A CHANGE IN CONDUCT AND IN CHARACTER: OUR EVIL PASSIONS WILL SOMETIMES
PRODUCE GOOD EFFECTS; AND ON THE CONTRARY, AN ALTERATION FOR THE BETTER
IN MANNERS WILL, NOT UNFREQUENTLY, HAVE AMONGST ITS CAUSES A LITTLE
CORRUPTION OF MIND; FOR THE FEELINGS ARE SO BLENDED THAT, IN SUPPRESSING
THOSE DISAGREEABLE TO OTHERS, WE OFTEN SUPPRESS THOSE WHICH ARE AMIABLE
IN THEMSELVES.
MY twin brother, Gerald, was a tall, strong, handsome boy, blessed with
a great love for the orthodox academical studies, and extraordinary
quickness of ability. Nevertheless, he was indolent by nature in things
which were contrary to his taste; fond of pleasure; and, amidst all his
personal courage, ran a certain vein of irresolution, which rendered it
easy for a cool and determined mind to awe or to persuade him. I cannot
help thinking, too, that, clever as he was, there was something
commonplace in the cleverness; and that his talent was of that
mechanical yet quick nature which makes wonderful boys but mediocre men.
In any other family he would have been considered the beauty; in ours he
was thought the genius.
My youngest brother, Aubrey, was of a very different disposition of mind
and frame of body; thoughtful, gentle, susceptible, acute; with an
uncertain bravery, like a woman's, and a taste for reading, that varied
with the caprice of every hour. He was the beauty of the three, and my
mother's favourite. Never, indeed, have I seen the countenance of man
so perfect, so glowingly yet delicately handsome, as that of Aubrey
Devereux. Locks, soft, glossy, and twining into ringlets, fell in dark
profusion over a brow whiter than marble; his eyes were black and tender
as a Georgian girl's; his lips, his teeth, the contour of his face, were
all cast in the same feminine and faultless mould; his hands would have
shamed those of Madame de la Tisseur, whose lover offered six thousand
marks to any European who could wear her glove; and his figure would
have made Titania give up her Henchman, and the King of the Fairies be
anything but pleased with the exchange.
Such were my two brothers; or, rather (so far as the internal qualities
are concerned), such they seemed to me; for it is a singular fact that
we never judge of our near kindred so well as we judge of others; and I
appeal to any one, whether, of all people by whom he has been mistaken,
he has not been most often mistaken by those with whom he was brought
up.
I had always loved Aubrey, but they had not suffered him to love me; and
we had been so little together that we had in common none of those
childish remembrances which serve, more powerfully than all else in
later life, to cement and soften affection. In fact, I was the
scapegoat of the family. What I must have been in early childhood I
cannot tell; but before I was ten years old I was the object of all the
despondency and evil forebodings of my relations. My father said I
laughed at /la gloire et le grand monarque/ the very first time he
attempted to explain to me the value of the one and the greatness of the
other. The countess said I had neither my father's eye nor her own
smile,--that I was slow at my letters and quick with my tongue; and
throughout the whole house nothing was so favourite a topic as the
extent of my rudeness and the venom of my repartee. Montreuil, on his
entrance into our family, not only fell in with, but favoured and
fostered, the reigning humour against me; whether from that /divide et
impera/ system, which was so grateful to his temper, or from the mere
love of meddling and intrigue, which in him, as in Alberoni, attached
itself equally to petty as to large circles, was not then clearly
apparent; it was only certain that he fomented the dissensions and
widened the breach between my brothers and myself. Alas! after all, I
believe my sole crime was my candour. I had a spirit of frankness which
no fear could tame, and my vengeance for any infantine punishment was in
speaking veraciously of my punishers. Never tell me of the pang of
falsehood to the slandered: nothing is so agonizing to the fine skin of
vanity as the application of a rough truth!
As I grew older, I saw my power and indulged it; and, being scolded for
sarcasm, I was flattered into believing I had wit; so I punned and
jested, lampooned and satirized, till I was as much a torment to others
as I was tormented myself. The secret of all this was that I was
unhappy. Nobody loved me: I felt it to my heart of hearts. I was
conscious of injustice, and the sense of it made me bitter. Our
feelings, especially in youth, resemble that leaf which, in some old
traveller, is described as expanding itself to warmth, but when chilled,
not only shrinking and closing, but presenting to the spectator thorns
which had lain concealed upon the opposite side of it before.
With my brother Gerald, I had a deadly and irreconcilable feud. He was
much stouter, taller, and stronger than myself; and, far from conceding
to me that respect which I imagined my priority of birth entitled me to
claim, he took every opportunity to deride my pretensions, and to
vindicate the cause of the superior strength and vigour which
constituted his own. It would have done your heart good to have seen us
cuff one another, we did it with such zeal. There is nothing in human
passion like a good brotherly hatred! My mother said, with the most
feeling earnestness, that she used to feel us fighting even before our
birth: we certainly lost no time directly after it. Both my parents
were secretly vexed that I had come into the world an hour sooner than
my brother; and Gerald himself looked upon it as a sort of juggle,--a
kind of jockeyship by which he had lost the prerogative of birthright.
