Book: My Novel, Volume 8.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> My Novel, Volume 8.



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BOOK EIGHTH.


INITIAL CHAPTER.

THE ABUSE OF INTELLECT.

There is at present so vehement a flourish of trumpets, and so prodigious
a roll of the drum, whenever we are called upon to throw up our hats, and
cry "Huzza" to the "March of Enlightenment," that, out of that very
spirit of contradiction natural to all rational animals, one is tempted
to stop one's ears, and say, "Gently, gently; LIGHT is noiseless: how
comes 'Enlightenment' to make such a clatter? Meanwhile, if it be not
impertinent, pray, where is Enlightenment marching to?" Ask that
question of any six of the loudest bawlers in the procession, and I'll
wager tenpence to California that you get six very unsatisfactory
answers. One respectable gentleman, who, to our great astonishment,
insists upon calling himself "a slave," but has a remarkably free way of
expressing his opinions, will reply, "Enlightenment is marching towards
the seven points of the Charter." Another, with his hair /a la jeune
France/, who has taken a fancy to his friend's wife, and is rather
embarrassed with his own, asserts that Enlightenment is proceeding
towards the Rights of Women, the reign of Social Love, and the
annihilation of Tyrannical Prejudice. A third, who has the air of a man
well-to-do in the middle class, more modest in his hopes, because he
neither wishes to have his head broken by his errand-boy, nor his wife
carried off to an Agapemone by his apprentice, does not take
Enlightenment a step farther than a siege on Debrett, and a cannonade on
the Budget. Illiberal man! the march that he swells will soon trample
him under foot. No one fares so ill in a crowd as the man who is wedged
in the middle. A fourth, looking wild and dreamy, as if he had come out
of the cave of Trophonius, and who is a mesmerizer and a mystic, thinks
Enlightenment is in full career towards the good old days of alchemists
and necromancers. A fifth, whom one might take for a Quaker, asserts
that the march of Enlightenment is a crusade for universal philanthropy,
vegetable diet, and the perpetuation of peace by means of speeches, which
certainly do produce a very contrary effect from the Philippics of
Demosthenes! The sixth--good fellow without a rag on his back--does not
care a straw where the march goes. He can't be worse off than he is; and
it is quite immaterial to him whether he goes to the dog-star above, or
the bottomless pit below. I say nothing, however, against the march,
while we take it altogether. Whatever happens, one is in good company;
and though I am somewhat indolent by nature, and would rather stay at
home with Locke and Burke (dull dogs though they were) than have my
thoughts set off helter-skelter with those cursed trumpets and drums,
blown and dub-a-dubbed by fellows whom I vow to heaven I would not trust
with a five-pound note,--still, if I must march, I must; and so deuce
take the hindmost! But when it comes to individual marchers upon their
own account,--privateers and condottieri of Enlightenment,--who have
filled their pockets with Lucifer matches, and have a sublime contempt
for their neighbour's barns and hay-ricks, I don't see why I should throw
myself into the seventh heaven of admiration and ecstasy.

If those who are eternally rhapsodizing on the celestial blessings that
are to follow Enlightenment, Universal Knowledge, and so forth, would
just take their eyes out of their pockets, and look about them, I would
respectfully inquire if they have never met any very knowing and
enlightened gentleman, whose acquaintance is by no means desirable. If
not, they are monstrous lucky. Every man must judge by his own
experience; and the worst rogues I have ever encountered were amazingly
well-informed clever fellows. From dunderheads and dunces we can protect
ourselves, but from your sharpwitted gentleman, all enlightenment and no
prejudice, we have but to cry, "Heaven defend us!" It is true, that the
rogue (let him be ever so enlightened) usually comes to no good himself,
--though not before he has done harm enough to his neighbours. But that
only shows that the world wants something else in those it rewards
besides intelligence per se and in the abstract; and is much too old a
world to allow any Jack Horner to pick out its plums for his own personal
gratification. Hence a man of very moderate intelligence, who believes
in God, suffers his heart to beat with human sympathies, and keeps his
eyes off your strongbox, will perhaps gain a vast deal more power than
knowledge ever gives to a rogue.

