So saying, I left the room, with a curiosity more painful than pleasing, to see the collegian’s wife. I arrested the man servant, and ordered him to usher and announce me.
I was led instanter into the apartment where I had discovered all the signs of female inquisitiveness, which I have before detailed. There I discovered a small woman, in a robe equally slatternly and fine, with a sharp pointed nose, small, cold, grey eyes, and a complexion high towards the cheek bones, but waxing of a light green before it reached the wide and querulous mouth, which, well I ween, seldom opened to smile upon the unfortunate possessor of her charms. She, like the Rev. Christopher, was not without her companions; a tall meagre woman, of advanced age, and a girl, some years younger than herself, were introduced to me as her mother and sister.
My entree occasioned no little confusion, but I knew well how to remedy that. I held out my hand so cordially to the wife, that I enticed, though with evident reluctance, two bony fingers into my own, which I did not dismiss without a most mollifying and affectionate squeeze; and drawing my chair close towards her, began conversing as familiarly as if I had known the whole triad for years. I declared my joy at seeing my old friend so happily settled—commented on the improvement of his looks—ventured a sly joke at the good effects of matrimony—praised a cat couchant, worked in worsted by the venerable hand of the eldest matron—offered to procure her a real cat of the true Persian breed, black ears four inches long, with a tail like a squirrel’s; and then slid, all at once, into the unauthorized invitation of the good man of the house.
“Clutterbuck,” said I, “has asked me very warmly to stay dinner; but, before I accepted his offer, I insisted upon coming to see how far it was confirmed by you. Gentlemen, you are aware, my dear Madam, know nothing of these matters, and I never accept a married man’s invitation till it has the sanction of his lady: I have an example of that at home. My mother (Lady Frances) is the best-tempered woman in the world: but my father could no more take the liberty (for I may truly call it such) to ask even his oldest friend to dinner, without consulting the mistress of the house, than he could think of flying. No one (says my mother, and she says what is very true,) can tell about the household affairs, but those who have the management of them; and in pursuance of this aphorism, I dare not accept any invitation in this house, except from its mistress.”
“Really,” said Mrs. Clutterbuck, colouring, with mingled embarrassment and gratification, “you are very considerate and polite, Mr. Pelham: I only wish Mr. Clutterbuck had half your attention to these things; nobody can tell the trouble and inconvenience he puts me to. If I had known, a little time before, that you were coming—but now I fear we have nothing in the house; but if you can partake of our fare, such as it is, Mr. Pelham—”
“Your kindness enchants me,” I exclaimed, “and I no longer scruple to confess the pleasure I have in accepting my old friend’s offer.”
This affair being settled, I continued to converse for some minutes with as much vivacity as I could summon to my aid, and when I went once more to the library, it was with the comfortable impression of having left those as friends, whom I had visited as foes.
The dinner hour was four, and till it came, Clutterbuck and I amused ourselves “in commune wise and sage.” There was something high in the sentiments and generous in the feelings of this man, which made me the more regret the bias of mind which rendered them so unavailing. At college he had never (illis dissimilis in nostro tempore natis) cringed to the possessors of clerical power. In the duties of his station, as dean of the college, he was equally strict to the black cap and the lordly hat. Nay, when one of his private pupils, whose father was possessed of more church preferment than any nobleman in the peerage, disobeyed his repeated summons, and constantly neglected to attend his instructions, he sent for him, resigned his tuition, and refused any longer to accept a salary which the negligence of his pupil would not allow him to requite. In his clerical tenets he was high: in his judgment of others he was mild. His knowledge of the liberty of Greece was not drawn from the ignorant historian of her republics; [Note: It is really a disgrace to the University, that any of its colleges should accept as a reference, or even tolerate as an author, the presumptuous bigot who has bequeathed to us, in his History of Greece, the masterpiece of a declaimer without energy, and of a pedant without learning.] nor did he find in the contemplative mildness and gentle philosophy of the ancients, nothing but a sanction for modern bigotry and existing abuses.
It was a remarkable trait in his conversation, that though he indulged in many references to the old authors, and allusions to classic customs, he never deviated into the innumerable quotations with which his memory was stored. No words, in spite of all the quaintness and antiquity of his dialect, purely Latin or Greek, ever escaped his lips, except in our engagements at capping verses, or when he was allured into accepting a challenge of learning from some of its pretenders; then, indeed, he could pour forth such a torrent of authorities as effectually silenced his opponent; but these contests were rarely entered into, and these triumphs moderately indulged. Yet he loved the use of quotations in others, and I knew the greatest pleasure I could give him was in the frequent use of them. Perhaps he thought it would seem like an empty parade of learning in one who so confessedly possessed it, to deal in the strange words of another tongue, and consequently rejected them, while, with an innocent inconsistency, characteristic of the man, it never occurred to him that there was any thing, either in the quaintness of his dialect or the occupations of his leisure, which might subject him to the same imputation of pedantry.
And yet, at times, when he warmed in his subject, there was a tone in his language as well as sentiment, which might not be improperly termed eloquent; and the real modesty and quiet enthusiasm of his nature, took away from the impression he made, the feeling of pomposity and affectation with which otherwise he might have inspired you.