Upton

“ What a rare artist must this be! What's his name?”
“Pipo, how is he called?” said Upton, languidly.
“Monsieur Carmael, your Excellency.”
“Ah, to be sure; a person of excellent family. I've been told he's from Provence,” said Upton, in the same weary voice.
“I could have sworn to his birthplace,” cried Harcourt; “no man can manage cheese and olives in cookery but a Provençal. Ah, what a glass of Bordeaux! ”

“ To your good health, Upton, and to the day that you may be able to enjoy this as I do,” said he, as he tossed off a bumper.
“It does me good even to witness the pleasure it yields,” said Upton, blandly.
“By Jove! then, I 'll be worth a whole course of tonics to you, for I most thoroughly appreciate all the good things you have given me. By the way, how are you off for dinner company here,—any pleasant people?”
“I have no health for pleasant people, my dear Harcourt; like horse exercise, they only agree with you when you are strong enough not to require them.” ”

“ Every one framed the indictment to his own taste; nor was the wrong the less grievous that none could give it a name. Even cautious men fell into the trap, and were heard to say, “If all we hear be true, Upton has not been fairly treated.”
What an air of confirmation to all these rumors did it give, when the evening papers announced in the most striking type: Resignation of Sir Horace Upton. ”

“ Had there been any one to mark him there, it is more than likely that he would have regarded him as a man revelling in the after-thought of a great success,—one who, having come gloriously through the combat, was triumphantly recalling to his memory every incident of the fight. How little had they understood Sir Horace Upton who would have read him in this wise! That daring and soaring nature rarely dallied in the past ”

“ The estimation they are held in is, for the reflective flattery by which each listener to their sarcasms soothes his own conscience as he says, 'I could be just as bitter, if I consented to be as bad.'”
“I cannot at all account for Upton's endurance of such a man,” said Harcourt.
“As there are men who fancy that they strengthen their animal system by braving every extreme of climate, so Upton imagines that he invigorates his morale by associating with all kinds and descriptions of people; and there is no doubt that in doing so he extends the sphere of his knowledge of mankind. ”

“ I endeavored to deter you by an appeal that interested even your selfishness.”
“Your subtlety has outwitted itself, Upton,” said Glencore, with a bitter irony; “it is not the first instance on record where blank cartridge has proved fatal!”
“One thing is perfectly clear,” said Upton, boldly, “the man who shrinks from the repair of a wrong he has done, on the consideration of how it would affect himself and his own interests, shows that he cares more for the outward show of honor than its real and sustaining power.” ”

“ Glenoore sighed heavily, but did not speak; at last he said, “Be it so, Upton,” and, covering his face with his hand, lay still and silent. “Well,” said he, after a long pause, “the die is cast, Upton: I have told him!”
“Told the boy?” said Upton.
He nodded an assent. “It is too late to oppose me now, Upton,—the thing is done. I didn't think I had strength for it; but revenge is a strong stimulant, and I felt as though once more restored to health, as I proceeded. Poor fellow! he bore it like a man. Like a man, do I say? No, but better than man ever bore such crushing tidings.” ”

“ Upton was glad to accept even this much of interest in the events of life, and drew Glencore on to talk of the days he had passed in this solitary region.
As in the dreariest landscape a ray of sunlight will reveal some beautiful effects, making the eddies of the dark pool to glitter, lighting up the russet moss, and giving to the half-dried lichen a tinge of bright color, so will, occasionally, memory throw over a life of sorrow a gleam of happier meaning. ”

“ A narrow meadow of glebe-land separated the churchyard from the Rectory garden, a bank of flowers and turf sloping up to the house. Nowhere could a more pleasant, home-like dwelling be found, lightly covered with sweet-scented creeping plants, which climbed up to the highest gable, and flung down long sprays of blossom-laden branches to toss to and fro in the air. Many a weary, bedinned Londoner had felt heart-sick at the sight of its tranquillity and peace.
The people of Upton, great and small, conformist or nonconformist, were proud of their rector. ”

