London once more! How strange, lone, and savage I feel in the streets!
I am ashamed to have so much health and strength when I look at those
slim forms, stooping backs, and pale faces. I pick my way through the
crowd with the merciful timidity of a good-natured giant. I am afraid of
jostling against a man, for fear the collision should kill him. I get
out of the way of a thread-paper clerk, and 't is a wonder I am not run
over by the omnibuses,--I feel as if I could run over them! I perceive,
too, that there is something outlandish, peregrinate, and lawless about
me. Beau Brummel would certainly have denied me all pretension to the
simple air of a gentleman, for every third passenger turns back to look
at me. I retreat to my hotel; send for boot-maker, hatter, tailor, and
hair-cutter. I humanize myself from head to foot. Even Ulysses is
obliged to have recourse to the arts of Minerva, and, to speak
unmetaphorically, "smarten himself up," before the faithful Penelope
condescends to acknowledge him.
The artificers promise all despatch. Meanwhile I hasten to re-make
acquaintance with my mother-country over files of the "Times," "Post,"
"Chronicle," and "Herald." Nothing comes amiss to me but articles on
Australia; from those I turn aside with the true pshaw supercilious of
your practical man.
No more are leaders filled with praise and blame of Trevanion. "Percy's
spur is cold." Lord Ulverstone figures only in the "Court Circular," or
"Fashionable Movements." Lord Ulverstone entertains a royal duke at
dinner, or dines in turn with a royal duke, or has come to town, or gone
out of it. At most (faint Platonic reminiscence of the former life),
Lord Ulverstone says in the House of Lords a few words on some question,
not a party one, and on which (though affecting perhaps the interests of
some few thousands, or millions, as the case may be) men speak without
"hears," and are inaudible in the gallery; or Lord Ulverstone takes the
chair at an agricultural meeting, or returns thanks when his health is
drunk at a dinner at Guildhall. But the daughter rises as the father
sets, though over a very different kind of world.
"First ball of the season at Castleton House,"--long description of the
rooms and the company; above all, of the hostess. Lines on the
Marchioness of Castleton's picture in the "Book of Beauty," by the Hon.
Fitzroy Fiddledum, beginning with "Art thou an angel from," etc.: a
paragraph that pleased me more, on "Lady Castleton's Infant School at
Raby Park;" then again, "Lady Castleton, the new patroness at Almack's;"
a criticism, more rapturous than ever gladdened living poet, on Lady
Castleton's superb diamond stomacher, just reset by Storr & Mortimer;
Westmacott's bust of Lady Castleton; Landseer's picture of Lady Castleton
and her children in the costume of the olden time. Not a month in that
long file of the "Morning Post" but what Lady Castleton shone forth from
the rest of womankind,--
"Velut inter ignes Luna minores."
The blood mounted to my cheek. Was it to this splendid constellation in
the patrician heaven that my obscure, portionless youth had dared to lift
its presumptuous eyes? But what is this? "Indian Intelligence: Skilful
retreat of the Sepoys under Captain de Caxton"! A captain already! What
is the date of the newspaper!--three months ago. The leading article
quotes the name with high praise. Is there no leaven of envy amidst the
joy at my heart? How obscure has been my career,--how laurelless my poor
battle with adverse fortune! Fie, Pisistratus! I am ashamed of thee.
Has this accursed Old World, with its feverish rivalries, diseased thee
already? Get thee home, quick, to the arms of thy mother, the embrace of
thy father; hear Roland's low blessing that thou hast helped to minister
to the very fame of that son. If thou wilt have ambition, take it,--not
soiled and foul with the mire of London. Let it spring fresh and hardy
in the calm air of wisdom, and fed, as with dews, by the loving charities
of Home.