Lord Marney left several children; his heir was five years older thanthe next son Charles who at the period of his father's death wasat Christchurch and had just entered the last year of his minority.Attaining that age, he received the sum of fifteen thousand pounds,his portion, a third of which amount his expenditure had then alreadyanticipated. Egremont had been brought up in the enjoyment of everycomfort and every luxury that refinement could devise and wealthfurnish. He was a favourite child. His parents emulated each other inpampering and indulging him. Every freak was pardoned, every whim wasgratified. He might ride what horses he liked, and if he broke theirknees, what in another would have been deemed a flagrant sin, was inhim held only a proof of reckless spirit. If he were not a thoroughlyselfish and altogether wilful person, but very much the reverse, it wasnot the fault of his parents, but rather the operation of a benignantnature that had bestowed on him a generous spirit and a tender heart,though accompanied with a dangerous susceptibility that made him thechild and creature of impulse, and seemed to set at defiance even thecourse of time to engraft on his nature any quality of prudence. Thetone of Eton during the days of Charles Egremont was not of the highcharacter which at present distinguishes that community. It was theunforeseen eve of the great change, that, whatever was its purpose orhave been its immediate results, at least gave the first shock to thepseudo-aristocracy of this country. Then all was blooming; sunshine andodour; not a breeze disturbing the meridian splendour. Then the worldwas not only made for a few, but a very few. One could almost tell uponone's fingers the happy families who could do anything, and might haveeverything. A school-boy's ideas of the Church then were fat-livings,and of the State, rotten-boroughs. To do nothing and get something,formed a boy's ideal of a manly career. There was nothing in the lot,little in the temperament, of Charles Egremont, to make him an exceptionto the multitude. Gaily and securely he floated on the brilliant stream.Popular at school, idolized at home, the present had no cares, and thefuture secured him a family seat in Parliament the moment he enteredlife, and the inheritance of a glittering post at court in due time,as its legitimate consequence. Enjoyment, not ambition, seemed theprinciple of his existence. The contingency of a mitre, the certainty ofrich preferment, would not reconcile him to the self-sacrifice which,to a certain degree, was required from a priest, even in those days oframpant Erastianism. He left the colonies as the spoil of his youngerbrothers; his own ideas of a profession being limited to a barrack in aLondon park, varied by visits to Windsor. But there was time enough tothink of these things. He had to enjoy Oxford as he had enjoyed Eton.Here his allowance from his father was extravagant, though greatlyincreased by tithes from his mother's pin-money. While he was pursuinghis studies, hunting and boating, driving tandems, riding matches,tempering his energies in the crapulence of boyish banquets, andanticipating life, at the risk of expulsion, in a miserable mimicryof metropolitan dissipation, Dukism, that was supposed to be eternal,suddenly crashed.
The Reform Act has not placed the administration of our affairs in ablerhands than conducted them previously to the passing of the measure, forthe most efficient members of the present cabinet with some very fewexceptions, and those attended by peculiar circumstances, were ministersbefore the Reform Act was contemplated. Nor has that memorable statutecreated a Parliament of a higher reputation for public qualities, suchas politic ability, and popular eloquence, and national consideration,than was furnished by the old scheme. On the contrary; one house ofParliament has been irremediably degraded into the decaying position ofa mere court of registry, possessing great privileges, on conditionthat it never exercises them; while the other chamber that, at the firstblush, and to the superficial, exhibits symptoms of almost unnaturalvitality, engrossing in its orbit all the business of the country,assumes on a more studious inspection somewhat of the character of aselect vestry, fulfilling municipal rather than imperial offices, andbeleaguered by critical and clamorous millions, who cannot comprehendwhy a privileged and exclusive senate is required to perform functionswhich immediately concern all, which most personally comprehend, andwhich many in their civic spheres believe they could accomplish in amanner not less satisfactory, though certainly less ostentatious.
But if it have not furnished us with abler administrators or a moreillustrious senate, the Reform Act may have exercised on the country atlarge a beneficial influence. Has it? Has it elevated the tone of thepublic mind? Has it cultured the popular sensibilities to noble andennobling ends? Has it proposed to the people of England a higher testof national respect and confidence than the debasing qualificationuniversally prevalent in this country since the fatal introductionof the system of Dutch finance? Who will pretend it? If a spirit ofrapacious coveteousness, desecrating all the humanities of life, hasbeen the besetting sin of England for the last century and a half, sincethe passing of the Reform Act the altar of Mammon has blazed with tripleworship. To acquire, to accumulate, to plunder each other by virtue ofphilosophic phrases, to propose an Utopia to consist only of WEALTH andTOIL, this has been the breathless business of enfranchised England forthe last twelve years, until we are startled from our voracious strifeby the wail of intolerable serfage.
