Interludes Part 4

But speaking seriously, I am sure that in some sort of work lies the antidote to luxury. When Orpheus sailed past the beautiful islands "lying in dark purple spheres of sea," and heard the songs of the idle and luxurious syrens floating languidly over the waters, he drowned their singing in a paean to the G.o.ds. Religion often affords a great incentive to work for the good of others; and, in working for others, we have neither the time, nor the inclination, to be over indulgent of ourselves.

So, the desire to obtain fame and renown has often produced men of the austere and non-indulgent type, as the Duke of Wellington and many others:--

"Fame is the spur which the clear spirit doth raise, That last infirmity of n.o.ble mind, To scorn delights and live laborious days."

Nay, even the desire to obtain riches, and the strife after them, will leave a man little room for luxury. To be honest, to be brave, to be kind and generous, to seek to know what is right, and to do it; to be loving and tender to others, and to care little for our comfort and ease, and even for our very lives, is perhaps to be somewhat old-fas.h.i.+oned and behind the age; but these are, after all, the things which distinguish us from the brute beasts which perish, and which justify our aspirations towards eternity.

A STORY.

THE READING PARTY.

CHAPTER I.--THE COACH.

Charles Porkington, M.A., sometime fellow of St. Swithin, was born of humble parents. He was educated, with a due regard for economy, in the mathematics by his father, and in the prevailing theology of the district by his mother. The village schoolmaster had also a.s.sisted in the completion of his education by teaching him a little bad Latin. He was ultimately sent to college, his parents inferring that he would make a success of the study of books, because he had always shown a singular inapt.i.tude for anything else. At college he had read hard. The common sights and sounds of University life had been unheeded by him. They pa.s.sed before his eyes, and they entered into his ears, but his mind refused to receive any impression from them. After taking a high degree, and being elected a fellow, he had written a novel of a strongly melodramatic cast, describing college life, and showing such an intimate acquaintance with the obscurer parts of it, that a great many ladies declared that "they always thought so;--it was just as they supposed."

The novel, however, did not meet with much success, and he then turned to the more lucrative but far less n.o.ble occupation of "coaching." He could not be said to be absolutely unintellectual. As he had not profited by the experience of life, so he had not been contaminated by it. He was moral, chiefly in a negative sense, and was not inclined to irreligion.

The faith of his parents sat, perhaps, uncomfortably upon him; and he had not sufficient strength of mind to adopt a new pattern. He was in short an amiable mathematician, and a feeble cla.s.sic; and I think that is all that could be said of him with any certainty. There seemed to be an absence of character which might be called characteristic, and a feebleness of will so absolute as to disarm contempt.

A portion of Porkington's hard earned gains was transmitted regularly to his two aged parents, while he himself, partly from habit and partly from indifference, lived as frugally as possible.

"Bless me!" cried Mrs. Porkington, within six months of her marriage, "To think that you should have squandered such large sums of money upon people who seem to have got on very well without them."

"My dear," replied he, "they are very poor, and in want of many comforts."

"Of course I am sorry they cannot have them now," retorted she, "and it is therefore a pity they ever should have had them."

Porkington sighed slightly, but had already learned not to contend, if he could remember not to do so. Mrs. Porkington was of large stature and majestic carriage; and had moreover a voice sufficiently powerful to keep order in an Irish brigade, or to command a vessel in a storm without the a.s.sistance of a trumpet. Mr. Porkington, on the other hand, was a little, dry, pale, plain man, with an abstracted and nervous manner, and a voice that had never grown up so as to match even the little body from which it came, but was a sort of cracked treble whisper. Moreover, when Mrs. Porkington wished to speak her mind to her husband, she would recline upon a sofa in an impressive manner, and fix her eyes upon the ceiling. Mr. Porkington, on these occasions, would sit on the very edge of the most uncomfortable chair, his toes turned out, his hands embracing his knees, and his eyes tracing the patterns upon the carpet, as though with a view of studying some abstruse theory of curves. On which side the victory lay under these circ.u.mstances it is easy to guess.

Mrs. Porkington felt the advantage of her position and followed it up.

"I never, my dear, mention any subject to you, but you immediately fling your parents at me."

Mr. Porkington would as soon have thought of throwing St. Paul's Cathedral.

