VIVIAN GREY
By The Earl Of Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli
The English Comédie Humaine
Second Series
[Illustration: frontispiece]
[Illustration: titlepage]
PUBLISHER’S NOTE.
As a novelist, Benjamin Disraeli belongs to the early part of the
nineteenth century. “Vivian Grey” (1826-27) and “Sybil” (1845) mark the
beginning and the end of his truly creative period; for the two
productions of his latest years, “Lothair” (1870) and “Endymion” (1880),
add nothing to the characteristics of his earlier volumes except the
changes of feeling and power which accompany old age. His period, thus,
is that of Bulwer, Dickens, and Thackeray, and of the later years of Sir
Walter Scott--a fact which his prominence as a statesman during the last
decade of his life, as well as the vogue of “Lothair” and “Endymion,”
has tended to obscure. His style, his material, and his views of English
character and life all date from that earlier time. He was born in 1804
and died in 1881.
Disraeli was barely twenty-one when he published “Vivian Grey,” his
first work of fiction; and the young author was at once hailed as a
master of his art by an almost unanimous press.
In this, as in his subsequent books, it was not so much Disraeli’s
notable skill as a novelist but rather his portrayal of the social and
political life of the day that made him one of the most popular writers
of his generation, and earned for him a lasting fame as a man of
letters. In “Vivian Grey” is narrated the career of an ambitious young
man of rank; and in this story the brilliant author has preserved to us
the exact tone of the English drawing-room, as he so well knew it,
sketching with sure and rapid strokes a whole portrait gallery of
notables, disguised in name may be, but living characters nevertheless,
who charm us with their graceful manners and general air of being people
of consequence. “Vivian Grey,” then, though not a great novel is beyond
question a marvelously true picture of the life and character of an
interesting period of English history and made notable because of
Disraeli’s fine imagination and vivid descriptive powers.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Is there anything you want, sir?
He distinctly beheld Mrs. Felix Lorraine open a small silver box.
It was very slowly that the dark thought came over his mind.
VIVIAN GREY
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
We are not aware that the infancy of Vivian Grey was distinguished by
any extraordinary incident. The solicitude of the most affectionate of
mothers, and the care of the most attentive of nurses, did their best to
injure an excellent constitution. But Vivian was an only child, and
these exertions were therefore excusable. For the first five years of
his life, with his curly locks and his fancy dress, he was the pride of
his own and the envy of all neighbouring establishments; but, in process
of time, the spirit of boyism began to develop itself, and Vivian not
only would brush his hair straight and rebel against his nurse, but
actually insisted upon being--breeched! At this crisis it was discovered
that he had been spoiled, and it was determined that he should be sent
to school. Mr. Grey observed, also, that the child was nearly ten years
old, and did not know his alphabet, and Mrs. Grey remarked that he was
getting ugly. The fate of Vivian was decided.
“I am told, my dear,” observed Mrs. Grey, one day after dinner to her
husband, “I am told, my dear, that Dr. Flummery’s would do very well for
Vivian. Nothing can exceed the attention which is paid to the pupils.
There are sixteen young ladies, all the daughters of clergymen, merely
to attend to the morals and the linen; terms moderate: 100 guineas per
annum, for all under six years of age, and few extras, only for fencing,
pure milk, and the guitar. Mrs. Metcalfe has both her boys there, and
she says their progress is astonishing! Percy Metcalfe, she assures me,
was quite as backward as Vivian; indeed, backwarder; and so was Dudley,
who was taught at home on the new system, by a pictorial alphabet, and
who persisted to the last, notwithstanding all the exertions of Miss
Barrett, in spelling A-P-E, monkey, merely because over the word there
was a monster munching an apple.”
“And quite right in the child, my dear. Pictorial alphabet! pictorial
fool’s head!”
“But what do you say to Flummery’s, Horace?”
“My dear, do what you like. I never trouble myself, you know, about
these matters;” and Mr. Grey refreshed himself, after this domestic
attack, with a glass of claret.
Mr. Grey was a gentleman who had succeeded, when the heat of youth was
over, to the enjoyment of a life estate of some two thousand a year. He
was a man of lettered tastes, and had hailed with no slight pleasure his
succession to a fortune which, though limited in its duration, was still
a great thing for a young lounger about town, not only with no
profession, but with a mind unfitted for every species of business.
Grey, to the astonishment of his former friends, the wits, made an
excellent domestic match; and, leaving the whole management of his
household to his lady, felt himself as independent in his magnificent
library as if he had never ceased to be that true freeman, A MAN
OF CHAMBERS.
The young Vivian had not, by the cares which fathers are always heirs
to, yet reminded his parent that children were anything else but
playthings. The intercourse between father and son was, of course,
extremely limited; for Vivian was, as yet, the mother’s child; Mr.
Grey’s parental duties being confined to giving his son a daily glass of
claret, pulling his ears with all the awkwardness of literary affection,
and trusting to God “that the urchin would never scribble.”
“I won’t go to school, mamma,” bawled Vivian.
“But you must, my love,” answered Mrs. Grey; “all good boys go to
school;” and in the plenitude of a mother’s love she tried to make her
offspring’s hair curl.
“I won’t have my hair curl, mamma; the boys will laugh at me,” rebawled
the beauty.
“Now who could have told the child that?” monologised mamma, with all a
mamma’s admiration.
“Charles Appleyard told me so; his hair curled, and the boys called him
girl. Papa! give me some more claret; I won’t go to school.”
CHAPTER II
Three or four years passed over, and the mind of Vivian Grey
astonishingly developed itself. He had long ceased to wear frills, had
broached the subject of boots three or four times, made a sad inroad
during the holidays in Mr. Grey’s bottle of claret, and was reported as
having once sworn at the butler. The young gentleman began also to hint,
during every vacation, that the fellows at Flummery’s were somewhat too
small for his companionship, and (first bud of puppyism!) the former
advocate of straight hair now expended a portion of his infant income in
the purchase of Macassar, and began to cultivate his curls. Mrs. Grey
could not entertain for a moment the idea of her son’s associating with
children, the eldest of whom (to adopt his own account) was not above
eight years old; so Flummery, it was determined, he should leave. But
where to go? Mr. Grey was for Eton, but his lady was one of those women
whom nothing in the world can persuade that a public school is anything
else but a place where boys are roasted alive; and so with tears, and
taunts, and supplications, the point of private education was conceded.
At length it was resolved that the only hope should remain at home a
season, until some plan should be devised for the cultivation of his
promising understanding. During this year Vivian became a somewhat more
constant intruder into the library than heretofore; and living so much
among books, he was insensibly attracted to those silent companions,
that speak so eloquently.
