The conversation continued, and he was again becoming warm; and, while Frank was laying down the law to my aunt, at which I could perceive his tongue tingled, I took an opportunity to warn him to beware, for that I had more than one crow to pluck with him already.
However, as the best and securest mode was, from the temper of the parties, to put an end to the conversation, I rose, and proposed a walk, and my proposal was accepted.
I was particularly cautious to say as little to Frank as I could, purposely that Clifton might have no retort upon me; though a part of my plan is to accustom him to see me just to the merits of Frank, without indulging any unworthy suspicions. But this I did not think a fit occasion for such experiments.
We returned to town, and I purposed, when Clifton should come to pay me his morning visit next day, to read him a gentle lecture. Of this he was aware; and, feeling, as I suppose, that he should make a bad serious defence, knew a comic one would better serve his turn: for his fancy and humour appear to be inexhaustible. The first thing he did, when he entered the room, was to fall down on his knees, like a child to his school-mistress, holding his hands pressed flatly together, with a piteous face and a 'Pray, pray!' I laughed, and told him he was a very bad child. His 'Pray, pray!' was repeated, with another strangely pleasant contortion of countenance. But I still answered—'No, indeed—I should not forgive him, till I had made him truly sensible of his fault.' On which he rose from his knees, pulled out a paper fool's cap, which he had been carving and fashioning for himself, fixed it on his head, and placed himself, with a new kind of penitential countenance, in a corner; continuing such quaint mimickry, of a child in sorrow, that there was no resisting fair and downright laughter.
I still made two or three attempts to begin to argue; but they were ineffectual; they were all answered with some new antics; and I was obliged at last to say—'Well, well! I find you are sensible how much you deserve punishment; and therefore I dare say you will take care not to offend in future.'
After this, he gave the whole discourse a comic and a witty cast, embellishing it with all the flights of his rich and strong imagination, on purpose to avoid the possibility of remonstrance. This is a certain sign that it must be very painful to him; unless indeed we allow for the pleasure which he cannot but take, in exhibiting the activity of his mind. Yet painful I am sure it is. Contradiction is thing to which he has not been accustomed. He has no doubt led the opinions of his companions; partly by conforming to and strengthening their favourite prejudices, though chiefly by his superior talents: and to be too often encountered, by any one whose intellects are more clear and consistent than his own, is a kind of degradation to which he scarcely knows how to submit.
With respect to Frank Henley, whenever he is pleading the cause of truth, he is inflexible. I have sometimes indeed known him silent, when he was hopeless of doing good: but at others I have heard him blame himself for this, and assert that we never ought to despair; for that truth, no matter how violently opposed at the moment, would revive in the mind, and do her office, when the argument and the anger should be wholly forgotten.
I believe the observation to be just. But he is no common thinker! No! I am almost persuaded he is the first of human beings! Equal, nay I have sometimes even thought superior, to Louisa herself!
As you perceive, dear friend of my heart, that I know you too well to fear offending you, I am sure you will do me the justice at the same time to confess that I do not seek to flatter.
Thus, dear Louisa, you perceive, we do not perhaps make quite so swift a progress as we could wish: but we must be satisfied. The march of knowledge is slow, impeded as it is by the almost impenetrable forests and morasses of error. Ages have passed away, in labours to bring some of the most simple of moral truths to light, which still remain overclouded and obscure. How far is the world, at present, from being convinced that it is not only possible, but perfectly practicable, and highly natural, for men to associate with most fraternal union, happiness, peace, and virtue, were but all distinction of rank and riches wholly abolished; were all the false wants of luxury, which are the necessary offspring of individual property, cut off; were all equally obliged to labour for the wants of nature, and for nothing more; and were they all afterward to unite, and to employ the remainder of their time, which would then be ample, in the promotion of art and science, and in the search of wisdom and truth!