Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Several gentlemen, and among others Mr. Percy, would not allow that the English translation deserved to be called miserable. “The wrong side of the tapestry we cannot expect should be quite equal to the right side.” said he: “Voltaire pointed out a few odds and ends here and there, which disfigured the work, and required to be cut off; but upon the whole, if I recollect, he was satisfied with the piece, and complimented Mr. Hill upon having preserved the general design, spirit, and simplicity of the original.”

  “Mere politeness in M. de Voltaire!” replied French Clay; “but, in effect, Zaïre is absolutely incapable of any thing more than being done into English. For example, will any body have the goodness to tell me,” said he, looking round, and fixing his look of appeal on Miss Caroline Percy, “how would you translate the famous ‘Zaïre! — vous pleurez!”

  “Is not it translated,” said Caroline, “by ‘Zara! you weep?’”

  “Ah! pardonnez moi!” cried French Clay, with a shrug meant to be French, but which English shoulders could not cleverly execute—”Ah! pardonnez! to my ears now that says nothing.”

  “To our feelings it said a great deal just now,” said Caroline, looking at Zara in a manner which was lost upon her feelings, but not upon Count Altenberg’s.

  “Ah! indubitably I admit,” cried Mr. Clay, “la beauté est toujours dans son pays, and tears fortunately need no translation; but when we come to words, you will allow me, ma’am, that the language of fine feeling is absolutely untranslateable, untransfusible.”

  Caroline seemed to wish to avoid being drawn forward to farther discussion, but Mr. Clay repeated, in a tone of soft condescension, “Your silence flatters me with the hope, ma’am, that we agree?”

  Caroline could not submit to this interpretation of her silence, and blushing, but without being disconcerted, she answered, that she had always heard, and believed, it was the test of true feeling, as of true wit, that it can be easily understood, and that its language is universal.

  “If I had ever doubted that truth,” said Count Altenberg, “I should have been convinced of it by what I have seen and heard this night.”

  Miss Georgiana Falconer bowed her head graciously to the Count, and smiled, and sighed. Lady Frances Arlington and Rosamond smiled at the same moment, for they perceived by the universal language of the eye, that what Count Altenberg said was not intended for the lady who took it so decidedly to herself. This was the second time this night that Miss Georgiana Falconer’s vanity had appropriated to herself a compliment in which she had no share. Yet, even at this moment, which, as she conceived, was a moment of triumph, while she was encircled by adorers, while the voice of praise yet vibrated in her ears, she felt anguish at perceiving the serenity of her rival’s countenance; and, however strange it may appear, actually envied Caroline for not being envious.

  Mrs. Falconer, skilled in every turn of her daughter’s temper, which she was now obliged to follow and humour, or dexterously to counteract, lest it should ruin all schemes for her establishment, saw the cloud gathering on Zara’s brow, and immediately fixed the attention of the company upon the beauty of her dress and the fine folds of her velvet train. She commenced lamentations on the difference between English and French velvets. French Clay, as she had foreseen, took up the word, and talked of velvets till supper was announced.

  When Mrs. Falconer attended Lady Trant and Lady Kew to their rooms, a nocturnal conference was held in Lady Trant’s apartment, where, of course, in the most confidential manner, their ladyships sat talking over the events of the day, and of some matters too interesting to be spoken of in general society. They began to congratulate Mrs. Falconer upon the impression which Zara had made on Count Altenberg; but the wily mother repressed their premature felicitations. She protested she was positively certain that the person in question had now no thoughts of Georgiana, such as their ladyships’ partiality to her might lead them to suppose; and now, when the business was over, she might venture to declare that nothing could have persuaded her to let a daughter of hers marry a foreigner. She should have been sorry to give offence to such an amiable and well-informed young nobleman; and she really rejoiced that, if her sentiments had been, as no doubt by a person of his penetration they must have been, discovered, Count Altenberg had taken the hint without being offended: indeed, she had felt it a point of conscience to let the truth be seen time enough, to prevent his coming to a downright proposal, and having the mortification of an absolute refusal. Other mothers, she knew, might feel differently about giving a daughter to a foreigner, and other young ladies might feel differently from her Georgiana. Where there was so great an establishment in prospect, and rank, and fashion, and figure, to say nothing of talents, it could hardly be expected that such temptations should be resisted in a certain family, where it was so very desirable, and indeed necessary, to get a daughter married without a portion. Mrs. Falconer declared that on every account she should rejoice, if things should happen to turn out so. The present object was every way worthy, and charming. She was a young lady for whom, even from the little she had seen of her, she confessed she felt uncommonly interested — putting relationship out of the question.

