CHAPTER IX.
These watering-place doctors have less tact than their confrères elsewhere: their theory is, “the Wells and Amusement;” they never strain their faculties to comprehend any class but that of hard-worked, exhausted, men of the world, to whom the regularity of a Bad-ort, and the simple pleasures it affords, are quite sufficient to relieve the load of over-taxed minds and bodies. The “distractions” of these places suit such people well; the freedom of intercourse, which even among our strait-laced countrymen prevails, is pleasant. My Lord refreshes in the society of a clever barrister, or an amusing essayist of the “Quarterly.” The latter puts forth all his agreeability for the delectation of a grander audience than he ever had at home. But to one who has seen all these ranks and conditions of men—who finds nothing new in the morgue of the Marquis, or the last mot of the Bench—it is somewhat too bad to be told that such intercourse is a part of your treatment.
My worthy friend Dr. Guckhardt has mistaken me; he fancies my weariness is the result of solitude, and that my exhaustion is but ennui; and, in consequence, has he gone about on the high roads and public places inquiring if any one knows Horace Templeton, who is “sick and ill.” And here is the fruit: a table covered with visiting cards and scented notes of inquiry. My Lord Tollington—a Lord of the Bedchamber, a dissolute old fop—very amusing to very young men, but intolerable to all who have seen anything themselves. Sir Harvey Clifford, a Yorkshire Jesuit, who travels with a socius from Oscot and a whole library of tracts controversial. Reginald St. John, a “levanter” from the Oaks. Colonel Morgan O’Shea, absent without leave for having shot his father-in-law. Such are among the first I find. But whose writing is this?... I know the hand well.... Frank Burton, that I knew so well at Oxford! Poor devil! he joined the 9th Lancers when he came of age, and ran through every thing he had in the world in three years. He married a Lady Mary somebody, and lives now on her family. What is his note about?
“Dear Tempy,
“I have just heard of your being here, and would have gone
over to see you, but have sprained my ancle in a hopping-
match with Kubetskoi—walked into him for two hundred,
nevertheless. Come and dine with us to-day at the France,
and we’ll shew you some of the folk here. That old bore,
Lady Bellingham Blakely, is with us, and gives a pic-nic on
Saturday at the Waterfall—rare fun for you, who like a
field-day of regular quizzes! Don’t fail—sharp seven—and
believe me,
“Yours,
“F. B.”
This requires but brief deliberation; and so, my dear Frank, you must excuse my company, both at dinner and pic-nic. What an ass he must be to suppose that a man of thirty has got no farther insight into the world, and knows no more of its inhabitants, than a boy of eighteen! These “quizzes,” doubtless, had been very amusing to me once—just as I used to laugh at the “School for Scandal” the first fifty times I saw it; but now that I have épuisé les ridicules—have seen every manner of absurdity the law of Chancery leaves at large—why hammer out the impression by repetition?
What is here by way of postscript?
“Lady B. has made the acquaintance of a certain Sicilian
Countess, the handsomest woman here, and has engaged her for
Saturday. If you be the man you used to be, you’ll not fail
to come.”
“Dear F——
“I cannot dine out. I can neither eat, drink, nor talk, nor
can I support the heat or ‘confaz’ of a dinner; but, if
permitted, will join your party on Saturday for half an
hour.
“Yours truly,
“H. Templeton.”
Now has curiosity—I have no worthier name to bestow on it—got the better of all my scruples and dislikes to such an agglomeration as a pic-nic! Socially I know nothing so bad: the liberty is license, and the license is an intolerable freedom, where only the underbred are at ease. N’importe—I’ll go; for while I now suspect that I was wrong in believing the Countess to have been my old acquaintance, Caroline Graham, I have a strange interest, at least, in seeing how one so like her, externally, may resemble her in traits of mind and manner. And then I’ll leave Baden.