“I don’t know,” said Godolphin to Radclyffe, as they were one day riding together among the green lanes that border the metropolis—“I don’t know what to do with myself this evening. Lady Erpingham is gone to Windsor; I have no dinner engagement, and I am wearied of balls. Shall we dine together, and go to the play quietly, as we might have done some ten years ago?”
“Nothing I should like better;—and the theatre—are you fond of it now? I think I have heard you say that it once made your favorite amusement.”
“I still like it passably,” answered Godolphin; “but the gloss is gone from the delusion. I am grown mournfully fastidious. I must have excellent acting—an excellent play. A slight fault—a slight deviation from nature—robs me of my content at the whole.”
“The same fault in your character pervading all things,” said Radclyffe, half smiling.
“True,” said Godolphin, yawning;—“but have you seen my new Canova?”
“No: I care nothing for statues, and I know nothing of the Fine Arts.”
“What a confession!”
“Yes, it is a rare confession: but I suspect that the Arts, like truffles and olives, are an acquired taste. People talk themselves into admiration, where at first they felt indifference. But how can you, Godolphin, with your talents, fritter away life on these baubles?”
“You are civil,” said Godolphin, impatiently. “Allow me to tell you that it is your objects I consider baubles. Your dull, plodding, wearisome honours; a name in the newspapers—a place, perhaps, in the Ministry—purchased by a sacrificed youth and a degraded manhood—a youth in labour, a manhood in schemes. No, Radclyffe! give me the bright, the glad sparkle of existence; and, ere the sad years of age and sickness, let me at least enjoy. That is wisdom! Your creed is—But I will not imitate your rudeness!” and Godolphin laughed.
“Certainly,” replied Radclyffe, “you do your best to enjoy yourself. You live well and fare sumptuously: your house is superb, your villa enchanting. Lady Erpingham is the handsomest woman of her time: and, as if that were not enough, half the fine women in London admit you at their feet. Yet you are not happy.”
“Ay: but who is?” cried Godolphin, energetically.
“I am,” said Radclyffe, drily.
“You!—humph!”
“You disbelieve me.”
“I have no right to do so: but are you not ambitious? And is not ambition full of anxiety, care,—mortification at defeat, disappointment in success? Does not the very word ambition—that is, a desire to be something you are not—prove you discontented with what you are?”
“You speak of a vulgar ambition,” said Radclyffe.
“Most august sage!—and what species of ambition is yours?”
“Not that which you describe. You speak of the ambition for self; my ambition is singular—it is the ambition for others. Some years ago I chanced to form an object in what I considered the welfare of my race. You smile. Nay, I boast no virtue in my dreams; but philanthropy was my hobby, as statues may be yours. To effect this object, I see great changes are necessary: I desire, I work for these great changes. I am not blind, in the meanwhile, to glory. I desire, on the contrary, to obtain it! But it would only please me if it came from certain sources. I want to feel that I may realise what I attempt; and wish for that glory that comes from the permanent gratitude of my species, not that which springs from the momentary applause. Now, I am vain, very vain: vanity was, some years ago, the strongest characteristic of my nature. I do not pretend to conquer the weakness, but to turn it towards my purposes. I am vain enough to wish to shine, but the light must come from deeds I think really worthy.”
“Well, well!” said Godolphin, a little interested in spite of himself: “but ambition of one sort resembles ambition of another, inasmuch as it involves perpetual harassment and humiliations.”
“Not so,” answered Radclyffe;—“because when a man is striving for what he fancies a laudable object, the goodness of his intentions comforts him for a failure in success, whereas your selfishly ambitious man has no consolation in his defeats; he is humbled by the external world, and has no inner world to apply to for consolation.”
“Oh, man!” said Godolphin, almost bitterly, “how dost thou eternally deceive thyself! Here is the thirst for power, and it calls itself the love of mankind!”
“Believe me,” said Radclyffe, so earnestly, and with so deep a meaning in his grave, bright eye, that Godolphin was staggered from his scepticism;—“believe me, they may be distinct passions, and yet can be united.”
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