Wherefore, though I anticipate an outcry against me on the part of the
blockheads, who, strange to say, are the most credulous idolators of
Enlightenment, and if knowledge were power, would rot on a dunghill, yet,
nevertheless, I think all really enlightened men will agree with me, that
when one falls in with detached sharpshooters from the general March of
Enlightenment, it is no reason that we should make ourselves a target,
because Enlightenment has furnished them with a gun. It has, doubtless,
been already remarked by the judicious reader that of the numerous
characters introduced into this work, the larger portion belong to that
species which we call the INTELLECTUAL,--that through them are analyzed
and developed human intellect, in various forms and directions. So that
this History, rightly considered, is a kind of humble familiar Epic, or,
if you prefer it, a long Serio-Comedy, upon the Varieties of English Life
in this our Century, set in movement by the intelligences most prevalent.
And where more ordinary and less refined types of the species round and
complete the survey of our passing generation, they will often suggest,
by contrast, the deficiencies which mere intellectual culture leaves in
the human being. Certainly, I have no spite against intellect and
enlightenment. Heaven forbid I should be such a Goth! I am only the
advocate for common-sense and fair play. I don't think an able man
necessarily an angel; but I think if his heart match his head, and both
proceed in the Great March under the divine Oriflamine, he goes as near
to the angel as humanity will permit: if not, if he has but a penn'orth
of heart to a pound of brains, I say, "/Bon jour, mon ange/! I see not
the starry upward wings, but the grovelling cloven-hoof." I 'd rather be
offuscated by the Squire of Hazeldean than en lightened by Randal Leslie.
Every man to his taste. But intellect itself (not in the philosophical
but the ordinary sense of the term) is rarely, if ever, one completed
harmonious agency; it is not one faculty, but a compound of many, some of
which are often at war with each other, and mar the concord of the whole.
Few of us but have some predominant faculty, in itself a strength; but
which, usurping unseasonably dominion over the rest, shares the lot of
all tyranny, however brilliant, and leaves the empire weak against
disaffection within, and invasion from without. Hence, intellect may be
perverted in a man of evil disposition, and sometimes merely wasted in a
man of excellent impulses, for want of the necessary discipline, or of a
strong ruling motive. I doubt if there be one person in the world who
has obtained a high reputation for talent, who has not met somebody much
cleverer than himself, which said somebody has never obtained any
reputation at all! Men like Audley Egerton are constantly seen in the
great positions of life; while men like Harley L'Estrange, who could have
beaten them hollow in anything equally striven for by both, float away
down the stream, and, unless some sudden stimulant arouse their dreamy
energies, vanish out of sight into silent graves. If Hamlet and Polonius
were living now, Polonius would have a much better chance of being a
Cabinet Minister, though Hamlet would unquestionably be a much more
intellectual character. What would become of Hamlet? Heaven knows!
Dr. Arnold said, from his experience of a school, that the difference
between one man and another was not mere ability,--it was energy. There
is a great deal of truth in that saying.

Submitting these hints to the judgment and penetration of the sagacious,
I enter on the fresh division of this work, and see already Randal Leslie
gnawing his lips on the background. The German poet observes that the
Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but the
milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. O
tendency of our age, to look on Isis as the milch cow! O prostitution of
the grandest desires to the basest uses! Gaze on the goddess, Randal
Leslie, and get ready thy churn and thy scales. Let us see what the
butter will fetch in the market.




CHAPTER II.

A new Reign has commenced. There has been a general election; the
unpopularity of the Administration has been apparent at the hustings.
Audley Egerton, hitherto returned by vast majorities, has barely escaped
defeat--thanks to a majority of five. The expenses of his election are
said to have been prodigious. "But who can stand against such wealth as
Egerton's,--no doubt backed, too, by the Treasury purse?" said the
defeated candidate. It is towards the close of October; London is
already full; parliament will meet in less than a fortnight.

In one of the principal apartments of that hotel in which foreigners may
discover what is meant by English comfort, and the price which foreigners
must pay for it, there sat two persons side by side, engaged in close
conversation. The one was a female, in whose pale clear complexion and
raven hair, in whose eyes, vivid with a power of expression rarely
bestowed on the beauties of the North, we recognize Beatrice, Marchesa di
Negra. Undeniably handsome as was the Italian lady, her companion,
though a man, and far advanced into middle age, was yet more remarkable
for personal advantages. There was a strong family likeness between the
two; but there was also a striking contrast in air, manner, and all that
stamps on the physiognomy the idiosyncrasies of character. There was
something of gravity, of earnestness and passion, in Beatrice's
countenance when carefully examined; her smile at times might be false,
but it was rarely ironical, never cynical. Her gestures, though
graceful, were unrestrained and frequent. You could see she was a
daughter of the South. Her companion, on the contrary, preserved on the
fair, smooth face, to which years had given scarcely a line or wrinkle,
something that might have passed, at first glance, for the levity and
thoughtlessness of a gay and youthful nature; but the smile, though
exquisitely polished, took at times the derision of a sneer. In his
manners he was as composed and as free from gesture as an Englishman.
His hair was of that red brown with which the Italian painters produce
such marvellous effects of colour; and if here and there a silver thread
gleamed through the locks, it was lost at once amidst their luxuriance.
His eyes were light, and his complexion, though without much colour, was
singularly transparent. His beauty, indeed, would have been rather
womanly than masculine, but for the height and sinewy spareness of a
frame in which muscular strength was rather adorned than concealed by an
admirable elegance of proportion. You would never have guessed this man
to be an Italian; more likely you would have supposed him a Parisian. He
conversed in French, his dress was of French fashion, his mode of thought
seemed French. Not that he was like the Frenchman of the present day,--
an animal, either rude or reserved; but your ideal of the marquis of the
old regime, the roue of the Regency.

