Pelham — Complete

CHAPTER LIV.

Il vaut mieux employer notre esprit a supporter les infortunes qui nous arrivent, qu’a prevoir celle qui nous peuvent arriver.—Rochefoucault.

No sooner had Vincent departed, than I buttoned my coat, and sallied out through a cold easterly wind to Lord Dawton’s. It was truly said by the political quoter, that I had been often to that nobleman’s, although I have not thought it advisable to speak of my political adventures hitherto. I have before said that I was ambitious; and the sagacious have probably already discovered, that I was somewhat less ignorant than it was my usual pride and pleasure to appear. Heaven knows why! but I had established among my uncle’s friends, a reputation for talent, which I by no means deserved; and no sooner had I been personally introduced to Lord Dawton, than I found myself courted by that personage in a manner equally gratifying and uncommon. When I lost my seat in Parliament, Dawton assured me that before the session was over, I should be returned for one of his boroughs; and though my mind revolted at the idea of becoming dependant on any party, I made little scruple of promising conditionally to ally myself to his. So far had affairs gone, when I was honoured with Vincent’s proposal. I found Lord Dawton in his library, with the Marquess of Clandonald, (Lord Dartmore’s father, and, from his rank and property, classed among the highest, as, from his vanity and restlessness, he was among the most active members of the Opposition.) Clandonald left the room when I entered. Few men in office are wise enough to trust the young; as if the greater zeal and sincerity of youth did not more than compensate for its appetite for the gay, or its thoughtlessness of the serious.

When we were alone, Dawton said to me, “We are in great despair at the motion upon the—, to be made in the Lower House. We have not a single person whom we can depend upon, for the sweeping and convincing answer we ought to make; and though we should at least muster our full force in voting, our whipper-in, poor—, is so ill, that I fear we shall make but a very pitiful figure.”

“Give me,” said I, “full permission to go forth into the high-ways and by-ways, and I will engage to bring a whole legion of dandies to the House door. I can go no farther; your other agents must do the rest.”

“Thank you, my dear young friend,” said Lord Dawton, eagerly; “thank you a thousand times: we must really get you in the House as soon as possible; you will serve us more than I can express.”

I bowed, with a sneer I could not repress. Dawton pretended not to observe it. “Come,” said I, “my lord, we have no time to lose. I shall meet you, perhaps, at Brookes’s, to morrow evening, and report to you respecting my success.”

Lord Dawton pressed my hand warmly, and followed me to the door.

“He is the best premier we could have,” thought I; “but he deceives himself, if he thinks Henry Pelham will play the jackall to his lion. He will soon see that I shall keep for myself what he thinks I hunt for him.” I passed through Pall Mall, and thought of Glanville. I knocked at his door: he was at home. I found him leaning his cheek upon his hand, in a thoughtful position; an open letter was before him.

“Read that,” he said, pointing to it.

I did so. It was from the agent to the Duke of—, and contained his appointment to an opposition borough.

“A new toy, Pelham,” said he, faintly smiling; “but a little longer, and they will all be broken—the rattle will be the last.”

“My dear, dear Glanville,” said I, much affected, “do not talk thus; you have every thing before you.”

“Yes,” interrupted Glanville, “you are right, for every thing left for me is in the grave. Do you imagine that I can taste one of the possessions which fortune has heaped upon me, that I have one healthful faculty, one sense of enjoyment, among the hundred which other men are ‘heirs to?’ When did you ever see me for a moment happy? I live, as it were, on a rock, barren, and herbless, and sapless, and cut off from all human fellowship and intercourse. I had only a single object left to live for, when you saw me at Paris; I have gratified that, and the end and purpose of my existence is fulfilled. Heaven is merciful; but a little while, and this feverish and unquiet spirit shall be at rest.”

I took his hand and pressed it.

“Feel,” said he, “this dry, burning skin; count my pulse through the variations of a single minute, and you will cease either to pity me, or to speak to me of life. For months I have had, night and day, a wasting—wasting fever, of brain, and heart, and frame; the fire works well, and the fuel is nearly consumed.”

He paused, and we were both silent. In fact, I was shocked at the fever of his pulse, no less than affected at the despondency of his words. At last I spoke to him of medical advice.

“‘Canst thou,’” he said, with a deep solemnity of voice and manner, “‘administer to a mind diseased—pluck from the memory’—Ah! away with the quotation and the reflection.” And he sprung from the sofa, and going to the window, opened it, and leaned out for a few moments in silence. When he turned again towards me, his manner had regained its usual quiet. He spoke about the important motion approaching on the—, and promised to attend; and then, by degrees, I led him to talk of his sister.

He mentioned her with enthusiasm. “Beautiful as Ellen is,” he said, “her face is the very faintest reflection of her mind. Her habits of thought are so pure, that every impulse is a virtue. Never was there a person to whom goodness was so easy. Vice seems something so opposite to her nature, that I cannot imagine it possible for her to sin.”

