Harry Warrington

“ Harry Warrington, of Virginia, had his lodgings in Bond Street, London, England, and lived upon the fat of the land, and drank bumpers of the best wine thereof. His title of Fortunate Youth was pretty generally recognised. Being young, wealthy, good-looking, and fortunate, the fashionable world took him by the hand and made him welcome. And don't, my dear brethren, let us cry out too loudly against the selfishness of the world for being kind to the young, handsome, and fortunate, and frowning upon you and me, who may be, for argument's sake, old, ugly, and the miserablest dogs under the sun. ”

“ Lambert felt inclined to give the boy a kiss. His little accident, illness and recovery, the kindness of the people round about him, had softened Harry Warrington's heart, and opened it to better influences than those which had been brought to bear on it for some six weeks past. He was breathing a purer air than that tainted atmosphere of selfishness, and worldliness, and corruption, into which he had been plunged since his arrival in England. Sometimes the young man's fate, or choice, or weakness, leads him into the fellowship of the giddy and vain ”

“ George Warrington seems to be a man of sense, and not more selfish than other elder sons and men of the world. My poor Molly fancied that he might be a—what shall I say?—a greenhorn perhaps is the term—like his younger brother. She fondly hoped that he might be inclined to go share and share alike with Twin junior; in which case, so infatuated was she about the young fellow, that I believe she would have taken him. 'Harry Warrington, with half a loaf, might do very well,' says I, 'but Harry Warrington with no bread, my dear!'”
“How no bread?” asks the Baroness. ”

“ So, if Harry Warrington rides down to Newmarket to the October meeting, and loses or wins his money there; if he makes one of a party at the Shakspeare or Bedford Head; if he dines at White's ordinary, and sits down to macco and lansquenet afterwards; if he boxes the watch, and makes his appearance at the Roundhouse; if he turns out for a short space a wild dissipated, harum-scarum young Harry Warrington; I, knowing the weakness of human nature, am not going to be surprised ”

“ I am thankful that it has been our lot to succour him in his trouble, and that in receiving the stranger within our gates we should be giving hospitality to the son of an old friend.”
Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men's faces, which is honoured almost wherever presented. Harry Warrington's countenance was so stamped in his youth. His eyes were so bright, his cheek so red and healthy, his look so frank and open, that almost all who beheld him, nay, even those who cheated him, trusted him. ”

“ Although Harry Warrington was the least envious of men, and did honour to his brother as in all respects his chief, guide, and superior, yet no wonder a certain feeling of humiliation and disappointment oppressed the young man after his deposition from his eminence as Fortunate Youth and heir to boundless Virginian territories. Our friends at Kensington might promise and vow that they would love him all the better after his fall; Harry made a low bow and professed himself very thankful ”

“ Fielding, and cried over volumes of Mr. Richardson, containing jokes and incidents which would make Mrs. Grundy's hair stand on end, yet their merry prattle left no bitterness behind it: their tales about this neighbour and that were droll, not malicious; the curtseys and salutations with which the folks of the little neighbouring town received them, how kindly and cheerful! their bounties how cordial! Of a truth it is good to be with good people. How good Harry Warrington did not know at the time, perhaps, or until subsequent experience showed him contrasts, or caused him to feel remorse. ”

“ What honest man that can choose his lot would be a prince, let us say, and have all society walking backwards before him, only obsequious household-gentlemen to talk to, and all mankind mum except when your High Mightiness asks a question and gives permission to speak? One of the great benefits which Harry Warrington received from this family, before whose gate Fate had shot him, was to begin to learn that he was a profoundly ignorant young fellow, and that there were many people in the world far better than he knew himself to be. ”

“ But the flattery is not so manifest as it used to be a hundred years since. Young men and old have hangers-on, and led captains, but they assume an appearance of equality, borrow money, or swallow their toads in private, and walk abroad arm-in-arm with the great man, and call him by his name without his title. In those good old times, when Harry Warrington first came to Europe, a gentleman's toad-eater pretended to no airs of equality at all ”

