“Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
Restless--unfixed in principles and place.”--DRYDEN.
“Whoever acquires a very great number of ideas interesting to
the society in which he lives, will be regarded in that society
as a man of abilities.”--HELVETIUS.
IT was just when Ernest Maltravers was so bad that he could not be worse
that a young man visited Temple Grove. The name of this young man was
Lumley Ferrers, his age was about twenty-six, his fortune about eight
hundred a year--he followed no profession. Lumley Ferrers had not what
is usually called genius; that is, he had no enthusiasm; and if the word
talent be properly interpreted as meaning the talent of doing something
better than others, Ferrers had not much to boast of on that score. He
had no talent for writing, nor for music, nor painting, nor the ordinary
round of accomplishments; neither at present had he displayed much of
the hard and useful talent for action and business. But Ferrers had what
is often better than either genius or talent; he had a powerful and most
acute mind.
He had, moreover, great animation of manner, high physical spirits,
a witty, odd, racy vein of conversation, determined assurance, and
profound confidence in his own resources. He was fond of schemes,
stratagems, and plots--they amused and excited him--his power of
sarcasm, and of argument, too, was great, and he usually obtained an
astonishing influence over those with whom he was brought in contact.
His high spirits and a most happy frankness of bearing carried off and
disguised his leading vices of character, which were callousness to
whatever was affectionate and insensibility to whatever was moral.
Though less learned than Maltravers, he was on the whole a very
instructed man. He mastered the surfaces of many sciences, became
satisfied of their general principles, and threw the study aside never
to be forgotten (for his memory was like a vice), but never to be
prosecuted any further. To this he added a general acquaintance with
whatever is most generally acknowledged as standard in ancient or modern
literature. What is admired only by a few, Lumley never took the trouble
to read. Living amongst trifles, he made them interesting and novel
by his mode of viewing and treating them. And here indeed was _a_
talent--it was the talent of social life--the talent of enjoyment to the
utmost with the least degree of trouble to himself. Lumley Ferrers was
thus exactly one of those men whom everybody calls exceedingly clever,
and yet it would puzzle one to say in what he was so clever. It was,
indeed, that nameless power which belongs to ability, and which makes
one man superior, on the whole, to another, though in many details by
no means remarkable. I think it is Goethe who says somewhere that, in
reading the life of the greatest genius, we always find that he was
acquainted with some men superior to himself, who yet never attained to
general distinction. To the class of these mystical superior men Lumley
Ferrers might have belonged; for though an ordinary journalist would
have beaten him in the arts of composition, few men of genius, however
eminent, could have felt themselves above Ferrers in the ready grasp and
plastic vigour of natural intellect. It only remains to be said of this
singular young man, whose character as yet was but half developed, that
he had seen a great deal of the world, and could live at ease and in
content with all tempers and ranks; fox-hunters or scholars, lawyers or
poets, patricians or _parvenus_, it was all one to Lumley Ferrers.
Ernest was, as usual, in his own room, when he heard, along the corridor
without, all that indefinable bustling noise which announces an arrival.
Next came a most ringing laugh, and then a sharp, clear, vigorous voice,
that ran through his ears like a dagger. Ernest was immediately aroused
to all the majesty of indignant sullenness. He walked out on the terrace
of the portico, to avoid the repetition of the disturbance: and once
more settled back into his broken and hypochondriacal reveries. Pacing
to and fro that part of the peristyle which occupied the more retired
wing of the house, with his arms folded, his eyes downcast, his brows
knit, and all the angel darkened on that countenance which formerly
looked as if, like truth, it could shame the devil and defy the world,
Ernest followed the evil thought that mastered him, through the Valley
of the Shadow. Suddenly he was aware of something--some obstacle which
he had not previously encountered. He started, and saw before him
a young man, of plain dress, gentlemanlike appearance, and striking
countenance.