“ Upton replied, with a smile.
"There seems to be something in the air that prevents people from keeping their engagements to-day. Bliss didn't turn up," said Henry. "What did you do with the tickets?"
"I sent Molly hers by messenger, and told her I'd join her at the opera-house," said Mrs. Upton, her face beaming. "Did you say Walter didn't go to the club?" she added, anxiously.
"Yes. He's a great fellow, he is! Got no more idea about sticking to an engagement than a cat," said Upton. ”

“ I have done more,—I have struggled with myself to abandon it; but in vain. My heart is linked to it; it forms the one sole tie that attaches me to life. Without it, the apathy that I feel stealing over me would be complete, and my existence become a mournful dream. In a word, Upton, all is passionless within me, save one sentiment; and I drag on life merely for a 'Vendetta.'”
Upton shook his head mournfully, as the other paused here, and said,—
“This is disease, Glencore!”
“Be it so; the malady is beyond cure,” said he, sternly. ”

“ Is it when expiating the shame of a falsehood that I should call upon men to accept me as truthful? Have I not proclaimed her, from one end of Europe to the other, dishonored? If she be absolved, what becomes of me?”
“This is unworthy of you, Glencore,” said Upton, severely; “nor, if illness and long suffering had not impaired your judgment, had you ever spoken such words. I say once more, that if the day came that you could declare to the world that her fame had no other reproach than the injustice of your own unfounded jealousy, that day would be the best and the proudest of your life.” ”

“ Upton moved his head with an inclination barely perceptible.
“What a Nemesis there is in nature,” said Glencore, with a sickly attempt to smile, “that passion should beget malady! I never knew, physically speaking, that I had a heart—till it was broken. So that,” resumed he, in a more agreeable tone, “death may ensue at any moment—on the least excitement?” ”

“ Glencore only smiled, but Upton continued,—
“So, then, I have guessed aright; and the very worst you can allege against this course is, that what I bestow is better than what I retain!”
“One of Solomon's proverbs may be better than a shilling; but which would a hungry man rather have? I want no word-fencing, Upton; still less do I seek what might sow distrust between us. This much, however, has life taught me: the great trials of this world are like its great maladies. Providence has meant them to be fatal. ”

“ About noon on the following day, Sir Horace Upton and the Colonel drove up to the gate of the villa at Sorrento, and learned, to their no small astonishment, that the Princess had taken her departure that morning for Como. If Upton heard these tidings with a sense of pain, nothing in his manner betrayed the sentiment; on the contrary, he proceeded to do the honors of the place like its owner. He showed Harcourt the grounds and the gardens, pointed out all the choice points of view, directed his attention to rare plants and curious animals ”

“ This was addressed to Franchetti, who speedily reappeared with a liqueur stand and an ebony cigar-case.
“Try these, George; they 're better than your own,” said Upton, dryly.
“That I will,” cried Harcourt, laughing; “I'm determined to draw all my resources from the country in occupation, especially as they are superior to what I can obtain from home. This same career of yours, Upton, strikes me as rather a good thing. You have all these things duty free?” ”

“ In summer Upton sleeps among roses, in an atmosphere of sunlight and drowsiness, sung to by the bees and the birds. The Rose Hotel stands, set back from the High Street, in its own grounds, and beside the Rose there are two other houses for refreshment, the Bricklayers' Arms and the Saracen's Head, of which more hereafter.
It is a pleasant place as well as a restful one. Passing through it, people say: “Oh, what a dream”; living in it, one is driven at last to admit there are dreams and dreams. It is not the place that forces this conviction, but the people. ”

“ He may be advising energy when the cry is all for temporizing; counselling patience and submission, when the nation is eager for a row; recommend religious concessions in the very week that Exeter Hall is denouncing toleration; or actually suggesting aid to a Government that a popular orator has proclaimed to be everything that is unjust and ignominious.
It was Sir Horace Upton's fortune to have fallen into one of these embarrassments. ”

“ One would think she had picked up a duke."
"It is natural they should be," observed Miss Upton.
"But it's not the less ridiculous," retorted the countess. "One thing I must say—that Tom Cleveland is showing himself in desperate haste to take another wife."
"The haste is for his children's sake," said Miss Upton; "be very sure of that, Betsy. 'I must have some one to control and train them; since my poor wife's death the girls have run wild,' he said to me yesterday, when he told me about Mary, and the tears were almost running down his cheeks."
"It is a great charge," spoke Mr. Grubb. ”

