Tell how the fates my giddy course did guide, The inconstant turns of
every changing hour.--Pierce Gaveston, by M. Drayton.
Je me retire donc.--Adieu, Paris, adieu!--Boileau.
When I returned home, I found on my table the following letter from my
mother:
“My dear Henry,
“I am rejoiced to hear you are so well entertained at Paris--that you
have been so often to the D--s and C--s; that Coulon says you are his
best pupil--that your favourite horse is so much admired--and that you
have only exceeded your allowance by a L1,000; with some difficulty I
have persuaded your uncle to transmit you an order for L1,500, which
will, I trust, make up all your deficiencies.
“You must not, my dear child, be so extravagant for the future, and
for a very good reason, namely, I do not see how you can. Your uncle, I
fear, will not again be so generous, and your father cannot assist you.
You will therefore see more clearly than ever the necessity of marrying
an heiress: there are only two in England (the daughters of gentlemen)
worthy of you--the most deserving of these has L10,000 a year, the other
has L150,000. The former is old, ugly, and very ill tempered; the latter
tolerably pretty, and agreeable, and just of age; but you will perceive
the impropriety of even thinking of her till we have tried the other.
I am going to ask both to my Sunday soirees, where I never admit any
single men, so that there, at least, you will have no rivals.
“And now, my dear son, before I enter into a subject of great importance
to you, I wish to recal to your mind that pleasure is never an end, but
a means--viz. that in your horses and amusements at Paris--your visits
and your liaisons--you have always, I trust, remembered that these were
only so far desirable as the methods of shining in society. I have now
a new scene on which you are to enter, with very different objects in
view, and where any pleasures you may find have nothing the least in
common with those you at present enjoy.
“I know that this preface will not frighten you as it might many silly
young men. Your education has been too carefully attended to, for you to
imagine that any step can be rough or unpleasant which raises you in the
world.
“To come at once to the point. One of the seats in your uncle’s borough
of Buyemall is every day expected to be vacated; the present member, Mr.
Toolington, cannot possibly live a week, and your uncle is very desirous
that you should fill the vacancy which Mr. Toolington’s death will
create. Though I called it Lord Glenmorris’s borough, yet it is not
entirely at his disposal, which I think very strange, since my father,
who was not half so rich as your uncle, could send two members
to Parliament without the least trouble in the world--but I don’t
understand these matters. Possibly your uncle (poor man) does not manage
them well. However, he says no time is to be lost. You are to return
immediately to England, and come down to his house in--shire. It is
supposed you will have some contest, but be certain eventually to come
in.
“You will also, in this visit to Lord Glenmorris, have an excellent
opportunity of securing his affection; you know it is some time since he
saw you, and the greater part of his property is unentailed. If you come
into the House you must devote yourself wholly to it, and I have no fear
of your succeeding; for I remember, when you were quite a child, how
well you spoke, ‘My name is Norval,’ and ‘Romans, countrymen, and
lovers,’ I heard Mr. Canning speak the other day, and I think his voice
is quite like yours; in short, I make no doubt of seeing you in the
ministry in a very few years.
“You see, my dear son, that it is absolutely necessary you should set
out immediately. You will call on Lady--, and you will endeavour to make
firm friends of the most desirable among your present acquaintance; so
that you may be on the same footing you are now, should you return
to Paris. This a little civility will easily do: nobody (as I before
observed), except in England, ever loses by politeness; by the by, that
last word is one you must never use, it is too Gloucester-place like.
“You will also be careful, in returning to England, to make very little
use of French phrases; no vulgarity is more unpleasing. I could not
help being exceedingly amused by a book written the other day, which
professes to give an accurate description of good society. Not knowing
what to make us say in English, the author has made us talk nothing but
French. I have often wondered what common people think of us, since
in their novels they always affect to pourtray us so different from
themselves. I am very much afraid we are in all things exactly like
them, except in being more simple and unaffected. The higher the rank,
indeed, the less pretence, because there is less to pretend to. This is
the chief reason why our manners are better than low persons: ours are
more natural, because they imitate no one else; theirs are affected,
because they think to imitate ours; and whatever is evidently
borrowed becomes vulgar. Original affection is sometimes ton--imitated
affectation, always bad.
“Well, my dear Henry, I must now conclude this letter, already too long
to be interesting. I hope to see you about ten days after you receive
this; and if you could bring me a Cachemire shawl, it would give me
great pleasure to see your taste in its choice. God bless you, my dear
son.
“Your very affectionate
“Frances Pelham.”
“P.S. I hope you go to church sometimes: I am sorry to see the young men
of the present day so irreligious. Perhaps you could get my old friend,
Madame De--, to choose the Cachemire--take care of your health.”
This letter, which I read carefully twice over, threw me into a most
serious meditation. My first feeling was regret at leaving Paris; my
second, was a certain exultation at the new prospects so unexpectedly
opened to me. The great aim of a philosopher is, to reconcile every
disadvantage by some counterbalance of good--where he cannot create
this, he should imagine it. I began, therefore, to consider less what
I should lose than what I should gain, by quitting Paris. In the first
place, I was tolerably tired of its amusements: no business is half so
fatiguing as pleasure. I longed for a change: behold, a change was at
hand! Then, to say truth, I was heartily glad of a pretence of escaping
from a numerous cohort of folles amours, with Madame D’Anville at the
head; and the very circumstance which men who play the German flute and
fall in love, would have considered the most vexatious, I regarded as
the most consolatory.
There was yet another reason which reconciled me more than any other to
my departure. I had, in my residence at Paris, among half wits and
whole roues, contracted a certain--not exactly grossierete--but want of
refinement--a certain coarseness of expression and idea which, though
slight, and easily thrown off, took in some degree from my approach to
that character which I wished to become. I know nothing which would
so polish the manners as continental intercourse, were it not for the
English debauches with which that intercourse connects one. English
profligacy is always coarse, and in profligacy nothing is more
contagious than its tone. One never keeps a restraint on the manner when
one unbridles the passions, and one takes from the associates with whom
the latter are indulged, the air and the method of the indulgence.
I was, the reader well knows, too solicitous for improvement, not to be
anxious to escape from such chances of deterioration, and I therefore
consoled myself with considerable facility for the pleasures and the
associates I was about to forego. My mind being thus relieved from
all regret at my departure, I now suffered it to look forward to the
advantages of my return to England. My love of excitement and variety
made an election, in which I was to have both the importance of the
contest and the certainty of the success, a very agreeable object of
anticipation.
I was also by this time wearied with my attendance upon women, and
eager to exchange it for the ordinary objects of ambition to men; and my
vanity whispered that my success in the one was no unfavourable omen of
my prosperity in the other. On my return to England, with a new scene
and a new motive for conduct, I resolved that I would commence a
different character to that I had hitherto assumed. How far I kept this
resolution the various events hereafter to be shown, will testify. For
myself, I felt that I was now about to enter a more crowded scene upon
a more elevated ascent; and my previous experience of human nature
was sufficient to convince me that my safety required a more continual
circumspection, and my success a more dignified bearing.