To all you gentlemen who live at home at ease there are few things less
troublesome than the arrangement of what is called a dinner-party.
Some difficulty may possibly exist as to the guests. Lady Mary may be
indisposed. It might not be quite right to ask Sir Harry to meet the
Headleys. A stray embarrassment or two will arise to require a little
thought or a little management The material details, however, give no
care. There is a stereotyped mode of feeding one's friends, out of which
it is not necessary, were it even possible, to issue. Your mock-turtle
may have a little more or less the flavor of Madeira; your salmon be
somewhat thicker in the shoulder; your sirloin be a shade more or less
underdone; your side dishes a little more or less uneatable than your
neighbor's; but, after all, from the caviare to the cheese, the
whole thing follows an easy routine, and the dinner of No. 12 is the
fac-simile of the dinner at No. 13; and the same silky voice that
whispers “Sherry, sir?” has its echo along the whole street The same
toned-down uniformity pervades the intellectual elements of the feast;
all is quiet, jogtrot, and habitual; a gentle atmosphere of murmuring
dulness is diffused around, very favorable to digestion, and rather
disposing to sleep.
How different are all these things in the case of the poor man,
especially when he happens to be a reduced gentleman, whose memories of
the past are struggling and warring with exigencies of the present and
the very commonest necessities are matters of grave difficulty.
Kellett was very anxious to impress his son's friend with a sense of his
social standing and importance, and he told Bella “not to mind spending
the whole week's allowance, just to show the soldier what Jack's family
was.” A leg of mutton and a little of Kinnahan's port constituted, in
his mind, a very high order of entertainment; and these were at once
voted. Bella hoped that after the first outburst of this ostentatious
fit he would fall back in perfect indifference about the whole matter;
but far from it,--his waking thought in the morning was the dinner; and
when she remarked to him at breakfast on the threatening aspect of the
clouds, his reply was, “No matter, dear, if we have plenty of capers.”
Even the unhappy possibility of Beecher's “dropping in” was subordinate
to his wish to cut a figure on the occasion; and he pottered about from
the dining-room to the kitchen, peeped into saucepans, and scrutinized
covered dishes with a most persistent activity. Nor was Bella herself
quite averse to all this. She saw in the distance--remotely it might
be--the glimmering of a renewed interest about poor Jack. “The pleasure
this little incident imparts,” thought she, “will spread its influence
wider. He 'll talk of him too; he 'll be led on to let him mingle with
our daily themes. Jack will be one of us once more after this;” and so
she encouraged him to make of the occasion a little festival.
What skill did she not practise, what devices of taste not display,
to cover over the hard features of their stern poverty! The few little
articles of plate which remained after the wreck of their fortune were
placed on the sideboard, conspicuous amongst which was a cup “presented
by his brother officers to Captain Paul Kellett, on his retirement
from the regiment, with which he had served thirty-eight years,”--a
testimonial only exhibited on the very most solemn occasions. His sword
and sash--the same he wore at Waterloo--were arrayed over the fireplace,
and his Talavera chako--grievously damaged by a French sabre--hung above
them. “If he begins about 'that expedition,'”--it was thus he always
designated the war in the Crimea,--“Bella, I 'll just give him a touch
of the real thing, as we had it in the Peninsula! Faith, it wasn't
digging holes in the ground we were then;” and he laughed to himself at
the absurdity of the conceit.
The few flowers which the garden owned at this late season, humble and
common as they were, figured on the chimney-piece, and not a resource
of ingenuity was neglected to make that little dinner-room look pleasant
and cheery. Fully a dozen times had Kellett gone in and out of the room,
never weary of admiring it, and as constantly muttering to himself some
praise of Bella, to whose taste it was all owing. “I 'd put the cup in
the middle of the table, Bella. The wallflowers would do well enough
at the sideboard. Well, maybe you 're right, darling; it is less
pretentious, to be sure. And be careful, dear, that old Betty has
a clean apron. May I never, but she's wearing the same one since
Candlemas! And don't leave her any corks to draw; she's the devil for
breaking them into the bottle. I 'll sit here, where I can have the
screw at my hand. There 's a great convenience in a small room, after
all. By the good day, here 's Beecher!” exclaimed he, as that worthy
individual approached the door.
“What's all this for, Kellett, old boy? Are you expecting the Viceroy,
or celebrating a family festival, eh? What does it mean?”
