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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In 'Pelham '— Complete', Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton masterfully constructs a novel that marries social commentary with biting satire. Set against the backdrop of early 19th-century England, the narrative follows the life of its eponymous protagonist, Pelham, as he navigates the complexities of society, love, and personal ambition. Lytton's exuberant prose intertwines wit with a keen observation of contemporary manners, presenting a tapestry of characters that reflect both the follies and virtues of the time. The novel's intricate narrative style employs epistolary elements and direct addresses, inviting readers to engage intimately with Pelham's philosophical musings and moral dilemmas, effectively situating the work within the burgeoning genre of the English novel, which started to emphasize character development and social dynamics during this era. Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton, a prominent figure in Victorian literature, was a statesman, playwright, and novelist, whose works often sought to illuminate the intricacies of human nature and societal structures. His personal experiences and political inclinations informed his writing, enabling Lytton to explore themes of ambition, identity, and social critique, as exemplified in 'Pelham'. Additionally, Lytton's background in theatre and his socially influential family contributed to his rich narrative voice, ensuring that his works resonated deeply with readers of his time. 'Pelham '— Complete' is a captivating read for those interested in the evolution of the social novel and the exploration of character as a reflection of society. Lytton's engaging style and insightful commentary not only entertain but also provoke critical thought about societal norms and individual aspirations. This novel remains a significant contribution to the Victorian literary canon, making it a must-read for students and enthusiasts of English literature. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Pelham — Complete
Table of Contents
Introduction
A brilliant young gentleman learns that social polish can be both a passport and a peril. Pelham — Complete presents Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Pelham; or, The Adventures of a Gentleman, first published in 1828, the novel that established his early fame and announced a sharp new observer of fashionable life. Set chiefly in the upper strata of early nineteenth-century society, the book blends urbane comedy with mounting intrigue. Readers encounter an intimate view of salons, clubs, and drawing rooms alongside hints of danger that test the limits of charm. The result is a work equally concerned with style and consequence, reputation and responsibility.
Often classed among the silver-fork novels—a popular strain of society fiction in the 1820s and 1830s—Pelham draws on the allure and vanity of the beau monde while probing its anxieties. Its world is recognizably that of post-Napoleonic Britain and the Continent, where manners are currency and image is a profession. Yet Bulwer-Lytton widens the frame: beneath the glittering surfaces lies a social and moral terrain ripe for satire and suspense. The narrative traces the circuits of fashionable England and visits European settings, using elegant rooms and crowded streets alike as stages on which ambition, wit, and danger quietly negotiate.
The premise is deceptively simple: a clever young narrator, determined to thrive in society, charts his ascent with an amused, sometimes piercing eye. At first, the pleasures are those of observation—dinners, flirtations, carefully managed friendships—through which he maps the unspoken rules that govern status. Gradually, a darker current intrudes, and the skills that once secured invitations are pressed into service for more serious ends. Without straying into spoilers, the plot shifts from social maneuver to personal jeopardy, inviting the reader to consider how a cultivated persona withstands inconvenient truth. The journey offers elegance, tension, and a steady, mischievous intelligence.
Bulwer-Lytton’s voice is polished, confiding, and quick with epigram, a first-person style that relishes detail without drowning in it. He writes a comedy of manners that shades into a novel of incident, balancing crisp observation with dramatic turns. The prose moves with a conversational ease that reflects contemporary talk while delivering sly commentary on fashion, taste, and influence. At the same time, the structure anticipates later detective fiction: clues, motives, and reputations accumulate, and the social stage becomes a field of inquiry. The effect is engagingly dual—a mirror for polite society and a mechanism for suspense.
Themes of self-fashioning, ambition, and moral choice run throughout. Pelham examines how identity is performed, how reputations are built and unmade, and how the desire to belong can compromise judgment. The book interrogates appearance versus reality, inviting readers to ask what remains when wit and costume are stripped away. Friendship, loyalty, and the cost of success are weighed against the pleasures of brilliance and style. By situating these questions within the rituals of the elite, Bulwer-Lytton shows how personal ethics are entangled with the choreography of social life, where a misstep can carry consequences as lasting as any scandal.
For contemporary readers, the novel’s fascination lies in its portrait of public life as a continuous performance, a subject that has not lost relevance. The pressures of visibility, the calculation behind networks, and the fragile economy of reputation feel strikingly modern. Pelham’s blend of satire and suspense also offers two pleasures at once: the spark of social comedy and the forward pull of a mystery that rewards attention to motive and detail. It prompts questions still worth asking: How do we curate ourselves? What do we owe to the truth when our status is at stake? How far will charm go?
Pelham endures because it bridges cultural modes: the glitter of Regency manners, the emergent confidence of early Victorian narrative, and a clear appetite for sensation anchored in character. It helped solidify Bulwer-Lytton’s standing—later Baron Lytton—as a writer attuned to both fashionable surfaces and the forces beneath them. Readers can expect lively scenes, pointed asides, and an artful escalation from social play to genuine risk. The style is ornate by modern standards yet brisk in its plotting, rewarding patience with wit and momentum. As an introduction to its era’s tastes and tensions, the novel remains both instructive and entertaining.
Synopsis (Selection)
Henry Pelham, the witty son of an ambitious mother, narrates his own progress from student to man of the world in early nineteenth-century England. Groomed to excel in the drawing room as much as in public life, he studies the arts of manner, conversation, and appearance with deliberate care. He enters London society resolved to master its codes while testing the worth of those codes against his intelligence and taste. From the outset, the novel presents the contrast between polish and principle, suggesting that social success may be a tool for advancement but not yet a measure of character or purpose.
In the London season, Pelham acquaints himself with clubs, theatres, and assemblies, observing the hierarchies that govern introductions and favor. He befriends brilliant and capricious figures whose reputations are as fragile as they are dazzling, and learns the practical etiquette of influence. Among these is Reginald Glanville, a reserved, passionate man whose proud temper hints at unspoken history. Pelham’s attention is also drawn to a woman of grace and intelligence, whose circumstances make discretion essential. While he perfects his role as a model of fashion, he also senses the limitations of mere display, and considers avenues toward political distinction.
