We know the dear old rhyme -
There
was never better truth spoken than this, and if all men and women
could follow the advice here given there would be very little sorrow
in the world. But men and women do not follow it. They are no more
able to do so than they are to use a spear, the staff of which is like
a weaver's beam, or to fight with the sword Excalibur. The more they
exercise their arms the nearer will they get to using the giant's
weapon - or even the weapon that is divine. But as things are at
present their limbs are limp and their muscles soft, and over-feeding
impedes their breath. They attempt to be merry without being wise, and
have theories about truth and honesty with which they desire to
shackle others, thinking that freedom from such trammels may be good
for themselves. And in that matter of love - though love is very
potent - treachery will sometimes seem to be prudence, and a
hankering after new delights will often interfere with real devotion.
It is very easy to depict a hero - a man absolutely stainless,
perfect as an Arthur - a man honest in all his dealings, equal to
all trials, true in all his speech, indifferent to his own prosperity,
struggling for the general good, and, above all, faithful in love. At
any rate, it is as easy to do that as to tell of the man who is one
hour good and the next bad, who aspires greatly, but fails in
practice, who sees the higher, but too often follows the lower course.
There arose at one time a school of art, which delighted to paint the
human face as perfect in beauty; and from that time to this we are
discontented unless every woman is drawn for us as a Venus, or, at
least, a Madonna. I do not know that we have gained much by this
untrue portraiture, either in beauty or in art. There may be made for
us a pretty thing to look at, no doubt - but we know that that
pretty thing is not really visaged as the mistress whom we serve, and
whose lineaments we desire to perpetuate on the canvas. The winds of
heaven, or the flesh-pots of Egypt, or the midnight
gas - passions, pains, and, perhaps, rouge and powder, have made
her something different. But there still is the fire of her eye, and
the eager eloquence of her mouth, and something, too, perhaps, left of
the departing innocence of youth, which the painter might give us
without the Venus or the Madonna touches. But the painter does not
dare to do it. Indeed, he has painted so long after the other fashion
that he would hate the canvas before him, were he to give way to the
rouge-begotten roughness or to the flesh-pots - or even to the
winds. And how, my lord, would you, who are giving hundreds, more than
hundreds, for this portrait of your dear one, like to see it in print
from the art critic of the day, that she is a brazen-faced hoyden who
seems to have had a glass of wine too much, or to have been making
hay?
And so also has the reading world taught itself to like best the
characters of all but divine men and women. Let the man who paints
with pen and ink give the gaslight, and the flesh-pots, the passions
and pains, the prurient prudence and the rouge-pots and pounce-boxes
of the world as it is, and he will be told that no one can care a
straw for his creations. With whom are we to sympathise? says the
reader, who not unnaturally imagines that a hero should be heroic. Oh,
thou, my reader, whose sympathies are in truth the great and only aim
of my work, when you have called the dearest of your friends round you
to your hospitable table, how many heroes are there sitting at the
board? Your bosom friend - even if he be a knight without fear, is
he a knight without reproach? The Ivanhoe that you know, did he not
press Rebecca's hand? Your Lord Evandale - did he not bring his
coronet into play when he strove to win his Edith Bellenden? Was your
Tresilian still true and still forbearing when truth and forbearance
could avail him nothing? And those sweet girls whom you know, do they
never doubt between the poor man they think they love, and the rich
man whose riches they know they covet?
Go into the market, either to buy or sell, and name the thing you
desire to part with or to get, as it is, and the market is closed
against you. Middling oats are the sweepings of the granaries. A
useful horse is a jade gone at every point. Good sound port is sloe
juice. No assurance short of A 1. betokens even a pretence to merit.
And yet in real life we are content with oats that are really
middling, are very glad to have a useful horse, and know that if we
drink port at all we must drink some that is neither good nor sound.
In those delineations of life and character which we call novels a
similarly superlative vein is desired. Our own friends around us are
not always merry and wise, nor, alas! always honest and true. They are
often cross and foolish, and sometimes treacherous and false. They are
so, and we are angry. Then we forgive them, not without a
consciousness of imperfection on our own part. And we know - or,
at least, believe - that though they be sometimes treacherous and
false, there is a balance of good. We cannot have heroes to dine with
us. There are none. And were these heroes to be had, we should not
like them. But neither are our friends villains - whose every
aspiration is for evil, and whose every moment is a struggle for some
achievement worthy of the devil.
The persons whom you cannot care for in a novel, because they are
so bad, are the very same that you so dearly love in your life,
because they are so good. To make them and ourselves somewhat
better - not by one spring heavenwards to perfection, because we
cannot so use our legs - but by slow climbing, is, we may presume,
the object of all teachers, leaders, legislators, spiritual pastors,
and masters. He who writes tales such as this, probably also has, very
humbly, some such object distantly before him. A picture of surpassing
godlike nobleness - a picture of a King Arthur among men, may
perhaps do much. But such pictures cannot do all. When such a picture
is painted, as intending to show what a man should be, it is true. If
painted to show what men are, it is false. The true picture of life as
it is, if it could be adequately painted, would show men what they
are, and how they might rise, not, indeed, to perfection, but one step
first, and then another on the ladder.
