"It is certain great knowledge, if it be without vanity, is the most severe bridle of the tongue. For so have I heard, that all the noises and prating of the pool, the croaking of frogs and toads, is hushed and appeased upon the instant of bringing upon them the light of a candle or torch. Every beam of reason, and ray of knowledge, checks the dissolutions of the tongue."-JEREMY TAYLOR.
THEY were received by Mrs. Bluemits with that air of condescension which great souls practise towards ordinary mortals, and which is intended, at one and the same time, to encourage and to repel; to show the extent of their goodness, even while they make, or try to make, their protege feel the immeasurable distance which nature or fortune has placed between them.
It was with this air of patronising grandeur that Mrs. Bluemits took her guests by the hand, and introduced them to the circle of females already assembled.
Mrs. Bluemits was not an avowed authoress; but she was a professed critic, a well-informed woman, a woman of great conversational powers, etc., and, to use her own phrase, nothing but conversation was spoken in her house. Her guests were therefore, always expected to be distinguished, either for some literary production or for their taste in the belles lettres. Two ladies from Scotland, the land of poetry and romance, were consequently hailed as new stars in Mrs. Bluemits's horizon. No sooner were they seated than Mrs. Bluemits began—
"As I am a friend to ease in literary society, we shall, without ceremony, resume our conversation; for, as Seneca observes, the 'comfort of life depends upon conversation.'"
"I think," said Miss Graves, "it is Rochefoucault who says, 'The great art of conversation is to hear patiently and answer precisely.'"
"A very poor definition for so profound a philosopher," remarked Mrs.
Apsley.
"The amiable author of what the gigantic Johnson styles the melancholy and angry "Night Thoughts," gives a nobler, a more elevated, and, in my humble opinion, a juster explication of the intercourse of mind," said Miss Parkins; and she repeated the following lines with pompous enthusiasm:—
Speech ventilates our intellectual fire,
Speech burnishes our mental magazine,
Brightens for ornament, and whets for use.
What numbers, sheath'd in erudition, lie,
Plung'd to the hilts in venerable tomes,
And rusted in, who might have borne an edge,
And play'd a sprightly beam, if born to speech—-
If born blest heirs of half their mother's tongue!"
Mrs. Bluemits proceeded:
"'Tis thought's exchange, which, like the alternate push
Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum,
And defecates the student's standing pool."
"The sensitive poet of Olney, if I mistake not," said Mrs. Dalton, "steers a middle course, betwixt the somewhat bald maxim of the Parisian philosopher and the mournful pruriency of the Bard of Night, when he says,
'Conversation, in its better part,
May be esteem'd a gift, and not an art.'"
Mary had been accustomed to read, and to reflect upon what she read, and to apply it to the purpose for which it is valuable, viz. in enlarging her mind and cultivating her taste; but she had never been accustomed to prate, or quote, or sit down for the express purpose of displaying her acquirements; and she began to tremble at hearing authors' names "familiar in their mouths as household words;" but Grizzy, strong in ignorance, was no wise daunted. True, she heard what she could not comprehend, but she thought she would soon make things clear; and she therefore turned to her neighbour on her righthand, and accosted her with—"My niece and I are just come from dining at Mrs. Pullens's—I daresay you have heard of her—she was Miss Flora Macfuss; her father, Dr. Macfuss, was a most excellent preacher, and she is a remarkable clever woman."
"Pray, ma'am, has she come out, or is she simply bel esprit?" inquired the lady.
Grizzy was rather at a loss; and, indeed, to answer a question put in an unknown language, would puzzle wiser brains than hers; but Grizzy was accustomed to converse without being able to comprehend, and she therefore went on.
"Her mother, Mrs. Macfuss—but she is dead—was a very clever woman too; I'm sure I declare I don't know whether the Doctor or her was the cleverest; but many people, I know, think Mrs. Pullens beats them both."
"Indeed! may I ask in what department she chiefly excels?"