“ Though Harry Warrington persisted in his determination to keep that dismal promise which his cousin had extracted from him, we trust no benevolent reader will think so ill of him as to suppose that the engagement was to the young fellow's taste, and that he would not be heartily glad to be rid of it. Very likely the beating administered to poor Will was to this end; and Harry may have thought, “A boxing-match between us is sure to bring on a quarrel with the family; in the quarrel with the family, Maria may take her brother's side. ”

“ It is only at moments, and away from these labours, that we can light upon one character or the other; and hence, though most of the persons of whom we are writing have doubtless their grave employments and avocations, it is only when they are disengaged and away from their work, that we can bring them and the equally disengaged reader together.
The macaronis and fine gentlemen at White's and Arthur's continued to show poor Harry Warrington such a very cold shoulder, that he sought their society less and less, and the Ring and the Mall and the gaming-table knew him no more. ”

“ Harry Warrington had now drawn and spent all his patrimony, and one evening when he was leaving the house of his uncle Sir Miles Warrington,--his dead father's elder brother,--two bailiffs took him for a debt of £500 and the Fortunate Youth was lodged in a sponging house in Chancery Lane.
Madam Bernstein was willing to pay her nephew's debts at once if he would break off his engagement with Lady Maria, but this the high-spirited youth declined to do. ”

“ The chaplain, who, too, had a great deal of available sensibility, was very much overcome; he burst into tears as he seized Harry's hand, and kissed it, and prayed God to bless his dear, generous, young patron. Mr. Warrington felt a glow of pleasure thrill through his frame. It is good to be able to help the suffering and the poor; it is good to be able to turn sorrow into joy. ”

“ Washington. “You will permit me to say so. A great deal of mischief has come because I chose to keep a secret which concerned only myself and another person. For a long time George Warrington's heart has been black with anger against me, and my feeling towards him has, I own, scarce been more friendly. All this pain might have been spared to both of us, had my private papers only been read by those for whom they were written. I shall say no more now, lest my feelings again should betray me into hasty words. Heaven bless thee, Harry! Farewell, George! ”

“ My Harry's is the tenderest of any man's now alive. In the joy of seeing Mr. Esmond Warrington returned to life, he will forget the worldly misfortune which befalls him. He will return to (comparative) poverty without a pang. The most generous, the most obedient of human beings, of sons, he will gladly give up to his elder brother that inheritance which had been his own but for the accident of birth, and for the providential return of my son George.
“Your beneficent intentions towards dearest Harry will be more than ever welcome, now he is reduced to a younger brother's slender portion! ”

“ Be sure, sir, that idle bread is the most dangerous of all that is eaten; that cards and pleasure may be taken by way of pastime after work, but not instead of work, and all day. And do you know, Mr. Warrington, instead of being the Fortunate Youth, as all the world calls you, I think you are rather Warrington the Unlucky, for you are followed by daily idleness, daily flattery, daily temptation, and the Lord, I say, send you a good, deliverance out of your good fortune.”
But Harry did not like to tell his aunt that afternoon why it was he looked so grave. ”

“ Warrington, who shrank back with many blushes, after saluting the great author. The great author was accustomed to be adored. A gentler wind never puffed mortal vanity. Enraptured spinsters flung tea-leaves round him, and incensed him with the coffee-pot. Matrons kissed the slippers they had worked for him. There was a halo of virtue round his nightcap. All Europe had thrilled, panted, admired, trembled, wept, over the pages of the immortal little, kind, honest man with the round paunch. Harry came back quite glowing and proud at having a bow from him. ”