“Will you not call with me at your mother’s?” said I. “I am going there to-day.”

Glanville replied in the affirmative, and we went at once to Lady Glanville’s, in Berkeley-square. We were admitted into his mother’s boudoir. She was alone with Miss Glanville. Our conversation soon turned from common-place topics to those of a graver nature; the deep melancholy of Glanville’s mind imbued all his thoughts when he once suffered himself to express them.

“Why,” said Lady Glanville, who seemed painfully fond of her son, “why do you not go more into the world? You suffer your mind to prey upon itself, till it destroys you. My dear, dear son, how very ill you seem.”

Ellen, whose eyes swam in tears, as they gazed upon her brother, laid her beautiful hand upon his, and said, “For my mother’s sake, Reginald, do take more care of yourself: you want air, and exercise, and amusement.”

“No,” answered Glanville, “I want nothing but occupation, and thanks to the Duke of—, I have now got it. I am chosen member for—.”

“I am too happy,” said the proud mother; “you will now be all I have ever predicted for you;” and, in her joy at the moment, she forgot the hectic of his cheek, and the hollowness of his eye.

“Do you remember,” said Reginald, turning to his sister, “those beautiful lines in my favourite Ford—

‘“Glories Of human greatness are but pleasing dreams, And shadows soon decaying. On the stage Of my mortality, my youth has acted Some scenes of vanity, drawn out at length By varied pleasures—sweetened in the mixture, But tragical in issue. Beauty, pomp, With every sensuality our giddiness Doth frame an idol—are inconstant friends When any troubled passion makes us halt On the unguarded castle of the mind.’”

“Your verses,” said I, “are beautiful, even to me, who have no soul for poetry, and never wrote a line in my life. But I love not their philosophy. In all sentiments that are impregnated with melancholy, and instil sadness as a moral, I question the wisdom, and dispute the truth. There is no situation in life which we cannot sweeten, or embitter, at will. If the past is gloomy, I do not see the necessity of dwelling upon it. If the mind can make one vigorous exertion, it can another: the same energy you put forth in acquiring knowledge, would also enable you to baffle misfortune. Determine not to think upon what is painful; resolutely turn away from every thing that recals it; bend all your attention to some new and engrossing object; do this, and you defeat the past. You smile, as if this were impossible; yet it is not an iota more so, than to tear one’s self from a favourite pursuit, and addict one’s self to an object unwelcome to one at first. This the mind does continually through life: so can it also do the other, if you will but make an equal exertion. Nor does it seem to me natural to the human heart to look much to the past; all its plans, its projects, its aspirations, are for the future; it is for the future, and in the future, that we live. Our very passions, when most agitated, are most anticipative. Revenge, avarice, ambition, love, the desire of good and evil, are all fixed and pointed to some distant goal; to look backwards, is like walking backwards—against our proper formation; the mind does not readily adopt the habit, and when once adopted, it will readily return to its natural bias. Oblivion is, therefore, an easier obtained boon than we imagine. Forgetfulness of the past is purchased by increasing our anxiety for the future.”

I paused for a moment, but Glanville did not answer me; and, encouraged by a look from Ellen, I continued—“You remember that, according to an old creed, if we were given memory as a curse, we were also given hope as a blessing. Counteract the one by the other. In my own life, I have committed many weak, many wicked actions; I have chased away their remembrance, though I have transplanted their warning to the future. As the body involuntarily avoids what is hurtful to it, without tracing the association to its first experience, so the mind insensibly shuns what has formerly afflicted it, even without palpably recalling the remembrance of the affliction. The Roman philosopher placed the secret of human happiness in the one maxim—‘not to admire.’ I never could exactly comprehend the sense of the moral: my maxim for the same object would be—‘never to regret.’”

“Alas! my dear friend,” said Glanville—“we are great philosophers to each other, but not to ourselves; the moment we begin to feel sorrow, we cease to reflect on its wisdom. Time is the only comforter; your maxims are very true, but they confirm me in my opinion—that it is in vain for us to lay down fixed precepts for the regulation of the mind, so long as it is dependent upon the body. Happiness and its reverse are constitutional in many persons, and it is then only that they are independent of circumstances. Make the health, the frames of all men alike—make their nerves of the same susceptibility—their memories of the same bluntness, or acuteness—and I will then allow, that you can give rules adapted to all men; till then, your maxim, ‘never to regret,’ is as idle as Horace’s ‘never to admire.’ It may be wise to you—it is impossible to me!”

With these last words, Glanville’s voice faltered, and I felt averse to push the argument further. Ellen’s eye caught mine, and gave me a look so kind, and almost grateful, that I forgot every thing else in the world. A few moments afterwards a friend of Lady Glanville’s was announced, and I left the room.