Tales and Novels, Vol. IV, by Maria Edgeworth

“Not exactly,” said I, unwilling to lower the good opinion this gentleman seemed to have taken for granted of my literature. He took Spenser’s poems out of the book-case, and I actually rose from my seat to read the passage; for what trouble will not even the laziest of mortals take to preserve the esteem of one by whom he sees that he is over-valued. I read the following ten lines without yawning!

    “Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
    What hell it is in sueing long to bide;
    To lose good days, that might be better spent,
    To waste long nights in pensive discontent,
    To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
    To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow,
    To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
    To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs,
    To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
    To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.”

“Very strong, indeed,” said I, with a competent air, as if used to judge of poetry.

“And it comes with still greater force, when we consider by whom it was written. A man, you know, my lord, who had been secretary to a lord lieutenant.”

I felt my nascent ambition die away within me. I acknowledged it was better to spend an easy life. My determination was confirmed at this instant by the appearance of Lady Geraldine. Ambition and love, it is said, are incompatible passions. Neither of them had yet possession of my heart; but love and Lady Geraldine had perhaps a better chance than ambition and Lord O’Toole. Lady Geraldine appeared in high spirits; and, though I was not a vain man, I could not help fancying that my return to Ormsby Villa contributed to her charming vivacity. This gratified me secretly and soberly, as much as it visibly delighted her mother. Miss Bland, to pay her court to Lady Kildangan, observed that Lady Geraldine was in uncommonly fine spirits this evening. Lady Geraldine threw back a haughty frown over her left shoulder: this was the only time I ever saw her notice, in any manner, any thing that fell from her obsequious friend. To avert the fair one’s displeasure, I asked for Miss Tracey and Mr. Gabbitt.

“Mr. Gabbitt,” said her ladyship, resuming her good-humour instantly; “Mr. Gabbitt is gone off the happiest man in Ireland, with the hopes of surveying my Lord O’Toole’s estate; a good job, which I was bound in honour to obtain for him, as a reward for taking a good joke. After mocking him with the bare imagination of a feast, you know the Barmecide in the Arabian Tales gave poor Shakabac a substantial dinner, a full equivalent for the jest.”

“I persuaded her mamma that the sweet creature was falling into an atrophy. So she carried the forlorn damsel post haste to the Black Rock for the recovery of her health, or her heart. Clementina, my dear, no reproachful looks; in your secret soul do not you know, that I could not do a young lady a greater favour than to give her a plausible excuse for getting away from home?”

I was afraid that Lady Geraldine would feel the want of her butt; however, I found that Miss Tracey’s place was supplied by Captain Andrews, one of the Castle’s aides-de-camp; and when Captain Andrews was out of the way, Lord Kilrush and his brother O’Toole were good marks. High and mighty as these personages thought themselves, and respectfully, nay obsequiously, as they were treated by most others, to this lady their characters appeared only a good study; and to laugh at them seemed only a good practice.

“Perhaps, my lord,” said she to me, “you do not yet know my Lord O’Toole?”

‘Not to know him, argues yourself unknown.’

But as your lordship is a stranger in this country, you may be pardoned; and I will make you better acquainted with him. I suppose you know there are many Tooles in Ireland; some very ancient, respectable, and useful: this, however, is but a mere political tool, and the worst of all tools, a cat’s paw. There’s one thing to the credit of these brothers, they agree vastly well; for one delights in being always on the stage, and the other always behind the scenes. These brothers, with Captain Andrews—I hope they are none of them within hearing—form a charming trio, all admirable in their way. My Lord O’Toole is—artifice without art. My Lord Kilrush—importance without power. And Captain Andrews—pliability without ease. Poor Andrews! he’s a defenceless animal—safe in impenetrable armour. Give him but time—as a man said, who once showed me a land-tortoise—give him but time to draw his head into his shell, and a broad-wheeled waggon may go over him without hurting him. Lord Glenthorn, did you ever observe Captain Andrews’s mode of conversation?”

“Converse! nor I indeed; but you have heard him talk.” “I have heard him say—Very true—and Of course.”

“But though your lordship,” continued Lady Geraldine, “may have observed Captain Andrews’s wonderful economy of words, do you know whence it arises? Perhaps you think from his perception of his own want of understanding.”

“Again! again!” said Mrs. O’Connor, with an insulting tone of surprise; “Lord Glenthorn’s quite witty this evening.”

Lady Geraldine looked as if she were fully sensible of the want of politeness in Mrs. O’Connor’s mode of praising. “But, my lord,” pursued she, “you wrong Captain Andrews, if you attribute his monosyllabic replies either to stupidity or timidity. You have not guessed the reason why he never gives on any subject more than half an opinion.”

“It was in the diplomatic school he was taught that art,” said Mr. Devereux.

“You must know,” pursued Lady Geraldine, “that Captain Andrews is only an aide-de-camp till a diplomatic situation can be found for him; and to do him justice, he has been so well trained in the diplomatic school, that he will not hazard an assertion on any subject; he is not certain of any thing, not even of his own identity.”

“He assuredly wants,” said Devereux, “the only proof of existence which Descartes would admit—I think, therefore I am.”

“He has such a holy horror of committing himself,” continued Lady Geraldine, “that if you were to ask him if the sun rose this morning, he would answer, with his sweet smile—So I am told—or—So I am informed.”

“Begging your ladyship’s pardon,” cried Mr. Devereux, “that is much too affirmative. In the pure diplomatic style, impersonal verbs must ever be used in preference to active or passive. So I am told, lays him open to the dangerous questions, Who told you? or, By whom were you informed? Then he is forced into the imprudence of giving up his authorities; whereas he is safe in the impersonality of So it is said, or So it is reported.”

“How I should like to see a meeting between two perfectly finished diplomatists!” cried Lady Geraldine.

“That is demonstrably impossible,” said Mr. Devereux; “for in certain political, as well as in certain geometrical lines, there is a continual effort to approach, without a possibility of meeting.”

