Lavengro, George Borrow [i love reading books txt] 📗

When I awoke from my reverie the Reverend Mr. Platitude was quitting the apartment.

“Who is that person?” said I to my entertainer, as the door closed behind him.

“Who is he?” said my host; “why, the Rev. Mr. Platitude.”

“Does he reside in this neighbourhood?”

“He holds a living about three miles from here; his history, as far as I am acquainted with it, is as follows: His father was a respectable tanner in the neighbouring town, who, wishing to make his son a gentleman, sent him to college. Having never been at college myself, I cannot say whether he took the wisest course; I believe it is more easy to unmake than to make a gentleman; I have known many gentlemanly youths go to college, and return anything but what they went. Young Mr. Platitude did not go to college a gentleman, but neither did he return one; he went to college an ass, and returned a prig; to his original folly was superadded a vast quantity of conceit. He told his father that he had adopted high principles, and was determined to discountenance everything low and mean; advised him to eschew trade, and to purchase him a living. The old man retired from business, purchased his son a living, and shortly after died, leaving him what remained of his fortune. The first thing the Reverend Mr. Platitude did after his father’s decease, was to send his mother and sister into Wales to live upon a small annuity, assigning as a reason that he was averse to anything low and that they talked ungrammatically. Wishing to shine in the pulpit, he now preached high sermons, as he called them, interspersed with scraps of learning. His sermons did not, however, procure him much popularity; on the contrary, his church soon became nearly deserted, the greater part of his flock going over to certain dissenting preachers, who had shortly before made their appearance in the neighbourhood. Mr. Platitude was filled with wrath, and abused Dissenters in most unmeasured terms. Coming in contact with some of the preachers at a public meeting, he was rash enough to enter into argument with them. Poor Platitude! he had better have been quiet, he appeared like a child, a very infant in their grasp; he attempted to take shelter under his college learning, but found, to his dismay, that his opponents knew more Greek and Latin than himself. These illiterate boors, as he had supposed them, caught him at once in a false concord, and Mr. Platitude had to slink home overwhelmed with shame. To avenge himself he applied to the ecclesiastical court, but was told that the Dissenters could not be put down by the present ecclesiastical law. He found the Church of England, to use his own expression, a poor, powerless, restricted Church. He now thought to improve his consequence by marriage, and made up to a rich and beautiful young lady in the neighbourhood; the damsel measured him from head to foot with a pair of very sharp eyes, dropped a curtsey, and refused him. Mr. Platitude, finding England a very stupid place, determined to travel; he went to Italy; how he passed his time there he knows best, to other people it is a matter of little importance. At the end of two years he returned with a real or assumed contempt for everything English, and especially for the Church to which he belongs, and out of which he is supported. He forthwith gave out that he had left behind him all his Church of England prejudices, and, as a proof thereof, spoke against sacerdotal wedlock and the toleration of schismatics. In an evil hour for myself he was introduced to me by a clergyman of my acquaintance, and from that time I have been pestered, as I was this morning, at least once a week. I seldom enter into any discussion with him, but fix my eyes on the portrait over the mantelpiece, and endeavour to conjure up some comic idea or situation, whilst he goes on talking tomfoolery by the hour about Church authority, schismatics, and the unlawfulness of sacerdotal wedlock; occasionally he brings with him a strange kind of being, whose acquaintance he says he made in Italy. I believe he is some sharking priest, who has come over to proselytize and plunder. This being has some powers of conversation and some learning, but carries the countenance of an arch villain; Platitude is evidently his tool.”

“Of what religion are you?” said I to my host.

“That of the Vicar of Wakefield⁠—good, quiet, Church of England which would live and let live, practises charity, and rails at no one; where the priest is the husband of one wife, takes care of his family and his parish⁠—such is the religion for me, though I confess I have hitherto thought too little of religious matters. When, however, I have completed this plaguy work on which I am engaged, I hope to be able to devote more attention to them.”

After some further conversation, the subjects being, if I remember right, college education, priggism, church authority, tomfoolery, and the like, I rose and said to my host, “I must now leave you.”

“Whither are you going?”

“I do not know.”

“Stay here, then⁠—you shall be welcome as many days, months, and years as you please to stay.”

“Do you think I would hang upon another man? No, not if he were Emperor of all the Chinas. I will now make my preparations, and then bid you farewell.”

I retired to my apartment and collected the handful of things which I carried with me on my travels.

“I will walk a little way with you,” said my friend on my return.

He walked with me to the park gate; neither of us said anything by the way. When we had come upon the road, I said: “Farewell now; I will not permit you to give yourself any further trouble on my account. Receive my best thanks for your kindness; before we part, however, I should wish to ask you a