Mr. Elmour put into her hand a packet of her own letters to Frederick, and a miniature picture of herself, which she had formerly given to her lover. This was an unexpected stroke. His generosity—his firmness of character—the idea of losing him for ever—all rushed upon her mind at once.
Artificial manners vanish the moment the natural passions are touched. Almeria clasped her hands in an agony of grief, and exclaimed, “Is he gone? gone for ever?—I have deserved it!”—The letters and picture fell from her hand, and she sunk back quite overpowered. When she recovered, she found herself in the open air on a seat under Mr. Elmour’s study windows, and Ellen beside her.
“Pity, forgive, and advise me, my dear, my best, my only real friend,” said Almeria: “never did I want your advice so much as at this moment.”
“You shall have it, then, without reserve,” said Ellen, “and without fear that it should be attributed to any unworthy motive. I could almost as soon wish for my brother’s death as desire to see him united to any woman, let her beauty and accomplishments be what they might, who had a mean or frivolous character, such as could consider money as the greatest good, or dissipation as the prime object of life. I am firmly persuaded, my dear Almeria, that however you may be dazzled by the first view of what is called fashionable life, you will soon see things as they really are, and that you will return to your former tastes and feelings.”
“Oh! I am, I am returned to them!” cried Almeria; “I will write directly to Lady Stock and to Sir Thomas, to tell them that I have changed my mind—only prevail upon your father to be my guardian.”
“That is out of my power,” said Ellen; “and I think that it is much better you should be as you are, left completely at liberty, and entirely independent of us. I advise you, Almeria, to persist in your scheme of spending the ensuing winter in town with Lady Stock—then you will have an opportunity of comparing your own different feelings, and of determining what things are essential to your happiness. If you should find that the triumphs of fashion delight you more than the pleasures of domestic life; pursue them—your fortune will put it in your power; you will break no engagements; and you will have no reproaches to fear from us. On the contrary, if you find that your happiness depends upon friendship and love, and that the life we formerly led together is that which you prefer, you will return to Elmour Grove, to your friend and your lover, and your choice will not be that of romance, but of reason.”
It was with difficulty that Almeria, in her present fit of enthusiasm, could be brought to listen to sober sense and true friendship. Her parting from Ellen and Mr. Elmour cost her many tears, and she returned to her fashionable friend with swollen eyes and a heavy heart. Her sorrow, however, was soon forgotten in the bustle and novelty of a new situation. Upon her arrival in London, fresh trains of ideas were quickly forced upon her mind, which were as dissimilar as possible from those associated with love, friendship, and Elmour Grove. At Sir Thomas Stock’s, every thing she saw and heard served to remind, or rather to convince her, of the opulence of the owner of the house. Here every object was estimated, not for its beauty or elegance, but by its costliness. Money was the grand criterion, by which the worth of animate and inanimate objects was alike decided. In this society, the worship of the golden idol was avowed without shame or mystery; and all who did not bow the knee to it were considered as hypocrites or fools. Our heroine, possessed of two hundred thousand pounds, could not fail to have a large share of incense—every thing she said, or looked, was applauded in Sir Thomas Stock’s family; and she would have found admiration delightful, if she had not suspected that her fortune alone entitled her to all this applause. This was rather a mortifying reflection. By degrees, however, her delicacy on this subject abated; she learned philosophically to consider her fortune a thing so immediately associated with herself as to form a part of her personal merit. Upon this principle, she soon became vain of her wealth, and she was led to overrate the consequence that riches bestow on their possessor.
In a capital city, such numerous claimants for distinction appear, with beauty, birth, wit, fashion, or wealth to support their pretensions, that the vanity of an individual, however clamorous, is immediately silenced, if not humbled. When Miss Turnbull went into public, she was surprised by the discovery of her own, nay even of Lady Stock’s insignificance. At York her ladyship was considered as a personage high as human veneration could look; but in London she was lost in a crowd of fellow-mortals.
It is, perhaps, from this sense of humiliation, that individuals combine together, to obtain by their union that importance and self-complacency, which separately they could never enjoy. Miss Turnbull observed, that a numerous acquaintance was essential to those who lived much in public—that the number of bows and curtsies, and the consequence of the persons by whom they are given or received, is the measure of merit and happiness. Nothing can be more melancholy than most places of public amusement, to those who are strangers to the crowds which fill them.
Few people have such strength of mind as to be indifferent to the opinions of numbers, even considered merely as numbers; hence those who live in crowds, in fact surrender the power of thinking for themselves, either in trifles or matters of consequence. Our heroine had imagined before she came to town, that Lady Stock moved in the highest circle of fashion; but she soon perceived that many of the people of rank who visited her ladyship, and who partook of her sumptuous entertainments, thought they condescended extremely whilst they paid this homage to wealth.