Italian, however, he was, and of a race renowned in Italian history.
But, as if ashamed of his country and his birth, he affected to be a
citizen of the world. Heaven help the world if it hold only such
citizens!

"But, Giulio," said Beatrice di Negra, speaking in Italian, "even
granting that you discover this girl, can you suppose that her father
will ever consent to your alliance? Surely you know too well the nature
of your kinsman?"

"Tu to trompes, ma soeur," replied Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera,
in French as usual,--"tu to trompes; I knew it before he had gone through
exile and penury. How can I know it now? But comfort yourself, my too
anxious Beatrice, I shall not care for his consent, till I 've made sure
of his daughter's."

"But how win that in despite of the father?"

"Eh, mordieu!" interrupted the count, with true French gayety; "what
would become of all the comedies ever written, if marriages were not made
in despite of the father? Look you," he resumed, with a very slight
compression of his lip, and a still slighter movement in his chair,--
"look you, this is no question of ifs and buts! it is a question of must
and shall,--a question of existence to you and to me. When Danton was
condemned to the guillotine, he said, flinging a pellet of bread at the
nose of his respectable judge, 'Mon individu sera bientot dans le neant.'
My patrimony is there already! I am loaded with debts. I see before me,
on the one side, ruin or suicide; on the other side, wedlock and wealth."

"But from those vast possessions which you have been permitted to enjoy
so long, have you really saved nothing against the time when they might
be reclaimed at your hands?"

"My sister," replied the count, "do I look like a man who saved?
Besides, when the Austrian Emperor, unwilling to raze from his Lombard
domains a name and a House so illustrious as our kinsman's, and desirous,
while punishing that kinsman's rebellion, to reward my adherence, forbore
the peremptory confiscation of those vast possessions at which my mouth
waters while we speak, but, annexing them to the crown during pleasure,
allowed me, as the next of male kin, to retain the revenues of one half
for the same very indefinite period,--had I not every reason to suppose
that before long I could so influence his Imperial Majesty, or his
minister, as to obtain a decree that might transfer the whole,
unconditionally and absolutely, to myself? And methinks I should have
done so, but for this accursed, intermeddling English Milord, who has
never ceased to besiege the court or the minister with alleged
extenuations of our cousin's rebellion, and proofless assertions that I
shared it in order to entangle my kinsman, and betrayed it in order to
profit by his spoils. So that, at last, in return for all my services,
and in answer to all my claims, I received from the minister himself this
cold reply, Count of Peschiera, your aid was important, and your reward
has been large. That reward it would not be for your honour to extend,
and justify the ill opinion of your Italian countrymen by formally
appropriating to yourself all that was forfeited by the treason you
denounced. A name so noble as yours should be dearer to you than fortune
itself.'"

"Ah Giulio," cried Beatrice, her face lighting up, changed in its whole
character, "those were words that might make the demon that tempts to
avarice fly from your breast in shame."

The count opened his eyes in great amaze; then he glanced round the room,
and said quietly,

"Nobody else hears you, my dear Beatrice; talk commonsense. Heroics
sound well in mixed society; but there is nothing less suited to the tone
of a family conversation."

Madame di Negra bent down her head abashed, and that sudden change in the
expression of her countenance which had seemed to betray susceptibility
to generous emotion, faded as suddenly away.

"But still," she said coldly, "you enjoy one half of those ample
revenues: why talk, then, of suicide and ruin?"

"I enjoy them at the pleasure of the crown; and what if it be the
pleasure of the crown to recall our cousin, and reinstate him in his
possessions?"

"There is a probability, then, of that pardon? When you first employed
me in your researches you only thought there was a possibility."