"Oh, I really think in everything. For one thing, everything in her house is done by steam; and then she can keep everything, I can't tell how long, just in paper bags and bottles; and she is going to publish a book with all her receipts in it. I'm sure it will be very interesting."
"I beg ten thousand pardons for the interruption," cried Mrs. Bluemits from the opposite side of the room; "but my ear was smote with the sounds of publish, and _interesting,—words _which never fail to awaken a responsive chord in my bosom. Pray," addressing Grizzy, and bringing her into the full blaze of observation, "may I ask, was it of the Campbell these electric words were spoken? To you, Madam, I am sure I need not apologise for my enthusiasm—you who claim the proud distinction of being a country woman, need I ask—an acquaintance?"
All that poor Grizzy could comprehend of this harangue was that it was reckoned a great honour to be acquainted with a Campbell; and chuckling with delight at the idea of her own consequence, she briskly replied—
"Oh, I know plenty of Campbells; there's the Campbells of Mireside, relations of ours; and there's the Campbells of Blackbrae, married into our family; and there's the Campbells of Windlestrae Glen, are not very distant by my mother's side."
Mary felt as if perforated by bullets in all directions, as she encountered the eyes of the company, turned alternately upon her aunt and her; but they were on opposite sides of the room; therefore to interpose betwixt Grizzy and her assailants was impossible.
"Possibly," suggested Mrs. Dalton, "Miss Douglas prefers the loftier strains of the mighty Minstrel of the Mountains to the more polished periods of the Poet of the Transatlantic Plain."
"Without either a possibility or a perhaps," said Mrs. Apsley, "the probability is, Miss Douglas prefers the author of the 'Giaour' to all the rest of her poetical countrymen. Where, in either Walter Scott or Thomas Campbell, will you find such lines as these;—
'Wet with their own best blood, shall drip
Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip!'"
"Pardon me, madam," said Miss Parkin; "but I am of opinion you have scarcely given a fair specimen of the powers of the Noble Bard in question. The image here presented is a familiar one; 'the gnashing tooth' and 'haggard lip' we have all witnessed, perhaps some of us may even have experienced. There is consequently little merit in presenting it to the mind's eye. It is easy, comparatively speaking, to portray the feelings and passions of our own kind. We have only, as Dryden expresses it, to descend into ourselves to find the secret imperfections of our mind. It is therefore in his portraiture of the canine race that the illustrious author has so far excelled all his contemporaries—in fact, he has given quite a dramatic cast to his dogs," and she repeated, with an air of triumph—
"And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall,
Hold o'er the dead their carnival;
Gorging and growling o'er carcase and limb,
They were too busy to bark at him!
From a Tartar's skull they had stripped the flesh,
As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh;
And their white tusks crunched o'er the whiter skull,
As it slipped through their jaws when their edge grew dull;
As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead,
When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed."
"Now, to enter into the conception of a dog—to embody one's self, as it were, in the person of a brute—to sympathise in its feelings—to make its propensities our own—to 'lazily mumble the bones of the dead,' with our own individual 'white tusks'! Pardon me, madam, but with all due deference to the genius of a Scott, it is a thing he has not dare to attempt. Only the finest mind in the universe as capable of taking so bold a flight. Scott's dogs, madam, are tame, domestic animals—mere human dogs, if I may say so. Byron's dogs—But let them speak for themselves!
'The scalps were in the wild dog's maw,
The hair was tangled round his jaw.'
Show me, if you can, such an image in Scott?"
"Very fine, certainly!" was here uttered by five novices, who were only there as probationers, consequently not privileged to go beyond a response.
"Is it the dancing dogs they are speaking about?" asked Grizzy. But looks of silent contempt were the only replies she received.
"I trust I shall not be esteemed presumptuous," said Miss Graves, "or supposed capable of entertaining views of detracting from the merits of the Noble Author at present under discussion, if I humbly but firmly enter my caveat against the word 'crunch,' as constituting an innovation in our language, the purity of which cannot be too strictly preserved or pointedly enforced. I am aware that by some I may be deemed unnecessarily fastidious; and possibly Christina, Queen of Sweden, might have applied to me the celebrated observation, said to have been elicited from her by the famed work of the laborious French Lexicographer, viz. that he was the most troublesome person in the world, for he required of every word to produce its passport, and to declare whence it came and whither it was going. I confess, I too, for the sake of my country, would wish that every word we use might be compelled to show its passport, attested by our great lawgiver, Dr. Samuel Johnson."
