The Disowned, Volume 2.

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CHAPTER XI.

He who would know mankind must be at home with all men.
STEPHEN MONTAGUE.

We left Clarence safely deposited in his little lodgings. Whether
from the heat of his apartment or the restlessness a migration of beds
produces in certain constitutions, his slumbers on the first night of
his arrival were disturbed and brief. He rose early and descended to
the parlour; Mr. de Warens, the nobly appellatived foot-boy, was
laying the breakfast-cloth. From three painted shelves which
constituted the library of "Copperas Bower," as its owners gracefully
called their habitation, Clarence took down a book very prettily
bound; it was "Poems by a Nobleman." No sooner had he read two pages
than he did exactly what the reader would have done, and restored the
volume respectfully to its place. He then drew his chair towards the
window, and wistfully eyed sundry ancient nursery maids, who were
leading their infant charges to the "fresh fields and pastures new" of
what is now the Regent's Park.

In about an hour Mrs. Copperas descended, and mutual compliments were
exchanged; to her succeeded Mr. Copperas, who was well scolded for his
laziness: and to them, Master Adolphus Copperas, who was also
chidingly termed a naughty darling for the same offence. Now then
Mrs. Copperas prepared the tea, which she did in the approved method
adopted by all ladies to whom economy is dearer than renown, namely,
the least possible quantity of the soi-disant Chinese plant was first
sprinkled by the least possible quantity of hot water; after this
mixture had become as black and as bitter as it could possibly be
without any adjunct from the apothecary's skill, it was suddenly
drenched with a copious diffusion, and as suddenly poured forth--weak,
washy, and abominable,--into four cups, severally appertaining unto
the four partakers of the matutinal nectar.

Then the conversation began to flow. Mrs. Copperas was a fine lady,
and a sentimentalist,--very observant of the little niceties of phrase
and manner. Mr. Copperas was a stock-jobber and a wit,--loved a good
hit in each capacity; was very round, very short, and very much like a
John Dory; and saw in the features and mind of the little Copperas the
exact representative of himself.

"Adolphus, my love," said Mrs. Copperas, "mind what I told you, and
sit upright. Mr. Linden, will you allow me to cut you a leetle piece
of this roll?"

"Thank you," said Clarence, "I will trouble you rather for the whole
of it."

Conceive Mrs. Copperas's dismay! From that moment she saw herself
eaten out of house and home; besides, as she afterwards observed to
her friend Miss Barbara York, the "vulgarity of such an amazing
appetite!"

"Any commands in the city, Mr. Linden?" asked the husband; "a coach
will pass by our door in a few minutes,--must be on 'Change in half an
hour. Come, my love, another cup of tea; make haste; I have scarcely
a moment to take my fare for the inside, before coachee takes his for
the outside. Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Linden."

"Lord, Mr. Copperas," said his helpmate, "how can you be so silly?
setting such an example to your son, too; never mind him, Adolphus, my
love; fie, child! a'n't you ashamed of yourself? never put the spoon
in your cup till you have done tea: I must really send you to school
to learn manners. We have a very pretty little collection of books
here, Mr. Linden, if you would like to read an hour or two after
breakfast,--child, take your hands out of your pockets,--all the best
English classics I believe,--'Telemachus,' and Young's 'Night
Thoughts,' and 'Joseph Andrews,' and the 'Spectator,' and Pope's
Iliad, and Creech's Lucretius; but you will look over them yourself!
This is Liberty Hall, as well as Copperas Bower, Mr. Linden!"

"Well, my love," said the stock-jobber, "I believe I must be off.
Here Tom, Tom (Mr. de Warens had just entered the room with some more
hot water, to weaken still further "the poor remains of what was once
"--the tea!), Tom, just run out and stop the coach; it will be by in
five minutes."

"Have not I prayed and besought you, many and many a time, Mr.
Copperas," said the lady, rebukingly, "not to call De Warens by his
Christian name? Don't you know that all people in genteel life, who
only keep one servant, invariably call him by his surname, as if he
were the butler, you know?"

"Now, that is too good, my love," said Copperas. "I will call poor
Tom by any surname you please, but I really can't pass him off for a
butler! Ha--ha--ha--you must excuse me there, my love!"

"And pray, why not, Mr. Copperas? I have known many a butler bungle
more at a cork than he does; and pray tell me who did you ever see
wait better at dinner?"