After a honeymoon spent in the Lake district the happy pair went to pay a visit to the parents of the bridegroom, and Porkington had so brightened and revived during his stay there, and had expressed himself so happy in their society, that Mrs. Porkington could not forgive him. In the company of his wife's father, on the contrary, he relapsed into a state bordering upon coma; and no wonder, for that worthy retired tallow merchant was a perfect specimen of ponderous pomposity, and had absolutely nothing in common with the shy scholar who had become his son- in-law. Mr. Candlish had lost the great part of the money he had made by tallow, and by consequence had nothing to give his daughter; but she behaved herself as a woman should whose father might at one time have given her ten thousand pounds. "My papa, my dear, was worth at least 40,000 pounds when he retired," was the form in which Mrs. Porkington flung her surviving parent at the head of her husband, and crushed him flat with the missile. To the world at large she spoke of her father as "being at present a gentleman of moderate means." Now, as a gentleman of moderate means cannot be expected to provide for a sister of no means at all; and as Mrs. Porkington, not having been blessed with children by her marriage, required a companion, her aunt tacked herself on to Mr.

Porkington's establishment, and became a permanent and substantial fixture. Fat, ugly, and spiteful when she dared, she became a thorn in the side of the poor tutor, and supported on all occasions the whims and squabbles of her niece. Whenever the "coach" evinced any tendency to travel too fast, Mrs. Porkington put the "drag" on, and the vehicle stopped.

Mr. and Mrs. Porkington had now been married three years; and, as the long vacation was at hand, it became necessary to arrange their plans for a "Reading Party."

"If I might be allowed to suggest," said Mrs. Porkington, reclining on her sofa, with her eyes fixed upon the ceiling, "I think a continental reading party would be the most beneficial to the young men. The air of the continent, I have always found (Mrs. Porkington had crossed the channel upon one occasion) is very invigorating; and, though I know you don't speak French, my dear, yet you should avail yourself of every opportunity of acquiring it."

"But, my love," he replied, "we must consider. Many parents have an objection to the expense, and--"

"Oh, of course!" she interrupted, "if ever I venture, which I seldom do, to propose anything, there are fifty objections raised at once. Pray, may I ask to what uncomfortable quarter of the globe you propose to take me? Perhaps to the Gold Coast--or some other deadly spot--quite likely!"

"Well, my love," said the Coach, "I thought of the Lakes."

"Thought of the Lakes!" slowly repeated his wife. "Since I have had the honour of being allied with you in marriage, I believe you have never thought of anything else!"

There was some truth in this, and the tutor felt it. "Then, my dear,"

said he mildly, "I really do not know where we should go."

Thereupon his wife ran through the names of several likely places, to each of which she stated some clear and decided objection. Ultimately she mentioned Babbicombe as being a place she might be induced to regard with favour; the truth being that she had made up her mind from the first not to be taken anywhere else. "Babbicombe by all means let it be," said he, "since you wish it."

"I do not wish it at all," she cried, "as you know quite well, my dear; and it is very hard that you should always try to make it appear that I wish to do a thing, when I have no desire at all upon the subject. Have you noticed, aunt, how invariably Charles endeavours to take an unfair advantage of anything I say, and tries to make out I wish a thing which he has himself proposed?"

The Drag said she had noticed it very often, and wondered at it very much. She thought it was very unfair indeed, and showed a domineering spirit very far from Christian in her opinion, though, of course, opinions might differ.

Porkington took a turn in his little back garden, and smoked a pipe, which seemed to console him somewhat; and, after a few more skirmishes, the coach, harness, drag, team and all arrived at Babbicombe.

CHAPTER II.--THE TEAM.

Let the man who disapproves of reading parties suggest something better.

"Let the lads stop at home," says one. Have you ever tried it? They soon become a bore to themselves and all around them. "Let them go by themselves, then, to some quiet seaside lodging or small farmhouse."

Suicide or the d---1. "Let them stop at the University for the Long."

The Dons won't let them stop up, unless they are likely to take high degrees; and, even if the Dons would permit it, it would be too oppressively dull for the young men. "At all events, let reading parties be really _reading_ parties." Whoever said they should be anything else?

For my part I know nothing in this life equal to reading parties. Do Jones and Brown, who are perched upon high stools in the city, ever dream of starting for the Lakes with a ledger each, to enter their accounts and add up the items by the margin of Derwent.w.a.ter. Do Bagshaw and Tomkins, emerging from their dismal chambers in Pump Court, take their Smith's _Leading Cases_, or their _Archbold_, to Shanklyn or Cowes? Do Sawyer and Allen study medicine in a villa on the Lake of Geneva? I take it, it is an invincible sign of the universality of the cla.s.sics and mathematics that they will adapt themselves with equal ease to the dreariest of college rooms or to the most romantic scenery.