A continental tour refines Pelham’s manners and widens his perspective. In Parisian salons he studies the arts of wit and intrigue, witnessing how culture, bureaucracy, and police sit uneasily together. At crowded gaming rooms and brilliant dinners, he meets cosmopolitan adventurers and émigrés who thrive on quick judgments and quicker fortunes. In Germany’s spas, ritualized leisure sharpens rivalries and loyalties alike. A quarrel on this tour escalates into a perilous encounter, testing his courage without reshaping his public composure. Through these scenes, Pelham acquires not only polish but a practical understanding of the forces—money, rumor, and pride—that animate modern society.
Returning to England, Pelham applies his social capital to politics, learning the mechanics of canvassing, borough interests, and patronage. He observes how eloquence, timing, and alliances weigh more than abstract doctrine in the struggle for a seat. Though still attentive to fashion, he gradually directs his ambition toward usefulness, guided by experienced statesmen and wary of faction. His courtship of the woman he admires is challenged by guardianship, pride, and competing attentions, while his friendship with Glanville deepens into a bond complicated by temperament. The elegant world he has mastered begins to reveal its practical costs and moral tests.
A sudden crime startles that world and alters Pelham’s prospects. The event ripples through drawing rooms and newspapers, attaching suspicion where reputation makes it most sensational. Drawn unwillingly into the episode by earlier acquaintances, Pelham confronts the hazards of rumor and the fragility of honor. His public ease gives way to private anxiety as he withdraws from the spotlight, consults counsel, and resolves to establish the truth. He discovers that the boundaries between fashionable houses and darker haunts are more permeable than he once believed, and that the past of certain companions bears upon the dangers of the present.
Committed to clearing his name, Pelham undertakes a disciplined inquiry that crosses classes and frontiers. He consults Bow Street officers, interviews servants and informers, and follows hints through London’s alleys, provincial inns, and coastal towns. A handful of letters and casual remarks yield suggestive trails to continental refuges. The investigation exposes networks of debt and dependence that link gamblers, adventurers, and men of quality. Maintaining his composure in society, he adopts caution in private, coordinating with authorities while pursuing independent leads. Step by step, he pieces together motives rooted in wounded pride, calculated advantage, and long-concealed grievances.
The pursuit brings Pelham into hazardous encounters that strain his resources and alliances. He faces threats in lonely roads and crowded rooms, and negotiates with people whose loyalties are divided by fear and interest. Glanville’s private history, long hinted but never displayed, intersects unsettlingly with the circumstances of the crime, pressing Pelham to weigh generosity against self-preservation. His affection for the woman he loves must also be balanced with the discretion her position demands. Tested beyond the rehearsed graces of fashionable life, he acts with steadiness and nerve, showing that charm, used rightly, can shelter courage and constancy.
The strands of intrigue converge upon a decisive revelation, bringing to light the chain of impulse and design behind the crime. Without dwelling on particulars, the discovery restores Pelham’s honor and sets legal processes in motion, while altering the fortunes of several households. Some ties are severed, others repaired; pain and relief mingle in the aftermath. Pelham’s romantic hopes are clarified under the calmer sky that follows, and his political intentions assume a more thoughtful cast. The episode does not abolish the competitive world he inhabits, but it equips him to navigate it with deeper self-knowledge and restraint.
Pelham — Complete blends fashionable comedy with melodrama and early detective elements, portraying a society where appearances can advance or endanger a life. Its central movement traces a transformation from studied elegance toward ethical steadiness, suggesting that reputation must rest on conduct rather than display. By following salons and elections into prisons, alleys, and courts, the book links the bright and the obscure within a single social fabric. Its message favors prudence, courage, and sympathy as correctives to vanity and haste. Ending in measured hope, it affirms that worldly accomplishment can serve purpose when tempered by experience and principle.
Historical Context
Pelham is set amid the late Georgian world spanning the Regency (1811–1820) and the reign of George IV (1820–1830), with action moving between London and Restoration Paris. In London, the geography of the West End—Mayfair squares, St James’s clubs, Bond Street tailors, Hyde Park rides, and the assembly rooms of Almack’s—frames a society ruled by etiquette, patronage, and spectacle. Across the Channel, the Bourbon Restoration (1814/1815–1830) furnishes Parisian salons, police scrutiny, and political intrigue. The novel’s milieu reflects a Europe reconfigured after the Napoleonic Wars, where elite mobility, cross‑border fashion, and transnational gossip merge with lingering postwar anxieties about order, legitimacy, and reform.
The culture of dandyism and fashionable high life is the dominant social movement shaping the book. Under the Prince Regent (later George IV), London’s “ton” revolved around clubs like White’s and Brooks’s, the opera, routs, and Almack’s—where a handful of patronesses (notably Lady Jersey, Lady Cowper, Lady Castlereagh, and Princess Esterházy) controlled admission, effectively gatekeeping rank and reputation. Beau Brummell (George Bryan Brummell, 1778–1840), a friend of the Regent until his fall in 1816 and exile to Calais and Caen, codified the dandy’s creed of understated dress, fastidious cleanliness, and conversational poise as political arts. Dress, carriage, and cool impassivity served as social currency in a system where lineage, credit, and rumor decided advancement. The West End’s daily rituals—promenades in Hyde Park, morning calls, card tables, and private theatricals—operated as arenas for alliance formation and reputation warfare. Newspapers like the Morning Chronicle and scandal sheets such as John Bull (founded 1820) amplified reputational stakes, while tailors on Bond Street and bootmakers in St James’s Street turned consumption into identity. Pelham mirrors this order with forensic attention to clothes, clubs, and codes, dramatizing how style and wit functioned as instruments of soft power. The protagonist’s navigation of Almack’s thresholds, club politics, and salon hierarchies exposes the mechanics of sociability that governed access to office, marriage, and money. By juxtaposing urbane surfaces with criminal subplots, the novel hints at the fragility of a world in which performative self‑command could conceal debt, dueling, or scandal, and shows how the era’s rites of fashion intertwined with the patronage networks of British politics.
