LITMIR.BIZ

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little witch," said I; "you would coax us to come and live with you and the owls! With all my heart, so far as I am concerned."

      "Sisty," said Blanche, with an appalling solemnity on her face, "do you know what I've been thinking?"

      "Not I, miss – what? – something very deep, I can see – very horrible, indeed, I fear, you look so serious."

      "Why, I've been thinking," continued Blanche, not relaxing a muscle, and without the least bit of a blush – "I've been thinking that I'll be your little wife; and then, of course, we shall all live together."

      Blanche did not blush, but I did. "Ask me that ten years hence, if you dare, you impudent little thing; and now, run away to Mrs Primmins, and tell her to keep you out of mischief, for I must say good-morning."

      But Blanche did not run away, and her dignity seemed exceedingly hurt at my mode of taking her alarming proposition, for she retired into a corner pouting, and sate down with great majesty. So there I left her, and went my way to Vivian. He was out; but, seeing books on his table, and having nothing to do, I resolved to wait for his return. I had enough of my father in me to turn at once to the books for company; and, by the side of some graver works which I had recommended, I found certain novels in French, that Vivian had got from a circulating library. I had a curiosity to read these – for, except the old classic novels of France, this mighty branch of its popular literature was then new to me. I soon got interested, but what an interest! – the interest that a nightmare might excite, if one caught it out of one's sleep, and set to work to examine it. By the side of what dazzling shrewdness, what deep knowledge of those holes and corners in the human system, of which Goethe must have spoken when he said somewhere – (if I recollect right, and don't misquote him, which I'll not answer for) – "There is something in every man's heart which, if we could know, would make us hate him," – by the side of all this, and of much more that showed prodigious boldness and energy of intellect, what strange exaggeration – what mock nobility of sentiment – what inconceivable perversion of reasoning – what damnable demoralisation! I hate the cant of charging works of fiction with the accusation – often unjust and shallow – that they interest us in vice, or palliate crime, because the author truly shows what virtues may entangle themselves with vices; or commands our compassion, and awes our pride, by teaching us how men deceive and bewitch themselves into guilt. Such painting belongs to the dark truth of all tragedy, from Sophocles to Shakspeare. No; this is not what shocked me in those books – it was not the interesting me in vice, for I felt no interest in it at all; it was the insisting that vice is something uncommonly noble – it was the portrait of some coldblooded adultress, whom the author or authoress chooses to call pauvre Ange! (poor angel!); – it was some scoundrel who dupes, cheats, and murders under cover of a duel, in which he is a second St George; who does not instruct us by showing through what metaphysical process he became a scoundrel, but who is continually forced upon us as a very favourable specimen of mankind; – it was the view of society altogether, painted in colours so hideous that, if true, instead of a revolution, it would draw down a deluge; – it was the hatred, carefully instilled, of the poor against the rich – it was the war breathed between class and class – it was that envy of all superiorities, which loves to show itself by allowing virtue only to a blouse, and asserting that a man must be a rogue if he belong to that rank of society in which, from the very gifts of education, from the necessary associations of circumstances, roguery is the last thing probable or natural. It was all this, and things a thousand times worse, that set my head in a whirl, as hour after hour slipped on, and I still gazed, spell-bound, on these Chimeras and Typhons – these symbols of the Destroying Principle. "Poor Vivian!" said I, as I rose at last, "if thou readest these books with pleasure, or from habit, no wonder that thou seemest to me so obtuse about right and wrong, and to have a great cavity where thy brain should have the bump of 'conscientiousness' in full salience!"

      Nevertheless, to do those demoniacs justice, I had got through time imperceptibly by their pestilent help; and I was startled to see, by my watch, how late it was. I had just resolved to leave a line, fixing an appointment for the morrow, and so depart, when I heard Vivian's knock – a knock that had great character in it – haughty, impatient, irregular; not a neat, symmetrical, harmonious, unpretending knock, but a knock that seemed to set the whole house and street at defiance: it was a knock bullying – a knock ostentatious – a knock irritating and offensive – "impiger" and "iracundus."

      But the step that came up the stairs did not suit the knock: it was a step light, yet firm – slow, yet elastic.

      The maid-servant who had opened the door had, no doubt, informed Vivian of my visit, for he did not seem surprised to see me; but he cast that hurried, suspicious look round the room which a man is apt to cast when he has left his papers about, and finds some idler, on whose trustworthiness he by no means depends, seated in the midst of the unguarded secrets. The look was not flattering; but my conscience was so unreproachful that I laid all the blame upon the general suspiciousness of Vivian's character.

      "Three hours, at least, have I been here!" said I, maliciously.

      "Three hours!" – again the look.

      "And this is the worst secret I have discovered," – and I pointed to those literary Manicheans.

      "Oh!" said he carelessly, "French novels! – I don't wonder you stayed so long. I can't read your English novels – flat and insipid: there are truth and life here."

      "Truth and life!" cried I, every hair on my head erect with astonishment – "then hurrah for falsehood and death!"

      "They don't please you; no accounting for tastes."

      "I beg your pardon – I account for yours, if you really take for truth and life monsters so nefast and flagitious. For heaven's sake, my dear fellow, don't suppose that any man could get on in England – get anywhere but to the Old Bailey or Norfolk Island, if he squared his conduct to such topsy-turvy notions of the world as I find here."

      "How many years are you my senior," asked Vivian sneeringly, "that you should play the mentor, and correct my ignorance of the world?"

      "Vivian, it is not age and experience that speak here, it is something far wiser than they – the instinct of a man's heart, and a gentleman's honour."

      "Well, well," said Vivian, rather discomposed, "let the poor books alone; you know my creed – that books influence us little one way or the other."

      "By the great Egyptian library, and the soul of Diodorus, I wish you could hear my father upon that point! Come," added I, with sublime compassion – "come, it is not too late – do let me introduce you to my father. I will consent to read French novels all my life, if a single chat with Austin Caxton does not send you home with a happier face and a lighter heart. Come, let me take you back to dine with us to-day."

      "I cannot," said Vivian with some confusion – "I cannot, for this day I leave London. Some other time perhaps – for," he added, but not heartily, "we may meet again."

      "I hope so," said I, wringing his hand, "and that is likely, – since, in spite of yourself, I have guessed your secret – your birth and parentage."

      "How!" cried Vivian, turning pale, and gnawing his lip – "what do you mean? – speak."

      "Well, then, are you not the lost, runaway son of Colonel Vivian? Come, say the truth; let us be confidants."

      Vivian threw off a succession of his abrupt sighs; and then, seating himself, leant his face on the table, confused, no doubt, to find himself discovered.

      "You are near the mark," said he at last, "but do not ask me farther yet. Some day," he cried impetuously, and springing suddenly to his feet – "some day you shall know all: yes; some day, if I live, when that name shall be high in the world; yes, when the world is at my feet!" He stretched his right hand as if to grasp the space, and his whole face was lighted with a fierce enthusiasm. The glow died away, and with a slight return of his scornful smile, he said – "Dreams yet; dreams! And now, look at this paper." And he drew out a memorandum, scrawled over with figures.

      "This, I think, is my pecuniary debt to you; in a few days, I shall discharge it. Give me your address."

      "Oh!" said I, pained, "can you speak to me of money, Vivian?"

      "It

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