“'T is a mutton chop I was going to give a friend of Jack's,--a young
fellow that brought me a letter from him yesterday.”
“Oh! your son Jack. By the way, what's his regiment,--Light Dragoons, is
n't it?”
“No; the Rifles,” said Kellett, with a short cough.
“He's pretty high up for his lieutenancy by this, ain't he?” said
Beecher, rattling on. “He Joined before Alma, didn't he?”
“Yes; he was at the battle,” said Kellett, dryly; for though he had once
or twice told his honorable friend that Jack was in the service, he had
not mentioned that he was in the ranks. Not that Annesley Beecher
would have, in the least, minded the information. The fact could not by
possibility have touched himself; it never could have compelled _him_
to mount guard, do duty in the trenches, eat Commissariat biscuit, or
submit to any of the hardships soldiery inflicts; and he 'd have heard
of Jack's fate with all that sublime philosophy which teaches us to bear
tranquilly the calamities of others.
“Why don't you stir yourself to get him a step? There's nothing to
be had without asking! ay, worse than asking,--begging, worrying,
importuning. Get some fellow in one of the offices to tell you when
there's a vacancy, and then up and at them. If they say, 'We are only
waiting for an opportunity, Captain Kellett,' you reply, 'Now's your
time then, Groves of the Forty-sixth is gone “toes up;” Simpson,
of the Bays, has cut his lucky this morning.' That's the way to go to
work.”
“You are wonderful!” exclaimed Kellett, who really did all but worship
the worldly wisdom of his friend.
“I 'd ask Lackington, but he 's no use to any one. Just look at my own
case.” And now he launched forth into the theme he really loved and
never found wearisome. His capacity for anything--everything, his exact
fitness for fifty opposite duties, his readiness to be a sinecurist, and
his actual necessity for a salary, were subjects he could be eloquent
on; devoting occasional passing remarks to Lackington's intense
stupidity, who never exerted himself for him, and actually “thought him
a flat.” “I know you won't believe--but he does, I assure you--he thinks
me a flat!”
Before Kellett could fully rally from the astounding force of such an
unjustifiable opinion, his guest, Conway, knocked at the door.
“I say, Kellett, there comes an apology from your friend.”
“How so?” asked Kellett, eagerly.
“I just saw a soldier come up to the door, and the chances are it 's an
officer's servant with a note of excuse.”
The door opened as he spoke, and Conway entered the room. Kellett met
him with an honest cordiality, and then, turning to Beecher, said,--
“My son's friend and comrade,--Mr. Annesley Beecher;” and the two men
bowed to each other, and exchanged glances that scarcely indicated much
pleasure at the acquaintance.
“Why, he 's in the ranks, Kellett,” whispered Beecher, as he drew him
into the window.
“So is my son,” said Kellett, with a gulp that half choked him.
“The deuce he is; you never told me that. And is this our dinner
company?”
“I was just going to explain--Oh, here's Bella!” and Miss Kellett
entered, giving such a cordial greeting to the soldier that made Beecher
actually astounded.
“What's his name, Kellett?” said Beecher, half languidly.
“A good name, for the matter of that; he's called Conway.”
“Conway--Conway?” repeated Beecher, aloud; “we have fortieth cousins,
Conways. There was a fellow called Conway in the Twelfth Lancers that
went a tremendous pace; they nicknamed him the 'Smasher,' I don't know
why. Do you?” said he, addressing the soldier.
“I 've heard it was from an awkward habit he had of putting his heel on
snobs.”
“Oh! you know him, perhaps?” said Beecher, affectedly.
“Why, as I was the man myself, I ought, according to the old adage, to
say I knew but little of him.”
“You Conway of the Twelfth! the same that owned Brushwood and Lady
Killer, that won the Riddlesworth?”
“You're calling up old memories to me,” said the youth, smiling, “which,
after all, I 'd just as soon forget.”
“And you were an officer in the Lancers!” exclaimed Kellett, eagerly.
“Yes; I should have had my troop by this if I hadn't owned those
fortunate three-year-olds Mr. Beecher has just reminded me of. Like
many others, whom success on the turf has misled, I went on madly, quite
convinced I had fortune with me.”
“Ah!” said Beecher, moralizing, “there's no doing a good stroke of work
without the legs. Cranley tried it, Hawchcome tried it, Ludborough tried
it, but it won't do. As Grog Davis says, 'you must not ignore existing
interests.'”