Lady Geraldine’s raillery, like all other things, would, perhaps, soon have become tiresome to me; but that there was infinite variety in her humour. At first I had thought her merely superficial, and intent solely upon her own amusement; but I soon found that she had a taste for literature, beyond what could have been expected in one who lived so dissipated a life; a depth of reflection that seemed inconsistent with the rapidity with which she thought; and, above all, a degree of generous indignation against meanness and vice, which seemed incompatible with the selfish character of a fine lady, and which appeared quite incomprehensible to the imitating tribe of her fashionable companions.

I mentioned a Mrs. Norton and Lady Hauton amongst the company of Ormsby Villa. These two English ladies, whom I had never met in any of the higher circles in London, who were persons of no consequence, and of no marked character in their own country, made, it seems, a prodigious sensation when they came over to Ireland, and turned the heads of half Dublin by the extravagance of their dress, the impertinence of their airs, and the audacity of their conduct. Fame flew before them to the remote parts of the country; and when they arrived at Ormsby Villa, all the country gentlemen and ladies were prepared to admire these celebrated fashionable belles. All worshipped them present, and abused them absent, except Lady Geraldine, who neither joined in the admiration nor inquired into the scandal. One morning Mrs. Norton and Lady Hauton had each collected her votaries round her: one group begging patterns of dress from Lady Hauton, who stood up in the midst of them, to have everything she wore examined and envied; the other group sat on a sofa apart, listening to Mrs. Norton, who, sotto voce, was telling interesting anecdotes of an English crim. con., which then occupied the attention of the fashionable world. Mrs. Norton had letters from the best authorities in London, which she was entreated by her auditors to read to them. Mrs. Norton went to look for the letters, Lady Hauton to direct her woman to furnish some patterns of I know not what articles of dress; and, in the mean time, all the company joined in canvassing the merits and demerits of the dress and characters of the two ladies who had just left the room. Lady Geraldine, who had kept aloof, and who was examining some prints at the farther end of the room, at this instant laid down her book, and looked upon the whole party with an air of magnanimous disdain; then smiling, as in scorn, she advanced towards them, and, in a tone of irony, addressing one of the Swanlinbar graces, “My dear Theresa,” said her ladyship, “you are absolutely ashamed, I see, of not being quite naked; and you, my good Bess, will, no doubt, very soon be equally scandalized, at the imputation of being a perfectly modest woman. Go on, my friends; go on, and prosper; beg and borrow all the patterns and precedents you can collect of the newest fashions of folly and vice. Make haste, make haste; they don’t reach our remote island fast enough. We Irish might live in innocence half a century longer, if you didn’t expedite the progress of profligacy; we might escape the plague that rages in neighbouring countries, if we didn’t, without any quarantine, and with open arms, welcome every suspected stranger; if we didn’t encourage the importation of whole bales of tainted fineries, that will spread the contagion from Dublin to Cork, and from Cork to Galway!”

“La!” said Miss Ormsby, “how severe your ladyship is; and all only for one’s asking for a pattern!”

“But you know,” pursued Mrs. O’Connor, “that Lady Geraldine is too proud to take pattern from any body.”

‘Proud as I am, I’ll put myself to school;’

and I’ll do what the ladies Hauton and Norton shall advise, to heighten my charms and preserve my reputation. I must begin, must not I, Mrs. O’Connor, by learning not to blush? for I observed you were ashamed for me yesterday at dinner, when I blushed at something said by one of our fair missionaries. Then, to whatever lengths flirtations and gallantry may go between unmarried or married people, I must look on. I may shut my eyes, if I please, and look down; but not from shame—from affectation I may as often as I please, or to show my eyelashes. Memorandum—to practise this before Clementina Ormsby, my mirror of fashion. So far, so good, for my looks; but now for my language. I must reform my barbarous language, and learn from Mrs. Norton, with her pretty accommodating voice, to call an intrigue an arrangement, and a crim. con. an affair in Doctors’ Commons, or that business before the Lords.

‘We never mention Hell to ears polite.’

How virtuous we shall be when we have no name for vice! But stay, I must mind my lessons—I have more, much more to learn. From the dashing Lady Hauton I may learn, if my head be but strong, and my courage intrepid enough, ‘to touch the brink of all we hate,’ without tumbling headlong into the gulf; and from the interesting Mrs. Norton, as I hear it whispered amongst you ladies, I may learn how, with the assistance of a Humane-society, to save a half-drowned reputation. It is, I understand, the glory of one class of fashionable females, to seem worse than they are; and of another class the privilege, to be worse than they seem.”

Here clamorous voices interrupted Lady Geraldine—some justifying, some attacking, Lady Hauton and Mrs. Norton.

“Oh! Lady Geraldine, I assure you, notwithstanding all that was said about General —— and Mrs. Norton, I am convinced there was nothing in it.”

“And, my dear Lady Geraldine, though Lady Hauton does go great lengths in coquetting with a certain lord, you must see that there’s nothing wrong; and that she means nothing, but to provoke his lady’s jealousy. You know his lordship is not a man to fall in love with.”

“So, because Lady Hauton’s passion is hatred instead of love, and because her sole object is to give pain to a poor wife, and to make mischief in families, all her sins are to be forgiven! Now, if I were forced to forgive any ill-conducted female, I would rather excuse the woman who is hurried on by love than she who is instigated by hatred.”

Miss Bland now began to support her ladyship’s opinion, that “Lady Hauton was much the worst of the two;” and all the scandal that was in circulation was produced by the partisans of each of these ladies.

“No matter, no matter, which is the worst,” cried Lady Geraldine; “don’t let us waste our time in repeating or verifying scandalous stories of either of them. I have no enmity to these ladies; I only despise them, or rather, their follies and their faults. It is not the sinner, but the sin we should reprobate. Oh! my dear countrywomen,” cried Lady Geraldine, with increasing animation of countenance and manner—“Oh! my dear countrywomen, let us never stoop to admire and imitate these second-hand airs and graces, follies and vices. Let us dare to be ourselves!”

