l his grandpapa's want of tact in alluding to so extremely disagreeable a subject. ^' Very fond of them," replied she. "Oh, I'm so glad! then you shall see Swiftpaws. And of cats too ?" " Well, I can t say that I like all cats as I do all dogs. But I have some very intimate cat friends ; indeed, I've just left one whom I was very sorry to leave ;" and she sighed as she thought of poor Tim, Sarah Nash, and Mr. Phippen, and could almost 216 VERY SUCCESSFUL. fancy she heard Tim's melancholy mew along the dreaiy, wainscoted hall in the gloomy hotise in Church-street, and that she conld see poor Sarah's red eyes, as she sat by her consumptive kitchen fire^ and that she heard good old Mr. Phippen's creaking boots (once her only music) still over head, and reproached herself with ingratitude for being surrounded with such bright beautiful young faces, and amid such a paradise of fruit and flowers, while they were still in that Slough of Despond. But, unheeding the sigh, and only noticing the words, Charley slipped down from off her lap and said — '' Grandpapa," — but suddenly stopping, he turned to Miss Kempenfelt, as the fountain-head of all domiciliary authority, and added, " I mean Aunt Charity, — may I bring Fluff and Swiftpaws down to shew them to Miss — ? " " Ogress," maliciously put in Sir Gregory. " She is not at all a-miss, as you seem to think, Charley," said Miss Kempenfelt, in a compli- mentary and condescending tone, delighted to display her wit, even at the expense of being amiable to a governess ; but, not " catching the idea," Charley returned to the charge with another. '' May I, though. Aunt Charity ? " '^ Yes, my dear, if Mrs. Pemble likes it." And away scampered Charley for his two idols. VERY SUCCESSFUL. 217 *'What a dear little fellow he is!" said ^Nlrs. Pemble, as soon as tlie door had closed upon him. " So he is," said May; " and he is so affection- ate and kind-hearted that it is impossible not to love him." " Though," added Lmda, '' grandpapa says he's so naughty, and Aunt Charity that he is so troublesome ; but all I know is, that I never t^grudge any trouble I take for Charley." '' I don't wonder at your looking honified, my dear ^Irs. Pemble, at a young ladi/s making use of such a pothouse expression." "AYliy, what did I say?" asked little Linda, coloim ng to her very temples. "■ Only that you did not begrudge taking any trouble for youi* brother." " Well, Miss Prosser always said ^^gi'udge, and I read it in a great many books and newspapers." " I've no doubt you do ; and if you were to converse with the writers of those books and papers you would hear a great many more equal \'ulsarisms ; but their usino; them don't make them patent, for all that." " Don't you think," said Miss Charity, ad- dressing herself to Mrs. Pemble, ''that those clever, but intensely vulgar, writers of tlie present day have done an immensity of hann in defacing the Enorlish lancruacre ? " "I'm quite sui'e they have, as the grand struggle 218 VERY SUCCESSFUL. of their lives is to level upwards. Now, I would not so much mind their eternal crusades, or rather phishades, against flunkeys, their tirades against titles, and their bulls against birth, if they would not bring their own maid-of-all-work antecedents to bear upon the language, and tattoo it with all their horrible ^ begrudges,^ * rides, ^ ' genteels, ^ party s,^ ^ goods,' 'pleases,' 'treats^' and 'such likes.'' Bishop Louth, nearly a hundred years ago, remarked that the energy, variety', richness, and elegance of the English language had been abun- dantly proved by numberless trials, in verse and prose, upon all subjects, and in every kind of style ; but, in the same sentence, he also observes that whatever other improvements it might have received, it had made no advances for the last two hundred years in grammatical accuracy. What would he have thought of its retrogradings had he lived till now ? I myself think it is a thousand pities that there should not be an English Academy, like the French one, where our native language might be learnt classically — a sort of verbal mint, in fact, from which no word should be issued till stamped with its special, legitimate, exact, and current value." " I quite agree with you," said Miss Charity ; " but I don't think the present race of literary and and political pigmies are likely to establish such an institution, as they seem, for the most part, all and VERY SLXCESSFUL. 219 each, to be the feverish omnipresence of them- selves, and not to have an idea or pui'port beyond self ; so that all conversation, properly so called, is at an end, as it is invariably / and my book, or / and my speech, or / and my system ; but, in •whatever department, it is a rabid rushing after notoriety, a solemn pomposity about trifles, and an egotism, that would be ridiculous if it were not revolting." '^ So it is, indeed ; but don't you remember what ^Irs. Montagu said, so truly, when speaking of her visit to Bui'ke at Beaconsfield, where, after drawing such a glowing picture of that bright gem in his casket of private life, as the kind and indulgent master, the benevolent, zealous, and charitable neighbour, the well-bred, affectionate, and attentive husband, and saying that the demons of ambition and party who hover about West- minster had not extended tlieir baneful influence to his villa, she adds — ^ A little mind is ever in a state of tracasserie, because it is moved by little things. I have always found that nothing is so gentle as the chief out of war, nor so serene as the statesman out of place; if it were fit to name names and certify places, I could bring many examples to justify my opinion. I so much delight in these working master-spirits in their hohday humour, that I had rather play at tee- totum, or cross and pile, with Julius Caesar than 220 VERY SUCCESSFUL. with Sardanapalus ; for the first would have the ease and carelessness which belongs to play, the other all the seriousness and anxiety which belongs to business.' And as the present age can boast more retail and Brummagem Sardanapaluses than CjBsars, the solemn nothings with which we are inundated are easily explained ; for pomposity is the first homage that mediocrity pays to self." "• True ! " cried Sir Gregory. But it was evident that Miss Charity, though she had bent her ear very attentively the whole time Mrs. Pemble was speaking, had only caught a word here and there, for all she said in reply was — "Ah, yes, Burke! There loere giants in tliose days. I never saw Burke ; but my father had the enviable privilege of being one of his intimates." Here GifFord entered, and stooping down said in a low voice to his master, " Mr. Lethbridge has called, Sh' Gregory, only to see you, as he says he fears it will be too late to give Miss Egerton her Hebrew lesson this evening." "" By all means beg of him to walk in. He is," continued Sir Gregory addressing Mrs. Pemble as soon as Gifford had left the room, " a young curate doing duty at Lyllisfern, a village three miles from this. I wish to goodness he was our curate at Baron's Court, or even at Mold, for he is an excellent vouncj man and one of the cleverest VERY SUCCESSFUL. 221 fellows I knovc anywhere, and, they tell me, a first- rate Hebrew scholar, in which language he is good enough to give May lessons, and occasionally to play a game of chess with me. ]Mr. Lethhridge now entered, and Mrs. Pemble could not help thinking, as she looked at this exceedingly gentleman-like, intellectual-looking, and handsome young man, that, unless he wished to have him for a relation, it was not very wise of Sir Gregory to give a beautiful girl of fifteen, like May, such a tutor ; for Horace Lethhridge was not more than eight-and-twenty, with a profusion of the most luxuriant dark, soft, vravj (not curly) chestnut hair, a high white forehead, low straight brows, and very long cut dark blue eyes with thicklv frino-ed lashes. The nose and mouth were SO faultlessly and delicately chiselled that, but for his yery virile whiskers, they might have given to his face an air of effeminacy, more especially as in that face, except the lips, which were very red, there was not a vestige of color, and its expression in repose was pensive, not to say melancholy, in the extreme ; but when he smiled his whole face lighted up hke a landscape steeped in a sudden flood of sunshine, and it would have been impos- sible to have seen anywhere more beautiful or more beautifully-set teeth ; and, most rare perfection of all, there Avas none of that omnipresence of self about him of which ^liss Kempenfelt had been 222 VERY SUCCESSFUL. complaining. He shook hands cordially with Sir Gregory, and quietly with Miss Charity and the two girls ; and upon Sir Gregory's naming him to Mrs. Pemble, he bowed to her without any of the awkwardness of a book-worm, and then seating himself took the glass of claret Sir Gregory had poured out for him. [Mrs. Pemble narrowly watched May at his entrance, but she could perceive no change pass over the calm heaven of her face ; not so ^liss Charity, she fluttered and minauded a little, or rather so much, that it was easy to see that it only rested with the Rev. Plorace Lethbridge to have become a second, and a very irreverent, Lord Byron had he so pleased. ^' Is Charley gone to bed?" asked Mr. Leth- bridge, looking round and missing his little merry face. No," said ^lay, '^ he's only gone for Fluff and Swiftpaws to shew them to Mrs. Pemble," and as she spoke little fingers were heard drumming on the door, and through the key-hole came these words — '' Linda, here's me ! where's oo ?" " Oh," laughed Linda, stopping to explain to Mrs. Pemble, on her way to open the door, " when Charley was only four years old he went all through the house one day looking for me, and crying out ^ Linda, here's me! where's ool' And as we all laughed so much at this, he now never VERY SUCCESSFUL. 223 says anything else when he wants a door opened or to call me." "It would be a pity that he should," said ^Irs. Pemble, " for I'm always so sorry when chikken leave off speaking in their own innocent way ; as that me, and oo, and zoo are indispensable for petting." " Linda now opened the door, and Charley entered, leading in, in triumph I — by a blue sash, once the property of Miss Charity herself, a veiy beautiful red and white setter, upon whose back rode with a sybarite air of perfectly oriental apathy, a very large and spotlessly white Persian cat. This w^as tlie celebrated ^Ir. Fluff, celebrated for his diplomatic astuteness in simulating death, to lure incautious mice to their destmction, and for his piscatory- and epicurean habits in abstracting, with his own snowy paw, gold-fish out of glass- globes, whenever they came in his way, or he in theirs ; but surely every grimalkin has a right to make a cat's-paw of himself if he pleases. " Ho, ho ! enter an episode of the happy family," said Sir Gregory. " Here is Swiftpaws ; is'nt he a nice dog ? Kiss his head and feel his ears ; they are much softer than velvet ; and see, what beautiful big black eyes he has. And here is Fluff; he won't scratch you," cried Charley, unceremoniously lifting that magnificent animal off of the dog's back, and fling- 224 VERY SUCCESSFUL. ing liim, or, as Linda called it, flumping him into Mrs. Pemble's lap. And no sooner was poor Smft- paws released from his compulsory servitude than he ran, bounding and barking and wagging his tail, up to Sir Gregory to welcome him home. ^'He is, indeed, a beautiful dog^" said Mrs. Pemble, " and I suppose," added she, wdth a smile, " you call him Swiftpaw^s because he's so fat." " No, I don't ; it's because he ran so fast when he was a pup ; and so he does now when he's out. But what do you think of Fluif ?" "Well, I think he really must be the very identical White Cat that the fairy-tale is called after, he's so very magnificent." " Oh, no ! because that cat, you know, was a princess, and had to have its head and tail cut off; and nobody shall ever cut off Fluff's head. I'd kill them if they did." " But that would be very wicked of you ; and, besides, it would not bring poor Fluff back to life." "Well, if I mightn't kill them, I'd beat and bite them, and stick pins in them." "Horrible! I'm afraid he'll turn out a gTeat moralist (in the way of authorship) after all, he seems to have such precociously, vrell-defined ideas of avoiding the capital ])unishment attached to tangible crimes, and taking them out in the small change of petty torture," said Sir Gregory, as he \nERY SUCCESSFUL. 225 continued to twist Swiftpaws velvet ears round his fingers, while the dog's head rested on his knee, looking up, with its two great worlds of eyes full of love into his face, and following with intense interest every word he uttered. " Pray, master Charley, is this the way you treat your old friends?" said ^Ir. Lethbridge, bending forward and looking down the table at the place where he was standing, now doing the honors of Fluff's head and paws. " Oh !" cried Charley, breaking suddenly away, and with one bound jumping into Mr. Lethbridge's arms ; " when did you come, and have you brought me any paper boats ?" " I'm sorry to say I have not, for I have been very busy all day." " Well, but make me some." " I can't, for I have nothing here to make them with." " Oh, but make something to make them with.'* *' One would really think, ^liss Egerton," said ^Ir. Lethbridge, holding both Charle;^^s militant hands within one of his, " that he was paraphrasing our last lesson." ^' What was that ?" asked Sir Gregcr}-. '^ On the Mosaic cosmogony, or rather a vindi- cation of it, tending to prove the goodness of GoD from the lateness of the creation of our system, assuming that he had created no worlds or spirits VOL. I. P 226 VERY SUCCESSFUL. before, and to shew that the term harali means to bring something into existence out of nothing, and not merely to form out of pre-existing materials. The aiMo^y ditieivnt ways of divssing them, it would be as well to, in some little dogive, vary their compulsoiy diet by being acquainted with these i\i\y waj-s, instead, as is the case with so many ladies, not even knowing how to boil one properly ; and, as every one of any rctinoniont oats, moi*e or less, from their e^XN another givat secivt in domestic economy is knowing how to send up things nicely — for dishing is to fovxl what divssing is to human beings, where taste is ON inced in either case it enhances merit and conceals defects. Bref, as ^[i*s. Pemble used to impivss upon her pupils, there is nothing so truly Anilgar as a bad cuisine and an ill-ma nageii or ill- appointed house; and among a certain class of ** British JFcmaUsr though without the cdroiu^tance att€nuant€ of their having acquiivd any moi*e in- tellectual species of knowleilge, one never sees any- thing else, from the veiy refined, but, nevertheless, lamentable fact of their not knowing goat fixnn gtx>se, or crow fi\>m capon, and contidently relying VI^RT SFCCESSFUL. 239 npon their having ordered the latter and being made to paij for it. The dairr, the lanndrr, the bakehouse, and the poultry-yard, also contributed their several quotas of necessary knowlege to the two sisters : and, besides clothes for the poor, they always made and kept a great store of lint, asy whenever there were unfortunately any accidents in the village, it was 3ilrs. Pemble's wish that they should not only see but learn how to dress wounds ; and for the more regular routine of a sick room (to which every woman ou^t to be habituated, and how few are !) they had ample and good, sharp practice in the exifjeante^ ultra-peculiarities of their Aunt Charit/s hypochondriacal whims. With the National School ^Irs. Pemble of coarse could not interfere, so it was left to the edifvin^ informa- tion of those little books which inform voung paupers that "a cat has four legs^ lest they should be too intellectually vain of making that discoreiy all by themselves, while crochet catechism and coughing completed the rest of the foliage on their tree of knowledge. But Sir Gregory had a Parochial school of his own, and ftom this ]Mrs. Pemble totally banished crochet, which was replaced by plain work in aU its branches, including mend- ing ; their cwip d'essai being npon their own and their parents' clothes, and when they could work well enough they were allowed to take in work and keep the money they earned by it. To this school 240 VERY SUCCESSFUL. slie had got Sir Gregory to attacli a large kitclieii and laundry, in wliicli they received every possible instruction in each department, being made to wash and get up their own and their parents' clothes, and to dress their own and their parents' dinners ; and if that dinner were only potatoes or oaten-meal they soon learnt that as long as there was salt or an onion to be had, they might be made palatable and nutritive, instead of insipid and the reverse. The scrubbini^ and cleaning, which is also an art as well as any other to do it properly, was Hkewise done by the children alternately ; and three times a week, for two* hours of an evening, Mr. Leth- bridge expounded, in the true sense of the word, the Scriptures to them ; for the Kev. Jabez Jowl, the incumbent of Baron's Court, to which he had been inducted by Sir Gregory's agent while he was in India, was exceedingly Low-church, and thought everything that could smooth or make cheerful the up-hill road of life to rich or poor was a deadly sin, always excepting the good things of the church, which his colossal hands seemed formed for the express purpose of grasping. His wliole cry (or, more properly speaking, roar — for in the pulpit, especially when he preached in Welsh, his voice was a perfect bellow) was " Faith 1 Faith ! Faith ! " seemingly forgetting, as all those exclusive Faithites do, the grand Bible principle, that though we shall he justified by faith, VERY SUCCESSFUL. 241 tee shall he judged by icorks ; and indeed if people had not a nominal faitli, they would not be found inside a church. But to impress upon them that their hourly and daily conduct must be the evidence of that faith, in short — the mculcating of our blessed Lord's promise, " Insomuch as ye do it unto one of these, ye do it unto Me,' never entered his head. To come to chui'ch and to communicate, no matter how sin-laden or how sin-seeking, these were his only doctrines ; conse- quently he did not approve of Sir Gregor^^s enlightening and amusing the people, and so stuck steadily to the National School, and the orthodox episcopal little books, containing so correct and in- disputable an inventory (always excepting in cases of lusus naturce) of the cat's legs. ^Irs. and Miss Jowl were peculiar in their appearance, being what the natives called " very Welshy." When they walked, their heads and shoulders, and, in short, every other portion of their bodies, appeared to go much faster than their feet. Mrs. Jowl was very pale and evaporated-looking, like a dissipated ghost ; but Miss Jowl, who was not higher than a peony, was also as red, with a profusion of really beautiful chestnut liair, which she wore in a forest of ringlets. All the neighbourhood complained of the extensive ignorance upon all subjects of both Mrs. and ^liss Jowl ; but this was unreasonable, as they forgot that both were so primed and loaded VOL I. Q 242 VERY SUCCESSFUL. with texts that there could not possibly be room for another thing, though it had been no bigger than a midge's egg or a grain of sand. But these texts exploded on all occasions, for it was with them they consoled affliction, relieved distress, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, healed wounds, and set limbs ; in short, the ivord was everything, except in the innumerable village alehouses, where the spirit, more especially among the Rev. Jabez Jowl's most constant communicants, reigned supreme. In addition to his wife and daughter, the reverend gentleman had three or four sons, who were fine-looking young men, or would have been so, but that their very youth and health appeared compressed and distorted into a sort of unnatural solemnity, as if to smile were sin — to laugh, perdition. Therefore, as there was no assistance to be derived from the Rector of Baron's Court or his family, the task of bestowing general information upon the children of Sir Gregory's school devolved entirely upon his granddaughters and their governess ; but it must be confessed, to the credit of these poor children, that if they were not taught upon scientific principles that a cat had four legs, neither did any of them ever deserve to learn that it also sometimes had nine tails ! In the midst of all these reforms, as may be supposed, Charley was not overlooked : his fear of ghosts JVIrs. Pemble had quite conquered by VETJY SUCCESSFUL. 