Home as Found, James Fenimore Cooper [bookreader txt] 📗

it at last."

 

"Disappointment, I fear, is the usual fate of those who come from the

other side. Is this dwelling of Mrs. Houston's equal to the residence

of an English nobleman, Mr. Bragg?"

 

"Considerably better, Miss, especially in the way of republican

comfort."

 

Miss Ring, like all _belles_, detested the word republican, their

vocation being clearly to exclusion, and she pouted a little

affectedly.

 

"I should distrust the quality of such comfort, sir," she said, with

point; "but, are the rooms at all comparable with the rooms in Apsley

House, for instance?"

 

"My dear Miss, Apsley House is a toll-gate lodge, compared to this

mansion! I doubt if there be a dwelling in all England half as

magnificent--indeed, I cannot imagine any thing more brilliant and

rich."

 

Aristabulus was not a man to do things by halves, and it was a point

of honour with him to know something of every thing. It is true he no

more could tell where Apsley House is, or whether it was a tavern or

a gaol, than he knew half the other things on which he delivered

oracular opinions; but when it became necessary to speak, he was not

apt to balk conversation from any ignorance, real or affected. The

opinion he had just given, it is true, had a little surpassed Miss

Ring's hopes; for the next thing, in her ambition to being a _belle_,

and of "entertaining" gentlemen, was to fancy she was running her

brilliant career in an orbit of fashion that lay parallel to that of

the "nobility and gentry" of Great Britain.

 

"Well, this surpasses my hopes," she said, "although I was aware we

are nearly on a level with the more improved tastes of Europe: still,

I thought we were a little inferior to that part of the world, yet."

 

"Inferior, Miss! That is a word that should never pass your lips; you

are inferior to nothing, whether in Europe or America, Asia or

Africa."

 

As Miss Ring had been accustomed to do most of the flattering

herself, as behoveth a _belle_, she began to be disconcerted with the

directness of the compliments of Aristabulus, who was disposed to

'make hay while the sun shines;' and she turned, in a little

confusion, to the captain, by way of relief; we say confusion, for

the young lady, although so liable to be misunderstood, was not

actually impudent, but merely deceived in the relations of things;

or, in other words, by some confusion in usages, she had hitherto

permitted herself to do that in society, which female performers

sometimes do on the stage; enact the part of a man.

 

"You should tell Mr. Bragg, sir," she said, with an appealing look at

the captain, "that flattery is a dangerous vice, and one altogether

unsuited to a Christian."

 

"It is, indeed, marm, and one that I never indulge in. No one under

my orders, can accuse me of flattery."

 

By 'under orders,' Miss Ring understood curates and deacons; for she

was aware the church of England had clerical distinctions of this

sort, that are unknown in America.

 

"I hope, sir, you do not intend to quit this country without

favouring us with a discourse."

 

"Not I, marm--I am discoursing pretty much from morning till night,

when among my own people, though I own that this conversing rather

puts me out of my reckoning. Let me get my foot on the planks I love,

with an attentive audience, and a good cigar in my mouth, and I'll

hold forth with any bishop in the universe."

 

"A cigar!" exclaimed Miss Ring, in surprise. "Do gentlemen of your

profession use cigars when on duty!"

 

"Does a parson take his fees? Why, Miss, there is not a man among us,

who does not smoke from morning till night."

 

"Surely not on Sundays!"

 

"Two for one, on those days, more than on any other."

 

"And your people, sir, what do they do, all this time?'

 

"Why, marm, most of them chew; and those that don't, if they cannot

find a pipe, have a dull time of it. For my part, I shall hardly

relish the good place itself, if cigars are prohibited."

 

Miss Ring was surprised; but she had heard that the English clergy

were more free than our own, and then she had been accustomed to

think every thing English of the purest water. A little reflection

reconciled her to the innovation; and the next day, at a dinner

party, she was heard defending the usage as a practice that had a

precedent in the ancient incense of the altar. At the moment,

however, she was dying to impart her discoveries to others; and she

kindly proposed to the captain and Aristabulus to introduce them to

some of her acquaintances, as they must find it dull, being

strangers, to know no one. Introductions and cigars were the

captain's hobbies, and he accepted the offer with joy, Aristabulus

uniting cordially in the proposition, as, he fancied he had a right,

under the Constitution of the United States of America, to be

introduced to every human being with whom he came in contact.

 

It is scarcely necessary to say how much the party with whom the two

neophytes in fashion had come, enjoyed all this, though they

concealed their amusement under the calm exterior of people of the

world. From Mr. Effingham the mystification was carefully concealed

by his cousin, as the former would have felt it due to Mrs. Houston,

a well-meaning, but silly woman, to put an end to it. Eve and Grace

laughed, as merry girls would be apt to laugh, at such an occurrence,

and they danced the remainder of the evening with lighter hearts than

ever. At one, the company retired in the same informal manner, as

respects announcements and the calling of carriages, as that in which

they had entered; most to lay their drowsy heads on their pillows,

and Miss Ring to ponder over the superior manners of a polished young

Englishman, and to dream of the fragrance of a sermon that was

preserved in tobacco.