My eyes were fixed upon her animated countenance, and, I believe, I continued gazing even after her voice ceased. Mrs. O’Connor pointed this out, and I was immediately embarrassed. Miss Bland accounted for my embarrassment by supposing, that what Lady Geraldine had said of English crim. cons, had affected me. From a look and a whisper among the ladies, I guessed this; but Lady Geraldine was too well-bred to suppose I could suspect her of ill-breeding and ill-nature, or that I could apply to myself what evidently was not intended to allude to my family misfortunes. By an openness of manner and sweetness of expression, which I cannot forget, she, in one single look, conveyed all this to me: and then resuming her conversation, “Pray, my lord,” said she, “you who have lived so much in the great world in England, say, for you can, whether I am right or wrong in my suspicion, that these ladies, who have made such a noise in Ireland, have been little heard of in England?”

I confirmed her ladyship’s opinion by my evidence. The faces of the company changed. Thus, in a few seconds, the empire of Lady Hauton and of Mrs. Norton seemed shaken to the foundation, and never recovered from this shock.

The warmth of Lady Geraldine’s expressions, on this and many other occasions, wakened dormant feelings in my heart, and made me sensible that I had a soul, and that I was superior to the puppets with whom I had been classed.

One day Lady Kilrush, in her mixed mode, with partly the graces of a fine lady and partly the airs of a bel esprit, was talking of Mr. Devereux, whom she affected to patronise and produce.

“Here, Devereux!” cried she; “Cecil Devereux! What can you be thinking of? I am talking to you. Here’s this epitaph of Francis the First upon Petrarch’s Laura, that you showed me the other day: do you know, I dote upon it. I must have it translated: nobody can do it so well as you. I have not time; but I shall not sleep to-night if it is not done: and you are so quick: so sit down here, there’s a dear man, and do it in your elegant way for me, whilst I go to my toilette. Perhaps you did not know that my name was Laura,” said she, leaving the room with a very sentimental air.

“What will become of me!” cried Devereux. “Never was a harder task set by cruel patroness. I would rather ‘turn a Persian tale for half-a-crown.’ Read this, my lord, and tell me whether it will be easy to turn my Lady Kilrush into Petrarch’s Laura.”

“This sonnet, to be sure, is rather difficult to translate, or at least to modernize, as bespoke,” said Lady Geraldine, after she had perused the sonnet;82 “but I think, Mr. Devereux, you brought this difficulty upon yourself. How came you to show these lines to such an amateur, such a fetcher and carrier of bays as Lady Kilrush? You might have been certain that, had they been trash, with the name of Francis the First, and with your fashionable approbation, and something to say about Petrarch and Laura, my Lady Kilrush would talk for ever, et se pâmerait d’affectation.”

“Mr. Devereux,” said I, “has only to abide by the last lines, as a good and sufficient apology to Lady Kilrush for his silence:

    ‘Qui te pourra louer qu’en se taisant?
    Car la parole est toujours réprimée
    Quand le sujet surmonte le disant.’”

“There is no way to get out of my difficulties,” said Mr. Devereux, with a very melancholy look; and with a deep sigh he sat down to attempt the translation of the poem. In a few minutes, however, he rose and left the room, declaring that he had the bad habit of not being able to do any thing in company.

Lady Geraldine now, with much energy of indignation, exclaimed against the pretensions of rich amateurs, and the mean and presumptuous manner in which some would-be great people affect to patronise genius.

“Oh! the baseness, the emptiness of such patronising ostentation!” cried she. “I am accused of being proud myself; but I hope—I believe—I am sure, that my pride is of another sort. Persons of any elevation or generosity of mind never have this species of pride; but it is your mean, second-rate folk, who imagine that people of talent are a sort of raree-show for their entertainment. At best, they consider men of genius only as artists formed for their use, who, if not in a situation to be paid with money, are yet to be easily recompensed by praise—by their praise—their praise! Heavens! what conceit! And these amateur-patrons really think themselves judges, and presume to advise and direct genius, and employ it to their petty purposes! Like that Pietro de Medici, who, at some of his entertainments, set Michael Angelo to make a statue of snow. My lord, did you ever happen to meet with Les Mémoires de Madame de Staël?”

“You mistake me: I mean Madame de Staël of Louis the Fourteenth and the Regent’s time, Mademoiselle de Launay.”

“Nay, I met with them myself only yesterday,” said Lady Geraldine: “I was struck with the character of the Duchess de la Ferté, in which this kind of proud patronising ignorance is admirably painted from the life. It is really worth your while, my lord, to look at it. There’s the book on that little table; here is the passage. You see, this Duchess de la Ferté is showing off to a sister-duchess a poor girl of genius, like a puppet or an ape.

“‘Allons, mademoiselle, parlez—Madame, vous allez voir comme elle parle—Elle vit que j’hésitois à répondre, et pensa qu’il falloit m’aider comme une chanteuse à qui l’on indique ce qu’on désire d’entendre—Parlez un peu de religion, mademoiselle, vous direz ensuite autre chose.’

“This speech, Mr. Devereux tells me, has become quite proverbial in Paris,” continued Lady Geraldine; “and it is often quoted, when any one presumes in the Duchess de la Ferte’s style.”

“Ignorance, either in high or low life, is equally self-sufficient, I believe,” said I, exerting myself to illustrate her ladyship’s remarks. “A gentleman of my acquaintance lately went to buy some razors at Packwood’s. Mrs. Packwood alone was visible. Upon the gentleman’s complimenting her on the infinite variety of her husband’s ingenious and poetical advertisements, she replied, ‘La! sir, and do you think husband has time to write them there things his-self? Why, sir, we keeps a poet to do all that there work.’”