243 telling him divers amusing ghost stories, and slie had also utilised his talent for mischief by havinfr him taught to hem handkerchiefs^ knit stockings, and sew on buttons, but not as a pmiishment and a thing to be laughed at, but as an especial privilege, of which he was deprived whenever he boasted of his charities or other good deeds. For his superfluous energy- she had also found a safety- valve by getting Sir Gregory to let him have a little carpenter s shop fitted up, and the learning to make his own toys m-eatlv enhanced his delight in playing with them, and his largesses to his sisters and the maids, in the way of winders, and window wedges, were untold. !Mrs. Pemble never allowed them to interrupt their lessons by asking questions at the time ; but, in order both to exercise their memories and impress the subject more thoroughly on them, what.^ver they did not quite understand, or wished to know, whether in scripture, histor\', geography, botany, languages, natural history, or anything else, was to form the subject of their evening's conversation. What surprised Miss Charity most in the rapid progress of her nieces was, that though, from the course of domestic economy of which Mrs. Pemble was making them thoroughly mistress, they were oftener below stairs and brought into greater contact with the servants than ever they had been during the reign of the elegant — or, as she herself 244 VERY SUCCESSFUL. would have phrased it, the '^ genteeV — Miss Prosser, yet not only their manners, but their language, was so much improved; but, as JVirs. Pemble told her, she pointed out to them that kitchen phraseology did 7iot sound well in the mouths of young ladies, yet if they were actually bent upon cultivating it they could always do so by undergoing a course of modern popular English and American Illiteratuee, where, without " a deal " of trouble, they would find ^' a many ' '''■ genteeV ^' rides" "begrudges," and "/'m not going to^Sj^^ ^^ donH intend td's^'' '' rilfix youup's^'* and " such like ! " But what more especially horrified the lip- worshipping Mr. Jowl was, that ^Ir. Lethbridge (whom he opined had no business in Ids parish) had established at Baron's Coiu-t, in a field of Sir Gregory's, a Sunday evening Cricket Club for the working men, to which none were admitted but those who had attended church twice ; and though these men were proverbially the most sober and the best conducted in the paiish, the reverend gentle- man never failed to impress upon them, even from the pulpit, that they were " bowling themselves headlong (query, footlong ?) to the devil ! " while against '^ the publicans and sinners" not one word, — for they were very successful ! CHAPTER XI. R S. Pemble," said May, one gloomy November day about three o'clock, when the rain was beatinor o in torrents against the latticed window, and she, Linda and Charley were all seated comfortably at work round the school-room fire, Charley knitting a pair of lambs-wool stock- ings for old Tamar Lloyd, TN-ith Fluff upon his shoulder, and S^^^ftpaws at his feet. *' What, love?'' rephed ^L's. Pemble. *^Do you know that there are a great many things in Shakespear th^t I don't understand ?" " 1 should hope so, my dear ; besides, I told you not to read Shakespear indiscriminately." " Yes, but you said I might read ^ Hamlet,' and 246 VERY SUCCESSFUL. when I took it up I could not put It clown ; hut there is one thing which Opheha says that I do not understand, though to be sure it is in her mad- ness, yet Shakespear is generally so true to nature that even in madness he would have kept some link of truth on which to string her ravino;s." " That is a very just remark of yours, May ; but what is the particular passage you allude to, and which you say you do not understand f " Why, where she says, ' some say the owl is a baker's daughter.' Now, has that any latent meaning, or is it meant as an illustration of the total wandering of Ophelia's mind ? " ^' You are not the only one that passage has puzzled, and Dr. Johnson tried to elucidate it by a piece of cockney topograjjhy, telling us that bankers once lived at the sign of the Owl, in Lombard Street, and therefore he takes it for granted that baker s daughter was a mis-print, and that Shakesj^ear meant banker's daughter ; but a more recent, though nearly contemporary critic with Dr. Johnson, commenting upon this surmise of his, has, I think, hit upon the real meaning of it, by giving us an old fairy-tale, current in Herefordshire and Warwickshire up to the time he wrote, (1804) but more especially so at the time of Shakespear." " Oh !" exclaimed Charley, laying down his stocking and pricking up his ears at the word fairy- tale, '^ and do you know it V VERY SUCCESSFUL. 247 " Yes, I was going to tell it to you, when you interrupted me, which you should never do any- body who is speaking, even if you know, or think you know what they are going to say, — much less if you do not, and wish to do so." " Oh ! beg oo's pardon," said he, putting up his little rosy lips to be kissed. " Here's me, now, quite quiet, and there's oo ; so go on with the fairy-tale." "AVell, here it is : A certain fairy, disguised as a poor hall-starved old woman, went to a baker's shop and begged some dough from the baker's dauMiter, who very m-udoinolv crave her a small piece; but the old woman, without making any complaint of her niggardliness, further humbly re- quested to be allowed to bake her piece of dough in the baker's oven ; but when it was baked it had swelled to such an enormous size, larger than any of the baker's loaves, that the baker's daughter re- fused to let her have it, but flung her another small piece of dough, no bigger than the first, and said she might bake that instead ; but this one also swelled in the oven, even larger than the first, so on it the baker's daughter also seized, giving the poor old woman a little tiny scrap of dough, even smaller than the two former ones." "What a shame!" broke in Charley. " But this one," continued ^Irs. Pemble, ^' be- commor the laro;est of all, shared the same fate as the other two, whereupon the disguised fairy, con- 248 VERY SUCCESSFUL. vinced of tlie avaricious, uncliaritable disposition of tlie baker's dauo-liter, could no lont^er restrain Iier indignation ; but, resuming lier proper form, she struck the culprit with her hand, who imme- diately flew out of the window in the shape of an owl, leaving all her bread to burn, and kept up a melancholy hooting round her ftither's house for ever after. Now, as Shakespear has frequent al- lusions to these popular legends of all lands, unlike his more pedantic but less gifted contemporaries, Ben Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher, who dis- dained such trifles, it is doubtless this universal knowledge and happy adaptation of popular lore which always, and in each succeeding age, makes him strike home to the hearts of his cosmopolite readers. " Thank you, dear Mrs. Pemble," said May ; *' I'm sure that must be the real solution of Ophelia's ' baker's daughter.' " ^' Did Sake?>\iQ2iV write any more fairy-tales?" inquired Charley. ^' Nonsense, Charley," laughed Linda, " Shake- spear was a great poet." "• Well, but donH poets write fairy-tales ? " '' Generally," smiled Mrs. Pemble. "" Then, why, the other day, when I said I'd be a poet, to write a great long poem much longer than Mother Hubbard, upon FlufiP and Swiftpaws, did you say that you hoped I would not ? Is it any harm to write poetry ?" VERY SUCCESSFUL. 249 " No, certainly not ; on the contrary, it ought to be beneficial, — that is, ennobling both to those who write and those who read it. But what I meant was, that I hoped you would not be what is called an author of any sort, by profession." "But why?" " You are rather too young to understand why ; but what are called literary men by profession have generally three vices that render their fa- milies and everybody belonging to them miserable ; I mean intense vanity, selfishness, and ambition ; and though there have been and are many bright exceptions to this rule, yet as a general one, it holds good." '^ Then do poets and people who write fairy- tales never do any good'?" " It's to be hoped they often do. I told you you were too young to tuiderstand my meaning; but ril tell you one very good thing of a poet, the Italian poet, Metastasio." '^ Oh ! but though May and Linda understand Italian poetry, I don't." "It is the poetry of Nature, Charley, and that every one can understand, even little chikben — when they have kind hearts and are good children like you. Once upon a time " " Oh, then, it's a fairy-tale !" " Very like one, only that it really happened. Once upon a time, then, poor Metastasio was very 250 VERY SUCCESSFUL. poor indeed, and he was only known at Vienna, where he happened to be sta^ang, as an assistant- writer for the opera, under Apostolo Zeno, a person with whom he had contracted a great intimacy and friendship ; and this Zeno, dying after a short ill- ness, and knowing Metastasio's almost destitute circumstances, left him his whole fortune, amount- ing to fifteen thousand pounds sterling — a large sum to a man who had not as a certainty, where- withal to get bread from one day to another. But Metastasio, hearing that Zeno had poor relations at Bologna, went there, and, having sought them out, told them that although his deceased friend had left him his whole fortune he could only suppose that he had done so in trust till he could find out the most deserving of his kindred, in order to di- vide it equally amongst them, which he imme- diately did, without retaining a single fraction of it for himself." " And were Zeno's relations such wretches as to accept it allV exclaimed her three auditors at once. " I'm sorry to say that they were." "Poor Metastasio !" "Not so — rich ^letastasio, with such a heart, more golden than his nmnbers. Besides Ggd amply rewarded him ; for the celebrated Gravina, wlio had taken him under his protection, when he died, left him his whole estate, and afterwards VERY SUCCESSFUL. 251 Charles the Sixth invited him to Vienna, and appointed him Poet-Laureate, and the Empress Maria Theresa bestowed on him magnificent pre- sents, as did Ferdinand the Sixth of Spain ; but what was most remarkable of all was, that from his unblemished private character and his con- summate tact he retained all this royal favor for fifty years." " But who was Metastasio, then," asked Linda, " that Gravina should have taken him under his protection ? " "He was the son of a common soldier of the name of Trapassi, and Gravina it was who called him Metastasio, which is merely a tran- slation of his own names into Greek ; but he was only ten years old, three years older than you, Charley, when he began to shew his poetical talents." " What are poetical talents'?" " ^A^ly, the power of writing poetry or verses/^ " Oh, such as I made on Fluff and Swiftpaws." " I don't exactly remember what those were." . " I'll tell them to you ; " and down went the stocking, and up jumped Charley, breaking down several tunes in his eagerness to repeat this wondrous composition. " I don't know about the poetical talent," smiled Mrs. Pemble ; " but there can be no doubt, I think, about the poetical vanity." 252 VERY SUCCESSFUL. ^' Oil ! now I know what they were. Listen May, Hsten Linda, listen all of yon — ' I love cats and dogs, I love a great many, But I love Fluff and Swiftpaws the best of any !'" The nniversal langh that followed this effusion was joined in by the author himself, who did not doubt but it was unbounded applause that he was receiving ; and in order to leave no doubt as to that fact, he said, with an air of triumph, as soon as the laugh had subsided — " Now isn't that poetry? " "I'm afraid not exactly; there are rather too many feet, in the first place." " Too many feet ! " exclaimed the youthful bard, most manfully resisting the criticism ; " but dogs and cats have four feet." " My dear Charley," laughed May, " one would really think you had been to the National School to be thoroughly grounded in cats' paws by Mr. Jowl." " I don't mean the dogs' or cats' feet, Charley," said Mrs. Pemble, " but syllables in poetry are called feet, and one of your lines are longer than the other." '* Are they ? " said Charley with a look of crest- fallen and melancholy resignation, and, giving his shoulders a shake, he added with a sigh, '' I hope one of Tamar Lloyd's feet are not longer than the other, or I shall have to do all this stocking over again. Will you look at it, if you please, Mrs. VERY SUCCESSFUL. 253 Pemble, to see if I have turned tlie heel properly?" " And how are poor old Tamar and Taffey Lloyd ? " asked Mrs. Pemble, taking the stocking and also taking up some stitches that Charley had dropped, " for you went with Jenkins to see them this morning." " Oh I TafFey was ver}' well for he was out at work, but poor old Tamar's eyes were quite sore with the smoke, for her cottage smokes so tembly I was so soiTy for her." "There is no use in being sony for people, Charley, unless we look about us and consider what we can do to help them." '^ I did look in all my pockets, but I had no money, not even my lucky sixpence with the hole in it, for that I had given to a boy with a monkey and a hurdygiu'dy." ^' I don't mean money ; it is not always money that can serve people, which is veiy fortunate, as those who have plenty of money are seldom inclined to part with even a ver}' small portion of it to serve their fellow-creatiu'es. But don't you remember the other day reading the fa^^le of the lion and the mouse ? — which shewed you how the smallest and most insignificant creatures may, with perseverance and a sincere wish to do so, sometimes serve the greatest ; and though you are a verv' little boy, and therefore not a very expert carpenter just yet, still, don't you think if I were to put you in 254 VERY SUCCESSFUL. the way of making something, with all those nice tools you have got, that would free poor Taffey Lloyd's cottage entirely from smoke, that that would be a great deal better than all the toys you could make ? " " Oh, yes ! that it would ! " cried Charley, jumping on her lap and throwing his arms round her neck ; '^ do tell me ! and I'll make it directly." " You cannot quite make it directly ; but you may set about it directly, for the sooner you begin it the sooner it will be finished." " But it's not a chimney, though ; is it ? " " No ; for that is a bricklayer's work, and you are only a carpenter." " Oh ! " said Charley, considerabl}' relieved, as if he thought that an3^thing under a chimney he might achieve. " Now I must tell you," resumed Mrs. Pemble, that the cause of chimneys smoking is from a vertical wind, or what some call an eddy- wind ; but the effects of this wind are xory easily coun- teracted in the way I shall describe to you." ^' What is counteracted ? " " Prevented : if you were to eat a poisonous berry in the fields, and Dr. Marsh gave you some- thing that would hinder it fr'om poisoning you, that would be to counteract the poison. Now the way to prevent the smoke is, to put on the top of the chimney a box, in each of whose sides is a "\nERY SUCCESSFUL. 255 little door hanging on hinges, and kept open by a thin iron rod runniucr from one side to the other, and fastened by a ring in each end to a staple. When there is no wind these doors remain at rest, and each fomis an anoie of 45 def^rees, which is decreased on the windward side in proportion to the force of the wind, and increased in the same ratio on what is called the leeward side. If the wind be very strong, the door opposed to the wind becomes close, while the opposite one is opened as vdde as it can be ; but if the wind strikes the corner of the box, it shuts two doors and opens the two opposite ones. I have never known this plan to fail ; so if you will send for George Davis, the carpenter, 1 will explain it to him, and he will shew you how to make it. But stay, first bring me that sheet of foolscap paper off of the writing-table, and I'll make a little model of it, which will give Davis a better idea of it than any explanation." " Oh I thank you ! " cried Charley, bounding off of her lap to go for the paper; "but why," asked he, as he gave it to her, '^ do they call this paper by such a funny name ? Is it because they make the fools' caps for dunces with it, such as I see on the children sometimes in the National School ? " " No ! You remember reading in your little History of England about poor King Charles the First, who had his head cut off? " '^ Oh, yes ! poor King Charles ! " 256 VERY SUCCESSFUL* " Well, when he fovmcl his revenues— that is, his money — short, he granted certain privileges, amounting to monopolies. A monopoly is for one person or a small number of persons to seize upon anything and keep it all to themselves, letting no one else have any, just as if you and Linda were to seize upon a basket of cherries or grapes, and let no one else have any, which would be very selfish and very unjust ; and such were the mono- polies Charles the First granted, to fill his ex- chequer with money, and which were among the causes which at last made him lose his head. But amid these monopolies was the manufacture of paper, the exclusive right of wdiich was sold to certain persons, who grew rich and enriched the Government at the expense of those who were obliged to use paper. At that time all English paper bore in water-marks the royal arms; the Parliament under Oliver Cromwell made jests of this law in every possible manner, and, among other indignities to the memory of Charles the First, it was ordered that the royal arms should be removed from the paper, and a fool's cap and bells be put in the place of them. These in their turn were removed when Cromwell's Parliament was prorogued ; but paper of this size, on which par- liamentary journals are still WTitten, to this day is called foolscap ; and, all things considered, the name is perhaps more appropriate than ever." VERY SUCCESSFUL. 257 " My dear Linda, in what a way you are sitting with your shoulders up to your ears," said Mrs. Pemble, as soon as Charley had left the room to send for the carpenter. " I know I am, " laughed Linda ; " but it's only over the schoolroom fire." " Only over the schoolroom fire ! That only is a a terrible word, Linda, being the traitor in the camp of conscience that lets in every evil. I am sorry you have so soon forgotten good old Lady Margaret Maynard's maxim that I told you : ' SIT AS TOU WOULD BE SEEN ; •WALK AS YOU -WOULD BE MET.' " " No, dear !Mrs. Pemble, I have not forgotten it; but I was thinking " " T\Tiat were you thinking ? " *' Why, I did not quite understand, when you were speaking to Charley just now about poets, your classing ambition vA\h. vanity and selfishness and calHng it a vice ; because Miss Prosser was always telling us that we ought to have ambition, that we could do nothing without it, and that if we only stirred the fire, or lifted a chewreen^ we ought to have the ambition to do it well." '^ A what, Linda ?" " A chewreen.