  Thus having with able generalship secured a retreat for herself and for her daughter, Mrs. Falconer retired to rest.

  Early the next morning one of Lord Oldborough’s grooms brought a note for Mr. Percy. Commissioner Falconer’s confidential servant took the note immediately up to his master’s bedchamber, to inquire whether it would be proper to waken Mr. Percy to give it to him, or to make the groom wait till Mr. Percy should come down to breakfast.

  The commissioner sat up in his bed, rubbed his eyes, read the direction of the note, many times turned and returned it, and desired to see the man who brought it. The groom was shown in.

  “How is my lord’s gout?”

  “Quite well, sir: my lord was out yesterday in the park — both a horseback and afoot.”

  “I am very happy to hear it. And pray, did any despatches come last night from town, can you tell, sir?”

  “I really can’t particularly say, sir — I was out with the horses.”

  “But about this note?” said the commissioner.

  The result of the cross-examination that followed gave reason to believe that the note contained an invitation to breakfast, because he had heard Mr. Rodney, my lord’s own gentleman, tell the man whose business it was to attend at breakfast, that my lord would breakfast in his own room, and expected a friend to breakfast with him.

  “A friend — Hum! Was there no note to me? — no message?”

  “None, sir — as I know.”

  “Very extraordinary.” Mr. Falconer inclined to keep the man till breakfast-time, but he would not be kept — he had orders to return with an answer immediately; and he had been on the fidgets all the time the commissioner had been detaining him; for Lord Oldborough’s messengers could nut venture to delay. The note was consequently delivered to Mr. Percy immediately, and Mr. Percy went to breakfast at Clermont-park. The commissioner’s breakfast was spoiled by the curiosity this invitation excited, and he was obliged to chew green tea for the heartburn with great diligence. Meantime the company were all talking the play over and over again, till at last, when even Zara appeared satiated with the subject, the conversation diverged a little to other topics. Unluckily French Clay usurped so large a portion of attention, that Count Altenberg’s voice was for some time scarcely heard — the contrast was striking between a really well-bred polished foreigner, and a man who, having kept bad company abroad, and having formed himself on a few bad models, presented an exaggerated imitation of those who were ridiculous, detested, or unknown, in good society at Paris; and whom the nation would utterly disclaim as representatives of their morals or manners. At this period of their acquaintance with Count Altenberg, every circumstance which drew out his character, tastes, and opinions, was interesting to the Percy family in general, and in particular to Caroline. The most commonplace and disagreeable
characters often promoted this purpose, and thus afforded means of amusement, and materials for reflection. Towards the end of breakfast, the newspapers were brought in — the commissioner, who had wondered frequently what could make them so late, seized upon the government-paper directly, which he pocketed, and retired, after handing other newspapers to Count Altenberg and to the Mr. Clays. English Clay, setting down his well-sugared cup of tea, leaving a happily-prepared morsel of ham and bread and butter on his plate, turned his back upon the ladies; and comfortably settling himself with his arm over his chair, and the light full upon London news, began to read to himself. Count Altenberg glanced at Continental News, as he unfolded his paper, but instantly turned to Gazette Extraordinary, which he laid before Mrs. Falconer. She requested him, if it was not too much trouble, to read it aloud. “I hope my foreign accent will not make it unintelligible,” said he; and without farther preface, or considering how he was to appear himself, he obeyed. Though he had not a perfectly English accent, he showed that he had a thoroughly English heart, by the joy and pride he took in reading an account of a great victory.