"Unquestionably," said Mrs. Bluemits, "purity of language ought to be preserved inviolate at any price; and it is more especially incumbent to those who exercise a sway over our minds—those are, as it were, the moulds in which our young imaginations are formed, to be the watchful guardians of our language. But I lament to say that in fact it is not so; and that the aberrations of our vernacular tongue have proceeded solely from the licentious use made of it by those whom we are taught to reverence as the fathers of the Sock and Lyre."
"Yet in familiar colloquy, I do not greatly object to the use of a word occasionally, even although unsanctioned by the authority of our mighty Lexicographer," said a new speaker.
"For my part," said Miss Parkins, "a genius fettered by rules always reminds me of Gulliver in the hairy bonds of the Lilliputians; and the sentiment of the elegant and enlightened bard of Twickenham is also mine—
'Great wits sometimes may glorious offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend;
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And match a grace beyond the reach of art.'
So it is with the subject of our argument: a tamer genius than the illustrious Byron would not have dared to 'crunch' the bone. But where, in the whole compass of the English language, will you find a word capable of conveying the same idea?"
"Pick," modestly suggested one of the novices in a low key, hoping to gain some celebrity by this her first effort; but this dawn of intellect passed unnoticed.
The argument was now beginning to run high; parties were evidently forming of crunchers and anticrunchers, and etymology was beginning to be called for, when a thundering knock at the door caused a cessation of hostilities.
"That, I flatter myself, is my friend Miss Griffon," said Mrs. Bluemits, with an air of additional importance; and the name was whispered round the circle, coupled with "Celebrated Authoress—'Fevers of the Heart'— 'Thoughts of the Moment,'" etc. etc.
"Is she a real authoress that is coming?" asked Miss Grizzy at the lady next her. And her delight was great at receiving an answer in the affirmative; for Grizzy thought to be in company with an authoress was the next thing to being an authoress herself; and, like some other people, she had a sort of vague mysterious reverence for everyone whose words had been printed in a book.
"Ten thousand thousand pardons, dearest Mrs. Bluemits!" exclaimed Miss Griffon, as she entered. "I fear a world of intellect is lost to me by this cruel delay." Then in an audible whisper—"But I was detained by my publisher. He quite persecutes me to write. My 'Fevers of the Heart' has had a prodigious run; and even my 'Thoughts,' which, in fact, cost me no thought, are amazingly recherché. And I actually had to force my way to you to-night through a legion of printer's devils, who were lying in wait for me with each a sheet of my 'Billows of Love.'"
"The title is most musical, most melancholy," said Mrs. Bluemits, "and conveys a perfect idea of what Dryden terms 'the sweeping deluge of the soul;' but I flatter myself we shall have something more than a name from Miss Griffon's genius. The Aonian graces, 'tis well known, always follow in her train."
"They have made a great hole in it then," said Grizzy, officiously displaying a fracture in the train of Miss Griffon's gown, and from thence taking occasion to deliver her sentiments on the propriety of people who tore gowns always being obliged to mend them.
After suitable entreaties had been used, Miss Griflon was at last prevailed upon to favour the company, with some specimens of the "Billows of Love" (of which we were unable to procure copies) and the following sonnet, the production of a friend;—
"Hast thou no note for joy, thou weeping lyre?
Doth yew and willow ever shade thy string
And melancholy sable banners fling,
Warring 'midst hosts of elegant desire?
How vain the strife—how vain the warlike gloom!
Love's arms are grief—his arrows sighs and tears;
And every moan thou mak'st, an altar rears,
To which his worshippers devoutly come.
Then rather, lyre, I pray thee, try thy skill,
In varied measure, on a sprightlier key:
Perchance thy gayer tones' light minstrelsy
May heal the poison that thy plaints distil.
