Greville

“ Greville, with her exquisite good-nature and her innocent fatuity, is embalmed for me; so that she becomes in that light a truly shining specimen, almost the image or compendium of a whole side of a social order. ”

“ She looked down the table at Greville and smiled discreetly, but perhaps saw more than the quick glance indicated. A handsome man with cold, neatly-chiselled features, we have him still to the life in fine mezzotint, the eyes somewhat too deep and eager to convince the beholder, and a little of his scrutinizing, valuing air about it for all; the hair clubbed and powdered—a man of noble breeding impossible to pass for plebeian in a revolution if it were to save his life. A self-possessed and dignified young man of thirty. ”

“ I called to him, "dost know anything of this Jerome de Greville? Where is he?"
"By our Lady, noble sir, I know him not. Paris is a great city, and many noble gentlemen come and go at their will."
"But M. de Greville lodges with you, I am told. My business is urgent."
"I do not recall such a name? Jerome de Greville?" and the rascal turned his eyes to the ceiling in the attitude of deep contemplation. I smiled inwardly.
"If it please you, sir, to write your name in my guest book, should Monsieur de Greville call I will show it him. You may tell me where you can be found." ”

“ But Greville likes ease, and to see his pupil do him honour. Teaching and lecturing’s his master passion and every time you kick over the traces you disparage his own method to him. That’s more than half the trouble.”
“I know, I know! And, sure, to please God and Greville is my only aim. Oh, Mr. Romney, if we could see a little ahead, if we could know what’s coming! He’ll turn his poor Emma off one day, and then—”
“Then she’ll know there’s a man smudges paint on canvas would rather starve than she should want! But I think better of Greville’s discrimination. ”

“ Well-born, well-bred, handsome and accomplished, Greville led the easy life of a man of fashion, taking an occasional part in the transactions of his day and much consulted in the affairs of private life. Until 1855 when he sold his stud he was an active member of the turf, and he trained successively with Lord George Bentinck, and with the duke of Portland. ”

“ For sure it only recoils on yourself. For my part, I can love Greville because he brought you to me and so flooded my life with sunshine. ’Tis my belief that one day he’ll marry you if you do but govern yourself. ”

“ Greville married soon after he came of age Lady Catharine Russell, eldest daughter of Francis, earl of Bedford, by whom he had five sons, the eldest of whom, Francis, succeeded to the title, but dying unmarried was succeeded by his brother Robert, who dying without male issue the title devolved upon his younger brother Fulke.
Greville wrote:
'The Nature of Truth: its Union and Unity with the Soule, which is One in its Essence, Faculties, Acts; One with Truth ...' London, 1640. Greville had written a treatise upon the prophecies contained in Matt. xxiv. and Rev. ”

“ Egad! there's life, there's fire for you! Why, I should have thought the flash of that eye-glance would have reduced Jack Greville to cinders in a moment, yet there he stands, as calm and impassive a puppy as ever dangled a plumed hat, or played with a sword-knot. Your fair beauty's cold, my lord. Give me that Italian complexion, and that coal-black hair! Gad zooks! I honor the girl's spirit for not disguising it with starch and pomatum. There's more passion in her little finger, than in the whole soul of the other."
"You're out there, George Delawarr," returned the peer. ”

“ Still she did not raise the eyes, the colour rose slightly to her cheek from the quickly beating heart, and the more so when Sir William stooped and kindly kissed the velvet flush. He retained her hand and she led him into the parlour, and to the chair she had so softly cushioned in expectation of an aged and honoured guest, for, do what Greville would he could not persuade her otherwise than that his “dear Hamilton” being over fifty must hover on senility. “Poor old gentleman!” she had said with hearty sympathy. “We’ll make him comfortable, so we will! Does he like a footstool, Greville?” ”

“ Yet one may pity the poor woman who had all at stake. Sir William was not in the position of the ordinary husband. He knew her past, and if he should know her present what had she to expect? And Greville, the cool, sardonic Greville, was waiting their arrival in England, and certainly it could not be his interest that all should be confidence and security between her and his uncle. ”

