In vain I attempted to interest myself in my domestic affairs; the
silence and solitude of my own castle appeared to me intolerably
melancholy, after my return from Ormsby Villa. There was a blank in my
existence during a week, in which I can remember nothing that I did,
said, or thought, except what passed during one ride, which Mr. McLeod
compelled my politeness to take with him. He came with the same face
to see me, and the same set of ideas, as those he had before I went to
Ormsby Villa. He began to talk of my schemes for improving my tenantry,
and of my wish that he should explain his notions relative to the
education of the poor of Ireland, which, he said, as I now seemed to be
at leisure, he was ready to do as concisely as possible. _As concisely
as possible_ were the only words of his address that I heard with
satisfaction; but of course I bowed, said I was much obliged, and I
should be happy to have the advantage of Mr. M’Leod’s opinions and
sentiments. What these were I cannot recollect, for I settled myself
in a reverie soon after his voice began to sound upon my ear; but I
remember at last he wakened me, by proposing that I should ride with him
to see a school-house and some cottages, which he had built on a little
estate of his own in my neighbourhood: “for,” said he, “‘tis better, my
lord, to show you what can be done with these people, than to talk of
what might be effected.”
“Very true,” said I, agreeing readily; because I wanted to finish a
conversation that wearied me, and to have a refreshing ride. It was a
delightful evening; and when we came on M’Leod’s estate, I really could
not help being pleased and interested. In an unfavourable situation,
with all nature, vegetable and animal, against him, he had actually
created a paradise amid the wilds. There was nothing wonderful in
any thing I saw around me; but there was such an air of neatness and
comfort, order and activity, in the people and in their cottages, that
I almost thought myself in England; and I could not forbear
exclaiming,--“How could all this be brought about in Ireland!”
“Chiefly by not doing and not expecting too much at first,” said M’Leod.
“We took time, and had patience. We began by setting them the example
of some very slight improvements, and then, lured on by the sight of
success, they could make similar trials themselves. My wife and I went
among them, and talked to them in their cottages, and took an interest
in their concerns, and did not want to have every thing our own way;
and when they saw that, they began to consider which way was best; so
by degrees we led where we could not have driven; and raised in them,
by little and little, a taste for conveniences and comforts. Then the
business was done; for the moment the taste and ambition were excited;
to work the people went to gratify them; and according as they exerted
themselves, we helped them. Perhaps it was best for them and for us,
that we were not rich; for we could not do too much at a time, and were
never tempted to begin grand schemes that we could not finish. There,”
said McLeod, pointing to a cottage with a pretty porch covered with
woodbine, and a neat garden, in which many children were busily at work,
“that house and that garden were the means of doing all the rest; that
is our school-house. We could not expect to do much with the old,
whose habits were fixed; but we tried to give the young children better
notions, and it was a long time before we could bring that to bear.
Twenty-six years we have been at this work; and in that time if we have
done any thing, it was by beginning with the children: a race of our own
training has now grown up, and they go on in the way they were taught,
and prosper to our hearts’ content, and, what is better still, to their
hearts’ content.”
McLeod, habitually grave and taciturn, seemed quite enlivened and
talkative this day; but I verily believe that not the slightest
ostentation or vanity inspired him, for I never before or since heard
him talk or allude to his own good deeds: I am convinced his motive was
to excite me to persevere in my benevolent projects, by showing what
had been done by small means. He was so truly in earnest that he never
perceived how tired I was; indeed he was so little in the habit of
expecting sympathy or applause, that he never missed even the ordinary
expressions of concurrent complaisance.
“Religion,” continued he, “is the great difficulty in Ireland. We make
no difference between Protestants and Catholics; we always have admitted
both into our school. The priest comes on Saturday morning, and the
parish minister on Saturday evening, to hear the children belonging
to each church their catechisms, and to instruct them in the tenets
of their faith. And as we keep to our word, and never attempt making
proselytes, nor directly or indirectly interfere with their religious
opinions, the priests are glad to let us instruct the catholic children
in all other points, which they plainly see must advance their temporal
interests.”
Mr. McLeod invited me to go in and look at the school. “In a hedge or
ditch school,” said he, “which I once passed on this road, and in
which I saw a crowd of idle children, I heard the schoolmaster cry out,
‘Rehearse! rehearse! there’s company going by; and instantly all the
boys snatched up their books, and began gabbling as fast as ever they
could, to give an idea to the passenger of their diligence in repeating
their lessons. But here, my lord,” continued M’Leod, “you will not see
any exhibitions _got up_ for company. I hate such tricks. Walk in, my
lord, if you please.”
