CHAPTER XIII.
Lady Cecilia was now impatient to have the house filled with company. She gave Helen a catalogue raisonné of all who were expected at Clarendon Park, some for a fashionable three days’ visit; some for a week; some for a fortnight or three weeks, be the same more or less. “I have but one fixed principle,” said she, “but I have one,—never to have tiresome people when it can possibly be avoided. Impossible, you know, it is sometimes. One’s own and one’s husband’s relations one must have; but, as for the rest, it’s one’s own fault if one fails in the first and last maxim of hospitality—to welcome the coming and speed the parting guest.”
The first party who arrived were of Lady Davenant’s particular friends, to whom Cecilia had kindly given the precedence, if not the preference, that her mother might have the pleasure of seeing them, and that they might have the honour of taking leave of her, before her departure from England.
They were political, fashionable, and literary; some of ascendency in society, some of parliamentary promise, and some of ministerial eminence—the aristocracy of birth and talents well mixed.
The aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy of talents are words now used more as a commonplace antithesis, than as denoting a real difference or contrast. In many instances, among those now living, both are united in a manner happy for themselves and glorious for their country. England may boast of having among her young nobility
“The first in birth, the first in fame."
men distinguished in literature and science, in senatorial eloquence and statesmanlike abilities.
But in this party at Clarendon Park there were more of the literary and celebrated than without the presence of Lady Davenant could perhaps have been assembled, or perhaps would have been desired by the general and Lady Cecilia. Cecilia’s beauty and grace were of all societies, and the general was glad for Lady Davenant’s sake and proud for his own part, to receive these distinguished persons at his house.