Now haveth good day, good men all, Haveth good day, young and old;
Haveth good day, both great and small, And graunt merci a thousand fold!
Gif ever I might full fain I wold, Don ought that were unto your leve
Christ keep you out of cares cold, For now ‘tis time to take my leave.
--Old Song.
Several months have now elapsed since my marriage. I am living quietly
in the country, among my books, and looking forward with calmness,
rather than impatience, to the time which shall again bring me before
the world. Marriage with me is not that sepulchre of all human hope and
energy which it often is with others. I am not more partial to my arm
chair, nor more averse to shaving, than of yore. I do not bound my
prospects to the dinner-hour, nor my projects to “migrations from the
blue bed to the brown.” Matrimony found me ambitious; it has not cured
me of the passion: but it has concentrated what was scattered, and
determined what was vague. If I am less anxious than formerly for the
reputation to be acquired in society, I am more eager for honour in the
world; and instead of amusing my enemies, and the saloon, I trust yet to
be useful to my friends and to mankind.
Whether this is a hope, altogether vain and idle; whether I have, in
the self-conceit common to all men, peculiarly prominent in myself,
overrated both the power and the integrity of my mind (for the one
is bootless without the other,) neither I nor the world can yet
tell. “Time,” says one of the fathers, “is the only touchstone which
distinguishes the prophet from the boaster.”
Meanwhile, gentle reader, during the two years which I purpose devoting
to solitude and study, I shall not be so occupied with my fields and
folios, as to render me uncourteous to thee. If ever thou hast known me
in the city, I give thee a hearty invitation to come and visit me in the
country. I promise thee, that my wines and viands shall not disgrace the
companion of Guloseton: nor my conversation be much duller than my book.
I will compliment thee on thy horses, thou shalt congratulate me upon my
wife. Over old wine we will talk over new events; and if we flag at the
latter, why, we will make ourselves amends with the former. In short, if
thou art neither very silly nor very wise, it shall be thine own fault
if we are not excellent friends.
I feel that it would be but poor courtesy in me, after having kept
company with Lord Vincent, through the tedious journey of three volumes,
to dismiss him now without one word of valediction. May he, in the
political course he has adopted, find all the admiration his talents
deserve; and if ever we meet as foes, let our heaviest weapon be a
quotation, and our bitterest vengeance a jest.
Lord Guloseton regularly corresponds with me, and his last letter
contained a promise to visit me in the course of the month, in order
to recover his appetite (which has been much relaxed of late) by the
country air.
My uncle wrote to me, three weeks since, announcing the death of the
infant Lady Glenmorris had brought him. Sincerely do I wish that his
loss may be supplied. I have already sufficient fortune for my wants,
and sufficient hope for my desires.
Thornton died as he had lived--the reprobate and the ruffian. “Pooh,”
said he, in his quaint brutality, to the worthy clergyman, who attended
his last moments with more zeal than success; “Pooh, what’s the
difference between gospel and go--spell? we agree like a bell and its
clapper--you’re prating while I’m hanging.”
Dawson died in prison, penitent and in peace. Cowardice, which spoils
the honest man, often ameliorates the knave.
From Lord Dawton I have received a letter, requesting me to accept a
borough (in his gift), just vacated. It is a pity that generosity--such
a prodigal to those who do not want it--should often be such a niggard
to those who do. I need not specify my answer. One may as well be free
as dependant, when one can afford it; and I hope yet to teach Lord
Dawton, that to forgive the minister is not to forget the affront.
Meanwhile, I am content to bury myself in my retreat with my mute
teachers of logic and legislature, in order, hereafter, to justify his
lordship’s good opinion of my senatorial abilities. Farewell, Brutus, we
shall meet at Philippi!
It is some months since Lady Roseville left England; the last news we
received of her, informed us, that she was living at Sienna, in utter
seclusion, and very infirm health.
“The day drags thro’, though storms keep out the sun, And thus the heart
will break, yet brokenly live on.”
Poor Lady Glanville! the mother of one so beautiful, so gifted, and so
lost. What can I say of her which “you, and you, and you--” all who are
parents, cannot feel, a thousand times more acutely, in those recesses
of the heart too deep for words or tears. There are yet many hours in
which I find the sister of the departed in grief, that even her husband
cannot console; and I--I--my friend, my brother, have I forgotten thee
in death? I lay down the pen, I turn from my employment--thy dog is at
my feet, and looking at me, as if conscious of my thoughts, with an eye
almost as tearful as my own.
But it is not thus that I will part from my reader; our greeting was not
in sorrow, neither shall be our adieus. For thee, who hast gone with me
through the motley course of my confessions, I would fain trust that I
have sometimes hinted at thy instruction when only appearing to strive
for thy amusement. But on this I will not dwell; for the moral insisted
upon often loses its effect, and all that I will venture to hope is,
that I have opened to thee one true, and not utterly hacknied, page
in the various and mighty volume of mankind. In this busy and restless
world I have not been a vague speculator, nor an idle actor. While all
around me were vigilant, I have not laid me down to sleep--even for the
luxury of a poet’s dream. Like the school boy, I have considered study
as study, but action as delight.
Nevertheless, whatever I have seen, or heard, or felt, has been
treasured in my memory, and brooded over by my thoughts. I now place the
result before you,
“Sicut meus est mos, Nescio quid meditans nugarum;--
but not, perhaps,--totus in illis.”
Whatever society--whether in a higher or lower grade--I have portrayed,
my sketches have been taken rather as a witness than a copyist; for I
have never shunned that circle, nor that individual, which presented
life in a fresh view, or man in a new relation. It is right, however,
that I should add, that as I have not wished to be an individual
satirist, rather than a general observer, I have occasionally, in the
subordinate characters (such as Russelton and Gordon), taken only the
outline from truth, and filled up the colours at my leisure and my will.
With regard to myself I have been more candid. I have not only
shewn--non parca manu--my faults, but (grant that this is a much rarer
exposure) my foibles; and, in my anxiety for your entertainment, I have
not grudged you the pleasure of a laugh--even at my own expense. Forgive
me, then, if I am not a fashionable hero--forgive me if I have not wept
over a “blighted spirit,” nor boasted of a “British heart;” and allow
that, a man, who, in these days of alternate Werters and Worthies, is
neither the one nor the other, is, at least, a novelty in print, though,
I fear, common enough in life.
And, now my kind reader, having remembered the proverb, and in saying
one word to thee, having said two for myself, I will no longer detain
thee. Whatever thou mayest think of me and my thousand faults, both as
an author, and a man, believe me it is with a sincere and affectionate
wish for the accomplishment of my parting words, that I bid
thee--FAREWELL!
End of Project Gutenberg’s Pelham, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton