Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

“ Vivian you inquired after loves you! When I told him, incidentally, how a young gentleman had come behind the scenes to inquire after him, he made me describe you, and then said, quite mournfully, 'If ever I sin what I hope to become, how happy I shall be to shake that kind hand once more,'—very words, sir, honor bright!
"'I think there's ne'er a man in Christendom
Can lesser hide his hate or love than he.'"
And if Mr. Vivian has some reason to keep himself concealed still; if his fortune or ruin depend on your not divulging his secret for a while,—I can't think you are the man he need fear. ”

“ Why now, if there were no design of which bliss Trevanion was the object, why so frustrate the provident foresight of her mother, and take advantage of the natural yearning of affection, the quick impulse of youth, to hurry off a girl whose very station forbade her to take such a journey without suitable protection,—against what must be the wish, and what clearly were the instructions, of Lady Ellinor? Alone, worse than alone! Fanny Trevanion was then in the hands of two servants who were the instruments and confidants of an adventurer like Vivian ”

“ Any man who can quote Will—sweet Will—has me on the hip," rejoined Mr. Peacock, smoothing his countenance and spreading his palms on his knees. "But if a man does fall in the world, and after keeping servants of his own, is obliged to be himself a servant,—
"'I will not shame To tell you what I am.'"
"The Swan says, 'To tell you what I was,' Mr. Peacock. But enough of this trifling. Who placed you with Mr. Trevanion?"
Mr. Peacock looked down for a moment, and then fixing his eyes on me, said, "Well, I'll tell you: you asked me, when we met last, about a young gentleman,—Mr.—Mr. Vivian." ”

“ You feel manly indignation at the brute of a bridegroom who rushes out from the door, with the smuts dancing after him, and swears, "Smoked out again! By the Arch-smoker himself, I'll go and dine at the club!" All this might well have been, till the chimney-pot was raised a few feet nearer heaven; and now perhaps that long-suffering family owns the happiest home in the Row. Such contrivances to get rid of the smoke! It is not every one who merely heightens his chimney; others clap on the hollow tormentor all sorts of odd head-gear and cowls. ”

“ Should I warn Lady Ellinor? But of what? The character of the servant, or the designs of the fictitious Gower? Against the first I could say, if nothing very positive, still enough to make it prudent to dismiss him. But of Gower or Vivian, what could I say without—not indeed betraying his confidence, for that he had never given me—but without belying the professions of friendship that I myself had lavishly made to him? Perhaps, after all, he might have disclosed whatever were his real secrets to Trevanion ”

“ Gower would write to her!
"And now, sir," continued Mr. Peacock, with a simpler gravity, "you are at liberty, of course, to say what you please to my lady; but I hope you'll not try to take the bread out of my mouth because I wear a livery and am fool enough to be in love with a waiting-woman,—I, sir, who could have married ladies who have played the first parts in life—on the metropolitan stage." ”

“ Gower and Mr. Vivian are the same person?"
Peacock hesitated. "That's not my secret, sir; 'I am combined by a sacred vow.' You are too much the gentleman to peep through the blanket of the dark and to ask me, who wear the whips and stripes—I mean the plush small-clothes and shoulder-knots—the secrets of another gent to whom 'my services are bound.'"
How a man past thirty foils a man scarcely twenty! What superiority the mere fact of living-on gives to the dullest dog! ”

“ It was impossible not to admire the rare gifts and great qualities of Lady Ellinor, and not to feel pity for the cares, anxieties, and sorrows which tormented one who, with all the sensitiveness of woman, went forth into the rough world of man. ”

“ Listen: this Vivian (I know him) , —he has introduced into the house, as a servant, an agent capable of any trick and fraud; that servant has aided him to win over her maid,— Fanny's—Miss Trevanion's. Miss Trevanion is an heiress, Vivian an adventurer. My head swims round; I cannot explain now. Ha! I will write a line to Lord Castleton,—tell him my fears and suspicions; he will follow us, I know, or do what is best. ”

“ I repeat that if we had a son to inherit our name, to bear the burden which the world lays upon those who are born to influence the world's destinies, there is no one to whom Trevanion and myself would sooner have intrusted the happiness of a daughter. ”

“ Nor could I withhold my reverence from the woman who, not being married precisely from love, had no sooner linked her nature to one worthy of it, than her whole life became as fondly devoted to her husband as if he had been the object of her first romance and her earliest affections. ”

“ I hastened into the Haymarket, summoned a cabriolet, drove home as fast as I could (for I had no money about me for the journey I meditated) , sent the servant of the lodging to engage a chaise-and-four, rushed into the room, where Roland fortunately still was, and exclaimed,—"Uncle, come with me! Take money, plenty of money! Some villany I know, though I can't explain it, has been practised on the Trevanions. We may defeat it yet. I will tell you all by the way. Come, come!"
"Certainly. But villany,—and to people of such a station—pooh! collect yourself. Who is the villain?" ”

“ What a crowd in the streets; how the light crimsons over the gazers, hundreds on hundreds! All those faces seem as one face, with fear. Not a than mounts the ladder. Yes, there,—gallant fellow! God inspires, God shall speed thee! ”