I walked in; but am ashamed to say, that I observed only that every
thing looked as if it had been used for many years, and yet not worn
out; and the whole school appeared as if all were in their places, and
occupied and intent upon their business: but this general recollection
is all I have retained. The enthusiasm for improvement had subsided in
my mind; and though I felt a transient pleasure in the present picture
of the happiness of these poor people and their healthy children, yet,
as I rode home, the images faded away like a dream. I resolved, indeed,
at some future period, to surpass all that Mr. M’Leod had done, or
all that with his narrow income he could ever accomplish; and to this
resolution I was prompted by jealousy of this man, rather than by
benevolence. Before I had arranged, even in imagination, my plans, young
Ormsby came one morning, and pressed me to return with him to Ormsby
Villa. I yielded to his solicitations and to my own wishes. When I
arrived, the ladies were all at their toilettes, except Miss Bland, who
was in the book-room with the gentlemen, ready to receive me with her
perpetual smile. Wherever Miss Bland went, she was always _l’amie de la
maison_, accustomed to share with the lady of the house the labour of
entertaining her guests. This _double_ of Lady Ormsby talked to me
most courteously of all the nothings of the day, and informed me of the
changes which had taken place in the ever-varying succession of company
at Ormsby Villa. The two brigadiers and one of the aides-de-camp were
gone; but Captain Andrews, another castle aide-de-camp, was come, and my
Lord O’Toole had arrived. Then followed a by-conversation between Miss
Bland and some of the gentlemen, about the joy and sorrow which his
lordship’s arrival would create in the hearts of two _certain ladies_;
one of whom, as I gathered from the innuendoes, was Lady Hauton, and the
other Lady O’Toole. As I knew nothing of Dublin intrigues and scandal, I
was little attentive to all this. Miss Bland, persisting in entertaining
me, proceeded to inform me, that my Lord O’Toole had brought down with
him Mr. Cecil Devereux, who was a wit and a poet, very handsome
and gallant, and one of the most fashionable young men in Dublin. I
determined not to like him--I always hated a flourish of trumpets;
whoever enters, announced in this parading manner, appears to
disadvantage. Mr. Cecil Devereux entered just as the flourish ceased.
He was not at all the sort of person I was prepared to see: though
handsome, and with the air of a man used to good company, there was
nothing of a coxcomb in his manner; on the contrary, there was such an
appearance of carelessness about himself, and deference towards others,
that, notwithstanding the injudicious praise that had been bestowed
on him, and my consequent resolution to dislike him, I was pleased and
familiar with him before I had been ten minutes in his company. Lord
Kilrush introduced him to me, with great pomposity, as a gentleman of
talents, for whom he and his brother O’Toole interested themselves much.
This air of patronage, I saw, disgusted Mr. Devereux; and instead of
suffering himself to be _shown off_, he turned the conversation from
his own poems to general subjects. He asked me some questions about
a curious cavern, or subterraneous way, near Glenthorn Castle, which
stretched from the sea-shore to a considerable distance under the rock,
and communicated with an old abbey near the castle. Mr. Devereux said
that such subterraneous places had been formerly used in Ireland
as granaries by the ancient inhabitants; but a gentleman of the
neighbourhood who was present observed, that the caverns on this coast
had, within his memory, been used as hiding-places by smugglers: on
this hint Lord Kilrush began a prosing dissertation upon smugglers and
contraband traders, and talked to me a prodigious deal about exports and
imports, and bounties, and the balance of trade. Not one word he said
did I comprehend, and I question whether his lordship understood
the subjects upon which he spoke so dictatorially; but he thought he
succeeded in giving me an opinion of his wisdom and information. His
brother O’Toole appeared next: he did not look like a man of gallantry,
as I had been taught to expect from the hints thrown out respecting Lady
Hauton; his lordship’s whole soul seemed devoted to ambition, and he
talked so much of great men, and state affairs, and court intrigues, and
honours and preferments, that I began to fancy I had been buried alive,
because I knew little of these things. I was tired of hearing him, yet
mortified that I could not speak exactly in the same manner, and with
the same air of being the best possible authority. I began to wish
that I also had some interest at court. The cares and troubles of the
ambitious man, so utterly repugnant to the indolence of my disposition,
vanished in this moment of infatuation from my view, and I thought only
of the pleasures of power. Such is the infectious nature of ambition!