The novel’s Parisian episodes register the political climate of the Bourbon Restoration. After the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), Louis XVIII (reigned 1814/1815–1824) and Charles X (1824–1830) presided over a regime alternating between liberal and ultra‑royalist ministries, with police surveillance and censorship intensifying in the 1820s. Salons in the Faubourg Saint‑Germain gathered legitimist aristocrats, while constitutional liberals (associated with figures such as Benjamin Constant and the Marquis de Lafayette) agitated for press freedoms and electoral reform. Pelham’s depictions of Parisian salons, dueling codes, and bureaucratic watchfulness reflect the tensions of Restoration society and the uncertain reconciliation of post‑Napoleonic France.
Postwar Britain confronted economic contraction, high prices, and political unrest. The Corn Laws (1815) protected grain but raised food costs, while distress fed mass meetings led by reformers like Henry “Orator” Hunt. The Peterloo Massacre (16 August 1819, Manchester) saw yeomanry charge a peaceful crowd demanding parliamentary reform, prompting the repressive Six Acts (1819). The Cato Street Conspiracy (February 1820) exposed radical desperation, and the Queen Caroline affair (1820–1821) polarized public opinion against George IV. Pelham’s glittering drawing rooms and club banter sit against this backdrop, with its conversation and satire indicating how fashionable elites consumed, minimized, or opportunistically deployed politics amid instability.
Structural change crept through high politics in the late 1820s. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1828) dismantled old religious disabilities for Protestant dissenters, and Catholic Emancipation (1829), steered by the Duke of Wellington and Robert Peel, admitted Catholics to Parliament. These concessions, together with scandals over “rotten boroughs” like Old Sarum, propelled demands that culminated in the Great Reform Act (1832). Though published in 1828, Pelham anticipates this inflection by dissecting birth, patronage, and money as levers of advancement. Its portraits of aspirants and grandees expose the pre‑Reform order’s reliance on connections over merit, the very system parliamentary change sought to dilute.
Urban crime, policing, and the law’s modernization form a significant subtext. London still relied on the Bow Street Runners, founded in 1749 by Henry Fielding and led by John Fielding, alongside parish constables and magistrates. Before the Metropolitan Police Act (1829), detection was inconsistent, and the “Bloody Code” imposed capital penalties for many property crimes, even as Peel’s reforms (the Gaols Act, 1823; criminal law consolidations, 1827–1828) began rationalization. Pelham’s mystery and underworld threads draw on this transitional landscape—shadowy informers, gaming houses, and dueling—illustrating both the deficiencies of ad hoc policing and the porous boundary between fashionable vice and criminal enterprise.
The book also resonates with the era’s revived Anglo‑French sociability after 1815. Peace reopened continental travel, with passports and police oversight standard in Restoration France and steam packets appearing on the Dover–Calais route in the early 1820s. Paris modernized along the Rue de la Paix and the boulevards, while the Faubourg Saint‑Germain preserved aristocratic ritual. Elite Britons frequented embassies, theatres, and salons, exchanging political intelligence and fashion. Pelham converts this mobility into plot and atmosphere: the ease of crossing the Channel, the cosmopolitan tone of conversation, and the subtle frictions between liberal and legitimist circles foreshadow the crisis that would break in 1830.
As social and political critique, Pelham anatomizes power as performance. It exposes how rank, credit, and gossip structure access to office and marriage; how clubs, patronesses, and newspapers police inclusion; and how elegant self‑command can mask debt, corruption, or violence. By setting polished salons against legal arbitrariness, dueling, and uneven policing, the book indicts inequities of the pre‑Reform state. Its Anglo‑French canvas reveals elites adapting to surveillance, censorship, and public opinion, while resisting accountability. In crystallizing the hollowness and hazards of a society governed by appearance and patronage, the novel implicitly urges reforms in representation, justice, and social responsibility.
Pelham — Complete
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
Ou peut-on etre mieux qu’au sein de sa famille?—French Song. [Where can one be better than in the bosom of one’s family[1q]?]
I am an only child. My father was the younger son of one of our oldest earls; my mother the dowerless daughter of a Scotch peer. Mr. Pelham was a moderate whig, and gave sumptuous dinners; Lady Frances was a woman of taste, and particularly fond of diamonds and old china.
Vulgar people know nothing of the necessaries required in good society, and the credit they give is as short as their pedigree. Six years after my birth, there was an execution in our house. My mother was just setting off on a visit to the Duchess of D_____; she declared it was impossible to go without her diamonds. The chief of the bailiffs declared it was impossible to trust them out of his sight. The matter was compromised—the bailiff went with my mother to C___, and was introduced as my tutor. “A man of singular merit,” whispered my mother, “but so shy!” Fortunately, the bailiff was abashed, and by losing his impudence he kept the secret. At the end of the week, the diamonds went to the jeweller’s, and Lady Frances wore paste.
I think it was about a month afterwards that a sixteenth cousin left my mother twenty thousand pounds. “It will just pay off our most importunate creditors, and equip me for Melton,” said Mr. Pelham.
“It will just redeem my diamonds, and refurnish the house,” said Lady Frances.
The latter alternative was chosen. My father went down to run his last horse at Newmarket, and my mother received nine hundred people in a Turkish tent. Both were equally fortunate, the Greek and the Turk; my father’s horse lost, in consequence of which he pocketed five thousand pounds; and my mother looked so charming as a Sultana, that Seymour Conway fell desperately in love with her.
Mr. Conway had just caused two divorces; and of course, all the women in London were dying for him—judge then of the pride which Lady Frances felt at his addresses. The end of the season was unusually dull, and my mother, after having looked over her list of engagements, and ascertained that she had none remaining worth staying for, agreed to elope with her new lover.
The carriage was at the end of the square. My mother, for the first time in her life, got up at six o’clock. Her foot was on the step, and her hand next to Mr. Conway’s heart, when she remembered that her favourite china monster and her French dog were left behind. She insisted on returning—re-entered the house, and was coming down stairs with one under each arm, when she was met by my father and two servants. My father’s valet had discovered the flight (I forget how), and awakened his master.
When my father was convinced of his loss, he called for his dressing-gown—searched the garret and the kitchen—looked in the maid’s drawers and the cellaret—and finally declared he was distracted. I have heard that the servants were quite melted by his grief, and I do not doubt it in the least, for he was always celebrated for his skill in private theatricals. He was just retiring to vent his grief in his dressing-room, when he met my mother. It must altogether have been an awkward rencontre, and, indeed, for my father, a remarkably unfortunate occurrence; for Seymour Conway was immensely rich, and the damages would, no doubt, have been proportionably high. Had they met each other alone, the affair might easily have been settled, and Lady Frances gone off in tranquillity;—those d—d servants are always in the way!
