"And that poor Captain Steele?"
The Earl's grave face was suddenly illuminated with a smile.
"Dear Dick Steele—the softest-hearted, bravest, gentlest fellow—always drunk, and always repenting. There never was so great a sermon preached on drunkenness as Dick Steele himself was. But for drink he would have been one of the happiest, as he was by nature one of the best and truest gentlemen in the world; but he was weak, and he was in consequence forever miserable. Drink brought him to debts and duns and prison and rags and infamy. Ah, madam, 'twould have made your heart bleed, as it made mine, to see poor Dick reeling along the street, dirty, unkempt, his sword bent, and he scarce knowing what he was doing; and next day, at home, where his wife and children were in hunger and cold and poverty, behold him, lying in agony on his wretched bed, weeping, groaning, reproaching himself, and suffering tortures for one hour's wicked indulgence! Then would he turn gentleman again, and for a long time be our own dear Dick Steele—his wife smiling, his children happy. I love to think on honest Dick at these times. It was then he wrote that beautiful little book, which should be in every soldier's hands, The Christian Hero. We could always tell at the club whether Dick Steele were drunk or sober by Mr. Addison's face. When Steele was acting the beast, Mr. Addison sighed often and looked melancholy all the time, and spent his money in taking such care as he could of the poor wife and children. Poor Dick! The end came at last in drunkenness and beastliness; but before he died, for a little while, he was the Dick Steele we loved, and shall ever love."
"And Mr. Pope—the queer little gentleman—who lived at Twickenham, and was so kind to his old mother?"
"Mr. Pope was a very great genius, madam, and had he not been born crooked he would have been an admirable man; but the crook in his body seemed to make a crook in his mind. He died but last year, outliving many strong men who pitied his puny frame. But let me not disparage Mr. Pope. My Lord Chesterfield, who was a very good judge of men, as well as the first gentleman of his time, entertained a high esteem for Mr. Pope."
"I also had the honor of meeting the Earl of Chesterfield," continued Madam Washington, with animation, "and he well sustained the reputation for politeness that I had heard of him, for he made as much of me as if I had been a great lady instead of a young girl from the colonies, whom chance and the kindness of a brother had brought to England, and your lordship's goodness had introduced to many people of note. 'Tis true I saw them but for a glimpse or two, but that was enough to make me remember them forever. I have tried to teach my son Lord Chesterfield's manner of saluting ladies, in which he not only implied the deepest respect for the individual, but the greatest reverence for all women."
"That is true of my Lord Chesterfield," replied the Earl, who found it enchanting to recall these friends of his youth with whom he had lived in close intimacy, "and his manners revealed the man. He had also a monstrous pretty wit. There is a great lumbering fellow of prodigious learning, one Samuel Johnson, with whom my Lord Chesterfield has become most friendly. I never saw this Johnson myself, for he is much younger than the men of whom we are speaking; but I hear from London that he is a wonder of learning, and although almost indigent, will not accept aid from his friends, but works manfully for the booksellers. He has described my Lord Chesterfield as 'a wit among lords, and a lord among wits.' I heard something of this Dr. Johnson, in a late letter from London, that I think most praiseworthy, and affording a good example to the young. His father, it seems, was a bookseller at Lichfield, where on market-days he would hire a stall in the market for the sale of his wares. One market-day, when Samuel was a youth, his father, being ill and unable to go himself, directed him to fit up the book-stall in the market and attend to it during the day. The boy, who was otherwise a dutiful son, refused to do this. Many years afterwards, his father being dead, Johnson, being as he is in great repute for learning, was so preyed upon by remorse for his undutiful conduct that he went to Lichfield and stood bareheaded in the market-place, before his father's old stall, for one whole market-day, as an evidence of his sincere penitence. I hear that some of the thoughtless jeered at him, but the better class of people respected his open acknowledgment of his fault—the more so as he was in a higher worldly position than his father had ever occupied, and it showed that he was not ashamed of an honest parent because he was of a humble class. I cannot think, madam, of that great scholar, standing all day with bare, bowed head, bearing with silent dignity the remarks of the curious, the jeers of the scoffers, without in spirit taking off my hat to him."
During this story Madam Washington fixed her eyes on George, who colored slightly, but remarked, as the Earl paused:
"It was the act of a brave man and a gentleman. There are not many of us who could do it."
Just then the door opened, and Uncle Jasper, bearing a huge tray, entered. He placed it on a round mahogany table, and Madam Washington proceeded to make tea, and offered it to the Earl with her own hands.