This very early rankled in his heart, and he was so much a greater
favourite than myself that, instead of rooting out so unfortunate a
feeling on his part, my good parents made no scruple of openly lamenting
my seniority. I believe the real cause of our being taken from the
domestic instructions of the Abbe (who was an admirable teacher) and
sent to school, was solely to prevent my uncle deciding everything in my
favour. Montreuil, however, accompanied us to our academy, and remained
with us during the three years in which we were perfecting ourselves in
the blessings of education.
At the end of the second year, a prize was instituted for the best
proficient at a very severe examination; two months before it took place
we went home for a few days. After dinner my uncle asked me to walk
with him in the park. I did so: we strolled along to the margin of a
rivulet which ornamented the grounds. There my uncle, for the first
time, broke silence.
"Morton," said he, looking down at his left leg, "Morton, let me see;
thou art now of a reasonable age,--fourteen at the least."
"Fifteen, if it please you, sir," said I, elevating my stature as much
as I was able.
"Humph! my boy; and a pretty time of life it is, too. Your brother
Gerald is taller than you by two inches."
"But I can beat him for all that, uncle," said I, colouring, and
clenching my fist.
My uncle pulled down his right ruffle. "'Gad so, Morton, you're a brave
fellow," said he; "but I wish you were less of a hero and more of a
scholar. I wish you could beat him in Greek as well as in boxing. I
will tell you what Old Rowley said," and my uncle occupied the next
quarter of an hour with a story. The story opened the good old
gentleman's heart; my laughter opened it still more. "Hark ye, sirrah!"
said he, pausing abruptly, and grasping my hand with a vigorous effort
of love and muscle, "hark ye, sirrah,--I love you,--'Sdeath, I do. I
love you better than both your brothers, and that crab of a priest into
the bargain; but I am grieved to the heart to hear what I do of you.
They tell me you are the idlest boy in the school; that you are always
beating your brother Gerald, and making a scurrilous jest of your mother
or myself."
"Who says so? who dares say so?" said I, with an emphasis that would
have startled a less hearty man than Sir William Devereux. "They lie,
Uncle; by my soul they do. Idle I am; quarrelsome with my brother I
confess myself; but jesting at you or my mother--never--never. No, no;
/you/, too, who have been so kind to me,--the only one who ever was.
No, no; do not think I could be such a wretch:" and as I said this the
tears gushed from my eyes.
My good uncle was exceedingly affected. "Look ye, child," said he, "I
do not believe them. 'Sdeath, not a word; I would repeat to you a good
jest now of Sedley's, 'Gad, I would, but I am really too much moved just
at present. I tell you what, my boy, I tell you what you shall do:
there is a trial coming on at school--eh?--well, the Abbe tells me
Gerald is certain of being first, and you of being last. Now, Morton,
you shall beat your brother, and shame the Jesuit. There; my mind's
spoken; dry your tears, my boy, and I'll tell you the jest Sedley made:
it was in the Mulberry Garden one day--" And the knight told his story.
I dried my tears, pressed my uncle's hand, escaped from him as soon as I
was able, hastened to my room, and surrendered myself to reflection.
When my uncle so good-naturedly proposed that I should conquer Gerald at
the examination, nothing appeared to him more easy; he was pleased to
think I had more talent than my brother, and talent, according to his
creed, was the only master-key to unlock every science. A problem in
Euclid or a phrase in Pindar, a secret in astronomy or a knotty passage
in the Fathers, were all riddles, with the solution of which application
had nothing to do. One's mother-wit was a precious sort of necromancy,
which could pierce every mystery at first sight; and all the gifts of
knowledge, in his opinion, like reading and writing in that of the sage
Dogberry, "came by nature." Alas! I was not under the same pleasurable
delusion; I rather exaggerated than diminished the difficulty of my
task, and thought, at the first glance, that nothing short of a miracle
would enable me to excel my brother. Gerald, a boy of natural talent,
and, as I said before, of great assiduity in the orthodox
studies,--especially favoured too by the instruction of Montreuil,--had
long been esteemed the first scholar of our little world; and though I
knew that with some branches of learning I was more conversant than
himself, yet, as my emulation had been hitherto solely directed to
bodily contention, I had never thought of contesting with him a
reputation for which I cared little, and on a point in which I had been
early taught that I could never hope to enter into any advantageous
comparison with the "genius" of the Devereuxs.