I have, however, often thought that it was better for me that the affair ended thus,—as I know, from many instances, that it is frequently exceedingly inconvenient to have one’s mother divorced.
I have observed that the distinguishing trait of people accustomed to good society, is a calm, imperturbable quiet, which pervades all their actions and habits, from the greatest to the least: they eat in quiet, move in quiet, live in quiet, and lose their wife, or even their money, in quiet; while low persons cannot take up either a spoon or an affront without making such an amazing noise about it. To render this observation good, and to return to the intended elopement, nothing farther was said upon that event. My father introduced Conway to Brookes’s, and invited him to dinner twice a week for a whole twelvemonth.
Not long after this occurrence, by the death of my grandfather, my uncle succeeded to the title and estates of the family. He was, as people justly observed, rather an odd man: built schools for peasants, forgave poachers, and diminished his farmers’ rents; indeed, on account of these and similar eccentricities, he was thought a fool by some, and a madman by others. However, he was not quite destitute of natural feeling; for he paid my father’s debts, and established us in the secure enjoyment of our former splendour. But this piece of generosity, or justice, was done in the most unhandsome manner; he obtained a promise from my father to retire from Brookes’s, and relinquish the turf; and he prevailed upon my mother to take an aversion to diamonds, and an indifference to china monsters.
CHAPTER II.
At ten years old I went to Eton. I had been educated till that period by my mother, who, being distantly related to Lord ———, (who had published “Hints upon the Culinary Art”), imagined she possessed an hereditary claim to literary distinction. History was her great forte; for she had read all the historical romances of the day, and history accordingly I had been carefully taught.
I think at this moment I see my mother before me, reclining on her sofa, and repeating to me some story about Queen Elizabeth and Lord Essex; then telling me, in a languid voice, as she sank back with the exertion, of the blessings of a literary taste, and admonishing me never to read above half an hour at a time for fear of losing my health.
Well, to Eton I went; and the second day I had been there, I was half killed for refusing, with all the pride of a Pelham, to wash tea-cups. I was rescued from the clutches of my tyrant by a boy not much bigger than myself, but reckoned the best fighter, for his size, in the whole school. His name was Reginald Glanville: from that period, we became inseparable, and our friendship lasted all the time he stayed at Eton, which was within a year of my own departure for Cambridge.
His father was a baronet, of a very ancient and wealthy family; and his mother was a woman of some talent and more ambition. She made her house one of the most recherchee in London. Seldom seen at large assemblies, she was eagerly sought after in the well winnowed soirees of the elect. Her wealth, great as it was, seemed the least prominent ingredient of her establishment. There was in it no uncalled for ostentation—no purse-proud vulgarity—no cringing to great, and no patronizing condescension to little people; even the Sunday newspapers could not find fault with her, and the querulous wives of younger brothers could only sneer and be silent.
“It is an excellent connexion,” said my mother, when I told her of my friendship with Reginald Glanville, “and will be of more use to you than many of greater apparent consequence. Remember, my dear, that in all the friends you make at present, you look to the advantage you can derive from them hereafter; that is what we call knowledge of the world, and it is to get the knowledge of the world that you are sent to a public school.”
I think, however, to my shame, that notwithstanding my mother’s instructions, very few prudential considerations were mingled with my friendship for Reginald Glanville. I loved him with a warmth of attachment, which has since surprised even myself.
He was of a very singular character: he used to wander by the river in the bright days of summer, when all else were at play, without any companion but his own thoughts; and these were tinged, even at that early age, with a deep and impassioned melancholy. He was so reserved in his manner, that it was looked upon as coldness or pride, and was repaid as such by a pretty general dislike. Yet to those he loved, no one could be more open and warm; more watchful to gratify others, more indifferent to gratification for himself: an utter absence of all selfishness, and an eager and active benevolence were indeed the distinguishing traits of his character. I have seen him endure with a careless goodnature the most provoking affronts from boys much less than himself; but directly I, or any other of his immediate friends, was injured or aggrieved, his anger was almost implacable. Although he was of a slight frame, yet early exercise had brought strength to his muscles, and activity to his limbs; and his skill in all athletic exercises whenever (which was but rarely) he deigned to share them, gave alike confidence and success to whatever enterprise his lion-like courage tempted him to dare.
Such, briefly and imperfectly sketched, was the character of Reginald Glanville—the one, who of all my early companions differed the most from myself; yet the one whom I loved the most, and the one whose future destiny was the most intertwined with my own.
I was in the head class when I left Eton. As I was reckoned an uncommonly well-educated boy, it may not be ungratifying to the admirers of the present system of education to pause here for a moment, and recal what I then knew. I could make twenty Latin verses in half an hour; I could construe, without an English translation, all the easy Latin authors, and many of the difficult ones, with it: I could read Greek fluently, and even translate it though the medium of a Latin version at the bottom of the page. I was thought exceedingly clever, for I had only been eight years acquiring all this fund of information, which, as one can never recall it in the world, you have every right to suppose that I had entirely forgotten before I was five and twenty. As I was never taught a syllable of English during this period; as when I once attempted to read Pope’s poems, out of school hours, I was laughed at, and called “a sap;” as my mother, when I went to school, renounced her own instructions; and as, whatever school-masters may think to the contrary, one learns nothing now-a-days by inspiration: so of everything which relates to English literature, English laws, and English history (with the exception of the said story of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Essex,) you have the same right to suppose that I was, at the age of eighteen, when I left Eton, in the profoundest ignorance.
At this age, I was transplanted to Cambridge, where I bloomed for two years in the blue and silver of a fellow commoner of Trinity. At the end of that time (being of royal descent) I became entitled to an honorary degree. I suppose the term is in contradistinction to an honourable degree, which is obtained by pale men in spectacles and cotton stockings, after thirty-six months of intense application.