"He wait at dinner, my love! it is not he who waits."

"Who then, Mr. Copperas?"

"Why we, my love; it's we who wait for dinner; but that's the cook's
fault, not his."

"Pshaw! Mr. Copperas; Adolphus, my love, sit upright, darling."

Here De Warens cried from the bottom of the stairs,--"Measter, the
coach be coming up."

"There won't be room for it to turn then," said the facetious Mr.
Copperas, looking round the apartment as if he took the words
literally.

"What coach is it, boy?"

Now that was not the age in which coaches scoured the city every half
hour, and Mr. Copperas knew the name of the coach as well as he knew
his own.

"It be the Swallow coach, sir."

"Oh, very well: then since I have swallowed in the roll, I will now
roll in the Swallow--ha--ha--ha! Good-by, Mr. Linden."

No sooner had the witty stock-jobber left the room than Mrs. Copperas
seemed to expand into a new existence. "My husband, sir," said she,
apologetically, "is so odd, but he's an excellent sterling character;
and that, you know, Mr. Linden, tells more in the bosom of a family
than all the shining qualities which captivate the imagination. I am
sure, Mr. Linden, that the moralist is right in admonishing us to
prefer the gold to the tinsel. I have now been married some years,
and every year seems happier than the last; but then, Mr. Linden, it
is such a pleasure to contemplate the growing graces of the sweet
pledge of our mutual love.--Adolphus, my dear, keep your feet still,
and take your hands out of your pockets!"

A short pause ensued.

"We see a great deal of company," said Mrs. Copperas, pompously, "and
of the very best description. Sometimes we are favoured by the
society of the great Mr. Talbot, a gentleman of immense fortune and
quite the courtier: he is, it is true, a little eccentric in his
dress: but then he was a celebrated beau in his young days. He is our
next neighbour; you can see his house out of the window, just across
the garden--there! We have also, sometimes, our humble board graced
by a very elegant friend of mine, Miss Barbara York, a lady of very
high connections, her first cousin was a lord mayor.--Adolphus, my
dear, what are you about? Well, Mr. Linden, you will find your
retreat quite undisturbed; I must go about the household affairs; not
that I do anything more than superintend, you know, sir; but I think
no lady should be above consulting her husband's interests; that's
what I call true old English conjugal affection. Come, Adolphus, my
dear."

And Clarence was now alone. "I fear," thought he, "that I shall get
on very indifferently with these people. But it will not do for me to
be misanthropical, and (as Dr. Latinas was wont to say) the great
merit of philosophy, when we cannot command circumstances, is to
reconcile us to them."

CHAPTER XII.

A retired beau is one of the most instructive spectacles in the world.
STEPHEN MONTAGUE.

It was quite true that Mrs. Copperas saw a great deal of company, for
at a certain charge, upon certain days, any individual might have the
honour of sharing her family repast; and many, of various callings,
though chiefly in commercial life, met at her miscellaneous board.
Clarence must, indeed, have been difficult to please, or obtuse of
observation, if, in the variety of her guests, he had not found
something either to interest or amuse him. Heavens! what a motley
group were accustomed, twice in the week, to assemble there! the
little dining-parlour seemed a human oven; and it must be owned that
Clarence was no slight magnet of attraction to the female part of the
guests. Mrs. Copperas's bosom friend in especial, the accomplished
Miss Barbara York, darted the most tender glances on the handsome
young stranger; but whether or not a nose remarkably prominent and
long prevented the glances from taking full effect, it is certain that
Clarence seldom repaid them with that affectionate ardour which Miss
Barbara York had ventured to anticipate. The only persons indeed for
whom he felt any sympathetic attraction were of the same sex as
himself. The one was Mr. Talbot, the old gentleman whom Mrs. Copperas
had described as the perfect courtier; the other, a young artist of
the name of Warner. Talbot, to Clarence's great astonishment (for
Mrs. Copperas's eulogy had prepared him for something eminently
displeasing) was a man of birth, fortune, and manners peculiarly
graceful and attractive. It is true, however, that, despite of his
vicinity, and Mrs. Copperas's urgent solicitations, he very seldom
honoured her with his company, and he always cautiously sent over his
servant in the morning to inquire the names and number of her expected
guests; nor was he ever known to share the plenteous board of the
stock-jobber's lady whenever any other partaker of its dainties save
Clarence and the young artist were present. The latter, the old
gentleman really liked; and as for one truly well born and well bred
there is no vulgarity except in the mind, the slender means, obscure
birth, and struggling profession of Warner were circumstances which,
as they increased the merit of a gentle manner and a fine mind, spoke
rather in his favour than the reverse. Mr. Talbot was greatly struck
by Clarence Linden's conversation and appearance; and indeed there was
in Talbot's tastes so strong a bias to aristocratic externals that
Clarence's air alone would have been sufficient to win the good graces
of a man who had, perhaps, more than most courtiers of his time,
cultivated the arts of manner and the secrets of address.

