General Tilney

“ Lady Tilney, however, dealt largely in contradiction at all times. The Countess Ellersby smiled; the Comtesse Leinsengen again shrugged her shoulders, drew her shawl around her, and was preparing to depart, saying, "Well! mes chères dames, I leave you to the enjoyment of your liberty, and have done."
"But I have not done," said Lady Tilney; "I am determined we shall have a society that shall be quite our own, and yet not subversive of principles we must uphold. ”

“ It was to the displeasure incurred by this circumstance, and to the loss of favour which all who have ever lived in its sunshine cannot fail to lament when withdrawn, that allusion was made, in speaking of Lady Tilney's contempt of sovereigns and courts. Here was to be found one bad effect of a system which, while false in every sense, arrogated to itself perfection in all.
There was no immorality to rebuke in this instance of Lady Tilney's conduct; but it proceeded from a source, which if not in her, in others at least, might be productive of serious consequences ”

“ No, no, my dear, Almack's day is finish and de thing must fall—so never stay by a falling friend; when a person or a ting begins to totter, leave it."
"Very true," rejoined Lady Tilney; "there is much truth in what you advise (and she looked very grave) . But then, you know, my dear Comtesse, you must consider the independence of our constitution—which makes it very difficult—"
"Not to have a stupid society.—Agreed." ”

“ Mastered by this false impression, he determined to remain silent, and await his expected dismissal. "Then," he said, "then will be the time for me to speak of my wrongs." His mind was turbulent and gloomy all that day; but when the evening came, he habitually sought the circle in which he had been too much accustomed of late to pass his time, and which had become necessary to him. As Lady Tilney had a soirée, he drove to her house; and in this routine of what is termed pleasure he courted and found that torpor of reflection which it is its peculiar and baneful property to produce. ”

“ Pray, Milor, do you always tink so wisely on vat you do, dat you never do nothing wrong yourself?"
"Oh, do wrong—yes a thousand times a day, Comtesse,—but when I do, I do not quarrel with the world because it will not think me right, nor if it call me a fool or a knave, am I angry—for perhaps it is a truth—at any rate, other and better men than I have been called the same."
"It is an execrable paper," said Lady Tilney; "and ought to be burnt by the hangman." ”

“ But in 1567-8 they are stated to have consisted of 'Stratoes howse, Gobbyns howse, Orestioes howse, Rome, the Pallace of Prosperitie, Scotland and a gret Castell one thothere side'. [739] And when Edmund Tilney became Master of the Revels in 1579, he introduced, perhaps under pressure from the auditors, a practice, which lasted for some years, of including in the preliminary schedule of plays, with which his accounts began, a note of the specific houses constructed for each. ”

“ The lady, who was young, tall and critical-looking, drew her straight brows together and smilingly pondered his assertion.
“I suppose you thought that because it happens to stand in the grounds of Sea Lodge instead of Cliffwood—we haven’t any benches, by the way; but my theory is a little different, as it happens. I think things belong only to the people who know how to appreciate them.”
“Why, so do I—if the bench isn’t mine, at least the theory is!” Tilney protested. ”

“ Lady Glenmore was silent, but received Lady Tilney's expressions of kindness with her usual sweetness and courtesy of manner. Lady Tenderden joined in the congratulation.
"At length, my sweet lady," she said, "you are enthroned, and we all come to do you homage. But how very discreet you were; never betrayed by word, look, or gesture, the secret which you were quite sure of; you are really cut out for the part you have to play. I envy you votre petite air moue et doucereux; don't you, Lady Tilney?"
"Nothing can be better," she replied; "I prophesy that she will play her part well." ”

“ During his long tenure of office the greatest productions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, including the greater number of Shakespeare's plays, were submitted to his criticism in manuscript before they were represented on the stage. After the accession of James I a reversionary grant of the mastership of the revels was made on 13 July 1603 to Sir George Buc [q. v.] , whose mother seems to have been Tilney's sister. Buc thenceforth often acted as Tilney's deputy, but Tilney licensed for publication a piece called ‘Cupid's Whirligig’ by Edward Sharpham [q. v.] ”