^' "I presume you mean tureen, which is pro- nounced tereen." VOL. I. E 258 VERY SUCCESSFUL. ^^Miss Prosser always called it chewi^eenr " Well, but you told me ^iiss Prosser always called czdinary cwZ^inar}', as if it had two ll's, and inimical, in-im-m?/-cal, and misconstrue miss-con- strew, and colleagues co-leagues, and indecorous indeckerus — with a great many other words, all of which I have often told you was a vulgar, vicious, provincial pronunciation ; and you have just]now also given a proof of the bad effects of not knowing the relative value and distinction of words, for when !Miss Prosser told you you ought to have the ambition to do eveiything well, she was quite right in her theory, but wTong in her mode of expressing it, for she meant that you should have the emulation to do everything as well as it can be done. Now emulation is the virtue of the same quality of which ambition is the vice ; for emulation has for its basis perseverance and liumility, and is never satisfied with its own achievements as long as they can be improved upon. This is both laudable in the person exercising it, and beneficial to the community at large, though it never traffics but w^ith its own honest capital of energy and diligence. Whereas ambition is ever grasping at what belongs to others beyond its ova\ legitimate sphere ; for ambition, in fact, is nothing but an exaggerated pride which snatches the reins from reason, and assumes an arbirtary, supercilious air, looking down w^th con- tempt upon the rest of mankind as if it^ as centered VERY SUCCESSFUL. 259 in the pronoun I, were autocrat of tlie universe. It is the source of envy, hatred, and detraction ; it gloats on revenge, and chafes if all do not pay it homage. There is no crime before which an ambitious nature recedes. Bhnd, capricious, per- fidious, cruel and unflinching, there is no deed, however dark, that ambition will not perpetrate — no web of wiles it will not weave. Offend it, and farewell mercy and hope I Oi'pheus moved the rocks and the woods ; he could not have moved ambition, for no design is too black for it to harbour — no attempt too sacrilegious to deter it — and no person, or thing, too holy for it to profane. Such a two-edged passion is it, that it is at once a murderer and a martyr, for it is equally wicked and miserable ; and, to sum up all its antithetical struggles in a single sentence, while it vamits itself as a soaring passion, it is in reality the most grovelling one of the whole range, — for through what immund infamies will not ambition wade?" " I am very glad to know the difference between ambition and emulation," said Linda'; " and as for ambition, I shall despise it ; and I think I shall always, for the rest of my life, have a ckead of ambitious people, and take a deal of trouble to keep out of their way." " You cannot do better ; only, if you please, dear Linda, say a great deal, instead of a deal, of 260 VERY SUCCESSFUL. trouble to keep out of their way, which is what Anne the housemaid or George the groom would say." " ^liss Prosser always said a deal ; and the other day I was reading the translation of a German tale, a great many of the scenes of which take place at the Court of the Empress Maria Theresa ; and even she, the Empress, says to one of the characters, * I have taken a deal of trouble to find out where you w^ere, and have thought of you a many times.' " ^* Well, my dear, that only proves that German, as well as French, books may be and are daily translated by vulgar people. Besides, the idiom and genius of languages differ, and what are vulgarisms in the idiom of one language, are not such in that of another ; in French, for instance, you address persons as ' Mademoiselle ' and * Monsieur,' and it w^ould be mauvais ton not to do so ; whereas in English it is considered vulgar to ^Miss' and 'Sir' people. And herein consists the great difference between a good and a bad translator — a bad one invariably translates literally^ which fails to convey the sense of the author; a good one, who understands the genius of both languages, finds — as there are in all languages — equivalent proverbs or idioms, though expressed in different words ; for instance, if you were translating cela c^est une jpierre dans mon jardin, you would not VERY SUCCESSFUL. 261 render it ^tliat is a stone in my garden,' because we have no such saying in English ; but we have the same idea and meaning, only we express it differently, by saying, ' that is a cut at me.' So it is even with the argot, or slang, of all nations ; its purport, or the ideas it is meant to convey, are generally similar, but the wording of those ideas is almost invariably different. Therefore, a thing being in print, or in a book, does not make it upon that account either right, or tnie, for error is not precedent ; and the curious ignorance of foreigners with regard to everything English, both historical and national, is a source of unfailing amusement to us. How often have you laughed at the description I gave you of that play I saw at the Porte St. Antoine in Paris, the scene of which was laid in the Tower of London, the hero being young Edward the Sixth, who had privately married, against Queen Elizabeth's (!) consent, one Misse Jenny, for which misdemeanour the ruthless Bess orders him to be beheaded ; but the gaoler, who is also the executioner, and who has an amiable sympathy for unfortunate lovers, and rejoices in the thoroughly English name of Tom Wood (pronounced, by the French actor, Taum Vaude), is the confidant and bosom-friend of the hapless Edward, who, on the eve of his execution, confides his bride, the 9i-devant Misse Jenny, to his chivalric 262 VERY SUCCESSFUL. care, to which he makes an appeal in the following matchless couplet : — * Tautn Yaude ! Taume Vaude ! rappelle toi ; Qu'il coule dans ses veines le plus noble sang d'Angleterre, Son bisaieule a ete m§me deuxfois Lord Maire !' " Frederick le Maitre also, in his play of Edmund Kean, brings all epochs of the reigns of George 'the Third and Fourth to a focus, in a most extra- ordinary and mh^aculous manner, making the Duchess of Devonshire in love with Kean, the Prince of Wales and Charles Fox being his rivals, and following the Duchess to his dressing-room at Drury Lane, while George the Third and Queens Cliarlotte and Caroline (!) are spectators at the play where Kean is to act, as soon as he can get rid of his little dilemmas in the green-room. I only w^onder that, as they may read in any old newspaper of that day that ' The Eight Honble. William Pitt dined yesterday, May 15th, 1804, with the Grocers Company, of wdiich he is a member,' that some entei-prising French dramatist has never pounced upon this incident as a fine subject for a drame, setting forth how this extra- ordinary young man, by the mere force of genius alone, rose, from being a grocer's aj^prentice, to be Prime Minister of England ! — only hinting at an unhappy attachment between him and the lovely VERY SUCCESSFUL. 263 Queen Adelaide, begun in sugar, when she used to purchase her groceries from him, and ending in sorrow, when George tlie Fourth impeached them both before the House of Lords ! Nor, indeed, do we fare a bit better in Germany, for a fi'iend of mine writes me word from Dresden that one HeiT Karl Gutznow is completing a five-act play, which is to be acted, in which John Kemble is introduced as the manager of Diniry Lane Theatre, nego- tiating w^ith Sir William Talfourd, Esq., the clever barrister, author of Io7i, for the production of a new play called Dido I — and while John Kemble is speaking of Victor Hugo, another go-ahead character, not to be behindhand -sN^th him, makes honorable mention of the electric telegraph ! So you see, my dear Linda, that all things printed, pubUshed, and even sw^allowed and believed, are not gospel." The two sisters were still laughing at these French and German "■ romances of history," when Charley returned, towing in the carpenter, which he did greatly to the detriment of his own nails, by \4gorously tugging at his velveteen jacket, as if he feared the giant would escape from him. " Here is George Davis, Mrs. Pemble ; but I can't make him understand about making a box to put the smoke in, and not let it come out." "I'm not surprised at tliatj Charley," smiled Mrs. Pemble, " for it would be rather difficult. 264 VEKY SUCCESSFUL. Even the genius, you know, could not manage that ; for don't you remember, in the Tales of the Genii, when the fisherman broke the vase, how all the smoke issued out ? But I'll see if I can't make Davis understand the sort of thing we want for our chimney-top ; " and accordingly she very soon did so; but while she was still speaking to him, Gifford knocked at the door and brought in a card which, she said, Sir Gregory had sent her up. Without taking it off the salver, she read inscribed on it — ^U. m^AwLn) ^rtAxilcIL). " If you please, Madam," said Gifford, " there is something written on the back of the card which Sir Gregory will thank you to read." And accordingly, taking it up, she read, written in pencil, "Long threatening comes at last! The owner of this card has just been forwarded to us in a note by Lethbridge, who has retreated in the VERY SUCCESSFUL. 2^5 most shabby manner from the encomiter ; so pray come down that we may at least have equal forces. You and I against Charity and the Philosopher. The girls need not come. — G. K." " Tell Sir Gregory I'll be down dii'ectly," said !Mrs. Pemble, throwing the card into the fire ; and as Charley set oiF full gallop with the carpenter, she said to May and Linda, " You had better practise till I come back, for it's too gloomy to see to draw or work ; and you know, dear ^lay, your grandpapa wished you both to learn that motett of Palestrina's, ^ I will praise Thy name.'" But as she closed the door, after a slight preluding she heard May singing, in her clear, bell-like, but touching, contralto voice, that charming madiigal of Calcott's "Are che white hours for ever fled ?" CHAPTER XII. 33 tnjiicli R §mn nppBiirB uritjiirat \\i (£mm npprnmg. ^^^ PON entering the drawing-room Mrs. Pemble found Sir Gregory standing mtli his back to the fire, and Miss Charity sit- ting, in a causeuse, on one side of it ; but on the other half of the causeuse, as a sort of rubicon, she had placed a few volumes- of Shenstone and other harmless and washy poets, so that there was no nearer approach to her than by a chair at the farther end of this settee, upon which now sat a very tall, lanky individual of the superior sex, as w^as evidenced by his paletot and pantaloons, which latter, by the bye, were of a faint, faded, blotting-paper hue and texture. Their w^earer appeared to be labouring under two anti- podical embarrassments, to wit — the extreme length VERY SUCCESSFUL. 267 of his legs, and the extreme shortness of the feeble dust-coloured stubble thinly scattered over his cheeks and upper li]3, and intended as a represen- tation of whiskers and moustachios. However, all philosopher though he was (for this was no less a personage than Mr. Newton Twitcher), he did not appear by any means inclined^ though prepared to do so (at least by nature), to go all lengths, as his nether limbs seemed by for the most refi'actor\' of his two dilemmas, for when ])oked under his chair they would not remain there, or when struck out with a sudden motion as if about to swim to the other end of the room, neither would they per- severe in that onward course, but kept continually retumin cr to their former retiro under the chair, with a sort of sudden jerky Jack-in-the-box move- ment, which, for a man of sedentarv' habits, was a providential dispensation that must have completely supplied the place of ordinar}^ walking exercise. His capillary conundrums he managed better as he was continually clutching their visionar}' vastness, as Macbeth does the phantom dagger. His face was long, square, and sallow, with the exception of two high cheek-bones, which, like himself, were very deep re(a)d, though, unlike his manners, were extremely polished. Hi% eyes, though black, had no more lustre than that free-and-easy fruit for the million called blackberries, being about as round and not much larger. But of what use is an eye 268 VERY SUCCESSFUL. without a hook ? And that sine qua non was sup- plied by his nose, only that it hooked upwards, and, being exceedingly small and sharp, looked like some poor solitary moth that had lost its way in that vast desert of face. His hair was of the same dark dusty brown as the stubble on his cheeks and upper lip, but stood straight up, gathered to a point, like the choke of an artichoke. His forehead was high, but retreating; his eyebrows thin and ragged, which, added to his immense height and extreme thinness, gave him the appearance of a sort of zoophite asparagus run to seed. As he wore spectacles, and had a trick of bending down his head while he raised his eyes, this gave the latter, when seen above the horizon of his spectacles, the appearance of a pair of small twin moons in eclipse. His voice was squeaky, and conveyed the idea of being an affected or assumed voice, and this gave an additional weakness to his words, (for had Socrates had such a voice his wisest sayings could not have escaped being mistaken for foolish sallies,) more especially as it was accompanied by a real or affected hesitation. '^ Mr. Newton Twitcher, — ^^Irs. Pemble,'' said Sir Gregory as she entered, when up rose ISlr. Twitcher like a waterspout, and having bowed, or rather butted forward, fell down again upon the other side into his chair. "Mr. Twitcher," resumed Sir Gregory, as if VERY SUCCESSFUL. 269 kindly to call him off from poor ^liss Cliarity, who was vainly holding her hand to her ear trv^ng to catch the very elaborate account he was giving her of his book, himself, his attributes, habits, pleasures, pains, and aspirations, or rather assurances, which he seemed to think was a topic of world-wide and all absorbing interest. " Mr. Twitcher," resumed Sir Gregor}^, address ing himself to !Mrs. Pemble, " has been in our part of the world before, about three or four months ago." " Ah ! ye — yes ; ah ! I — a — had intended then to — a — a — a — have paid my respects to Miss Kempenfelt, hearing she was so very literary ; but — a — a — my mother is always foolishly alarmed when I leave home without letting her know where I am, which I do to write more quietly, and — a — also to give lectures which — a — one's own family don't — a — a — appreciate. An excellent person my mother, but not sufficiently intellectual for me ; — a — in fact one's own family never knows what's in one, and are always surprised at one's success in the world." ^' 1 w^onder," put in Sir Gregor\^ with imper- turbable gravity, " that your^s should be sm'prised at anything you do." " You are ver\^ good ! " bowed !Mr. Twitcher, raising his eyes in eclipse over his spectacles, as he thought he had received a justly-merited com- pliment ; for his vanity was of the same tough and 270 VERY SUCCESSFUL. comprehensive kind as the pouch of the pelican, for there was nothing it could not swallow or contain. " Ah ! ah ! but, as I was about to say, I should at that time have sought an interview with Miss Kempenfelt, thinking she would have appreciated me and comprehended the drift of my great work, but that the very day Mr. Lethbridge had promised me a note of introduction I received a letter from my father (forwarded through my publisher, the only person — a — a — I ever let know my movements), saying — a — that — a — my mother was dangerously ill, and begging me to — a — return home ; and I thought if — a — anything happened to her, none of them would be capable of writing a proper paragraph for the county paper, and therefore I had better return, as the editors of all papers, I find, never refuse to put in anything / send them ; and besides, as I sometimes relieve the abstruseness of profounder study by quaffing a cup of Hippocrene, in other words, — a — a — a — flirting with the Muses, I had prepared an eJegy " " And pray," inteiTupted Sir Gregory, with great bluntness and undisguised disgust, " did the poor lady die? " " My mother ? Oh ! — a — a — no ; but, — a — with a very slight alteration, I can convert the lines into something else, for I have immense facihty in every species of composition." VERY SUCCESSFUL. 271 To this modest announcement Sir Gregoiy made no reply, but merely exchanged looks Avith ]\Irs, Pemble, which said, almost as plainly as words could have spoken it, ' ^ Did you in all your life ever see or hear so conceited, shallow-pated, and shallow-hearted an ass ? " While poor Miss Charity, having lost all this in- termediate tirade, and seeing there was now a pause in the conversation, again put her hand to her ear, and said, adcbessing Mr. Newton Twitcher — '^I beg your pardon, but I did not catch the name of the work that you are about to publish." ^' Ahem ! " replied 'Mr. Tmtcher, clearing his voice, and getting his squeak, if possible, more in alto than usual, that such an important piece of information might not a second time escape her, '^ ahem ! ' ^Ian in Paeadise axd 'Man ix Parliament ! ' " ^" Man in Petticoats and Man in Pejypermint !^^' repeated ^Miss Charity, starting back, '^ What a strange title !" ISlr. Twitcher coiTected her mistake, bv acrain screaming out the right title, and adding, as he flung up two pantomimic notes of admiration in the air with the index and second finger of his right hand, " You perceive the depth and subtlety of my meaning ? " " Meaning !" echoed Miss Charity, catching the last word, ^' NO ! I can't perceive any meaning in 172 VERY SUCCESSFUL. it ! What on earth has Paradise to do with Parliament ?" *^ Ah ! just so, that is the beauty of it. To the superficial reader this title is a dead letter, absolute Chingalee to a Laplander; but the philosophical mind immediately begins to enquire " what is the difference between man in Paradise and man in Parliament?" Here ^Ir. T\vitcher paused, and looked alter- nately at his three auditors, as nmch as to say ; " Knowing your capacities will never reach it, I'll kindly appear to give you a chance of finding it out." But Mss Charity, who had not heard the query, but only saw the querist's look of importance and superiority, tossed her head ; while Mrs. Pemble, who had both heard the one and seen the other, turned away hers, to laugh ; consequently, there was no one left to reply but Sir Gregory, who did so by saying, " Why, between two such extremes, I suppose the only way to arrive at the naked truth is to return to first principles and stop at man in Paradise." "Not stop at," interposed the literal Mr.Twitcher. " I never stop at anything." " So I should suppose," sotto voced Sir Gregory. " But, to return, and begin -with man in Paradise; — yes," continued Mr. Twitcher, "and then I proceed with the Devil's influence, as first exercised in Paradise, and still exercised in Parliament. VT^TIY SUCCESSFUL. 