The dinner-party at Mr. Hamilton's was such as might be expected, from
the character as well as the situation of the man. Splendour,
chastened by good taste, reigned at the table; and as he possessed
none of the harsh austerity which sometimes accompanies age, although
his whole demeanour displayed that calm gravity which sits so well
upon the brow of years, the guests around his table were chosen from
amongst the most cheerful, as well as from amongst the best of the
society which London can afford. There were one or two distinguished
statesmen, there were one or two mere politicians--and these classes
are very distinct--there were one or two men of high rank and vast
possessions; there were one or two persons distinguished for genius
and for virtue; there were one or two gay young men, with very empty
heads, who chattered to one or two pretty young women, who were easily
satisfied in point of conversation. The rest of the party consisted of
the wives of some of those we have mentioned, and the family of Mr.
Hamilton himself.
All were London people; all had been accustomed to mingle much in
London society: all were acquainted with everything that existed in
the part of London which they themselves inhabited, and in the society
with which they were accustomed to mix. I do not mean to say, that--as
is so common--they knew nothing more. On the contrary, the greater
part of the men and women who sat around that dinner-table, possessed
extensive information upon many subjects; but still the locality in
which they dwelt, and the society in which they moved, acted in some
sort as a prison to their minds, from the limits of which they did
certainly occasionally make excursions, but to which they were
generally brought back again by the gaoler, custom, ere they had
wandered far.
Such is ordinarily the great evil of London society to a stranger.
Unless an effort is charitably made for the sake of the uninitiated,
the conversation of the English capital is limited to subjects of
particular rather than general interest; and where a Frenchman would
sport over the whole universe of created things, solely for the
purpose of shewing his agility, an Englishman's conversation,
following the bent of his habits, sits down by his own fireside, and
seldom travels beyond the circle in which he lives. The effect of this
contraction is curious and unpleasant to a stranger; but that stranger
himself, if he be gentlemanly in habits and powerful in mind, very
often produces a miraculous and beneficial change upon the society
itself. If the people composing it really possess intellect and
information, and the narrowness of their conversation proceed merely
from habit, there is something in the freshness of the stranger's
thoughts which interests and excites them. They make an effort to keep
up with him on his own ground; the animation of the race carries them
away, and off they go, scampering over hill and dale, as if they were
driving after a fox.
Such was the case in the present instance. Morley Ernstein, though he
had been in London several times during his school and college life,
knew little of it but the names of certain streets, the theatres, the
opera, and the park. He could not talk of what had taken place at
Almack's the night before. He was not conversant with any of the
scandal that was running in the town; he did not know who was going to
marry who; and was quite unaware that Lady Loraine had had two
husbands before, and was going to take a third. All the tittle-tattle,
in short, of that quarter of London in which fashionable people live,
was as unknown to him as the gossip of the moon; and during some ten
minutes, as he sat at a little distance from Mr. Hamilton himself, he
remained in profound silence, eating his soup and his fish, with as
much devotion as if the _Almanach des Gourmands_ had been his book of
common prayer.
After talking for some time to other people, Mr. Hamilton cast his
eyes on his former ward, and knowing that he was neither shy, nor
stupid, nor sullen, nor gluttonous, he wondered to see him buried in
profound meditations over the plate that was before him. At that
moment, however, his ear caught the sound of the conversation that was
taking place on either side of Morley.
"The Duchess has such excellent taste," said the lady on his right
hand; "so she insisted upon it, that it should be dark green, with a
thin line of stone colour, between the black and the green, and the
arms only in light and shade."
Mr. Hamilton perceived that she was talking of the Duchess of
Watercourse's new carriage, but Morley Ernstein knew nothing about it.
"Oh! but I know it did!" replied the young lady, on Ernstein's other
side, speaking to a young gentleman, who might quite as well have been
a young lady too; "it cost five hundred francs in Paris, and that is
twenty pounds--is it not? But then it was _à point d'armes_, and it
was trimmed with the most beautiful valenciennes, three fingers
broad."
Mr. Hamilton guessed that she was talking of a pocket-handkerchief;
but what she said was as unintelligible to Morley, as an essay on the
differential calculus would have been to her. At that moment the young
Baronet raised his eyes, with a curious sort of smile, to the face of
his former guardian, and Mr. Hamilton certainly read his look, and
connected it with their conversation of that morning. It seemed to
say--"Notwithstanding all your exhortations, my good friend, the study
of the higher classes of society does not appear to me to tend much to
edification." But Mr. Hamilton, who knew that there is such a thing as
being stupid by convention, made an effort to give his young friend an
opening, and consequently addressing the lady who had last been
speaking, he said--"Pray, what do you call _à point d'armes_, Lady
Caroline?--I confess I am very ignorant, and so, I fear, is my friend
Morley, next to you."