Our hero, Frank Greystock, falling lamentably short in his heroism,
was not in a happy state of mind when he reached Bobsborough. It may
be that he returned to his own borough and to his mother's arms
because he felt, that were he to determine to be false to Lucy, he
would there receive sympathy in his treachery. His mother would, at
any rate, think that it was well, and his father would acknowledge
that the fault committed was in the original engagement with poor
Lucy, and not in the treachery. He had written that letter to her in
his chambers one night in a fit of ecstasy; and could it be right that
the ruin of a whole life should be the consequence?
It can hardly be too strongly asserted that Lizzie Greystock did
not appear to Frank as she has been made to appear to the reader. In
all this affair of the necklace he was beginning to believe that she
was really an ill-used woman; and as to other traits in Lizzie's
character - traits which he had seen, and which were not of a
nature to attract - it must be remembered that beauty reclining in
a man's arms does go far towards washing white the lovely blackamoor.
Lady Linlithgow, upon whom Lizzie's beauty could have no effect of
that kind, had nevertheless declared her to be very beautiful. And
this loveliness was of a nature that was altogether pleasing, if once
the beholder of it could get over the idea of falseness which
certainly Lizzie's eye was apt to convey to the beholder. There was no
unclean horse's tail. There was no get up of flounces, and padding,
and paint, and hair, with a dorsal excrescence appended with the
object surely of showing in triumph how much absurd ugliness women can
force men to endure. She was little, and active, and bright - and
was at this moment of her life at her best. Her growing charms had as
yet hardly reached the limits of full feminine loveliness - which,
when reached, have been surpassed. Luxuriant beauty had with her not
as yet become comeliness; nor had age or the good things of the world
added a pound to the fairy lightness of her footstep. All this had
been tendered to Frank - and with it that worldly wealth which was
so absolutely necessary to his career. For though Greystock would not
have said to any man or woman that nature had intended him to be a
spender of much money and a consumer of many good things, he did
undoubtedly so think of himself. He was a Greystock, and to what
miseries would he not reduce his Lucy if, burthened by such
propensities, he were to marry her and then become an aristocratic
pauper!
The offer of herself by a woman to a man is, to us all, a thing so
distasteful that we at once declare that the woman must be abominable.
There shall be no whitewashing of Lizzie Eustace. She was abominable.
But the man to whom the offer is made hardly sees the thing in the
same light. He is disposed to believe that, in his peculiar case,
there are circumstances by which the woman is, if not justified, at
least excused. Frank did put faith in his cousin's love for himself.
He did credit her when she told him that she had accepted Lord Fawn's
offer in pique, because he had not come to her when he had promised
that he when she told hiid seem natural to him that she should have
desired to adhere to her engagement when he would not advise her to
depart from it. And then her jealousy about Lucy's ring, and her abuse
of Lucy, were proofs to him of her love. Unless she loved him, why
should she care to marry him? What was his position that she should
desire to share it - unless she so desired because he was dearer
to her than aught beside? He had not eyes clear enough to perceive
that his cousin was a witch whistling for a wind, and ready to take
the first blast that would carry her and her broomstick somewhere into
the sky. And then, in that matter of the offer, which in ordinary
circumstances certainly should not have come from her to him, did not
the fact of her wealth and of his comparative poverty cleanse her from
such stain as would, in usual circumstances, attach to a woman who is
so forward? He had not acceded to her proposition. He had not denied
his engagement to Lucy. He had left her presence without a word of
encouragement, because of that engagement. But he believed that Lizzie
was sincere. He believed, now, that she was genuine; though he had
previously been all but sure that falsehood and artifice were second
nature to her.
At Bobsborough he met his constituents, and made them the normal
autumn speech. The men of Bobsborough were well pleased and gave him a
vote of confidence. As none but those of his own party attended the
meeting, it was not wonderful that the vote was unanimous. His father,
mother, and sister all heard his speech, and there was a strong family
feeling that Frank was born to set the Greystocks once more upon their
legs. When a man can say what he likes with the certainty that every
word will be reported, and can speak to those around him as one
manifestly their superior, he always looms large. When the
Conservatives should return to their proper place at the head of
affairs, there could be no doubt that Frank Greystock would be made
Solicitor-General. There were not wanting even ardent admirers who
conceived that, with such claims and such talents as his, the ordinary
steps in political promotion would not be needed, and that he would
become Attorney-General at once. All men began to say all good things
to the dean, and to Mrs Greystock it seemed that the woolsack, or at
least the Queen's Bench with a peerage, was hardly an uncertainty. But
then - there must be no marriage with a penniless governess. If he
would only marry his cousin one might say that the woolsack was won.