I do not exactly remember how I spent my time at Cambridge. I had a piano-forte in my room, and a private billiard-room at a village two miles off; and between these resources, I managed to improve my mind more than could reasonably have been expected. To say truth, the whole place reeked with vulgarity. The men drank beer by the gallon, and eat cheese by the hundred weight—wore jockey-cut coats, and talked slang—rode for wagers, and swore when they lost—smoked in your face, and expectorated on the floor. Their proudest glory was to drive the mail—their mightiest exploit to box with the coachman—their most delicate amour to leer at the barmaid.
It will be believed, that I felt little regret in quitting companions of this description. I went to take leave of our college tutor. “Mr. Pelham,” said he, affectionately squeezing me by the hand, “your conduct has been most exemplary; you have not walked wantonly over the college grassplats, nor set your dog at the proctor—nor driven tandems by day, nor broken lamps by night—nor entered the chapel in order to display your intoxication—nor the lecture-room, in order to caricature the professors. This is the general behaviour of young men of family and fortune; but it has not been your’s. Sir, you have been an honour to your college.”
Thus closed my academical career. He who does not allow that it passed creditably to my teachers, profitably to myself, and beneficially to the world, is a narrow-minded and illiterate man, who knows nothing of the advantages of modern education.
CHAPTER III.
An open house, haunted with great resort.—Bishop Hall’s Satires.
I left Cambridge in a very weak state of health; and as nobody had yet come to London, I accepted the invitation of Sir Lionel Garrett to pay him a visit at his country seat. Accordingly, one raw winter’s day, full of the hopes of the reviving influence of air and exercise, I found myself carefully packed up in three great coats, and on the high road to Garrett Park.
Sir Lionel Garrett was a character very common in England, and, in describing him, I describe the whole species. He was of an ancient family, and his ancestors had for centuries resided on their estates in Norfolk. Sir Lionel, who came to his majority and his fortune at the same time, went up to London at the age of twenty-one, a raw, uncouth sort of young man, in a green coat and lank hair. His friends in town were of that set whose members are above ton, whenever they do not grasp at its possession, but who, whenever they do, lose at once their aim and their equilibrium, and fall immeasurably below it. I mean that set which I call “the respectable,” consisting of old peers of an old school; country gentlemen, who still disdain not to love their wine and to hate the French; generals who have served in the army; elder brothers who succeed to something besides a mortgage; and younger brothers who do not mistake their capital for their income. To this set you may add the whole of the baronetage—for I have remarked that baronets hang together like bees or Scotchmen; and if I go to a baronet’s house, and speak to some one whom I have not the happiness to know, I always say “Sir John—.”
It was no wonder, then, that to this set belonged Sir Lionel Garrett—no more the youth in a green coat and lank hair, but pinched in, and curled out—abounding in horses and whiskers—dancing all night—lounging all day—the favourite of the old ladies, the Philander of the young.
One unfortunate evening Sir Lionel Garrett was introduced to the celebrated Duchess of D. From that moment his head was turned. Before then, he had always imagined that he was somebody—that he was Sir Lionel Garrett, with a good-looking person and eight thousand a-year; he now knew that he was nobody unless he went to Lady G.‘s and unless he bowed to Lady S. Disdaining all importance derived from himself, it became absolutely necessary to his happiness, that all his importance should be derived solely from his acquaintance with others. He cared not a straw that he was a man of fortune, of family, of consequence; he must be a man of ton; or he was an atom, a nonentity, a very worm, and no man. No lawyer at Gray’s Inn, no galley slave at the oar, ever worked so hard at his task as Sir Lionel Garrett at his. Ton, to a single man, is a thing attainable enough. Sir Lionel was just gaining the envied distinction, when he saw, courted, and married Lady Harriett Woodstock.
His new wife was of a modern and not very rich family, and striving like Sir Lionel for the notoriety of fashion; but of this struggle he was ignorant. He saw her admitted into good society—he imagined she commanded it; she was a hanger on—he believed she was a leader. Lady Harriett was crafty and twenty-four—had no objection to be married, nor to change the name of Woodstock for Garrett. She kept up the baronet’s mistake till it was too late to repair it.
Marriage did not bring Sir Lionel wisdom. His wife was of the same turn of mind as himself: they might have been great people in the country—they preferred being little people in town. They might have chosen friends among persons of respectability and rank—they preferred being chosen as acquaintance by persons of ton. Society was their being’s end and aim, and the only thing which brought them pleasure was the pain of attaining it. Did I not say truly that I would describe individuals of a common species? Is there one who reads this, who does not recognize that overflowing class of the English population, whose members would conceive it an insult to be thought of sufficient rank to be respectable for what they are?—who take it as an honour that they are made by their acquaintance?—who renounce the ease of living for themselves, for the trouble of living for persons who care not a pin for their existence—who are wretched if they are not dictated to by others—and who toil, groan, travail, through the whole course of life, in order to forfeit their independence?
I arrived at Garrett Park just time enough to dress for dinner. As I was descending the stairs after having performed that ceremony, I heard my own name pronounced by a very soft, lisping voice, “Henry Pelham! dear, what a pretty name. Is he handsome?”
“Rather distingue than handsome,” was the unsatisfactory reply, couched in a slow, pompous accent, which I immediately recognized to belong to Lady Harriett Garrett.
“Can we make something of him?” resumed the first voice.
“Something!” said Lady Harriett, indignantly; “he will be Lord Glenmorris! and he is son to Lady Frances Pelham.”
“Ah,” said the lisper, carelessly; “but can he write poetry, and play proverbes?”
“No, Lady Harriett,” said I, advancing; “but permit me, through you, to assure Lady Nelthorpe that he can admire those who do.”
“So you know me then?” said the lisper: “I see we shall be excellent friends;” and disengaging herself from Lady Harriett, she took my arm, and began discussing persons and things, poetry and china, French plays and music, till I found myself beside her at dinner, and most assiduously endeavouring to silence her by the superior engrossments of a bechamelle de poisson.