Though Lady Geraldine spoke only in general of amateur-patrons and of men of genius, yet I could not help fancying, from the warmth with which she expressed herself, and from her dwelling on the subject so long, that her feelings were peculiarly interested for some individual of this description. Thus I discovered that Lady Geraldine had a heart; and I suspected that her ladyship and Mr. Devereux had also made the same discovery. This suspicion was strengthened by a slight incident, which occurred the following evening.

Lady Geraldine and Cecil Devereux, as we were drinking coffee, were in a recessed window, while some of the company stood round them, amused by their animated conversation. They went on, repartee after repartee, as if inspired by each other’s spirits.

“You two,” said a little girl of six years old, who was playing in the window, “go on singing to one another like two nightingales; and this shall be your cage,” added she, drawing the drapery of the window-curtains across the recessed window. “You shall live always together in this cage: will you, pretty birds?”

“No, no; some birds cannot live in a cage, my dear,” cried Lady Geraldine, playfully struggling to get free, whilst the child held her prisoner.

“Mr. Devereux seems tolerably quiet and contented in his cage,” said the shrewd Mrs. O’Connor.

“I can’t get out! I can’t get out!” cried Devereux, in the melancholy tone of the starling in the Sentimental Journey.

“Singing-birds,” interrupted Lady Geraldine, catching the little girl up in her arms, and stopping her from saying more, by beginning to sing most charmingly.

Lady Kildangan returned to the sofa without comprehending one word of what had passed. For my part, I now felt almost certain of the justice of my suspicions: I was a little vexed, but not by any means in that despair into which a man heartily in love would have been thrown by such a discovery.

Well, thought I, it is well it is no worse: it was very lucky that I did not fall quite in love with this fair lady, since it seems that she has given her heart away. But am I certain of this? I was mistaken once. Let me examine more carefully.

CHAPTER XI.

To preserve the continuity of my story, and not to fatigue the reader with the journals of my comings and goings from Ormsby Villa to Glenthorn Castle, and from Glenthorn Castle to Ormsby Villa, I must here relate the observations I made, and the incidents that occurred, during various visits at Sir Harry Ormsby’s in the course of the summer.

After the incident of the birds and cage, my sagacity was for some time at fault. I could not perceive any further signs of intelligence between the parties: on the contrary, all communication seemed abruptly to cease. As I was not well versed in such affairs, this quieted my suspicions, and I began to think that I had been entirely mistaken. Cecil Devereux spent his days shut up in his own apartment, immersed, as far as I could understand, in the study of the Persian language. He talked to me of nothing but his hopes of an appointment which Lord O’Toole had promised to procure for him in India. When he was not studying, he was botanizing or mineralogizing with O’Toole’s chaplain. I did not envy him his new mode of life. Lady Geraldine took no notice of it. When they did meet, which happened as seldom as possible, there was an air of haughty displeasure on her part; on his, steady and apparently calm respect and self-satisfaction. Her spirits were exuberant, but variable; and, at times, evidently forced: his were not high, but even and certain. Towards me, her ladyship’s manners were free from coquetry, yet politely gratifying, as she marked, by the sort of conversation she addressed to me, her opinion that I was superior in ability and capability to what she had at first thought me, and to what I had always thought myself.

Mr. Devereux, though with more effort, treated me with distinction, and showed a constant desire to cultivate my friendship. On every occasion he endeavoured to raise my opinion of myself: to give me ambition and courage to cultivate my mind. Once, when I was arguing in favour of natural genius, and saying that I thought no cultivation could make the abilities of one man equal to those of another, he, without seeming to perceive that I was apologizing at once for my own indolence and my intellectual inferiority, answered in general terms, “It is difficult to judge what are the natural powers of the mind, they appear so different in different circumstances. You can no more judge of a mind in ignorance than of a plant in darkness. A philosophical friend told me, that he once thought he had discovered a new and strange plant growing in a mine. It was common sage; but so degenerated and altered, that he could not know it: he planted it in the open air and in the light, and gradually it resumed its natural appearance and character.”

Mr. Devereux excited, without fatiguing, my mind by his conversation; and I was not yet sufficiently in love to be seriously jealous. I was resolved, however, to sound him upon the subject of Lady Geraldine, I waited for a good opportunity: at length, as we were looking together over the prints of Bürger’s Lenore, he led to the sort of conversation that I desired, by telling me an anecdote relative to the poet, which he had lately heard from a German baron.

Burger was charmed with a sonnet, which an unknown fair one addressed to him, in praise of his poetry; he replied in equal strains; and they went on flattering one another, till both believed themselves in love: without ever having met, they determined to marry: they at length met, and married: they quarrelled and parted: in other words, the gentleman was terribly disappointed in his unknown mistress; and she consoled herself by running away from him with another lover.

The imprudence of this poetic couple led us to reflections on love and marriage in general. Keeping far away from all allusion to Lady Geraldine, I rallied Mr. Devereux about the fair Clementina, who was evidently a romantic admirer of his.

“Who, except Cupid, would barter his liberty for a butterfly?” said he; “and Cupid was a child. Men now-a-days are grown too wise to enslave themselves for women. Love occupies a vast space in a woman’s thoughts, but fills a small portion in a man’s life. Women are told, that ‘The great, th’ important business of their life, is love;’ but men know that they are born for something better than to sing mournful ditties to a mistress’s eyebrow. As to marriage, what a serious, terrible thing! Some quaint old author says, that man is of too smooth and oily a nature to climb up to heaven, if, to make him less slippery, there be not added to his composition the vinegar of marriage. This may be; but I will keep as long as possible from the vinegar.”

“Really, Devereux,” said I, smiling, “you talk so like a cynic and an old bachelor, and you look so little like either, that it is quite ridiculous.”

“A man must be ridiculous sometimes,” said he, “and bear to be thought so. No man ever distinguished himself, who could not bear to be laughed at.”

