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.