Volume I Part 11 (2/2)
Indeed, I fell into the digression without even knowing it, and I leave it here in the same fas.h.i.+on. I fancy a kind of comfort in the notion that my malady is, at least, an attempt at restoration. The idea of decay--of declining slowly away, leaf by leaf, branch by branch--is very sad; and even this ”conceit” is not without its consolation.
And now to wander homewards. How houseless the man is who calls his inn his home! It was all very well for ”Sir John” to say, ”I like to take mine ease in mine inn;” and in his day the thing was practicable. The little parlour, with its wainscot of walnut-wood and its bright tiles, all s.h.i.+ning in the tempered light through the diamond-paned window; the neatly spread table, where smoked the pasty of high-seasoned venison, beside the tall cup of sack or canary; and the buxom landlady herself, redolent of health, good spirits, and broad jest;--these were all accessories to that abandonment to repose and quiet so delightful to the weary-minded. But think of some ”Cour de Russie,” some ”Angelo d' Oro,”
or some ”Schwarzen Adler,” all alive with dusty arrivals and frogged couriers--the very hall a fair, with fifty bells, all ringing; postboys blowing--whips cracking--champagne corks flying--and a Bable of every tongue in Europe, making a thorough-ba.s.s din that would sour a saint's temper!...
I'll leave at once--I'll find some quiet little gasthaus in the Tyrol for a few weeks, till the weather moderates, and it becomes cool enough to cross the Alps--and die!
CHAPTER IX.
These watering-place doctors have less tact than their _confreres_ elsewhere: their theory is, ”the Wells and Amus.e.m.e.nt;” they never strain their faculties to comprehend any cla.s.s but that of hard-worked, exhausted, men of the world, to whom the regularity of a Bad-ort, and the simple pleasures it affords, are quite sufficient to relieve the load of over-taxed minds and bodies. The ”distractions” of these places suit such people well; the freedom of intercourse, which even among our strait-laced countrymen prevails, is pleasant. My Lord refreshes in the society of a clever barrister, or an amusing essayist of the ”Quarterly.” The latter puts forth all his agreeability for the delectation of a grander audience than he ever had at home. But to one who has seen all these ranks and conditions of men--who finds nothing new in the _morgue_ of the Marquis, or the last _mot_ of the Bench--it is somewhat too bad to be told that such intercourse is a part of your treatment.
My worthy friend Dr. Guckhardt has mistaken me; he fancies my weariness is the result of solitude, and that my exhaustion is but _ennui_; and, in consequence, has he gone about on the high roads and public places inquiring if any one knows Horace Templeton, who is ”sick and ill.” And here is the fruit: a table covered with visiting cards and scented notes of inquiry. My Lord Tollington--a Lord of the Bedchamber, a dissolute old fop--very amusing to very young men, but intolerable to all who have seen anything themselves. Sir Harvey Clifford, a Yorks.h.i.+re Jesuit, who travels with a _socius_ from Oscot and a whole library of tracts controversial. Reginald St. John, a ”levanter” from the Oaks. Colonel Morgan O'Shea, absent without leave for having shot his father-in-law.
Such are among the first I find. But whose writing is this?... I know the hand well.... Frank Burton, that I knew so well at Oxford! Poor devil! he joined the 9th Lancers when he came of age, and ran through every thing he had in the world in three years. He married a Lady Mary somebody, and lives now on her family. What is his note about?
”Dear Tempy,
”I have just heard of your being here, and would have gone over to see you, but have sprained my ancle in a hopping- match with Kubetskoi--walked into him for two hundred, nevertheless. Come and dine with us to-day at the France, and we'll shew you some of the folk here. That old bore, Lady Bellingham Blakely, is with us, and gives a pic-nic on Sat.u.r.day at the Waterfall--rare fun for you, who like a field-day of regular quizzes! Don't fail--sharp seven--and believe me,
”Yours,
”F. B.”
This requires but brief deliberation; and so, my dear Frank, you must excuse my company, both at dinner and pic-nic. What an a.s.s he must be to suppose that a man of thirty has got no farther insight into the world, and knows no more of its inhabitants, than a boy of eighteen! These ”quizzes,” doubtless, had been very amusing to me once--just as I used to laugh at the ”School for Scandal” the first fifty times I saw it; but now that I have _epuise les ridicules_--have seen every manner of absurdity the law of Chancery leaves at large--why hammer out the impression by repet.i.tion?
What is here by way of postscript?
”Lady B. has made the acquaintance of a certain Sicilian Countess, the handsomest woman here, and has engaged her for Sat.u.r.day. If you be the man you used to be, you'll not fail to come.”
”Dear F----
”I cannot dine out. I can neither eat, drink, nor talk, nor can I support the heat or 'confaz' of a dinner; but, if permitted, will join your party on Sat.u.r.day for half an hour.
”Yours truly,
”H. Templeton.”
Now has curiosity--I have no worthier name to bestow on it--got the better of all my scruples and dislikes to such an agglomeration as a pic-nic! Socially I know nothing so bad: the liberty is license, and the license is an intolerable freedom, where only the underbred are at ease. _N'importe_--I'll go; for while I now suspect that I was wrong in believing the Countess to have been my old acquaintance, Caroline Graham, I have a strange interest, at least, in seeing how one so like her, externally, may resemble her in traits of mind and manner. And then I'll leave Baden.
I am really impatient to get away. I feel--I suppose there is nothing unusual in the feeling--that, as I meet acquaintances, I can read in their looks those expressions of compa.s.sion and pity by which the sick are admonished of their hopeless state; and for the very reason that I can dare to look it steadily in the face myself, I have a strong repugnance to its being forcibly placed before me. My greatest wish to live--if it ever deserved the name of wish--is to see the upshot of certain changes that time inevitably will bring out. I have watched the game in some cases so closely, I should like to know who rises the winner.
What will become of France under a regency? How will the new government turn the attention of the _mauvaises tetes_, and where will they carry their arms? What will Austria do, when the Pope shall have given the taste for free inst.i.tutions, and the Italians fancy that they are strong enough for self-government? What America, when the government of her newly acquired territory must be a military dictation, with a standing army of great strength? What Ireland, when the landlords, depressed by an increasing poor-rate, have brought down the gentry to a condition of mere subsistence, with Romanism hourly a.s.suming a bolder, higher tone, dictating its terms with the Minister, and treating the Government _de pair?_
What Prussia, when democracy grows quicker when Const.i.tutional Liberty, and Freedom of the Press get ahead of the Censor?
For Belgium and Switzerland I have little interest. Priest-ridden and mob-ridden, they may indulge their taste for domestic quarrel so long as a general war is remote; let _that_ come, and their small voices will be lost in the louder din of far different elements.
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