“There's another name I have n't heard for many a year. What a scoundrel
that fellow was! I 've good ground for believing that this Davis it was
poisoned Sir Aubrey, the best horse I ever owned. Three men of his stamp
would make racing a sport unfit for gentlemen.”
“Miss Kellett, will you allow me?” said Beecher, offering his arm,
and right well pleased that the announcement of dinner cut short the
conversation.
“A nice fellow that friend of your brother's,” muttered he, as he led
her along; “but what a stupid thing to go and serve in the ranks! It's
about the last step I 'd ever have thought of taking.”
“I'm certain of it,” said Bella, with an assent so ready as to sound
like flattery.
As the dinner proceeded, old Kellett's astonishment continued to
increase at the deference paid by Beecher to every remark that fell from
Conway. The man who had twice won “the Bexley,” and all but won “the
Elms;” he who owned Sir Aubrey, and actually took the odds against all
“Holt's stable,” was no common celebrity. In vain was it Conway tried to
lead the conversation to his friend Jack,--what they had seen, and where
they had been together,--Beecher would bring them back to the Turf and
the “Racing Calendar.” There were so many dark things he wanted to know,
so much of secret history he hoped to be enlightened in; and whenever,
as was often the case, Conway did not and could not give him the desired
information, Beecher slyly intimated by a look towards Kellett that he
was a deep fellow; while he muttered to himself, “Grog Davis would have
it out of him, notwithstanding all his cunning.”
Bella alone wished to hear about the war. It was not alone that her
interest was excited for her brother, but in the great events of
that great struggle her enthusiastic spirit found ample material for
admiration. Conway related many heroic achievements, not alone of
British soldiers, but of French and even Russians. Gallantry, as
he said, was of no nation in particular,--there were brave fellows
everywhere; and he told, with all the warmth of honest admiration, how
daringly the enemy dashed into the lines at night and confronted certain
death, just for the sake of causing an interruption to the siege, and
delaying, even for a brief space, the advance of the works. Told, as
these stories were, with all the freshness which actual observation
confers, and in a spirit of unexaggerated simplicity, still old Kellett
heard them with the peevish jealousy of one who felt that they were
destined to eclipse in their interest the old scenes of Spain and
Portugal. That any soldiers lived nowadays like the old Light Division,
that there were such fellows as the fighting Fifth, or Crawfurd's
Brigade, no man should persuade him; and when he triumphantly asked if
they had n't as good a general as Sir Arthur Welles-ley, he fell back,
laughing contemptuously at the idea of such being deemed war at all, or
the expedition, as he would term it, being styled a campaign.
“Remember, Captain Kellett, we had a fair share of your old Peninsular
friends amongst us,--gallant veterans, who had seen everything from the
Douro to Bayonne.”
“Well, and did n't they laugh at all this? did n't they tell you fairly
it was not fighting?”
“I 'm not so sure they did,” said Conway, laughing good-naturedly.
“Gordon told an officer in my hearing, that the charge up the heights
at the Alma reminded him strongly of Harding's ascent of the hills at
Albuera.”
“No, no, don't say that; I can't stand it!” cried Kellett, peevishly;
“sure if it was only that one thinks they were Frenchmen--Frenchmen,
with old Soult at their head--at Albuera--”
“There's nothing braver than a Russian, sir, depend on 't,” said the
youth, with a slight warmth in his tone.
“Brave if you like; but, you see, he isn't a soldier by nature, like the
Frenchman; and yet we beat the French, thrashed him from the sea to the
Pyrenees, and over the Pyrenees into France.”
“What's the odds? You'd not do it again; or, if you did, not get Nap to
abdicate. I 'd like to have two thousand to fifty on the double event,”
said Beecher, chuckling over an imaginary betting-book.
“And why not do it again?” broke in Bella. “Is it after listening
to what we have heard this evening that we have cause for any
faint-heartedness about the spirit of our soldiery? Were Cressy or
Agincourt won by braver fellows than now stand entrenched around
Sebastopol?”
“I don't like it; as Grog says, 'never make a heavy book on a waiting
race!'”
“I conclude, then,” said Conway, “you are one of those who augur ill of
our success in the present war?”
“I 'd not stake an even fifty, on either side,” said Beecher, who had
shrewd suspicions that it was what he 'd have called a “cross,” and that
Todleben and Lord Raglan could make “things comfortable” at any moment.
“I see Miss Bella's of my mind,” added he, as he perceived a very
peculiar smile just parting her lips.