"You will call upon me soon?" said he to Clarence, when, after dining
one day with the Copperases and their inmate, he rose to return home.
And Clarence, delighted with the urbanity and liveliness of his new
acquaintance, readily promised that he would.

Accordingly the next day Clarence called upon Mr. Talbot. The house,
as Mrs. Copperas had before said, adjoined her own, and was only
separated from it by a garden. It was a dull mansion of brick, which
had disdained the frippery of paint and whitewashing, and had indeed
been built many years previously to the erection of the modern
habitations which surrounded it. It was, therefore, as a consequence
of this priority of birth, more sombre than the rest, and had a
peculiarly forlorn and solitary look. As Clarence approached the
door, he was struck with the size of the house; it was of very
considerable extent, and in the more favourable situations of London,
would have passed for a very desirable and spacious tenement. An old
man, whose accurate precision of dress bespoke the tastes of the
master, opened the door, and after ushering Clarence through two long,
and, to his surprise, almost splendidly furnished rooms, led him into
a third, where, seated at a small writing-table, he found Mr. Talbot.
That person, one whom Clarence then little thought would hereafter
exercise no small influence over his fate, was of a figure and
countenance well worthy the notice of a description.

His own hair, quite white, was carefully and artificially curled, and
gave a Grecian cast to features whose original delicacy, and exact
though small proportions, not even age could destroy. His eyes were
large, black, and sparkled with almost youthful vivacity; and his
mouth, which was the best feature he possessed, developed teeth white
and even as rows of ivory. Though small and somewhat too slender in
the proportions of his figure, nothing could exceed the ease and the
grace of his motions and air; and his dress, though singularly rich in
its materials, eccentric in its fashion, and from its evident study,
unseemly to his years, served nevertheless to render rather venerable
than ridiculous a mien which could almost have carried off any
absurdity, and which the fashion of the garb peculiarly became. The
tout ensemble was certainly that of a man who was still vain of his
exterior, and conscious of its effect; and it was as certainly
impossible to converse with Mr. Talbot for five minutes without
merging every less respectful impression in the magical fascination of
his manner.

"I thank you, Mr. Linden," said Talbot, rising, "for your accepting so
readily an old man's invitation. If I have felt pleasure in
discovering that we were to be neighbours, you may judge what that
pleasure is to-day at finding you my visitor."

Clarence, who, to do him justice, was always ready at returning a fine
speech, replied in a similar strain, and the conversation flowed on
agreeably enough. There was more than a moderate collection of books
in the room, and this circumstance led Clarence to allude to literary
subjects; these Mr. Talbot took up with avidity, and touched with a
light but graceful criticism upon many of the then modern and some of
the older writers. He seemed delighted to find himself understood and
appreciated by Clarence, and every moment of Linden's visit served to
ripen their acquaintance into intimacy. At length they talked upon
Copperas Bower and its inmates.

"You will find your host and hostess," said the gentleman, "certainly
of a different order from the persons with whom it is easy to see you
have associated; but, at your happy age, a year or two may be very
well thrown away upon observing the manners and customs of those whom,
in later life, you may often be called upon to conciliate or perhaps
to control. That man will never be a perfect gentleman who lives only
with gentlemen. To be a man of the world, we must view that world in
every grade and in every perspective. In short, the most practical
art of wisdom is that which extracts from things the very quality they
least appear to possess; and the actor in the world, like the actor on
the stage, should find 'a basket-hilted sword very convenient to carry
milk in.' [See the witty inventory of a player's goods in the
"Tatler."] As for me, I have survived my relations and friends. I
cannot keep late hours, nor adhere to the unhealthy customs of good
society; nor do I think that, to a man of my age and habits, any
remuneration would adequately repay the sacrifice of health or
comfort. I am, therefore, well content to sink into a hermitage in an
obscure corner of this great town, and only occasionally to revive my
'past remembrances of higher state,' by admitting a few old
acquaintances to drink my bachelor's tea and talk over the news of the
day. Hence, you see, Mr. Linden, I pick up two or three novel
anecdotes of state and scandal, and maintain my importance at Copperas
Bower by retailing them second-hand. Now that you are one of the
inmates of that abode, I shall be more frequently its guest. By the
by, I will let you into a secret: know that I am somewhat a lover of
the marvellous, and like to indulge a little embellishing exaggeration
in any place where there is no chance of finding me out. Mind,
therefore, my dear Mr. Linden, that you take no ungenerous advantage
of this confession; but suffer me, now and then, to tell my stories my
own way, even when you think truth would require me to tell them in
another."