"There is a great probability of it, and therefore I am here. I learned
some little time since that the question of such recall had been
suggested by the emperor, and discussed in Council. The danger to the
State, which might arise from our cousin's wealth, his alleged
abilities,--abilities! bah! and his popular name, deferred any decision
on the point; and, indeed, the difficulty of dealing with myself must
have embarrassed the minister. But it is a mere question of time. He
cannot long remain excluded from the general amnesty already extended to
the other refugees. The person who gave me this information is high in
power, and friendly to myself; and he added a piece of advice on which I
acted. 'It was intimated,' said he, 'by one of the partisans of your
kinsman, that the exile could give a hostage for his loyalty in the
person of his daughter and heiress; that she had arrived at marriageable
age; that if she were to wed, with the emperor's consent, some one whose
attachment to the Austrian crown was unquestionable, there would be a
guarantee both for the faith of the father, and for the transmission of
so important a heritage to safe and loyal hands. Why not' (continued my
friend) 'apply to the emperor for his consent to that alliance for
yourself,--you, on whom he can depend; you who, if the daughter should
die, would be the legal heir to those lands?' On that hint I spoke."

"You saw the emperor?"

"And after combating the unjust prepossessions against me, I stated that
so far from my cousin having any fair cause of resentment against me,
when all was duly explained to him, I did not doubt that he would
willingly give me the hand of his child."

"You did!" cried the marchesa, amazed.

"And," continued the count, imperturbably, as he smoothed, with careless
hand, the snowy plaits of his shirt front,--"and that I should thus have
the happiness of becoming myself the guarantee of my kinsman's loyalty,
the agent for the restoration of his honours, while, in the eyes of the
envious and malignant, I should clear up my own name from all suspicion
that I had wronged him."

"And the emperor consented?"

"Pardieu, my dear sister, what else could his Majesty do? My proposition
smoothed every obstacle, and reconciled policy with mercy. It remains,
therefore, only to find out what has hitherto baffled all our researches,
the retreat of our dear kinsfolk, and to make myself a welcome lover to
the demoiselle. There is some disparity of years, I own; but--unless
your sex and my glass flatter me overmuch--I am still a, match for many
a gallant of five-and-twenty."

The count said this with so charming a smile, and looked so pre-eminently
handsome, that he carried off the coxcombry of the words as gracefully as
if they had been spoken by some dazzling hero of the grand old comedy of
Parisian life.

Then interlacing his fingers and lightly leaning his hands, thus clasped,
upon his sister's shoulder, he looked into her face, and said slowly,
"And now, my sister, for some gentle but deserved reproach. Have you not
sadly failed me in the task I imposed on your regard for my interests?
Is it not some years since you first came to England on the mission of
discovering these worthy relations of ours? Did I not entreat you to
seduce into your toils the man whom I new to be my enemy, and who was
indubitably acquainted with our cousin's retreat,--a secret he has
hitherto locked within his bosom? Did you not tell me, that though he
was then in England, you could find no occasion even to meet him, but
that you had obtained the friendship of the statesman to whom I directed
your attention, as his most intimate associate? And yet you, whose
charms are usually so irresistible, learn nothing from the statesman, as
you see nothing of Milord. Nay, baffled and misled, you actually suppose
that the quarry has taken refuge in France. You go thither, you pretend
to search the capital, the provinces, Switzerland, /que sais je/? All in
vain,--though--/foi de gentilhomme/--your police cost me dearly. You
return to England; the same chase, and the same result. /Palsambleu, ma
soeur/, I do too much credit to your talents not to question your zeal.
In a word, have you been in earnest,--or have you not had some womanly
pleasure in amusing yourself and abusing my trust?"

"Giulio," answered Beatrice, sadly, "you know the influence you have
exercised over my character and my fate. Your reproaches are not just.
I made such inquiries as were in my power, and I have now cause to
believe that I know one who is possessed of this secret, and can guide us
to it."

"Ah, you do!" exclaimed the count. Beatrice did not heed the
exclamation, and hurried on.

"But grant that my heart shrunk from the task you imposed on me, would it
not have been natural? When I first came to England, you informed me
that your object in discovering the exiles was one which I could honestly
aid. You naturally wished first to know if the daughter lived; if not,
you were the heir. If she did, you assured me you desired to effect,
through my mediation, some liberal compromise with Alphonso, by which you
would have sought to obtain his restoration, provided he would leave you
for life in possession of the grant you hold from the crown. While these
were your objects, I did my best, ineffectual as it was, to obtain the
information required."

