Charles James Lever

“ You think the world at large is a monstrous clever creature, with great acuteness, great discrimination, and great delicacy; and I know it to be a great overgrown bully, mistaking half it hears, and blundering all it says, so that any one, I don't care who he is, that will stand out from the crowd in life, think his own thoughts and guide his own actions, may just do what he pleases with that unwieldy old monster, making it believe it's the master, all the while it is a mere slave and a drudge. There's another shrug of the shoulders. Why not say it out—you're a puppy, Tom Cutbill? ”

“ Cutbill,” said Julia.
“No, ma'am, I'll reserve myself till I return thanks for the bridesmaids.”
“Will no one suppress him?” said Julia, in a whisper.
“Oh, I am so glad you are to live at Castello, dearest,” said Nelly, as she drew Julia to her, and kissed her. “You are just the châtelaine to become it.”
“There is such a thing as losing one's head, Nelly, out of sheer delight, and when I think I shall soon be one of you I run this risk; but tell me, dearest”—and here she whispered her lowest—“why is not our joy perfect? Why is poor George to be left out of all this happiness?” ”

“ I cannot tell you the intense longing I had to see the features that pertained to one who belonged to me; a man must be as utterly desolate as I am, to comprehend the craving I felt to have something—anything that might stand to me in place of family. It was this led me to Castello, and it was this that made me, when I crossed the threshold, indifferent to all the splendors of the place, and only occupied with one thought, one wish—to see the fresco in the Octagon Tower—poor old Giacomo's great work—the picture of his beautiful daughter. ”

“ I will abide by what that law shall declare, without one effort to bias it in my favor. I have a higher pride in submitting myself to this trial than ever I had in being the owner of Castello. It may be that I shall not prove equal to what I propose to myself. I have no over-confidence in my own strength, but I like to think, that if I come well through the ordeal, I shall have done what will dignify a life, humble even as mine, and give me a self-respect without which existence is valueless to me. Will you stand by me, Nelly, in this struggle—I shall need you much? ”

“ It was saying to me, Is it worth a journey to Rome to ask this question? and my reply to myself was, 'Yes, Tom Cutbill, go to Rome by all means.' And here I am.”
“So I perceive, sir,” said the other dryly and gravely.
“Now, my Lord, there are two ways of transacting business. One may do the thing pleasantly, with a disposition to make matters easy and comfortable; or one may approach everything with a determination to screw one's last farthing out of it, to squeeze the lemon to the last drop. Which of these is it your pleasure we should choose?” ”

“ I would simply say, I believe in all Count Praoontal said, and I give you my reason for the belief.”
“How happy it would have made poor Augustus to have been met in this spirit! Why don't these two men know each other?”
“My dear George, the story of life could no more go on than the story of a novel if there was no imbroglio. Take away from the daily course of events all misunderstandings, all sorrows, and all misconceptions, and there would be no call on humanity for acts of energy, or trustfulness, or devotion. We want all these things just that we may surmount them.” ”

“ I only ask that you accept me as your relation—a cousin, who has been long absent in remote lands; a traveller, an 'eccentric,' who likes a life of savagery and adventure, and who has come back, after years of exile, to see his family and be with his own. Imagine yourself for an instant to be Bramleigh, and what you would have said to this? Had I simply asked to be one of them, to call them by their Christian names, to be presented to their friends as Cousin Anatole—I ask you now—seriously, what you would have replied to such a noble appeal? ”

“ The thought of that last meeting with Longworth overwhelmed him with sorrow. When we bear in mind how slowly and gradually the edifice of friendship is built up; how many of our prejudices have often to be overcome; how much of self-education is effected in the process; the thought that all this labor of time and feeling should be cast to the winds at once for a word of passion or a hasty expression, is humiliating to a degree. Pracontal had set great store by Longworth's friendship for him. ”

“ The dinner was announced at this moment, and they proceeded to the dining-room.
“Taste is everything,” said Cutbill, as he unfolded his napkin, and surveyed the table, decked out with fruit and flowers with a degree of artistic elegance that appealed even to him. “Taste is everything. I declare to you that Howell and James would pay fifty pounds down just for that urn as it stands there. How you twined those lilies around it in that way is quite beyond me.”
As the dinner went on, he was in ecstasy with everything. ”