“No more for Amynta fresh garlands I wove;
Ambition, I said, will soon cure me of love.”

I was uncertain what to think of all this. I inclined to believe that ambition was his ruling passion, notwithstanding the description of that Hell which he showed me in Spenser. His conduct to his patron-lords, by which a surer judgment of his character could be formed than by his professions, was not, however, that of a man merely intent upon rising in the world.

I remember once hearing Lord O’Toole attack a friend of this gentleman’s, calling him, in a certain tone, a philosopher. Mr. Devereux replied, “that he could not consider that as a term of reproach; that where a false or pretended philosopher was meant, some other name should be used, equivalent to the Italian term of reproach, filosofastro.”

Lord O’Toole would by no means admit of this Italianism: he would make no distinctions: he deemed philosophers altogether a race of beings dangerous and inimical to states.

“For states read statesmen,” said Devereux, who persisted in the vindication of his friend till Lord O’Toole grew pale with anger, while Captain Andrews smiled with ineffable contempt at the political bévue: Lady Geraldine glowed with generous indignation.

Afterwards, in speaking to me of Lord O’Toole, Devereux said, “His lordship’s classification of men is as contracted as the savage’s classification of animals: he divides mankind into two classes, knaves and fools; and when he meets with an honest man, he does not know what to make of him.”

My esteem for Mr. Devereux was much increased by my daily observations upon his conduct: towards Lady Geraldine, I thought it particularly honourable: when her displeasure evidently merged in esteem, when her manners again became most winning and attractive, his continued uniformly the same; never passing the bounds of friendly respect, or swerving, in the slightest degree, from the line of conduct which he had laid down for himself. I thought I now understood him perfectly. That he liked Lady Geraldine I could scarcely doubt; but I saw that he refrained from aiming at the prize which he knew he ought not to obtain; that he perceived her ladyship’s favourable disposition towards him, yet denied himself not only the gratification of his vanity, but the exquisite pleasure of conversing with her, lest he should stand in the way of her happier prospects. He frequently spoke to me of her ladyship in terms of the warmest approbation. He said, that all the world saw and admired her talents and beauty, but that he had had opportunities, as a relation, of studying her domestic life. “With all her vivacity, she has a heart formed for tenderness,” said he; “a high sense of duty, the best security for a woman’s conduct; and in generosity and magnanimity, I never found her superior in either sex. In short, I never saw any woman whose temper and disposition were more likely to make a man of sense and feeling supremely happy.”

I could not forbear smiling, and asking Cecil Devereux how all this accorded with his late professions of hatred to marriage. “My professions were sincere,” said he. “It would be misery to me to marry any inferior woman, and I am not in circumstances to marry as I could wish. I could not think of Lady Geraldine without a breach of trust, of which your lordship, I hope, cannot suspect me. Her mother places confidence in me. I am not only a relation, but treated as a friend of the family. I am not in love with Lady Geraldine. I admire, esteem, respect her ladyship; and I wish to see her united to a man, if such a man there be, who may deserve her. We understand one another now. Your lordship will have the goodness never more to speak to me on this subject.” He spoke with much emotion, but with steadiness, and left me penetrated with feelings that were entirely new to me.

Much as I admired his conduct, I was yet undecided as to my own: my aversion to a second marriage was not yet conquered:—I was amused, I was captivated by Lady Geraldine; but I could not bring myself to think of making a distinct proposal. Captain Andrews himself was not more afraid of being committed than I was upon this tender subject. To gain time, I now thought it necessary to verify all the praises Mr. Devereux had bestowed on her ladyship. Magnanimity was a word that particularly struck my ear as extraordinary when applied to a female. However, by attending carefully to this lady, I thought I discovered what Mr. Devereux meant. Lady Geraldine was superior to manoeuvring little arts and petty stratagems to attract attention: she would not stoop, even to conquer. From gentlemen she seemed to expect attention as her right, as the right of her sex; not to beg or accept of it as a favour: if it were not paid, she deemed the gentleman degraded, not herself. Far from being mortified by any preference shown to other ladies, her countenance betrayed only a sarcastic sort of pity for the bad taste of the men, or an absolute indifference and look of haughty absence. I saw that she beheld with disdain the paltry competitions of the young ladies her companions: as her companions, indeed, she hardly seemed to consider them; she tolerated their foibles, forgave their envy, and never exerted any superiority, except to show her contempt of vice and meanness. To be in any degree excepted from the common herd; to be in any degree distinguished by a lady so proud, and with so many good reasons to be proud, was flattering to my self-love. She gave me no direct encouragement; but I never advanced far enough to require encouragement, much less to justify repulse. Sometimes I observed, or I fancied, that she treated me with more favour when Mr. Devereux was present than at other times; perhaps—for she was a woman, not an angel—to pique Devereux, and try if she could move him from the settled purpose of his soul. He bore it all with surprising constancy: his spirits, however, and his health, began visibly to decline.

“If I do not intrude too much on your valuable time, Mr. Devereux,” said her ladyship to him one evening, in her most attractive manner, “may I beg you to read to us some of these beautiful poems of Sir William Jones?”

There was a seat beside her ladyship on the sofa: the book was held out by the finest arm in the world.

“Nay,” said Lady Geraldine, “do not look so respectfully miserable; if you have any other engagements, you have only to say so: or if you cannot speak you may bow: a bow, you know, is an answer to every thing. And here is my Lord Glenthorn ready to supply your place: pray, do not let me detain you prisoner. You shall not a second time say, I can’t get out.”

Devereux made no further effort to escape, but took the book and his dangerous seat. He remained with us, contrary to his custom, the whole evening. Afterwards, as if he felt that some apology was necessary to me for the pleasure in which he had indulged himself, “Perhaps, my lord,” said he, “another man in my situation, and with my feelings, would think it necessary to retreat, and prudent to secure his safety by flight; but flight is unworthy of him who can combat and conquer: the man who is sure of himself does not skulk away to avoid danger, but advances to meet it, armed secure in honesty.”