“I suspect not, Mr. Beecher,” said she, slyly.
“Why did you laugh, then?”
“Shall I tell you? It was just this, then, passing in my mind. I was
wondering within myself whether the habit of reducing all men's motives
to the standard of morality observable in the 'ring' more often lead to
mistakes, or the contrary.”
“I sincerely trust that it rarely comes right,” broke in Conway. “I was
close upon four years on the turf, as they call it; and if I had n't
been ruined in time, I 'd have ended by believing that an honest man was
as great a myth as anything we read of amongst the heathen gods.”
“That all depends upon what you call honest,” said Beecher.
“To be sure it does; you 're right there,” chimed in Kellett; and
Beecher, thus seconded, went on,--
“Now, I call a fellow honest when he won't put his pal into a hole; when
he 'll tell him whenever he has got a good thing, and let him have his
share; when he'll warn him against a dark lot, and not let him 'in' to
oblige any one,--that's honesty.”
“Well, perhaps it is,” said Conway, laughing. “The Russians said it was
mercy t' other day, when they went about shooting the wounded. There's
no accounting for the way men are pleased to see things.”
“I 'd like to have _your_ definition of honesty,” said Beecher, slightly
piqued by the last remark.
“How can you expect me to give you one? Have I not just told you I was
for more than three years on the turf, had a racing stable, and dealt
with trainers and jocks?” He paused for a second or two, and then, in
a stronger voice, went on: “I cannot believe that the society of common
soldiers is a very high standard by which to measure either manners or
motives; and yet I pledge my word to it, that my comrades, in comparison
with my old companions of the turf, were unexceptionable gentlemen. I
mean that, in all that regards truthfulness, fair dealing, and honorable
intercourse, it would be insult to compare them.”
“Ah, you see,” said Beecher, “you got it 'all hot,' as they say. You
're not an unprejudiced juryman. They gave you a bucketing,--I heard all
about it. If Corporal Trim had n't been doctored, you 'd have won twelve
thousand at Lancaster.”
Conway smiled good-humoredly at the explanation thus suggested, but said
nothing.
“Bother it for racing,” said Kellett “I never knew any real taste for
horses or riding where there was races. Instead of caring for a fine,
showy beast, a little thick in the shoulder, square in the joints, and
strong in the haunch, they run upon things like greyhounds, all drawn up
behind and low before; it's a downright misery to mount one of them.”
“But it's a real pleasure to see him come in first, when your book
tells you seven to one in your favor. Talk of sensations,” said he,
enthusiastically; “where is there the equal of that you feel when the
orange and blue you have backed with a heavy pot comes pelting round the
corner, followed by two,--then three,--all punishing, your own fellow
holding on beautifully, with one eye a little thrown backward to see
what's coming, and that quiet, calm look about the mouth that says,
'I have it.' Every note of the wild cheer that greets the winner is
applause to your own heart; that deafening yell is your own song of
triumph.”
“Listen to him!--that 's his hobby,” cried Kellett, whose eyes glistened
with excitement at the description, and who really felt an honest
admiration for the describer. “Ah, Beecher, my boy!--you 're at home
there.”
“If they 'd only give me a chance, Paul,--one chance!”
Whether it was that the expression was new and strange to him, or that
the energy of the speaker astonished him, but Conway certainly turned
his eyes towards him in some surprise; a sentiment which Beecher at once
interpreting as interest, went on,--
“_You_,” said he,--“_you_ had many a chance; _I_ never had one. You
might have let them all in, you might have landed them all--so they tell
me, at least--if you'd have withdrawn Eyetooth. He was own brother to
Aurelius, and sure to win. Well, if you 'd have withdrawn him for the
Bexley, you'd have netted fifty thousand. Grog--I mean a fellow 'well
up' among the legs--told me so.”
“Your informant never added what every gentleman in England would have
said of me next day,” said Conway. “It would have been neither more
nor less than a swindle. The horse was in perfect health and top
condition,--why should I not have run him?”
“For no other reason that I know, except that you 'd have been richer by
fifty thousand for not doing it.”
“Well,” said Conway, quietly, “it's not a very pleasant thing to be
crippled in this fashion; but I 'd rather lose the other arm than do
what you speak of. And if I did n't know that many gentlemen get a loose
way of talking of fifty things they 'd never seriously think of doing, I
'd rather feel disposed to be offended at what you have just said.”
