Pelham — Complete

CHAPTER XXXIII.

J’ai toujours cru que le bon n’etait que le beau mis en action. —Rousseau.

Shortly after Russelton’s answer to Sir Willoughby’s eulogistic observations on his own attire, I left those two worthies till I was to join them at dinner; it wanted three hours yet to that time, and I repaired to my quarters to bathe and write letters. I scribbled one to Madame D’Anville, full of antitheses and maxims, sure to charm her; another to my mother, to prepare her for my arrival; and a third to Lord Vincent, giving him certain commissions at Paris, which I had forgotten personally to execute.

My pen is not that of a ready writer; and what with yawning, stretching, admiring my rings, and putting pen to paper, in the intervals of these more natural occupations, it was time to bathe and dress before my letters were completed. I set off to Russelton’s abode in high spirits, and fully resolved to make the most of a character so original.

It was a very small room in which I found him; he was stretched in an easy chair before the fire-place, gazing complacently at his feet, and apparently occupied in any thing but listening to Sir Willoughby Townsend, who was talking with great vehemence about politics and the corn laws. Notwithstanding the heat of the weather, there was a small fire on the hearth, which, aided by the earnestness of his efforts to convince his host, put poor Sir Willoughby into a most intense perspiration. Russelton, however, seemed enviably cool, and hung over the burning wood like a cucumber on a hotbed. Sir Willoughby came to a full stop by the window, and (gasping for breath) attempted to throw it open.

“What are you doing? for Heaven’s sake, what are you doing?” cried Russelton, starting up; “do you mean to kill me?”

“Kill you!” said Sir Willoughby, quite aghast.

“Yes; kill me! is it not quite cold enough already in this d—d seafaring place, without making my only retreat, humble as it is, a theatre for thorough draughts? Have I not had the rheumatism in my left shoulder, and the ague in my little finger, these last six months? and must you now terminate my miserable existence at one blow, by opening that abominable lattice? Do you think, because your great frame, fresh from the Yorkshire wolds, and compacted of such materials, that one would think, in eating your beeves, you had digested their hides into skin—do you think, because your limbs might be cut up into planks for a seventy-eight, and warranted water-proof without pitch, because of the density of their pores—do you think, because you are as impervious as an araphorostic shoe, that I, John Russelton, am equally impenetrable, and that you are to let easterly winds play about my room like children, begetting rheums and asthmas and all manner of catarrhs? I do beg, Sir Willoughby Townshend, that you will suffer me to die a more natural and civilized death;” and so saying, Russelton sank down into his chair, apparently in the last state of exhaustion.

Sir Willoughby, who remembered the humourist in all his departed glory, and still venerated him as a temple where the deity yet breathed, though the altar was overthrown, made to this extraordinary remonstrance no other reply than a long whiff, and a “Well, Russelton, dash my wig (a favourite oath of Sir W.‘s) but you’re a queer fellow.”

Russelton now turned to me, and invited me, with a tone of the most lady-like languor, to sit down near the fire. As I am naturally of a chilly disposition, and fond, too, of beating people in their own line, I drew a chair close to the hearth, declared the weather was very cold, and rung the bell for some more wood. Russelton started for a moment, and then, with a politeness he had not deigned to exert before, approached his chair to mine, and began a conversation, which, in spite of his bad witticisms, and peculiarity of manner, I found singularly entertaining.

Dinner was announced, and we adjourned to another room—poor Sir Willoughby, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, and breathing like a pug in a phthisis—groaned bitterly, when he discovered that this apartment was smaller and hotter than the one before. Russelton immediately helped him to some scalding soup—and said, as he told the servant to hand Sir Willoughby the cayenne—“you will find this, my dear Townshend, a very sensible potage for this severe season.”

Dinner went off tamely enough, with the exception of “our stout friend’s” agony, which Russelton enjoyed most luxuriously. The threatened mutton-chops did not make their appearance, and the dinner, though rather too small, was excellently cooked, and better arranged. With the dessert, the poor baronet rose, and pleading sudden indisposition, tottered out of the door.

When he was gone, Russelton threw himself back in his chair, and laughed for several minutes with a loud chuckling sound, till the tears ran down his cheek. “A nice heart you must have!” thought I—(my conclusions of character are always drawn from small propensities).

After a few jests at Sir Willoughby, our conversation turned upon other individuals. I soon saw that Russelton was a soured and disappointed man; his remarks on people were all sarcasms—his mind was overflowed with a suffusion of ill-nature—he bit as well as growled. No man of the world ever, I am convinced, becomes a real philosopher in retirement. People who have been employed for years upon trifles have not the greatness of mind, which could alone make them indifferent to what they have coveted all their lives, as most enviable and important.

“Have you read ———‘s memoirs?” said Mr. Russelton. “No! Well, I imagined every one had at least dipped into them. I have often had serious thoughts of dignifying my own retirement, by the literary employment of detailing my adventures in the world. I think I could throw a new light upon things and persons, which my contemporaries will shrink back like owls at perceiving.

“Your life,” said I, “must indeed furnish matter of equal instruction and amusement.”

“Ay,” answered Russelton; “amusement to the fools, but instruction to the knaves. I am, indeed, a lamentable example of the fall of ambition. I brought starch into all the neckcloths in England, and I end by tying my own at a three-inch looking-glass at Calais. You are a young man, Mr. Pelham, about to commence life, probably with the same views as (though greater advantages than) myself; perhaps in indulging my egotism, I shall not weary without recompensing you.