This proud and rash security in his own courage, strength of mind, and integrity, was the only fault of Cecil Devereux. He never prayed not to be led into temptation, he thought himself so sure of avoiding evil. Unconscious of his danger, even though his disease was at its height, he now braved it most imprudently: he was certain that he should never pass the bounds of friendship; he had proved this to himself, and was satisfied: he told me that he could with indifference, nay, with pleasure, see Lady Geraldine mine. In the mean time, upon the same principle that he deemed flight inglorious, he was proud to expose himself to the full force of Love’s artillery. He was with us now every day, and almost all day, and Lady Geraldine was more charming than ever. The week was fixed for her departure. Still I could not decide. I understood that her ladyship would pass the ensuing winter in Dublin, where she would probably meet with new adorers; and even if Mr. Devereux should not succeed, some adventurous knight might win and wear the prize. This was an alarming thought. It almost decided me to hazard the fatal declaration; but then I recollected that I might follow her ladyship to town the next winter, and that if the impression did not, as might be hoped, wear off during the intervening autumn, it would be time enough to commit myself when I should meet my fair one in Dublin. This was at last my fixed resolution. Respited from the agonies of doubt, I now waited very tranquilly for that moment to which most lovers look forward with horror, the moment of separation. I was sensible that I had accustomed myself to think about this lady so much, that I had gradually identified my existence with hers, and I thus found my spirit of animation much increased. I dreaded the departure of Lady Geraldine less than the return of ennui.

In this frame of mind I was walking one morning in the pleasure grounds with Lady Geraldine, when a slight accident made me act in direct contradiction to all my resolutions, and, I think, inconsistently with my character. But such is the nature of man! and I was doomed to make a fool of myself, even in the very temple of Minerva. Among the various ornamental buildings in the grounds at Ormsby Villa, there was a temple dedicated to this goddess, from which issued a troop of hoyden young ladies, headed by the widow O’Connor and Lady Kilrush, all calling to us to come and look at some charming discovery which they had just made in the temple of Minerva. Thither we proceeded, accompanied by the merry troop. We found in the temple only a poetical inscription of Lady Kilrush’s, pompously engraved on a fine marble tablet. We read the lines with all the attention usually paid to a lady’s poetry in the presence of the poetess. Lady Geraldine and I turned to pay some compliments on the performance, when we found that Lady Kilrush and all her companions were gone.

“Gone! all gone!” said Lady Geraldine; “and there they are, making their way very fast down to the temple of Folly! Lady Kilrush, you know, is so ba-a-ashful, she could not possibly stay to receive nos hommages. I love to laugh at affectation. Call them back, do, my lord, and you shall see the fair author go through all the evolutions of mock humility, and end by yielding quietly to the notion that she is the tenth Muse. But run, my lord, or they will be out of our reach.”

I never was seen to run on any occasion; but to obey Lady Geraldine I walked as fast as I could to the door, and, to my surprise, found it fastened.

“Locked, I declare! Some of the witty tricks of the widow O’Connor, or the hoyden Miss Callwells!”

“How I hate hoydens!” cried Lady Geraldine: “but let us take patience; they will be back presently. If young ladies must perform practical jokes, because quizzing is the fashion, I wish they would devise something new. This locking-up is so stale a jest. To be sure it has lately to boast the authority of high rank in successful practice: but these bungling imitators never distinguish between cases the most dissimilar imaginable. Silly creatures! We have only to be wise and patient.”

Her ladyship sat down to re-peruse the tablet. I never saw her look so beautiful.—The dignified composure of her manner charmed me; it was so unlike the paltry affectation of some of the fashionable ladies by whom I had been disgusted. I recollected the precedent to which she alluded. I recollected that the locking-up ended in matrimony; and as Lady Geraldine made some remarks upon the verses, I suppose my answers showed my absence of mind.

“Why so grave, my lord? why so absent? I assure you I do not suspect your lordship of having any hand in this vulgar manoeuvre. I acquit you honourably; therefore you need not stand any longer like a criminal.”

What decided me at this instant I cannot positively tell: whether it was the awkwardness of my own situation, or the grace of her ladyship’s manner: but all my prudential arrangements were forgotten, all my doubts vanished. Before I knew that the words passed my lips, I replied, “That her ladyship did me justice by such an acquittal; but that though I had no part in the contrivance, yet I felt irresistibly impelled to avail myself of the opportunity it afforded of declaring my real sentiments.” I was at her ladyship’s feet, and making very serious love, before I knew where I was. In what words my long-delayed declaration was made, I cannot recollect, but I well remember Lady Geraldine’s answer.

“My lord, I assure you that you do not know what you are saying: you do not know what you are doing. This is all a mistake, as you will find half an hour hence. I will not be so cruelly vain as to suppose you serious.”

“Oh! rise, rise, I beseech you, my lord, and don’t look so like a hero; though you have done an heroical action, I grant. How you ever brought yourself to it, I cannot imagine. But now, for your comfort, you are safe—Vous voilà quitte pour la peur! Do not, however, let this encourage you to venture again in the same foolish manner. I know but few, very few young ladies to whom Lord Glenthorn could offer himself with any chance or reasonable hope of being refused. So take warning: never again expect to meet with such another as my whimsical self.”

“Never, never can I expect to meet with any thing resembling your charming self,” cried I. This was a new text for a lover’s rhapsody. It is not necessary, and might not be generally interesting to repeat all the ridiculous things I said, even if I could remember them.

Lady Geraldine listened to me, and then very calmly replied, “Granting you believe all that you are saying at this minute, which I must grant from common gratitude, and still more common vanity; nevertheless, permit me to assure you, my lord, that this is not love; it is only a fancy—only the nettle-rash, not the plague. You will not die this time. I will insure your life. So now jump out of the window as fast as you can, and unlock the door—you need not be afraid of breaking your neck—you know your life is insured. Come, take the lover’s leap, and get rid of your passion at once.”