How far the character of the parent may influence the character of the
child the metaphysician must decide. Certainly the character of Vivian
Grey underwent, at this period of his life, a sensible change.
Doubtless, constant communion with a mind highly refined, severely
cultivated, and much experienced, cannot but produce a beneficial
impression, even upon a mind formed and upon principles developed: how
infinitely more powerful must the influence of such communion be upon a
youthful heart, ardent, innocent, and unpractised! As Vivian was not to
figure in the microcosm of a public school, a place for which, from his
temper, he was almost better fitted than any young genius whom the
playing fields of Eton or the hills of Winton can remember, there was
some difficulty in fixing upon his future Academus. Mr. Grey’s two
axioms were, first, that no one so young as his son should settle in the
metropolis, and that Vivian must consequently not have a private tutor;
and, secondly, that all private schools were quite worthless; and,
therefore, there was every probability of Vivian not receiving any
education whatever.
At length, an exception to axiom second started up in the establishment
of Mr. Dallas. This gentleman was a clergyman, a profound Grecian, and a
poor man. He had edited the Alcestis, and married his laundress; lost
money by his edition, and his fellowship by his match. In a few days the
hall of Mr. Grey’s London mansion was filled with all sorts of
portmanteaus, trunks, and travelling cases, directed in a boy’s
sprawling hand to “Vivian Grey, Esquire, at the Reverend Everard
Dallas, Burnsley Vicarage, Hants.”
“God bless you, my boy! write to your mother soon, and remember your
Journal.”
CHAPTER III
The rumour of the arrival of “a new fellow” circulated with rapidity
through the inmates of Burnsley Vicarage, and about fifty young devils
were preparing to quiz the newcomer, when the school-room door opened,
and Mr. Dallas, accompanied by Vivian, entered.
“A dandy, by Jove!” whispered St. Leger Smith. “What a knowing set
out!” squeaked Johnson secundus. “Mammy-sick!” growled Barlow primus.
This last exclamation was, however, a scandalous libel, for certainly no
being ever stood in a pedagogue’s presence with more perfect sang froid,
and with a bolder front, than did, at this moment, Vivian Grey.
One principle in Mr. Dallas’s system was always to introduce a new-comer
in school-hours. He was thus carried immediately in medias res, and the
curiosity of his co-mates being in a great degree satisfied at the time
when that curiosity could not personally annoy him, the new-comer was,
of course, much better prepared to make his way when the absence of the
ruler became a signal for some oral communication with “the arrival.”
However, in the present instance the young savages at Burnsley Vicarage
had caught a Tartar; and in a very few days Vivian Grey was decidedly
the most popular fellow in the school. He was “so dashing! so devilish
good-tempered! so completely up to everything!” The magnates of the land
were certainly rather jealous of his success, but their very sneers bore
witness to his popularity. “Cursed puppy,” whispered St. Leger Smith.
“Thinks himself knowing,” squeaked Johnson secundus. “Thinks himself
witty,” growled Barlow primus.
Notwithstanding this cabal, days rolled on at Burnsley Vicarage only to
witness the increase of Vivian’s popularity. Although more deficient
than most of his own age in accurate classical attainments, he found
himself, in talents and various acquirements, immeasurably their
superior. And singular is it that at school distinction in such points
is ten thousand times more admired by the multitude than the most
profound knowledge of Greek Metres, or the most accurate acquaintance
with the value of Roman coins. Vivian Grey’s English verses and Vivian
Grey’s English themes were the subject of universal commendation. Some
young lads made copies of these productions, to enrich, at the Christmas
holidays, their sisters’ albums; while the whole school were scribbling
embryo prize-poems, epics of twenty lines on “the Ruins of Paestum” and
“the Temple of Minerva;” “Agrigentum,” and “the Cascade of Terni.”
Vivian’s productions at this time would probably have been rejected by
the commonest twopenny publication about town, yet they turned the brain
of the whole school; while fellows who were writing Latin Dissertations
and Greek Odes, which might have made the fortune of the Classical
Journal, were looked on by the multitude as as great dunderheads as
themselves. Such is the advantage which, even in this artificial world,
everything that is genuine has over everything that is false and forced.
The dunderheads who wrote “good Latin” and “Attic Greek” did it by a
process by means of which the youngest fellow in the school was
conscious he could, if he chose, attain the same perfection. Vivian
Grey’s verses were unlike anything which had yet appeared in the
literary Annals of Burnsley Vicarage, and that which was quite novel was
naturally thought quite excellent.
There is no place in the world where greater homage is paid to talent
than an English school. At a public school, indeed, if a youth of great
talents be blessed with an amiable and generous disposition, he ought
not to envy the Minister of England. If any captain of Eton or praefect
of Winchester be reading these pages, let him dispassionately consider
in what situation of life he can rationally expect that it will be in
his power to exercise such influence, to have such opportunities of
obliging others, and be so confident of an affectionate and grateful
return. Aye, there’s the rub! Bitter thought! that gratitude should
cease the moment we become men.
And sure I am that Vivian Grey was loved as ardently and as faithfully
as you might expect from innocent young hearts. His slight
accomplishments were the standard of all perfection, his sayings were
the soul of all good fellowship, and his opinion the guide in any crisis
which occurred in the monotonous existence of the little commonwealth.
And time flew gaily on.
One winter evening, as Vivian, with some of his particular cronies, were
standing round the school-room fire, they began, as all schoolboys do
when it grows rather dark and they grow rather sentimental, to talk
of HOME.
“Twelve weeks more,” said Augustus Etherege; “twelve weeks more, and we
are free! The glorious day should be celebrated.”
“A feast, a feast!” exclaimed Poynings.
“A feast is but the work of a night,” said Vivian Grey; “something more
stirring for me! What say you to private theatricals?”
The proposition was, of course, received with enthusiasm, and it was not
until they had unanimously agreed to act that they universally
remembered that acting was not allowed. And then they consulted whether
they should ask Dallas, and then they remembered that Dallas had been
asked fifty times, and then they “supposed they must give it up;” and
then Vivian Grey made a proposition which the rest were secretly sighing
for, but which they were afraid to make themselves; he proposed that
they should act without asking Dallas. “Well, then, we’ll do it without
asking him,” said Vivian; “nothing is allowed in this life, and
everything is done: in town there is a thing called the French play, and
that is not allowed, yet my aunt has got a private box there. Trust me
for acting, but what shall we perform?”
This question was, as usual, the fruitful source of jarring opinions.