The young lady coloured a little, and laughed, saying--"I was only
talking of a pocket-handkerchief which cost five hundred francs."
"Was any one wicked enough to give it?" said Morley, to whom she had
addressed the last few words.
"O dear, yes," she replied; "we good people in London are wicked
enough to do anything for the sake of fashion."
"There is candour enough, at least, in the avowal," thought Morley
Ernstein, and there was something in the young lady's tone as she
answered, which struck him, and made him conceive that his first
opinion of her mental powers, might not be altogether accurate.
Let it be remarked, that, the very general idea, that speech consists
of words alone, is extremely erroneous. That the parts of speech,
indeed, which are beaten into us at school, and for which, during a
certain period of our lives, we curse all the grammarians that ever
lived, from Priscian down to Lily, consist entirely of words, is true;
but he who looks closer than any of these grammar-makers at the real
philosophy of language, will find that speech consists of three
distinct branches--words, looks, and tones. All these must act
together to make what is properly called speech. Without either of the
two last branches, the words rightly arranged form but what is called
language; but that is a very different thing. How much is there in a
tone?--what a variety of meanings will it give to the same word, or to
the same sentence! It renders occasionally the same phrase negative or
affirmative; it continually changes it from an assertion to an
interrogation. The most positive form of language in the world, under
the magic influence of a tone, becomes the strongest expression of
doubt, and "I will not" means "I will" full as frequently as anything
else.
Tones, too, besides shewing the meaning of the speaker at the moment,
occasionally go on to display the character of his mind or the
habitual direction of his thoughts; and it was by this interpreter
that Morley Ernstein was led at once to translate the little
insignificant moral that fell from his fair neighbour's lips, into a
hint, that her mind did not always dwell upon the frivolous things of
which she had just been speaking. He followed the direction in which
she led: the conversation grew brighter, more animated; many persons
took part in it; many subjects were discussed; the freshness of
Morley's mind led others gaily after him. The vehemence and eagerness
of his natural character, carried him off to a thousand subjects,
which he at first never dreamed of touching upon; and in short, the
conversation of the next half hour was like the wild gallop which we
have seen him take across his own park; and, as then too, he ended by
leaping the wall at a hound, and plunging into a topic, which might
well be compared to the high road, being neither more nor less than
politics.
A sudden silence followed, and the young gentleman, feeling that he
had gone quite far enough, drew in the rein, and stopped in full
course. The impetus however was given, the thoughts of those around
him were led so far away from all the ordinary subjects of discussion
at a London party, that they would have found it difficult to get back
again, even if they had been so inclined, which, however, was the case
with but few of them; and one or two of the elder and more
distinguished persons present, purposely led Morley on to speak upon
various subjects with which they judged him to be well acquainted. It
was done with tact and discretion, however, in such a manner as to
draw him out, without letting him perceive that any one looked upon
him as a sort of American Indian.
On rising from table, a Peer who had figured in more than one
administration, drew Mr. Hamilton aside, and made Morley the subject
of conversation, while that young gentleman himself was talking for a
few moments with an elderly man of amiable manners, called Lord
Clavering.
"A very remarkable young man, Mr. Hamilton!" said the
statesman--"somewhat fresh and inexperienced; but his ideas are very
original, and generally just. Is his fortune large?"
"Very considerable!" replied Mr. Hamilton; "his father, whom you must
have known, left two large estates, one called the Morley Court
estate; the other still larger, but not so productive, in the wilds of
Northumberland. He succeeded when very young, and as you may suppose,
I have not let the property decrease during his minority."
"I know, Mr. Hamilton--I know, Mr. Hamilton!" replied the Peer, with a
meaning smile. "Would it not be better to bring the young gentleman
into the House of Commons? There is the old borough, you know,
Hamilton, will be vacant after this session; for poor Wilkinson
accepts the Hundreds, on account of bad health. My whole influence
shall be given to your young friend, if he chooses to stand."
Mr. Hamilton bowed, and thanked the Peer, but somewhat drily withal,
saying, "I will mention to him what your lordship says;" and then,
turning away, he spoke to some of his other guests.
Not long after, the knocker of Mr. Hamilton's door became in great
request, footman after footman laying his hand upon it, and
endeavouring, it would seem, to see how far he could render it a
nuisance to every one in the neighbourhood. Crowds of well-dressed
people, of every complexion and appearance under the sun, began to
fill the rooms, and certainly afforded--as every great party of a
great city does--a more miscellaneous assortment of strange animals
than can be found in the Regent's Park, or the Jardin des Plantes.
