Tales and Novels Volume X Part 20

"Very true indeed," said Lady Cecilia; "but, Helen, listen, Granville has really found an ingenious resource."

_"'By Ombres Chinoises, suppose; or a gauze curtain, as in Zemire et Azore, the audience might be made to understand the main point, that GOOD resulted from Tarquin's BAD choice. Brutus, Liberty, Rome's grandeur, and the Optimist right at last. Q.E.D.'_

"Well, well," continued Lady Cecilia, "I don't understand it; but I understand this,--'Bricks wanting.'"

Lady Davenant smiled at this curious specimen of Beauclerc's versatility, but said, "I fear he will fritter away his powers on a hundred different petty objects, and do nothing at last worthy of his abilities. He will scatter and divide the light of his genius, and show us every change of the prismatic colours--curious and beautiful to behold, but dispersing, wasting the light he should concentrate on some one, some n.o.ble object."

"But if he has light enough for little objects and great too?" said Lady Cecilia, "I allow, 'qu'il faudrait plus d'un coeur pour aimer tant de choses a la fois;' but as I really think Granville has more heart than is necessary, he can well afford to waste some of it, even on the old woman at Old Forest."

CHAPTER XII.

One evening, Helen was looking over a beautiful sc.r.a.p-book of Lady Cecilia's. Beauclerc, who had stood by for some time, eyeing it in rather scornful silence, at length asked whether Miss Stanley was a lover of alb.u.ms and autographs?

Helen had no alb.u.m of her own, she said, but she was curious always to see the autographs of celebrated people.

"Why?" said Beauclerc.

"I don't know. It seems to bring one nearer to them. It gives more reality to our imagination of them perhaps," said Helen.

"The imagination is probably in most cases better than the reality,"

replied he.

Lady Davenant stooped over Helen's shoulder to look at the handwriting of the Earl of Ess.e.x--the writing of the gallant Earl of Ess.e.x, at sight of which, as she observed, the hearts of queens have beat high. "What a crowd of a.s.sociated ideas rise at the sight of that autograph! who can look at it without some emotion?"

Helen could not. Beauclerc in a tone of raillery said he was sure, from the eager interest Miss Stanley took in these autographs, that she would in time become a collector herself; and he did not doubt that he should see her with a valuable museum, in which should be preserved the old pens of great men, that of Cardinal Chigi, for instance, who boasted that he wrote with the same pen for fifty years.

"And by that boast you know," said Lady Davenant, "convinced the Cardinal de Retz that he was not a great, but a very little man. We will not have that pen in Helen's museum."

"Why not?" Beauclerc asked, "it was full as well worth having as many of the relics to be found in most young ladies' and even old gentlemen's museums. It was quite sufficient whether a man had been great or little that he had been talked of,--that he had been something of a _lion_--to make any thing belonging to him valuable to collectors, who preserve and wors.h.i.+p even 'the parings of lions' claws.'"

That cla.s.s of indiscriminate collectors Helen gave up to his ridicule; still he was not satisfied. He went on to the whole cla.s.s of 'lion-hunters,' as he called them, condemning indiscriminately all those who were anxious to see celebrated people; he hoped Miss Stanley was not one of that cla.s.s.

"No, not a lion-hunter," said Helen; she hoped she never should be one of that set, but she confessed she had a great desire to see and to know distinguished persons, and she hoped that this sort of curiosity, or as she would rather call it enthusiasm, was not ridiculous, and did not deserve to be confounded with the mere trifling vulgar taste for sight-seeing and lion-hunting.

Beauclerc half smiled, but, not answering immediately, Lady Davenant said, that for her part she did not consider such enthusiasm as ridiculous; on the contrary, she liked it, especially in young people.

"I consider the warm admiration of talent and virtue in youth as a promise of future excellence in maturer age."

"And yet," said Beauclerc, "the maxim 'not to admire,' is, I believe, the most approved in philosophy, and in practice is the great secret of happiness in this world."

"In the _fine_ world, it is a fine air, I know," said Lady Davenant.