Are we then to conclude, that the only effect of the Reform Act has beento create in this country another of those class interests, which we nowso loudly accuse as the obstacles to general amelioration? Notexactly that. The indirect influence of the Reform Act has been notinconsiderable, and may eventually lead to vast consequences. It set mena-thinking; it enlarged the horizon of political experience; it ledthe public mind to ponder somewhat on the circumstances of our nationalhistory; to pry into the beginnings of some social anomalies which theyfound were not so ancient as they had been led to believe, and which hadtheir origin in causes very different to what they had been educated tocredit; and insensibly it created and prepared a popular intelligence towhich one can appeal, no longer hopelessly, in an attempt to dispel themysteries with which for nearly three centuries it has been thelabour of party writers to involve a national history, and withoutthe dispersion of which no political position can be understood and nosocial evil remedied.
The events of 1830 did not produce any change in the modes of thoughtand life of Charles Egremont. He took his political cue from his mother,who was his constant correspondent. Lady Marney was a distinguished"stateswoman," as they called Lady Carlisle in Charles the First'stime, a great friend of Lady St Julians, and one of the most eminent andimpassioned votaries of Dukism. Her first impression on the overthrowof her hero was, astonishment at the impertinence of his adversaries,mingled with some lofty pity for their silly ambition and short-livedcareer. She existed for a week in the delightful expectation of hisgrace being sent for again, and informed every one in confidence, that"these people could not form a cabinet." When the tocsin of peace,reform, and retrenchment sounded, she smiled bitterly; was sorry forpoor Lord Grey of whom she had thought better, and gave them a year,adding with consoling malice, "that it would be another Canning affair."At length came the Reform Bill itself, and no one laughed moreheartily than Lady Marney; not even the House of Commons to whom it waspresented.
The bill was thrown out, and Lady Marney gave a grand ball to celebratethe event, and to compensate the London shopkeepers for the loss oftheir projected franchise. Lady Marney was preparing to resume herduties at court when to her great surprise the firing of cannonannounced the dissolution of Parliament. She turned pale; she wastoo much in the secrets of Tadpole and Taper to be deceived as to theconsequences; she sank into her chair, and denounced Lord Grey as atraitor to his order.
Lady Marney who for six months had been writing to her son at Oxfordthe most charming letters, full of fun, quizzing the whole Cabinet,now announced to Egremont that a revolution was inevitable, that allproperty would be instantly confiscated, the poor deluded king led tothe block or sent over to Hanover at the best, and the whole of thenobility and principal gentry, and indeed every one who possessedanything, guillotined without remorse.<
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Whether his friends were immediately to resume power, or whether theirestates ultimately were to be confiscated, the practical conclusionto Charles Egremont appeared to be the same. Carpe diem. He thereforepursued his career at Oxford unchanged, and entered life in the year1833, a younger son with extravagant tastes and expensive habits, with areputation for lively talents though uncultivated,--for his acquisitionsat Eton had been quite puerile, and subsequently he had not become astudent,--with many manly accomplishments, and with a mien and visagethat at once took the fancy and enlisted the affections. Indeed aphysiologist would hardly have inferred from the countenance andstructure of Egremont the career he had pursued, or the character whichattached to him. The general cast and expression of his features when inrepose was pensive: an air of refinement distinguished his well-mouldedbrow; his mouth breathed sympathy, and his rich brown eye gleamed withtenderness. The sweetness of his voice in speaking was in harmony withthis organization.
Two years passed in the most refined circles of our society exercised abeneficial influence on the general tone of Egremont, and may be saidto have finished his education. He had the good sense and the good tastenot to permit his predilection for sports to degenerate into slang; heyielded himself to the delicate and profitable authority of woman, and,as ever happens, it softened his manners and brightened his wit. He wasfortunate in having a clever mother, and he appreciated this inestimablepossession. Lady Marney had great knowledge of society, and someacquaintance with human nature, which she fancied she had fathomed toits centre; she piqued herself upon her tact, and indeed she was veryquick, but she was so energetic that her art did not always concealitself; very worldly, she was nevertheless not devoid of impulse; shewas animated and would have been extremely agreeable, if she had notrestlessly aspired to wit; and would certainly have exercised muchmore influence in society, if she had not been so anxious to show it.Nevertheless, still with many personal charms, a frank and yet, if needbe, a finished manner, a quick brain, a lively tongue, a buoyant spirit,and a great social position. Lady Marney was universally and extremelypopular; and adored by her children, for indeed she was a mother mostaffectionate and true.