“ He was approaching the age when it is easier to find pleasures at home than to go abroad to seek them, and there was a warm atmosphere of comfort, of woman’s sweet serviceable ways about him there in which he was apt to purr like a contented cat. She knew his liking by instinct, divined a wish before he uttered it, and with Greville’s guiding taste the surroundings in Edgware Row could not offend even the Hamilton fastidiousness. ”

“ Greville! we must not meet no more!
“And since my son will shortly attain an age when seclusion in this remote spot would be prejudicial to his interests and to the formation of his character, I pray you to take him from me at once, that I may have no further sacrifice to contemplate. Let him reside with you at Silsea, under the tuition of proper instructors—breed him up in nobleness and truth—and let not his early nurture, and the care with which I have sought to instil into his mind principles of honour and virtue, be utterly lost. ”

“ Mr. Harness and Charles and Henry Greville came to see me in the course of the day. The latter rather bullied me, said I behaved like a child: and so I certainly did; but, oh, my dear Hal, if you knew how little these, my most intimate friends, know about me, and how much more able and fit they think me to fight and struggle for myself than I am! They are all very kind in suggesting many things: Henry Greville is urgent with me to undertake the speculation of giving readings at my own risk—hiring a room, and sending out advertisements, etc. ”

“ She assented lightly, never guessing that Destiny, with the smile ironic masked in triviality, was at her heels again, and went off to Edgware Row at last gay as a lark and confident of forgiveness; sure in this happy world all must be well; and Greville would be pleased to know his uncle was coming. No censorious uncle he, but a sympathetic friend and with an eye for beauty keen as Greville’s own. She promised herself an unbending elderly admirer. Romney remained alone to think of her angelic kindness and dear ways, and to touch and retouch his sketch while the light lasted. ”

“ Greville had been. This I never wanted for her; and I may add, in the connection, that I discover now no grain of false humility in my having enjoyed in my own person adorning such a tale. There was positively a fine high thrill in thinking of persons—or at least of a person, for any fact about Lewes was but derivative—engaged in my own pursuit and yet detached, by what I conceived, detached by a pitch of intellectual life, from all that made it actual to myself. There was the lift of contemplation, there the inspiring image and the big supporting truth ”

“ The Honourable Charles Greville, younger son of the Earl of Warwick, conferred his honourable company upon Sir Harry, merely for a shooting party—no long visit, for the brainlessness of these masculine gatherings had no attraction for him. One went, because in his world men shot or hunted and could not take their proper place in it if they did not, but it was impossible that a man of real attainments could please himself long in the company of a mere man of sport and fashion and his boon companions crowding foolishly about him. ”

“ Having stood his work well, John Day brought over The Drummer and Chapeau d’Espagne from Stockbridge to try him on Winchester race-course. Both Mr. Greville and Lord George Bentinck had reason to be satisfied with what Mango did in his gallop on that morning, and the latter backed him very heavily for the race—much more so, indeed, than his owner. Mr. Greville was anxious to have put up John Day, but the Duke of Cleveland having claimed him for Henriade, he was obliged to substitute his son Sam, a very rising lad, with nerves of iron and the coolest of heads. ”

“ Greville at last, however, felt the time had come to be outspoken for it was clearly his rôle to lead the way and Sir William was warily silent. He spoke at full length of the happiness of the experiment he had made, which must now, alas! come to an end through poverty, and added:
“If you did not choose a wife, I wish the tea-maker of Edgware Row was yours. I do not know how to part with what I am not tired with. I do not know how to go on, and I give her every merit of prudence and moderation and affection. She shall never want. ”

