“Good shepherd, tell this youth, what ’tis to love.”
SHAKSPEARE.
It is now necessary for us to revert to old Mr. Martindale and his new
pets. So delighted was he with the general character of the minds of
this family, that he was reluctant to make any arrangement which should
remove them from continual intercourse with himself. Very soon did they
become essential to him; for they seemed to open his mind to a new
consciousness of being. The discovery of their existence was the means
of removing a burden from his soul; and not only was there a negative
satisfaction derived from having thus providentially met with them, but
the very lively and unexpected interest which he took in their being
and well being, gave to his own existence a positive satisfaction, and
a feeling hitherto unknown; so that in the intervals of reflection and
thought, he was under a frequent necessity of saying to himself, “But I
must not forget Philip.”
There was also another, though an unintentional and unconscious rival
of Philip Martindale, in the person of Horatio Markham. But we will
do Philip the justice to say, that he entertained no mean jealousy of
this gentleman; inasmuch as he did not apprehend the probability of
Markham’s occupying a very important station in the old gentleman’s
last will and testament. Markham, indeed, did not seem to be acting
the part of a legacy-hunter; and Philip felt very well satisfied with
the thought, that many rich old men had in their life-time had many
friends for whom they appeared to have a greater regard than for their
own family, but to whom they have seldom made bequests of a nature so
serious as deeply to injure their own relatives. There was, however,
a danger in Markham’s intimacy with the old gentleman under present
circumstances, of which danger Mr. Philip was not sufficiently aware.
Our allusion is to the growing acquaintance between the young barrister
and Clara Rivolta. The young lady had a grateful recollection of the
considerate and respectful manner in which Markham had conducted
himself at the trial, contrasted especially as that manner was with
the boisterous and vulgar rudeness of the defendant’s counsel. So
completely indeed was the young lady disgusted with the rudeness and
coarseness manifested by the latter, that though she was tolerably well
acquainted with English customs, so far as books could inform her,
she could with difficulty be brought to believe that barristers were
uniformly gentlemen of education; she could not help thinking that they
must be of no higher rank or more polished manners than bailiffs and
constables. What ludicrous mistakes foreigners do sometimes fall into;
and if the English were not a very polite nation, they would laugh at
these blunders.
We have noticed already that Markham was very much struck with the
personal appearance of Clara Rivolta when he saw her in the cottage
of poor old Richard Smith; he was not less pleased with her when he
saw her in those circumstances which he had in the first instance
thought most appropriate to her. When he became more acquainted with
her, and by conversation had traced the existence of as much mind and
of as good feelings as her features and their expression had already
intimated to his imagination, it is no wonder that he should be more
interested in her than ever. When also he learned, as he did from the
sociable communicativeness of old Mr. Martindale, how nearly she was
related to a wealthy man; and when he saw how much of a favorite she
was with the old gentleman, it was not likely that his regard for her
should be diminished. Markham was by no means a selfish man, nor was he
insensible to the desirableness of a fair fortune. He was not quite so
romantic as to despise wealth; and if he had been originally addicted
to that propensity, the frequent receiving of fees would have had no
small tendency to cure it. However, it should be said that the motive
for his attachment to the young lady had not, in the first instance,
any thing to do with pecuniary expectations. Mr. Martindale himself
contributed to cherish the attachment, for he was constantly soliciting
the young man to favor them with his company; for as the old gentleman
lived almost entirely at Brigland, he knew comparatively nothing about
London, and the season of the year was not that at which any of his
friends were in town.
The time now was very near when Markham should take his departure from
his native land, and enter upon his professional duties in another
region. Pleasant as preferment may be, there is always a degree of
pain felt at parting from familiar faces and familiar scenes. This
unpleasant feeling was by anticipation coming upon the young barrister.
He thought that he should very much miss the society to which he had
been accustomed; he thought there was a peculiar, indescribable charm
in the very streets of London and Westminster; he thought, with a
shudder of repugnance, of a long, tedious, and as it were solitary
voyage; he thought that nobody would think about him when he was gone;
he thought that Clara Rivolta would be married before he came back. He
wondered whether she knew that he was going abroad; he wondered whether
she would care where or when he might go; he wondered whether she had
ever been in love. These thoughts and these wonderings grew thicker
and stronger as the time moved on, and he said to himself that Clara
was a most interesting creature, but that he was not decidedly in love
with her, as was very manifest by his being perfectly at ease when he
was absent from her. He did not take into consideration, as perhaps he
should have done, that the absence which he bore with so much fortitude
was an absence likely to be soon succeeded by the pleasure of seeing
her again. There was also another thought which he overlooked, and that
was, why did he take pains to persuade himself that he was not in love?
Who said he was?
It is not fair, however, to lay open to our readers the heart of one
of the parties, and totally to veil that of the other. Clara Rivolta
had scarcely had any other society than that of her father and mother;
and indeed, for the last four years, a very important part of her
life, her mother and old Richard Smith had been her only companions.
The very little which she had seen of English people had not made a
favorable impression of their character upon her mind. While residing
with her mother at Brigland, she had seen but few of the inhabitants
of that place, and those not of the better sort. The only individual
of the better sort, so called, that she had seen, was the Hon. Philip
Martindale; and him she thought the worst sort of man she had ever
seen. She at first mistook him for a gamekeeper; then she thought that
he must be the coachman or groom to the great man at the Abbey; and
nothing could exceed her astonishment when old Richard Smith informed
her that it was the great man himself; then, like all young people,
hastily formed and readily expressed her opinion, that the highest
class of people in England were the lowest people in the world. She
was very wrong, but she had not much knowledge of the subject. The
English people have so much originality and individuality, that it
is not easy to find an individual who is a complete specimen of any
class. To satirise or to compliment any class as a class, is absurd.
