Pelham — Volume 03

"Pray," said I, stretching myself listlessly on the opposite sofa to Vincent, "do you not imagine that one great cause of this spirit of which you speak, and which seems to be nothing more than a thoughtful method of expressing all things, even to trifles, was the great loneliness to which the ancient poets and philosophers were attached? I think (though I have not your talent for quoting) that Cicero calls the consideratio naturae, the pabulum animi; and the mind which, in solitude, is confined necessarily to a few objects, meditates more closely upon those it embraces: the habit of this meditation enters and pervades the system, and whatever afterwards emanates from it is tinctured with the thoughtful and contemplative colours it has received."

"Heus Domine!" cried Vincent: "how long have you learnt to read Cicero, and talk about the mind?"

"Ah," said I, "I am perhaps less ignorant than I affect to be: it is now my object to be a dandy; hereafter I may aspire to be an orator—a wit, a scholar, or a Vincent. You will see then that there have been many odd quarters of an hour in my life less unprofitably wasted than you imagine."

Vincent rose in a sort of nervous excitement, and then reseating himself, fixed his dark bright eyes steadfastly upon me for some moments; his countenance all the while assuming a higher and graver expression than I had ever before seen it wear.

"Pelham," said he, at last, "it is for the sake of moments like these, when your better nature flashes out, that I have sought your society and your friendship. I, too, am not wholly what I appear: the world may yet see that Halifax was not the only statesman whom the pursuits of literature had only formed the better for the labours of business. Meanwhile, let me pass for the pedant, and the bookworm: like a sturdier adventurer than myself, 'I bide my time.'—Pelham—this will be a busy session! shall you prepare for it?"

"Nay," answered I, relapsing into my usual tone of languid affectation;

"I shall have too much to do in attending to Stultz, and Nugee, and Tattersall and Baxter, and a hundred other occupiers of spare time.

Remember, this is my first season in London since my majority."

Vincent took up the newspaper with evident chagrin; however, he was too theoretically the man of the world, long to shew his displeasure. "Parr— Parr—again," said he; "how they stuff the journals with that name. God knows, I venerate learning as much as any man; but I respect it for its uses, and not for itself. However, I will not quarrel with his reputation—it is but for a day. Literary men, who leave nothing but their name to posterity, have but a short twilight of posthumous renown. Apropos, do you know my pun upon Parr and the Major?"

"Not I," said I, "Majora canamus!"

"Why, Parr and I, and two or three more were dining once at poor T. M— 's, the author of 'The Indian Antiquities.'Major—, a great traveller, entered into a dispute with Parr about Babylon; the Doctor got into a violent passion, and poured out such a heap of quotations on his unfortunate antagonist, that the latter, stunned by the clamour, and terrified by the Greek, was obliged to succumb. Parr turned triumphantly to me: "What is your opinion, my lord," said he; "who is in the right?"

"Adversis major—par secundis," answered I.

"Vincent," I said, after I had expressed sufficient admiration at his pun—"Vincent, I begin to be weary of this life; I shall accordingly pack up my books and myself, and go to Malvern Wells, to live quietly till I think it time for London. After to-day, you will, therefore, see me no more."

"I cannot," answered Vincent, "contravene so laudable a purpose, however I may be the loser." And after a short and desultory conversation, I left him once more to the tranquil enjoyment of his Plato. That evening I went to Malvern, and there I remained in a monotonous state of existence, dividing my time equally between my mind and my body, and forming myself into that state of contemplative reflection, which was the object of Vincent's admiration in the writings of the ancients.

Just when I was on the point of leaving my retreat, I received an intelligence which most materially affected my future prospects. My uncle, who had arrived to the sober age of fifty, without any apparent designs of matrimony, fell suddenly in love with a lady in his immediate neighbourhood, and married her, after a courtship of three weeks.

"I should not," said my poor mother, very generously, in a subsequent letter, "so much have minded his marriage, if the lady had not thought proper to become in the family way; a thing which I do and always shall consider a most unwarrantable encroachment on your rights."

I will confess that, on first hearing this news, I experienced a bitter pang; but I reasoned it away. I was already under great obligations to my uncle, and I felt it a very unjust and ungracious assumption on my part, to affect anger at conduct I had no right to question, or mortification at the loss of pretensions I had so equivocal a privilege to form. A man of fifty has, perhaps, a right to consult his own happiness, almost as much as a man of thirty; and if he attracts by his choice the ridicule of those whom he has never obliged, it is at least from those persons he has obliged, that he is to look for countenance and defence.

Fraught with these ideas, I wrote to my uncle a sincere and warm letter of congratulation. His answer was, like himself, kind, affectionate, and generous: it informed me that he had already made over to me the annual sum of one thousand pounds; and that in case of his having a lineal heir, he had, moreover, settled upon me, after his death, two thousand a-year. He ended by assuring me, that his only regret at marrying a lady who, in all respects, was above all women, calculated to make him happy, was his unfeigned reluctance to deprive me of a station, which (he was pleased to say), I not only deserved, but should adorn.

Upon receiving this letter, I was sensibly affected with my uncle's kindness; and so far from repining at his choice, I most heartily wished him every blessing it could afford him, even though an heir to the titles of Glenmorris were one of them.

I protracted my stay at Malvern some weeks longer than I had intended; the circumstance which had wrought so great a change in my fortune, wrought no less powerfully on my character. I became more thoughtfully and solidly ambitious. Instead of wasting my time in idle regrets at the station I had lost, I rather resolved to carve out for myself one still loftier and more universally acknowledged. I determined to exercise, to their utmost, the little ability and knowledge I possessed; and while the increase of income, derived from my uncle's generosity, furnished me with what was necessary for my luxury, I was resolved that it should not encourage me in the indulgence of my indolence.

In this mood, and with these intentions, I repaired to the metropolis.