One proposed Othello, chiefly because it would be so easy to black a
face with a burnt cork. Another was for Hamlet, solely because he wanted
to act the ghost, which he proposed doing in white shorts and a
night-cap. A third was for Julius Caesar, because the murder scene would
be such fun.
“No! no!” said Vivian, tired at these various and varying proposals,
“this will never do. Out upon Tragedies; let’s have a Comedy!”
“A Comedy! a Comedy! oh! how delightful!”
CHAPTER IV
After an immense number of propositions, and an equal number of
repetitions, Dr. Hoadley’s bustling drama was fixed upon. Vivian was to
act Ranger, Augustus Etherege was to personate Clarinda, because he was
a fair boy and always blushing; and the rest of the characters found
able representatives. Every half-holiday was devoted to rehearsals, and
nothing could exceed the amusement and thorough fun which all the
preparations elicited. All went well; Vivian wrote a pathetic prologue
and a witty epilogue. Etherege got on capitally in the mask scene, and
Poynings was quite perfect in Jack Maggot. There was, of course, some
difficulty in keeping all things in order, but then Vivian Grey was such
an excellent manager! and then, with infinite tact, the said manager
conciliated the Classics, for he allowed St. Leger Smith to select a
Greek motto, from the Andromache, for the front of the theatre; and
Johnson secundus and Barlow primus were complimented by being allowed to
act the chairmen.
But alas! in the midst of all this sunshine, the seeds of discord and
dissension were fast flourishing. Mr. Dallas himself was always so
absorbed in some freshly-imported German commentator that it was a fixed
principle with him never to trouble himself with anything that concerned
his pupils “out of school hours.” The consequence was, that certain
powers were necessarily delegated to a certain set of beings
called USHERS.
The usherian rule had, however, always been comparatively light at
Burnsley Vicarage, for the good Dallas, never for a moment entrusting
the duties of tuition to a third person, engaged these deputies merely
as a sort of police, to regulate the bodies, rather than the minds, of
his youthful subjects. One of the first principles of the new theory
introduced into the establishment of Burnsley Vicarage by Mr. Vivian
Grey was, that the ushers were to be considered by the boys as a
species of upper servants; were to be treated with civility, certainly,
as all servants are by gentlemen; but that no further attention was to
be paid them, and that any fellow voluntarily conversing with an usher
was to be cut dead by the whole school. This pleasant arrangement was no
secret to those whom it most immediately concerned, and, of course,
rendered Vivian rather a favourite with them. These men had not the tact
to conciliate the boy, and were, notwithstanding, too much afraid of his
influence in the school to attack him openly; so they waited with that
patience which insulted beings can alone endure.
One of these creatures must not be forgotten; his name was Mallett; he
was a perfect specimen of the genuine usher. The monster wore a black
coat and waistcoat; the residue of his costume was of that mysterious
colour known by the name of pepper-and-salt. He was a pallid wretch with
a pug nose, white teeth, and marked with the small-pox: long, greasy,
black hair, and small black, beady eyes. This daemon watched the
progress of the theatrical company with eyes gloating with vengeance. No
attempt had been made to keep the fact of the rehearsal a secret from
the police; no objection, on their part, had as yet been made; the
twelve weeks diminished to six; Ranger had secretly ordered a dress from
town, and was to get a steel-handled sword from Fentum’s for Jack
Maggot; and everything was proceeding with delightful success, when one
morning, as Mr. Dallas was apparently about to take his departure, with
a volume of Becker’s Thucydides under his arm, the respected Dominie
stopped, and thus harangued: “I am informed that a great deal is going
on in this family with which it is intended that I shall be kept
unacquainted. It is not my intention to name anybody or anything at
present; but I must say that of late the temper of this family has sadly
changed. Whether there be any seditious stranger among you or not, I
shall not at present even endeavour to discover; but I will warn my old
friends of their new ones:” and so saying, the Dominie withdrew.
All eyes were immediately fixed on Vivian, and the faces of the Classics
were triumphant with smiles; those of the manager’s particular friends,
the Romantics, we may call them, were clouded; but who shall describe
the countenance of Mallett? In a moment the school broke up with an
agitated and tumultuous uproar. “No stranger!” shouted St. Leger Smith;
“no stranger!” vociferated a prepared gang. Vivian’s friends were
silent, for they hesitated to accept for their leader the insulting
title. Those who were neither Vivian’s friends nor in the secret, weak
creatures who side always with the strongest, immediately swelled the
insulting chorus of Mr. St. Leger Smith. That worthy, emboldened by his
success and the smiles of Mallett, contained himself no longer: “Down
with the manager!” he cried. His satellites chorussed. But now Vivian
rushed forward. “Mr. Smith, I thank you for being so definite; take
that!” and he struck Smith with such force that the Cleon staggered and
fell; but Smith instantly recovered, and a ring was instantly formed. To
a common observer, the combatants were unequally matched; for Smith was
a burly, big-limbed animal, alike superior to Grey in years and
strength. But Vivian, though delicate in frame and more youthful, was
full his match in spirit, and, thanks to being a Cockney! ten times his
match in science. He had not built a white great coat or drunk blue ruin
at Ben Burn’s for nothing!
Oh! how beautifully he fought! how admirably straight he hit! and
his stops quick as lightning! and his followings up confounding
his adversary with their painful celerity! Smith alike puzzled and
punished, yet proud in his strength, hit round, and wild, and false,
and foamed like a furious elephant. For ten successive rounds the
result was dubious; but in the eleventh the strength of Smith began
to fail him, and the men were more fairly matched. “Go it, Ranger! go
it, Ranger!” halloed the Greyites; “No stranger! no stranger!” eagerly
bawled the more numerous party. “Smith’s floored, by Jove!” exclaimed
Poynings, who was Grey’s second. “At it again! at it again!” exclaimed
all. And now, when Smith must certainly have given in, suddenly stepped
forward Mr. Mallett, accompanied by--Dallas!
“How, Mr. Grey! No answer, sir; I understand that you have always an
answer ready. I do not quote Scripture lightly, Mr. Grey; but ‘Take heed
that you offend not, even with your tongue.’ Now, sir, to your room.”
When Vivian Grey again joined his companions, he found himself almost
universally shunned. Etherege and Poynings were the only individuals who
met him with their former frankness.
“A horrible row, Grey,” said the latter. “After you went, the Doctor
harangued the whole school, and swears you have seduced and ruined us
all; everything was happiness until you came, &c. Mallett is of course
at the bottom of the whole business: but what can we do? Dallas says you
have the tongue of a serpent, and that he will not trust himself to hear
your defence. Infamous shame! I swear! And now every fellow has got a
story against you: some say you are a dandy, others want to know whether
the next piece performed at your theatre will be ‘The Stranger;’ as for
myself and Etherege, we shall leave in a few weeks, and it does not
signify to us; but what the devil you’re to do next half, by Jove, I
can’t say. If I were you, I would not return.”
