The stamp of a breathless originality lies upon each character, however minor, and commingled in their creation is an indescribable mixture of weight and delicacy, of solid, massive strength and finish to a hair’s breadth—the finish of a purely-cut cameo. Of the wise youth, that delightful cynic, turning to obesity, and devoted to his stomach, it would be impossible to say enough. Every sentence, long and short, that he utters is a gem of matchless and irresistible wit. Adrian Harley’s wit is unique, and beside him Sheridan himself must be content with a lower place. If he breeds a sceptical thought in our breast, it is the doubt that any man in real life could be so continuously and unpremeditatedly witty throughout a reasonably long record of utterances. Though not purposely a leading character, he becomes so by force of his own individuality, and the pronounced part he plays in the development of Richard’s career.
The story opens with a description of the inmates of Raynham Abbey, the seat of Sir Austin Feverel, the hero’s father. This quaint individual is introduced to us as the anonymous author of a notable book, ‘The Pilgrim’s Scrip,’ with one aphorism of which we are startled on the first page: ‘I expect that woman will be the last thing civilized by man.’ We see at once that we have to deal with a gentleman who, like Plato and Schopenhauer, and a long list of intervening philosophers, holds the amiable sex in scorn. Here we have ‘the imperfect animal’ of the one and ‘the ugly sex’ of the other more courteously, but not less contemptuously, defined. There is no pretension to novelty, for he admits that ‘our new thoughts have thrilled dead bosoms.’
Reading further, we discover the clue to his scorn of woman. The poor gentleman has been wronged upon his hearth, and is a widower while yet his wife lives. He once had a wife he loved devotedly, and a friend, a poet, whom he trusted. The one betrayed his love and the other his confidence. The story is not new, but novel indeed is its effect upon Sir Austin Feverel. Bankrupt in love and friendship, he fell upon bitterness. To keep his heart alive, while presenting a mask of indifference to intimates and relatives, he concentrated all his hopes upon his baby boy, and, for the child’s ultimate misfortune, resolved to found a system for his benefit. But he wishes his paternal tenderness to remain unsuspected by others, and dismisses the nurse who caught him sobbing over his son’s cradle.
The inmates of Raynham are certainly a queer collection of specimens: Hippias, once thought to be the genius of the family, but a premature victim to strong appetites and a weak stomach, living in the embraces of dyspepsia, and engaged in a perpetual contention with his dinner. Algernon Feverel, whose career as a gentleman of the Guards lay in his legs, until it was irrevocably cut short by the loss of one on a cricket-ground, when he devoted himself to the direction of his nephew’s animal vigour ‘with a melancholy vivacity.’ A venerable lady, known as Great-Aunt Grantley, who spent the day preparing for dinner and the night in remembering it. Mrs. Doria Forey, the baronet’s eldest sister, who fixed herself at the Abbey with the intention of marrying her only daughter, Clare, to the Hope of Raynham. There are two other Feverel ladies, known as the mothers of two remarkable sons, one our delightful wise youth, Adrian Harley, and the other, Austin Wentworth, a noble youth, who had nobly redeemed a common fault in the lives of young men, by marriage, and ‘was condemned to undergo the world’s harsh judgment, not for the fault—for its atonement.’ ‘Adrian was noted for his sagacity, which carried the world, but brought him no friends. His problem for life was to satisfy his appetites without rashly staking his character.’ He was polished, luxurious, and happy at the cost of others, and, while pursuing the maids of earth, enjoyed a reputation for virtue. The world declared him moral and wise, ‘and the pleasing converse every way of his disgraced cousin Austin.’ And we ever greet him cordially, for all his vices, and the ‘edge to his smile, which cuts much like a sneer.’
In this varied domestic circle Richard is brought up, the victim of a system. He was carefully kept from the corruption of public schools, and destined to enter upon manhood immaculate and perfect. On his fourteenth birthday we meet him in revolt against the system, and flying with his serf, Ripton, from a medical examination proposed by his father, who understands physical perfection to be wedded to moral perfection. Ripton tells him that his sentiments are those of a girl, whereupon the lads quarrel, as only boys and other barbarians quarrel, and make it up in gallant fashion when they hear voices coming in their search. Their running leads them to trespass, and brings them into ugly collision with one Farmer Blaize, who gives them a taste of the whip, and thus rouses a passion of indignation in Richard’s breast. He threatens to shoot the farmer, and instead conspires for revenge by arson. Here we are introduced to a silent and unobtrusive little maid, Richard’s cousin Clare, who passes through the book a maidenly phantom, only tragically revealed to Richard and to us by her death and sorrowful little diary. Her offence with Richard on his birthday for his neglect of her, and her penetration at night into his chamber, is the second occasion in her short life for departing from the curious negation and reserve of her character. She drifts with circumstances, guided by her mother, and holds her tongue. Of her feelings and sentiments we are in the dark, until the despair of silence stretches her upon her deathbed in search of rest. Silent, white, not understood, she remains for us the most pathetic figure in the book. Neither she nor the author choose to court our sympathies by any of the ordinary sensational methods, and her cold pride and his reserve are equally powerful in securing them.