273 And once more ^Ir. T^\4tcller paused, and looked round for wonder and admiration ; so finding he was again expected to speak, Sir Gregory said : " Ah ! those two sections of your work I suppose for brevity's sake, you entitle 'How' and ' A^liat' V It was now Mr. Twitcher's turn to be at fault, and with a noble candour he confessed that he did not understand. " AATiy, ' How,' would exemplify how the Devil tempted Man in Paradise. As that is now a matter of history it would merely require to be recapitu- lated ; but Man in ParHament, at least most men now in it, are still a mysteiy ; — so then would come the analyzation of the ' ichat ' tlie Devil they do there ? ^' Some of them ; but there again, don't you think AVE LITERATI shiuc pre-eminently ? " " I'm sorry to differ from you ; but I do not think in all St. Stephen's booth (which far exceeds Richardson's for buffoonery,) that there are to be found such thoroughly unprincipled, and utterly ridiculous political mountebanks as your Literateurs by profession." " Oh ! oh ! " protested the literary' Mr. Twitcher, who felt that the whole republic of letters was insulted, and that that republic cetait lui. " Yes, Sir," persisted Sir Gregory, " if it is not ridiculous for one '^ distinguished author," as they call themselves, to assume the honest vehemence YOL. I. 8 274 VERY SUCCESSFUL. of sincerity u]")on any question, after liaving forsworn himself upon all for a quarter of a century upon every hustings in the kingdom, and to suck as may oranges during a debate as woukl furnish a stock-in-trade for a dozen Jew-boys, or a dessert for " a whole wilderness of monkeys," I don't know what is ; and if it is not also the very ne plus ultra of the ridiculous for a literary gentle- man, because he has carefully crammed and coddled a speech upon some particular motion, for six weeks prior to that expected motion ; when lo ! the political wind changes, and the motion is withdrawn, to insist upon letting off the aforesaid speech upon the unhappy House, which has already been speechified into a perfect state of catalepsy." But Mr. Newton Twitcher, who could so thoroughly enter into the feeling of not letting an individual or collective audience escape on any terms or under any circumstances, however apropos de hottes, from an iota of his oion lucubra- tions, entirely waived that phase of the subject, and setting two of his long, lean, greyhound- fingers to hunt the hair on his upper lip, merely said — " But don't you think it very possible for a man to change his politics from conviction, and therefore to be very sincere in that change — in fact, to do so • from patriotism ? " VERY SUCCESSFUL. 275 " From what ? " " From patriotism ;" and again Mr. T^^itclier's fingers hunted, without disappearing, among the stubble. " I have heard the word before, and read of the thing, but I don't think it is to be found now-a- days; but that which does duty for such, is nothmg more than a sort of mat de cocagne clambering up the slippery pole of popularity for what is to be got by it." " Ah ! Popularity ; — good subject ! I have lectured upon it, and think of writing an ode upon it." "I suppose you know Cumberland's Ode to Popularity ? " No, — a — a — no, I do not, for I — a — a — have so little time — a — that I seldom read any poetry but my own; but I — a — have no objection to — a — hear it. A — sometimes one — a — picks up ideas." Picks out ideas would have been nearer the truth, as Mr. Thatcher, considering himself a sort of Parnassian bee, helped himself liberally to whatever came in his way, con^dnced that he could only improve what he took. Sir Gregory, not desiring better than to have a sort of interlude to Mr. Twitcher's egotistical gabble, and at the same time to hear his own opinions so well expressed, without fm?ther solicitation repeated Cumberland's admirable ode : — 276 VERY SUCCESSFUL. " Popi-LARiTY ! thou giddy thing 1 "What grace or profit dost thou bring ? Thou art nr.t honesty, thou art not fame : I cannot call thee by a worthy name. To say I hate thee were not true, — Contempt is properly thy due ; I cannot love thee and despise thee too. Thou art no patriot but the veriest cheat That ever traffick'd in deceit; A state empiric bellowing loud Freedom and frenzy to the mobbing crowd ; And what car'st thou if thou canst raise Illuminations and huzzas ! Tho' half the city sink in one vast blaze ? A patriot ! no ; for thou dost hold in hate The very peace and welfare of the state : When anarchy assaults the Sovereign's throne, Then is the day — the night— thine own ! Then is thy triumph when the foe, \ Levels some dark insidious blow, > Or strong rebellion lays thy countrj'- low. ) Thou canst affect humanity, to hide Some deep device of monstrous pride; Conscience and charity pretend For compassing some private end ; And in conventicle and canting note Long Scripture passages canst quote, When persecution rankles ^'n thy throat. Thou hast no sense of nature at tliy heart ; No ear for science, and no eye for art ; — Yet confidently dost decide at once This man's a wit and that a dunce ; And (strange to tell), howe'er unjust, We take thy dictates upon trust ; For if the world will be deceived, it must. In truth and justice thou hast no delight ; Virtue thou dost not know by sight : But as the chemist by his skill From dross and dregs a spirit can distil, So from the prisons or the stews, Bullies, blasphemers, cheats, or Jews, Shall turn to heroes- if they serve thy views. Thou dost but make a ladder of the mob. Whereby to climb into some courtly job ; There, safe reposing, warm and snug, Thou answerest with a patient shrug : ♦ Miscreants, begone ! who cares for you ? Ye base-bom, bawling, clamorous crew, You've served my turn; now, vagabonds, adieu! VERY SUCCESSFUL. 277 " And these last lines are more especially appli- cable to your literary-politico adventui'ers in the House of Commons," concluded Sir Gregor)\ " Ah ! well, — a — we must allow them cleverness, I think," said ^Ir. Twitcher, — ^^vhich, by the bye, is the Anglo-Saxon varnish for all iniquity. " Oh ! decidedly, for whoever denied it to their prototype, the devil." ^'Who are you talkmg of, Gregory?" asked ^iiss Charity. Approaching her ear he named the pohtical and literary charlatans he had more especially in view. "Oh, the horrors!" exclaimed she, throwing up her hands, " I only wonder his Satanic Majesty should leave them so long out on mortgage, for I am sure they must be a loss to his dominions." " My dear Charity, why should he hm-ry them, wdien he sees they are going to him as fast as they canV Mr. Twitcher had not heard a syllable of all this, as he had been revolving in his own mind that philosophy was evidently beyond the capacity of the horn^ baronet and his deaf sister, and, that consequently it was throwing pearls before swine — to talk to them of his great work, man in paradise, AND MAN IN PARLIAMENT." So he rCSolvcd tO change the venue, and dazzle them with his versatility ; tlierefore, without anything leading to that interesting communication, he suddenly in- 278 VERY SUCCESSFUL. formed them that — few persons were aware of the innumerable phases m his character, or how nicely the practical balanced the ideal. " In short/' said he, " at this very moment in continuing my great work, I am contemplating a work of fiction — a mere novel in fact ; but I shall not begin it till the week before Pheese, my publisher, intends bringing it oiit, for I wTite immensely fast. What is manual labour to most persons, is almost volition with me." " As you talk of publishing a novel, I take it for granted that you have taken the necessar}^ preli- minaries of being well up, in, and with the clique ? '' said Sir Gregory. " What clique ? " innocently, not to say igno- rantly, inquired Mr. Twitcher. " Why the Gore House clique, to be sure. It is true the High Pnestess of that Temple of universal humbug is no more ; but all its votaries remain in full force, and as an organized band consider themselves (Heaven forgive me for so profaning that noble line of Lucan's) * Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis ;' w^hich in Scotland would be simplified into the " Scratch me, and I'll scratch you, clique ;" and of this clique, which constitutes at once a literary sinking fund and swimming school, Fudgester of '' the Excrutiater," is the old, that is to say the oldest scratch. Whatever trash this inquisitorial VERY SUCCESSFUL. 279 clique puffs is sure to swim, and what ever works it lapidates are sure to sink." " Fudgester ; w^lio is Fudgester ? " interrogated Mr. Twitcher, " That is not so easy to tell you ; but if you ask me luhat he is, ^' I should answer, I should tell you, to that especial clique and to every ready-made celebrity, he is what ' Don Juan ' was to ' Oil Macassar ;' what ' Lord Aldborough ' was to Hollowa/s Pills ;' and what ' The Dowager Countess of Castle Stewart' is to *Du Barrj-'s Revalenta Arabica' — a pro^nidence and a puff, an endorser of miraculous effects ; in short, a backer of bills dl'a^^^l to any amount on public credulity. But after you have had the happiness to obtain an introduction to Fudgester, the best way of insuring his puffage and pilotage is to exliume some standai'd, lucky dog of a book which has had its day, and consequently is completely forgotten, like every other popular idol. This done, re-mould it, by casting it into a modern form. You may keep precisely the same dramatis personccj only be sure to re-christen them. The same incidents and the same dialogue will do, without changing a letter, and of course the same jokes, for we all know the tough longevity of jests; and the gipsey jesters that have kidnapped them in all ages, from the FACETIAE of HiEROCLES, and all the intermediate generations of Rabelais, Ben Jonson, Joe Miller, 280 VERY SUCCESSFUL. Foote, Quin, Gamck, Lord Chestei-field, George Selwyn, and Sheridan, down to Sydney Smith and Lord Alvenly, among the latter-day wits." " But — but — " objected and suggested Mr. Twitcher, though evidently grasping at the idea, '' I — a — should be afraid that — a — some readers, at all events among the reviewers, would detect and denounce so wJioIesale a plagiarism." " Not a bit of it. Sir. You cannot exaggerate the profound and extensive ignorance of the novel- reading British public, nor over-rate the venality of the soi-disant critics of that clique and their organs, such as the ^Asin^eum, ' ^My Grand- mother's Magazine, the Literary,' the ^Jackass,' and the ^ New Quarterly,' for instance." " Tlie ^New Quarteriy ?' I never heard of that." " Ah ! there are many persons in the same predicament. It is a vulgar, ill-written catch- penny, published by a Scotchman of the name of Snobworth, or Jobworth, or some such name, and established by the clique for the express purpose of puffing themselves and ^Ir. Dickens's nauseous imitators, and doing their dirty work by heaping the grossest and most clumsy abuse on their marked -vdctims." " By the bye, what do you think of Dickens ? Surely he is an original writer ? " ^' Too original bv half, and bv far too economical VEKY SUCCESSFUL. 281 '' I don't miderstand," rejoined ^Ir. Twitclier. " How ca7i a writer be too oricrinal ? And as for liis being an economical writer, I think him a most voluminous one." " Why, I call an author who never steals but from himself too original, and one who is always repeating himself too economical. And when you have read one of Mr. Dickens's encyclopaedias of pot-house pleasantries, you have read all ; for, with new names, the characters and situations are, in one and all, exactly the same." " Well, they certainly are. But to return to what you were saying about re-wTiting other people's books, I — a — really — a — should fear — a — that, — a — as I said before, the — a — plagiary — " " Tush ! you surely do not dread the classical anathemas of the poetical ancient who believed in conscience-stricken authors being haunted by the accusing phantoms of their thefts, and so set up the plagiaristic scarecrow of ' Stat contra, dicitque tibi, tua pagina Fores r ' "That might have been all very well in his golden age, when authors had consciences ; but now-a-days they have no such clog upon their flights." " Oh ! no, no ! '' said !Mr. Twitcher, repudiating the puerile idea of the stolen page haunting him individually ; " but — a — a — the reviewers — " " Ah I I perceive you are afraid of their cryino- ^ stop thief ! ' Not a bit of it, provided you first 282 VERY SUCCESSFUL. arrange 3^our battue with the clique, and then they'll swear that every jackdaw you bring down is a pheasant, and every polecat you course is a hare ; and, better still, the too-confiding British public will take their word for the bill of fare, and swallow them with as much gusto as if they really luere hond-jide., instead of only pseudo, hare and pheasant." "- Then what work would you advise me to take % " asked Mr. Twitcher seriously. ^' What, to make your own of?" " Ye — yes," faintly murmui'cd that gentleman ; somewhat shocked at this coarse way of calling a literarij license by so common-place and pick-pocket an epithet. " Let me see. You must not take ' Tristram Shandy' because that has just been done and swallowed by the public, plastered by the critics, (?) puffed by the publisher ; and when one solitary reviewer had at length the honesty and temerity to pity Lawrence Sterne fur this posthumous burglary committed upon his brains, of course there was instantly a Fudgester to the rescue, when the said Fudgester once more ' gave the world assiu-ance ' that he can lie himself, or his gang, into or out of anything — a fact as notoriously plain as the nose (?) on Fudgester's very .hideous face. But everyone is neither Fudgester-read nor Fudgester-ridden. There is still ' The Sentimental Journey,' VEKY SUCCESSFUL. 283 * Roderick Random/ ' Peregine Pickle,' ^ The Vicar of Wakefield/ Tom Jones/ ^Amelia/ 'Joseph Andrews/ * Humphrey Clinker / or, if you like to go by long sea down to posterity there are all Richardson's novels still unbroken into. But which- ever you take, the great art consists in impressing upon the British public that there is only one merit you claim for the work with which you then present them ; and that is, its striking and startling origi- nality, because, when you have asserted this really and truly most original fiction, your literary gang will swear it, and there is not a Miss, from Malvern to Manchester, who will not echo it et voila comme on fabrique les renommes!" Mr. Twitcher appeared perfectly convinced and resolved by this insight into popular authorship, merely remarking that he deprecated the low-life mania there was in literature at present ; " for though," added he, " I have sprung from trade myself, still the bent of my mind and tone of my feelings are decidedly aristocratic ; and I regret, therefore, that Dickens and Carlyle — they were formerly of different cliques, but are now fused — should ride their hobby of anti-flunke}dsm to death." '^ Ah I there would be only one way of efiectually stopping them on that point." " Do you think anything could do so ? " " Decidedly." 284 VERY SUCCESSFUL. " What ? for I am really curious to know." '^ Why, making Mr. Dickens, Lord Bleeding- heartcourt, Lord Fleetditch, Lord Froth de Pewter, or even be(k)nighting him ; and at the same time creating Mr. Thomas Carlyle, Baron Goethecant, Lord Haggis, Lord Ursa Major, Lord Fitz Flunkey, ^ or the Uke;^ and, depend upon it we should then have no more poundings of the peerage nor fulminations against flunkeys, for 'Moi et mes procedes^ et hormis, gela point de salutj is the motto of the whole gang." " But," interposed the morally, as well as physically, short-sighted Mr. Twitcher, " I think we must do them the justice to allow that they sometimes greatly praise, not say to puff books, which are not \vritten by one of their own clique." "Name even one, for Heaven's sake, as I am always curious to hear what I never heard before." "" Why, ' Jane Eyre,' for instance." " Thank you, dedicated to one of the Fleet Street oligarchy, in the first instance." " But a very clever book, do you not think ?" ^' Most decidedly so, but an exceedingly coarse, and not over proper one as to moral." " How so ? I do not remember anything coarse or immoral in it." "Had it been ten times more so, the intense man-worship throughout it, by pandering to their passions and habits could not have failed (as it did) VERY SUCCESSFUL. 2S5 to propitiate the clique, Avho so puffed it. Imprimis Jane Eyre becomes governess to Mr. Rochester's natural child ; thereby fully establishing the perfect matter of course that gentlemen should have those little appendages. Next, she falls in love with Mr. Rochester and he with her, she at first ignoring that he has the little anti-matrimonial impediment in the way of a living wife, though a mad one ; he, of course, comme gela se pratique parmi ^es messieurs — not looking upon this as any obstacle at all. And even Jane Eyre, when she discovered it, philosophises upon the horrors of a man being so situated ; but, of course, were a woman afflicted with a mad brute of a husband w^ho added active persecution to all the other tortures he inflicted upon her, there would not be even a human feeling of compassion for her under similar circumstances ; however cela nempeche pas les sentimensy and Jane Eyre continues her grande passion for Mr. Rochester, who by the way is as great a brute as most of Miss Bronte's heroes; and making them all such hoggishly, selfish, sensual monsters, as she has done is another ovation to our sex ; the moral being, that the more loathsome and worthless a man is, the more devoted and submissive women should be to him, being mere echoes and shadows of their solidity, and only unfemininely, and very improperly, in my old-fashioned opinion, taking the initiative in proclaiming their love and making 286 VERY SUCCESSFUL. all the advances. But this being another sop to that Cerberus, mascuUne vanity, instead of being disgusted at it men are delighted with it. With regard to the other portion of ' Jane Eyre,' when I talked of its coarseness, I should have said grossness — as I think the scenes between her and the young clergyman, the future missionary, among the very grossest I ever read, and certainly that a woman ever penned. As for ' Shirley ' it has not even cleverness to redeem it, and is, without excep- tion, not only one of the most vulgar, but one of the most disgusting books I ever read, (unless in- deed I except ''The Wortheringheights,") for in Shirley the young ladies, still continue to make all the advances, and do all the love-making in true * British Female ' style ; and when one of the disgustuig heroes (I forget his name) jilts one of the heroines in the most heartless and mercenary manner, for a person whom he thinks has more money, and, ultimately finding his mistake and making the discovery that in reality his first love has the money, he rel^urns to her, — she, in the most empressee manner flies into his arms before he has even time to ask her to do so, only too happy to regain such a treasure ; the moral of which is, tliat any man, no matter what he is, or how he behaves to her, is conferring an honor on any woman in marrying her. For a' that, and a' that, with your regular genuine ^British Female,' the Husband's VERY SUCCESSFUL. 287 the thing for cl thai. ^ Vilette ' I have not read, so know nothing about it ; but indeed, considering the unprincipled profligacy of some of our leading literati, the low ebb of even our theoretical morals, and the indefatigable pains a certain chque take to lower and degrade woman, both as morally responsible and intellectually recipient beings, it is a pity they should ever come in contact with any, even the shadow of a shade superior to the !Mrs. Caudles, Mrs. Smiths, and ^lartha Straggles', of their own creation, which certainly are the most appropiiate ''females ' for such males." "Well, but surely," said Mr. Twitcher, who piqued himself upon his nationality, and conse- quently devoutly believed that England and the English had not left a single virtue for the use of any other country, but had saddled themselves with them all, as part of the Xational Debt ; " surely you think us a moral people ? " *' Oh ! very remarkably, or rather, peculiarly so ! Our state of society, our laws, politics, literature, and, above all, our criminal statistics and police reports, prove us to be eminently such I " " And yet," resumed Mr. Twitcher, who never could for five minutes together keep from floun- dering about amid the verdant duck-weed of his much-loved literary goose-pond, "you see. Lord Byron, with all his genius, was not tolerated in England." 