“Not return, eh! but that will I, though; and we shall see who, in
future, can complain of the sweetness of my voice! Ungrateful fools!”
CHAPTER V
The Vacation was over, and Vivian returned to Burnsley Vicarage. He
bowed cavalierly to Mr. Dallas on his arrival, and immediately sauntered
up into the school-room, where he found a tolerable quantity of wretches
looking as miserable as schoolboys who have left their pleasant homes
generally do for some four-and-twenty hours. “How d’ye do, Grey? How
d’ye do, Grey?” burst from a knot of unhappy fellows, who would have
felt quite delighted had their newly arrived co-mate condescended to
entertain them, as usual, with some capital good story fresh from town.
But they were disappointed.
“We can make room for you at the fire, Grey,” said Theophilus
“I thank you, I am not cold.”
“I suppose you know that Poynings and Etherege don’t come back, Grey?”
“Everybody knew that last half:” and so he walked on.
“Grey, Grey!” halloed King, “don’t go into the dining-room; Mallett is
there alone, and told us not to disturb him. By Jove, the fellow is
going in: there will be a greater row this half between Grey and Mallett
than ever.”
Days, the heavy first days of the half, rolled on, and all the citizens
of the little commonwealth had returned.
“What a dull half this will be!” said Eardley; “how one misses Grey’s
set! After all, they kept the school alive: Poynings was a first-rate
fellow, and Etherege so deuced good-natured! I wonder whom Grey will
crony with this half; have you seen him and Dallas speak together yet?
He cut the Doctor quite dead at Greek to-day.”
“Why, Eardley! Eardley! there is Grey walking round playing fields with
Mallett!” halloed a sawney who was killing the half-holiday by looking
out of the window.
“The devil! I say, Matthews, whose flute is that? It is a devilish
handsome one!”
“It’s Grey’s! I clean it for him,” squeaked a little boy. “He gives me
sixpence a week!”
“Oh, you sneak!” said one.
“Cut him over!”
“Roast him!” cried a third.
“To whom are you going to take the flute?” asked a fourth.
“To Mallett,” squeaked the little fellow. “Grey lends his flute to
Mallett every day.”
“Grey lends his flute to Mallett! The deuce he does! So Grey and Mallett
are going to crony!”
A wild exclamation burst forth from the little party; and away each of
them ran, to spread in all directions the astounding intelligence.
If the rule of the ushers had hitherto been light at Burnsley Vicarage,
its character was materially changed during this half-year. The
vexatious and tyrannical influence of Mallett was now experienced in all
directions, meeting and interfering with the comforts of the boys in
every possible manner. His malice was accompanied, too, by a tact which
could not have been expected from his vulgar mind, and which, at the
same time, could not have been produced by the experience of one in his
situation. It was quite evident to the whole community that his conduct
was dictated by another mind, and that that mind was one versed in all
the secrets of a school-boy’s life, and acquainted with all the workings
of a school-boy’s mind: a species of knowledge which no pedagogue in the
world ever yet attained. There was no difficulty in discovering whose
was the power behind the throne. Vivian Grey was the perpetual companion
of Mallett in his walks, and even in the school; he shunned also the
converse of every one of the boys, and did not affect to conceal that
his quarrel was universal. Superior power, exercised by a superior mind,
was for a long time more than a match even for the united exertions of
the whole school. If any one complained, Mallett’s written answer (and
such Dallas always required) was immediately ready, explaining
everything in the most satisfactory manner, and refuting every complaint
with the most triumphant spirit. Dallas, of course, supported his
deputy, and was soon equally detested. This tyranny had continued
through a great part of the long half-year, and the spirit of the school
was almost broken, when a fresh outrage occurred, of such a nature that
the nearly enslaved multitude conspired.
The plot was admirably formed. On the first bell ringing for school, the
door was to be immediately barred, to prevent the entrance of Dallas.
Instant vengeance was then to be taken on Mallett and his companion--the
sneak! the spy! the traitor! The bell rang: the door was barred: four
stout fellows seized on Mallett, four rushed to Vivian Grey: but stop:
he sprang upon his desk, and, placing his back against the wall, held a
pistol at the foremost: “Not an inch nearer, Smith, or I fire. Let me
not, however, baulk your vengeance on yonder hound: if I could suggest
any refinements in torture, they would be at your service.” Vivian Grey
smiled, while the horrid cries of Mallett indicated that the boys were
“roasting” him. He then walked to the door and admitted the barred-out
Dominie. Silence was restored. There was an explanation and no defence;
and Vivian Grey was expelled.
CHAPTER VI
Vivian was now seventeen; and the system of private education having so
decidedly failed, it was resolved that he should spend the years
antecedent to his going to Oxford at home. Nothing could be a greater
failure than the first weeks of his “course of study.” He was
perpetually violating the sanctity of the drawing-room by the presence
of Scapulas and Hederics, and outraging the propriety of morning
visitors by bursting into his mother’s boudoir with lexicons
and slippers.
“Vivian, my dear,” said his father to him one day, “this will never do;
you must adopt some system for your studies, and some locality for your
reading. Have a room to yourself; set apart certain hours in the day
for your books, and allow no consideration on earth to influence you to
violate their sacredness; and above all, my dear boy, keep your papers
in order. I find a dissertation on ‘The Commerce of Carthage’ stuck in
my large paper copy of ‘Dibdin’s Decameron,’ and an ‘Essay on the
Metaphysics of Music’ (pray, my dear fellow, beware of magazine
scribbling) cracking the back of Montfaucon’s ‘Monarchie.’”
Vivian apologised, promised, protested, and finally sat down “TO READ.”
He had laid the foundations of accurate classical knowledge under the
tuition of the learned Dallas; and twelve hours a day and
self-banishment from society overcame, in twelve months, the ill effects
of his imperfect education. The result of this extraordinary exertion
may be conceived. At the end of twelve months, Vivian, like many other
young enthusiasts, had discovered that all the wit and wisdom of the
world were concentrated in some fifty antique volumes, and he treated
the unlucky moderns with the most sublime spirit of hauteur imaginable.
A chorus in the Medea, that painted the radiant sky of Attica, disgusted
him with the foggy atmosphere of Great Britain; and while Mrs. Grey was
meditating a visit to Brighton, her son was dreaming of the gulf of
Salamis. The spectre in the Persae was his only model for a ghost, and
the furies in the Orestes were his perfection of tragical machinery.