Meanwhile, the conspiring Richard, unmindful of Clare, is exciting profound reflection in the bosom of the wise youth. ‘My respected chief,’ the latter apostrophizes Sir Austin, ‘combustibles are only the more dangerous for compression. This boy will be ravenous for earth when he is let loose, and very soon make his share of it look as foolish as yonder game-pie!’ Hearing Sir Austin make the round of the house at night, he remarks: ‘A monomaniac at large, watching over sane people in slumber.’
Sir Austin, marching onward, hears strange talk, between his son and Master Ripton, of fire and delay, and violence and vengeance, when Sir Austin condescends to play the spy. He discovers that the Hope of Raynham has embarked in his own vessel upon the waters of life. A sensation of infinite pity overcomes the poor baronet, asking himself what the years will do when one day has done so much; but he is consoled by the consciousness of his own part of Providence to his son. Baited and worried by his sagacious cousin, who shrewdly suspects his guilt, Richard takes refuge in lies. He lies upon a gigantic scale, to the horror of his father and the amusement of his cousin. But there is a fine and captivating manliness in his lies. He is a perfect boy in all his moods—an English boy, barbaric, brave, and pure. Observing him, Adrian says: ‘Boys are like monkeys, the gravest actors of farcical nonsense that the world possesses’—which philosophizing leads him to Hamlet and Ophelia. ‘She, poor maid! asks for marriage and smiling babes, while my lord lover stands questioning the Infinite and rants to the Impalpable.’ And when reminded of his responsibilities as Richard’s tutor, he replies: ‘I take my young prince as I find him: a Julian or a Caracalla, a Constantine or a Nero. Then if he will play the fiddle to a conflagration, he shall play it well; if he must be a disputatious apostate, at any rate he shall understand logic and men, and have the habit of saying his prayers.’
After the arson adventure, the shifts and lies, the failure of a scheme to help Tom Bakewell out of prison for his own crime, confession, and the bitter cup of an apology to Farmer Blaize, forced upon him by his father, Richard comes through the first stage of his ordeal a wiser and a better youth. There is a solemn reconciliation between him and the ruffled system-creator; tears, embraces, and a new aphorism on the part of Sir Austin: ‘Expediency is man’s wisdom; doing right is God’s.’ Reviewing affairs in an ingenuous letter to his fellow-conspirator, Richard says of his future divinity: ‘Wherever there’s mischief, there are girls, I think. She had the insolence to notice my face, and ask me not to be unhappy. I was polite, of course (British-boy fashion), but I would not look at her.’
This brings us to the blossoming and critical season of the system. Behold him on the edge of youth, beautiful and strong in body, guileless and pure. He takes to blushing, long vigils, and consumes paper—all dangerous signs. The father is distressed, and orders him to burn his poetic effusions, deciding, since the mention of love is dangerous at this age, to put everyone at Raynham on their guard. Servants in love are dismissed, the others are ordered to be discreet and avoid kissing. The visits of a hopeless curate, in love with Mrs. Doria, are interdicted, and this excellent lady is ordered to remove her daughter from the Abbey. In this virtuous solitude Richard becomes wayward and miserable, rides like fire about the country, and has discovered the nothingness of all things. Adrian reports him as extraordinarily cynical. He startles Sir Austin in sentimental fooling with Lady Blandish’s hand, and finds he has discovered the secret of life. He discourses pensively with other stricken males about women’s names, and here we come upon the beautiful introduction of Lucy, the second of the immortal duet of Meredith. Who does not remember that lovely passage beginning?—
‘Above green, flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the thunder below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor among the reeds.’ This preludes the divine love-scenes, the sweet romance of boy and maid, in a setting of fair landscape, described as no other pen can describe English scenery. To analyze these chapters, or select any passages by preference, were as idle as to attempt to catch a sunray or sketch a flying cloud. They are written in sunlight to the music of love. To quote from them would be to spoil their beauty. As we read, it is not only on Richard that the gracious glory of heaven has fallen. We, too, are under the spell, and, while we read on, remember all we had thought forgotten and dead in the fold of forgotten years.