288 VERY SUCCESSFUL. " I cry you mercy ! rayez gela de vos papiers. Lord Byron was not tolerated in England from his follt/, not on account of his vices, the greatest of which was his having the bad taste to exaggerate them, instead of having the hypocrisy to drape them with their opposite virtues — at least in print; but, however great a genius may be, he cannot be quite universal, and grasp all things, but invariably leaves some apparently small hiatus for his far less gifted successors to fill up, and which solitary- addition at once revolutionizes and rivets the great scheme that had preceded it. Thus the electric fluid was barely mentioned at the end of Newton's * Optics;' and it was reserved for Franklin to investigate its wondrous properties, so of that branch of science he may fairly be considered the father. Theory was advanced to practice and utility by the invention of the conductor, and evoked into a ubiquitous wizard by the invention of the electric telegraph ; and what electricity is to science, hj^pocrisy is to vice — at once its sovereign and its slave. But this great power. Lord Byron, if he did not ignore, neglected and disdained; and so, instead of a magnate, he became a martyr to the verbal morality of England. But what Franklin was after Newton to electricity, so Fudgester and his clique have been after Byron in the utilization of hypocrisy into an omnipotence ; and had poor Lord Byron had the advantage of being enrolled VERY SUCCESSFUL. 289 in that clique, he would never have been so silly as to leave the country ; but, above all, he never would have been so idiotically humane as to leave his wife her child, or so insanely honorable as to leave her her whole fortune ; on the contrary, his very first move would have been to have tiu'ned bis wife out of her home to make way for his mistresses — to have taken her child from her, and, if it had survived the murderous neglect of its early years, to have pen^erted it into an unnatural monster towards its mother ; next, to have robbed her of every shilling of her o^vn fortune, and to have made her some swindling allowance of a beggarly pittance, from which he even deducted the Income Tax ! He would, further, have hunted her with eternal conspiracies till he had reduced even that pauper dole to the lowest possible ebb ; while for liis spies, and to write anonymous letters and defamatory paragraphs, he would have em- ployed such honorable tools as his cast-off mis- tresses and the lower fry of his literary jackals to do this dirty work, he playing the Grand Seigneur to his icorthy literary clique, giving them private theatricals, and bracelets to actresses, while his wife and child wanted the commonest necessaries, according to their sphere of life. Had Lord Byron been such a loathsome monster as this, lea^nno- no vice unexhausted and no virtue unassumed, then he also would have become an incarnate puff — an VOL I. T 290 VERY SUCCESSFUL. ambulating triumph ! — maucllecl over by admiring Misses, dedicated to by manoeuvring Mrs.'s, lied through everything by the Press in general, and through a stone wall, ^yhen need had been, by Fudgester and Co. in particular. He had been also the rallying point and patron sinner of all the male and female profligates of London, and, to crown all this long ' homage to virtue,' (since that is what hypocrisy* is called,) I have no doubt, when age began to exchange his rampant ^ices for those ugly grave-weeds — wrinkles and grey hairs — the gifted Janus might have wound up by being made professor of Moral Philosophy to the Maids of Honor, or Usher of the Black Rod to some of those solemn social humbugs, which, being a moral people, stand us in lieu of every Gospel grace and of every Christian virtue." " Well, you astonish me ! " responded Mr. Twitcher — a fact which he illustrated by a panto- mimic clutch at his ^^sionary stubble, "for I thought our being" a moral nation was what we especially plumed ourselves upon." " That is another affair. It is superfluous to boast of what w^e really possess, for which reason it is that cowards generally vaunt their courage, and heroes never ; and misers brag of their liberality w^hile the lavishly open-handed always have closed mouths. But we are not a moral people, and under * " Hypocrisy is the homage vice paya to virtue." VERY SUCCESSFUL. 291 oiu' present system it is impossible tliat we should be such ; — we are too pre-eminently a political and public-life people to lay any store by those tame realities, private virtues. It is true we verbally unite Church and State for the support and better security of the latter ; but this marriage, like our individual ones, is purely mmidane and material : there is nothing spiritual, holy, nor equal in either, both being, as to rights and immunities, for the ex- clusive benefit of the stronger party — the State in the one instance, the husband in the other ; — thus realisincp the order of things in La Fontaine's fable of ' La Grenouille et le Rat : ' * La grenoiiille et le lion Tout en fut ; tant et si bien, Que de cette double proie, L'oiseau se donne au coeiir joie, Ayant de cette faoon, A souper chere et poisson.' "It is true that from this raison des j^^us fort arrangement, as regards individual marriages Nemesis sometimes ordains that the rest of the fable should also be enacted, and that — ' La ruse la mieux ourdie, Pent nuire a son inventeur ; Et souvent la perfidie Eetoume sur son auteur.' ^' But look to our public schools ; and let us impar- tially ask ourselves what are the fruits likely to 292 VERY SUCCESSFUL. spring up from the seed sown by what is called a classical education? Let us take, for instance, a Westminster play. We are told the purport of them is to give boys confidence (surely a work of supererogation at Westminster or any other public school), and to teach them the art of speaking; but for this purpose, it cannot be necessary that they should act the plays of Terence,* Sophocles, and Euripides ; and, as a matter of educational train- ing, it sru'ely cannot be defended that boys at school should be allowed publicly and ^^nth applause to repeat sentiments and descriptions before an audience of their seniors (and those some of the gravest and most sacred characters in the kingdom, such as Reverend and Right Reverend Prelates), and dilate upon impurities of the * We do not need to be reminded tbat Philip Melancthon lectured, at Turbingen, upon Virgil and Terence, and that the text of the latter being actually printed in prose at that time, he was also the first to point out to the students the diversified Iambic measure, and, with great labour, to restore the whole to its original metrical arrangement. But, in the first place, Melancthon was then only seventeen ; in the next, exceptions are not rules, though they prove them ; and, moreover, whenever God intends to make an individual an instrument of good to mankind, He is never at a loss not only in spite of, but out of the most adverse means to qualify them for the work. But we do say, and will maintain, that mere learning, and more especially classical lore, without a superior and sacred influence of Divine grace, is but a dangerous meteor, like a wandering star, to mislead, with false light, the souls of men, and that for one Melancthon, Erasmus,'jOr GEcolampadius that mere learning can produce, it will engender thousands of Lords Bacons, Burleighs and Cranmers, Aristotles, Almericuses, and Abelards — in a word, intellectual spunges, who have imbibed all knowledge save the knowledge of GOOD, and upon whose doomed supremacy is poured the bitter curse that came on Meroz for cowardice or doubt— not that they fought against God, " but that they came not out." VERT SUCCESSFUL. 293 grossest kind, which, if they were not clothed in Latin, it would be impossible for them to express — though both by them and by their hearers they are quite as well understood and convey precisely the same ideas as if uttered in plain English. Now against this deep and thorough immersion in these classical impurities, not only countenanced, but inculcated, by the ministers of Christ, alas ! the few pure sprinklings from the baptismal font have, and can have, but little counteracting power ; and after such a foundation for a moral superstructure, no wonder that young gentlemen look upon vice as merely part of their elective franchise, and Church and State as merely a convenient and salutary working schedule in the political charter ; but as for any vitality or spirituality in their nominal religious creed, that^ their common sense tells them, is all a farce, so long as there is no earthly necessity for their lives and conduct corresponding mth it. And, indeed, if a boy has good feelings and pure principles, he is gene- rally sneered out of the one and laughed out of the other at an English public school ; while smoking the governor, or doing the maternal out of the supplies, are the only parental reminis- cences not pulverized by ridicule or scoffed at as sentimentality. And to show you how the virus circulates through the arteries of the national lieart, it was only the other day that I read, in 294 VERY SUCCESSFUL. a paper professedly devoted to the improvement of youth, that it was a clever — not dodge^ but a word to that effect — of Louis Napoleon making a romance of his mother's composition, the Na- tional Air of France ; — ' filial affection being one of the peculiar sentimentalities of the French I ' Even so ; a man, no matter how high or how low, who despised, neglected, or behaved un- naturally to his mother, would be hooted in France, neither more nor less ; but in moral England, so long as he was a good classical scholar, or got on in his public career, if people troubled their heads about so insignificant an affair as a woman's feelings, in any relationship of life, he would only be thought the more ^ manly,* and a ^ deuced clever fellow,' for not attending to such puerilities. If a mother has an unentailed estate to be flattered or cajoled out of, then, indeed, it is quite another affair ; for, however you may ridicule and despise her, and whatever just cause you may have to do so, or even if you be such an unnatural brute as to use personal violence to her, yet you must always adulate and toady her in public and in print, and then you (especially if you secure the ' dirty acres ' by the dirtiest means) will in your turn be puffed and prone as the paragon of sons ! the model wraprascal of filial piety ! The Marquis de Bouille, in his Memoirs, cites a great critic on the French Revolution, who VERY SUCCESSFUL. 295 calls that sanguinary juggle * the hypocrisy of liberty ; ' but in our time we have the hypocrisy of philanthropy and progress, and, with our accursjd system of pro bono publico sha^is, from first to last, I don't see what else we can expect but hypocrisy in all things, since in all things v»'ith us to seem is ever\'thing, to be^ nothing." "Ah, well!" hummed and ha'd !Mr. Twitcher, who never for a moment wandered from his first, and last, and only love — himself, and who more- over always stood up for his order, and, like most geniuses of his calibre, di'awing his deductions from himself, had the most exalted ideas of masculine superiority, and the most exaggerated ones of masculine supremacy ; " you — a — see — a — the — a — fact is — a — that women not having the — a — capacity to understand us, and enter into om' intellectual pursuits, have no ambition, and — a — therefore interfere so terribly — a — with our — a — public career, and — a — that is the reason — a — that we — a — to a certain degree avoid the — a — females — a — of our own family for — a — as you truly say — public life is ever^'thing in England. Now I — a — know by myself, I — a — am obliged, positively obliged, to shirk my mother as much as possible, for just as I am on the point of crying Eureka ! my mother will set everything to flight with ' tea is ready ;' or else, when I am chasing the sample Man through the thickets of Paradise, and counting 296 VERY SUCCESSFUL. from his hirsute glories the germs of future peoples, the mob of Nations is dis|>ersed with ^ Newton, did you know that two of our pigs were pounded again yesterday?^ But the worst of all is the total want of sympathy with one's aspirations and pride in one's achievements, for I shall never forget my mother's looks of wonder, nay, almost of terror, the first time she heard I had given a lecture on hydropathy in the Baptist Chapel in our village, •which I had hired for the occasion ; and as I thought I might one day stand for our town, I had also hired omnibuses to bring all the old women to the lecture ; and my mother's surprise, and it w^as only surprise, was disheartening in the extreme." " ' Aye ! ' muttered Sir Gregory, • Primi in omnibus prselijs oculi vincuntur aures,' " and then added aloud, "I suppose as your lecture was upon hydropathy, your mother thought she was only keeping the unities by throwing cold w^ater upon it." But ^Ir. Twitcher W' as too philosophical not to be pun-proof; and, therefore, paying no more attention to it than if it had been another of his mother's pigs in the pound, he returned to the charge with : "You — a — were saying just now something about the sort of preface I ought to write, if I took one of Fielding's or Sterne's or Smollett's novels, and — a — VERY SUCCESSFUL. 297 " Renovated it, as the Israelites do old coats," put in Sir Gregory. " Well, in that case you must continue to do as the Jews do, and swear that it is spick-and-span new, and that nothing like it has ever been seen before. But, now I think of it, the very best preface that a modem popular author could take would be one that is in a very old periodical called ' The Projector,' contemporar}^, by the bye, with Sterne, Fielding and Smollett. I'll send for the book and read it to you," and he rang the bell, and as soon as Gifford appeared, he said — " Tell Clayton to give you an old shabby-looking book, in a brown leather binding, that he will find on the writing-table in my dressing-room ; and have the goodness to bring it here." " I'm sorry to hear," said ]Mr. Twitcher, '^ that your rector, Mr. Jowl, is not only at loggerheads with Mr. Lethbridge, but also with his own curate, ^Ir. Meek, whose miserable stipend l^e wants still further to curtail, which, I must say, is a verj- great shame, considering that through his patron, the Bishop of , he is for ever adding not only feathers, but do-vsTi to his own nest." "• That is it I " replied Sir Gregor}', " and how often one has occasion to exclaim with Peter Pindar — * "What pity 'tis, in this our goodly land, That 'mongst the apostolic band. So ill divided are the loaves and fishes I Archbishops, Bibhops, Deans, Archdeacons, 298 VERY SUCCESSFUL. With ruddy faces, blazing just like beacons, Shall daily cram upon a dozen dishes ; "Whilst half the inferior cassocks think it well Of beef and pudding e'en to get the smell.' " Gifford here returned with the book, and while Sir Gregory was turning over the leaves in search of the preface he had mentioned, IMr. Twitcher inquired, with feverish anxiety, whether he really thought a second person adopting the plan of stealing a whole book would succeed % " Well," smiled Sir Gregory-, " it will or it mil not. * Laertiade ! quicquid dicam, aut erit aut non.' — " Ah ! here it is ; and, in my opinion, it is a model of candour and explicitness that would save a fifty-thousand horse, or ass, power of puffery if adopted by certain individuals. ^A DEDICATION * Which may serve almost for every book, either in prose or verse^ that has been, is, or shall be published. 'THE AUTHOR TO HIMSELF. ' Most Honoured Sir, — ^ These labours, upon many con- siderations, so properly belong to none as to you — first, because it was your most earnest desire alone that could prevail upon me to make them public ; next, because I am secure (from that constant VERY SUCCESSFUL. 299 indulgence you have ever shewn to all that is mine) that no one will so readily take them under their protection, or so zealously defend them as you. Moreover, there is no one who can so soon discover their beauties ; and there are some parts which it is possible that few besides yourself are capable of understanding. Sir, the honour, affection and value I have for you are beyond expression, and as great, I am sure, or rather far greater, than any one else has for you. As for any defects, wliich others may pretend to discover in you, I do faith- fully declare I was never able to perceive them, and doubt not but those persons are actuated by a spirit of malice or en^y, the inseparable attendants upon distinguished talents and matchless merit (!) such as I have always maintained yours to be. It may, perhaps, be looked upon as a \iolation of modesty to say this to you puhlichj ; but you may believe me, that it is no more than I never cease to think of you in private. [Might I follow the im- pulse of my inclination, there is no subject which I could expatiate upon -vN-ith half so much pleasure as yom: praises ; but since something is due to modesty, let me conclude by telling you that there is nothing I so much desire as to see every one entertain the same exalted opinion of you that I do ; or nothing that would afford me more sincere pleas lu'e than to render you some signal service ; in fact, to place you at that pinnacle of earthly great- 300 VERY SUCCESSFUL. ness which I think your transcendant ments entitle you to. At all events I shall ever continue, ^ My dearest Sir, ^ Your most devoted friend, * And the greatest of your admirers.' " As Sir Gregory concluded this model dedication the first dinner-bell rang, and he was too hospi- table not to ask Mr. Twitcher to stay and dine ; but, luckily for his wishes, which, for the nonce, ran counter to his hospitality, that gentleman began to suspect that he had gained no votaries at Baron's Court, or, as he himself w^ould have expressed it, that its inmates, poor people ! were incapable of appreciating genius. So he declined the invitation, and, to the great relief of all, took his leave, fully convinced in his own mind that philosophers, like prophets, have no honor in their own country'-, and that Sir Gregory Kempenfelt's prefaces were no better than his mother's pigs ! for it's a way they have among geniuses always to suppose they have been throwing pearls before swine, whenever, however, and wherever it falls out that they have not been very successful ! CHAPTER XIII. it. 3^nnl Gratis tlj^ T\n. SatiP} Soml. BOUT a fortnight had elapsed since Mr. Tw-itcher's visitation, and Mr. Jowl's de- nunciations from the pulpit against icorks in general, and Mr. Lethbridcre's crood works in particular, had become so outrageous and so personal that, in order to reply to them, the latter had convened a meetincr in the Baron's Court School- house, that being the only portion of the Rev. Jabez Jowl's parochial territories with which he ever interfered, and that only at Sir Gregoiy Kempenfelt's particular request ; as that school, though free to all to attend who chose to do so, was his own especial and pnvate property. But if the perfection of logic consists in extracting arguments for an hypothesis from the very points 302 VERY SUCCESSFUL. which apparently make against it, then was the Rev. Jabez Jowl a profound logician; for, after expatiating upon the impious arrogance of man, in even attempting good works, he told his congre- gation that the strongest proof of the futility and profanity of works was, that when we arrived at a knowdedgable time of life, in the ceremony of confirmation we renewed our baptismal vows " to renounce the Devil and all his works ; " and one of the Devil's chief works was putting into men's heads that they could do any good things. Such deeds, he said, might indeed make them popular among their fellow-men, but would avail them nothing with God, with whom the blood of Christ, sprinkled on the door-posts of their hearts (or, as he called it, ^arts) could alone insiu'e them salvation and acceptance, and cause the destroying angel to pass them over unscathed; therefore let them, one and all, beware of the wolf in sheep's clothing wdio was then amongst them, and whose gifts w^ere gifts unto perdition. Now poor Mr. Lethbridge, being the wolf alluded to Sabbath after Sabbath, thought the least he could do was to give an answering howl, and consequently had announced his intention to have a meeting in the school-room, and there to explain the iniquities of which he had been accused, and defend himself, to the best of his power, against the charge, or rather charges, the rector had made against him. Upon the VERY SUCCESSFUL. 