I took the opportunity of the pause, to survey the little circle of which Lady Harriett was the centre. In the first place, there was Mr. Davison, a great political economist, a short, dark, corpulent gentleman, with a quiet, serene, sleepy countenance, which put me exceedingly in mind of my grandmother’s arm-chair; beside him was a quick, sharp little woman, all sparkle and bustle, glancing a small, grey, prying eye round the table, with a most restless activity: this, as Lady Nelthorpe afterwards informed me, was a Miss Trafford, an excellent person for a Christmas in the country, whom every body was dying to have: she was an admirable mimic, an admirable actress, and an admirable reciter; made poetry and shoes, and told fortunes by the cards, which came actually true.
There was also Mr. Wormwood, the noli-me-tangere of literary lions—an author who sowed his conversation not with flowers but thorns. Nobody could accuse him of the flattery generally imputed to his species; through the course of a long and varied life, he had never once been known to say a civil thing. He was too much disliked not to be recherche; whatever is once notorious, even for being disagreeable, is sure to be courted in England. Opposite to him sat the really clever, and affectedly pedantic Lord Vincent, one of those persons who have been “promising young men” all their lives; who are found till four o’clock in the afternoon in a dressing-gown, with a quarto before them; who go down into the country for six weeks every session, to cram an impromptu reply; and who always have a work in the press which is never to be published.
Lady Nelthorpe herself I had frequently seen. She had some reputation for talent, was exceedingly affected, wrote poetry in albums, ridiculed her husband, who was a fox hunter, and had a great penchant pour les beaux arts et les beaux hommes.
There were four or five others of the unknown vulgar, younger brothers, who were good shots and bad matches; elderly ladies, who lived in Baker-street, and liked long whist; and young ones, who never took wine, and said “Sir.”
I must, however, among this number, except the beautiful Lady Roseville, the most fascinating woman, perhaps, of the day. She was evidently the great person there, and, indeed, among all people who paid due deference to ton, was always sure to be so every where. I have never seen but one person more beautiful. Her eyes were of the deepest blue; her complexion of the most delicate carnation; her hair of the richest auburn: nor could even Mr. Wormwood detect the smallest fault in the rounded yet slender symmetry of her figure.
Although not above twenty-five, she was in that state in which alone a woman ceases to be a dependant—widowhood. Lord Roseville, who had been dead about two years, had not survived their marriage many months; that period was, however, sufficiently long to allow him to appreciate her excellence, and to testify his sense of it: the whole of his unentailed property, which was very large, he bequeathed to her.
She was very fond of the society of literati, though without the pretence of belonging to their order. But her manners constituted her chief attraction: while they were utterly different from those of every one else, you could not, in the least minutiae, discover in what the difference consisted: this is, in my opinion, the real test of perfect breeding. While you are enchanted with the effect, it should possess so little prominency and peculiarity, that you should never be able to guess the cause.
“Pray,” said Lord Vincent to Mr. Wormwood, “have you been to P—this year?”
“No,” was the answer.
“I have, my lord,” said Miss Trafford, who never lost an opportunity of slipping in a word.
“Well, and did they make you sleep, as usual, at the Crown, with the same eternal excuse, after having brought you fifty miles from town, of small house—no beds—all engaged—inn close by? Ah, never shall I forget that inn, with its royal name, and its hard beds—
“‘Uneasy sleeps a head beneath the Crown!’”
“Ha, ha! Excellent!” cried Miss Trafford, who was always the first in at the death of a pun. “Yes, indeed they did: poor old Lord Belton, with his rheumatism; and that immense General Grant, with his asthma; together with three ‘single men,’ and myself, were safely conveyed to that asylum for the destitute.”
“Ah! Grant, Grant!” said Lord Vincent, eagerly, who saw another opportunity of whipping in a pun. “He slept there also the same night I did; and when I saw his unwieldy person waddling out of the door the next morning, I said to Temple, ‘Well, that’s the largest Grant I ever saw from the Crown.’” [Note: It was from Mr. J. Smith that Lord Vincent purloined this pun.]
“Very good,” said Wormwood, gravely. “I declare, Vincent, you are growing quite witty. Do you remember Jekyl? Poor fellow, what a really good punster he was—not agreeable though—particularly at dinner—no punsters are. Mr. Davison, what is that dish next to you?”
Mr. Davison was a great gourmand: “Salmi de perdreaux aux truffes,” replied the political economist.
“Truffles!” said Wormwood, “have you been eating any?”
“Yes,” said Davison, with unusual energy, “and they are the best I have tasted for a long time.”
“Very likely,” said Wormwood, with a dejected air. “I am particularly fond of them, but I dare not touch one—truffles are so very apoplectic—you, I make no doubt, may eat them in safety.”
Wormwood was a tall, meagre man, with a neck a yard long. Davison was, as I have said, short and fat, and made without any apparent neck at all—only head and shoulders, like a cod-fish.
Poor Mr. Davison turned perfectly white; he fidgeted about in his chair; cast a look of the most deadly fear and aversion at the fatal dish he had been so attentive to before; and, muttering “apoplectic,” closed his lips, and did not open them again all dinner-time.
Mr. Wormwood’s object was effected. Two people were silenced and uncomfortable, and a sort of mist hung over the spirits of the whole party. The dinner went on and off, like all other dinners; the ladies retired, and the men drank, and talked indecorums. Mr. Davison left the room first, in order to look out the word “truffle,” in the Encyclopaedia; and Lord Vincent and I went next, “lest (as my companion characteristically observed) that d—d Wormwood should, if we stayed a moment longer, ‘send us weeping to our beds.’”
CHAPTER IV.
Oh! la belle chose que la Poste!—Lettres de Sevigne.
Ay—but who is it?—As you Like it.
I had mentioned to my mother my intended visit to Garrett Park, and the second day after my arrival there came the following letter:—
“My dear Henry,
“I was very glad to hear you were rather better than you had been. I trust you will take great care of yourself. I think flannel waistcoats might be advisable; and, by-the-by, they are very good for the complexion. Apropos of the complexion: I did not like that green coat you wore when I last saw you—you look best in black—which is a great compliment, for people must be very distingue in appearance, in order to do so.
“You know, my dear, that those Garretts are in themselves any thing but unexceptionable; you will, therefore, take care not to be too intimate; it is, however, a very good house: all you meet there are worth knowing, for one thing or the other. Remember, Henry, that the acquaintance (not the friends) of second or third-rate people are always sure to be good: they are not independent enough to receive whom they like—their whole rank is in their guests: you may be also sure that the menage will, in outward appearance at least, be quite comme il faut, and for the same reason. Gain as much knowledge de l’art culinaire as you can: it is an accomplishment absolutely necessary. You may also pick up a little acquaintance with metaphysics, if you have any opportunity; that sort of thing is a good deal talked about just at present.