But much I fear that joy is danger still;
And joy, like woe, love's triumph must fulfil."
This called forth unanimous applause—"delicate imagery"—"smooth versification" —"classical ideas"—"Petrarchian sweetness," etc. etc., resounded from all quarters.
But even intellectual joys have their termination, and carriages and servants began to be announced in rapid succession.
"Fly not yet, 'tis just the hour," said Mrs. Bluemits to the first of her departing guests, as the clock struck ten.
"It is gone, with its thorns and its roses," replied er friend with a sigh, and a farewell pressure of the hand.
Another now advanced—"Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day."
"I have less will to go than care to stay," was the reply.
"Parta ti lascio adio," warbled Miss Parkins.
"I vanish," said Mrs. Apsley, snatching up her tippet, reticule, etc., "and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind."
"Fare-thee-well at once—Adieu, adieu, adieu, remember me!" cried the last of the band, as she slowly retreated.
Mrs. Bluemits waved her hand with a look of tender reproach, as she repeated—
"An adieu should in utterance die,
Or, if written, should faintly appear—
Should be heard in the sob of a sigh,
Or be seen in the blot of a teal."
"I'm sure, Mary," said Grizzy, when they were in the carriage, "I expected, when all the ladies were repeating, that you would have repeated something too. You used to have the Hermit and all Watts's Hymns by heart, when you was little. It's a thousand pities, I declare, that you should have forgot them; for I declare I was quite affronted to see you sitting like a stick, and not saying a word, when all the ladies were speaking and turning up their eyes, and moving their hands so prettily; but I'm sure I hope next time you go to Mrs. Bluemits's you will take care to learn something by heart before you go. I'm sure I haven't a very good memory, but I remember some things; and I was very near going to repeat 'Farewell to Lochaber' myself, as we were coming away; and I'm sure I wish to goodness I had done it; but I suppose it wouldn't do to go back now; and at any rate all the ladies are away, and I dare say the candles will be out by this time."
Mary felt it a relief to have done with this surfeit of soul, and was of opinion that learning, like religion, ought never to be forced into conversation; and that people who only read to talk of their reading might as well let it alone. Next morning she gave so ludicrous an account of her entertainment that Lady Emily was quite charmed.
"Now I begin to have hopes of you," said she, "since I see you can laugh at your friends as well as me."
"Not at my friends, I hope," answered Mary; "only at folly."
"Call it what you will—I only wish I had been there. I should certainly have started a controversy upon the respective merits of Tom Thumb and Puss in Boots, and so have called them off Lord Byron. Their pretending to measure the genius of a Scott or a Byron must have been something like a fly attempting to take the altitude of Mont Blanc. How I detest those idle disquisitions about the colour of a goat's beard, or the blood of an oyster."'
Mary had seen in Mrs. Douglas the effects of a highly cultivated understanding shedding its mild radiance on the path of domestic life, heightening its charms, and softening its asperities, with the benign spirit of Christianity. Her charity was not like that of Mrs. Fox; she did not indulge herself in the purchase of elegant ornaments, and then, seated in the easy chair of her drawing-room, extort from her visitors money to satisfy the wants of those who had claims on her own bounty. No: she gave a large portion of her time, her thoughts, her fortune, to the most sacred of all duties—charity, in its most comprehensive meaning. Neither did her knowledge, like that of Mrs. Bluemits, evaporate in pedantic discussion or idle declamation, but showed itself in the tenor of a well-spent life, and in the graceful discharge of those duties which belonged to her sex and station. Next to goodness Mary most ardently admired talents. She knew there were many of her own sex who were justly entitled to the distinction of literary fame. Her introduction to the circle at Mrs. Bluemits's had disappointed her; but they were mere pretenders to the name. How different from those described by one no less amiable and enlightened herself!—"Let such women as are disposed to be vain of their comparatively petty attainments look up with admiration to those contemporary shining examples, the venerable Elizabeth Carter and the blooming Elizabeth Smith. In them let our young ladies contemplate profound and various learning, chastised by true Christian humility. In them let them venerate acquirements which would have been distinguished in a university, meekly softened, and beautifully shaded by the exertion of every domestic virtue, the unaffected exercise of every feminine employment." [1]
[1] "Coelebs."
