After a few moments’ pause, Vivian added, “You misunderstand, quite misunderstand me, if you think that I am not fond of my mother. I respect and love her with all my soul:—I should be a most ungrateful wretch if I did not. I did very wrong to speak as I did just now, of any little errors she may have made in my education; but, believe me, I would not have said so much to any one living but yourself, nor to you, but in strict confidence; and, after all, I don’t know whether I ought not to lay the blame of my faults on my masters more than on my poor mother.”
“Lay the blame where we will,” said Russell, “remember, that the punishment will rest on ourselves. We may, with as much philosophic justice as possible, throw the blame of our faults on our parents and preceptors, and on the early mismanagement of our minds; yet, after we have made out our case in the abstract, to the perfect satisfaction of a jury of metaphysicians, when we come to overt actions, all our judges, learned and unlearned, are so awed, by the ancient precedents and practice of society, and by the obsolete law of common sense, that they finish by pronouncing against us the barbarous sentence, that every man must suffer for his own faults.”
“‘I hope I shall be able to bear it, my lord,’ as the English sailor said when the judge——But look out there! Let down that glass on your side of the carriage!” cried Vivian, starting forward. “There’s Vivian Hall!”
“That fine old castle?” said Russell, looking out of the window.
“No; but farther off to the left, don’t you see amongst the trees that house with wings?”
“Ha! quite a new, modern house: I had always fancied that Vivian Hall was an old pile of building.”
“So it was, till my father threw down the old hall, and built this new house.”
“And a very handsome one it is.—Is it as good within as without?”
“Quite, I think; but I’ll leave you to judge for yourself.—Are not those fine old trees in the park?”
From this time till the travellers arrived at Vivian Hall, their conversation turned upon trees, and avenues, and serpentine approaches, and alterations that Vivian intended to make, when he should be of age, and master of this fine place; and he now wanted but a twelvemonth of being at legal years of discretion. When they arrived at the hall, Lady Mary Vivian showed much affectionate joy at the sight of her son, and received Mr. Russell with such easy politeness that he was prepossessed at first in her favour. To this charm of well-bred manners was united the appearance of sincerity and warmth of feeling. In her conversation there was a mixture of excellent sense and general literature with the frivolities of the fashionable world, and the anecdotes of the day in certain high circles, of which she seemed to talk more from habit than taste, and to annex importance more from the compulsion of external circumstances than from choice. But her son,—her son was the great object of all her thoughts, serious or frivolous. She was delighted by the improvements she saw in his understanding and character; by the taste and talents he displayed, both for fine literature and for solid information: this flattered her hope that he would both shine as a polished gentleman and make a figure in public life. To his friend Russell she attributed these happy improvements; and, though he was not a tutor of her own original selection, yet her pride, on this occasion, yielded to gratitude, and she graciously declared, that she could not feel jealous of the pre-eminent power he had obtained over her son, when she saw the admirable use he made of this influence. Vivian, like all candid and generous persons, being peculiarly touched by candour and generosity in others, felt his affection for his mother rapidly increased by this conduct; nor did his enthusiasm for his friend in the least abate, in consequence of the high approbation with which she honoured him, nor even in consequence of her ladyship’s frequent and rather injudicious expressions of her hopes, that her son would always preserve and show himself worthy of such a friend.