London once more! How strange, lone, and savage I feel in the streets.
I am ashamed to have so much health and strength, when I look at those
slim forms, stooping backs, and pale faces. I pick my way through the
crowd with the merciful timidity of a good-natured giant. I am afraid
of jostling against a man for fear the collision should kill him. I get
out of the way of a thread-paper clerk, and 'tis a wonder I am not run
over by the omnibuses;--I feel as if I could run over them! I perceive,
too, that there is something outlandish, peregrinate, and lawless about
me. Beau Brummell would certainly have denied me all pretension to the
simple air of a gentleman, for every third passenger turns back to
look at me. I retreat to my hotel--send for bootmaker, hatter, tailor,
and haircutter. I humanise myself from head to foot. Even Ulysses
is obliged to have recourse to the arts of Minerva, and, to speak
unmetaphorically, "smarten himself up," before the faithful Penelope
condescends to acknowledge him. The artificers promise all despatch.
Meanwhile I hasten to re-make acquaintance with my mother country over
files of the _Times_, _Post_, _Chronicle_, and _Herald_. Nothing comes
amiss to me, but articles on Australia; from those I turn aside with
the true pshaw-supercilious of your practical man.
No more are leaders filled with praise and blame of Trevanion. "Percy's
spur is cold." Lord Ulverstone figures only in the _Court Circular_,
or "_Fashionable Movements_." Lord Ulverstone entertains a royal duke
at dinner, or dines in turn with a royal duke, or has come to town, or
gone out of it. At most, (faint Platonic reminiscence of the former
life,) Lord Ulverstone says in the House of Lords a few words on some
question, not a party one; and on which (though affecting perhaps the
interests of some few thousands, or millions, as the case may be)
men speak without "hears," and are inaudible in the gallery; or Lord
Ulverstone takes the chair at an agricultural meeting, or returns
thanks when his health is drank at a dinner at Guildhall. But the
daughter rises as the father sets, though over a very different kind of
world.
"First ball of the season at Castleton House!" Long descriptions of
the rooms and the company; above all, of the hostess. Lines on the
Marchioness of Castleton's picture in the "Book of Beauty," by the Hon.
Fitzroy Fiddledum, beginning with, "Art thou an angel from," &c--a
paragraph that pleased me more on "Lady Castleton's Infant School,
at Raby Park;" then again--"Lady Castleton, the new patroness at
Almacks;" a criticism more rapturous than ever gladdened living poet,
on Lady Castleton's superb diamond stomacher, just re-set by Storr and
Mortimer; Westmacott's bust of Lady Castleton; Landseer's picture of
Lady Castleton and her children, in the costume of the olden time. Not
a month in that long file of the _Morning Post_ but what Lady Castleton
shone forth from the rest of womankind--
"----Velut inter ignes
Luna minores."
The blood mounted to my cheek. Was it to this splendid constellation
in the patrician heaven that my obscure, portionless youth had
dared to lift its presumptuous eyes? But what is this? "Indian
intelligence--Skilful Retreat of the Sepoys, under Captain de Caxton!"
A captain already--what is the date of the newspaper? Three months
ago. The leading article quotes the name with high praise. Is there
no leaven of envy amidst the joy at my heart? How obscure has been
my career--how laurel-less my poor battle with adverse fortune! Fie,
Pisistratus! I am ashamed of thee. Has this accursed Old World, with
its feverish rivalries, diseased thee already? Get thee home, quick,
to the arms of thy mother, the embrace of thy father--hear Roland's
low blessing, that thou hast helped to minister to the very fame of
that son. If thou wilt have ambition, take it, not soiled and foul with
the mire of London. Let it spring fresh and hardy in the calm air of
wisdom; and fed, as with dews, by the loving charities of Home.