Mr. Devereux helped me to throw off this dangerous contagion, before it
did me any injury. He happened to stay in the room with me a quarter
of an hour after the other gentlemen went to dress. Though not often
disposed to conversation with a stranger, yet I was won by this
gentleman’s easy address: he politely talked of the English fashionable
world, with which he knew that I was well acquainted; I, with equal
politeness, recurred to the Irish great world: we fastened together upon
Lord O’Toole, who took us to Dublin Castle; and I began to express my
regret that I had not yet been at the Irish court, and that I had not
earlier in life made myself of political consequence.
“Ambition,” said I, “might help to keep a man awake and alive; all
common pleasures have long since ceased to interest me--they really
cannot make me stir.”
“My lord,” said Mr. Devereux, “you would do better to sit or lie still
all your life than to toil for such vain objects.
‘Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
What hell it is in sueing long to bide;’
Your lordship may remember Spenser’s description of that hell?”
“Not exactly,” said I, unwilling to lower the good opinion this
gentleman seemed to have taken for granted of my literature. He took
Spenser’s poems out of the book-case, and I actually rose from my seat
to read the passage; for what trouble will not even the laziest of
mortals take to preserve the esteem of one by whom he sees that he is
over-valued. I read the following ten lines without yawning!
“Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
What hell it is in sueing long to bide;
To lose good days, that might be better spent,
To waste long nights in pensive discontent,
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow,
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs,
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.”
“Very strong, indeed,” said I, with a competent air, as if used to judge
of poetry.
“And it comes with still greater force, when we consider by whom it
was written. A man, you know, my lord, who had been secretary to a lord
lieutenant.”
I felt my nascent ambition die away within me. I acknowledged it was
better to spend an easy life. My determination was confirmed at this
instant by the appearance of Lady Geraldine. Ambition and love, it is
said, are incompatible passions. Neither of them had yet possession of
my heart; but love and Lady Geraldine had perhaps a better chance than
ambition and Lord O’Toole. Lady Geraldine appeared in high spirits; and,
though I was not a vain man, I could not help fancying that my return
to Ormsby Villa contributed to her charming vivacity. This gratified me
secretly and soberly, as much as it visibly delighted her mother. Miss
Bland, to pay her court to Lady Kildangan, observed that Lady Geraldine
was in uncommonly fine spirits this evening. Lady Geraldine threw back a
haughty frown over her left shoulder: this was the only time I ever
saw her notice, in any manner, any thing that fell from her obsequious
friend. To avert the fair one’s displeasure, I asked for Miss Tracey and
Mr. Gabbitt.
“Mr. Gabbitt,” said her ladyship, resuming her good-humour instantly;
“Mr. Gabbitt is gone off the happiest man in Ireland, with the hopes
of surveying my Lord O’Toole’s estate; a good job, which I was bound
in honour to obtain for him, as a reward for taking a good joke. After
mocking him with the bare imagination of a feast, you know the Barmecide
in the Arabian Tales gave poor Shakabac a substantial dinner, a full
equivalent for the jest.”
“And Miss Tracey.” said I, “what did your ladyship do for her?”
“I persuaded her mamma that the sweet creature was falling into an
atrophy. So she carried the forlorn damsel post haste to the Black Rock
for the recovery of her health, or her heart. Clementina, my dear, no
reproachful looks; in your secret soul do not you know, that I could not
do a young lady a greater favour than to give her a plausible excuse for
getting away from home?”
I was afraid that Lady Geraldine would feel the want of her butt;
however, I found that Miss Tracey’s place was supplied by Captain
Andrews, one of the Castle’s aides-de-camp; and when Captain Andrews was
out of the way, Lord Kilrush and his brother O’Toole were _good
marks_. High and mighty as these personages thought themselves, and
respectfully, nay obsequiously, as they were treated by most others, to
this lady their characters appeared only a good _study_; and to laugh at
them seemed only a _good practice_.
“Perhaps, my lord,” said she to me, “you do not yet know my Lord
O’Toole?”
“I have had the honour to be introduced to him.”
“That’s well; for he thinks that,
‘Not to know him, argues yourself unknown.’