I became more passionate—I did not know the force of my own feelings, till they met with an obstacle; they suddenly rose to a surprising height.

“Now, my lord,” cried Lady Geraldine with a tone and look of comic vexation, “this is really the most provoking thing imaginable; you have no idea how you distress me, nor of what exquisite pleasures you deprive me—all the pleasures of coquetry; legitimate pleasures, in certain circumstances, as I am instructed to think them by one of the first moral authorities. There is a case—I quote from memory, my lord; for my memory, like that of most other people, on subjects where I am deeply interested, is tolerably tenacious—there is a case, says the best of fathers, in his Legacy to the best of daughters—there is a case, where a woman may coquet justifiably to the utmost verge which her conscience will allow. It is where a gentleman purposely declines making his addresses, till such time as he thinks himself perfectly sure of her consent. Now, my lord, if you had had the goodness to do so, I might have made this delightful case my own; and what charming latitude I might have allowed my conscience! But now, alas! it is all over, and I must be as frank as you have been, under pain of forfeiting what I value more even than admiration—my own good opinion.”

She paused, and was silent for a few moments; then suddenly changing her manner, she exclaimed, in a serious, energetic tone, “Yes, I must, I will be sincere; let it cost me what it may. I will be sincere. My lord, I never can be yours. My lord, you will believe me, even from the effort with which I speak:” her voice softened, and her face suffused with crimson, as she spoke. “I love another—my heart is no longer in my own possession; whether it will ever be in my power, consistently with my duty and his principles, to be united with the man of my choice, is doubtful—more than doubtful—but this is certain, that with such a prepossession, such a conviction in my mind, I never could nor ought to think of marrying any other person.”

I pleaded, that however deserving of her preference the object of her favour might be, yet that if there were, as her own prudence seemed to suggest, obstacles, rendering the probability of her union with that person more than doubtful, it might be possible that her superior sense and strength of mind, joined to the persevering affection of another lover, who would spare no exertions to render himself worthy of her, might, perhaps, in time—

“No, no,” said she, interrupting me; “do not deceive yourself. I will not deceive you. I give you no hopes that my sentiments may change. I know my own mind—it will not change. My attachment is founded on the firm basis of esteem; my affection has grown from the intimate knowledge of the principles and conduct of the man I love. No other man, let his merits be what they may, could have these advantages in my opinion. And when I say that the probability of our being united is more than doubtful, I do not mean to deny that I have distant hope that change of circumstances might render love and duty compatible. Without hope I know love cannot long exist. You see I do not talk romantic nonsense to you. All that you say of prudence, and time, and the effect of the attentions of another admirer, would be perfectly just and applicable, if my attachment were a fancy of yesterday—if it were a mere young lady’s commonplace first love; but I am not a very young lady, nor is this, though a first love, commonplace. I do not, you see, in the usual style, tell you that the man I adore is an angel, and that no created form ever did, or ever can, resemble this angel in green and gold; but, on the contrary, do justice to your lordship’s merit: and believing, as I do, that you are capable of a real love; still more, believing that such an attachment would rouse you to exertion, and bring to life and light a surprising number of good qualities; yet I should deceive you unpardonably, fatally for my own peace of mind, if not for yours, were I not frankly and decidedly to assure you, that I never could reward or return your affection. My attachment to—I trust entirely where I trust at all—my attachment to Mr. Devereux is for life.”

“He deserves it—deserves it all,” cried I, struggling for utterance; “that is as much as a rival can say.”

“But your ladyship says there is a hope of duty and love being compatible. Would Lady Kildangan ever consent?”

“No, certainly; not unless—Lord O’Toole has promised—not that I depend on courtiers’ promises—but Lord O’Toole is a relation of ours, and he has promised to obtain an appointment abroad, in India, for Mr. Devereux. If that were done, he might appear of more consequence in the eyes of the world. My mother might then, perhaps, be propitious. My lord, I give you the strongest proof of my esteem, by speaking with such openness. I have had the honour of your lordship’s acquaintance only a few months; but without complimenting my own penetration, I may securely trust to the judgment of Mr. Devereux, and his example has taught me to feel confidence in your lordship. Your conduct now will, I trust, justify my good opinion, by your secrecy; and by desisting from useless pursuit you will entitle yourself to my esteem and gratitude. These, I presume, you will think worth securing.”

“Mr. Devereux is right—I see, my lord, that you have a soul that can be touched.”

“Kissing hands, I protest!” exclaimed a shrill voice at the window. We turned, and saw Mrs. O’Connor and a group of tittering faces peeping in. “Kissing hands, after a good hour’s tête-à-tête! Oh, pray, Lady Kildangan, make haste here,” continued Mrs. O’Connor; “make haste, before Lady Geraldine’s blushes are over.”

“Were you ever detected in the crime of blushing, in your life, Mrs. O’Connor?” said I.

“I never was found out locked up with so fine a gentleman,” replied Mrs. O’Connor.

“Then it hurts your conscience only to be found out, like all the rest of the vast family of the Surfaces,” said Lady Geraldine, resuming her spirit.

“Found out!—Locked up!—bless me! bless me! What is all this?” cried Lady Kildangan, puffing up the hill. “For shame! young ladies; for shame!” continued her ladyship, with a decent suppression of her satisfaction, when she saw, or thought she saw, how matters stood. “Unlock the door, pray. Don’t be vexed, my Geraldine. Fie! fie! Mrs. O’Connor. But quizzing is now so fashionable—nobody can be angry with any body. My Geraldine, consider we are all friends.”

The door unlocked, and as we were going out, Lady Geraldine whispered to me—“For mercy’s sake, my lord, don’t break my poor mother’s heart! Never let her know that a coronet has been within my grasp, and that I have not clutched it.”

