To detail all that farther passed, between Olivia and Miss Wilmot, with the particulars which the latter related to me, would but be to repeat sensations and incidents that are already familiar to the reader. And, with respect to my own feelings, those he will doubtless have anticipated. What could they be but rapture? What could they inspire but resolution: the power to endure, and the will to persevere?
CHAPTER IX
The study of oratory: Remarks on fashionable manners and their consequences: A public dinner: Emotions at the meeting of quondam acquaintance: Amenity without doors and anger within compatible: A discovery made by the Baronet: The contending passions of surprise, resentment, and pity: Ravages committed by vice: An awful scene, or a warning to gluttony
Previous to this event, I should have imagined it impossible to have increased my affection: yet, if admiration be the basis of love, as I am persuaded it is, my love was certainly increased. I now seemed to be setting forward on a journey, of the length of which I was indeed wholly ignorant; but the road was made plain, and the end was inexpressible happiness. I should therefore travel with unwearied alacrity.
But, that I might shorten this unmeasured length of way, it was necessary I should be as active in pursuit as I was ardent in my passion: and the stimulus was a strong one. Oratory accordingly, Olivia excepted, became the object that seemed the dearest to my heart. Demosthenes and Cicero were my great masters. They and their modern competitors were my study, day and night. No means were neglected that precept or example, as far as they came within my knowledge, could afford: and the additional intercourse which I thus acquired with man, his motives, actions, and heart, was a school of the highest order.
I did not however entirely confine myself to the society of the dead: the living likewise constituted a seminary, in which I found frequent opportunities of gaining instruction. Impelled by curiosity and ambition, I was not remiss in cultivating an acquaintance among those people of fashion to whom I gained access.
But, as the tribe that bestow on themselves this titillating epithet have a light and versatile character, as they abound in praises that are void of discrimination, and promises that are unmeaning, and affect at one moment the most winning urbanity, and at the next the most supercilious arrogance, though they gave me much pleasure, they likewise gave me exquisite pain.
The more I became acquainted with them, the more I was amazed, that the man who had been talking to me in the evening on terms of the utmost apparent equality, if I met him the next morning, did not know me.
Some of them would even gaze full in my face, as if to enquire—'Who are you, sir?' but in reality to insult me. The looks of these most courteous and polished people seem to say 'In the name of all that is high-bred, how does it happen that persons of fashion do not unite to stare every such impertinent upstart out of their company?'
Of all the insolence that disturbs society, and puts it in a state of internal warfare, the insolence of fashion wounds and imbitters the most. It instantly provokes the offended person to enquire—'What kind of being is it, that takes upon him to brave, insult, and despise me? Has he more strength, more activity, more understanding than myself?' In numerous instances, he is imbecile in body, more imbecile still in mind, and contemptible in person. Nay he is often little better than a driveller.