Chapter VI. ("Marry, our play is the most lamentable Comedy, and most cruel)

 

death of Pyramus and Thisby."

 

PETER QUINCE.

 

Our task in the way of describing town society will soon be ended.

The gentlemen of the Effingham family had been invited to meet Sir

George Templemore at one or two dinners, to which the latter had been

invited in consequence of his letters, most of which were connected

with his pecuniary arrangements. As one of these entertainments was

like all the rest of the same character, a very brief account of it

will suffice to let the reader into the secret of the excellence of

the genus.

 

A well-spread board, excellent viands, highly respectable cookery,

and delicious wines, were every where met. Two rows of men clad in

dark dresses, a solitary female at the head of the table, or, if

fortunate, with a supporter of the same sex near her, invariably

composed the _convives_. The exaggerations of a province were seen

ludicrously in one particular custom. The host, or perhaps it might

have been the hostess, had been told there should be a contrast

between the duller light of the reception-room, and the brilliancy of

the table, and John Effingham actually hit his legs against a stool,

in floundering through the obscurity of the first drawing-room he

entered on one of the occasions in question.

 

When seated at table, the first great duty of restauration performed,

the conversation turned on the prices of lots, speculations in towns,

or the currency. After this came the regular assay of wines, during

which it was easy to fancy the master of the house a dealer, for he

usually sat either sucking a syphon or flourishing a cork-screw. The

discourse would now have done credit to the annual meeting and dinner

of the German exporters, assembled at Rudesheim to bid for the

article.

 

Sir George was certainly on the point of forming a very erroneous

judgment concerning the country, when Mr. Effingham extricated him

from this set, and introduced him properly into his own. Here,

indeed, while there was much to strike a European as peculiar, and

even provincial, the young baronet fared much better. He met with the

same quality of table, relieved by an intelligence that was always

respectable, and a manliness of tone which, if not unmixed, had the

great merit of a simplicity and nature that are not always found in

more sophisticated circles. The occasional incongruities struck them

all, more than the positive general faults and Sir George Templemore

did justice to the truth, by admitting frankly, the danger he had

been in of forming a too hasty opinion.

 

All this time, which occupied a month, the young baronet got to be

more and more intimate in Hudson Square, Eve gradually becoming more

frank and unreserved with him, as she grew sensible that he had

abandoned his hopes of success with herself, and Grace gradually more

cautious and timid, as she became conscious of his power to please,

and the interest he took in herself.

 

It might have been three days after the ball at Mrs. Houston's that

most of the family was engaged to look in on a Mrs. Legend, a lady of

what was called a literary turn, Sir George having been asked to make

one of their party. Aristabulus was already returned to his duty in

the country, where we shall shortly have occasion to join him, but an

invitation had been sent to Mr. Truck, under the general, erroneous

impression of his real character.

 

Taste, whether in the arts, literature, or any thing else, is a

natural impulse, like love. It is true both may be cultivated and

heightened by circumstances, but the impulses must be voluntary, and

the flow of feeling, or of soul, as it has become a law to style it,

is not to be forced, or commanded to come and go at will. This is the

reason that all premeditated enjoyments connected with the intellect,

are apt to baffle expectations, and why academies, literary clubs,

coteries and dinners are commonly dull. It is true that a body of

clever people may be brought together, and, if left to their own

impulses, the characters of their mind will show themselves; wit will

flash, and thought will answer thought spontaneously; but every

effort to make the stupid agreeable, by giving a direction of a

pretending intellectual nature to their efforts, is only rendering

dullness more conspicuous by exhibiting it in contrast with what it

ought to be to be clever, as a bad picture is rendered the more

conspicuous by an elaborate and gorgeous frame.

 

The latter was the fate of most of Mrs. Legend's literary evenings,

at which it was thought an illustration to understand even one

foreign language. But, it was known that Eve was skilled in most of

the European tongues, and, the good lady, not feeling that such

accomplishments are chiefly useful as a means, looked about her in

order to collect a set, among whom our heroine might find some one

with whom to converse in each of her dialects. Little was said about

it, it is true, but great efforts were made to cause this evening to

be memorable in the annals of _conversazioni_.

 

In carrying out this scheme, nearly all the wits, writers, artists

and _literati_, as the most incorrigible members of the book clubs

were styled, in New-York, were pressingly invited to be present.

Aristabulus had contrived to earn such a reputation for the captain,

on the night of the ball, that he was universally called a man of

letters, and an article had actually appeared in one of the papers,

speaking of the literary merits of the "Hon. and Rev. Mr. Truck, a

gentleman travelling in our country, from whose liberality and just

views, an account of our society was to be expected, that should, at

last, do justice to our national character." With such expectations,

then, every true American and Americaness, was expected to be at his

or her post, for the solemn occasion. It was a rally of literature,

in defence of the institutions--no, not of the institutions, for they

were left to take care of themselves--but of the social character of

the community.

 

Alas! it is easier