A retired beau is one of the most instructive spectacles in the world.
STEPHEN MONTAGUE.
It was quite true that Mrs. Copperas saw a great deal of company, for
at a certain charge, upon certain days, any individual might have the
honour of sharing her family repast; and many, of various callings,
though chiefly in commercial life, met at her miscellaneous board.
Clarence must, indeed, have been difficult to please, or obtuse of
observation, if, in the variety of her guests, he had not found
something either to interest or amuse him. Heavens! what a motley
group were accustomed, twice in the week, to assemble there! the
little dining-parlour seemed a human oven; and it must be owned that
Clarence was no slight magnet of attraction to the female part of the
guests. Mrs. Copperas's bosom friend in especial, the accomplished
Miss Barbara York, darted the most tender glances on the handsome
young stranger; but whether or not a nose remarkably prominent and
long prevented the glances from taking full effect, it is certain that
Clarence seldom repaid them with that affectionate ardour which Miss
Barbara York had ventured to anticipate. The only persons indeed for
whom he felt any sympathetic attraction were of the same sex as
himself. The one was Mr. Talbot, the old gentleman whom Mrs. Copperas
had described as the perfect courtier; the other, a young artist of
the name of Warner. Talbot, to Clarence's great astonishment (for
Mrs. Copperas's eulogy had prepared him for something eminently
displeasing) was a man of birth, fortune, and manners peculiarly
graceful and attractive. It is true, however, that, despite of his
vicinity, and Mrs. Copperas's urgent solicitations, he very seldom
honoured her with his company, and he always cautiously sent over his
servant in the morning to inquire the names and number of her expected
guests; nor was he ever known to share the plenteous board of the
stock-jobber's lady whenever any other partaker of its dainties save
Clarence and the young artist were present. The latter, the old
gentleman really liked; and as for one truly well born and well bred
there is no vulgarity except in the mind, the slender means, obscure
birth, and struggling profession of Warner were circumstances which,
as they increased the merit of a gentle manner and a fine mind, spoke
rather in his favour than the reverse. Mr. Talbot was greatly struck
by Clarence Linden's conversation and appearance; and indeed there was
in Talbot's tastes so strong a bias to aristocratic externals that
Clarence's air alone would have been sufficient to win the good graces
of a man who had, perhaps, more than most courtiers of his time,
cultivated the arts of manner and the secrets of address.
"You will call upon me soon?" said he to Clarence, when, after dining
one day with the Copperases and their inmate, he rose to return home.
And Clarence, delighted with the urbanity and liveliness of his new
acquaintance, readily promised that he would.
Accordingly the next day Clarence called upon Mr. Talbot. The house,
as Mrs. Copperas had before said, adjoined her own, and was only
separated from it by a garden. It was a dull mansion of brick, which
had disdained the frippery of paint and whitewashing, and had indeed
been built many years previously to the erection of the modern
habitations which surrounded it. It was, therefore, as a consequence
of this priority of birth, more sombre than the rest, and had a
peculiarly forlorn and solitary look. As Clarence approached the
door, he was struck with the size of the house; it was of very
considerable extent, and in the more favourable situations of London,
would have passed for a very desirable and spacious tenement. An old
man, whose accurate precision of dress bespoke the tastes of the
master, opened the door, and after ushering Clarence through two long,
and, to his surprise, almost splendidly furnished rooms, led him into
a third, where, seated at a small writing-table, he found Mr. Talbot.
That person, one whom Clarence then little thought would hereafter
exercise no small influence over his fate, was of a figure and
countenance well worthy the notice of a description.
His own hair, quite white, was carefully and artificially curled, and
gave a Grecian cast to features whose original delicacy, and exact
though small proportions, not even age could destroy. His eyes were
large, black, and sparkled with almost youthful vivacity; and his
mouth, which was the best feature he possessed, developed teeth white
and even as rows of ivory. Though small and somewhat too slender in
the proportions of his figure, nothing could exceed the ease and the
grace of his motions and air; and his dress, though singularly rich in
its materials, eccentric in its fashion, and from its evident study,
unseemly to his years, served nevertheless to render rather venerable
than ridiculous a mien which could almost have carried off any
absurdity, and which the fashion of the garb peculiarly became. The
tout ensemble was certainly that of a man who was still vain of his
exterior, and conscious of its effect; and it was as certainly
impossible to converse with Mr. Talbot for five minutes without
merging every less respectful impression in the magical fascination of
his manner.
"I thank you, Mr. Linden," said Talbot, rising, "for your accepting so
readily an old man's invitation. If I have felt pleasure in
discovering that we were to be neighbours, you may judge what that
pleasure is to-day at finding you my visitor."
Clarence, who, to do him justice, was always ready at returning a fine
speech, replied in a similar strain, and the conversation flowed on
agreeably enough. There was more than a moderate collection of books
in the room, and this circumstance led Clarence to allude to literary
subjects; these Mr. Talbot took up with avidity, and touched with a
light but graceful criticism upon many of the then modern and some of
the older writers. He seemed delighted to find himself understood and
appreciated by Clarence, and every moment of Linden's visit served to
ripen their acquaintance into intimacy. At length they talked upon
Copperas Bower and its inmates.
