“O! ressource assurée,
Viens ranimer leur langueur desoeuvrée:
Leur âme vide est du moins amusée
Par l’avarice en plaisir deguisée.”
Gaming relieved me from that insuperable listlessness by which I was
oppressed. I became interested--I became agitated; in short, I found a
new kind of stimulus, and I indulged in it most intemperately. I grew
immoderately fond of that which supplied me with sensations. My days and
nights were passed at the gaming-table. I remember once spending three
days and three nights in the hazard-room of a well-known house in St.
James’s-street: the shutters were closed, the curtains down, and we had
candles the whole time; even in the adjoining rooms we had candles, that
when our doors were opened to bring in refreshments, no obtrusive gleam
of daylight might remind us how the hours had passed. How human nature
supported the fatigue, I know not. We scarcely allowed ourselves a
moment’s pause to take the sustenance our bodies required. At last,
one of the markers, who had been in the room with us the whole time,
declared that he could hold out no longer, and that sleep he must. With
difficulty he obtained an hour’s truce: the moment he got out of the
room he fell asleep, absolutely at the very threshold of our door. By
the rules of the house he was entitled to a bonus on every transfer of
property at the hazard-table; and he had made, in the course of these
three days, upwards of three hundred pounds. Sleep and avarice had
struggled to the utmost, but, with his vulgar habits, sleep prevailed.
We were wide awake. I shall never forget the figure of one of my noble
associates, who sat holding his watch, his eager eyes fixed upon the
minute-hand, whilst he exclaimed continually, “This hour will never be
over!” Then he listened to discover whether his watch had stopped; then
cursed the lazy fellow for falling asleep, protesting that, for his
part, he never would again consent to such waste of time. The very
instant the hour was ended, he ordered “_that dog_” to be awakened, and
to work we went. At this sitting 35,000_l._ were lost and won. I was
very fortunate, for I lost a mere trifle--ten thousand pounds; but I
could not expect to be always so lucky.--Now we come to the old story
of being ruined by play. My English John o’-the-Scales warned me that he
could _advance_ no more money; my Irish agent, upon whom my drafts had
indeed been unmerciful, could not _oblige_ me any longer, and he threw
up his agency, after having made his fortune at my expense. I railed,
but railing would not pay my debts of honour. I inveighed against my
grandfather for having tied me up so tight; I could neither mortgage nor
sell: my Irish estate would have been sold instantly, had it not been
settled upon a Mr. Delamere. The pleasure of abusing him, whom I had
never seen, and of whom I knew nothing but that he was to be my heir,
relieved me wonderfully. He died, and left only a daughter, a mere
child. My chance of possessing the estate in fee-simple increased: I
sold this increased value to the Jews, and gamed on. Miss Delamere, some
time afterwards, had the smallpox. Upon the event of her illness I laid
bets to an amazing amount.
She recovered. No more money could be raised, and my debts were to be
paid. In this dilemma I recollected that I once had a guardian, and that
I had never settled accounts with him. Crawley, who continued to be my
factotum and flatterer in ordinary and extraordinary, informed me, upon
looking over these accounts, that there was a mine of money due to
me, if I could but obtain it by law or equity. To law I went: and the
anxiety of a lawsuit might have, in some degree, supplied the place of
gambling, but that all my business was managed for me by Crawley, and I
charged him never to mention the subject to me till a verdict should be
obtained.
A verdict was obtained against me. It was proved in open court, by my
own witnesses, that I was a fool; but as no judge, jury, or chancellor,
could believe that I was so great a fool as my carelessness indicated,
my guardian stood acquitted in equity of being so great a rogue as he
really was. What was now to be done? I saw my doom. As a highwayman
knows that he must come to the gallows at last, and acts accordingly,
so a fashionably extravagant youth knows that, sooner or later, he must
come to matrimony. No one could have more horror of this catastrophe
than I felt; but it was in vain to oppose my destiny. My opinion of
women had been formed from the commonplace jests of my companions, and
from my own acquaintance with the worst part of the sex. I had never
felt the passion of love, and, of course, believed it to be something
that might have existed in former ages, but that it was in our days
quite obsolete, at least, among the _knowing_ part of the world. In my
imagination young women were divided into two classes; those who were to
be purchased, and those who were to purchase. Between these two classes,
though the division was to be marked externally by a certain degree of
ceremony, yet I was internally persuaded that there was no essential
difference. In my feelings towards them there was some distinction; of
the first class I was tired, and of the second I was afraid. Afraid!
Yes--afraid of being taken in. With these fears, and these sentiments,
I was now to choose a wife. I chose her by the numeration table: Units,
tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. I
was content, in the language of the newspapers, _to lead to the Hymeneal
altar_ any fashionable fair one whose fortune came under the sixth place
of figures. No sooner were my _dispositions_ known than the friends of a
young heiress, who wanted to purchase a coronet, settled a match between
us. My bride had one hundred wedding-dresses, elegant as a select
committee of dress-makers and milliners, French and English, could
devise. The least expensive of these robes, as well as I remember, cost
fifty guineas: the most admired came to about five hundred pounds, and
was thought, by the best judges in these matters, to be wonderfully
cheap, as it was of lace such as had never before been trailed in
English dust, even by the lady of a nabob. These things were shown in
London as a _spectacle_ for some days, by the dress-maker, who declared
that she had lost many a night’s rest in contriving how to make such
a variety of dresses sufficiently magnificent and _distinguished_.
The jewellers also requested and obtained permission to exhibit the
different sets of jewels: these were so numerous that Lady Glenthorn
scarcely knew them all. One day, soon after her marriage, somebody at
court, observing that her diamonds were prodigiously fine, asked where
she bought them. “Really,” said she, “I cannot tell. I have so many
sets, I declare I don’t know whether _it’s_ my Paris, or my Hamburgh, or
my London set.”
Poor young creature! I believe her chief idea of happiness in marriage
was the possession of the jewels and paraphernalia of a countess--I
am sure it was the only hope she could have, that was likely to be
realized, in marrying me. I thought it manly and fashionable to be
indifferent, if not contemptuous to my wife: I considered her only as an
incumbrance, that I was obliged to take along with my fortune. Besides
the disagreeable ideas generally connected with the word _wife_, I had
some peculiar reasons for my aversion to my Lady Glenthorn. Before her
friends would suffer me to take possession of her fortune, they required
from me a solemn oath against gambling: so I was compelled to abjure the
hazard-table and the turf, the only two objects in life that could keep
me awake. This extorted vow I set down entirely to my bride’s account;
and I therefore became even more averse to her than men usually are
who marry for money. Yet this dislike subsided. Lady Glenthorn was only
childish--I, of an easy temper. I thought her ridiculous, but it was too
much trouble to tell her so continually. I let the occasions pass, and
even forgot her ladyship, when she was not absolutely in my way. She
was too frivolous to be hated, and the passion of hatred was not to be
easily sustained in my mind. The habit of ennui was stronger than all my
passions put together.