“ The Countess Leinsengen's impatience was here manifested by the usual shrug of her shoulders, and as she perceived Lady Tilney embarking on the interminable ocean of politics, turning quickly to Lord Albert she enquired,
"But who may be de very clever persons, Milor, who give you so much amusement in dis very charming society?" ”

“ Some of them may play a card in politics: all of them are good tools, and I promised Lord Tilney not to lose sight of that consideration. So if we exclude la petite Glenmore, we shall be incurring great risks; whereas, by making her one of us, we shall have a vast addition of strength added to our party, and we can always take care that the vulgars belonging to her, who are only good for certain uses, shall not come in her train. ”

“ Among these, again, was Lady Tilney, who continued still the soi-disant queen of ton, blind to the approach of that period when her empire must yield, in despite of all her strenuous efforts to uphold it, to that of some fresh rising beauty; and still insensible to the dreadful vacuum which in the decline of life, without the sincerity of friendship and the resources of a well-cultivated mind—above all, without religious trust to cheer and gild the setting sun of life—must be the miserable portion of every human creature. ”

“ Then Tilney was not so easily to be fooled, after all. He commanded greater loyalty and cunning in his employees than he had ever dreamed. But what could he say to her, now that he knew what she really was, if ever he saw her again? She would just laugh at him, think him a fool, even though he had managed to escape. Would he ever want to see her again? Never, he thought. But to think that any one so young, so smooth, so seemingly affectionate, could be so ruthless, so devilishly clever and cruel! She was much more astute than either he or Blount had given her credit for. ”

“ While Lord Albert D'Esterre was thus affording subject of remark to the coterie, and their observations in turn made matter of ill-natured review among themselves, he was addressing his courteous excuse to Lady Tilney for having disobeyed her commands, in arriving so late. Lady Baskerville was probably right in her conjecture, that Lady Tilney felt considerably bored by his doing so, and making reference to injunctions which she had forgotten the moment they were given, because certain they would be generally obeyed, and Lady Borrowdale's assembly be left untenanted by all her early visitors. ”

“ These will be best understood, by passing from the boudoir to Lady Tilney's own character and pursuits; if to describe these by any means were indeed possible: but it would be an endless, hopeless task, to enumerate all that Lady Tilney did, or fancied she did—still more what she said; for to do her justice, her's was no vapid existence [5] of the mere routine of a London lady's life.
No—indolence was not the besetting sin, insipidity was not the vice of her morale or her physique. ”

“ Tilney listened attentively to this plea; but when it had ended he said, with a discouraging gesture: “I was just going to try to get an invitation for Magraw!”
“Lump them together, then—it will be just as easy; and if you should want Mr. Bixby to do anything for you—such as putting you on to a good tip——”
“Thanks, but I’ve been put on to too many good tips. If it weren’t for the good tips I’ve had, I should be living like a gentleman on my income.”
“Well, you’ll make Mrs. Bixby think you the most eligible young man in Newport. ”

“ De plebe ought to be made of de noble's opinion, not de noble constrained to dat of de vulgar."
"That may do very well with you," rejoined Lady Tilney, "but with us as an unqualified maxim it will never do. I grant, Comtesse, all that you say can be done in one's own house, where one makes one's own laws and rules in one's own way: so far it is only asserting one's own right to liberty, and as far as we can persuade people to be of the same way of thinking it is all right. But I have too much liberty in my heart to desire to tyrannize as you suggest ”

“ I know but very few indeed, who are presentable, or who have the true talent of turning their powers to account, without torturing one to death with their learning; and then without great circumspection they become familiar, and one is obliged to take so much trouble, and be so much on one's guard, to keep them in their place. Be assured, Lord Albert, you will find this to be the case," continued Lady Tilney, "if you give unlimited encouragement to gens de ce grade—There is but one subject on which you may listen to them, I mean politics ”