Putting aside the differences of hue and colouring--the fair, the
dark, the bronze, the sallow, the ruddy, the pale--and the differences
of size--the tall, the short, the fat, the thin, the middle-sized--and
of name, the variations of which were derived from every colour under
heaven, black, brown, green, grey, white, and every quarter that the
wind blows front, east, west, north, and south--and the difference of
features--the bottle-nosed, the small-eyed, the long-chinned, the
cheek boned, down to the noseless rotundity of a Gibbon's countenance,
and the saucer-eyes that might have suited the owl in the
Freyschutz--putting aside all these, I say there were various persons,
each of whom might have passed for a _lusus naturæ_, were not many
such to be found in every assembly of this world's children. There
were some without heads, and some without hearts, some without
feelings, and some without understanding. Some were simply bundles
of pulleys and ropes, with a hydraulic machine for keeping them
going--termed, by courtesy, flesh, bones, and blood, but none the less
mere machines as ever came out of Maudslay's furnaces. Some were but
bags of other people's ideas, who were propelled about the world as if
on castors, receiving all that those who were near them chose to cram
them with. Others were like what surveyors call a spirit-level, the
fluid in which inclines this way or that, according to that which it
leans upon. There were those, too, whose microscopic minds enlarge the
atoms under their own eyes, till mites seem mountains, but who yet can
see nothing further than an inch from their own noses; and there were
those, also, who appear to be always gazing through a theodolite, so
busily gauging distant objects as to overlook everything that is
immediately before them. There was, in short, the man of vast general
views, who can never fix his mind down to particular truths, and the
man of narrow realities, who cannot stretch his comprehension to
anything that he has not seen. Besides all these, there was the
ordinary portion of the milk-and-water of society; a good deal of the
vinegar; here and there some spirits of wine, a few flowers, and a
scanty portion of fruit.
In the midst of all this, what did Morley Ernstein do? He amused
himself greatly, as every young man of tolerable intellect might do;
he laughed at some, and with others; was little annoyed by any; and,
with a heart too young to be a good hater, he saw not much to excite
anger, though a good deal to excite pity. There were some, however,
who pleased him much. One or two young men, whose manners, tone, and
countenance he liked; and more young women, whom, of course, he liked
better still. He was a good deal courted, and made much of; and many
ladies who had daughters, marriageable and unmarried, sent people to
bring him up, and introduce him. Morley thought it very natural that
such should be the case. "Were I a mother," he said to himself,
"which, thank Heaven, I never can be, I would do just the same. People
cry out upon this sort of thing--I really do not see why they should
do so, more than censure a father for getting his son a commission in
the Guards. It is right that we should wish to see our children well
provided for; and so long as there is nothing unfair, no deception, no
concealment, the purpose is rather honourable than otherwise."
Morley Ernstein knew that his large fortune and position in society
must cause him to be regarded as a good match by more than half the
mothers in England; he had heard so, and believed it; but he did not
suffer that belief to make him either conceited, or suspicious. "It is
a great advantage to me," he thought; "for it gives me the entrance
into many a house where I could not otherwise penetrate, and puts me
above the consideration of wealth, which I might otherwise be driven
to, in the choice of my future wife. Thank. God! I can afford to wed
the poorest girl in Europe if I find that she possesses those
qualities which I believe will make me happy."
With these feelings, Morley Ernstein could hardly fail to make himself
agreeable in the society of women; and certain it is, that many of
those intriguing mothers, who go beyond that just limit which his mind
had clearly fixed, thought, when they saw his careless and
unsuspicious manner, his want of conceit in the gifts of fortune, and
the readiness with which he met any advances, that he would be an easy
as well as a golden prize, and prepared themselves to do battle with
their rivals in the same good cause, for the possession of the young
Baronet. They found themselves mistaken, for the simplest of all
reasons, that mothers who could scheme, and contrive, and deceive, for
the purpose of entangling him, were precisely those who could by no
possible means bring up a daughter in such a way as to satisfy, even
in manners, the young heir of Morley Court.
However, the evening passed pleasantly for Morley Ernstein. He was
amused, as I have said; but, in truth, there was something more. He
was interested and excited. Where is the young man of one-and-twenty
to be found, who will not let his heart yield, in a great degree, to
the effect of scene and circumstance?--to the moving of fair and
graceful forms around him?--to the sound of sweet voices, mingled with
music?--to the glittering of bright jewels, and of brighter eyes? and
to soft words and gentle looks, enlivened from time to time by flights
of gay wit, or even thoughtless merriment. Morley certainly passed
through the rooms, criticising as he went, and found much interest in
examining the characters of the persons present; but that was not all:
he gradually became one of them himself in feeling, took an individual
interest as well as a general one, in what was going on, shared in the
excitement, and went home at length, after having enjoyed the whole
probably ten times as much as any one there, except it was some young
girl of eighteen, who met the man she hoped might love her, or some
unknown youth who had never before obtained admission to the higher
classes of English society.