When a man gets himself into a thorough passion on account of some supposed injury, which even to himself he is unable to define, his state is far from enviable. When I reached the hotel, I was in the hot stage of my anger, and could scarcely brook the delay of sending in my card. The answer was, "Sir Morris did not receive." I asked for pen and ink to write a note, and scribbled something most indiscreet and offensive. I am glad to say that I cannot now remember a line of it. The reply came that my "note should be attended to," and with this information I issued forth into the street half wild with rage.
I felt that I had given a deadly provocation, and must now look out for some "friend" to see me through the affair. Tiverton was absent, and amongst all my acquaintances I could not pitch upon one to whose keeping I liked to entrust my honor. I turned into several cafés, I strolled into the club, I drove down to the Cascini, but in vain; and at last was walking homeward, when I caught sight of a friendly face from the window of a travelling-carriage that drove rapidly by, and, hurrying after, just came up as it stopped at the door of the Hôtel d'Italie.
You may guess my astonishment as I felt my hand grasped cordially by no other than our old neighbor at Bruff, Dr. Belton, the physician of our county dispensary. Five minutes explained his presence there. He had gone out to Constantinople as the doctor to our Embassy, and by some piece of good luck and his own deservings to boot, had risen to the post of Private Secretary to the Ambassador, and was selected by him to carry home some very important despatches, to the rightful consideration of which his own presence at the Foreign Office was deemed essential.
Great as was the difference between, his former and his present station, it was insignificant in comparison with the change worked in himself. The country doctor, of diffident manners and retiring habits, grateful for the small civilities of small patrons, cautiously veiling his conscious superiority under an affected ignorance, was now become a consummate man of the world,—calm, easy, and self-possessed. His very appearance had undergone an alteration, and he held himself more erect, and looked not only handsomer but taller. These were the first things that struck me; but as we conversed together, I found him the same hearty, generous fellow I had ever known him, neither elated by his good fortune, nor, what is just as common a fault, contemptuously pretending that it was only one-half of his deserts.
One thing alone puzzled me, it was that he evinced no desire to come and see our family, who had been uniformly kind and good-natured to him; in fact, when I proposed it, he seemed so awkward and embarrassed that I never pressed my invitation, but changed the topic. I knew that there bad been, once on a time, some passages between my sister Mary Anne and him, and therefore supposed that possibly there might have been something or other that rendered a meeting embarrassing. At all events, I accepted his half-apology on the ground of great fatigue, and agreed to dine with him.
What a pleasant dinner it was! He related to me all the story of his life, not an eventful one as regarded incident, but full of those traits which make up interest for an individual. You felt as you listened that it was a thoroughly good fellow was talking to you, and that if he were not to prove successful in life, it was just because his were the very qualities rogues trade on for their own benefit. There was, moreover, a manly sense of independence about him, a consciousness of self-reliance that never approached conceit, but served to nerve his courage and support his spirit, which gave him an almost heroism in my eyes, and I own, too, suggested a most humiliating comparison with my own nature.
I opened my heart freely to him about everything, and in particular about Morris; and although I saw plainly enough that he took very opposite views to mine about the whole matter, he agreed to stop in Florence for a day, and act as my friend in the transaction. This being so far arranged, I started for Carrara, which, being beyond the Tuscan frontier, admits of our meeting without any risk of interruption,—for that it must come to such I am fully determined on. The fact is, Bob, my note is a "stunner," and, as I won't retract, Morris has no alternative but to come out.
I have now given you—at full length too—the whole history, up to the catastrophe,—which perhaps may have to be supplied by another hand. I am here, in this little capital of artists and quarry men, patiently waiting for Bel-ton's arrival, or at least some despatch, which may direct my future movements. It has been a comfort to me to have the task of this recital, since, for the time at least, it takes me out of brooding and gloomy thoughts; and though I feel that I have made out a poor case for myself, I know that I am pleading to a friendly Court and a merciful Chief Justice.
They say that in the few seconds of a drowning agony a man calls up every incident of his life,—from infancy to the last moment,—that a whole panorama of his existence is unrolled before him, and that he sees himself—child, boy, youth, and man—vividly and palpably; that all his faults, his short-comings, and his transgressions stand out in strong colors before him, and his character is revealed to him like an inscription. I am half persuaded this may be true, judging from what I have myself experienced within these few hours of solitude here. Shame, sorrow, and regret are ever present with me. I feel utterly disgraced before the bar of my own conscience. Even of the advantages which foreign travel might have conferred, how few have fallen to my share!—in modern languages I have scarcely made any progress, with respect to works of art I am deplorably ignorant, while in everything that concerns the laws and the modes of government of any foreign State I have to confess myself totally uninformed. To be sure, I have acquired some insight into the rogueries of "Rouge-et-Noir," I can slang a courier, and even curse a waiter; but I have some misgivings whether these be gifts either to promote a man's fortune or form his character. In fact, I begin to feel that engrafting Continental slang upon home "snobbery" is a very unrewarding process, and I sorely fear that I have done very little more than this.
I am in a mood to make a clean breast of it, and perhaps say more than I should altogether like to remember hereafter, so will conclude for the present, and with my most sincere affection write myself, as ever, yours,