“ Who was ever to hear of what passed in an Irish country-house? Marion herself indeed might write it—she most probably would—but to whom?
To some friend as little in the world as herself, and none knew better than Lord Culduff of how few people the “world” was composed. It was a defeat, but a defeat that need never be gazetted. And, after all, are not the worst things in all our reverses, the comments that are passed upon them? Are not the censures of our enemies and the condolences of our friends sometimes harder to bear than the misfortunes that have evoked them? ”

“ It was of some party of pleasure she was dreaming,—her dropping words indicated so much; and at last she said, “No, no; not Lisconnor. Jack does n't like Lisconnor.” Oh, how he blessed her for the words; and bending over, he touched the heavy curl of her hair with his lips. Some passing shock startled her, and she awoke with a start and a faint cry. “Where am I?” she cried; “what is this?” and she stared at him with her wide, full glance, while her features expressed terror and bewilderment.
“Don't be frightened, dearest. You are safe, and at home with those who love you.” ”

“ His failures in life had deepened in him that sense of humility which in coarse natures turns to misanthropy, but in men of finer mould makes them gentle, and submissive, and impressionable. His own humble opinion of himself deprived him of all hope of winning Nelly's affection, but he saw—or he thought he saw—in her that love of simple pleasures and of a life removed from all ambitions, that led him to believe she would not regard his pretensions with disdain. ”

“ If Augustus vouchsafed little approval of this speech, Ellen smiled an apparent concurrence, while in reality it was the man's pretension and assurance that amused her.
“You ain't as jolly as you used to be; how is that?” said Cutbill, shaking Bramleigh jocosely by the arm. “I suspect you are disposed, like Jeremiah, to a melancholy line of life?”
“I was not aware, sir, that my spirits could be matter of remark,” said Augustus, haughtily.
“And why not? You're no highness, royal or serene, that one is obliged to accept any humor you may be in, as the right thing. ”

“ Now, I will say, I never met a man so free from this as yourself. I have made a positive study of you, Cutbill, and I protest I think, as regards tact, you are unrivalled.”
“I can only say, my Lord, that I never knew it.”
“After all,” said Lord Culduff, rising and standing with his back to the fire, while, dropping his eyelids, he seemed to fall into a reflective vein,—“after all, this, as regards worldly success, is the master quality. You may have every gift and every talent and every grace, and, wanting 'tact', they are all but valueless.” ”

“ Of course you are nothing of the kind. If you be the true prince, the others must be all illegitimate a couple of generations back. Perhaps I am imbittered against them by that cruel fraud practised on myself. I cannot bring myself to forgive it. Now, if you really were that fine generous creature you want me to believe, it is of me, of me, Lady Augusta Bramleigh, you would be thinking all this while: how to secure me that miserable pittance they called my settlement; how to recompense me for the fatal mistake I made in my marriage ”

“ No, this must be what you used to call a week of cold-mutton days, mind that, and resist all temptation to money-spending.”
L'Estrange bowed his head in quiet acquiescence; his was the sad thought that so many of us have felt; how much of enjoyment life shows us, just one hair's breadth beyond our power to grasp; vistas of lovely scenery that we are never to visit; glimpses of bliss closed to us even as we catch them; strains of delicious music of which all our efforts can but retain the dying cadences. ”

“ Just think for one moment who Montague Bramleigh was, what was his station and his fortune, and then remember the interval that separated him from the Italian painter—a man of a certain ability, doubtless. Is it the most likely thing in the world that if the young Englishman fell in love with the beautiful Italian, that he would have sacrificed his whole ambition in life to his passion? Is it not far more probable, in fact, that no marriage whatever united them? Come, come, Pracontal, this is not, now at least, a matter to grow sulky over ”

“ Augustus Bramleigh was, as becomes an eldest son, grandly imperious and dictatorial, and looked at his poor discomfited beast, as he stood with hanging head and heaving flanks, as though to say it was a disgraceful thing for an animal that had the honor to carry him to look so craven and disheartened. Temple, with the instincts of his craft and calling, cared little for the past, and took but small interest in the horse that was not likely to be soon of use to him; while Jack, with all a sailor's energy, worked away manfully, and assisted the grooms in every way he could. ”