“Mr. Maltravers, I think,” said the stranger, and Ernest recognised the
voice that had so disturbed him: “this is lucky; we can now introduce
ourselves, for I find Cleveland means us to be intimate. Mr. Lumley
Ferrers, Mr. Ernest Maltravers. There now, I am the elder, so I first
offer my hand, and grin properly. People always grin when they make a
new acquaintance! Well, that’s settled. Which way are you walking?”
Maltravers could, when he chose it, be as stately as if he had never
been out of England. He now drew himself up in displeased astonishment;
extricated his hand from the gripe of Ferrers, and saying, very coldly,
“Excuse me, sir, I am busy,” stalked back to his chamber. He threw
himself into his chair, and was presently forgetful of his late
annoyance, when, to his inexpressible amazement and wrath, he heard
again the sharp, clear voice close at his elbow.
Ferrers had followed him through the French casement into the room.
“You are busy, you say, my dear fellow. I want to write some letters:
we sha’n’t interrupt each other--don’t disturb yourself:” and Ferrers
seated himself at the writing-table, dipped a pen into the ink, arranged
blotting-book and paper before him in due order, and was soon employed
in covering page after page with the most rapid and hieroglyphical
scrawl that ever engrossed a mistress or perplexed a dun.
“The presuming puppy!” growled Maltravers, half audibly, but effectually
roused from himself; and examining with some curiosity so cool an
intruder, he was forced to own that the countenance of Ferrers was not
that of a puppy.
A forehead compact and solid as a block of granite, overhung small,
bright, intelligent eyes of a light hazel; the features were handsome,
yet rather too sharp and fox-like; the complexion, though not highly
coloured, was of that hardy, healthy hue which generally betokens a
robust constitution, and high animal spirits; the jaw was massive, and,
to a physiognomist, betokened firmness and strength of character; but
the lips, full and large, were those of a sensualist, and their restless
play, an habitual half smile, spoke of gaiety and humour, though when in
repose there was in them something furtive and sinister.
Maltravers looked at him in grave silence; but when Ferrers, concluding
his fourth letter before another man would have got through his
first page, threw down the pen, and looked full at Maltravers, with a
good-humoured but penetrating stare, there was something so whimsical in
the intruder’s expression of face, and indeed in the whole scene, that
Maltravers bit his lip to restrain a smile, the first he had known for
weeks.
“I see you read, Maltravers,” said Ferrers, carelessly turning over the
volumes on the table. “All very right: we should begin life with books;
they multiply the sources of employment; so does capital;--but capital
is of no use, unless we live on the interest,--books are waste paper,
unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought. Action,
Maltravers, action; that is the life for us. At our age we have passion,
fancy, sentiment; we can’t read them away, or scribble them away;--we
must live upon them generously, but economically.”
Maltravers was struck; the intruder was not the empty bore he had
chosen to fancy him. He roused himself languidly to reply. “Life, _Mr._
Ferrers--”
“Stop, _mon cher_, stop; don’t call me Mister; we are to be friends; I
hate delaying that which _must be_, even by a superfluous dissyllable;
you are Maltravers, I am Ferrers. But you were going to talk about life.
Suppose we _live_ a little while, instead of talking about it? It wants
an hour to dinner; let us stroll into the grounds; I want to get an
appetite;--besides, I like nature when there are no Swiss mountains to
climb before one can arrive at a prospect. _Allons_!”
“Excuse--” again began Maltravers, half interested, half annoyed.
“I’ll be shot if I do. Come.”
Ferrers gave Maltravers his hat, wound his arm into that of his new
acquaintance, and they were on the broad terrace by the lake before
Ernest was aware of it.
How animated, how eccentric, how easy was Ferrers’ talk (for talk it
was, rather than conversation, since he had the ball to himself); books,
and men, and things; he tossed them about and played with them like
shuttlecocks; and then his egotistical narrative of half a hundred
adventures, in which he had been the hero, told so, that you laughed at
him and laughed with him.