“Offended! of course not,--I never dreamed of anything offensive. I only
meant to say that they call _me_ a flat; but hang me if I'd have let
them off as cheaply as you did.”
“Then they're at perfect liberty to call me a flat also,” said Conway,
laughing. “Indeed, I suspect I have given them ample reason to think me
one.”
The look of compassionate pity Beecher bestowed on him as he uttered
these words was as honest as anything in his nature could be.
It was in vain Bella tried to get back the conversation to the events
of the campaign, to the scenes wherein poor Jack was an actor. Beecher's
perverse activity held them chained to incidents which, to him, embraced
all that was worth living for. “You must have had some capital things in
your time, though. You had some race-horses, and were well in with Tom
Nolan's set,” said he to Conway.
“Shall I tell you the best match I ever had,--at least, the one gave me
most pleasure?”
“Do, by all means,” said Beecher, eagerly, “though I guess it already.
It was against Vickersley, even for ten thousand, at York.”
“No,” said the other, smiling.
“Well, then, it was the Cotswold,--four miles in two heats. You won it
with a sister to Ladybird.”
“Nor that, either; though by these reminiscences you show me how
accurately you have followed my humble fortunes.”
“There 's not a man has done anything on the turf for fifty years
I can't give you his history; not a horse I won't tell you all his
performances, just as if you were reading it out of the 'Racing
Calendar.' As 'Bell's Life' said t' other day, 'If Annesley Beecher
can't answer that question,'--and it was about Running Rein,--'no man
in England can.' I'm 'The Fellow round the corner' that you always see
alluded to in 'Bell.'”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Conway, with assumed deference.
“That I am,--Kellett knows it. Ask old Paul there,--ask Grog,--ask
any one you like, whether A. B. is up to a thing or two. But we 're
forgetting this match,--the best thing you said you ever had.”
“I 'm not so sure you 'll be of my mind when you hear it,” said
Conway, smiling. “It was a race we had t' other day in the Crimea,--a
steeplechase, over rather a stiff course, with Spanish ponies; and I
rode against Lord Broodale, Sir Harry Curtis, and Captain Marsden, and
won five pounds and a dozen of champagne. My comrades betted something
like fifty shillings on the match, and there would have been a general
bankruptcy in the company if I had lost. Poor Jack mortgaged his watch
and a pilot coat that he was excessively proud of,--it was the only
bit of mufti in the battalion, I think; but he came off all right, and
treated us all to a supper with his winnings, which, if I don't mistake,
did n't pay more than half the bill.”
“Good luck to him, and here's his health,” cried Kellett, whose heart,
though proof against all ordinary appeals to affection, could not
withstand this assault of utter recklessness and improvidence. “He's my
own flesh and blood, there's no denying it.”
If Conway was astounded at this singular burst of paternal affection, he
did not the less try to profit by it, and at once began to recount the
achievements of his comrade, Jack Kellett. The old man listened half
doggedly at first, but gradually, as the affection of others for his
son was spoken of, he relaxed, and heard, with an emotion he could not
easily repress, how Jack was beloved by the whole regiment,--that to be
his companion in outpost duty, to be stationed with him in a battery,
was a matter of envy. “I won't say,” said Conway, “that every corps and
every company has not fellows brave as he; but show me one who 'll carry
a lighter spirit into danger, and as soft a heart amid scenes of
cruelty and bloodshed. So that if you asked who in our battalion is the
pluckiest, who the most tenderhearted, who the most generous, and who
the least given to envy, you'd have the one answer, 'Jack Kellett,'
without a doubt.”
“And what will it all do for him?” broke in the old man, resorting once
more to his discontent.
“What will it do for him? What has it done for him? Is it nothing that
in a struggle history will make famous a man's name is a household word;
that in a war where deeds of daring are so rife, his outnumbers those of
any other? It's but a few weeks back a Sardinian staff-officer, coming
to our head-quarters on business, asked if the celebrated 'Bersagliere'
was there,--so they call riflemen,--and desired to see him; and, better
than that, though he didn't know Jack's name, none doubted who was
meant, but Jack Kellett was sent for on the instant. Now, that I call
fame.”
“Will it get him his commission?” said Beecher, knowingly, as though by
one shrewd stroke of intelligence he had embraced the entire question.