CHAPTER XXXI."The gods, to curse Pamela with her pray'rs,
Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares;
The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state,
And, to complete her bliss, a fool for mate.
She glares in balls, front boxes, and the ring—
A vain, unquiet, glitt'ring, wretched thing!
Pride, pomp, and state, but reach her outward part;
She sighs, and is no duchess at her heart."
FOR many months Mary was doomed to experience all the vicissitudes of hope and fear, as she heard of battles and sieges in which her lover had a part. He omitted no opportunity of writing to her; but scarcely had she received the assurance of his safety from himself when her apprehensions were again excited by rumours of fresh dangers he would have to encounter; and it required all her pious confidence and strength of mind to save her from yielding to the despondency of a naturally sensitive heart. But in administering to the happiness of others she found the surest alleviation to the misfortune that threatened herself; and she often forgot her own cares in her benevolent exertions for the poor, the sick, and the desolate. It was then she felt all the tenderness of that divine precept which enjoins love of the Creator as the engrossing principle of the soul. For, oh! the unutterable anguish that heart must endure which lavishes all its best affections on a creature mutable and perishable as itself, from whom a thousand accidents may separate or estrange it, and from whom death must one day divide it! Yet there is something so amiable, so exalting, in the fervour of a pure and generous attachment, that few have been able to resist its overwhelming influence; and it is only time and suffering that can teach us to comprehend the miseries that wait on the excess, even of our virtuous inclinations, where these virtues aspire not beyond this transitory scene.
Mary seldom heard from her mother or sister. Their time was too precious to be wasted on dull country correspondents; but she saw their names frequently mentioned in the newspapers, and she flattered herself, from the éclat with whioh the Duchess seemed to be attended, that she had found happiness in those pleasures where she had been taught to expect it. The Duchess was indeed surrounded with all that rank, wealth, and fashion could bestow. She had the finest house, jewels, and equipages in London, but she was not happy. She felt the draught bitter, even though the goblet that held it was of gold. It is novelty only that can lend charms to things in themselves valueless; and when that wears off, the disenchanted baubles appear in all their native worthlessness. There is even a satiety in the free indulgence of wealth, when that indulgence centres solely in self, and brings no general self-approving reflections along with it. So it was with the Duchess of Altamont. She sought, in the gratification of every expensive whim, to stimulate the languid sense of joy; and, by loading herself with jewels, she strove to still the restless inquietude of a dissatisfied heart. But it is only the vulgar mind which can long find enjoyment in the mere attributes of wealth—in the contemplation of silk hangings, and gilded chairs, and splendid dresses, and showy equipages. Amidst all these the mind of any taste or refinement, "distrusting, asks if this be joy." And Adelaide possessed both taste and refinement, though her ideas had been perverted and her heart corrupted by the false maxims early instilled into her. Yet, selfish and unfeeling as she was, she sickened at the eternal recurrence of self-indulged caprices; and the bauble that had been hailed with delight the one day as a charmed amulet to dispel her ennui, was the next beheld with disgust or indifference. She believed, indeed, that she had real sources of vexation in the self-will and obstinacy of her husband, and that, had he been otherwise than he was, she should then have been completely happy. She would not acknowledge, even to herself, that she had done wrong in marrying a man whose person was disagreeable to her, and whose understanding she despised; while her preference was decidedly in favour of another. Even her style of life was in some respects distasteful to her; yet she was obliged to conform to it. The Duke retained exactly the same notions of things as had taken possession of his brain thirty years before; consequently everything in his establishment was conducted with a regularity and uniformity unknown to those whose habits are formed on the more eccentric models of the present day; or rather, who have no models save those of their own capricious tastes and inclinations. He had an antipathy to balls, concerts, and masquerades; for he did not dance, knew nothing of music, and stil less of badinage. But he liked great dull dinners, for there the conversation was generally adapted to his capacity; and it was a pleasure to him to arrange the party—to look over the bill of fare—to see all the family plate displayed—and to read an account of the grand dinner at the Duke of Altamont's in the "Morning Post" of the following day. All this sounds very vulgar for the pastimes of a Duke; but there are vulgar-minded Dukes as there are gifted ploughmen, or any other anomalies. The former Duchess, a woman of high birth, similar years, and kindred spirit of his own in all matters of form and etiquette, was his standard of female propriety; and she would have deemed it highly derogatory to her dignity to have patronised any other species of entertainment than grand dinners and dull assemblies.