“ What would all Sir Horace Upton's subtlety avail him, if it were not that he had sources of information which always laid open the game of his adversaries? Singly, each would have had a tough struggle with the world ”

“ There was no one in Upton who knew the pedigrees of every family as she did. Even her household goods, old and quaint as they were, had a halo from the light of other days about them. How many persons, dead and gone now, had she seen sit opposite to her in that old arm-chair! How often had childish faces looked laughingly at themselves in her pewter plates? Her mother's chairs and sofa, worked in tent-stitch, which only saw the daylight twice a year—what would become of them, and what common uses would they be put to in any other house? ”

“ The world would have no parallel for such a wretch! Mark me, Upton!” cried he, fiercely, “there is no torture I have yet endured would equal the bare possibility of what you hint at.”
“Good Heavens! Glencore, do not let me suppose that selfishness has so marred and disfigured your nature that this is true. Bethink you of what you say. Would it not be the crowning glory of your life to repair a dreadful wrong, and acknowledge before the world that the fame you had aspersed was without stain or spot?” ”

“ Upton.
"Oh, as for that," said Upton, "all geniuses lie! An abnormal development in one direction always indicates an abnormal lack of development in another. Your bump of ingenuity has for the moment absorbed your bump of veracity; but I say, my dear, I wonder if they'll speak?"
"Speak?" echoed Mrs. Upton. "Speak? Why, of course they will! Everybody talks at the opera," she added, joyously.
An hour later the door-bell rang, and the maid announced Miss Meeker and Dr. ”

“ He spoke these words not only with strong feeling, but even imparted to them a tone of entreaty, so that Upton could not but comply.
“When I wished for the Secretaryship, my dear Glencore,” said he, “I fancied the office as it used to be in olden times, when one played the great game of diplomacy with kings and ministers for antagonists, and the world at large for spectators; when consummate skill and perfect secrecy were objects of moment, and when grand combinations rewarded one's labor with all the certainty of a mathematical problem. ”

“ You would at any moment sacrifice an ancient alliance to the trumpery claim of an aggrieved tourist,” said she, rising angrily, and swept out of the room ere Sir Horace could arise to open the door for her.
Upton walked slowly to the chimney and rang the bell. “I shall want the calèche and post-horses at eight o'clock, Antoine. Put up some things for me, and get all my furs ready.” And with this he measured forty drops from a small phial he carried in his waistcoat pocket, and sat down to pare his nails with a very diminutive penknife. ”

“ Let Glencore just take courage to send him to Harrow or Rugby, and my life on it, but he 'll be the manliest fellow in the school.”
“I 'll undertake, without Harrow or Rugby, that the boy should become something even greater than that,” said Upton, smiling.
“Oh, I know you sneer at my ideas of what a young fellow ought to be,” said Harcourt; “but, somehow, you did not neglect these same pursuits yourself. You can shoot as well as most men, and you ride better than any I know of.”
“One likes to do a little of everything, Harcourt,” said Upton, not at all displeased at this flattery ”

“ By that mail he wrote to his father and mother an account of Russell's death, and he felt that they would guess why the letter was so blurred. "But," he wrote, "I have some friends still; especially Mr. Rose among the masters, and Monty and Upton among the boys. Monty you know; he is more like Edwin than any other boy, and I like him very much. You didn't know Upton, but I am a great deal with him, though he is much older than I am. He is a fine handsome fellow, and one of the most popular in the school. ”

“ Alas! how very early is it sometimes in life that we tread “the banquet-hall deserted.” But to our story: the evening wore pleasantly on; Upton talked, as few but himself could do, upon the public questions of the day; and Harcourt, with many a blunt interruption, made the discourse but more easy and amusing. The soldier was, indeed, less at his ease than the others. It was not alone that many of the topics were not such as he was most familiar with, but he felt angry and indignant at Glencore's seeming indifference as to the fate of his son. ”