"Society," said I, becoming metaphorical, "is like a fluid which is pervaded by that ingredient which you call 'snobbism,' the peculiarity of which is that you find it in equal perfection when it sinks to the bottom and becomes dregs, and when it rises to the surface and becomes crême—though of course it undergoes some curious chemical changes, according to its position. However, that is only one of the elements which pollute what should be a transparent fluid. I am subjecting it just now to a most minute and careful analysis, and I feel sure I shall succeed in obtaining an interesting 'precipitate.' I do most earnestly trust both you and the world at large will profit by my experiments."
"Frank, you are a lunatic," said Spiffy, with a yawn, for I was beginning to bore him. "I suppose I can't help your publishing what you like, only you will do yourself more harm than me. Let me know when society has 'precipitated' you out of it, and I will come and see you. Nobody else will. Good-bye!"
"He calls me a lunatic," I murmured, as I went down-stairs; "I thought that I should be most likely to hear the truth by applying to the Honourable Spiffington."
The same reasons which have compelled me to maintain a certain reserve in relating my conversation with this gentleman prevent me fully describing the steps which I am at present taking to arrange Lady Broadhem's affairs, and which will occupy me during the Easter recess. Now, thank goodness, I think I see my way to preventing the grand crash which she feared, but I decline to state the amount of my own fortune which will be sacrificed in the operation. The great inconvenience of the whole proceeding is the secrecy which it necessarily involves. Grandon is under the impression that I am gambling on the Stock Exchange, and is miserable in consequence, because he fancies I add to that sin the more serious one of denying it. Lady Ursula, whom I have avoided seeing alone, but who knows that I am constantly plotting in secret with her mother, is no doubt beginning to think that I am wicked as well as mad, and is evidently divided between the secret obligation of keeping the secret of my insanity, and her dread lest in some way or other her mother should be the victim of it. Lady Bridget is unmistakably afraid of me. The other day when I went into the drawing-room and found her alone, she turned as pale as a sheet, jumped up, and stammered out something about going to find mamma, and rushed out of the room. Did I not believe in Ursula as in my own existence, I could almost fancy she had betrayed me. Then there is Broadhem. He is utterly puzzled. He knows that I am come to pull the family out of the mess, and put his own cherished little person into a financially sound condition; and he is equally well assured that I would not make this sacrifice without feeling certain of marrying his sister. But, in the first place, that any man should sacrifice anything, either for his sister or any other woman, is a mystery to Broadhem; and, in the second, I strongly suspect that Ursula has said something which makes him very doubtful whether she is engaged to me or not. Poor girl! I feel for her. Was ever a daughter and sister before placed in the embarrassing position of leaving her own mother and brother in the delusion that she was engaged to be married to a man who had never breathed to her the subject of his love, much less of matrimony? Then Spiffy and Lady Broadhem's lawyer both look upon the marriage as settled: how else can they account for the trouble I am taking, and the liberality I am displaying? There is something mysterious, moreover, in the terms upon which I am in the house. Lady Broadhem is beginning to think it unnatural that I should not care to see more of Ursula; and whenever she is not quite absorbed with considering her own affairs, is making the arrangement known among mammas by the expression, "bringing the young people together"—as if any young people who really cared to be together, could not bring themselves together without mamma or anybody else interfering. Fortunately Lady Broadhem is so much more taken up with her own speculations than with either her daughter's happiness or mine, that I am always able to give the conversation a City turn when she broaches the delicate subject of Ursula. How Ursula manages on these occasions I cannot conceive, but I do my best to prevent Lady Broadhem talking about me to her, as I always say mysteriously, that if she does, "it will spoil everything"—an alarming phrase, which produces an immediate effect. Still it is quite clear that this kind of thing can't continue long. If I can only keep matters going for a few days more, they will all be out of town for Easter, and that will give me time to breathe. As it is, it is impossible to shut my eyes to the fact, that my best friend is beginning to doubt me—that the girl I love dreads me—and that the rest of the family, and those sufficiently connected with it to observe my proceedings, either pity, laugh at, or despise me. This, however, by no means prevents their using their utmost endeavours to ruin me. That is the present state of matters. The situation cannot remain unchanged during the next four weeks. Have I your sympathies, dear reader? Do you wish me well out of it?
PART IV.
THE WORLD.
Piccadilly, May.
The great difficulty which I find in this record of my eventful existence is, that I have too much to say. The sensations of my life will not distribute themselves properly. It is quite impossible for me to cram all that I think, say, and do every month into the limited space at my disposal. Thus I am positively overwhelmed with the brilliant dialogues, the elevating reflections, and the thrilling incidents, all of which I desire to relate. No one who has not tried this sort of thing can imagine the chronological, to say nothing of the crinological, difficulties in which I find myself. For instance, the incidents which occupied the whole of my last chapter took place in twenty-four hours, and yet how could I have left out either the poison-scene, or my interview with Grandon, or Spiffy's interesting social projects? Much better have left out the poison-scene, say some of my critical friends. It was not natural—too grotesque; but is that my fault? If nature has jammed me into a most unnatural and uncomfortable niche in that single step which is said to lead from the sublime to the ridiculous, am I responsible for it? If, instead of taking merely a serio-comic view of life, like some of my acquaintances, I regard it from a tragic-burlesque aspect, how can I help it? I did not put my ideas into my own head, nor invent the extraordinary things that happen to me,—and this is the reflection which renders me so profoundly indifferent to criticism. I shall have reviewers finding out that I am inconsistent with myself, and not true to nature here—as, for instance, when I fell violently in love with Ursula in one evening; or to the first principles of art there—as when I wrote to propose to her next morning: as if both art and nature could not take care of themselves without my bothering my head about them. Once for all, then, my difficulties do not arise from this source at all; they are, as I have said before, of the most simple character. In fact, they resolve themselves into Kant's two great a priori ideas, time and space. Now I could quite easily run on in the moral reflective vein to the end of the chapter, but then what should I do with the conversations which I ought to record, but to which I shall not be able to do justice, because I am so bound and fettered by the chain of my narrative? What an idea of weakness it conveys of an author who talks of "the thread of his narrative!" I even used to feel it when I was in the diplomatic service, and received a severe "wigging" once for writing in one of my despatches, "My lord, I have the honour to resume the 'tape' of my narrative"—so wedded is the Foreign Office to the traditions of its own peculiar style. I was glad afterwards they kept me to "the thread," as when I wanted finally to break it I found no difficulty. By the way, after I have done with society, I am going to take up the departments of the public service. If I let them alone just now, it is only because I am so desperately in love, and my love is so desperately hopeless; and the whole thing is in such a mess, that one mess is enough. At present I am setting my dwelling-house in order. When that is done I will go to work to clean out the "offices."