Most ingenious and educated youths have fallen into the same error, but
few have ever carried such feelings to the excess that Vivian Grey did;
for while his mind was daily becoming more enervated under the beautiful
but baneful influence of Classic Reverie, the youth lighted upon PLATO.
Wonderful is it that while the whole soul of Vivian Grey seemed
concentrated and wrapped in the glorious pages of the Athenian; while,
with keen and almost inspired curiosity, he searched, and followed up,
and meditated upon, the definite mystery, the indefinite development;
while his spirit alternately bowed in trembling and in admiration, as he
seemed to be listening to the secrets of the Universe revealed in the
glorious melodies of an immortal voice; wonderful is it, I say, that the
writer, the study of whose works appeared to the young scholar, in the
revelling of his enthusiasm, to be the sole object for which man was
born and had his being, was the cause by which Vivian Grey was saved
from being all his life a dreaming scholar.
Determined to spare no exertions, and to neglect no means, by which he
might enter into the very penetralia of his mighty master’s meaning,
Vivian determined to attack the latter Platonists. These were a race of
men, of whose existence he knew merely by the references to their
productions which were sprinkled in the commentaries of his “best
editions.” In the pride of boyish learning, Vivian had limited his
library to Classics, and the proud leaders of the later schools did not
consequently grace his diminutive bookcase. In this dilemma he flew to
his father, and confessed by his request that his favourites were not
all-sufficient.
“Father! I wish to make myself master of the latter Platonists. I want
Plotinus, and Porphyry, and Iamblichus, and Syrirnus, and Maximus
Tyrius, and Proclus, and Hierocles, and Sallustius, and Damascius.”
Mr. Grey stared at his son, and laughed.
“My dear Vivian! are you quite convinced that the authors you ask for
are all pure Platonists? or have not some of them placed the great end
rather in practical than theoretic virtue, and thereby violated the
first principles of your master? which would be shocking. Are you sure,
too, that these gentlemen have actually ‘withdrawn the sacred veil,
which covers from profane eyes the luminous spectacles?’ Are you quite
convinced that every one of these worthies lived at least five hundred
years after the great master? for I need not tell so profound a
Platonist as yourself that it was not till that period that even
glimpses of the great master’s meaning were discovered. Strange! that
TIME should alike favour the philosophy of theory and the philosophy of
facts. Mr. Vivian Grey, benefiting, I presume, by the lapse of further
centuries, is about to complete the great work which Proclus and
Porphyry commenced.”
“My dear sir! you are pleased to be amusing this morning.”
“My dear boy! I smile, but not with joy. Sit down, and let us have a
little conversation together. Father and son, and father and son on such
terms as we are, should really communicate oftener together than we do.
It has been, perhaps, my fault; it shall not be so again.”
“My dear sir!”
“Nay, nay, it shall be my fault now. Whose it shall be in future,
Vivian, time will show. My dear Vivian, you have now spent upwards of a
year under this roof, and your conduct has been as correct as the most
rigid parent might require. I have not wished to interfere with the
progress of your mind, and I regret it. I have been negligent, but not
wilfully so. I do regret it; because, whatever may be your powers,
Vivian, I at least have the advantage of experience. I see you smile at
a word which I so often use. Well, well, were I to talk to you for ever,
you would not understand what I mean by that single word. The time will
come when you will deem that single word everything. Ardent youths in
their closets, Vivian, too often fancy that they are peculiar beings;
and I have no reason to believe that you are an exception to the general
rule. In passing one whole year of your life, as you have done, you
doubtless imagine that you have been spending your hours in a manner
which no others have done before. Trust me, my boy, thousands have done
the same; and, what is of still more importance, thousands are doing,
and will do, the same. Take the advice of one who has committed as many,
ay more, follies than yourself; but who would bless the hour that he had
been a fool if his experience might be of benefit to his beloved son.”
“My father!”
“Nay, don’t agitate yourself; we are consulting together. Let us see
what is to be done. Try to ascertain, when you are alone, what may be
the chief objects of your existence in this world. I want you to take no
theological dogmas for granted, nor to satisfy your doubts by ceasing to
think; but, whether we are in this world in a state of probation for
another, or whether we cease altogether when we cease to breathe, human
feelings tell me that we have some duties to perform; to our fellow
creatures, to our friends, to ourselves. Pray tell me, my dear boy, what
possible good your perusal of the latter Platonists can produce to
either of these three interests? I trust that my child is not one of
those who look with a glazed eye on the welfare of their fellow-men, and
who would dream away an useless life by idle puzzles of the brain;
creatures who consider their existence as an unprofitable mystery, and
yet are afraid to die. You will find Plotinus in the fourth shelf of the
next room, Vivian.”
CHAPTER VII
In England, personal distinction is the only passport to the society of
the great. Whether this distinction arise from fortune, family, or
talent, is immaterial; but certain it is, to enter into high society, a
man must either have blood, a million, or a genius.
The reputation of Mr. Grey had always made him an honoured guest among
the powerful and the great. It was for this reason that he had always
been anxious that his son should be at home as little as possible; for
he feared for a youth the fascination of London society. Although busied
with his studies, and professing “not to visit,” Vivian could not avoid
occasionally finding himself in company in which boys should never be
seen; and, what was still worse, from a certain social spirit, an
indefinable tact with which Nature had endowed him, this boy of nineteen
began to think this society delightful. Most persons of his age would
have passed through the ordeal with perfect safety; they would have
entered certain rooms, at certain hours, with stiff cravats, and Nugee
coats, and black velvet waistcoats; and after having annoyed all those
who condescended to know of their existence, with their red hands and
their white gloves, they would have retired to a corner of the room, and
conversationised with any stray four-year-older not yet sent to bed.
But Vivian Grey was a graceful, lively lad, with just enough of dandyism
to preserve him from committing gaucheries, and with a devil of a
tongue. All men will agree with me that the only rival to be feared by a
man of spirit is a clever boy. What makes them so popular with women it
is difficult to explain; however, Lady Julia Knighton, and Mrs. Frank
Delmington, and half a score of dames of fashion, were always
patronising our hero, who found an evening spent in their society not
altogether dull, for there is no fascination so irresistible to a boy as
the smile of a married woman. Vivian had passed such a recluse life for
the last two years and a half, that he had quite forgotten that he was
once considered an agreeable fellow; and so, determined to discover what
right he ever had to such a reputation, he dashed into all these
amourettes in beautiful style.