“ But that misanthropical answer of Chremylus is neither here nor there, and only diverts us from the real question, and that is, "Whether Fortune be a heavenly, Christian angel, or a blind, blundering, old heathen deity?" For my part, I hold with Dante; for which, if I were so pleased, or if at this period of my memoirs I had half a dozen pages to spare, I could give many good reasons. One thing, however, is quite clear, that whether Fortune be more like Plutus or an angel, it is no use abusing her,—one may as well throw stones at a star. ”

“ Have you seen Lady Ellinor?"
"Yes,—this morning."
"Poor woman! A great blow to her,—we have tried to console each other.
Fanny, you know, is staying at Oxton, in Surrey, with Lady Castleton,—
the poor lady is so fond of her,—and no one has comforted her like
Fanny."
"I was not aware that Miss Trevanion was out of town."
"Only for a few days, and then she and Lady Ellinor join Trevanion in the North,—you know he is with Lord N—, settling measures on which— But, alas! they consult me now on those matters,—force their secrets on me. I have, Heaven knows how many votes! Poor me! ”

“ Taking it for granted that you have secured these requisites, open your window, lean your chin on both hands, the elbows propped commodiously on the sill, and contemplate the extraordinary scene which spreads before you. You find it difficult to believe life can be so tranquil on high, while it is so noisy and turbulent below. What astonishing stillness! Eliot Warburton (seductive enchanter!) recommends you to sail down the Nile if you want to lull the vexed spirit. It is easier and cheaper to hire an attic in Holborn! ”

“ There's a cold-blooded head steward who says that charity is the greatest crime a man in high station can commit,—it demoralizes the poor. Then, because some half-a-dozen farmers sent me a round-robin to the effect that their rents were too high, and I wrote them word that the rents should be lowered, there was such a hullabaloo, you would have thought heaven and earth were coming together. 'If a man in the position of the Marquis of Castleton set the example of letting land below its value, how could the poorer squires in the country exist? ”

“ But Lord Castleton must marry, not for a wife, but for a marchioness,—marry some one who will wear his rank for him; take the trouble of splendor oft his hands, and allow him to retire into a corner and dream that he is Sedley Beaudesert once more! Yes, it must be so,—the crowning sacrifice must be completed at the altar. But a truce to my complaints. Trevanion informs me you are going to Australia,—can that be true? ”

“ The great struggles in life are limited to moments. In the drooping of the head upon the bosom, in the pressure of the hand upon the brow, we may scarcely consume a second in our threescore years and ten; but what revolutions of our whole being may pass within us while that single sand drops noiseless down to the bottom of the hour-glass!
I came back with firm step to Lady Ellinor, and said calmly: "My reason tells me that you are right, and I submit ”

“ Reason answers that it is but a homely expedient to give freer vent to the smoke; wherewith Imagination steps in, and represents to you all the fretting and fuming and worry and care which the owners of that chimney, now the tallest of all, endured before, by building it higher, they got rid of the vapors. ”

“ Pisistratus.—"And pray, what business had you with that young woman, whom I take to be Miss Trevanion's maid? And why should she come from Oxton to see you?"
I had expected that these questions would confound Mr. Peacock; but if there were really anything in them to cause embarrassment, the ci-devant actor was too practised in his profession to exhibit it. He merely smiled, and smoothing jauntily a very tumbled shirt front, he said, "Oh, sir, fie!
"'Of this matter
Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made.'
"If you must know my love affairs, that young woman is, as the vulgar say, my sweetheart." ”

“ But of all those houses that in the street one passes by, unsuspicious of what's the matter within, there is not one in a hundred but what there has been the devil to do to cure the chimneys of smoking! At that reflection Philosophy dismisses the subject, and decides that, whether one lives in a but or a palace, the first thing to do is to look to the hearth and get rid of the vapors. ”

“ And I think, if one looked narrowly at her operations, one might perceive that she gives every man a chance at least once in his life if he take and make the best of it, she will renew her visits; if not, itur ad astra! And therewith I am reminded of an incident quaintly narrated by Mariana in his "History of Spain," how the army of the Spanish kings got out of a sad hobble among the mountains at the Pass of Losa by the help of a shepherd who showed them the way. "But," saith Mariana, parenthetically, "some do say the shepherd was an angel ”

“ Ha! what dim forms are those on the ladder? Near and nearer,—crash come the roof-tiles! Alas and alas! no! a cry of joy,—a "Thank Heaven!" and the women force their way through the men to come round the child and the mother. All is gone save that skeleton ruin. But the ruin is seen from above. O Art! study life from the roof-tops!
CHAPTER III. I was again foiled in seeing Trevanion. It was the Easter recess, and he was at the house of one of his brother ministers somewhere in the North of England. But Lady Ellinor was in London, and I was ushered into her presence. ”

“ Upon my word, if Lady Ellinor was a widow, I should certainly make up to her: very clever woman, nothing bores her." (The marquis yawned,—Sir Sedley Beaudesert never yawned.) "Trevanion has provided for his Scotch secretary, and is about to get a place in the Foreign Office for that young fellow Gower, whom, between you and me, I don't like. ”

“ What a soberizing effect that prospect produces on the mind. But a great many requisites go towards the selection of the right point of survey. It is not enough to secure a lodging in the attic; you must not be fobbed off with a front attic that faces the street. First, your attic must be unequivocally a back attic ”