"Oh, no!" said Vavasour, shaking his head. "An age is the thing; it is a much higher thing. What can be finer than to represent the spirit of an age?"
"And Mr. Vavasour to perform the princ.i.p.al part," said Mrs. Coningsby.
"I know exactly what he means. He wants to dance the polka as Petrarch, and find a Laura in every partner."
"You have no poetical feeling," said Mr. Vavasour, waving his hand. "I have often told you so."
"You will easily find Lauras, Mr. Vavasour, if you often write such beautiful verses as I have been reading to-day," said Lady Marney.
"You, on the contrary," said Mr. Vavasour, bowing, "have a great deal of poetic feeling, Lady Marney; I have always said so."
"But give us your news, Edith," said Coningsby. "Imagine our suspense, when it is a question, whether we are all to look picturesque or quizzical."
"Ah, you want to know whether you can go as Cardinal Mazarin, or the Duke of Ripperda, Harry. I know exactly what you all are now thinking of; whether you will draw the prize in the forthcoming lottery, and get exactly the epoch and the character which suit you. Is it not so, Lord Montacute? Would not you like to practise a little with your crusados at the Queen"s ball before you go to the Holy Sepulchre?"
"I would rather hear your description of it," said Tancred.
"Lord Henry, I see, is half inclined to be your companion as a Red-cross Knight," continued Edith. "As for Lady Marney, she is the successor of Mrs. Fry, and would wish, I am sure, to go to the ball as her representative."
"And pray what are you thinking of being?" said Mr. Vavasour. "We should like very much to be favoured with Mrs. Coningsby"s ideal of herself."
"Mrs. Coningsby leaves the ideal to poets. She is quite satisfied to remain what she is, and it is her intention to do so, though she means to go to Her Majesty"s ball."
"I see that you are in the secret," said Lord Marney.
"If I could only keep secrets, I might turn out something." said Mrs.
Coningsby. "I am the depositary of so much that is occult-joys, sorrows, plots, and sc.r.a.pes; but I always tell Harry, and he always betrays me.
Well, you must guess a little. Lady Marney begins."
"Well, we were at one at Turin," said Lady Marney, "and it was oriental, Lalla Rookh. Are you to be a sultana?"
Mrs. Coningsby shook her head.
"Come, Edith," said her husband; "if you know, which I doubt----"
"Oh! you doubt----"
"Valentine told me yesterday," said Mr. Vavasour, in a mock peremptory tone, "that there would not be a ball."
"And Lord Valentine told me yesterday that there would be a ball, and what the ball would be; and what is more, I have fixed on my dress,"
said Mrs. Coningsby.
"Such a rapid decision proves that much antiquarian research is not necessary," said Sidonia. "Your period is modern."
"Ah!" said Edith, looking at Sidonia, "he always finds me out. Well, Mr.
Vavasour, you will not be able to crown yourself with a laurel wreath, for the gentlemen will wear wigs."
"Louis Quatorze?" said her husband. "Peel as Louvois."
"No, Sir Robert would be content with nothing less than _Le Grand Colbert, rue Richelieu, No. 75, grand magasin de nouveautes tres-anciennes: prix fixe, avec quelques rabais._"
"A description of Conservatism," said Coningsby.
The secret was soon revealed: every one had a conjecture and a commentary: gentlemen in wigs, and ladies powdered, patched, and sacked.
Vavasour pondered somewhat dolefully on the anti-poetic spirit of the age; Coningsby hailed him as the author of Leonidas.
"And you, I suppose, will figure as one of the "boys" arrayed against the great Sir Robert?" said Mr. Vavasour, with a countenance of mock veneration for that eminent personage.
"The "boys" beat him at last," said Coningsby; and then, with a rapid precision and a richness of colouring which were peculiar to him, he threw out a sketch which placed the period before them; and they began to tear it to tatters, select the incidents, and apportion the characters.
Two things which are necessary to a perfect dinner are noiseless attendants, and a precision in serving the various dishes of each course, so that they may all be placed upon the table at the same moment. A deficiency in these respects produces that bustle and delay which distract many an agreeable conversation and spoil many a pleasant dish. These two excellent characteristics were never wanting at the dinners of Sidonia. At no house was there less parade. The appearance of the table changed as if by the waving of a wand, and silently as a dream. And at this moment, the dessert being arranged, fruits and their beautiful companions, flowers, reposed in alabaster baskets raised on silver stands of filigree work.
There was half an hour of merry talk, graceful and gay: a good story, a _bon-mot_ fresh from the mint, some raillery like summer lightning, vivid but not scorching.
"And now," said Edith, as the ladies rose to return to the library, "and now we leave you to Maynooth."
"By-the-bye, what do they say to it in your House, Lord Marney?"
inquired Henry Sydney, filling his gla.s.s.
"It will go down," said Lord Marney. "A strong dose for some, but they are used to potent potions."
"The bishops, they say, have not made up their minds."
"Fancy bishops not having made up their minds," exclaimed Tancred: "the only persons who ought never to doubt."
"Except when they are offered a bishopric," said Lord Marney.
"Why I like this Maynooth project," said Tancred, "though otherwise it little interests me, is, that all the shopkeepers are against it."
"Don"t tell that to the minister," said Coningsby, "or he will give up the measure."
"Well, that is the very reason," said Vavasour, "why, though otherwise inclined to the grant, I hesitate as to my vote. I have the highest opinion of the shopkeepers; I sympathise even with their prejudices.
They are the cla.s.s of the age; they represent its order, its decency, its industry."
"And you represent them," said Coningsby. "Vavasour is the quintessence of order, decency, and industry."
"You may jest," said Vavasour, shaking his head with a spice of solemn drollery; "but public opinion must and ought to be respected, right or wrong."
"What do you mean by public opinion?" said Tancred.
"The opinion of the reflecting majority," said Vavasour.
"Those who don"t read your poems," said Coningsby.
"Boy, boy!" said Vavasour, who could endure raillery from one he had been at college with, but who was not over-pleased at Coningsby selecting the present occasion to claim his franchise, when a new man was present like Lord Montacute, on whom Vavasour naturally wished to produce an impression. It must be owned that it was not, as they say, very good taste in the husband of Edith, but prosperity had developed in Coningsby a native vein of sauciness which it required all the solemnity of the senate to repress. Indeed, even there, upon the benches, with a grave face, he often indulged in quips and cranks that convulsed his neighbouring audience, who often, amid the long dreary nights of statistical imposture, sought refuge in his gay sarcasms, his airy personalities, and happy quotations.
"I do not see how there can be opinion without thought," said Tancred; "and I do not believe the public ever think. How can they? They have no time. Certainly we live at present under the empire of general ideas, which are extremely powerful. But the public have not invented those ideas. They have adopted them from convenience. No one has confidence in himself; on the contrary, every one has a mean idea of his own strength and has no reliance on his own judgment. Men obey a general impulse, they bow before an external necessity, whether for resistance or action.
Individuality is dead; there is a want of inward and personal energy in man; and that is what people feel and mean when they go about complaining there is no faith."
"You would hold, then," said Henry Sydney, "that the progress of public liberty marches with the decay of personal greatness?"