Adelaide had attempted with a high hand at once to overturn the whole system of Altamont House, and had failed. She had declared her detestation of dinners, and been heard in silence. She had kept her room thrice when they were given, but without success. She had insisted upon giving a ball, but the Duke, with the most perfect composure, had peremptorily declared it must be an assembly. Thus baffled in all her plans of domestic happiness, the Duchess would have sought her pleasures elsewhere. She would have lived anywhere but in her own house associated with everybody but her own husband and done everything but what she had vowed to do. But even in this she was thwarted. The Duke had the same precise formal notions of a lady's conduct abroad, as well as her appearance at home; and the very places she would have most wished to go to were those she was expressly prohibited from ever appearing at.
Even all that she could have easily settled to her own satisfaction by the simple apparatus of a separate establishment carried on in the same house; but here too she was foiled, for his Grace had stubborn notions on that score also, and plainly hinted that any separation must be final and decided; and Adelaide could not yet resolve upon taking so formidable a step in the first year of her marriage. She was therefore compelled to drag the chain by which, with her own will, she had bound herself for life to one she already despised and detested. And bound she was, in the strictest sense of the metaphor; for, though the Duke had not the smallest pleasure in the society of his wife, he yet attached great ideas of propriety to their being always seen together, side by side. Like his sister, Lady Matilda, he had a high reverence for appearances, though he had not her _finesse _in giving them effect. He had merely been accustomed to do what he thought looked well, and gave him an air of additional dignity. He had married Aidelaide because he thought she had a fine presence, and would look well as Duchess of Altamont; and, for the same reason, now that she was his wedded wife, he thought it looked well to be seen always together. He therefore made a point of having no separate engagements; and even carried his sense of propriety so far, that as regularly as the Duchess's carriage came to the door the Duke was prepared to hand her in, in due form, and take his station by her side. This alone would have been sufficient to have embittered Adelaide's existence, and she had tried every expedient, but in vain, to rid herself of this public display of conjugal duty. She had opened her landaulet in cold weather, and shut it, even to the glasses, in a scorching sun; but the Duke was insensible to heat and cold. He was most provokingly healthy; and she had not even the respite which an attack of rheumatism or toothache would have afforded. As his Grace was not a person of keen sensation, this continual effort to keep up appearances cost him little or nothing; but to the Duchess's nicer tact it was martyrdom to be compelled to submit to the semblance of affection where there was no reality. Ah, nothing but a sense of duty, early instilled and practically enforced, can reconcile a refined mind to the painful task of bearing with meekness and gentleness the ill-temper, adverse will, and opposite sentiments of those with whom we can acknowledge no feeling in common!
But Adelaide possessed no sense of duty, and was a stranger to self-command; and though she boasted refinement of mind, yet it was of that spurious sort which, far from elevating and purifying the heart, tends only to corrupt and debase the soul, while it sheds a false and dazzling lustre upon those perishable graces which captivate the senses.