"Among a set of fas.h.i.+onable young somnambulists it is doubtless the only art they know to make men happy or to keep them so; but this has nothing to do with philosophy, Beauclerc, though it has to do with conceit or affectation."

Mr. Beauclerc, now piqued, with a look and voice of repressed feeling, said, that he hoped her ladys.h.i.+p did not include him among that set of fas.h.i.+onable somnambulists.

"I hope you will not include yourself in it," answered Lady Davenant: "it is contrary to your nature, and if you join the _nil admirari_ c.o.xcombs, it can be only for fas.h.i.+on's sake--mere affectation."

Beauclerc made no reply, and Lady Davenant, turning to Helen, told her that several celebrated people were soon to come to Clarendon Park, and congratulated her upon the pleasure she would have in seeing them.

"Besides being a great pleasure, it is a real advantage," continued she, "to see and be acquainted early in life with superior people. It enables one to form a standard of excellence, and raises that standard high and bright. In men, the enthusiasm becomes glorious ambition to excel in arts or arms; in women, it refines and elevates the taste, and is so far a preventive against frivolous, vulgar company, and all their train of follies and vices. I can speak from my own recollection, of the great happiness it was to me, when I early in life became acquainted with some of the ill.u.s.trious of my day."

"And may I ask," said Beauclerc, "if any of them equalled the expectations you had formed of them?"

"Some far exceeded them," said Lady Davenant.

"You were fortunate. Every body cannot expect to be so happy," said Beauclerc. "I believe, in general it is found that few great men of any times stand the test of near acquaintance. No man----"

"Spare me!" cried Lady Davenant, interrupting him, for she imagined she knew what he was going to say; "Oh! spare me that old sentence, 'No man is a hero to his valet de chambre.' I cannot endure to hear that for the thousandth time; I heartily wish it had never been said at all."

"So do I," replied Beauclerc; but Lady Davenant had turned away, and he now spoke in so low a voice, that only Helen heard him. "So do I detest that quotation, not only for being hackneyed, but for having been these hundred years the comfort both of lean-jawed envy and fat mediocrity."

He took up one of Helen's pencils and began to cut it--he looked vexed, and low to her observed, "Lady Davenant did not do me the honour to let me finish my sentence."

"Then," said Helen, "if Lady Davenant misunderstood you, why do not you explain?"

"No, no it is not worth while, if she could so mistake me."

"But any body may be mistaken; do explain."

"No, no," said he, very diligently cutting the pencil to pieces; "she is engaged, you see, with somebody--something else."

"But now she has done listening."

"No, no, not now; there are too many people, and it's of no consequence."

By this time the company were all eagerly talking of every remarkable person they had seen, or that they regretted not having seen. Lady Cecilia now called upon each to name the man among the celebrated of modern days, whom they should most liked to have seen. By acclamation they all named Sir Walter Scott, 'The Ariosto of the North!'

All but Beauclerc; he did not join the general voice; he said low to Helen with an air of disgust--"How tired I am of hearing him called 'The Ariosto of the North!'"

"But by whatever name," said Helen, "surely you join in that general wish to have seen him?"

"Yes, yes, I am sure of your vote," cried Lady Cecilia, coming up to them, "You, Granville, would rather have seen Sir Walter Scott than any author since Shakespeare--would not you?"

"Pardon me, on the contrary, I am glad that I have never seen him."

"Glad not to have seen him!--_not_?"

The word _not_ was repeated with astonished incredulous emphasis by all voices. "Glad not to have seen Sir Walter Scott! How extraordinary! What can Mr. Beauclerc mean?"

"To make us all stare," said Lady Davenant, "so do not gratify him. Do not wonder at him; we cannot believe what is impossible, you know, only because it is impossible. But," continued she, laughing, "I know how it is. The spirit of contradiction--the spirit of singularity--two of your familiars, Granville, have got possession of you again, and we must have patience while the fit is on."

"But I have not, and will not have patience," said Lord Davenant, whose good-nature seldom failed, but who was now quite indignant.

"I wonder you are surprised, my dear Lord," said Lady Davenant, "for Mr.

Beauclerc likes so much better to go wrong by himself than to go right with all the world, that you could not expect that he would join the loud voice of universal praise."