“ He was my friend, I say.”
Greville broke into laughter, and Sidney smiled, his lips twitching.
“Castigo te non quod—eh, master clerk?” said the latter. “Perchance he chastised the Captain for very love.”
“You shall hear,” said Blount grimly. “A proper courtier, quoth Master Greville—a very proper courtier. I doubt it not. How looked he when you saw him last?”
“It was at Whitehall,” said Greville. “You know the man—the mirror of fashion, the prince of wit, the pink of assurance. One noon he met the Queen just stepping from her closet. ‘What time is it, good sir?’ quoth she. ”

“ Greville herself, yet in a still higher degree, she bore witness to the fine old felicity of the fortunate and the "great" under the "old" order which would have made it so good then to live could one but have been in their shoes. She determined in me, I remember, a renewed perception of the old order, a renewed insistence on one's having come just in time to see it begin to stretch back: a little earlier one wouldn't have had the light for this perhaps, and a little later it would have receded too much. ”

“ Only Sir William had never been certain which of the two possessed his heart. Was it Elizabeth, was it Maria? How could any poor devil tell? Dear dead frivolities, how they warmed him! He laughed a little at the memory and they talked together over places and people well known to both; the perfect free masonry of caste. A pleasant hour.
“I saw Greville before I left London. He does not improve on me in spite of his cleverness and excellent fine manners. A selfish young man, as I think, and cold. I was not surprised Miss Middleton refused him. A warm-hearted girl.” ”

“ To admire a Creator who was responsible for her own embellishments and had made them the means of attracting Greville was pleasant so long as He asked no more, and to be charitable was always a delight to her good nature if she had the chance of going beyond the halfpenny limit which Greville had enjoined. ”

“ Sir William, reading the last, surprises himself by laying it against his cheek, and murmuring, “Dear child; my beloved Emma!” hoping and believing that this absence is teaching her some of the secrets of her own shy heart.
And Greville? Greville receiving his, studies it with care, makes a pencil note or two of the contents in his useful pocketbook, and—re-encloses it to Sir William with an admonitory message. “Go on circumventing Emma. She will surrender at last. It is not in the power of woman to stand so prolonged a siege.” ”

“ Greville to stare around him at the whole company in curious silence, she felt a defiance against his aristocracy beat in every pulse; for, however grandly he might look back to the long ancestry of the Brookes and the Grevilles, she had a glowing consciousness that her own blood, rapid and fluent, flowed in her veins from Adam of Saltsberg; and, at length, provoked by the dullness of a taciturnity that, in the midst of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as could have been caused by a dearth the most barren of human faculties ”

“ Greville’s remarks on the men of his time consists not in their absolute truth, but in their sincerity at the moment at which they were made. They convey a correct impression of the notion prevailing at that time. Thus Sir James Graham became unquestionably a very active First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Melbourne a ‘considerable’ Prime Minister of England, and Lord Auckland a painstaking and well-informed Governor-General of India. ”

“ I have just finished reading the third volume of Greville's Memoirs and have been very much struck by your notes, without which some passages would not have been intelligible. Old Greville was a portrait-painter rather in Rembrandt's style. In putting together all he says of Palmerston, Peel, and the Duke of Wellington, very remarkable full-length portraits would come out. He seems rather partial for John Russell.
My little book makes more noise in Germany than I expected. ”

“ With the removal of the picturesque little cottage of Finglecombe and the erection of a florid and pretentious villa in its place, the old life had passed away, and with it many a memory of the innocent and loving, if anxious, past. Greville Hampton had become almost callous in his worldliness; a slave to chance impulses, to gratified avarice, to feverish acquisitiveness, and the love that had whilom been absorbed by the son of Mary, was now shared, and more than shared, yea, usurped, by the younger born of Anne Rookleigh. ”

“ It is equally to his credit and to that of the young Queen that this circumstance was the foundation of the full confidence and esteem which she afterwards placed in him. Greville describes their relations as being almost like those of father and daughter. "I have no doubt he is passionately fond of her, as he might be of his daughter if he had one, and the more because he is a man with the capacity for loving, without having anything in the world to love. It is become his province to educate, instruct, and form the most interesting mind and character in the world. ”