It may do very well for a particular purpose, at a tavern-dinner,
or in a dedication, to use highly complimentary language, which may
be uttered with all the plausibility of truth and sincerity. It may
also tell well in a farce or a comedy to satirise a whole class or
profession; but to use such language in sad or sober earnest, is
grievously unphilosophical and inaccurate. There are minds of every
variety, intellects of every rank, hearts of every complexion in all
classes. The virtues and the vices show differently under different
circumstances. It was however pardonable in a young woman who knew
scarcely any thing of human society, to form a wrong judgment; but, by
degrees, her mind was enlarged and judgment corrected. Had she taken
her notion of barristers solely from the clever, witty advocate of the
Hon. Philip Martindale, she would have thought no better of barristers
than she did of the sons of nobility. But Horatio Markham tended to
correct her judgment in this particular. He was not a coxcomb; he was
not a rude, blustering, self-sufficient and pert blockhead, fancying
himself the depositary of all wisdom and the oracle of all ages; he
did not aim at a display of his own wisdom, by insinuations that all
the rest of mankind were simpletons. It must however be confessed that
he was rather pedantic; he talked a little too professionally; and
he had, in his ordinary mode of speaking and conversing, too much of
the peculiar manner of the bar; he told many anecdotes, and they were
mostly of the luminaries of his own profession; his conversation was
much about books; he spoke of books critically, and as he had a good
memory, he repeated many passages, especially of some of the more
modern poets; and in reading or quoting, he had a very peculiar and
prosy mode of utterance. In his expressions of admiration he was very
enthusiastic; but his only censure was silence. Being, as it should
seem, much pleased with his own peculiar eloquence of encomium, he
was most pleased with praising; and so ingenious was his praise, that
he not unfrequently found in his favorite writers beauties which the
authors themselves were not aware of. Many others have been accused of
doing the same; but we will vindicate them and him by observing, that
it is quite as possible for an author to strike out beauties of which
himself is unconscious and undesigning, as it is for an artist, by an
accidental touch of his pencil, to “snatch a grace beyond the reach
of art.” The mind is not always conscious of the gracefulness of its
transient and unstudied attitudes.
We could say much more of Markham, but we must postpone it. Our present
concern is with the mind of Clara Rivolta, and her sentiments of and
towards this young man. He was to all intents the most agreeable man
she had seen since her arrival in England; and his slight tincture
of pedantry, and his love of quotation and recitation, tedious and
stupid as they might have been to many others, were to her peculiarly
agreeable. Men’s hearts are stolen through the eye--women’s through the
ear. Clara was pleased with Markham’s voice because she liked poetry;
and as the poetry first rendered his company delightful, and his voice
to her ear musical, so in process of time his company and his voice
rendered the poetical extracts more pleasing. Markham also understood
Italian; but to a native of Italy he would not read or recite her own
poetry; but he often brought to her Italian poetry, and her bright
eyes sparkled at the sight, and she began to like the English people
better, because they had paid reverence to the poets of her native
land by printing their works beautifully. Markham wished to hear the
poetry of Italy read by a native; Clara could not refuse him, because
he had been so obliging as to read much English poetry to her; but she
was almost afraid to read to him, because she could not read so well
as he could. That is a pretty and pardonable piece of vanity. But the
fact is, Markham did not read so remarkably well: he had a singing kind
of a tone; he read in a kind of recitative; some used to say he read
very ill. We should wish these people to be sentenced to hear reading
without a tone. At all events, Markham’s reading was very pleasant to
Clara; and to Markham’s ear there was no music so sweet as Clara’s
voice. She had read to him two or three of the sonnets of Petrarch;
and Markham thought that he should recollect the melody of that voice
when he should be afar off sailing on the mighty deep. How sweetly can
the closed eye, by its own internal light, call up bright scenes which
time and space have put far from us! and as sweetly in night’s silence
and its wakeful repose rings in our ear again the voice of the absent
and the beloved. When Clara read to Markham, there was a tremulousness
in her voice, and there was a tear in her eye; the tear was hardly
visible, and not large enough to fall; but she felt it there, and her
tremulousness increased. Scenes of this nature frequently occurred,
and they produced their very natural effect. Clara felt herself very
happy in Markham’s company, always asked his opinion on matters
of taste and literature, was continually finding out new poetical
beauties in Markham’s favorite authors, and perpetually discovering
some philological difficulties in the English language, of which no
one but Markham could give her a solution. It was not till she knew
him that her mind was powerfully impressed with the absolute necessity
of learning with very strict and minute attention the niceties of the
English language.
There was another circumstance which contributed to increase Clara’s
partiality to Horatio Markham; namely, his affectionate attention to
his parents, and his respectful deference to their wishes. This she
had no opportunity of observing, but she had heard Mr. John Martindale
speak of it in highly complimentary terms. She was very well pleased
to hear Markham praised. She did not say to herself that she was not
in love, nor indeed did she know or suspect that she was. But she was
very much pleased with Horatio Markham, and never spoke of him to any
one, though she listened with great pleasure to any one who spoke of
him favorably. This was certainly symptomatic, but the young woman was
not aware of the nature of the symptoms, or of what they portended.
When she learned the vocabulary, she did not find that admiration meant
love; she did not find that gratitude meant love; she did not find that
habit meant love; she did not find that approbation meant love; but
in process of time she began to suspect that all these put together
produced a feeling very much like love.