Vivian Grey. Benjamin Disraeli

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СКАЧАТЬ pool was immediately re-baptized ‘Lake Trafalgar.’ There was a hot quarrel in consequence. Now, if I had been there, I would have arranged matters, by proposing as a title, to meet the views of all parties, ‘The United Service Lake.’”

      “That would have been happy.”

      “How beautiful Margaret is,” said Vivian, rising from his ottoman, and seating himself on the sofa by the lady. “I always think that this is the only Personification where Art has not rendered Innocence insipid.”

      “Do you think so?”

      “Why, take Una in the Wilderness, or Goody Two Shoes. These, I believe, were the most innocent persons that ever existed, and I am sure you will agree with me, they always look the most insipid. Nay, perhaps I was wrong in what I said; perhaps it is Insipidity that always looks innocent, not Innocence always insipid.”

      “How can you refine so, when the thermometer is at 100°! Pray, tell me some more stories.”

      “I cannot, I am in a refining humour: I could almost lecture to-day at the Royal Institution. You would not call these exactly Prosopopeias of Innocence?” said Vivian, turning over a bundle of Stewart Newton’s beauties, languishing, and lithographed. “Newton, I suppose, like Lady Wortley Montague, is of opinion, that the face is not the most beautiful part of woman; at least, if I am to judge from these elaborate ankles. Now, the countenance of this Donna, forsooth, has a drowsy placidity worthy of the easy-chair she is lolling in, and yet her ankle would not disgrace the contorted frame of the most pious faquir.”

      “Well! I am an admirer of Newton’s paintings.”

      “Oh! so am I. He is certainly a cleverish fellow, but rather too much among the blues; a set, of whom, I would venture to say, Miss Manvers knoweth little about.”

      “Oh, not the least! Mamma does not visit that way. What are they?”

      “Oh, very powerful people! though ‘Mamma does not visit that way.’ Their words are Ukases as far as Curzon Street, and very Decretals in the general vicinity of May Fair; but you shall have a further description another time. How those rooks bore! I hate staying with ancient families; you are always cawed to death. If ever you write a novel, Miss Manvers, mind you have a rookery in it. Since Tremaine, and Washington Irving, nothing will go down without.”

      “By-the-bye, who is the author of Tremaine?”

      “It is either Mr. Ryder, or Mr. Spencer Percival, or Mr. Dyson, or Miss Dyson, or Mr. Bowles, or the Duke of Buckingham, or Mr. Ward, or a young officer in the Guards, or an old Clergyman in the North of England, or a middle-aged Barrister on the Midland Circuit.”

      “Mr. Grey, I wish you could get me an autograph of Mr. Washington Irving; I want it for a particular friend.”

      “Give me a pen and ink; I will write you one immediately.”

      “Ridiculous!”

      “There! now you have made me blot Faustus.”

      At this moment the room-door suddenly opened, and as suddenly shut.

      “Who was that?”

      “Mephistopheles, or Mrs. Felix Lorraine; one or the other, perhaps both.”

      “What!”

      “What do you think of Mrs. Felix Lorraine, Miss Manvers?”

      “Oh! I think her a very amusing woman, a very clever woman a very—but—”

      “But what?”

      “But I cannot exactly make her out.”

      “Nor I; she is a dark riddle; and, although I am a very Oedipus, I confess I have not yet unravelled it. Come, there is Washington Irving’s autograph for you; read it; is it not quite in character? Shall I write any more? One of Sir Walter’s, or Mr. Southey’s, or Mr. Milman’s or Mr. Disraeli’s? or shall I sprawl a Byron?”

      “I really cannot sanction such unprincipled conduct. You may make me one of Sir Walter’s, however.”

      “Poor Washington!” said Vivian, writing. “I knew him well. He always slept at dinner. One day, as he was dining at: Mr. Hallam’s, they took him, when asleep, to Lady Jersey’s: and, to see the Sieur Geoffrey, they say, when he opened his eyes in the illumined saloons, was really quite admirable! quite an Arabian tale!”

      “How delightful! I should have so liked to have seen him! He seems quite forgotten now in England. How came we to talk of him?”

      “Forgotten! Oh! he spoilt his elegant talents in writing German and Italian twaddle with all the rawness of a Yankee. He ought never to have left America, at least in literature; there was an uncontested and glorious field for him. He should have been managing director of the Hudson Bay Company, and lived all his life among the beavers.”

      “I think there is nothing more pleasant than talking over the season, in the country, in August.”

      “Nothing more agreeable. It was dull though, last season, very dull; I think the game cannot be kept going another year. If it were not for the General Election, we really must have a war for variety’s sake. Peace gets quite a bore. Everybody you dine with has a good cook, and gives you a dozen different wines, all perfect. We cannot bear this any longer; all the lights and shadows of life are lost. The only good thing I heard this year was an ancient gentlewoman going up to Gunter and asking him for ‘the receipt for that white stuff,’ pointing to his Roman punch. I, who am a great man for receipts, gave it her immediately: ‘One hod of mortar to one bottle of Noyau.’”

      “And did she thank you?”

      “Thank me! ay, truly; and pushed a card into my hand, so thick and sharp that it cut through my glove. I wore my arm in a sling for a month afterwards.”

      “And what was the card?”

      “Oh, you need not look so arch. The old lady was not even a faithless duenna. It was an invitation to an assembly, or something of the kind, at a place, somewhere, as Theodore Hook or Mr. Croker would say, ‘between Mesopotamia and Russell Square.’”

      “Pray, Mr. Grey, is it true that all the houses in Russell Square are tenantless?”

      “Quite true; the Marquess of Tavistock has given up the county in consequence. A perfect shame, is it not? Let us write it up.”

      “An admirable plan! but we will take the houses first, at a pepper-corn rent.”

      “What a pity, Miss Manvers, the fashion has gone out of selling oneself to the devil.”

      “Good gracious, Mr. Grey!”

      “On my honour, I am quite serious. It does appear to me to be a very great pity. What a capital plan for younger brothers! It is a kind of thing I have been trying to do all my life, and never could succeed. I began at school with toasted cheese and a pitchfork; and since then I have invoked, with all the eloquence of Goethe, the evil one in the solitude of the Hartz, but without success. I think I should make an excellent bargain with him: of course I do not mean that ugly vulgar savage with a fiery tail. Oh, no! Satan himself for me, a perfect gentleman! Or Belial: Belial would be the most delightful. He is the fine genius of the Inferno, I imagine, the Beranger of Pandemonium.”

      “I really cannot listen to such nonsense one СКАЧАТЬ