But as your lordship is a stranger in this country, you may be pardoned;
and I will make you better acquainted with him. I suppose you know there
are many Tooles in Ireland; some very ancient, respectable, and useful:
this, however, is but a mere political tool, and the worst of all tools,
a cat’s paw. There’s one thing to the credit of these brothers, they
agree vastly well; for one delights in being always on the stage,
and the other always behind the scenes. These brothers, with Captain
Andrews--I hope they are none of them within hearing--form a charming
trio, all admirable in their way. My Lord O’Toole is--artifice
without art. My Lord Kilrush--importance without power. And Captain
Andrews--pliability without ease. Poor Andrews! he’s a defenceless
animal--safe in impenetrable armour. Give him but time--as a man said,
who once showed me a land-tortoise--give him but time to draw his head
into his shell, and a broad-wheeled waggon may go over him without
hurting him. Lord Glenthorn, did you ever observe Captain Andrews’s mode
of conversation?”
“No; I never heard him converse.”
“Converse! nor I indeed; but you have heard him talk.” “I have heard him
say--_Very true_--and _Of course_.”
“Lord Glenthorn is quite severe this evening,” said Mrs. O’Connor.
“But though your lordship,” continued Lady Geraldine, “may have observed
Captain Andrews’s wonderful economy of words, do you know whence
it arises? Perhaps you think from his perception of his own want of
understanding.”
“Not from his perception of the want,” said I.
“Again! again!” said Mrs. O’Connor, with an insulting tone of surprise;
“Lord Glenthorn’s quite witty this evening.”
Lady Geraldine looked as if she were fully sensible of the want of
politeness in Mrs. O’Connor’s mode of praising. “But, my lord,” pursued
she, “you wrong Captain Andrews, if you attribute his monosyllabic
replies either to stupidity or timidity. You have not guessed the reason
why he never gives on any subject more than half an opinion.”
“It was in the diplomatic school he was taught that art,” said Mr.
Devereux.
“You must know,” pursued Lady Geraldine, “that Captain Andrews is only
an aide-de-camp till a diplomatic situation can be found for him; and
to do him justice, he has been so well trained in the diplomatic school,
that he will not hazard an assertion on any subject; he is not certain
of any thing, not even of his own identity.”
“He assuredly wants,” said Devereux, “the only proof of existence which
Descartes would admit--_I think_, therefore I am.”
“He has such a holy horror of committing himself,” continued Lady
Geraldine, “that if you were to ask him if the sun rose this morning,
he would answer, with his sweet smile--_So I am told_--or--_So I am
informed_.”
“Begging your ladyship’s pardon,” cried Mr. Devereux, “that is much too
affirmative. In the pure diplomatic style, impersonal verbs must ever be
used in preference to active or passive. So I am told, lays him open to
the dangerous questions, Who told you? or, By whom were you informed?
Then he is forced into the imprudence of giving up his authorities;
whereas he is safe in the impersonality of _So it is said_, or _So it is
reported_.”
“How I should like to see a meeting between two perfectly finished
diplomatists!” cried Lady Geraldine.
“That is demonstrably impossible,” said Mr. Devereux; “for in certain
political, as well as in certain geometrical lines, there is a continual
effort to approach, without a possibility of meeting.”
Lady Geraldine’s raillery, like all other things, would, perhaps, soon
have become tiresome to me; but that there was infinite variety in her
humour. At first I had thought her merely superficial, and intent
solely upon her own amusement; but I soon found that she had a taste
for literature, beyond what could have been expected in one who lived so
dissipated a life; a depth of reflection that seemed inconsistent
with the rapidity with which she thought; and, above all, a degree
of generous indignation against meanness and vice, which seemed
incompatible with the selfish character of a fine lady, and which
appeared quite incomprehensible to the imitating tribe of her
fashionable companions.