  English Clay turned round upon his chair, and setting his arms a-kimbo, with the newspaper still fast in his hand, and his elbow sticking out across Lady Anne Arlington, sat facing the count, and listening to him With a look of surprise. “Why, d —— m’me, but you’re a good fellow, after all!” exclaimed he, “though you are not an Englishman!”

  “By the mother’s side I am, sir,” replied Count Altenberg. “I may boast that I am at least half an Englishman.”

  “Half is better than the whole,” said French Clay, scornfully.

  “By the Lord, I could have sworn his mother, or some of his blood, was English!” cried English Clay. “I beg your pardon, ma’am—’fraid I annoy your ladyship?” added he, perceiving that the Lady Anne haughtily retreated from his offending elbow.

  Then sensible of having committed himself by his sudden burst of feeling, he coloured all over, took up his tea, drank as if he wished to hide his face for ever in the cup, recovered his head with mighty effort, turned round again to his newspaper, and was cold and silent as before. His brother meanwhile was, or affected to be, more intent upon some eau sucrée, that he was preparing for himself, than upon the fate of the army and navy of Spain or England. Rising from the breakfast table, he went into the adjoining room, and threw himself at full length upon a sofa; Lady Frances Arlington, who detested politics, immediately followed, and led the way to a work-table, round which the ladies gathered, and formed themselves in a few minutes into a committee of dress, all speaking at once; Count Altenberg went with the ladies out of the breakfast-room, where English Clay would have been happy to have remained alone; but being interrupted by the entrance of the servants, he could not enjoy peaceable possession, and he was compelled also to follow: — getting as far as he could from the female committee, he took Petcalf into a window to talk of horses, and commenced a history of the colts of Regulus, and of the plates they had won.

  French Clay, rising from the sofa, and adjusting his cravat at a looking-glass, carelessly said, addressing himself to Count Altenberg, “I think, M. le Comte, I heard you say something about public feelings. Now, I do not comprehend precisely what is meant by public feelings; for my part, I am free to confess that I have none.”

  “I certainly must have expressed myself ill,” replied Count Altenberg; “I should have said, love of our country.”

  Mrs. Percy, Rosamond, and Caroline, escaped from the committee of dress, were now eagerly listening to this conversation.

  “And if you had, M. le Comte, I might, en philosophe, have been permitted to ask,” replied French Clay, “what is love of our country, but a mere prejudice? and to a person of an emancipated mind, that word prejudice says volumes. Assuredly M. le Comte will allow, and must feel well, that no prejudice ever was or can be useful to mankind.”

  The Count fully admitted that utility is the best human test by which all sentiment, as well as every thing else, can be tried: but he observed that Mr. Clay had not yet proved love of our country to be a useless or pernicious principle of action: and by his own argument, if it can be proved to be useful, it should not be called, in the invidious sense of the word, a prejudice.

  “True — but the labour of the proof fortunately rests with you, M. le Comte.”

  Count Altenberg answered in French, speaking very rapidly. “It is a labour saved me fortunately, by the recorded experience of all history, by the testimony of the wisest and the best in all, countries, ancient and modern — all agree in proclaiming love of our country to be one of the most powerful, most permanent motives to good and great actions; the most expansive, elevating principle — elevating without danger — expansive without waste; the principle to which the legislator looks for the preservative against corruption in states — to which the moralist turns for the antidote against selfishness in individuals. Recollect, name any great character, ancient or modern — is not love of his country one of his virtues? Can you draw — can you conceive a great character — a great or a good character, or even a safe member of society without it? A man hangs loose upon society, as your own Burke says—”

  “Ah! M. le Comte!” cried Clay, shrinking with affected horror, “I repent — I see what I have brought upon myself; after Burke will come Cicero; and after Cicero all Rome, Carthage, Athens, Lacedemon. Oh! spare me! since I was a schoolboy, I could never suffer those names. Ah! M. le Comte, de grâce! — I know I have put myself in the case to be buried alive under a load of quotations.”