303 morning preceding the evening that this meeting was to be held, Mrs. Pemble had experienced a great pain and a great pleasure : the former con- sisted in her having again lost the brooch containing Harcourt's miniature. They all tried to persuade her that it could not really be lost ; but what she feared was, that she had dropped it in some field, and that, if so, the dew might entirely obliterate it before it was restored to her; though, having offered a reward of £10 for it, an El Dorado in a Welsh village, she was sure that literally no stone would be left unturned to find it. " It is time," said she to May, "that I could paint another almost as like, I think, from memory ; but then, poor fellow I he sat to me for that one, and his eyes have looked on it, and that gives it an additional value in mine." " Depend upon it, dear Mrs. Pemble," cried May, throwing her arms round her neck and kissing her, " you will find it again." ^' Why, May, how radiant you look ! One would almost think you had found it for me ; but, dear child, your cheek is very hot." " Is it ? " said May, putting up her own hand to it. " I think," said ^Irs. Pemble, " you had better not go to Mr. Lethbridge's meeting this evening ; it is so very damp and cold, and I have no doubt there will be a great crowd there ; " and while she spoke she scrutinized the young girl's beautiful 304 VERY SUCCESSFUL. face, as if she had been making a chymical analysis of it, but the flushed cheek neither grew redder nor paler, and the large deep violet eyes were raised openly and calmy to hers as May replied — " Just as you please, dear ; but will you tell Mr. Lethbridge that he owes me two Hebrew lessons. I cannot think what has come to him, he used to be punctuality itself." " To tell 3^ou the truth, dear May, I think you would get on much better with some steady old Rabbi, for he seems to me rather a distrait teacher. As I often remark, you have to ask him a question twice before he answers you, and then I have more than once heard him tell you wrong, and so he has had to correct himself and go all over the ground again ; and though Hebrew has to be read back- wards, I am not aware that it ought to be learnt so." ^' Oh ! " laughed May, " he used not to be so absent ; but I think Mr. Jowl worries him to death, and gives him more to do, in circumventing his ceaseless annoyances, than he can do; for he used to be always here ; and now he scarcely ever has time to stay and dine, or to come of an evening to play at chess with grandpapa." Mrs. Pemble did not think his increased occu- pations were the cause of his prolonged absences from Baron's Court. However, she kept her VERY SUCCESSFUL. 305 thoughts to herself, only determining that very morning again to speak to Sir Gregory, and Avam him abont the risk he was ruiuiing in allowing so handsome and so attractive a yonng man to be the preceptor of such a lovely girl as ^lay ; but while all tliis was revolving in her mind, Linda burst into the room, with her right hand in a Httle sable muff, and walking hastily up to her said — "Now what will vou mve me for the fine thincr t, o o I have got in this muff?"' " Oh, my brooch I" said ^Ii's. Pemble. " No ! I'm sorry to say it's not your brooch. Well, as you won't guess, let you and May di'aw lots for it, and whoever gets it if they don't care about it shall give it up to the other. Take two spills. May, off of the mantel-piece; let Mrs. Pemble hold them, and whichever draws the longest shall have the fine thing that is in this muff." '^What a silly child you are, Linda," smiled May, handing the spills to ^Irs. Pemble ; ^' why can't you give it to whoever it belongs at once, without all this trouble." " Rien sa7is peine ma heUe, " laughed Linda, retreating w-ith her muff while the lottery was drawing. *^ May, you are the favorite of Fortune, for you have the longest spill." VOL I. V 306 VERY SUCCESSFUL. ^* Well, wliatever it Is, I promise to share It with you If it is dividable/' said May. " Will you both make another promise ? " laughed the giddy Linda. " Not, at all events, till we hear what the pro- mise is," said Mrs. Pemble. " Why, that you will both kiss the person who sent it the first time you see them?" " No, we will not promise that ! " rejoined Mrs. Pemble, '^ having a wholesome fear of your mau- vaises plaisantries^ Miss Linda ; and it is just possible that the mighty treasure you have got there may be Mr. T^^dtcher's book, and I can answer for myself, and I think for May, not having the least fancy for kissing any man in or out of Paradise." " Oh I then you mean to say that yon don't care to have what I have got here ? " " Not knowing what it is I can't say that I do ; besides, the chances are against me, as May it was who drew the prize." " Then allow me. Miss Egerton," said Linda, in an affected voice, advancing with a sort of minuet pas, and withdrawing from the muff, with a cir- cular flourish of her hand, a ship letter, " to present you with this letter, as Mrs. Pemble does not care for It." The letter was from Harcourt — ^' Balaklava " was on the postmark. very' successful. 307 " You silly cliild/' said ^lay, as with a tremulous motion she handed the letter to ^Ii's. Pemble, ^' you should have no frohcs about these letters when you know how anxious Mrs. Pemble is for them." '^'Oh, thank God I" exclaimed the latter, and eagerly broke the seal. It was a long and most cheerfully-written letter, but began and ended with a scolding to his mother for having sent him such a perfect Xoah's ark of good things for both the outer and inner man, as he had just received bv the "Thetis," Captain Sykes. Mrs. Pemble read the whole letter out, Linda sitting at her feet and looking up in her face to see as well as listen to every word, while May hung over the back of her chair listening to it in perfect silence, and leaning her cheek upon her hand, her eyes following the words upon the paper as they were read out. " Why, I never sent him any thing I " said ^Mrs. Pemble, " it must be that dear, good Mr. Phippen ; and it's now my turn to scold, and 1 m^II do so too by to-day's post, because I feel ashamed to be such a tax upon him as all that. I tell you what. May, we must work that dear, kind old man, a round- robin of a foot muff and a pair of slippers for Christmas; and we have not more than three weeks to do them in." " Xever mind I I'll work all day and all night too at them," said Linda, jumping up and clapping her hands. 308 VERY SUCCESSFUL. " And you'll help us, will you not, May, love ? " said ^Irs. Pemble, putting back her head to look up at her ; but May was gone. " I know why May went," said Linda ; " she always thinks of everything, and I'm sure she thought you would like to have a good cry over that letter, without so many eyes staring at you ; and I'm going too, as I promised to make some quince tea for Aunt Charity. " No, darling, I'm not going to cry this time," said she, straining the affectionate little girl to her heart, and at the same time deluging her face with tears, " for I'm going down to speak to Sir Gregory, if he is alone and disengaged and will see me ; so go and ask him, dear, if he wilL" '^ Oh, dear, no I she's not going to cry," said Linda, holding up her finger archly ; "nevertheless, I shall tell grandpapa to be sure and put up his umbrella, unless he wants to get as wet as I have done." But when left alone she did not weep — she prayed, as those only can pray whose heavy load of fear and sorrow God has lifted with a mercy and a hope ; and as she rose up, involuntarily, like to the solemn tones of an anthem these beautiful lines vibrated through her memory : — " Not at his grave, bereaved mother, -weep ; He is not here ! First wipe away each tear, \t:ry successful. 309 And faith shall shew thy clearer eyes A star to guide thee, where thy young son lies As watch' d by Heaven, and dear As when thou smiledst on him in his sleep." '^ Grandpapa is alone in the library, and will be very glad to see you ; and he's so glad you have had another letter," said Linda, putting her head in at the door, and then running away as fast as she could, to answ^er in person one of Charley's oft-repeated " Here's me's, and where's oo's ? " '* My dear, I'm very glad to hear you have got another letter," said Sir Gregory, holding out his hand to Mrs. Pemble, as she closed the librar}-- door after her. " And such a nice long one ! " replied she, putting it into his hand, " written in the highest spirits; and that dear, good, old ISIr. Phippen, that I have so often told you about, has been sending him all sorts of good things, and poor Harcourt thinks it was I who sent them, and so scolds his extravagant mother accordingly." " Come, nothing can be better than that ! " said he, as soon as he had read and returned her the letter. " What I like about that young fellow is, that he seems all rightly put together, for there is all the generous impetus and fire of youth about him, without any of its aiTogance and . self- sufficiency." "Ah, my dear Sir Gregory ! when God has 310 VERY SUCCESSFUL. given us but ONE tender plant to cultivate and to watch over, it would be indeed unpardonable if we let even one solitar}' weed choke up its healthy ]mth ; and I do think, in His beautiful system of compensations, that He generally makes those children of sorrow — widowed mothers' only sons, who have ' Benoni ' early written on their brow — also the Barnabas* of their ebbing years." "• ^ As ye sow so shall ye reap ; ' and good mothers invariably plant good seed, and, therefore, deserve a golden harvest," rejoined Sir Gregory. *' I tried to do so at least, as I always endea- voured to inculcate in the prosaic action of ordinary everj'-day life that golden rule from that exquisite little book of Gospel gems, of Joseph Snow's, entitled ' Churchyard Thoughts,' that — ' Xone can be good too soon. Give life's young morn, i"hy best first-fruits, to Gou, and not the lees ; The orient pearl, of mornhig cletv is born : Who would have manna at the da-wn must seize. Whene'er, whate'er the call, to live or die, Say, with obedient Samuel, ' heue am i.' ' But I must not go on talking of myself once re- moved in this way, as I came to speak to you about dear ^May ; and I must again warn you, my dear Sir Gregory, that I think it very imprudent and unfair towards both of them, unless, indeed, you would like the match, that Mr. Lethbridge should * Barnabas means "son of consolation." VERY SUCCESSFUL. 311 incur all the proverbial perils of propinquity by being the preceptor of so beautiful and charming a girl as May, who tells me that he is now* beginning to absent himself in a manner that he never did before, which convinces me that there is an hono- rable struggle going on in this young man's mind, and that he ^vould not for the world either entrap her into a clandestine engagement or offer her the privations of a country curacy." " I don't think so," said Sir Gregory ; " I think Lethbridge merely absents himself because, thanks to that cantankerous, illiberal bigot. Jowl, he literally has a Pelion upon Ossa of business that he can scarcely make, much less find, time to get through. And my firm belief is, that he looks upon May as a perfect child ; and one thought of love, with regard to her, has never crossed his brain, or entered his heart, beyond the love he feels in common for Linda and Charley. But were it other- wise, nothing would give me greater satisfaction, for I know not the man livinor that I have a hicrher esteem for, both morally and intellectually, than I have for Horace Lethbridge ; and, even in a worldly point of view, his prospects are by no means despicable, as he is heir presumptive to a peerage, and from tw^enty to five-and-twenty thousand a year. And although his cousin, my Lord Ai'onby, will not do the least thing to interfere between him and starvation noic, were starvation inclined to pay 312 VERY SUCCESSFUL. liim a visit ; yet as he is sixty-eight, and can neither live for ever, nor take his title and estates with him when he dies, nor keep Lethbridge out of them, I don't see, (considering the rare superiority of the man himself,) if I were to turn match- maker, (which Heaven forbid!) that I could do bet- ter for INIay. But if you think she likes him, that is another affair, for I would not for worlds let her incur the risk of making shipwreck of her affections upon one wdio did not, or could not, return them ; so, tell me, do you think she has any latent lildng for Ami?" " Well, really, that is wdiat I cannot tell. I think May is much too high and too pui'e-minded to ' unsought be won ;' and I have no means of even making a guess at the nature of her feelings on that subject, if, indeed, they are quite awakened, as I studiously avoid lowering their moral tone as women, and vulgarising them as gentlewomen, by ever talking to them of lovers, flh'tations, ^ and getting married,' as the servant-maids phrase it; and as for a real and deep love, I think it too sacred and serious — not to say often too fatal and ine^dtable a crisis in a woman's existence — to touch upon the solemn myster}' till nature and fate have taken the initiative in it." " You are right, my dear Mary, and I know not which most to respect, — your real delicacy or your sound sense." VERY SUCCESSFUL. 313 *' Ah ! my dear Sir Gregory," sighed she, "you know there is no experience so sound as that which has been dearly bought with personal sacrifice, but you have greatly relieved my mind by saying that nothing would give you greater satisfaction than that May should many Mr. Lethbridge ; but still — still — ^I cannot help feeling for poor ^Ir. Lethbridge, for I believe Adolphe Houditot is right, when he says in his ^ Dix epixes four uxe FLEUR,' QUE ' Lafemme qui nous fici'ons, est celle qu^ noi'.s cherchons.^ " " Peutetre f but May is a child, and not a woman.*' " Would she could always remain one," sighed ^Irs. Pemble ; " for, loved and cared for as she is, childhood is a Heaven." " And don't you think she'll be always loved and cared for ?" '^ Loved in some way or other, I think she al- ways will be. But love to a woman is a dark and a fearful thing. It seldom has the holiness of child- , hood's love, and never its watchfulness ; the care that waits upon it being care indeed — cruel, cease- less, sleepless, and heavy." " No, no ; not if it is for, and reciprocated by, a worthy object." " Yes, even then ; for it ever begins with a sim- beam and ends with a shadow, and both are / 314 VERY SUCCESSFUL. branded with the doom of earth ; for either through death or change the beam is sure to go, but the shadow ever hangs pall-Hke over the dead hopes it has left." A visitor being announced, Mrs. Pemble with- drew to write her letters, and endeavour, as far as words could do so, to tell Mr. Phippen how much she felt his kindness to Harcourt, for she was con- vinced that none but him could have thought of cheering his weather-beaten tent wdth all the luxuries that had reached it, as one thing was very- certain, that it was not any of his rich relations who had done it. Having dined at five that day, at seven Miss Charity, Sir Gregory, Mi's. Pemble, and Linda repaired to the Baron's Court School-house ; May, having a bad headache, had gone to bed. Upon arri\dng within a few yards of it, they found a difficulty in driving up to the door, and Sir Gregory, having put his liead out of the window, said, " Ton my word, I think Lumley must have transferred the Opera from the Haymarket, and come down here upon speculation, ladies ! It's really worth your while to look out and see the positive crush of vehicles of every description, from Broughams and Clarences down to carts and tax- carts ; and, as it is a lovely moonlight night as light as day, you will be able to see them." " Bless me ! what a cro^vd, to be sure ! Where VERY SUCCESSFUL. 315 can all the people have come from ? '' said ^liss Charity. '' From far and near, apparently," replied her brother ; *'^ but it's -vvell to be a handsome young man, though only a country curate ; but trust your English blisses and their Mammas for having scented out, within thirty miles round, that Lethbridge mai/ one of these days be a peer, which is quite enough to make him peerless iioiVj in their eyes." "But, exclusive of tliat," said Mrs. Pemible, "!Mr. Jowl is so exceedingly unpopular amongst all classes that I have no doubt they wish to give ^Ir. Lethbridge's meeting, by flocking to it in such crowds, the appearance of a perfect tnumph." "As, I have no doubt, it will be; for, besides that macniificent voice of his, he is an orator bom — eloquence in his every glance, and grace in his every gesture. And what a relief! after the vulgar intonation and unmodulated conven- ticle thunder of ^Ir. Jowl, with his implacable feud against the poor letter H, and his verbal hospital of lame, halt and blind mispronunci- ations. And when he attempts to lighten on us from Mount Sinai, one would think he was gossiping about old houses, — as he calls Moses Mosses ! And, as if all this were not enough,'' added Sir Gregory, " that loud and never-ending a-hemming ! between every word makes one's ears aclie and one's throat sore to hear him ; and, as I 316 VERY SUCCESSFUL. always say, if his wife only hems half as much during the week as he does of a Sunday, she must be the most industrious woman in Europe." Upon entering the School-room, the promise ft'oni without was amply fulfilled by the dense crowd within. Luckily the room was a very large one. The lower part of it was filled, not only by the children and their parents, but by all the other villagers, in their holiday clothes and the upper half with great numbers of the suiTOunding gentry, more especially ladies. Mr. Lethbridge had not yet ascended the reading-desk, but was standing at the corner of the first bench, which was just behind some half-dozen cabriole chairs covered in old red damask, which were ranged opposite the reading-desk for the Baron's Court family ; and when they arrived he was talking to an elderly lady in black, and rather shabby black too, but she was, nevertheless, unmis- takeably a gentlewoman, with a most benevolent countenance, and a low, quiet, sweet voice, and easy, gentle manners. ]\Iiss Kempenfelt was the first to shake hands wdth her, and then Sir Gregory held out both his to her, saying — " All, my dear ^irs. Le^^yn ! I'm delighted to see you back again. When did you return ? " " Only at three o'clock to-day, but as soon as I heard of this meeting, I could not resist ; so I put on my clogs, and here I am." " You don't mean to say that you walked ? — for. VERY SUCCESSFUL. 