I mentioned a Mrs. Norton and Lady Hauton amongst the company of Ormsby
Villa. These two English ladies, whom I had never met in any of the
higher circles in London, who were persons of no consequence, and of
no marked character in their own country, made, it seems, a prodigious
_sensation_ when they came over to Ireland, and turned the heads of half
Dublin by the extravagance of their dress, the impertinence of their
airs, and the audacity of their conduct. Fame flew before them to the
remote parts of the country; and when they arrived at Ormsby Villa,
all the country gentlemen and ladies were prepared to admire these
celebrated fashionable belles. All worshipped them present, and abused
them absent, except Lady Geraldine, who neither joined in the admiration
nor inquired into the scandal. One morning Mrs. Norton and Lady Hauton
had each collected her votaries round her: one group begging patterns
of dress from Lady Hauton, who stood up in the midst of them, to have
everything she wore examined and envied; the other group sat on a
sofa apart, listening to Mrs. Norton, who, _sotto voce_, was telling
interesting anecdotes of an English crim. con., which then occupied the
attention of the fashionable world. Mrs. Norton had letters _from the
best authorities_ in London, which she was entreated by her auditors to
read to them. Mrs. Norton went to look for the letters, Lady Hauton to
direct her woman to furnish some patterns of I know not what articles of
dress; and, in the mean time, all the company joined in canvassing the
merits and demerits of the dress and characters of the two ladies who
had just left the room. Lady Geraldine, who had kept aloof, and who was
examining some prints at the farther end of the room, at this instant
laid down her book, and looked upon the whole party with an air of
magnanimous disdain; then smiling, as in scorn, she advanced towards
them, and, in a tone of irony, addressing one of the Swanlinbar graces,
“My dear Theresa,” said her ladyship, “you are absolutely ashamed, I
see, of not being quite naked; and you, my good Bess, will, no doubt,
very soon be equally scandalized, at the imputation of being a perfectly
modest woman. Go on, my friends; go on, and prosper; beg and borrow all
the patterns and precedents you can collect of the newest fashions of
folly and vice. Make haste, make haste; they don’t reach our remote
island fast enough. We Irish might live in innocence half a century
longer, if you didn’t expedite the progress of profligacy; we might
escape the plague that rages in neighbouring countries, if we didn’t,
without any quarantine, and with open arms, welcome every _suspected_
stranger; if we didn’t encourage the importation of whole bales of
tainted fineries, that will spread the contagion from Dublin to Cork,
and from Cork to Galway!”
“La!” said Miss Ormsby, “how severe your ladyship is; and all only for
one’s asking for a pattern!”
“But you know,” pursued Mrs. O’Connor, “that Lady Geraldine is too proud
to take pattern from any body.”
“Too proud am I? Well, then, I’ll be humble; I’ll abase myself--shall I?
‘_Proud_ as I am, I’ll put myself to school;’
and I’ll do what the ladies Hauton and Norton shall advise, to heighten
my charms and preserve my reputation. I must begin, must not I, Mrs.
O’Connor, by learning not to blush? for I observed you were ashamed for
me yesterday at dinner, when I blushed at something said by one of our
fair missionaries. Then, to whatever lengths flirtations and gallantry
may go between unmarried or married people, I must look on. I may
shut my eyes, if I please, and look down; but not from shame--from
affectation I may as often as I please, or to show my eyelashes.
Memorandum--to practise this before Clementina Ormsby, my mirror of
fashion. So far, so good, for my looks; but now for my language. I
must reform my barbarous language, and learn from Mrs. Norton, with her
pretty accommodating voice, to call an intrigue _an arrangement_, and a
crim. con. _an affair in Doctors’ Commons_, or _that business before the
Lords_.
‘We never mention Hell to ears polite.’
How virtuous we shall be when we have no name for vice! But stay, I must
mind my lessons--I have more, much more to learn. From the dashing Lady
Hauton I may learn, if my head be but strong, and my courage intrepid
enough, ‘to touch the brink of all we hate,’ without tumbling headlong
into the gulf; and from the interesting Mrs. Norton, as I hear it
whispered amongst you ladies, I may learn how, with the assistance of a
Humane-society, to save a half-drowned reputation. It is, I understand,
the glory of one class of fashionable females, to seem worse than they
are; and of another class the privilege, to be worse than they seem.”
Here clamorous voices interrupted Lady Geraldine--some justifying, some
attacking, Lady Hauton and Mrs. Norton.
“Oh! Lady Geraldine, I assure you, notwithstanding all that was said
about General ---- and Mrs. Norton, I am convinced there was nothing in
it.”
“And, my dear Lady Geraldine, though Lady Hauton does go great lengths
in coquetting with a certain lord, you must see that there’s _nothing
wrong_; and that she means nothing, but to provoke his lady’s jealousy.
You know his lordship is not a man to fall in love with.”
“So, because Lady Hauton’s passion is hatred instead of love, and
because her sole object is to give pain to a poor wife, and to make
mischief in families, all her sins are to be forgiven! Now, if I were
forced to forgive any ill-conducted female, I would rather excuse the
woman who is hurried on by love than she who is instigated by hatred.”