“A commission can be had for four hundred and fifty pounds, and some man
in Parliament to ask for it. But what Jack has done cannot be bought
by mere money. Do you go out there, Mr. Beecher, just go and see for
yourself--it's well worth the while--what stuff fellows are made of that
face danger every day and night, without one thought above duty, never
expecting, never dreaming that anything they do is to have its personal
benefit, and would far rather have their health drunk by their comrades
than be quoted in the 'Times.' You'll find your old regiment there,--you
were in the Fusilier Guards, weren't you?”
“Yes, I tried soldiering, but I did n't like it,” said Beecher; “and it
was better in my day than _now_, they tell me.”
A movement of impatience on Conway's part was suddenly interrupted by
Kellett, saying, “He means that the service is n't what it was; and
indeed he's right there. I remember the time there wasn't a man in the
Eighty-fifth could n't carry away three bottles of Bennett's strong
port, and play as good a rubber, afterwards, as Hoyle himself.”
“It's the snobbery I was thinking of,” said Beecher; “fellows go into
the army now who ought to be counter-jumping.”
“I don't know what they ought to be doing,” broke in Conway, angrily,
“but I could tell you something of what they are doing; and where you
are to find men to do it better, I 'm not so clear. I said a few
moments back, you ought to go out to the Crimea; but I beg to correct
myself,--it is exactly what you ought not to do.”
“Never fear, old fellow; I never dreamed of it. Give you any odds you
like, you 'll never see my arrival quoted at Balaklava.”
“A thousand pardons, Miss Kellett,” whispered Conway, as he arose, “but
you see how little habit I have of good company; I'm quite ashamed of
my warmth. May I venture to come and pay you a morning visit before I go
back?”
“Oh, by all means; but why not an evening one? You are more certain to
find us.”
“Then an evening one, if you'll allow me;” and shaking Kellett's hand
warmly, and with a cold bow to Beecher, he withdrew.
“Wasn't he a flat!” cried Beecher, as the door closed after him. “The
Smasher--that was the name he went by--went through an estate of six
thousand a year, clean and clear, in less than four years, and there he
is now, a private soldier with one arm!”
“Faith, I like him; he's a fine fellow,” said Kellett, heartily.
“Ask Grog Davis if he'd call him a fine fellow,” broke in Beecher,
sneeringly; “there's not such a spoon from this to Newmarket. Oh, Paul,
my hearty, if I had but one, just one of the dozen chances he has thrown
away! But, as Grog says, 'a crowbar won't make a cracksman;' nor will
a good stable of horses, and safe jocks 'bring a fellow round,' if he
hasn't it here.” And he touched his forehead with his forefinger most
significantly.
Meanwhile Charles Conway sauntered slowly back to town, on the whole
somewhat a sadder man than he had left it in the morning. His friend
Jack had spoken much to him of his father and sister, and why or to
what extent he knew not, but somehow they did not respond to his own
self-drawn picture of them. Was it that he expected old Kellett would
have been a racier version of his son,--the same dashing, energetic
spirit,--seeing all for the best in life, and accepting even its
reverses in a half-jocular humor? Had he hoped to find in him Jack's
careless, easy temper,--a nature so brimful of content as to make all
around sharers in its own blessings; or had he fancied a “fine old Irish
gentleman” of that thoroughbred school he had so often heard of?
Nor was he less disappointed with Bella; he thought she had been
handsomer, or, at least, quite a different kind of beauty. Jack was
blue-eyed and Saxon-looking, and he fancied that she must be a “blonde,”
with the same frank, cheery expression of her brother; and he found her
dark-haired and dark-skinned, almost Spanish in her look,--the cast of
her features grave almost to sadness. She spoke, too, but little, and
never once reminded him, by a tone, a gesture, or a word, of his old
comrade.
Ah! how these self-created portraits do puzzle and disconcert us through
life! How they will obtrude themselves into the foreground, making
the real and the actual but mere shadows in the distance! What seeming
contradiction, too, do they create as often as we come into contact with
the true, and find it all so widely the reverse of what we dreamed of!
How often has the weary emigrant sighed over his own created promised
land in the midst of the silent forest or the desolate prairie! How has
the poor health-seeker sunk heavy-hearted amid scenes which, had he not
misconstrued them to himself, he had deemed a paradise!
These “phrenographs” are very dangerous paintings, and the more so that
we sketch them in unconsciously.
“Jack is the best of them; that's clear,” said Conway, as he walked
along; and yet, with all his affection for him, the thought did not
bring the pleasure it ought to have done.