  The Count, with that good humour which disappoints ridicule, smiled, and checked his enthusiasm.

  “Is there not a kind of enthusiasm,” said Mrs. Percy, “which is as necessary to virtue as to genius?”

  French Clay shook his head. He was sorry to differ from a lady; as a gallant man, he knew he was wrong, but as a philosopher he could not patronize enthusiasm. It was the business, he apprehended, of philosophy to correct and extinguish it.

  “I have heard it said,” interposed Rosamond, “that it is a favourite maxim of law, that the extreme of justice is the extreme of injustice — perhaps this maxim may be applied to philosophy as well as to law.”

  “Why extinguish enthusiasm?” cried Caroline. “It is not surely the business of philosophy to extinguish, but to direct it. Does not enthusiasm, well directed, give life and energy to all that is good and great?”

  There was so much life and energy in Caroline’s beautiful countenance, that French Clay was for a moment silenced by admiration.

  “After all,” resumed he, “there is one slight circumstance, which persons of feeling should consider, that the evils and horrors of war are produced by this very principle, which some people think so useful to mankind, this famous love of our country.”

  Count Altenberg asked, whether wars had not more frequently arisen from the unlawful fancies which princes and conquerors are apt to take for the territories of their neighbours, than from the legitimate love of their own country?

  French Clay, hurried by a smile he saw on Rosamond’s lips, changed his ground again for the worse, and said he was not speaking of wars, of foreign conquests, but of defensive wars, where foolish people, from an absurd love of their own country, that is, of certain barren mountains, of a few acres of snow, or of collections of old houses and churches, called capital cities, will expose themselves to fire, flame, and famine, and will stand to be cut to pieces inchmeal, rather than to submit to a conqueror, who might, ten to one, be a more civilized or cleverer sort of a person than their own rulers; and under whom they might enjoy all the luxuries of life — changing only the name of their country for some other equally well-sounding name; and perhaps adopting a few new laws, instead of what they might have been in the habit from their childhood of worshipping, as a wittenagemote, or a diet, or a constitution. “For my part,” continued French Clay, “I have accustomed myself to go to the bottom of things. I have approfondied. I have not suffe
red my understanding to be paralysed — I have made my own analysis of happiness, and find that your legislators, and moralists, and patriots, would juggle me out of many solid physical comforts, by engaging me to fight for enthusiasms which do me no manner of good.”

  Count Altenberg’s countenance had flushed with indignation, and cooled with contempt, several times during Mr. Clay’s Speech. Beginning in a low composed voice, he first answered, whatever pretence to reason it contained, in the analysis of human happiness, he observed, Mr. Clay had bounded his to physical comforts — this was reducing civilized man below even the savage, and nearly to the state of brutes. Did Mr. Clay choose to leave out all intellectual pleasures — all the pleasures of self-complacency, self-approbation, and sympathy? But, supposing that he was content to bound his happiness, inelegant and low, to such narrow limits, Count Altenberg observed, he did not provide for the security even of that poor portion. If he were ready to give up the liberty or the free constitution of the country in which he resided, ready to live under tyrants and tyranny, how could he be secure for a year, a day, even an hour, of his epicurean paradise?

  Mr. Clay acknowledged, that, “in this point of view, it might be awkward to live in a conquered country; but if a man has talents to make himself agreeable to the powers that be, and money in his purse, that can never touch him, chacun pour soi — et honi soit qui mal y pense.”

  “Is it in England! — Oh! can it be in England, and from an Englishman, that I hear such sentiments!” exclaimed Count Altenberg. “Such I have heard on the continent — such we have heard the precursors of the ruin, disgrace, destruction of the princes and nations of Europe!”