“ L'Estrange, if he should not see you,” said she, rising to leave the room; “he wants to hear all about your day's sport, and especially about that poor Frenchman. Do you know his name?”
“Yes, here's his card;—Anatole de Pracontal.”
“A good name,” said Temple, “but the fellow himself looks a snob.”
“I call that very hard,” said Jack, “to say what any fellow looks like when he is covered with slush and dirt, his hat smashed, and his mouth full of mud.”
“Don't forget that we expect to see you,” said Ellen, with a nod and a smile to the curate, and left the room. ”

“ There 's snobs that are only snobs; there 's snobs that have nothing distinctive about them but their snobbery, and there 's snobs so well up in life, so shrewd, such downright keen men of the world, that their snobbery is only an accident, like a splash from a passing 'bus; and, in fact, their snobbery puts a sort of accent on their acuteness, just like a trade-mark, and tells you it was town-made—no bad thing, Bramleigh, when that town calls itself London! ”

“ The selfishness that men call ambition cannot afford to be weighted with thought of another and another's welfare. Have a little patience with me—hear me out, for I am saying what I have thought over many and many an hour—what I have already told Nelly. There's an old Persian fable that says, the people who love on through life are like two lovers who walk on opposite banks of a river, and never meet till the river mingles with the ocean, which is eternity, and then they are parted no more. ”

“ Although seeing the absurdity of the situation, and vaguely forecasting the way Julia might possibly hear the proposition, L'Estrange was always so much disposed to yield to the earnestness of any one who persisted in a demand, that he bowed and left the room.
“Well, George, he has proposed?” cried Julia, as her brother entered the room, where she sat with Nelly Bramleigh.
He nodded only, and the two girls burst out into a merry laugh.
“Come, come, Julia,” said he, reprovingly. “Absurd as it may seem, the man is in earnest, and must be treated with consideration.” ”

“ It was a bold shot, and few men would have had courage for such effrontery; but Lord Culduff could do these things with an air of such seeming candor and naturalness, nothing less than a police-agent could have questioned its sincerity. Had a man of his own rank in life “tried it on” in this fashion, Cutbill would have detected the impudent fraud at once. It was the superb dignity, the consummate courtesy of this noble Viscount, aided by every appliance of taste and luxury around him, that assured success here.
“Take that chair, Cutbill, and try a cheroot—I know you like a cheroot. ”

“ You squash that despatch yonder, as effectually as if you threw the ink bottle over it. When once I get to talk with a man like you, I can't go back to the desk again. Don't you know it yourself? Haven't you felt it scores of times? The stupid man is got rid of just as readily as you throw a pebble out of your shoe; it is your clever fellow that pricks you like a nail.”
“I 'm sorry, my Lord, you should feel me so painfully,” said Cutbill, laughing, but with an expression that showed how the flattery had touched him. ”

“ It is the cant of the day to talk of mercantile honor and City notions of what is high-minded and right, and I shall show them that we—'Lombard Street people,' as some newspaper scribe called us the other day—that we can do things the proudest earl in the peerage would shrink back from as from a sacrifice he could not dare to face. There can be no sneer at a class that can produce men who accept beggary rather than dishonor. As that Frenchman said, these habits of luxury and splendor were things he had never known,—the want of them would leave no blank in his existence. ”

“ They are very dark moments in life in which we have to confess to ourselves that, fight how we may, fate must beat us; that the very utmost we can do is to maintain a fierce struggle with destiny, but that in the end we must succumb. The more frequently poor Jack saw her, the more hopelessly he felt his lot. What was he—what could he ever be—to aspire to such a girl as Julia? Was not the very presumption a thing to laugh at? ”

“ Enough if you know that we have to out-manouvre the Russians, baffle the French, and bully the Greeks; and that there is not for the task Culduff's equal in England. I think I see your astonishment that I should talk of such themes: they were not certainly the sort of subjects which once occupied our thoughts: but, my dear Nelly, in linking your fate to that of a man of high ambition, you accept the companionship of his intellect, instead of a share in his heart. And, as you well know I always repudiated the curate and cottage theory, I accept the alternative without repining. ”