Miss Palmer, not knowing what better to do, joined his lordship in the forced laugh. The surly Hector shewed every propensity to brutal revenge, but had only the courage to bully; in which art the lord and the lady soon shewed they were as great proficients as himself.
As for the feelings of the blooming Harriet and me, they were reciprocal; we were equally averse to acknowledge each other for acquaintance. I did not wish to be proclaimed the dupe of a courtezan, nor she to pay back the ten guineas, or be sued for a fraud. Hector was in no humour to stay, and we soon returned to Oxford; I ruminating and even laughing, now at myself, now at him; he in high dudgeon, and finding his choler and his courage increase in proportion as he was driven farther from danger.
CHAPTER XVI
Education still progressive: A widow's continence: Religious fervour: A methodist sermon: Olivia in danger: Love dreams: Fanatic horrors: Present disgrace, and honours delayed
During the short period of my absence from my native home, I had been taught two additional and essential lessons: the first, that men are not all as good as they might be; and the second, that I was not quite so wise as I had supposed myself. Having once been duped, the thought occurred that it was possible I might be duped again, and I thus acquired some small degree of what is called worldly caution. At once to display one vice and teach another, to expose fraud and inspire suspicion, is, to an unadulterated mind, a severe and odious lesson; and, when repeated too often, is in danger of inculcating a mistake infinitely more pernicious than that of credulity; that is, a conviction that man is depraved by nature, and a total forgetfulness that he is merely the creature of habit and accident.
Hitherto I had met disappointment; but I had found novelty; and though it was not the novelty I expected, yet it was invigorating: it kept me awake. The qualities for which I most valued myself no one indeed seemed to notice. But the world was before me; I had seen but little of it; my own feelings assured me genius and virtue had a real existence, and sometime or another I should find them.
Among consolatory thoughts, the most animating was the recollection of what Turl had said, that, to the possessor of fortitude and virtue, Oxford was a place where study might be most advantageously prosecuted; and, aided by this cheering hope, I applied myself to books with courage and assiduity.
On the subject of reading however my mind had strong contentions with itself: poetry, and the belles lettres, Homer, Horace, Virgil, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Tasso, Ariosto, Racine, Molière, Congreve, with a long and countless et cætera, were continually tempting me to quit the barren pursuits of divinity and law, for the study of which I had come to Oxford. Yet a sense of duty so far prevailed that I went through a course of the fathers, pored over the canonists, and made many resolute attacks upon the schoolmen. Not only Aristotle but his doctors, the irrefragable, the angelic or eagle-eyed, the subtile, the illuminated, and many more had their peaceful folios vainly disturbed by my researches, and my determination to understand what, alas, in its essence was unintelligible.
In the very beginning as it were of these labours an event took place, which gave a very serious aspect to my future fortunes, though, except the first emotions of regret chagrin and surprise at my mother's conduct, no present uneasiness to me. In despite of his law-suits, my grandfather had left considerable property; which it was supposed would descend to me. It had indeed the disadvantage of being left under the executorship of a lawyer, who represented it to be in a very involved and disorderly state: for, with respect to my mother, though she had immediate possession, she declared that, agreeably to the intention of the rector, her own subsistence excepted, she held it only for my use. Thus, in several of her letters, she had affectionately pressed me not to deprive myself of what was necessary to my situation, to the appearance of a gentleman, or to the support of the family character.
For the first two months we punctually wrote to each other once a week. 'My dear dear Hugh' was the first phrase in all her letters; and 'my kind and good mother' in mine: every maternal anxiety was expressed by her, and by me every return of filial affection and duty.