But Vivian Grey was a young and tender plant in a moral hothouse. His
character was developing itself too soon. Although his evenings were now
generally passed in the manner we have alluded to, this boy was, during
the rest of the day, a hard and indefatigable student; and having now
got through an immense series of historical reading, he had stumbled
upon a branch of study certainly the most delightful in the world; but,
for a boy, as certainly the most perilous, THE STUDY OF POLITICS.
And now everything was solved! the inexplicable longings of his soul,
which had so often perplexed him, were at length explained. The want,
the indefinable want, which he had so constantly experienced, was at
last supplied; the grand object on which to bring the powers of his mind
to bear and work was at last provided. He paced his chamber in an
agitated spirit, and panted for the Senate.
It may be asked, what was the evil of all this? and the reader will,
perhaps, murmur something about an honourable spirit and youthful
ambition. The evil was great. The time drew nigh for Vivian to leave his
home for Oxford, that is, for him to commence his long preparation for
entering on his career in life. And now this person, who was about to be
a pupil, this stripling, who was going to begin his education, had all
the desires of a matured mind, of an experienced man, but without
maturity and without experience. He was already a cunning reader of
human hearts; and felt conscious that his was a tongue which was born to
guide human beings. The idea of Oxford to such an individual was
an insult!
CHAPTER VIII
We must endeavour to trace, if possible, more accurately the workings of
Vivian Grey’s mind at this period of his existence. In the plenitude of
his ambition, he stopped one day to enquire in what manner he could
obtain his magnificent ends.
“The Bar: pooh! law and bad jokes till we are forty; and then, with the
most brilliant success, the prospect of gout and a coronet. Besides, to
succeed as an advocate, I must be a great lawyer; and, to be a great
lawyer, I must give up my chance of being a great man. The Services in
war time are fit only for desperadoes (and that truly am I); but, in
peace, are fit only for fools. The Church is more rational. Let me see:
I should certainly like to act Wolsey; but the thousand and one chances
against me! And truly I feel my destiny should not be on a chance. Were
I the son of a millionaire, or a noble, I might have all. Curse on my
lot! that the want of a few rascal counters, and the possession of a
little rascal blood, should mar my fortunes!”
Such was the general tenor of Vivian’s thoughts, until, musing himself
almost into madness, he at last made, as he conceived, the Grand
Discovery. Riches are Power, says the Economist; and is not Intellect?
asks the Philosopher. And yet, while the influence of the millionaire is
instantly felt in all classes of society, how is it that “Noble Mind” so
often leaves us unknown and unhonoured? Why have there been statesmen
who have never ruled, and heroes who have never conquered? Why have
glorious philosophers died in a garret? and why have there been poets
whose only admirer has been Nature in her echoes? It must be that these
beings have thought only of themselves, and, constant and elaborate
students of their own glorious natures, have forgotten or disdained the
study of all others. Yes! we must mix with the herd; we must enter into
their feelings; we must humour their weaknesses; we must sympathise with
the sorrows that we do not feel; and share the merriment of fools. Oh,
yes! to rule men, we must be men; to prove that we are strong, we must
be weak; to prove that we are giants, we must be dwarfs; even as the
Eastern Genie was hid in the charmed bottle. Our wisdom must be
concealed under folly, and our constancy under caprice.
“I have been often struck by the ancient tales of Jupiter’s visits to
the earth. In these fanciful adventures, the god bore no indication of
the Thunderer’s glory; but was a man of low estate, a herdsman, a hind,
often even an animal. A mighty spirit has in Tradition, Time’s great
moralist, perused ‘the wisdom of the ancients.’ Even in the same spirit,
I would explain Jove’s terrestrial visitings. For, to govern man, even
the god appeared to feel as a man; and sometimes as a beast, was
apparently influenced by their vilest passions. Mankind, then, is my
great game.
“At this moment, how many a powerful noble wants only wit to be a
Minister; and what wants Vivian Grey to attain the same end? That
noble’s influence. When two persons can so materially assist each
other, why are they not brought together? Shall I, because my birth
baulks my fancy, shall I pass my life a moping misanthrope in an old
château? Supposing I am in contact with this magnifico, am I prepared?
Now, let me probe my very soul. Does my cheek blanch? I have the mind
for the conception; and I can perform right skilfully upon the most
splendid of musical instruments, the human voice, to make those
conceptions beloved by others. There wants but one thing more: courage,
pure, perfect courage; and does Vivian Grey know fear?” He laughed an
answer of bitterest derision.
CHAPTER IX
Is it surprising that Vivian Grey, with a mind teeming with such
feelings, should view the approach of the season for his departure to
Oxford with sentiments of disgust? After hours of bitter meditation, he
sought his father; he made him acquainted with his feelings, but
concealed from him his actual views, and dwelt on the misery of being
thrown back in life, at a period when society seemed instinct with a
spirit peculiarly active, and when so many openings were daily offered
to the adventurous and the bold.
“Vivian,” said Mr. Grey, “beware of endeavouring to become a great man
in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed: these are
fearful odds. Admirer as you are of Lord Bacon, you may perhaps remember
a certain parable of his, called ‘Memnon, or a youth too forward.’ I
hope you are not going to be one of those sons of Aurora, ‘who, puffed
up with the glittering show of vanity and ostentation, attempt actions
above their strength.’
“You talk to me about the peculiarly active spirit of society; if the
spirit of society be so peculiarly active, Mr. Vivian Grey should beware
lest it outstrip him. Is neglecting to mature your mind, my boy, exactly
the way to win the race? This is an age of unsettled opinions and
contested principles; in the very measures of our administration, the
speculative spirit of the present day is, to say the least, not
impalpable. Nay, don’t start, my dear fellow, and look the very
Prosopopeia of Political Economy! I know exactly what you are going to
say; but, if you please, we will leave Turgot and Galileo to Mr.
Canning and the House of Commons, or your Cousin Hargrave and his
Debating Society. However, jesting apart, get your hat, and walk with me
as far as Evans’s, where I have promised to look in, to see the Mazarin
Bible, and we will talk this affair over as we go along.
“I am no bigot, you know, Vivian. I am not one of those who wish to
oppose the application of refined philosophy to the common business of
life. We are, I hope, an improving race; there is room, I am sure, for
great improvement, and the perfectibility of man is certainly a pretty
dream. (How well that Union Club House comes out now, since they have
made the opening), but, although we may have steam kitchens, human
nature is, I imagine, much the same this moment that we are walking in
Pall Mall East, as it was some thousand years ago, when as wise men were
walking on the banks of the Ilyssus. When our moral powers increase in
proportion to our physical ones, then huzza, for the perfectibility of
man! and respectable, idle loungers like you and I, Vivian, may then
have a chance of walking in the streets of London without having their
heels trodden upon, a ceremony which I have this moment undergone. In
the present day we are all studying science, and none of us are studying
ourselves. This is not exactly the Socratic process; and as for the
[Greek: gnothi seauton] of the more ancient Athenian, that principle is
quite out of fashion in the nineteenth century (I believe that’s the
phrase). Self is the only person whom we know nothing about.