A new spirit now passed into me: I examined myself with a jealous and
impartial scrutiny; I weighed my acquisitions against those of my
brother; I called forth, from their secret recesses, the unexercised and
almost unknown stores I had from time to time laid up in my mental
armoury to moulder and to rust. I surveyed them with a feeling that
they might yet be polished into use; and, excited alike by the stimulus
of affection on one side and hatred on the other, my mind worked itself
from despondency into doubt, and from doubt into the sanguineness of
hope. I told none of my design; I exacted from my uncle a promise not
to betray it; I shut myself in my room; I gave out that I was ill; I saw
no one, not even the Abbe; I rejected his instructions, for I looked
upon him as an enemy; and, for the two months before my trial, I spent
night and day in an unrelaxing application, of which, till then, I had
not imagined myself capable.
Though inattentive to the school exercises, I had never been wholly
idle. I was a lover of abstruser researches than the hackneyed subjects
of the school, and we had really received such extensive and judicious
instructions from the Abbe during our early years that it would have
been scarcely possible for any of us to have fallen into a thorough
distaste for intellectual pursuits. In the examination I foresaw that
much which I had previously acquired might be profitably
displayed,--much secret and recondite knowledge of the customs and
manners of the ancients, as well as their literature, which curiosity
had led me to obtain, and which I knew had never entered into the heads
of those who, contented with their reputation in the customary
academical routine, had rarely dreamed of wandering into less beaten
paths of learning. Fortunately too for me, Gerald was so certain of
success that latterly he omitted all precaution to obtain it; and as
none of our schoolfellows had the vanity to think of contesting with
him, even the Abbe seemed to imagine him justified in his supineness.
The day arrived. Sir William, my mother, the whole aristocracy of the
neighbourhood, were present at the trial. The Abbe came to my room a
few hours before it commenced: he found the door locked.
"Ungracious boy," said he, "admit me; I come at the earnest request of
your brother Aubrey to give you some hints preparatory to the
examination."
"He has indeed come at my wish," said the soft and silver voice of
Aubrey, in a supplicating tone: "do admit him, dear Morton, for my
sake!"
"Go," said I, bitterly, from within, "go: ye are both my foes and
slanderers; you come to insult my disgrace beforehand; but perhaps you
will yet be disappointed."
"You will not open the door?" said the priest.
"I will not; begone."
"He will indeed disgrace his family," said Montreuil, moving away.
"He will disgrace himself," said Aubrey, dejectedly.
I laughed scornfully. If ever the consciousness of strength is
pleasant, it is when we are thought most weak.
The greater part of our examination consisted in the answering of
certain questions in writing, given to us in the three days immediately
previous to the grand and final one; for this last day was reserved the
paper of composition (as it was termed) in verse and prose, and the
personal examination in a few showy, but generally understood, subjects.
When Gerald gave in his paper, and answered the verbal questions, a buzz
of admiration and anxiety went round the room. His person was so
handsome, his address so graceful, his voice so assured and clear, that
a strong and universal sympathy was excited in his favour. The
head-master publicly complimented him. He regretted only the deficiency
of his pupil in certain minor but important matters. I came next, for I
stood next to Gerald in our class. As I walked up the hall, I raised my
eyes to the gallery in which my uncle and his party sat. I saw that my
mother was listening to the Abbe, whose eye, severe, cold, and
contemptuous, was bent upon me. But my uncle leaned over the railing of
the gallery, with his plumed hat in his hand, which, when he caught my
look, he waved gently,--as if in token of encouragement, and with an air
so kind and cheering, that I felt my step grow prouder as I approached
the conclave of the masters.
"Morton Devereux," said the president of the school, in a calm, loud,
austere voice, that filled the whole hall, "we have looked over your
papers on the three previous days, and they have given us no less
surprise than pleasure. Take heed and time how you answer us now."
At this speech a loud murmur was heard in my uncle's party, which
gradually spread round the hall. I again looked up: my mother's face
was averted; that of the Abbe was impenetrable; but I saw my uncle
wiping his eyes, and felt a strange emotion creeping into my own, I
turned hastily away, and presented my paper; the head master received
it, and, putting it aside, proceeded to the verbal examination.
Conscious of the parts in which Gerald was likely to fail, I had paid
especial attention to the minutiae of scholarship, and my forethought
stood me in good stead at the present moment. My trial ceased; my last
paper was read. I bowed, and retired to the other end of the hall. I
was not so popular as Gerald; a crowd was assembled round him, but I
stood alone. As I leaned against a column, with folded arms, and a
countenance which I felt betrayed little of my internal emotions, my eye
caught Gerald's. He was very pale, and I could see that his hand
trembled. Despite of our enmity, I felt for him. The worst passions
are softened by triumph, and I foresaw that mine was at hand.