“ Lady Glenmore's virtue, she would not have intrusted her to the guardianship of such a person as Lady Tenderden, who united to the airy flightiness of a Frenchwoman the spirit of an intrigante, which is to be found in all nations. But Lady Tilney's object was merely worldly and prudential, namely, that of removing a probable fracas from her own circle in England; and this point carried, the other was of small importance. Lady Tenderden had drawn round her a society at Spa, quite in harmony with that which she had been accustomed to live in. ”

“ Something, however, may have been gathered, by viewing her in the midst of the group assembled in her boudoir; and the portraiture will be rendered still more distinct, as the character of her associates are further developed.
Of Lady Tilney herself it may be said, that that real or pretended contempt of rank which she affected to entertain, arose from the circumstances of her own parentage, which, on her mother's side at least, was not noble ”

“ Are you not acquainted with him? He is a very charming person,—full of talent, and very handsome, as you see. But I forget—you cannot well recollect him, for he went to the Continent as a boy, and is only lately returned."
"True; I remember—I hear he is likely to distinguish himself—pray present him to me."
The presentation took place; and, after a few words, including an invitation to Lord Albert to her soirées, Lady Tilney passed on with Lord Arlingford to where the Duchess of Hermanton was standing. ”

“ While engaged in these considerations, Tilney had prudently withdrawn into the Cliffwood shrubberies; and he was just deciding to effect his escape through the Bixbys’ grounds, rather than run the chance of being discovered by the tenants of the bench, when, on issuing from his retreat, he beheld the indistinct gleam of a white dress half way down the Cliffwood lawn. This time, even though the fog had thickened, there was no mistaking the form and movement of the shrouded figure; or was it some subtler sense than that of sight that so positively assured him of Miss Grantham’s nearness? ”

“ Much might be said in extenuation of Lady Tilney's faults and follies, courted and caressed as she was; as indeed there is ever much indulgence to be extended to all who, in situations of power and of temptation (however many their foibles) remain free from positive vice. The voice of censure should be guarded therefore in its condemnation ”

“ Lord Glenmore, proud of such a wife, as well he might [144] be, handed her into her carriage, and she drove to Lady Tilney's, where the party were to assemble to go to Whitehall stairs.
When she entered the room she found nobody yet arrived; a servant made Lady Tilney's apology, saying she should be dressed shortly. Having played a few airs on the piano-forte, she took up a novel, and was busily employed in its pages when Mr. Leslie Winyard was announced. ”

“ Frank Ombre, who had been permitted to overhear the whisper, and smiling with one of those doubtful expressions which might do for tragic or for comic effect, "we do not want royalty now to keep us in order,—that is quite an obsolete idea. No, we have more enlarged views; we like to turn every thing, sans dessus dessous—don't we Lady Tilney? ”

“ With the young and uninformed aspirants in the career of political life, Lady Tilney had, perhaps, more success; and many a rising scion of a noble house has been known to adopt, under the influence of her smiles, and from a foolish vanity of being noticed by [9] her, a line of conduct quite at variance with the wishes of their parents, and to the sacrifice of their own best interests. ”

“ In 1602 he became colonel in the imperial army, and raised a regiment of Walloon infantry, which he commanded in the assault on Budapest, receiving a severe wound. In 1604 he was made general of artillery, and handled his new force with conspicuous success; the campaign of this year showed Tilly as a soldier of great capacity, and in 1605 he was made a field-marshal. ”

“ The simplicity of unquestioned superiority is one of its most sure characteristics; and the Duchess of [69] Hermanton's mode of receiving this homage was unaffected and courteous. But as the two persons had little similarity in their natures, the conference lasted only sufficiently long for Lady Tilney to preserve that degree of familiarity in acquaintance, which she determined should prevent her being a stranger to one too independent and distinguished to be altogether passed over. ”

“ Although a person whose weight and influence in themselves were not great, yet he formed from his habits and opinions, and the talents which (though perverted) he really possessed, one of those ties in a fabric, which being multiplied, keep the whole body compact; and, having once obtained a footing in Lady Tilney's circle, it followed, as a matter of course, that he should be employed in that remodelling of her society, which it has been seen Lady Tilney was so anxious to effect, and his name therefore was not forgotten in the list, concerning which she intended to consult Prince Luttermanne. ”