"You will find your host and hostess," said the gentleman, "certainly
of a different order from the persons with whom it is easy to see you
have associated; but, at your happy age, a year or two may be very
well thrown away upon observing the manners and customs of those whom,
in later life, you may often be called upon to conciliate or perhaps
to control. That man will never be a perfect gentleman who lives only
with gentlemen. To be a man of the world, we must view that world in
every grade and in every perspective. In short, the most practical
art of wisdom is that which extracts from things the very quality they
least appear to possess; and the actor in the world, like the actor on
the stage, should find 'a basket-hilted sword very convenient to carry
milk in.' [See the witty inventory of a player's goods in the
"Tatler."] As for me, I have survived my relations and friends. I
cannot keep late hours, nor adhere to the unhealthy customs of good
society; nor do I think that, to a man of my age and habits, any
remuneration would adequately repay the sacrifice of health or
comfort. I am, therefore, well content to sink into a hermitage in an
obscure corner of this great town, and only occasionally to revive my
'past remembrances of higher state,' by admitting a few old
acquaintances to drink my bachelor's tea and talk over the news of the
day. Hence, you see, Mr. Linden, I pick up two or three novel
anecdotes of state and scandal, and maintain my importance at Copperas
Bower by retailing them second-hand. Now that you are one of the
inmates of that abode, I shall be more frequently its guest. By the
by, I will let you into a secret: know that I am somewhat a lover of
the marvellous, and like to indulge a little embellishing exaggeration
in any place where there is no chance of finding me out. Mind,
therefore, my dear Mr. Linden, that you take no ungenerous advantage
of this confession; but suffer me, now and then, to tell my stories my
own way, even when you think truth would require me to tell them in
another."
"Certainly," said Clarence, laughing; "let us make an agreement: you
shall tell your stories as you please, if you will grant me the same
liberty in paying my compliments; and if I laugh aloud at the stories,
you shall promise me not to laugh aloud at the compliments."
"It is a bond," said Talbot; "and a very fit exchange of service it
is. It will be a problem in human nature to see who has the best of
it: you shall pay your court by flattering the people present, and I
mine by abusing those absent. Now, in spite of your youth and curling
locks, I will wager that I succeed the best; for in vanity there is so
great a mixture of envy that no compliment is like a judicious abuse:
to enchant your acquaintance, ridicule his friends."
"Ah, sir," said Clarence, "this opinion of yours is, I trust, a little
in the French school, where brilliancy is more studied than truth, and
where an ill opinion of our species always has the merit of passing
for profound."
Talbot smiled, and shook his head. "My dear young friend," said he,
"it is quite right that you, who are coming into the world, should
think well of it; and it is also quite right that I, who am going out
of it, should console myself by trying to despise it. However, let me
tell you, my young friend, that he whose opinion of mankind is not too
elevated will always be the most benevolent, because the most
indulgent, to those errors incidental to human imperfection to place
our nature in too flattering a view is only to court disappointment,
and end in misanthropy. The man who sets out with expecting to find
all his fellow-creatures heroes of virtue will conclude by condemning
them as monsters of vice; and, on the contrary, the least exacting
judge of actions will be the most lenient. If God, in His own
perfection, did not see so many frailties in us, think you He would be
so gracious to our virtues?"
"And yet," said Clarence, "we remark every day examples of the highest
excellence."
"Yes," replied Talbot, "of the highest but not of the most constant
excellence. He knows very little of the human heart who imagines we
cannot do a good action; but, alas! he knows still less of it who
supposes we can be always doing good actions. In exactly the same
ratio we see every day the greatest crimes are committed; but we find
no wretch so depraved as to be always committing crimes. Man cannot
be perfect even in guilt."
In this manner Talbot and his young visitor conversed, till Clarence,
after a stay of unwarrantable length, rose to depart.
"Well," said Talbot, "if we now rightly understand each other, we
shall be the best friends in the world. As we shall expect great
things from each other sometimes, we will have no scruple in exacting
a heroic sacrifice every now and then; for instance, I will ask you to
punish yourself by an occasional tete-a-tete with an ancient
gentleman; and, as we can also by the same reasoning pardon great
faults in each other, if they are not often committed, so I will
forgive you, with all my heart, whenever you refuse my invitations, if
you do not refuse them often. And now farewell till we meet again."
It seemed singular and almost unnatural to Linden that a man like
Talbot, of birth, fortune, and great fastidiousness of taste and
temper, should have formed any sort of acquaintance, however slight
and distant, with the facetious stock-jobber and his wife; but the
fact is easily explained by a reference to the vanity which we shall
see hereafter made the ruling passion of Talbot's nature. This
vanity, which branching forth into a thousand eccentricities,
displayed itself in the singularity of his dress, the studied yet
graceful warmth of his manner, his attention to the minutiae of life,
his desire, craving and insatiate, to receive from every one, however
insignificant, his obolus of admiration,--this vanity, once flattered
by the obsequious homage it obtained from the wonder and reverence of
the Copperases, reconciled his taste to the disgust it so frequently
and necessarily conceived; and, having in great measure resigned his
former acquaintance and wholly outlived his friends, he was contented
to purchase the applause which had become to him a necessary of life
at the humble market more immediately at his command.
There is no dilemma in which Vanity cannot find an expedient to
develop its form, no stream of circumstances in which its buoyant and
light nature will not rise to float upon the surface. And its
ingenuity is as fertile as that of the player who (his wardrobe
allowing him no other method of playing the fop) could still exhibit
the prevalent passion for distinction by wearing stockings of
different colours.