Harry Barton, Richard Glenville, Thomas Thornton, and I, made up Porkington's Reading Party.

Harry Barton's father was a Manchester cotton spinner of great wealth.

Himself a man of no education, beyond such knowledge as he had picked up in the course of an arduous life, the cotton spinner was not oblivious to those advantages which ought to accrue to a liberal education; and he resolved that his son, a fine handsome lad, should not fail in life for want of them. Young Barton had, therefore, in due course been sent to Eton and Camford with a full purse, a vigorous const.i.tution, a light heart, and a fair amount of cramming. At Camford he found himself in the midst of his old Eton chums, and plunged eagerly into all the animated life and excitement of the University. Boating, cricket, rackets, billiards, wine parties, betting--these formed the chief occupation of the two years which he had already pa.s.sed at college. Reading, upon some days, formed an agreeable diversion from the monotony of the above-named more interesting studies. Porkington, however, who seldom placed a man wrong, still promised him a second cla.s.s. Hearty, generous, a lover of ease and pleasure, good-natured and easily led, he was a general favourite; and in some respects deserved to be so.

Richard Glenville was the son of an orthodox low church parson, a fat vicar and canon, a man who, if he was not conformed to the world at large, was a mere reflection of the little world to which he belonged.

His son Richard was a quick-sighted youth, clear and vigorous in intellect, not deep but acute. He was high church, because he had lived among the low church party. He was a Tory, because his surroundings were mostly Liberal. He was inclined to be profane, because his father's friends bored him by their solemnity. He was flippant, because they were dull; careless, because they were cautious; and fast, because they were slow. He had an eye for the weak points of things. He delighted in what is called "chaff." He affected to regard all things with indifference, and was tolerant of everything except what he was pleased to denounce as shams. Upon this point he would occasionally become very warm. If his sense of truth and honour were touched, he became goaded into pa.s.sion; but most things appealed to him from their humorous side. He was tall, fair, and handsome, the features clean cut and the eyes grey. His manners were polished, and he was always well dressed. He was full of high spirits and good temper, and was a most agreeable companion to all to whom his satire did not render him uncomfortable. Strange to say, he stood very high in the favour of Mrs. Porkington, who, had she known what fun he made of her behind her back, would, I think, have sometimes forgotten that he was the nephew of a peer. He studied logic, cla.s.sics, mathematics, moral philosophy indifferently, because he found that a certain amount of study conduced to a quiet life with the "governor." He proposed ultimately, he said, to be called to the Bar, because that was equivalent to leaving your future career still enveloped in mystery for many years.

I do not know that I have very much to say about Thornton. He was a very estimable young man. I think he was the only one of the party who might say with a clear conscience that he did some work for his "coach." He was not short, nor tall, nor good-looking, nor very rich, nor very poor.

He was of plebeian origin. His father was a grocer. I am sure the young man had been well brought up at home, and had been well taught at school; and he was a brave, frank, honest fellow enough, but there was withal a certain common or commonplace way with him. He acquitted himself well at cricket and football; and I have no doubt he will succeed in life, and be most respectable, but on the whole very uninteresting.

The present writer is one of the most handsome, most amiable, and most witty of men; but if there is one vice more than another at which his soul revolts, it is the sin of egotism. Else the world would here have become the possessor of one of the most eloquent pages in literature. It is said that artists, who paint their own portraits, make a mere copy of their image in the looking gla.s.s. For my part, if I had to draw my own likeness, I would scorn such paltry devices. The true artist draws from the imagination. Let any man think for a moment what manner of man he is. Is he not at once struck with the fact that he is not as other men are--that he is not extortionate, nor unjust, and so forth? But, in truth, if I were to paint my own portrait, I know there are fifty fools who would think I meant it for themselves; and as I cannot tolerate vanity in other people, I will say no more about it.

So at length here at Babbicombe were the coach, harness, drag, and team duly arrived, and settled for six weeks or more, in a fine large house, far above the deep blue ocean, and far removed from all the turmoil and bustle of this busy world. Wonderful truly are the happiness and privileges of young men, if they only knew how to enjoy them wisely.

"I think it is somewhat unthoughtful, to say the least of it," said Mrs.

Porkington to Glenville, "that Mr. Porkington should have taken a house so very far from the beach. He knows how I adore the sea."

"Perhaps he is jealous of it on that account," said Glenville.

The Drag said she believed he would be jealous of anything. For her part if she were tied to such a man she would give him good cause to be jealous.

Glenville replied in his most polite manner that he was sure she could never be so cruel.

The Drag did not understand him.