"Certainly," said Clarence, laughing; "let us make an agreement: you
shall tell your stories as you please, if you will grant me the same
liberty in paying my compliments; and if I laugh aloud at the stories,
you shall promise me not to laugh aloud at the compliments."

"It is a bond," said Talbot; "and a very fit exchange of service it
is. It will be a problem in human nature to see who has the best of
it: you shall pay your court by flattering the people present, and I
mine by abusing those absent. Now, in spite of your youth and curling
locks, I will wager that I succeed the best; for in vanity there is so
great a mixture of envy that no compliment is like a judicious abuse:
to enchant your acquaintance, ridicule his friends."

"Ah, sir," said Clarence, "this opinion of yours is, I trust, a little
in the French school, where brilliancy is more studied than truth, and
where an ill opinion of our species always has the merit of passing
for profound."

Talbot smiled, and shook his head. "My dear young friend," said he,
"it is quite right that you, who are coming into the world, should
think well of it; and it is also quite right that I, who am going out
of it, should console myself by trying to despise it. However, let me
tell you, my young friend, that he whose opinion of mankind is not too
elevated will always be the most benevolent, because the most
indulgent, to those errors incidental to human imperfection to place
our nature in too flattering a view is only to court disappointment,
and end in misanthropy. The man who sets out with expecting to find
all his fellow-creatures heroes of virtue will conclude by condemning
them as monsters of vice; and, on the contrary, the least exacting
judge of actions will be the most lenient. If God, in His own
perfection, did not see so many frailties in us, think you He would be
so gracious to our virtues?"

"And yet," said Clarence, "we remark every day examples of the highest
excellence."

"Yes," replied Talbot, "of the highest but not of the most constant
excellence. He knows very little of the human heart who imagines we
cannot do a good action; but, alas! he knows still less of it who
supposes we can be always doing good actions. In exactly the same
ratio we see every day the greatest crimes are committed; but we find
no wretch so depraved as to be always committing crimes. Man cannot
be perfect even in guilt."

In this manner Talbot and his young visitor conversed, till Clarence,
after a stay of unwarrantable length, rose to depart.

"Well," said Talbot, "if we now rightly understand each other, we
shall be the best friends in the world. As we shall expect great
things from each other sometimes, we will have no scruple in exacting
a heroic sacrifice every now and then; for instance, I will ask you to
punish yourself by an occasional tete-a-tete with an ancient
gentleman; and, as we can also by the same reasoning pardon great
faults in each other, if they are not often committed, so I will
forgive you, with all my heart, whenever you refuse my invitations, if
you do not refuse them often. And now farewell till we meet again."

It seemed singular and almost unnatural to Linden that a man like
Talbot, of birth, fortune, and great fastidiousness of taste and
temper, should have formed any sort of acquaintance, however slight
and distant, with the facetious stock-jobber and his wife; but the
fact is easily explained by a reference to the vanity which we shall
see hereafter made the ruling passion of Talbot's nature. This
vanity, which branching forth into a thousand eccentricities,
displayed itself in the singularity of his dress, the studied yet
graceful warmth of his manner, his attention to the minutiae of life,
his desire, craving and insatiate, to receive from every one, however
insignificant, his obolus of admiration,--this vanity, once flattered
by the obsequious homage it obtained from the wonder and reverence of
the Copperases, reconciled his taste to the disgust it so frequently
and necessarily conceived; and, having in great measure resigned his
former acquaintance and wholly outlived his friends, he was contented
to purchase the applause which had become to him a necessary of life
at the humble market more immediately at his command.