When Egremont was four-and-twenty, he fell in love--a real passion. Hehad fluttered like others from flower to flower, and like others hadoften fancied the last perfume the sweetest, and then had flown away.But now he was entirely captivated. The divinity was a new beauty; thewhole world raving of her. Egremont also advanced. The Lady Arabellawas not only beautiful: she was clever, fascinating. Her presence wasinspiration at least for Egremont. She condescended to be pleasedby him: she signalized him by her notice; their names were mentionedtogether. Egremont indulged in flattering dreams. He regretted he hadnot pursued a profession: he regretted he had impaired his slenderpatrimony; thought of love in a cottage, and renting a manor; thoughtof living a good deal with his mother, and a little with his brother;thought of the law and the church; thought once of New Zealand. Thefavourite of nature and of fashion, this was the first time in the lifeof Egremont, that he had been made conscious that there was something inhis position which, with all its superficial brilliancy, might preparefor him, when youth had fled and the blaze of society grown dim, a drearand bitter lot.
He was roused from his reveries by a painful change in the demeanour ofhis adored. The mother of the Lady Arabella was alarmed. She likedher daughter to be admired even by younger sons when they weredistinguished, but only at a distance. Mr Egremont's name had beenmentioned too often. It had appeared coupled with her daughters, even ina Sunday paper. The most decisive measures were requisite, and they weretaken. Still smiling when they met, still kind when they conversed, itseemed, by some magic dexterity which even baffled Egremont, that theirmeetings every day grew rarer, and their opportunities for conversationless frequent. At the end of the season, the Lady Arabella selected froma crowd of admirers equally qualified, a young peer of great estate, andof the "old nobility," a circumstance which, as her grandfather had onlybeen an East India director, was very gratifying to the bride.
This unfortunate passion of Charles Egremont, and its mortifyingcircumstances and consequences, was just that earliest shock in one'slife which occurs to all of us; which first makes us think. We have allexperienced that disheartening catastrophe, when the illusions firstvanish; and our balked imagination, or our mortified vanity, firstintimates to us that we are neither infallible nor irresistible. Happily'tis the season of youth for which the first lessons of experience aredestined; and bitter and intolerable as is the first blight of our freshfeelings, the sanguine impulse of early life bears us along. Our firstscrape generally leads to our first travel. Disappointment requireschange of air; desperation change of scene. Egremont quitted hiscountry, never to return to it again; and returned to it after a yearand a-half's absence, a much wiser man. Having left England in a seriousmood, and having already tasted with tolerable freedom of the pleasuresand frivolities of life, he was not in an inapt humour to observe, toenquire, and to reflect. The new objects that surrounded him excited hisintelligence; he met, which indeed is the principal advantage of travel,remarkable men, whose conversation opened his mind. His mind was worthopening. Energies began to stir of which he had not been conscious;awakened curiosity led him to investigate and to read; he discoveredthat, when he imagined his education was completed, it had in factnot commenced; and that, although he had been at a public school anda university, he in fact knew nothing. To be conscious that you areignorant is a great step to knowledge. Before an emancipated intellectand an expanding intelligence, the great system of exclusive mannersand exclusive feelings in which he had been born and nurtured, began totremble; the native generosity of his heart recoiled at a recurrenceto that arrogant and frigid life, alike devoid of sympathy and realgrandeur.
In the early spring of 1837, Egremont re-entered the world, where he hadonce sparkled, and which he had once conceived to comprise within itscircle all that could interest or occupy man. His mother, delightedat finding him again under her roof, had removed some long-standingcoolness between him and his elder brother; his former acquaintancegreeted him with cordiality, and introduced him to the new heroes whohad sprung up during the season of his absence. Apparently Egremont wasnot disinclined to pursue, though without eagerness, the same careerthat had originally engaged him. He frequented assemblies, and lingeredin clubs; rode in the park, and lounged at the opera. But there was thisdifference in his existence, before and since his travels: he was nowconscious he wanted an object; and was ever musing over action, thoughas yet ignorant how to act. Perhaps it was this want of being roused,that led him, it may be for distraction, again to the turf. It was apursuit that seemed to him more real than the life of saloons, full ofaffectation, perverted ideas, and factitious passions. Whatever mightbe the impulse Egremont however was certainly not slightly interested inthe Derby; and though by no means uninstructed in the mysteries of theturf, had felt such confidence in his information that, with his usualardour, he had backed to a considerable amount the horse that ought tohave won, but which nevertheless only ran a second.
Book 1 Chapter 6
Sybil, Or, The Two Nations Page 5