317 tlioiigh it's fine overhcarl, it's very damp under- foot." " Ball I you know, que <^e nest que le premier pas qui coute ; and if that lield good with regard to St. Denis and his httle stroll, vaiXx his head under his arm, — I don't see why it should not do so equally with me, and my umbrella under mine," said the cheerful old lady. Wliile this dialogue was passing between her and Sir Gregoiy, Miss Charity had passed on to her seat, and Mr. Lethbridcje was shaking hands ^^'ith Linda, and asking why his pupil had not come. At first he did not seem to perceive ^Ii's. Pemble, but when' he did so he bowed to her some- what stiffly, or as she thought to the governess^ and in spite of herself she felt annoyed, because, p«-haps, that ^Ir. Lethbridge was not a person who left one the option or alternative of despising his opinion ; but the next moment she acquitted him of superciliousness, much less of impertinence, as, offering his arm as timidly and respectfully as if she had been a Queen, he said — "Will you allow me to place you in a seat, where I think you will be quite out of the draught ;" and he led her to the very best seat of the six chau's. " Thank you ! " said she, taking his proffered arm ; ^' but I hope it is a good place for hearing? " A flush passed rapidly over his usually colorless cheeks as he said, with a laugh, " Unless one is 318 VERY SUCCESSFUL. sure that it is something worth hearing, I think it is anything but an advantage to be too near a speaker or a preacher." " Fully concurring in that opinion/' replied his companion, " I wish to-night to be as near the reading-desk as possible." It is probable that he felt the compliment, as no man is insensible to one, from a handsome and a clever woman ; and, indeed, most men care little for the source from whence it comes, so long as the flattery only flows in freely. But, whatever Mr. Lethbridge might have thought, he made no answer ; and, after having advanced the chair to a more convenient position, he silently bowed and withdrew. And Sir Gregory having excavated Mrs. Lewyn from the back form where she had humblj^ seated herself, and placed her in a chair between his sister and himself, and the room being now literally as full as it could hold, so that, though not much thicker than the blade of a hatchet, Mr. Twitcher, who had only just arrived, found the greatest difficulty in wedging himself in at the very end of it among the parish children, who having, for the most part, bad colds, like " the perpetually-influenza'd Jane Collier," in Albert Smith's '^ Pottleton LegRcy," he found himself like anything but "Man in Paradise ! " Nor could he, from the sensible remarks of these admirably- trained children, even entertain the delusion of his being " Man in Parliament ! " though, from VERY SUCCESSFUL. 319 the odoriferous fact of poor old Tamar Lloyd (by whom he was flanked on the east) always upon gala occasions indulging largely in peppermint lozenges, he might have fancied himself converted into Miss CharitVs version of his " great work," and thought himself Hterally " Man in Petticoats and Man in Peppermint I" Everybody now being seated, or rather xcedged, ^L\ Lethbridge ascended the reading-desk. His lecturing, like his preaching, was always extempore. He began by thanking his friends for having rallied so numerously around him, and apologized for taking up so large a portion of their time, which, doubtless, might have been passed more agreeably elsewhere ; but, as he had been so ceaselessly accused by the Rector of Baron's Court of holding out false lights to them, and substituting good works for faith, he owed it to those before him there assembled, mere even than to himself, to most explicitly refute so false and totally unfounded a charge, and, he hoped, for ever to silence so unjust an accusation. ''■ Xot that I have not, my dear friends," continued he, '^ indi- vidually accepted the illiberal representations to which I have been subjected, and the many petty annoyances which have grown out of them, as a necessarv^ portion of those distressing and mys- terious temptations which the inscrutable wisdom of the Creator metes out in a larger shiU'e to some than to others ; and how far our minds may be 320 VERY SUCCESSFUL. bowed down under their weiglit, tliougli our faith falter not, we cannot tell, till the struggle of experience has taught us. But it is not with my ovtn personal annoyances or trials that I mean to take up your time. I owe it to you as immortal souls, and to myself as a minister of Christ, and therefore a steward of those souls, to convince you that I have been, to the best of the faculties wdiich God has lent me, a just, and not an unjust, steward — in a word, that I have not separated FAITH from w^ORKS ; for, as I shall endeavour on this occasion to prove to you, they cannot he sejMrated, as by faith we honor the Almighty, but by w^orks we honor faith ; for hy our works ive alone can evidence our faith. And let no one ever persuade you to the more than fallacy — the almost blasphemy — that God's power, God's mercy, or any other of the Divine attributes, are lessened by enforcing the necessity of good works. On the contrary, the imputing all to faith, and throwing aside all obligations to practise, reflects the highest dishonor upon the holiness of God. The man, indeed, who pretends to claim salvation ivithout Christ, is worse than an infidel; but he who asserts that works are 7iot equally essential icith faith, as the necessary result of it, let him call himself by what name he will, he is in reality nothing but a spiritual libertine. No man can claim a right to the immunities of Christianity VERY SUCCESSFUL. 321 unless lie observes — that is, unless he practises — its precepts, by a true repentance of his former sins, and evidencing in his icorks the reformation of his life. ' Measure thy life by action, not by space ; Xor sing the requiem to thy soul — " content I " The reckoning follows on the feast apace ; And when the day of vanity is spent, Conies Natures terror — judgment's awful night I — Extinguishing at once deUgJd and lights In short, live so as that having sympathy for 3*our fellow-creatures, the angels may have s\inpathy loith you, and that at the last the Saviour may not denounce the same repudiator}' anathema upon your fruitless faith that He did upon the barren fig-tree, which, when He hungered, ministered not to his rec|uirements ; and those requirements are ever the same in the sorro\\'incr flock He has left on earth. It is not enough to give to our fellow- sufferers the sterile compassion of words ; neither are mere deeds, however serviceable and important to our welfare, sufficient, witliout they be hallowed with the kindliness of a reciprocatory feeling. Of this Christ himself has left us a memorable, a mortal, and, at the same time, an immortal, ex- ample ; for who amongst us can forget the touching incident recorded in the eleventh chapter and thirty-third verse of the Gosi)el of St. John, as having occurred at tlie gi'ave of Lazanis? — VOL I. w 322 VERY SUCCESSFUL. *AVheii Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He gi'oaned in the spirit, and was troubled ; ' and, it is added, ' Jesus icept ! ' Here, then, we see tears — human tears — of the tenderest, softest, sweetest sympathy flowing from that Divine Source, the Saviour's eyes ; and yet he came not to bury, but to raise Lazarus from the dead — to restore him to his sorrowing friends. Still he wept, because they wept ; and, great as the boon was which He was about to bestow upon them. He still enhanced it, by feeling ivith them, as well as for them. His tears evinced His faith in their sorrow ; His restoring Lazarus to them was the good work that evidenced that faith. " But, looking at this question of works and faith merely in a worldly point of view, were our Church and our Legislature to cry down morality and set up faith, the mere empty loord, in its stead, what would be the consequence? Why, rife as vice and crime unfortunately now are, still they noiv skulk through the liye-ways, blind alleys, and back stairs of our cities and villages ; but we should then have a perfect saturnalia of every crime and every vice imaginable, not only making day hideous with their infamy, but driving their gilded chariots through all the thoroughfares of social life, with the armorial bearings of faith as their sole and all-sufficient waiTant, without even VERY SUCCESSFUL. 323 that flimsy tribute to decency, the slight varnish of hypocrisy. When om* Saviour was asked by the young man ^what he should do to inherit eternal life ? ' was the answer ^ beHeve in me ! ' No! but 'Keep the commandments.' And what can be more applicable to the present subject than the words of St. James ? ' What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man saith he hath faith, and hath not works ? Can faith save him alone ? ' Surely it is not necessary for me to add my feeble testimony to this, by reiterating how absolutely necessary good works are? The mere faitJdtes may, indeed, ask * How is this passage of St. James to be reconciled with that of St. Paul, that ' we are justified by faith, and not by works ? ' By comparing one thing with another, we shall easily reconcile the seeming contradiction. St. Paul was right, when reasoning with the intel- lectual heathen who set too high a value on his 0's\'n acts and achievements ; and though he does not give merit to men (nor do I), yet he nowhere says that without the performance of good works, salvation is to be secured. On the contrary, he confirms the necessity of oiu' doing that which is good, by declaring that at the last day we shall be judged and rewarded according to our icorks ; for the great Bible principle throughout is, that though we are justified by faith, we shall be judged by works. 'By faith we believe GoD to 324 VERY SUCCESSFUL. be merciful and just, but it is by good works that we shew the sincerity of that faith.' " The pardon granted to a criminal is an act of mercy on the part of the Sovereign ; but yet, notwithstanding this pardon already obtained, it by no means privileges the criminal to commit fresh crimes, or to continue in his old courses ; otherwise he must and icill eventually pay the forfeit of his own misdeeds. And so the King of Kings has once mercifully commuted our just sentence of eternal punishment by the great Heavenly-given and Heaven-crivino; charter of the atonement. But, as long as we remain in the flesh, we are still in a penal settlement where our own conduct can alone reinstate us by making us ultimately worthy of the DiA-ine ^lercy ; or cause us, notwithstanding this first great earnest of it, to irrevocably forfeit it. May none of us here present be in the latter fearful category ! Therefore, I say to one and to ally old and young, rich and poor, highly endowed and meanly endoAved, — luatch as well as pray ; and aci so as to prove to your GoD, yom^selves, and •your fellow-creatures, that you do both. To you, children, I say love, honor, and obey your parents. To you, parents, watch over, bear with, and help your children. Neighbours and friends, to you, be unto each other such, — not only rendering one another every service in your power, but rendering them as kindly as you can, and, as far as in you VEEY SUCCESSFUL. 325 lies, preventing and anticipating each other's wants. Wives, to you I say, study to make your husbands' homes happy and comfortable, so as to keep them out of the public-house, and vAi\\ youi'selves obey them in all things reasonable. Mind, I say, all things reasonable, and where no higher duty — that is, your duty towards God — intervenes to counter- order you ; for you are their wives and helpmeets, not their bonded slaves ; and the other day a wretched woman drowned her own child, of four years old, because the man, or rather the monster, who was about to become her husband, ordered her to do so. Husbands, who have at God's altar sworn to love, cherish, and with all your worldly goods endow your wives, forsaking all other women for their sakes, see that ye do so ; for, believe me, though men have given themselves an unholy charter to break, at their will and pleasure, tins, one of the most solemn of God's commandments, they will have to answer for it as stringently, if not more so, than women ; inasmuch as that tlwj seek their Alices, whereas woman, the weaker sinner, is generally their ensnared victim. And remember that when, thefi as now, they were for stoning the woman taken in adultery, it was to the men that our Lord addressed himself, saying, ^ Let him who is without sin cast the first stone I ' — and you know the result, that not one was qualified to do so. And, further I tell you, that if you ill-use or even 326 VERY SUCCESSFUL. neglect your wives (and these t^yo things are but greater and lesser degrees of the same sin), and that if you spend the week's eaniings that should contribute to the support of your families, in lower- ing yourselves below the brutes, in a public-house of a Saturday night, and think to make it all right by appearing at church on Sunday morning, you are only guilty of an additional and a worse sin, that of hypocrisy. But if, under such circum- stances, you presume to profane the most holy of God's ordinances by communicating, I further tell you, that you are guilty of rank blasphemy; and did you present yourself at an altar where I officiated, I should think / was equally so if I administered the sacrament to you ; and although your rector, whom it is your bounden duty to reverence and obey in all things, save (as I just now told your wives in reference to their duty to you) where a higher duty to God intervenes — but your rector, I was about to say, finds immense fault with the Sunday evening Cricket Club, which your excellent landlord, Sir Gregory Kempenfelt, has so kindly allowed me to establish on a part of his domain ; and yet, my friends, as you are well aware, no man so misconducting himself on any day dm'ing the week, or month, or wdio has not twice on the Sab- bath-day fulfilled his religious duties by attending church is allowed to participate in this healthy, manly, and, I must maintain, innocent recreation. VERY SUCCESSFUL. 327 " But it is getting late, and, sincerely thanking you all for having listened to me so long and so patiently, I will only detain you further to tell you a story I once heard of a sailor, which, I think, is as good an illustration as any, of the ntihty of faith. A sailor w^as once going to Gravesend — it was in the days of the old-fashioned tilt boats — and, being exceedingly tipsy, the captain and all on board advised him to go below and tumble into his hammock, but neither fair words nor rou(z;h ones could prevail on him to do so ; he continued to sing and swear, and his unaccomitable speeches to the people passing in other vessels afforded high entertainment to everyone on board. However, the boat had not got farther than the halfway house, when Jack, making a run towards the steerage, missed his footing and fell overboard. The boat immediately put about, and every assistance was given, and, what was still more fortmiate, a wherry at the time w^as near at hand, whose crew made instantly for the sj3ot ; but poor Jack w^as for some time under water, and when he rose up, the first thing he espied Avas his hat, at which he immediately made a snatch, and, holding it above his head, kept swimming with his other hand till he was taken into the boat. When brought on board, he was speechless, and it was evident that he had swtdlowed a great quantity of water, which, by rolling him about the deck, he soon got rid of. 328 VERY SUCCliSSFUL. His wet clothes \yere then taken off, and he was wrapped up in warm blankets and carried below^ Avhere he continued sleeping till they were within a mile of Gravesend. He then awoke, and turning to his comrades, who were sitting by him, his first Avords were neither thanks to God for his delivery, nor to his friends who had been the instruments of it, but they were ^ Halloo, my hearties ! didiiH I stick close to my hat to the last ? ' Now, Mr. Jowl is welcome to stick as close to his hat to the last as he pleases, and let others do all the working part necessary for sah'ation, but he will never compel me to take off mine, in order to bow to his opinion." As soon as the laugh that this anecdote had excited had ceased, !Mr. Lethbridge continued — "Yet still I tell you — nay, I implore you — to persist in good works to the uttermost of yom* respective means, power, and opportunity, for they shall ' bring you peace at the last.' I do not say they will exempt you from troubles and trials dm'ing your earthly pilgrimage, for we are oftener than not scourged for our good deeds by the very persons to whom we have rendered them, and we are expressly told that ' Many are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him fi'om all ; ' and many, very many, more are the troubles of the wicked, and whom can he trust to deliver him from them ? In one that ahvays fails his VERY SUCCESSFUL. 329 votaries at tlie last. But to those who tnist in God, pacing the amount of that trust hii obedience to His commandments y a true faith ever whispers ' What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shall know hereafter.'' Therefore we should patiently await the unsealing of God's pro^-idences : ^he that believeth maketh not haste/ that is, does not foolishly mistrust or impiously upbraid the All- wise Disposer of Events, but patiently committeth his whole being, with its every attendant circum- stance, to His keeping, knowing that the issue of all thincjs is in His hands. It mav be that at this particular crisis we are peculiarly tried ; since war, with its gory tide, swollen by \vidows' and orj^hans' tears, is wailing through the land, and God forbid that human soitows should ever be unaccompanied by human feelings ! Omnipotence strikes no blow that It does not intend ice SHOULD feel. Paul himself, eminent as he was for his piety and passiveness under the Divine Will, would have been deeply affected had his beloved Epaplu'oditus died ; but ' God had mercy on hirn.^ May He also have mercy on those loved ones who are now ' sick unto death I ' But if His wisdom sees fit it should be otherwise, oh I ye who have not shrmik from giving a soldier to your country, do not shrink either from giving an angel to your God ! — for, beyond all others, you should not mourn ' as those who have no hope.' Wee[) — yes, 330 VERY SUCC1<:.SSFUL. weep — for your own lone liearts, bereaved and leftc but weep not for themj who have made the * blsst exchange, to overleap The barriers of a world of pain ; And, for a life they could not keep, A life they cannot lose, regain ! ' " The sobs through the room were so audible and convulsive that again the orator had to pause for some seconds, and wlien he resumed, he said in conclusion, " And now, my dear friends, in taking leave of you — I more particularly address myself to you — ^my fellow workmen — the labouring classes of Baron's Court — think, and think daily and hourly, of the gratitude you owe to God for having oast your lots under the paternal care of so kind, so generous, so considerate a landlord ; though I feel that such an injunction is not only superfluous, but almost unkind, and that it would be far more congenial to you were I to be the interpreter of your heartfelt love and gratitude to him, than take the unnecessary com'se of enjoining you to enter- tain them. But, my dear friends, what can I do ? For though his worth is a theme which might make the least-gifted amongst us eloquent, yet his presence seals my lips. But this much for you?' satisfiiction, as well as my owriy I ivill say that if the fair catholic virtue of Charity, properly so called, ever found ^ a local habitation,' it is in the person of Sir Gregory Kempenfelt. And of VERY SUCCESSFUL. 