I bowed, with a sneer I could not repress. Dawton pretended not to observe it. “Come,” said I, “my lord, we have no time to lose. I shall meet you, perhaps, at Brookes’s, to morrow evening, and report to you respecting my success.”
Lord Dawton pressed my hand warmly, and followed me to the door.
“He is the best premier we could have,” thought I; “but he deceives himself, if he thinks Henry Pelham will play the jackall to his lion. He will soon see that I shall keep for myself what he thinks I hunt for him.” I passed through Pall Mall, and thought of Glanville. I knocked at his door: he was at home. I found him leaning his cheek upon his hand, in a thoughtful position; an open letter was before him.
“Read that,” he said, pointing to it.
I did so. It was from the agent to the Duke of—, and contained his appointment to an opposition borough.
“A new toy, Pelham,” said he, faintly smiling; “but a little longer, and they will all be broken—the rattle will be the last.”
“My dear, dear Glanville,” said I, much affected, “do not talk thus; you have every thing before you.”
“Yes,” interrupted Glanville, “you are right, for every thing left for me is in the grave. Do you imagine that I can taste one of the possessions which fortune has heaped upon me, that I have one healthful faculty, one sense of enjoyment, among the hundred which other men are ‘heirs to?’ When did you ever see me for a moment happy? I live, as it were, on a rock, barren, and herbless, and sapless, and cut off from all human fellowship and intercourse. I had only a single object left to live for, when you saw me at Paris; I have gratified that, and the end and purpose of my existence is fulfilled. Heaven is merciful; but a little while, and this feverish and unquiet spirit shall be at rest.”
I took his hand and pressed it.
“Feel,” said he, “this dry, burning skin; count my pulse through the variations of a single minute, and you will cease either to pity me, or to speak to me of life. For months I have had, night and day, a wasting—wasting fever, of brain, and heart, and frame; the fire works well, and the fuel is nearly consumed.”