“But, my dear Vivian, as to the immediate point of our consideration. In
my library, uninfluenced and uncontrolled by passion or by party, I
cannot but see that it is utterly impossible that all that we are
wishing and striving for can take place, without some, without much
evil. In ten years’ time, perhaps, or less, the fever will have
subsided, and in ten years’ time, or less, your intellect will be
matured. Now, my good sir, instead of talking about the active spirit of
the age, and the opportunities offered to the adventurous and the bold,
ought you not rather to congratulate yourself that a great change is
effecting at a period of your life when you need not, individually, be
subjected to the possibility of being injured by its operation; and when
you are preparing your mind to take advantage of the system, when that
system is matured and organised?
“As to your request, it assuredly is one of the most modest, and the
most rational, that I have lately been favoured with. Although I would
much rather that any influence which I may exercise over your mind,
should be the effect of my advice as your friend than of my authority as
your father; still I really feel it my duty, parentally, to protest
against this crude proposition of yours. However, if you choose to lose
a term or two, do. Don’t blame me, you know, if afterwards you
repent it.”
Here dashed by the gorgeous equipage of Mrs. Ormolu, the wife of a man
who was working all the gold and silver mines in Christendom. “Ah! my
dear Vivian,” said Mr. Grey, “it is this which has turned all your
brains. In this age every one is striving to make an immense fortune,
and what is most terrific, at the same time a speedy one. This thirst
for sudden wealth it is which engenders the extravagant conceptions, and
fosters that wild spirit of speculation which is now stalking abroad;
and which, like the Daemon in Frankenstein, not only fearfully wanders
over the whole wide face of nature, but grins in the imagined solitude
of our secret chambers. Oh! my son, it is for the young men of the
present day that I tremble; seduced by the temporary success of a few
children of fortune, I observe that their minds recoil from the
prospects which are held forth by the ordinary, and, mark me, by the
only modes of acquiring property, fair trade, and honourable
professions. It is for you and your companions that I fear. God grant
that there may not be a moral as well as a political disorganisation!
God grant that our youth, the hope of our state, may not be lost to us!
For, oh! my son, the wisest has said, ‘He that maketh haste to be rich
shall not be innocent.’ Let us step into Clarke’s and take an ice.”
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
The Marquess of Carabas started in life as the cadet of a noble family.
The earl, his father, like the woodman in the fairy tale, was blessed
with three sons: the first was an idiot, and was destined for the
Coronet; the second was a man of business, and was educated for the
Commons; the third was a Roué, and was shipped to the Colonies.
The present Marquess, then the Honourable Sidney Lorraine, prospered in
his political career. He was servile, and pompous, and indefatigable,
and loquacious, so whispered the world: his friends hailed him as, at
once, a courtier and a sage, a man of business and an orator. After
revelling in his fair proportion of commissionerships, and
under-secretaryships, and the rest of the milk and honey of the
political Canaan, the apex of the pyramid of his ambition was at length
visible, for Sidney Lorraine became President of a Board, and wriggled
into the adytum of the cabinet.
At this moment his idiot brother died. To compensate for his loss of
office, and to secure his votes, the Earl of Carabas was promoted in the
peerage, and was presented with some magnificent office, meaning
nothing; swelling with dignity, and void of duties. As years rolled on,
various changes took place in the administration, of which his Lordship
was once a component part; and the ministry, to their surprise, getting
popular, found that the command of the Carabas interest was not of such
vital importance to them as heretofore, and so his Lordship was voted a
bore, and got shelved. Not that his Lordship was bereaved of his
splendid office, or that anything occurred, indeed, by which the
uninitiated might have been led to suppose that the beams of his
Lordship’s consequence were shorn; but the Marquess’s secret
applications at the Treasury were no longer listened to, and pert
under-secretaries settled their cravats, and whispered “that the Carabas
interest was gone by.”
The noble Marquess was not insensible to his situation, for he was what
the world calls ambitious; but the vigour of his faculties had vanished
beneath the united influence of years and indolence and ill-humour; for
his Lordship, to avoid ennui, had quarrelled with his son, and then,
having lost his only friend, had quarrelled with himself.
Such was the distinguished individual who graced, one day at the latter
end of the season of 18--, the classic board of Horace Grey, Esquire.
The reader will, perhaps, be astonished, that such a man as his Lordship
should be the guest of such a man as our hero’s father; but the truth
is, the Marquess of Carabas had just been disappointed in an attempt on
the chair of the President of the Royal Society, which, for want of
something better to do, he was ambitious of filling, and this was a
conciliatory visit to one of the most distinguished members of that
body, and one who had voted against him with particular enthusiasm. The
Marquess, still a politician, was now, as he imagined, securing his
host’s vote for a future St. Andrew’s day.
The cuisine of Mr. Grey was superb; for although an enthusiastic
advocate for the cultivation of the mind, he was an equally ardent
supporter of the cultivation of the body. Indeed, the necessary
dependence of the sanity of the one on the good keeping of the other,
was one of his favourite theories, and one which, this day, he was
supporting with pleasant and facetious reasoning. His Lordship was
delighted with his new friend, and still more delighted with his new
friend’s theory. The Marquess himself was, indeed, quite of the same
opinion as Mr. Grey; for he never made a speech without previously
taking a sandwich, and would have sunk under the estimates a thousand
times, had it not been for the juicy friendship of the fruit
of Portugal.
The guests were not numerous. A regius professor of Greek; an officer
just escaped from Sockatoo; a man of science, and two M.P.’s with his
Lordship; the host, and Mr. Vivian Grey, constituted the party. Oh, no!
there were two others. There was a Mr. John Brown, a fashionable poet,
and who, ashamed of his own name, published his melodies under the more
euphonious and romantic title of “Clarence Devonshire,” and there was a
Mr. Thomas Smith, a fashionable novelist; that is to say, a person who
occasionally publishes three volumes, one half of which contain the
adventures of a young gentleman in the country, and the other volume and
a half the adventures of the same young gentleman in the metropolis; a
sort of writer, whose constant tattle about beer and billiards, and
eating soup, and the horribility of “committing” puns, give truly an
admirable and accurate idea of the conversation of the refined society
of the refined metropolis of Great Britain. These two last gentlemen
were “pets” of Mrs. Grey.