"And what made me lose so important, though so ineffectual an ally?"
asked the count, still smiling; but a gleam that belied the smile shot
from his eye.

"What! when you bade me receive and co-operate with the miserable spies--
the false Italians--whom you sent over, and seek to entangle this poor
exile, when found, in some rash correspondence to be revealed to the
court; when you sought to seduce the daughter of the Count of Peschiera,
the descendant of those who had ruled in Italy, into the informer, the
corrupter, and the traitress,--no, Giulio, then I recoiled; and then,
fearful of your own sway over me, I retreated into France. I have
answered you frankly."

The count removed his hands from the shoulder on which they had reclined
so cordially.

"And this," said he, "is your wisdom, and this your gratitude! You,
whose fortunes are bound up in mine; you, who subsist on my bounty; you,
who--"

"Hold," cried the marchesa, rising, and with a burst of emotion, as if
stung to the utmost, and breaking into revolt from the tyranny of years,
--"hold! Gratitude! bounty! Brother, brother! what, indeed, do I owe
to you? The shame and the misery of a life. While yet a child, you
condemned me to marry against my will, against my heart, against my
prayers,--and laughed at my tears when I knelt to you for mercy. I was
pure then, Giulio,--pure and innocent as the flowers in my virgin crown.
And now--now--"

Beatrice stopped abruptly, and clasped her hands before her face.

"Now you upbraid me," said the count, unruffled by her sudden passion,
"because I gave you in marriage to a man young and noble?"

"Old in vices, and mean of soul! The marriage I forgave you. You had
the right, according to the customs of our country, to dispose of my
hand. But I forgave you not the consolations that you whispered in the
ear of a wretched and insulted wife."

"Pardon me the remark," replied the count, with a courtly bend of his
head, "but those consolations were also conformable to the customs of our
country, and I was not aware till now that you had wholly disdained them.
And," continued the count," you were not so long a wife that the gall of
the chain should smart still. You were soon left a widow,--free,
childless, young, beautiful."

"And penniless."

"True, Di Negra was a gambler, and very unlucky; no fault of mine. I
could neither keep the cards from his hands, nor advise him how to play
them."

"And my own portion? O Giulio, I knew but at his death why you had
condemned me to that renegade Genoese. He owed you money, and, against
honour, and I believe against law, you had accepted my fortune in
discharge of the debt."

"He had no other way to discharge it; a debt of honour must be paid,--old
stories these. What matters? Since then my purse has been open to you."

"Yes, not as your sister, but your instrument, your spy! Yes, your purse
has been open--with a niggard hand."

"/Un peu de conscience, ma chere/,--you are so extravagant. But come, be
plain. What would you?"

"I would be free from you."

"That is, you would form some second marriage with one of these rich
island lords. /Ma foi/, I respect your ambition."

"It is not so high. I aim but to escape from slavery,--to be placed
beyond dishonourable temptation. I desire," cried Beatrice, with
increased emotion,--"I desire to re-enter the life of woman."

"Eno'!" said the count, with a visible impatience; "is there anything in
the attainment of your object that should render you indifferent to mine?
You desire to marry, if I comprehend you right. And to marry as becomes
you, you should bring to your husband not debts, but a dowry. Be it so.
I will restore the portion that I saved from the spendthrift clutch of
the Genoese,--the moment that it is mine to bestow, the moment that I am
husband to my kinsman's heiress. And now, Beatrice, you imply that my
former notions revolted your conscience; my present plan should content
it, for by this marriage shall our kinsman regain his country, and
repossess, at least, half his lands. And if I am not an excellent
husband to the demoiselle, it will be her own fault. I have sown my wild
oats. /Je suis bon prince/, when I have things a little my own way. It
is my hope and my intention, and certainly it will be my interest, to
become /digne epoux et irreprochable pere de famille/. I speak lightly,
--'t is my way. I mean seriously. The little girl will be very happy
with me, and I shall succeed in soothing all resentment her father may
retain. Will you aid me then, yes or no? Aid me, and you shall indeed
be free. The magician will release the fair spirit he has bound to his
will. Aid me not, /ma chere/, and mark, I do not threaten--I do but
warn--aid me not; grant that I become a beggar, and ask yourself what is
to become of you,--still young, still beautiful, and still penniless?
Nay, worse than penniless; you have done me the honour," and here the
count, looking on the table, drew a letter from a portfolio emblazoned
with his arms and coronet,--"you have done me the honour to consult me as
to your debts."

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