Miss Bland now began to support her ladyship’s opinion, that “Lady
Hauton was much the worst of the two;” and all the scandal that was in
circulation was produced by the partisans of each of these ladies.
“No matter, no matter, which is the worst,” cried Lady Geraldine; “don’t
let us waste our time in repeating or verifying scandalous stories of
either of them. I have no enmity to these ladies; I only despise them,
or rather, their follies and their faults. It is not the sinner, but
the sin we should reprobate. Oh! my dear countrywomen,” cried Lady
Geraldine, with increasing animation of countenance and manner--“Oh!
my dear countrywomen, let us never stoop to admire and imitate these
second-hand airs and graces, follies and vices. Let us dare to be
ourselves!”
My eyes were fixed upon her animated countenance, and, I believe, I
continued gazing even after her voice ceased. Mrs. O’Connor pointed
this out, and I was immediately embarrassed. Miss Bland accounted for my
embarrassment by supposing, that what Lady Geraldine had said of English
crim. cons, had affected me. From a look and a whisper among the ladies,
I guessed this; but Lady Geraldine was too well-bred to suppose I could
suspect her of ill-breeding and ill-nature, or that I could apply
to myself what evidently was not intended to allude to my family
misfortunes. By an openness of manner and sweetness of expression, which
I cannot forget, she, in one single look, conveyed all this to me: and
then resuming her conversation, “Pray, my lord,” said she, “you who have
lived so much in the great world in England, say, for you can, whether I
am right or wrong in my suspicion, that these ladies, who have made such
a noise in Ireland, have been little heard of in England?”
I confirmed her ladyship’s opinion by my evidence. The faces of the
company changed. Thus, in a few seconds, the empire of Lady Hauton and
of Mrs. Norton seemed shaken to the foundation, and never recovered from
this shock.
The warmth of Lady Geraldine’s expressions, on this and many other
occasions, wakened dormant feelings in my heart, and made me sensible
that I had a soul, and that I was superior to the puppets with whom I
had been classed.
One day Lady Kilrush, in her mixed mode, with partly the graces of a
fine lady and partly the airs of a _bel esprit_, was talking of Mr.
Devereux, whom she affected to patronise and _produce_.
“Here, Devereux!” cried she; “Cecil Devereux! What can you be thinking
of? I am talking to you. Here’s this epitaph of Francis the First upon
Petrarch’s Laura, that you showed me the other day: do you know, I dote
upon it. I must have it translated: nobody can do it so well as you. I
have not time; but I shall not sleep to-night if it is not done: and you
are so quick: so sit down here, there’s a dear man, and do it in your
elegant way for me, whilst I go to my toilette. Perhaps you did not
know that my name was Laura,” said she, leaving the room with a very
sentimental air.
“What will become of me!” cried Devereux. “Never was a harder task
set by cruel patroness. I would rather ‘turn a Persian tale for
half-a-crown.’ Read this, my lord, and tell me whether it will be easy
to turn my Lady Kilrush into Petrarch’s Laura.”
“This sonnet, to be sure, is rather difficult to translate, or at least
to modernize, as bespoke,” said Lady Geraldine, after she had perused
the sonnet;[82] “but I think, Mr. Devereux, you brought this difficulty
upon yourself. How came you to show these lines to such an amateur,
such a fetcher and carrier of bays as Lady Kilrush? You might have been
certain that, had they been trash, with the name of Francis the First,
and with your fashionable approbation, and something to say about
Petrarch and Laura, my Lady Kilrush would talk for ever, _et se pâmerait
d’affectation_.”
“Mr. Devereux,” said I, “has only to abide by the last lines, as a good
and sufficient apology to Lady Kilrush for his silence:
‘Qui te pourra louer qu’en se taisant?
Car la parole est toujours réprimée
Quand le sujet surmonte le disant.’”
“There is no way to get out of my difficulties,” said Mr. Devereux, with
a very melancholy look; and with a deep sigh he sat down to attempt the
translation of the poem. In a few minutes, however, he rose and left the
room, declaring that he had the bad habit of not being able to do any
thing in company.
Lady Geraldine now, with much energy of indignation, exclaimed against
the pretensions of rich amateurs, and the mean and presumptuous manner
in which some would-be great people affect to patronise genius.