“I came into the world with an inordinate love of glory, and a great admiration of the original; these propensities might have made me a Shakspeare—they did more, they made me a Russelton! When I was six years old, I cut my jacket into a coat, and turned my aunt’s best petticoat into a waistcoat. I disdained at eight the language of the vulgar, and when my father asked me to fetch his slippers, I replied, that my soul swelled beyond the limits of a lackey’s. At nine, I was self-inoculated with propriety of ideas. I rejected malt with the air of His Majesty, and formed a violent affection for maraschino; though starving at school, I never took twice of pudding, and paid sixpence a week out of my shilling to have my shoes blacked. As I grew up, my notions expanded. I gave myself, without restraint, to the ambition that burnt within me—I cut my old friends, who were rather envious than emulous of my genius, and I employed three tradesmen to make my gloves—one for the hand, a second for the fingers, and a third for the thumb! These two qualities made me courted and admired by a new race—for the great secrets of being courted are to shun others, and seem delighted with yourself. The latter is obvious enough; who the deuce should be pleased with you, if you yourself are not?

“Before I left college I fell in love. Other fellows, at my age, in such a predicament, would have whined—shaved only twice a week, and written verses. I did none of the three—the last indeed I tried, but, to my infinite surprise, I found my genius was not universal. I began with

“‘Sweet nymph, for whom I wake my muse.’

“For this, after considerable hammering, I could only think of the rhyme ‘shoes’—so I began again,—

“‘Thy praise demands much softer lutes.’

“And the fellow of this verse terminated like myself in ‘boots.’—Other efforts were equally successful—‘bloom’ suggested to my imagination no rhyme but ‘perfume!’—‘despair’ only reminded me of my ‘hair,’—and ‘hope’ was met at the end of the second verse, by the inharmonious antithesis of ‘soap.’ Finding, therefore, that my forte was not in the Pierian line, I redoubled my attention to my dress; I coated, and cravated, and essenced, and oiled, with all the attention the very inspiration of my rhymes seemed to advise;—in short, I thought the best pledge I could give my Dulcinea of my passion for her person, would be to show her what affectionate veneration I could pay to my own.

“My mistress could not withhold from me her admiration, but she denied me her love. She confessed Mr. Russelton was the best dressed man at the University, and had the whitest hands; and two days after this avowal, she ran away with a great rosy-cheeked extract from Leicestershire.

“I did not blame her: I pitied her too much—but I made a vow never to be in love again. In spite of all advantages I kept my oath, and avenged myself on the species for the insult of the individual.

“Before I commenced a part which was to continue through life, I considered deeply on the humours of the spectators. I saw that the character of the English was servile to rank, and yielding to pretension—they admire you for your acquaintance, and cringe to you for your conceit. The first thing, therefore, was to know great people—the second to controul them. I dressed well, and had good horses—that was sufficient to make me sought by the young of my own sex. I talked scandal, and was never abashed—that was more than enough to make me recherche among the matrons of the other. It is single men, and married women, to whom are given the St. Peter’s keys of Society. I was soon admitted into its heaven—I was more—I was one of its saints. I became imitated as well as initiated. I was the rage—the lion. Why?—was I better—was I richer—was I handsomer—was I cleverer, than my kind? No, no;—(and here Russelton ground his teeth with a strong and wrathful expression of scorn);—and had I been all—had I been a very concentration and monopoly of all human perfections, they would not have valued me at half the price they did set on me. It was—I will tell you the simple secret, Mr. Pelham—it was because I trampled on them, that, like crushed herbs, they sent up a grateful incense in return.

“Oh! it was balm to my bitter and loathing temper, to see those who would have spurned me from them, if they dared, writhe beneath my lash, as I withheld or inflicted it at will. I was the magician who held the great spirits that longed to tear me to pieces, by one simple spell which a superior hardihood had won me—and, by Heaven, I did not spare to exert it.

“Well, well, this is but an idle recollection now; all human power, says the proverb of every language, is but of short duration. Alexander did not conquer kingdoms for ever; and Russelton’s good fortune deserted him at last. Napoleon died in exile, and so shall I; but we have both had our day, and mine was the brightest of the two, for it had no change till the evening. I am more happy than people would think for—Je ne suis pas souvent ou mon corps est—I live in a world of recollections, I trample again upon coronets and ermine, the glories of the small great! I give once more laws which no libertine is so hardy not to feel exalted in adopting; I hold my court, and issue my fiats; I am like the madman, and out of the very straws of my cell, I make my subjects and my realm; and when I wake from these bright visions, and see myself an old, deserted man, forgotten, and decaying inch by inch in a foreign village, I can at least summon sufficient of my ancient regality of spirit not to sink beneath the reverse. If I am inclined to be melancholy, why, I extinguish my fire, and imagine I have demolished a duchess. I steal up to my solitary chamber, to renew again, in my sleep, the phantoms of my youth; to carouse with princes; to legislate for nobles; and to wake in the morning (here Russelton’s countenance and manner suddenly changed to an affectation of methodistical gravity,) and thank Heaven that I have still a coat to my stomach, as well as to my back, and that I am safely delivered of such villainous company; ‘to forswear sack and live cleanly,’ during the rest of my sublunary existence.”

After this long detail of Mr. Russelton’s, the conversation was but dull and broken. I could not avoid indulging a reverie upon what I had heard, and my host was evidently still revolving the recollections his narration had conjured up; we sat opposite each other for several minutes as abstracted and distracted as if we had been a couple two months married; till at last I rose, and tendered my adieus. Russelton received them with his usual coldness, but more than his usual civility, for he followed me to the door.

Just as they were about to shut it, he called me back. “Mr. Pelham,” said he, “Mr. Pelham, when you come back this way, do look in upon me, and—and as you will be going a good deal into society, just find out what people say of my manner of life!” [It will be perceived by those readers who are kind or patient enough to reach the conclusion of this work, that Russelton is specified as one of my few dramatis personae of which only the first outline is taken from real life: all the rest—all, indeed, which forms and marks the character thus briefly delineated, is drawn solely from imagination.]