Then came Lucy's letter; the pretty, dear, joking letter about the
"duchess," and broken hearts. "I would break my heart,
only - only, only - " Yes, he knew very well what she
meant. I shall never be called upon to break my heart, because you are
not a false scoundrel. If you were a false scoundrel - instead of
being, as you are, a pearl among men - then I should break my
heart. That was what Lucy meant. She could not have been much clearer,
and he understood it perfectly. It is very nice to walk about one's
own borough and be voted unanimously worthy of confidence, and be a
great man; but if you are a scoundrel, and not used to being a
scoundrel, black care is apt to sit very close behind you as you go
caracolling along the streets.
Lucy's letter required an answer, and how should he answer it? He
certainly did not wish her to tell Lady Linlithgow of her engagement,
but Lucy clearly wished to be allowed to tell, and on what ground
could he enjoin her to be silent? He knew, or he thought he knew, that
till he answered the letter, she would not tell his secret - and
therefore from day to day he put off the answer. A man does not write
a love-letter easily when he is in doubt himself whether he does or
does not mean to be a scoundrel.
Then there came a letter to "Dame" Greystock from Lady
Linlithgow, which filled them all with amazement.
Seeing that your son is engaged to marry Miss Morris - at least
she says so - you ought not to have sent her here without telling
me all about it. She says you know of the match, and she says that I
can write to you if I please. Of course, I can do that without her
leave. But it seems to me that if you know all about it, and approve
the marriage, your house and not mine would be the proper place for
her.
I'm told that Mr Greystock is a great man. Any lady being with me
as my companion can't be a great woman. But perhaps you wanted to
break it off - else you would have told me. She shall stay here
six months, but then she must go.
Yours truly,
It was considered absolutely necessary that this letter should be
shown to Frank, "You see," said his mother, "she told the
old lady at once."
"I don't see why she shouldn't." Nevertheless Frank was
annoyed. Having asked for permission, Lucy should at least have waited
for a reply.
"Well; I don't know," said Mrs Greystock. "It is
generally considered that young ladies are more reticent about such
things. She has blurted it out and boasted about it at once."
"I thought girls always told of their engagements," said
Frank, "and I can't for the life of me see that there was any
boasting in it." Then he was silent for a moment. "The truth
is, we are, all of us, treating Lucy very badly."
"I cannot say that I see it," said his mother.
"We ought to have had her here."
"For how long, Frank?"
"For as long as a home was needed by her."
"Had you demanded it, Frank, she should have come, of course.
But neither I nor your father could have had pleasure in receiving her
as your future wife. You, yourself, say that it cannot be for two
years at least."
"I said one year."
"I think, Frank, you said two. And we all know that such a
marriage would be ruinous to you. How could we make her welcome? Can
you see your way to having a house for her to live in within twelve
months?"
"Why not a house? I could have a house tomorrow."
"Such a house as would suit you in your position? And, Frank,
would it be a kindness to marry her and then let her find that you
were in debt?"
"I don't believe she'd care, if she had nothing but a crust to
eat."
"She ought to care, Frank."
"I think", said the dean to his son, on the next day,
"that in our class of life an imprudent marriage is the one thing
that should be avoided. My marriage has been very happy, God knows;
but I have always been a poor man, and feel it now when I am quite
unable to help you. And yet your mother had some fortune. Nobody, I
think, cares less for wealth than I do. I am content almost with
nothing." - The nothing with which the dean had hitherto been
contented had always included every comfort of life, a well-kept
table, good wine, new books, and canonical habiliments with the gloss
still on; but as the Bobsborough tradesmen had, through the agency of
Mrs Greystock, always supplied him with these things as though they
came from the clouds, he really did believe that he had never asked
for anything. - " I am content almost with nothing. But I do
feel that marriage cannot be adopted as the ordinary form of life by
men in our class as it can be by the rich or by the poor. You, for
instance, are called upon to live with the rich, but are not rich.
That can only be done by wary walking, and is hardly consistent with a
wife and children."
"But men in my position do marry, sir."
"After a certain age - or else they marry ladies with
money. You see, Frank, there are not many men who go into Parliament
with means so moderate as yours; and they who do perhaps have stricter
ideas of economy." The dean did not say a word about Lucy Morris,
and dealt entirely with generalities.
In compliance with her son's advice - or almost
command - Mrs Greystock did not answer Lady Linlithgow's letter.
He was going back to London, and would give personally, or by letter
written there, what answer might be necessary, "You will then see
Miss Morris?" asked his mother.
"I shall certainly see Lucy. Something must be settled."
There was a tone in his voice as he said this which gave some comfort
to his mother.
"It is good to be merry and wise, It is good to
be honest and true, It is good to be off with the old
love Before you are on with the new."
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The Eustace Diamonds