Afloat and Ashore: A Sea Tale

by James Fenimore Cooper

“I am afraid not, sir. I should have studied law, sir, had I wished to make myself a gentleman.”

“There are lots of vulgar fellows getting into the law, Miles—men who have not half your claims to be considered gentlemen. I hope you do not think I wished you and Rupert to study law in order to make gentlemen of you?”

“No, sir; it was unnecessary to take that step as regards Rupert, who was fully born in the station. Clergymen have a decided position all over the world, I believe; and then you are extremely well connected otherwise, Mr. Hardinge. Rupert has no occasion for such an assistance—with me it was a little different.”

“Miles—Miles—this is a strange fancy to come over a young man in your situation—and who, I am afraid, has been the subject of envy, only too often, to Rupert!”

“If the truth were known, Mr. Hardinge, I dare say both Rupert and Lucy, in their secret hearts, think they possess advantages, in the way of social station, that do not belong to Grace and myself.”

Mr. Hardinge looked hurt, and I was soon sorry that I had made this speech. Nor would I have the reader imagine that what I had said, proceeded in the least from that narrow selfish feeling, which, under the blustering pretension of equality, presumes to deny the existence of a very potent social fact; but simply from the sensitiveness of feelings, which, on this subject, were somewhat in danger of becoming morbid, through the agency of the most powerful passion of the human heart—or, that which has well been called the master-passion. Nevertheless, Mr. Hardinge was much too honest a man to deny a truth, and much too sincere to wish even to prevaricate about it, however unpleasant it might be to acknowledge it, in all its unpleasant bearings.

“I now understand you, Miles; and it would be idle to pretend that there is not some justice in what you say, though I attach very little importance to it, myself. Rupert is not exactly what I could wish him to be in all things, and possibly he may be coxcomb enough, at times, to fancy he has this slight advantage over you,—but, as for Lucy, I'll engage she never thinks of you but as a second brother—and that she loves you exactly as she loves Rupert.”

Mr. Hardinge's simplicity was of proof, and it was idle to think of making any impression on it. I changed the subject, therefore, and this was easily enough done, by beginning again to talk about the potatoes. I was far from being easy, nevertheless; for I could not avoid seeing that the good divine's restlessness might readily widen the little breach which had opened between his daughter and myself.

That day, at dinner, I discovered that Grace's winter in town had led to a sensible melioration of the domestic economy; most especially as related to the table. My father and mother had introduced some changes, which rendered the Clawbonny household affairs a little different from those of most other of the Ulster county families near our own class; but their innovations, or improvements, or whatever they might be called, were far from being as decided as those introduced by their daughter. Nothing, perhaps, sooner denotes the condition of people, than the habits connected with the table. If eating and drinking be not done in a certain way, and a way founded in reason, too, as indeed are nearly all the customs of polished life, whatever may be the cant of the ultras of reason—but, if eating and drinking be not done in a certain way, your people of the world perceive it sooner than almost anything else. There is, also, more of common sense and innate fitness, in the usages of the table, so long as they are not dependent on mere caprice, than in almost any other part of our deportment; for everybody must eat, and most persons choose to eat decently. I had been a little nervous on the subject of the Mertons, in connection with the Clawbonny table, I will confess; and great was my delight when I found the breakfast going off so well. As for the Major, himself by no means familiar with the higher classes of his own country, he had that great stamp of a gentleman, simplicity; and he was altogether above the cockney distinctions of eating and drinking; those about cheese and malt liquors, and such vulgar niceties; nor was he a man to care about the silver-forkisms; but he understood that portion of the finesse of the table which depended on reason and taste, and was accustomed to observe it. This I knew from near a twelve month's intercourse, and I had feared we might turn out to be a little too rustic.

Grace had made provisions against all this, with a tact and judgment for which I could have worshipped her. I knew the viands, the vegetables, and the wines would all be good of their kind, for in these we seldom failed; nor did I distrust the cookery, the English-descended families of the Middle States, of my class, understanding that to perfection; but I feared we should fail in those little incidents of style and arrangement, and in the order of the service, that denote a well-regulated table. This is just what Grace had seen to; and I found that a great revolution had been quietly effected in this branch of our domestic economy during my absence; thanks to Grace's observations while at Mrs. Bradfort's.