It may easily be imagined the good sense of the mother did not tend to soothe the irritated feelings of the daughter. Lady Juliana was indeed quite as much exasperated as the Duchess at these obstacles thrown in the way of her pleasures, and the more so as she could not quite clearly comprehend them. The good-nature of her husband and the easy indolence of her brother even _her _folly had enabled her, on many occasions, to get the better of; but the obstinacy of her son-in-law was invincible to all her arts. She could therefore only wonder to the Duchess how she could not manage to get the better of the Duke's prejudices against balls and concerts and masquerades. It was so excessively ridiculous, so perfectly foolish, not to do as other people did; and there was the Duchess of Ryston gave Sunday concerts, and Lady Oakham saw masks, and even old ugly Lady Loddon had a ball, and the Prince at it! How vastly provoking! how unreasonable in a man of the Duke's years to expect a girl like Adelaide to conform to all his old-fashioned notions! And then she would wisely appeal to Lord Lindore whether it was not too absurd in the Duke to interfere with the Duchess's arrangements.
Lord Lindore was a frequent visitor at Altamont House; for the Duke, satisfied with his having been once refused, was no wise jealous of him; and Lord Lindore was too quiet and refined in his attentions to excite the attention of anyone so stupid and obtuse. It was not the least of the Duchess's mortifications to be constantly contrasting her former lover—elegant, captivating, and _spirituel—_with her husband, awkward, insipid, and dull, as the fat weed that rots on Lethe's shore. Lord Lindore was indeed the most admired man in London, celebrated for his conquests, his horses, his elegance, manner, dress; in short, in everything he gave the tone. But he had too much taste to carry anything to extreme; and in the midst of incense, and adulation, and imitation, he still retained that simple unostentatious elegance that marks the man of real fashion—the man who feels his own consequence, independent of all extraneous modes or fleeting fashions.
There is, perhaps, nothing so imposing, nothing that carries a greater sway over a mind of any refinement, than simplicity, when we feel assured that it springs from a genuine contempt of show and ostentation. Lord Lindore was aware of this, and he did not attempt to vie with the Duke of Altamont in the splendour of his equipage, the richness of his liveries, the number of his attendants, or any of those previous attractions attractions; on the contrary, everything belonging to him was of the plainest description; and, except in the beauty of his horses, he seemed to scorn every species of extravagance; but then he rode with so much elegance, he drove his curricle with such graceful ease, as formed a striking contrast to the formal Duke, sitting bolt-upright in his state chariot, chapeau bras, and star; and the Duchess often quitted the Park, where Lord Lindore was the admired of all admirers, mortified and ashamed at being seen in the same carriage with the man she had chosen for her husband. Ambition had led her to marry the Duke, and that same passion now heightened her attachment for Lord Lindore; for, as some one has remarked, ambition is not always the desire for that which is in itself excellent, but for that which is most prized by others; and the handsome Lord Lindore was courted and caressed in circles where the dull, precise Duke of Altamont was wholly overlooked. Months passed in this manner, and every day added something to Adelaide's feelings of chagrin and disappointment. But it was still worse when she found herself settled for a long season at Norwood Abbey a dull, magnificent residence, with a vast unvaried park, a profusion of sombre trees, and a sheet of stillwater, decorated with leaden deities. Within doors everything was in the same style of vapid, tasteless grandeur, and the society was not such as to dispel the ennui these images served to create. Lady Matilda Sufton, her satellite Mrs. Finch, General Carver, and a few stupid elderly lords and their well-bred ladies comprised the family circle; and the Duchess experienced, with bitterness of spirit, that "rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home," are blessings wealth cannot purchase nor greatness command; while she sickened at the stupid, the almost vulgar magnificence of her lot.
At this period Lord Lindore arrived on a visit, and the daily, hourly contrast that occurred betwixt the elegant, impassioned lover, and the dull, phlegmatic husband, could not fail of producing the usual effects on an unprincipled mind. Rousseau and Goethe were studied, French and German sentiments were exchanged, till criminal passion was exalted into the purest of all earthly emotions. It were tedious to dwell upon the minute, the almost imperceptible occurrences that tended to heighten the illusion of passion, and throw an air of false dignity around the degrading spells of vice; but so it was, that in something less than a year from the time of her marriage, this victim of self-indulgence again sought her happiness in the gratification of her own headstrong passions, and eloped with Lord Lindore, vainly hoping to find peace and joy amid guilt and infamy.