The conversation may be conceived. Each person was of course prepared
with a certain quota of information, without which no man in London is
morally entitled to dine out; and when the quota was expended, the
amiable host took the burthen upon his own shoulders, and endeavoured,
as the phrase goes, to draw out his guests.
O London dinners! empty artificial nothings! and that beings can be
found, and those too the flower of the land, who, day after day, can
act the same parts in the same dull, dreary farce! The officer had
discoursed sufficiently about “his intimate friend, the Soudan,” and
about the chain armour of the Sockatoo cuirassiers; and one of the
M.P.’s, who was in the Guards, had been defeated in a ridiculous attempt
to prove that the breast-plates of the household troops of Great Britain
were superior to those of the household troops of Timtomtoo. Mrs. Grey,
to whose opinion both parties deferred, gave it in favour of the Soudan.
And the man of science had lectured about a machine which might destroy
fifteen square feet of human beings in a second, and yet be carried in
the waistcoat pocket. And the classic, who, for a professor, was quite a
man of the world, had the latest news of the new Herculaneum process,
and was of opinion that, if they could but succeed in unrolling a
certain suspicious-looking scroll, we might be so fortunate as to
possess a minute treatise on &c., &c., &c. In short, all had said their
say. There was a dead pause, and Mrs. Grey looked at her husband,
and rose.
How singular it is, that when this move takes place every one appears to
be relieved, and yet every one of any experience must be quite aware
that the dead bore work is only about to commence. Howbeit, all filled
their glasses, and the peer, at the top of the table, began to talk
politics. I am sure I cannot tell what the weighty subject was that was
broached by the ex-minister; for I did not dine with Grey that day, and
had I done so, I should have been equally ignorant, for I am a dull man,
and always sleep at dinner. However, the subject was political, the
claret flew round, and a stormy argument commenced. The Marquess was
decidedly wrong, and was sadly badgered by the civil M.P. and the
professor. The host, who was of no party, supported his guest as long as
possible, and then left him to his fate. The military M.P. fled to the
drawing-room to philander with Mrs. Grey; and the man of science and the
African had already retired to the intellectual idiocy of a May Fair “At
Home.” The novelist was silent, for he was studying a scene; and the
poet was absent, for he was musing a sonnet.
The Marquess refuted, had recourse to contradiction, and was too acute a
man to be insensible to the forlornness of his situation; when, at this
moment, a voice proceeded from the end of the table, from a young
gentleman, who had hitherto preserved a profound silence, but whose
silence, if the company were to have judged from the tones of his
voice, and the matter of his communication, did not altogether proceed
from a want of confidence in his own abilities. “In my opinion,” said
Mr. Vivian Grey, as he sat lounging in his father’s vacated seat, “in my
opinion his Lordship has been misunderstood; and it is, as is generally
the case, from a slight verbal misconception in the commencement of this
argument, that the whole of this difference arises.”
The eyes of the Marquess sparkled, and the mouth of the Marquess was
closed. His Lordship was delighted that his reputation might yet be
saved; but as he was not perfectly acquainted in what manner that
salvation was to be effected, he prudently left the battle to his
youthful champion.
Mr. Vivian Grey proceeded with the utmost sang froid; he commented upon
expressions, split and subtilised words, insinuated opinions, and
finally quoted a whole passage of Bolingbroke to prove that the opinion
of the most noble the Marquess of Carabas was one of the soundest,
wisest, and most convincing of opinions that ever was promulgated by
mortal man. The tables were turned, the guests looked astounded, the
Marquess settled his ruffles, and perpetually exclaimed, “Exactly what I
meant!” and his opponents, full of wine and quite puzzled, gave in.
It was a rule with Vivian Grey never to advance any opinion as his own.
He had been too deep a student of human nature, not to be aware that the
opinions of a boy of twenty, however sound, and however correct, stand
but a poor chance of being adopted by his elder, though feebler,
fellow-creatures. In attaining any end, it was therefore his system
always to advance his opinion as that of some eminent and considered
personage; and when, under the sanction of this name, the opinion or
advice was entertained and listened to, Vivian Grey had no fear that he
could prove its correctness and its expediency. He possessed also the
singular faculty of being able to improvise quotations, that is, he
could unpremeditatedly clothe his conceptions in language characteristic
of the style of any particular author; and Vivian Grey was reputed in
the world as having the most astonishing memory that ever existed; for
there was scarcely a subject of discussion in which he did not gain the
victory, by the great names he enlisted on his side of the argument. His
father was aware of the existence of this dangerous faculty, and had
often remonstrated with his son on the use of it. On the present
occasion, when the buzz had somewhat subsided, Mr. Grey looked smiling
to his son, and said, “Vivian, my dear, can you tell me in what work of
Bolingbroke I can find the eloquent passage you have just quoted?”
“Ask Mr. Hargrave, sir,” replied the son, with perfect coolness; then,
turning to the member, “You know, Mr. Hargrave, you are reputed the most
profound political student in the House, and more intimately acquainted
than any other person with the works of Bolingbroke.”
Mr. Hargrave knew no such thing; but he was a weak man, and, seduced by
the compliment, he was afraid to prove himself unworthy of it by
confessing his ignorance of the passage.
Coffee was announced.
Vivian did not let the peer escape him in the drawing-room. He soon
managed to enter into conversation with him; and certainly the Marquess
of Carabas never found a more entertaining companion. Vivian discoursed
on a new Venetian liqueur, and taught the Marquess how to mull Moselle,
an operation of which the Marquess had never heard (as who has?); and
then the flood of anecdotes, and little innocent personalities, and the
compliments so exquisitely introduced, that they scarcely appeared to be
compliments; and the voice so pleasant, and conciliating, and the
quotation from the Marquess’s own speech; and the wonderful art of which
the Marquess was not aware, by which, during all this time, the lively,
chattering, amusing, elegant conversationist, so full of scandal,
politics, and cookery, did not so much appear to be Mr. Vivian Grey as
the Marquess of Carabas himself.
“Well, I must be gone,” said the fascinated noble; “I really have not
felt in such spirits for some time; I almost fear I have been vulgar
enough to be amusing, eh! eh! eh! but you young men are sad fellows, eh!
eh! eh! Don’t forget to call on me; good evening! and Mr. Vivian Grey!
Mr. Vivian Grey!” said his lordship, returning, “you will not forget the
receipt you promised me for making tomahawk punch.”
“Certainly not, my Lord,” said the young man; “only it must be invented
first,” thought Vivian, as he took up his light to retire. “But never
mind, never mind;
Chapeau bas! chapeau bas!
Glorie au Marquis de Carabas!!”