GODOLPHIN'S COURSE OF LIFE.--INFLUENCE OF OPINION AND OF RIDICULE ON THE
MINDS OF PRIVILEGED ORDERS.--LADY EHPINGITAM'S FRIENDSHIP WITH GEORGE THE
FOURTH.--HIS MANNER OF LIVING.
The course of life which Godolphin now led, was exactly that which it is
natural for a very rich intellectual man to indulge--voluptuous but
refined. He was arriving at that age when the poetry of the heart
necessarily decays. Wealth almost unlimited was at his command; he had no
motive for exertion; and he now sought in pleasure that which he had
formerly asked from romance. As his faculties and talents had no other
circle for display than that which "society" affords; so by slow degrees,
society--its applause and its regard--became to him of greater importance
than his "philosophy dreamt of." Whatever the circle we live amongst, the
public opinion of that circle will, sooner or later, obtain a control over
us. This is the reason why a life of pleasure makes even the strongest
mind frivolous at last. The lawyer, the senator, the magi of letters, all
are insensibly guided--moulded--formed--by the judgment of the tribe they
belong to, and the circle in which they move. Still more is it the case
with the idlers of the great world, amongst whom the only main staple of
talk is "themselves."
And in the last-named set, Ridicule being more strong and fearful a deity
than she is amongst the cultivators of the graver occupations of life,
reduces the inmates, by a constant dread of incurring her displeasure, to
a more monotonous and regular subjection to the judgment of others.
Ridicule is the stifler of all energy amongst those she controls. After
man's position in society is once established--after he has arrived at a
certain age--he does not like to hazard any intellectual enterprise which
may endanger the quantum of respect or popularity at present allotted to
him. He does not like to risk a failure in parliament--a caustic
criticism in literature: he does not like to excite new jealousies, and
provoke angry rivals where he now finds complaisant inferiors. The most
admired authors, the most respected members of either house, now looked up
to Godolphin as a man of wit and genius; a man whose house, whose wealth,
whose wife, gave him an influence few individuals enjoy. Why risk all
this respect by provoking comparison? Among the first in one line, why
sink into the probability of being second-rate in another?
This motive, which secretly governs half the aristocracy--the cleverer
half, viz., the more diffident and the more esteemed; which leaves to the
obtuse and the vain, a despised and unenviable notoriety; added new force
to Godolphin's philosophical indifference to ambition. Perhaps, had his
situation been less brilliant, or had he persevered in that early
affection for solitude which youth loves as the best nurse to its dreams,
he might now, in attaining an age when ambition, often dumb before,
usually begins to make itself heard, have awakened to a more resolute and
aspiring temperament of mind. But, as it was, courted and surrounded by
all the enjoyments which are generally the reward to which exertion looks,
even an ambitious man might have forgotten his nature. No wound to his
vanity, no feeling that he was underrated (that great spur to proud minds)
excited him to those exertions we undertake in order to belie calumny. He
was "the glass of fashion," at once popular and admired; and his good
fortune in marrying the celebrated, the wealthy, the beautiful Countess of
Erpingham was, as success always is, considered the proof of his genius,
and the token of his merits.
It was certainly true, that a secret and mutual disappointment rankled
beneath the brilliant lot of the husband and wife. Godolphin exacted from
Constance more softness, more devotion, more compliance than belonged to
her nature; and Constance, on the other hand, ceased not to repine that
she found in Godolphin no sympathy with her objects, and no feeling for
her enthusiasm. As there was little congenial in their pursuits, the one
living for pleasure, the other for ambition, so there could be no
congeniality in their intercourse. They loved each other still; they
loved each other warmly; they never quarrelled; for the temper of
Constance was mild, and that of Godolphin generous: but neither believed
there was much love on the other side; and both sought abroad that
fellowship and those objects they had not in common at home.
Constance was a great favourite with the reigning king; she was constantly
invited to the narrow circle of festivities at Windsor. Godolphin, who
avoided the being bored as the greatest of earthly evils, could not bow
down his tastes and habits to any exact and precise order of life, however
distinguished the circle in which it became the rule. Thirsting to be
amused, he could not conjugate the active verb "to amuse." No man was
more fitted to adorn a court, yet no man could less play the courtier. He
admired the manners of the sovereign,--he did homage to the natural
acuteness of his understanding; but, accustomed as he was to lay down the
law in society, he was too proud to receive it from another,--a common
case among those who live with the great by right and not through
sufferance. His pride made him fear to seem a parasite; and, too
chivalrous to be disloyal, he was too haughty to be subservient. In fact,
he was thoroughly formed to be the Great Aristocrat,--a career utterly
distinct from that of the hanger-on upon a still greater man; and against
his success at court, he had an obstacle no less in the inherent fierte of
his nature, than in the acquired philosophy of his cynicism.
The king, at first, was civil enough to Lady Erpingham's husband; but he
had penetration enough to see that he was not adequately admired: and on
the first demonstration of royal coolness, Godolphin, glad of an excuse,
forswore Castle and Pavilion for ever, and left Constance to enjoy alone
the honours of the regal hospitality. The world would have insinuated
scandal; but there was that about Constance's beauty which there is said
by one of the poets to belong to an angel's--it struck the heart, but awed
the senses.