Pelham - Volume 02

The other Englishman was not long in following him. He uttered a short, low, laugh, unobserved, perhaps, by any one but myself; and, pushing through the atmosphere of sacres and mille tonnerres, which filled that pandaemonium, strode quickly to the door. I felt as if a load had been taken from my bosom, when he was gone.

CHAPTER XX.

Reddere person ae scit convenientia cuique. --Horace: Ars Poetica.

I was loitering over my breakfast the next morning, and thinking of the last night's scene, when Lord Vincent was announced.

"How fares the gallant Pelham?" said he, as he entered the room.

"Why, to say the truth," I replied, "I am rather under the influence of blue devils this morning, and your visit is like a sun-beam in November."

"A bright thought," said Vincent, "and I shall make you a very pretty little poet soon; publish you in a neat octavo, and dedicate you to Lady D--e. Pray, by the by, have you ever read her plays? You know they were only privately printed?"

"No," said I, (for in good truth, had his lordship interrogated me touching any other literary production, I should have esteemed it a part of my present character to return the same answer.)

"No!" repeated Vincent; "permit me to tell you, that you must never seem ignorant of any work not published. To be recherche, one must always know what other people don't--and then one has full liberty to sneer at the value of what other people do know. Renounce the threshold of knowledge. There every new proselyte can meet you. Boast of your acquaintance with the sanctum, and not one in ten thousand can dispute it with you. Have you read Monsieur de C--'s pamphlet?"

"Really," said I, "I have been so busy."

"Ah, mon ami!" cried Vincent, "the greatest sign of an idle man is to complain of being busy. But you have had a loss: the pamphlet is good. C- -, by the way, has an extraordinary, though not an expanded mind; it is like a citizen's garden near London: a pretty parterre here, and a Chinese pagoda there; an oak tree in one corner, and a mushroom bed in the other. You may traverse the whole in a stride; it is the four quarters of the globe in a mole-hill. Yet every thing is good in its kind; and is neither without elegance nor design in its arrangement."

"What do you think," said I, "of the Baron de--, the minister of--?"

"Of him!" replied Vincent--

"'His soul Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole.'"

"It is dark and bewildered--full of dim visions of the ancient regime;--it is a bat hovering about the chambers of an old ruin. Poor, antique little soul! but I will say nothing more about it,--

"'For who would be satirical Upon a thing so very small'" as the soul of the Baron de--?"

Finding Lord Vincent so disposed to the biting mood, I immediately directed his rabies towards Mr. Aberton, for whom I had a most inexpressible contempt.

"Aberton," said Vincent, in answer to my question, if he knew that aimable attache--"Yes! a sort of man who, speaking of the English embassy, says we--who sticks his best cards on his chimney-piece, and writes himself billets-doux from duchesses. A duodecimo of 'precious conceits,' bound in calf-skin--I know the man well; does he not dress decently, Pelham?"

"His clothes are well made," said I; "but no man can dress well with those hands and feet!" "Ah!" said Vincent, "I should think he went to the best tailor, and said, 'give me a collar like Lord So and So's,'; one who would not dare to have a new waistcoat till it had been authoritatively patronized, and who took his fashions, like his follies, from the best proficients. Such fellows are always too ashamed of themselves not to be proud of their clothes--like the Chinese mariners, they burn incense before the needle!"