“ And Will told, at great length, and with immense exultation at Harry's discomfiture, the story now buzzed through all London, of George Warrington's sudden apparition. Lord Castlewood was sorry for Harry: Harry was a good, brave lad, and his kinsman liked him, as much as certain worldly folks like each other. To be sure he played Harry at cards, and took the advantage of the market upon him; but why not? The peach which other men would certainly pluck, he might as well devour. ”

“ Madam Bernstein offered her niece £5,000 to free Mr. Warrington of his engagement but the offer was declined, and a few weeks later Lady Maria returned to Castlewood, while Harry went to London. He knew that his mother, who was mistress for life of the Virginian property, would refuse her consent to his marriage, and the thought of it was put off to a late period. Meanwhile it hung like a weight round the young man's neck.
No wonder that his spirits rose more gaily as he came near London. He took lodgings in Bond Street and lived upon the fat of the land. ”

“ Harry's lodgings, bidding him come and drink a dish of tea with her next day, when she proposed to warn him.
But the next morning she was indisposed, and could not receive Mr. Harry when he came: and she kept her chamber for a couple of days, and the next day there was a great engagement, and the next day Mr. Harry was off on some expedition of his own. In the whirl of London life, what man sees his neighbour, what brother his sister, what schoolfellow his old friend? Ever so many days passed before Mr. Warrington and his aunt had that confidential conversation which the latter desired. ”

“ It was true that Warrington's vanity was touched. It always touches our vanity to be given something for which we have made no struggle whatever. It was something to be followed by curious newsboys, to be spoken to respectfully by Tom, Dick and Harry, who erstwhile hadn't known of his existence. Warrington was human, and he laughed at his vanity even as it was being gratified.
On the other side the Democrats perfunctorily nominated Donnelly. It was the best they could do, and Donnelly had nothing to learn. And so the fight was on. Donnelly went everywhere; so did Warrington. ”

“ When a man is young and generous and hearty the loss of money scarce afflicts him. Harry would sell his horses and carriages, and diminish his train of life. If he wanted immediate supplies of money, would not his Aunt Bernstein be his banker, or his kinsman who had won so much from him, or his kind Uncle Warrington and Lady Warrington who were always talking virtue and benevolence, and declaring that they loved him as a son? ”

“ Warrington is one. How, or for what consideration, I know not, but my niece Maria Esmond hath escamote a promise from Harry. He knows nothing of her antecedens, which I do. She hath laid herself out for twenty husbands these twenty years past. I care not how she hath got the promise from him. 'Tis a sin and a shame that a woman more than forty years old should surprize the honour of a child like that, and hold him to his word. She is not the woman she pretends to be. ”

“ So Harry has been with them? “He often comes, almost every day,” Theo says, looking up in George's face. “Poor fellow! He likes us better than the fine folks, who don't care for him now—now he is no longer a fine folk himself,” adds the girl, smiling. “Why have you not set up for the fashion, and frequented the chocolate-houses and the racecourses, Mr. Warrington?”
“Has my brother got so much good out of his gay haunts or his grand friends, that I should imitate him?”
“You might at least go to Sir Miles Warrington; sure his arms are open to receive you. ”

“ Warrington saw a gentleman in a riding-frock and plain scratch-wig enter the box devoted to the stout personage, and recognised with pleasure his Tunbridge Wells friend, my Lord of March and Ruglen. Lord March, who was by no means prodigal of politeness seemed to show singular deference to the stout gentleman, and Harry remarked how his lordship received, with a profound bow, some bank-bills which the other took out from a pocket-book and handed to him. ”

“ Warrington had disposed of his goods. Recognising immediately the little enamelled diamond-handled repeater which he had sold to the Fortunate Youth, the jeweller broke out into expressions regarding Harry which I will not mention here, being already accused of speaking much too plainly. A gentleman who is acquainted with a pawnbroker, we may be sure has a bailiff or two amongst his acquaintances; and those bailiffs have followers who, at the bidding of the impartial Law, will touch with equal hand the fiercest captain's epaulet or the finest macaroni's shoulder. ”