“I hear Lady Roseville is at Garrett Park. You must be particularly attentive to her; you will probably now have an opportunity de faire votre cour that may never again happen. In London, she is so much surrounded by all, that she is quite inaccessible to one; besides, there you will have so many rivals. Without flattery to you, I take it for granted, that you are the best looking and most agreeable person at Garrett Park, and it will, therefore, be a most unpardonable fault if you do not make Lady Roseville of the same opinion. Nothing, my dear son, is like a liaison (quite innocent of course) with a woman of celebrity in the world. In marriage a man lowers a woman to his own rank; in an affaire du coeur he raises himself to her’s. I need not, I am sure, after what I have said, press this point any further.
“Write to me and inform me of all your proceedings. If you mention the people who are at Garrett Park, I can tell you the proper line of conduct to pursue with each.
“I am sure that I need not add that I have nothing but your real good at heart, and that I am your very affectionate mother,
“Frances Pelham.
“P.S. Never talk much to young men—remember that it is the women who make a reputation in society.”
“Well,” said I, when I had read this letter, and adjusted my best curl, “my mother is very right, and so now for Lady Roseville.”
I went down stairs to breakfast. Miss Trafford and Lady Nelthorpe were in the room talking with great interest, and, on Miss Trafford’s part, with still greater vehemence.
“So handsome,” said Lady Nelthorpe, as I approached.
“Are you talking of me?” said I.
“Oh, you vanity of vanities!” was the answer. “No, we were speaking of a very romantic adventure which has happened to Miss Trafford and myself, and disputing about the hero of it. Miss Trafford declares he is frightful; I say that he is beautiful. Now, you know, Mr. Pelham, as to you—” “There can,” interrupted I, “be but one opinion—but the adventure?”
“Is this!” cried Miss Trafford, in a great fright, lest Lady Nelthorpe should, by speaking first, have the pleasure of the narration.—“We were walking, two or three days ago, by the sea-side, picking up shells and talking about the ‘Corsair,’ when a large fierce—”
“Man!” interrupted I.
“No, dog, (renewed Miss Trafford) flew suddenly out of a cave, under a rock, and began growling at dear Lady Nelthorpe and me, in the most savage manner imaginable. He would certainly have torn us to pieces if a very tall—” “Not so very tall either,” said Lady Nelthorpe.
“Dear, how you interrupt one,” said Miss Trafford, pettishly; “well, a very short man, then, wrapped up in a cloak—”
“In a great coat,” drawled Lady Nelthorpe. Miss Trafford went on without noticing the emendation,—“had not with incredible rapidity sprung down the rock and—”
“Called him off,” said Lady Nelthorpe.
“Yes, called him off,” pursued Miss Trafford, looking round for the necessary symptoms of our wonder at this very extraordinary incident.
“What is the most remarkable,” said Lady Nelthorpe, “is, that though he seemed from his dress and appearance to be really a gentleman, he never stayed to ask if we were alarmed or hurt—scarcely even looked at us—” (“I don’t wonder at that!” said Mr. Wormwood, who, with Lord Vincent, had just entered the room;)—“and vanished among the rocks as suddenly as he had appeared.”
“Oh, you’ve seen that fellow, have you?” said Lord Vincent: “so have I, and a devilish queer looking person he is,—
“‘The balls of his broad eyes roll’d in his head, And glar’d betwixt a yellow and a red; He looked a lion with a gloomy stare, And o’er his eyebrows hung his matted hair.’
“Well remembered, and better applied—eh, Mr. Pelham!”
“Really,” said I, “I am not able to judge of the application, since I have not seen the hero.”
“Oh! it’s admirable,” said Miss Trafford, “just the description I should have given of him in prose. But pray, where, when, and how did you see him?”
“Your question is religiously mysterious, tria juncta in uno,” replied Vincent; “but I will answer it with the simplicity of a Quaker. The other evening I was coming home from one of Sir Lionel’s preserves, and had sent the keeper on before in order more undisturbedly to—”
“Con witticisms for dinner,” said Wormwood.
“To make out the meaning of Mr. Wormwood’s last work,” continued Lord Vincent. “My shortest way lay through that churchyard about a mile hence, which is such a lion in this ugly part of the country, because it has three thistles and a tree. Just as I got there, I saw a man suddenly rise from the earth, where he appeared to have been lying; he stood still for a moment, and then (evidently not perceiving me) raised his clasped hands to Heaven, and muttered some words I was not able distinctly to hear. As I approached nearer to him which I did with no very pleasant sensations, a large black dog, which, till then, had remained couchant, sprung towards me with a loud growl,
“‘Sonat hic de nare canina Litera,’
as Persius has it. I was too terrified to move—
“‘Obstupui—steteruntque comae—’
and I should most infallibly have been converted into dog’s meat, if our mutual acquaintance had not started from his reverie, called his dog by the very appropriate name of Terror, and then slouching his hat over his face, passed rapidly by me, dog and all. I did not recover the fright for an hour and a quarter. I walked—ye gods, how I did walk—no wonder, by the by, that I mended my pace, for as Pliny says truly: ‘Timor est emendator asperrimus.’”
Mr. Wormwood had been very impatient during this recital, preparing an attack upon Lord Vincent, when Mr. Davison entering suddenly, diverted the assault.
“Good God!” said Wormwood, dropping his roll, “how very ill you look to-day, Mr. Davison; face flushed—veins swelled—oh, those horrid truffles! Miss Trafford, I’ll trouble you for the salt.”
CHAPTER V.
