"But may not even that," said Cecilia, "by so much study, become labour?"
"I am vastly happy you think so."
"Sir?"
"I beg your pardon, ma"am, but I thought you said--I really beg your pardon, but I was thinking of something else."
"You did very right, Sir," said Cecilia, laughing, "for what I said by no means merited any attention."
"Will you do me the favour to repeat it?" cried he, taking out his gla.s.s to examine some lady at a distance.
"O no," said Cecilia, "that would be trying your patience too severely."
"These gla.s.ses shew one nothing but defects," said he; "I am sorry they were ever invented. They are the ruin of all beauty; no complexion can stand them. I believe that solo will never be over; I hate a solo; it sinks, it depresses me intolerably."
"You will presently, Sir," said Cecilia, looking at the bill of the concert, "have a full piece; and that, I hope, will revive you."
"A full piece! oh insupportable! it stuns, it fatigues, it overpowers me beyond endurance! no taste in it, no delicacy, no room for the smallest feeling."
"Perhaps, then, you are only fond of singing?"
"I should be, if I could hear it; but we are now so miserably off in voices, that I hardly ever attempt to listen to a song, without fancying myself deaf from the feebleness of the performers. I hate every thing that requires attention. Nothing gives pleasure that does not force its own way."
"You only, then, like loud voices, and great powers?"
"O worse and worse!--no, nothing is so disgusting to me. All my amazement is that these people think it worth while to give Concerts at all; one is sick to death of music."
"Nay," cried Cecilia, "if it gives no pleasure, at least it takes none away; for, far from being any impediment to conversation, I think every body talks more during the performance than between the acts. And what is there better you could subst.i.tute in its place?"
Cecilia, receiving no answer to this question, again looked round to see if she had been heard; when she observed her new acquaintance, with a very thoughtful air, had turned from her to fix his eyes upon the statue of Britannia.
Very soon after, he hastily arose, and seeming entirely to forget that he had spoke to her, very abruptly walked away.
Mr Gosport, who was advancing to Cecilia, and had watched part of this scene, stopt him as he was retreating, and said "Why Meadows, how"s this? are you caught at last?"
"O worn to death! worn to a thread!" cried he, stretching himself, and yawning; "I have been talking with a young lady to entertain her! O such heavy work! I would not go through it again for millions!
"What, have you talked yourself out of breath?"
"No; but the effort! the effort!--O, it has unhinged me for a fortnight!--Entertaining a young lady!--one had better be a galley-slave at once!"
"Well but, did she not pay your toils? She is surely a sweet creature."
"Nothing can pay one for such insufferable exertion! though she"s well enough, too--better than the common run,--but shy, quite too shy; no drawing her out."
"I thought that was to your taste. You commonly hate much volubility.
How have I heard you bemoan yourself when attacked by Miss Larolles!"
"Larolles? O distraction! She talks me into a fever in two minutes. But so it is for ever! nothing but extremes to be met with! common girls are too forward, this lady is too reserved--always some fault! always some drawback! nothing ever perfect!"
"Nay, nay," cried Mr Gosport, "you do not know her; she is perfect enough in all conscience."
"Better not know her, then," answered he, again yawning, "for she cannot be pleasing. Nothing perfect is natural;--I hate every thing out of nature."
He then strolled on, and Mr Gosport approached Cecilia.
"I have been wishing," cried he, "to address you this half hour, but as you were engaged with Mr Meadows, I did not dare advance."
"O, I see your malice!" cried Cecilia; "you were determined to add weight to the value of your company, by making me fully sensible where the balance would preponderate."
"Nay, if you do not admire Mr Meadows," cried he, "you must not even whisper it to the winds."
"Is he, then, so very admirable?"
"O, he is now in the very height of fashionable favour: his dress is a model, his manners are imitated, his attention is courted, and his notice is envied."
"Are you not laughing?"
"No, indeed; his privileges are much more extensive than I have mentioned: his decision fixes the exact limits between what is vulgar and what is elegant, his praise gives reputation, and a word from him in public confers fashion!"
"And by what wonderful powers has he acquired such influence?"
"By nothing but a happy art in catching the reigning foibles of the times, and carrying them to an extreme yet more absurd than any one had done before him. Ceremony, he found, was already exploded for ease, he, therefore, exploded ease for indolence; devotion to the fair s.e.x, had given way to a more equal and rational intercourse, which, to push still farther, he presently exchanged for rudeness; joviality, too, was already banished for philosophical indifference, and that, therefore, he discarded, for weariness and disgust."
"And is it possible that qualities such as these should recommend him to favour and admiration?"
"Very possible, for qualities such as these const.i.tute the present taste of the times. A man of the _Ton_, who would now be conspicuous in the gay world, must invariably be insipid, negligent, and selfish."
"Admirable requisites!" cried Cecilia; "and Mr Meadows, I acknowledge, seems to have attained them all."
"He must never," continued Mr Gosport, "confess the least pleasure from any thing, a total apathy being the chief ingredient of his character: he must, upon no account, sustain a conversation with any spirit, lest he should appear, to his utter disgrace, interested in what is said: and when he is quite tired of his existence, from a total vacuity of ideas, he must affect a look of absence, and pretend, on the sudden, to be wholly lost in thought."
"I would not wish," said Cecilia, laughing, "a more amiable companion!"
"If he is asked his opinion of any lady," he continued, "he must commonly answer by a grimace; and if he is seated next to one, he must take the utmost pains to shew by his listlessness, yawning, and inattention, that he is sick of his situation; for what he holds of all things to be most gothic, is gallantry to the women. To avoid this is, indeed, the princ.i.p.al solicitude of his life. If he sees a lady in distress for her carriage, he is to enquire of her what is the matter, and then, with a shrug, wish her well through her fatigues, wink at some bye-stander, and walk away. If he is in a room where there is a crowd of company, and a scarcity of seats, he must early ensure one of the best in the place, be blind to all looks of fatigue, and deaf to all hints of a.s.sistance, and seeming totally to forget himself, lounge at his ease, and appear an unconscious spectator of what is going forward. If he is at a ball where there are more women than men, he must decline dancing at all, though it should happen to be his favourite amus.e.m.e.nt, and smiling as he pa.s.ses the disengaged young ladies, wonder to see them sit still, and perhaps ask them the reason!"
"A most alluring character indeed!" cried Cecilia; "and pray how long have these been the accomplishments of a fine gentleman?"
"I am but an indifferent chronologer of the modes," he answered, "but I know it has been long enough to raise just expectations that some new folly will be started soon, by which the present race of INSENSIBLISTS may be driven out. Mr Meadows is now at the head of this sect, as Miss Larolles is of the VOLUBLE, and Miss Leeson of the SUPERCILIOUS. But this way comes another, who, though in a different manner, labours with the same view, and aspires at the same reward, which stimulate the ambition of this happy _Triplet_, that of exciting wonder by peculiarity, and envy by wonder."
This description announced Captain Aresby; who, advancing from the fire-place, told Cecilia how much he rejoiced in seeing her, said he had been _reduced to despair_ by so long missing that honour, and that he had feared she _made it a principle_ to avoid coming in public, having sought her in vain _partout_.
He then smiled, and strolled on to another party.
"And pray of what sect," said Cecilia, "is this gentleman?"
"Of the sect of JARGONISTS," answered Mr Gosport; "he has not an ambition beyond paying a pa.s.sing compliment, nor a word to make use of that he has not picked up at public places. Yet this dearth of language, however you may despise it, is not merely owing to a narrow capacity: foppery and conceit have their share in the limitation, for though his phrases are almost always ridiculous or misapplied, they are selected with much study, and introduced with infinite pains."