“Oh! the baseness, the emptiness of such patronising ostentation!” cried
she. “I am accused of being proud myself; but I hope--I believe--I am
sure, that my pride is of another sort. Persons of any elevation or
generosity of mind never have this species of pride; but it is your
mean, second-rate folk, who imagine that people of talent are a sort of
raree-show for their entertainment. At best, they consider men of genius
only as artists formed for their use, who, if not in a situation to be
paid with money, are yet to be easily recompensed by praise--by their
praise--_their_ praise! Heavens! what conceit! And these amateur-patrons
really think themselves judges, and presume to advise and direct genius,
and employ it to their petty purposes! Like that Pietro de Medici, who,
at some of his entertainments, set Michael Angelo to make a statue of
snow. My lord, did you ever happen to meet with Les Mémoires de Madame
de Staël?”
“No: I did not know that they were published.”
“You mistake me: I mean Madame de Staël of Louis the Fourteenth and the
Regent’s time, Mademoiselle de Launay.”
I had never heard of such a person, and I blushed for my ignorance.
“Nay, I met with them myself only yesterday,” said Lady Geraldine: “I
was struck with the character of the Duchess de la Ferté, in which this
kind of proud patronising ignorance is admirably painted from the life.
It is really worth your while, my lord, to look at it. There’s the book
on that little table; here is the passage. You see, this Duchess de la
Ferté is showing off to a sister-duchess a poor girl of genius, like a
puppet or an ape.
“‘Allons, mademoiselle, parlez--Madame, vous allez voir comme elle
parle--Elle vit que j’hésitois à répondre, et pensa qu’il falloit
m’aider comme une chanteuse à qui l’on indique ce qu’on désire
d’entendre--Parlez un peu de religion, mademoiselle, vous direz ensuite
autre chose.’
“This speech, Mr. Devereux tells me, has become quite proverbial in
Paris,” continued Lady Geraldine; “and it is often quoted, when any one
presumes in the Duchess de la Ferte’s style.”
“Ignorance, either in high or low life, is equally self-sufficient, I
believe,” said I, exerting myself to illustrate her ladyship’s remarks.
“A gentleman of my acquaintance lately went to buy some razors at
Packwood’s. Mrs. Packwood alone was _visible_. Upon the gentleman’s
complimenting her on the infinite variety of her husband’s ingenious and
poetical advertisements, she replied, ‘La! sir, and do you think husband
has time to write them there things his-self? Why, sir, we keeps a poet
to do all that there work.’”
Though Lady Geraldine spoke only in general of amateur-patrons and of
men of genius, yet I could not help fancying, from the warmth with which
she expressed herself, and from her dwelling on the subject so long,
that her feelings were peculiarly interested for some individual of this
description. Thus I discovered that Lady Geraldine had a heart; and
I suspected that her ladyship and Mr. Devereux had also made the same
discovery. This suspicion was strengthened by a slight incident, which
occurred the following evening.
Lady Geraldine and Cecil Devereux, as we were drinking coffee, were in
a recessed window, while some of the company stood round them, amused by
their animated conversation. They went on, repartee after repartee, as
if inspired by each other’s spirits.
“You two,” said a little girl of six years old, who was playing in the
window, “go on singing to one another like two nightingales; and
this shall be your cage,” added she, drawing the drapery of the
window-curtains across the recessed window. “You shall live always
together in this cage: will you, pretty birds?”
“No, no; some birds cannot live in a cage, my dear,” cried Lady
Geraldine, playfully struggling to get free, whilst the child held her
prisoner.
“Mr. Devereux seems tolerably quiet and contented in his cage,” said the
shrewd Mrs. O’Connor.
“I can’t get out! I can’t get out!” cried Devereux, in the melancholy
tone of the starling in the Sentimental Journey.
“What is all this?” said my Lady Kildangan, sailing up to us.
“Only two birds,” the child began.
“Singing-birds,” interrupted Lady Geraldine, catching the little girl
up in her arms, and stopping her from saying more, by beginning to sing
most charmingly.
Lady Kildangan returned to the sofa without comprehending one word of
what had passed. For my part, I now felt almost certain of the justice
of my suspicions: I was a little vexed, but not by any means in that
despair into which a man heartily in love would have been thrown by such
a discovery.
Well, thought I, it is well it is no worse: it was very lucky that I did
not fall quite in love with this fair lady, since it seems that she has
given her heart away. But am I certain of this? I was mistaken once. Let
me examine more carefully.
Now I had a new motive to keep my attention awake.