The whole examination was over. Every boy had passed it. The masters
retired for a moment; they reappeared and reseated themselves. The
first sound I heard was that of my own name. I was the victor of the
day: I was more; I was one hundred marks before my brother. My head
swam round; my breath forsook me. Since then I have been placed in many
trials of life, and had many triumphs; but never was I so overcome as at
that moment. I left the hall; I scarcely listened to the applauses with
which it rang. I hurried to my own chamber, and threw myself on the bed
in a delirium of intoxicated feeling, which had in it more of rapture
than anything but the gratification of first love or first vanity can
bestow.
Ah! it would be worth stimulating our passions if it were only for the
pleasure of remembering their effect; and all violent excitement should
be indulged less for present joy than for future retrospection.
My uncle's step was the first thing which intruded on my solitude.
"Od's fish, my boy," said he, crying like a child, "this is fine
work,--'Gad, so it is. I almost wish I were a boy myself to have a
match with you,--faith I do,--see what it is to learn a little of life!
If you had never read my play, do you think you would have done half so
well?--no, my boy, I sharpened your wits for you. Honest George
Etherege and I,--we were the making of you! and when you come to be a
great man, and are asked what made you so, you shall say, 'My uncle's
play;' 'Gad, you shall. Faith, boy, never smile! Od's fish, I'll tell
you a story as /a propos/ to the present occasion as if it had been made
on purpose. Rochester and I and Sedley were walking one day,
and--/entre nous/--awaiting certain appointments--hem!--for my part I
was a little melancholy or so, thinking of my catastrophe,--that is, of
my play's catastrophe; and so, said Sedley, winking at Rochester, 'Our
friend is sorrowful.' 'Truly,' said I, seeing they were about to banter
me,--for you know they were arch fellows,--'truly, little Sid' (we
called Sedley Sid), 'you are greatly mistaken;'--you see, Morton, I was
thus sharp upon him because when you go to court you will discover that
it does not do to take without giving. And then Rochester said, looking
roguishly towards me, the wittiest thing against Sedley that ever I
heard; it was the most celebrated /bon mot/ at court for three weeks; he
said--no, boy, od's fish, it was so stinging I can't tell it thee;
faith, I can't. Poor Sid; he was a good fellow, though malicious,--and
he's dead now. I'm sorry I said a word about it. Nay, never look so
disappointed, boy. You have all the cream of the story as it is. And
now put on your hat, and come with me. I've got leave for you to take a
walk with your old uncle."
That night, as I was undressing, I heard a gentle rap at the door, and
Aubrey entered. He approached me timidly, and then, throwing his arms
round my neck, kissed me in silence. I had not for years experienced
such tenderness from him; and I sat now mute and surprised. At last I
said, with the sneer which I must confess I usually assumed towards
those persons whom I imagined I had a right to think ill of:--
"Pardon me, my gentle brother, there is something portentous in this
sudden change. Look well round the room, and tell me at your earliest
leisure what treasure it is that you are desirous should pass from my
possession into your own."
"Your love, Morton," said Aubrey, drawing back, but apparently in pride,
not anger; "your love: I ask nothing more."
"Of a surety, kind Aubrey," said I, "the favour seems somewhat slight to
have caused your modesty such delay in requesting it. I think you have
been now some years nerving your mind to the exertion."
"Listen to me, Morton," said Aubrey, suppressing his emotion; "you have
always been my favourite brother. From our first childhood my heart
yearned to you. Do you remember the time when an enraged bull pursued
me, and you, then only ten years old, placed yourself before it and
defended me at the risk of your own life? Do you think I could ever
forget that,--child as I was?--never, Morton, never!"
Before I could answer the door was thrown open, and the Abbe entered.
"Children," said he, and the single light of the room shone full upon
his unmoved, rigid, commanding features--"children, be as Heaven
intended you,--friends and brothers. Morton, I have wronged you, I own
it; here is my hand: Aubrey, let all but early love, and the present
promise of excellence which your brother displays, be forgotten."
With these words the priest joined our hands. I looked on my brother,
and my heart melted. I flung myself into his arms and wept.
"This is well," said Montreuil, surveying us with a kind of grim
complacency, and, taking my brother's arm, he blest us both, and led
Aubrey away.
That day was a new era in my boyish life. I grew henceforth both better
and worse. Application and I having once shaken hands became very good
acquaintance. I had hitherto valued myself upon supplying the frailties
of a delicate frame by an uncommon agility in all bodily exercises. I
now strove rather to improve the deficiencies of my mind, and became
orderly, industrious, and devoted to study. So far so well; but as I
grew wiser, I grew also more wary. Candour no longer seemed to me the
finest of virtues. I thought before i spoke: and second thought
sometimes quite changed the nature of the intended speech; in short,
gentlemen of the next century, to tell you the exact truth, the little
Count Devereux became somewhat of a hypocrite!