Lady Kildangan, who thought that all was now approaching that happy termination she so devoutly wished, was so full of her own happy presentiments, that it was impossible for me to undeceive her ladyship. Even when I announced before her, to Sir Harry Ormsby, that I was obliged to return home immediately, on particular business, she was, I am sure, persuaded that I was going to prepare matters for marriage-settlements. When I mounted my horse, Mr. Devereux pressed through a crowd assembled on the steps at the hall-door, and offered me his hand, with a look and manner that seemed to say—Have you sufficient generosity to be still my friend? “I know the value of your friendship, Mr. Devereux,” said I, “and I hope to deserve it better every year that I live.”

For the effort which it cost me to say this I was rewarded. Lady Geraldine, who had retired behind her companions, at this instant approached with an air of mingled grace and dignity, bowed her head, and gave me a smile of grateful approbation. This is the last image left on my mind, the last look of the charming Geraldine—I never saw her again.

After I got home I did not shave for two days, and scarcely ever spoke. I should have taken to my bed to avoid seeing any human creature; but I knew that if I declared myself ill, no power would keep my old nurse Ellinor from coming to moan over me; and I was not in a humour to listen to stories of the Irish Black Beard, or the ghost of King O’Donoghoe; nor could I, however troublesome, have repulsed the simplicity of her affection. Instead of going to bed, therefore, I continued to lie stretched upon a sofa, ruminating sweet and bitter thoughts, after giving absolute orders that I should not be disturbed on any account whatever. Whilst I was in this state of reverie, one of my servants—an odd Irish fellow, who, under pretence of being half-witted, took more liberties than his companions—bolted into my presence.

“Plase your lordship, I thought it my duty, in spite of ‘em all below, to come up to advertise to your lordship of the news that’s going through the country. That they are all upside down at Ormsby Villa, all mad entirely—fighting and setting off through the kingdom, every one their own way; and, they say, it’s all on account of something that Miss Clemmy Ormsby told, that Lady Geraldine said about my Lord O’Toole’s being no better than a cat’s paw, or something that way, which made his lordship quite mad; and he said, in the presence of Captain Andrews, and my Lady Kildangan, and Lady Geraldine, and all that were in it, something that vexed Lady Geraldine, which made Mr. Cecil Devereux mad next; and he said something smart in reply, that Lord O’Toole could not digest, he said, which made his lordship madder than ever, and he discharged Mr. Devereux from his favour, and he is not to get that place that was vacant, the lord-lieutenancy of some place in the Indies that he was to have had; this made Lady Geraldine mad, and it was found out she was in love with Mr. Devereux, which made her mother mad, the maddest of all, they say, so that none can hold her, and she is crying night and day how her daughter might have had the first coronet in the kingdom, maning you, my lard, if it had not been that she prefarred a beggar-man, maning Mr. Cecil Devereux, who is as poor, they say, as a Connaughtman—and he’s forbid to think of her, and she’s forbid, under pain of bread and water, ever to set her eyes upon him the longest day ever she lives; so the horses and coaches are ordered, and they are all to be off with the first light for Dublin: and that’s all, my lard; and all truth, not a word of lies I’m telling.”

I was inclined not to credit a story so oddly told; but, upon inquiry, I found it true in its material points. My own words to Mr. Devereux, and the parting look of Lady Geraldine, were full in my recollection; I was determined, by an unexpected, exertion, to surprise both the lovers, and to secure for ever their esteem and gratitude. The appointment, which Mr. Devereux desired, was not yet given away; the fleet was to sail in a few days. I started up from my sofa—ordered my carriage instantly—shaved myself—sent a courier on before to have horses ready at every stage to carry me to Dublin—got there in the shortest time possible—found Lord O’Toole but just arrived. Though unused to diplomatic language and political negotiation, I knew pretty well on what they all hinge. I went directly to the point, and showed that it would be the interest of the party concerned to grant my request. By expressing a becoming desire that my boroughs, upon a question where a majority was required, should strengthen the hands of government, I obtained for my friend the favour he deserved. Before I quitted Lord O’Toole, his secretary, Captain Andrews, was instructed to write a letter, announcing to Mr. Devereux his appointment. A copy of the former letter of refusal now lay before me; it was in his lordship’s purest diplomatic style—as follows:

“Lord O’Toole is concerned to inform Mr. Devereux that he cannot feel himself justified in encouraging Mr. D., under the existing circumstances, to make any direct application relative to the last conversation his lordship had the honour to hold with Mr. Devereux.”

“Lord O’Toole is happy to have it in command to inform Mr. Devereux, that his lordship’s representations on the subject of their last conversation have been thought sufficient, and that an official notification of the appointment to India, which Mr. D. desired, will meet the wishes of Mr. Devereux.

Having despatched this business with a celerity that surprised all the parties concerned, and most myself, I called at the lodgings of Mr. Devereux, delivered the letter to his servant, and left town. I could not bear to see either Mr. Devereux or Lady Geraldine. I had the pleasure to hear, that the obtaining this appointment was followed by Lady Kildangan’s consent to their marriage. Soon after my return to Glenthorn Castle, I received a letter of warm thanks from Devereux, and a polite postscript from Lady Geraldine, declaring that, though she felt much pleasure, she could feel no surprise in seeing her opinion of Lord Glenthorn justified; persuaded, as she and Mr. Devereux had always been, that only motive and opportunity were wanting to make his lordship’s superior qualities known to the world, and, what was still more difficult, to himself. They left Ireland immediately afterwards in consequence of their appointment in India.

I was raised in my own estimation—I revelled a short time in my self-complacent reflections; but when nothing more remained to be done, or to be said—when the hurry of action, the novelty of generosity, the glow of enthusiasm, and the freshness of gratitude, were over, I felt that, though large motives could now invigorate my mind, I was still a prey to habitual indolence, and that I should relapse into my former state of apathy and disease.