There is no dilemma in which Vanity cannot find an expedient to
develop its form, no stream of circumstances in which its buoyant and
light nature will not rise to float upon the surface. And its
ingenuity is as fertile as that of the player who (his wardrobe
allowing him no other method of playing the fop) could still exhibit
the prevalent passion for distinction by wearing stockings of
different colours.

CHAPTER XIII.

Who dares
Interpret then my life for me as 't were
One of the undistinguishable many?
COLERIDGE: Wallenstein.

The first time Clarence had observed the young artist, he had taken a
deep interest in his appearance. Pale, thin, undersized, and slightly
deformed, the sanctifying mind still shed over the humble frame a
spell more powerful than beauty. Absent in manner, melancholy in air,
and never conversing except upon subjects on which his imagination was
excited, there was yet a gentleness about him which could not fail to
conciliate and prepossess; nor did Clarence omit any opportunity to
soften his reserve, and wind himself into his more intimate
acquaintance. Warner, the only support of an aged and infirm
grandmother (who had survived her immediate children), was distantly
related to Mrs. Copperas; and that lady extended to him, with
ostentatious benevolence, her favour and support. It is true that she
did not impoverish the young Adolphus to enrich her kinsman, but she
allowed him a seat at her hospitable board, whenever it was not
otherwise filled; and all that she demanded in return was a picture of
herself, another of Mr. Copperas, a third of Master Adolphus, a fourth
of the black cat, and from time to time sundry other lesser
productions of his genius, of which, through the agency of Mr. Brown,
she secretly disposed at a price that sufficiently remunerated her for
whatever havoc the slender appetite of the young painter was able to
effect.

By this arrangement, Clarence had many opportunities of gaining that
intimacy with Warner which had become to him an object; and though the
painter, constitutionally diffident and shy, was at first averse to,
and even awed by, the ease, boldness, fluent speech, and confident
address of a man much younger than himself, yet at last he could not
resist the being decoyed into familiarity; and the youthful pair
gradually advanced from companionship into friendship. There was a
striking contrast between the two: Clarence was bold and frank, Warner
close and timid. Both had superior abilities; but the abilities of
Clarence were for action, those of Warner for art: both were
ambitious; but the ambition of Clarence was that of circumstances
rather than character. Compelled to carve his own fortunes without
sympathy or aid, he braced his mind to the effort, though naturally
too gay for the austerity, and too genial for the selfishness of
ambition. But the very essence of Warner's nature was the feverish
desire of fame: it poured through his veins like lava; it preyed as a
worm upon his cheek; it corroded his natural sleep; it blackened the
colour of his thoughts; it shut out, as with an impenetrable wall, the
wholesome energies and enjoyments and objects of living men; and,
taking from him all the vividness of the present, all the tenderness
of the past, constrained his heart to dwell forever and forever amidst
the dim and shadowy chimeras of a future he was fated never to enjoy.

But these differences of character, so far from disturbing, rather
cemented their friendship; and while Warner (notwithstanding his
advantage of age) paid involuntary deference to the stronger character
of Clarence, he, in his turn, derived that species of pleasure by
which he was most gratified, from the affectionate and unenvious
interest Clarence took in his speculations of future distinction, and
the unwearying admiration with which he would sit by his side, and
watch the colours start from the canvas, beneath the real though
uncultured genius of the youthful painter.

Hitherto, Warner had bounded his attempts to some of the lesser
efforts of the art; he had now yielded to the urgent enthusiasm of his
nature, and conceived the plan of an historical picture. Oh! what
sleepless nights, what struggles of the teeming fancy with the dense
brain, what labours of the untiring thought wearing and intense as
disease itself, did it cost the ambitious artist to work out in the
stillness of his soul, and from its confused and conflicting images,
the design of this long meditated and idolized performance! But when
it was designed; when shape upon shape grew and swelled, and glowed
from the darkness of previous thought upon the painter's mind; when,
shutting his eyes in the very credulity of delight, the whole work
arose before him, glossy with its fresh hues, bright, completed,
faultless, arrayed as it were, and decked out for immortality,--oh!
then what a full and gushing moment of rapture broke like a released
stream upon his soul! What a recompense for wasted years, health, and
hope! What a coronal to the visions and transports of Genius: brief,
it is true, but how steeped in the very halo of a light that might
well be deemed the glory of heaven!

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