331 charity, I may say as ^lilton beautifully, but less truly, said of Eve — ' All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded ; wisdom, in discourae with her, Loses discountenanced and like foUy shows : Authority and reason on her wait, Aa one intended first, not after made Occasionally : and, to consummate all, Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat Build in her loveliest, and create an awe About her, as a guard angelic placed.' Having benefitted so largely by the benign influ- ence of that most apostolic charity herey oh ! may we all meet with it again hereafter! — and when the archangel's trump shall sound, and the great records of Heaven be unclosed, may we still find ourselves not disunited, but for ever inscribed on the same illuminated page of the Book OF Eternal Life ! " The fervent and peculiarly harmonious tones of the speaker's voice ceased ; but their echoes were vibrating through every heart, and the tears were still stealing down ^lary Penrhyn's cheeks, but they were quiet and happy tears, when Sir Gregory said to her — " Do you think we could squeeze Mrs. Le^s^yn in, as far as her own house ? It's not more than a mile from this, and I don't like the idea of her walking home." " She shall have my place, for nothing I should 332 ' VERY SUCCESSFUL. SO much like as a walk home this beautiful night, and I am reallj panting for fresh air," said ^Irs. Pemble. ^' No, no!" Sir Gregory began to remonstrate, but she threaded her way through tlie crowd and had just reached the end of the room and was within three steps of the door, when Mr. Twitcher impeded her further progress by graciously remarking — " An enviable voice — a — Lethbridge has, — a — don't you think so ?" "Yes! his voice is beautifully modulated and very harmonious ; and it would be a pity if it were less so, to express his ideas." " Ideas ! all I yes ! — a — I have put down one or two that I thought would tell in my ' Man in Paradise.' " "It's a pity," groaned ^Ii's. Pemble inwardly, " that there is no one to put you down ! " But, as self-preservation is the first law of Nature — Heaven foro;ive her ! — she had recourse to a subterfuge, and said, " I think, ^Ir. Twitcher, I see ^liss Kempenfelt trying to catch your eye ; " and, as Mr. Twitcher piqued himself upon having an intellectual love of supper, and thought that grouse and champagne might possibly be 'looming' in the distance, he broke from INIrs. Pemble, without even the ceremony of wishing her good night, and made two or three sti»des a la ^lonster VERY SUCCESSFUL. 333 in Frankenstein towards ^liss Charity, whereupon ^Irs. Pemble instantly made her escape thron;rh the open door, and as soon as she could succeed in zig-zaging between the horses' heads, she crossed the road and turned up a lane where the Lloyds lived, and which led by a bye way to Baron's Coiu't, for she seemed to want to be alone with the silent night, and to look up to the stany archives of Heaven for a continuation of all she had just been hearing ; and as the fresh cnsp air braced her languid nerves, and she gazed on all the glories above her, her eyes wandered from one star to another and she wondered which, if any of them, Harcourt was looking at then ; but ultimately she fixed them on the beautiful moon, as thinking it the surest point de mire ; and then she thought of her lost picture, and experienced that cold, aching void which always succeeds the loss of even an in- animate thing that wejoauch value, and which made her ask herself, with a shudder, what it would be if she lost the original ; and she wished — oh ! how she wished — he had gone into the Chui'ch, and thought how proud, how happy, how sctfe she should have felt had the young man she had just heard been her son ; and if he had, would he not have reproved her for wishing to alter God's decree ? And then, as ^Ir. Lethbridge's pale and delicate features rose up before her, and the deep lecrends of brifrhter worlds that seemed shrouded in 334 V^RY SUCCESSFUL. his eyes, she also thought if he ivere her son, how anxious and fearful those pale looks and those unearthly eyes ^YOuld make her, and she caught herself involuntarily repeating — " Soldier of Christ ! well proved and tried, In every conflict brave and strong, Thoiigh death and grave tlie spoil divide Awhile, they shall not hold thee long. Thy sleep is but the warrior's rest ! Thee, wreath and palm and crown await ; And gratulating saints attest Thy welcome at the immortal gate ! " " Eh ! Taffy Lloyd, give it me, and I'll open it, for you 're stanning in your own light, man ! " and, roused by the old woman's voice, Mary Penrhyn looked round, and saw Taffy and Tamar Lloyd bunfdino- over the dissipations of a latch key ; so she crossed over and offered her services. '^ Thank you, ma'am; thank you, for me and for Taffy Lloyd. Eh, ma'am! but how beautiful young ^Ir. Lethbridge du put us to rights, to be sure I it du du a body good to hear him ; 'cause he don't make un think as the devil ha' got so tif^ht hold on un as there's no shaking on un off, as Mr. Jowl du. ]My old man here du say he'd as lief hear Towzer, Squire Jones's bull-dog, bark any day, as hear Parson Jowl prache. And have you lieerd, ma'am, as poor Barbara Evans ha' lost a good place up there at the Vron, wi' that English lady, all along o' 'tending Mr. Jowl's church?" VERY SUCCESSFUL. 335 '^No ! I have not heard anvthing about it ; but is ^Irs. Wilson not a Protestant then, that slie should object to her servants attenchng Mr. Jowl's church? " " Oh ! it hain't that, ma'am ; but on account of his congregation being such drunkards, and the ■Nvenches being no better nor they should be. So this icar the way on it : the English lady, she says to Barbara Evans, says she, ^ Oh ! so vou are one of ^Ir. Jowl's congregation?' ^Yes, ma'am,' says Barbara Evans. ' Oh ! then,' says the ladv, *you won't do for me, for I understand all kinds of 'hominations goes on among both men and women at his church.' ' Oh, dear no, ma'am ! ' savs Barbara Evans, fool-like, dropping the lady a curtsey ; ' if you please, ma'am, it's after we comes out of chm'ch that the 'hominations begins! ' " ^L's. Pemble could not help laughing very heartily at this illustration of the fruits of Islv. Jowl's doctrine, and more especially at the old woman's way of acting the scene ; but, not to encom-age scandal, after the exhortations to charity which they had just been hearino-, she said — "I hope your chimney don't smoke now, Tamar, since A [aster Charles made you the box for it ? " " Oh ! Lord love un, no ! The place be as clear as a bell ; and Taffey Lloyd and I du pray for un, sartin sure, night and day for it." 330 VERY SUCCESSFUL. *' In fact, then, I suppose Charley is your darlmg ? " " Oh ! Lord bless hnr ! hur's everybody's darling, as hur grandfather was afore hur. I hope ^liss May hain't ill, ma'am, that I didn't see her at the meeten this evening ? " " No ! only a slight headache." " What a beautiful girl hur du grow, to be sure ! I don't think as ever any quane could come up to her for looks." " She certainly is very beautiful — uniformly so, for her disposition is as lovely and as loveable as her face." " Eh ! and Miss Linda du come on bravely tu ; but as for master Charley, when he du come down the village ivi^ Swiftpaws a bounding afoore him, and that 'ere big white cat upon his shoulder, he du look like a little King wi his coort, he du.'' ^Irs. Pemble could not help smihng at the old woman's idea of courtly pageants, and thought, though there are doubtless many old and not quite s.udi spotless cats at every court, yet there were few such honest dogs at any, as Swiftpaws ; but all she said, addressing herself to the old man, was — '^ I suppose you have not heard anything of my poor brooch, TafFey ?" " No, ma'am ; I'm sorry to say I ha'n't, and I've searched fur and near tu for it, and axed all tlie lads of the village to do the same, and I'm sure VERY SUCCESSFUL. 337 there hain't a rush most but what I've sliookH well, thinking as it might have fallen among them along the river side, till mv ^lissus, she laugh at me, and say, ^ Why Taffey Lloyd,' says she, ^you don't sure/^ think as the young gentleman's picter will be found like Moses among the bulrushes ; ' and I says, ' AMio knows Tamar Lloyd,' but when a thing is lost best ways is to look everywhere, for if looking dont find it, not looking vjorCt du so ; and it's not on 'count of the ten-pun-noat, ma'am, for I'd give not that, for I ha'nt a got it ; but a matter o' tu- pun-ten, as my old woman and I've a-got in the savings bank, as you had the likeness of the young gentleman safe back again." " Thank you, Taffey, I'm sure you would," said Mrs. Pemble, slipping half-a-crown into the old man's hand ; ^' and I am veri/ much obliged to you for the trouble you have already taken about it, and only hope you may be the finder of it. But I won't keep you standing any longer, so good night, good night, Tamar." And she hurried on to make up for the time she had spent in talking to the old couple. Ha^-ing turned down another lane to the right, that was within three of Baron's Com't, she slackened her pace to take breath, when presently a man jumped out of. or rather over the hedge, alighting so close to her in the lane as almost to endanger her VOL. I. X 338 YEEY SUCCESSFUL. equilibrium ; a circumstance, which — all " strong- minded woman " though she was — so alarmed her, that she uttered a faint scream. " Good heavens ! Mrs. Pemble ; is it possible ! you walking alone at this time of the night f ex- claimed ^Ir. Lethbridge, for he it was, and no robber, or footpad, as w^th his extended arm he prevented her falling to the ground. '^ Oh ! how you startled me," said she at last, still trembling violently. " For which, believe me, I could never forgive myself, had I done so intentionally. But who could have supposed you would be out alone at such an hour % And, pardon me for saying so, but it is worse than an imprudence, it is positively wrong, for you see what might have happened had it been one of those drunken fellows from the slate-quarry, for instance." She explained the cause of her walking home. '' Even so ;" said he, " you had better have gone ten in a carriage than have run such a risk. Let me beg of you never to do so again ? " ^' I will not, certainly," she replied ; " I have been too much fnghtened ever to repeat the experiment." And as she now tried to raise herself, he instantly withdrew his arm from round her waist, and offer- ing it to her to lean upon, said — '• You had better also take my stick in your VERY SUCCESSFUL. 339 other hand, as that will be an additional support to you." As she placed her ann ^vithin his, she felt that it trembled slightly also, and that his heart beat violently. " I fear I have also fiightened you ? " said she. " You have, indeed ! " he replied. " Then that is very ungrateful of me," she rejoined, '^ when 1, when we all, have so much to thank you for, this evening." " I think you had all very great jjatience to bear with my prosings so long ; but truth is as slow to propound as to prove ; and yet the fear of being thought a bore ought never to prevent our domg either." " I don't think you run any risk of tliat sort. Yours are rather sins of omission I take it ; at least Miss Egerton complains of your remissness, and says you owe her a great many Hebrew lessons." " That is a charge to which, I fear, I must plead guilty ; but I'll try and make the amende honorable to-morrow, as Sii' Gregoiy is good enough to give me a bed to-night." " Oh ! by the bye, / for one felt so grateful to you for what you said of him to-night." " I never could say half as much as I think and know of the excellence of that man, especially in his presence. I never look at him but it seems to me — 340 VERY SUCCESSFUL. ' In every furrow years hath plough' d, New and immorial he pes are sown ; And when the ripe ears time has bow'd, Angels shall gather in their own.' " " True ; and yet such is human selfishness that one cannot help hoping that it may be long ere this angel-han^est be gathered in." " Amen ! " sighed her companion, " though he is just one of those who make one fully understand the full import of Solon's * dicique heatus Ante ohitum nemo suj-remaque funera debet,' we may feel sure that his happiness will then begin ! But how many hearts his * goi7ig before ' will leave void ! and what a sad thing for those three dear children ! " ^'Do you not think Maya lovely girl?" added Mrs. Pemble, thinking such a home-thrust must solve the problem she was so anxious to elucidate ; but she w^as only doomed to be more mystified than ever, as he replied, with the most perfecct composure, " Lovely, indeed ! I only fear she will make many Janiveres ; — you remember old Janivere in Chaucer, who thought, when he had his fair May, he would never go to heaven, he should live so merrily here on earth ? ' Had I such a mistress,' he vows. VERY SUCCESSFUL. 341 ' I would not envy their prosperity — The gods should envy my felicity.' " And yet, in uttering this last couplet, he sighed profoundly ; but after that neither of them spoke, but walked on in silence till they reached Baron's Court. " Strange ! " thought she. " Is it love ? or is it prudence? or both? — though they are seldom found together — or neither ? And yet a deeper feeling seemed to tremble in his voice as he repeated those two lines. I wish, for May's sake, for his own, that he knew what Sir Gregory said this morning. What a pity it is there should be things it would make people so very happy to know, and yet which would be so very wrong to tell them." And involuntarily she sighed also. ^' I hope," said Mr. Lethbridge, "you have not taken cold by this imprudent walk, after being in that suffocatingly hot room ? " " No, " said she, laughing, as she rang the deep-toned door bell, " I have taken nothing but your stick, which, it seems, I was going to take possession of; but I now return it to you, with many thanks, for I believe ' strong^ninded women ' have not yet arrived at walking-sticks, though they often lean upon what is not half so much to be depended on." And so saying, she returned him his ebony cane, which he received with a silent bow, just as the door was opened. 342 VERY SUCCESSFUL. "xire Miss Kempenfelt and Sir Gregory returned yetV " Yes, Ma'am/' said Gifford ; " and Sir Gregory was much alarmed to find you were not yet home. He and Miss Kempenfelt are in the dining-room waiting supper." " Did Edward Parry bring anything for me, GiflFcnxl ? " asked Mr. Lethbridge. " Yes, Sir, a caq^et-bag and a chessing-box ; they are up in your room." " Oh ! thank you." And as Gifford threw open the dining-rcom door, Sir Gregory, who was walking up and down, turned hastily round, and said — " ]My dear !Mrs. Pemble ! I am really very angry with you. How could you break away as you did, and think of walking home alone at this time of niHit ? " " Ah ! I am very glad to find that you are of my way of thinking upon that subject, Sir Gregory," chimed in Mr. Lethbridge. "I tell you what, my good fellow," said Sir Gregoiy, turning upon him, and taldng him by both the lappels of his coat, " you need not in- terfere, for I have an account to settle with you also, as I give you fair notice, that you and I shall quarrel if you take to flattering and flum- merising me in public." "■ And when I doj so we may ; but it is my duty. VERY SUCCESSFUL. 343 as a clergyman, to hold out proper examples to others you know, whenever and wherever I can find them." "• There's a pretty sort of fellow for you!'" smiled Sir Gregory, aiming at him a pantomimic box on the ear, " to make an examjde of his friends." " You did not bring !Mr. Twitcher back to supper then? — that w^as verj ciniel of you, Miss Kempenfelt," said Mrs. Pemble close in ]Miss Charity's ear, so that she could not foil to hear. "■ Not I !" laughed she, " I thought he might go and sup with his / Man in Paradise,' or with Duke Humphrey, and not bore us, for I think he's a mighty conceited, foolish sort of person." " I'm sure, Miss Kempenfelt, no one here will be so rude as to chif'er from you," said ^Ir. Lethbridge." " I wonder," said Sir Greo-on', as thev seated themselves at table, ^' what the origin of that saying was, of dining with Duke Humphrey being equivalent to having no dinner. I dare say ^Irs. Pemble can tell us." " I have heard," said slic, " that it arose long ago, from some Westminster boys who were playing in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, where Duke Humphrey lies buried ; and having been repeatedly intreated by the verger, but in vain, to come out, as he was going to lock-up, he at length locked the 344 VERY SUCCESSFUL. door upon them, saying, ' Young gentlemen a good appetite to ye ; / leave you to dine loith Duke Humphrey.^^ " All ! very likely ; no doubt that is the origin of it, as I never heard that poor Duke Humphrey de son vivant was famed for any pai'simonious want of hospitality." And then Sir Gregory, having renewed his lecture about her walking alone at so late an houi', she told how she had delayed speaking to the Lloyds, and how much she had been frightened by the sudden apparition of Mr. Lethbridge. "■ And you may thank your stars that you were more frightened than hurt," said Sir Gregory, *' for how should you have liked it to have been a foot- pad who had jumped out of the hedge and put a pistol to your head ? — for though those fascinating scoundrels, Barrington and Maclean, are no more, and highways are now railways, yet we do hear of such amiable little civilities occasionally, even in our days." This subject exhausted, the conversation became general ; and even Miss Charity was in singular ^ood humour, as, indeed, she always was when Mr. Lethbridge was there, whom she designated as '* a mighty sensible young man," so that altogether " the rounded hours rolled swiftly on," till they were surprised wdien the clock struck twelve, they VERY SUCCESSFUL. 345 lit their bed-room candles and went up the great staircase together. " We need not," said Sir Gregory, " stopping at the first landing, where the two galleries branched off, " be like the C-hinese, and pass the night in re-seeing each other home ; so I vote that we are all dropped at our respective doors as they come ; therefore, being at miney I wish you all a very good night I Lethbridge, I suppose you know your room, though you now occupy it so seldom ?'' " Good night ! " " Good night : " And, as ^Ess Kempenfelt's room was next to her brother's, the band was now reduced to two ; and as they entered the opposite gallery, .'^ Allow me," said Mr. Lethbridge, '4o relieve you of some of those things." And he took Mrs. Pemble's shawl and boa from her, which, indeed, for the little way they had to go, was scarcely worth while, so soon were the last two " good nights " followed by a third ; but to this one, as he shook hands with her, was added a " God bless you." As we must now absent ourselves from Baron's Court for some little time on "urgent private 346 VERY SUCCESSFUL. affairs/' and must then go and see what Mr. Phippen is about, as well as Mary Penrhyn's great relations, we may here mention that the latter did recover her son's picture, but not till Christmas morning, when May and Linda knocked at her door while she was dressing, and presented her with the long-lost brooch, — not in its original plain, massive gold setting, but encircled with a wreath of laurel in emeralds and brilliants, w^hicli was their Christmas-box ; " For," said Linda, after the Alma and his heroic conduct there, grandpapa said your son deserved a laurel wreath, and so May and I determined he shoidd have one, and we were the thieves ! " " My dear children 1 I fully appreciate yom' kindness and generosity, and, above all, your compliment to Harcourt ; but indeed," added she embracing them, " I am grieved you should have given me so costly a proof of your affection which is of more value to me than these brilliants and emeralds ; and I fear," continued she, as the tears fell upon her regained treasure, "that you will think me very ungrateful, when I tell you that I am grieved, nay, almost annoyed, that this picture should have been in a jeweller's hands so long, for it seems to me a sort of profanation." " Well," laughed Linda, throwing her arms round her neck, and whispering her, " You need VERY SUCCESSFUL. 347 not fret about that, for I can tell you onl.ij tlie setting went to London, as a pattern for the size ; the picture May kept safely locked up the whole time." END OF VOL I. F. R. CLARKE, PRINTER, TAUNTON.