Several days passed. I had taken particular pains to ingratiate myself with Lady Roseville, and so far as common acquaintance went, I had no reason to be dissatisfied with my success. Any thing else, I soon discovered, notwithstanding my vanity, (which made no inconsiderable part in the composition of Henry Pelham) was quite out of the question. Her mind was wholly of a different mould from my own. She was like a being, not perhaps of a better, but of another world than myself[2q]; we had not one thought or opinion in common; we looked upon things with a totally different vision; I was soon convinced that she was of a nature exactly contrary to what was generally believed—she was any thing but the mere mechanical woman of the world. She possessed great sensibility, and even romance of temper, strong passions, and still stronger imagination; but over all these deeper recesses of her character, the extreme softness and languor of her manners, threw a veil which no superficial observer could penetrate. There were times when I could believe that she was inwardly restless and unhappy; but she was too well versed in the arts of concealment, to suffer such an appearance to be more than momentary.
I must own that I consoled myself very easily for my want, in this particular instance, of that usual good fortune which attends me aupres des dames; the fact was, that I had another object in pursuit. All the men at Sir Lionel Garrett’s were keen sportsmen. Now, shooting is an amusement I was never particularly partial to. I was first disgusted with that species of rational recreation at a battue, where, instead of bagging anything, I was nearly bagged, having been inserted, like wine in an ice pail, in a wet ditch for three hours, during which time my hat had been twice shot at for a pheasant, and my leather gaiters once for a hare; and to crown all, when these several mistakes were discovered, my intended exterminators, instead of apologizing for having shot at me, were quite disappointed at having missed.
Seriously, that same shooting is a most barbarous amusement, only fit for majors in the army, and royal dukes, and that sort of people; the mere walking is bad enough, but embarrassing one’s arms moreover, with a gun, and one’s legs with turnip tops, exposing oneself to the mercy of bad shots and the atrocity of good, seems to me only a state of painful fatigue, enlivened by the probability of being killed.
This digression is meant to signify, that I never joined the single men and double Mantons that went in and off among Sir Lionel Garrett’s preserves. I used, instead, to take long walks by myself, and found, like virtue, my own reward, in the additional health and strength these diurnal exertions produced me.
One morning, chance threw into my way une bonne fortune, which I took care to improve. From that time the family of a farmer Sinclair, (one of Sir Lionel’s tenants) was alarmed by strange and supernatural noises: one apartment in especial, occupied by a female member of the household, was allowed, even by the clerk of the parish, a very bold man, and a bit of a sceptic, to be haunted; the windows of that chamber were wont to open and shut, thin airy voices confabulate therein, and dark shapes hover thereout, long after the fair occupant had, with the rest of the family, retired to repose. But the most unaccountable thing was the fatality which attended me, and seemed to mark me out, nolens volens, for an untimely death. I, who had so carefully kept out of the way of gunpowder as a sportsman, very narrowly escaped being twice shot as a ghost. This was but a poor reward for a walk more than a mile long, in nights by no means of cloudless climes and starry skies; accordingly I resolved to “give up the ghost” in earnest rather than in metaphor, and to pay my last visit and adieus to the mansion of Farmer Sinclair. The night on which I executed this resolve was rather memorable in my future history.
The rain had fallen so heavily during the day, as to render the road to the house almost impassable, and when it was time to leave, I inquired with very considerable emotion, whether there was not an easier way to return. The answer was satisfactory, and my last nocturnal visit at Farmer Sinclair’s concluded.
CHAPTER VI.
Why sleeps he not, when others are at rest?—Byron.
According to the explanation I had received, the road I was now to pursue was somewhat longer, but much better, than that which I generally took. It was to lead me home through the churchyard of—, the same, by the by, which Lord Vincent had particularized in his anecdote of the mysterious stranger. The night was clear, but windy: there were a few light clouds passing rapidly over the moon, which was at her full, and shone through the frosty air, with all that cold and transparent brightness so peculiar to our northern winters. I walked briskly on till I came to the churchyard; I could not then help pausing (notwithstanding my total deficiency in all romance) to look for a few moments at the exceeding beauty of the scene around me. The church itself was extremely old, and stood alone and grey, in the rude simplicity of the earliest form of gothic architecture: two large dark yew-trees drooped on each side over tombs, which from their size and decorations, appeared to be the last possession of some quondam lords of the soil. To the left, the ground was skirted by a thick and luxuriant copse of evergreens, in the front of which stood one tall, naked oak, stern and leafless, a very token of desolation and decay; there were but few grave stones scattered about, and these were, for the most part, hidden by the long wild grass which wreathed and climbed round them. Over all, the blue skies and still moon shed that solemn light, the effect of which, either on the scene or the feelings, it is so impossible to describe.
I was just about to renew my walk, when a tall, dark figure, wrapped up, like myself, in a large French cloak, passed slowly along from the other side of the church, and paused by the copse I have before mentioned. I was shrouded at that moment from his sight by one of the yew trees; he stood still only for a few moments; he then flung himself upon the earth, and sobbed, audibly even at the spot where I was standing. I was in doubt whether to wait longer or to proceed; my way lay just by him, and it might be dangerous to interrupt so substantial an apparition. However, my curiosity was excited, and my feet were half frozen, two cogent reasons for proceeding; and, to say truth, I was never very much frightened by any thing dead or alive.
Accordingly I left my obscurity, and walked slowly onwards. I had not got above three paces before the figure rose, and stood erect and motionless before me. His hat had fallen off, and the moon shone full upon his countenance; it was not the wild expression of intense anguish which dwelt on those hueless and sunken features; nor their quick change to ferocity and defiance, as his eyes fell upon me, which made me start back and feel my heart stand still! Notwithstanding the fearful ravages graven in that countenance, then so brilliant with the graces of boyhood, I recognized, at one glance, those still noble and chiselled features. It was Reginald Glanville who stood before me! I recovered myself instantly; I threw myself towards him, and called him by his name. He turned hastily; but I would not suffer him to escape; I put my hand upon his arm, and drew him towards me. “Glanville!” I exclaimed, “it is I! it is your old—old friend, Henry Pelham. Good God! have I met you at last, and in such a scene?”
Glanville shook me from him in an instant, covered his face with his hands, and sunk down with one wild cry, which went fearfully through that still place, upon the spot from which he had but just risen. I knelt beside him; I took his hand; I spoke to him in every endearing term that I could think of; and roused and excited as my feelings were, by so strange and sudden a meeting, I felt my tears involuntarily falling over the hand which I held in my own. Glanville turned; he looked at me for one moment, as if fully to recognize me: and then throwing himself in my arms, wept like a child.
