Ah! Mrs. Clay & Co., who look at littleness through magnifying glasses, and are blind to all true greatness, the sole of this man's slipshod shoe is cleaner than your tongue. There is no dust on his thoughts; there are no holes in the fabrics his brain weaves; and when he writes, far-away lands that know you not, and kindred greatness nearer by, feel the electric spark that slips from his pen's point.
“What a shocking person he must be!” says Miss Uncertainty, meaning to please. “I don't wonder you won't have him in town.”
“Goodness gracious, Miss Bird!” cried the lady, coloring up. “What can you be thinking of! Why, Mr. Bently is famous. He can afford to be eccentric. It is an honor to have him in one's house. People have turned and looked at me when they heard that I am his cousin; and his name opens to me places that—well, everybody can't enter. Then it is a very fine thing to have a gentleman in one's parlors who can talk to those lions whom one doesn't know what to say to, and who can tell what one's pictures, and bronzes, and [pg 624] marbles mean, and translate from every language under the sun. I well remember a time when he won for me a perfect triumph over Mrs. Everett Adams. It was delicious. Mrs. Everett Adams is always picking up lions, especially learned and scientific ones, and, when Professor Porson came here, she monopolized him at once. You cannot conceive how odiously she behaved, nor what airs she assumed. One heard nothing but Porson, Porson, till I was sick of the name; and it was impossible to go anywhere, to theatre, opera, or concert, without seeing her sail down to the most conspicuous place, after everybody was seated, with Prof. Porson in her train. Well, one evening she brought him to our house, just to plague me, and we had half a dozen or so persons to meet him. It was an evening of torment, my dear. The professor was in the clouds, with Mrs. Everett Adams fluttering behind him, like a tail after a kite, and all the rest were in raptures, except me—I was extinguished. The professor knew what every bronze and marble was, and who made it, and if it was an original or a copy; and, in short, everything I had seemed as common as possible. As a last desperate resort, I brought out some old books in foreign languages that poor dear Clay had picked up. He was always collecting things of that sort. The professor turned them over with the tips of his fingers, and read a word here and there. Oh! he knew all about them. Yes; he had read them when he was a boy. But I had begun to suspect him. My poor husband used to say that, when a man will not own that there is anything he doesn't understand, root and branch, he was always sure that that man was an impostor. So I took up two of the books that I saw he had passed over, and asked him to translate a passage for me. They looked about as much like a printed language as the figures on my carpet do. To my joy, he had to own that he couldn't. They were Chaldaic, he said, and he had made but little study in that language. Mrs. Adams glanced angrily at me, and I smiled. Just at that moment, as good luck would have it, the door opened, and in came Cousin Bently. I flew at him with the books. Triumph, my dear! Never did I have such a rapturous moment. Cousin took the books up in his slow way, put up his eye-glasses, and looked them over in such a superior manner that really my hopes rose. They were Arabic, I've forgotten what about, and he read out some passages, and translated them, all the company looking on. My dear, the Porson and Adams stock sank to less than one per cent. in an instant. The professor was red, and Mrs. Adams was pale. I could have hugged Cousin Bently on the spot, though his boots were not blacked, and his collar was in a positively shocking state.”
“How charming it must be to have him visit you!” says Miss Bird, wheeling about as the wind veered.
Poor thing! She did not mean to be insincere. She merely wanted to say the right thing, and didn't care a fig about the matter, one way or the other.
“Charming!” repeated Mrs. Clay, with emphasis. “It gives a tone. Besides, it draws some people one likes to know. You should see Madame de Soi, the most exclusive of women, flutter round him like a butterfly round a—round a—well, really, I am at a loss for the word. It is impossible to call Cousin Bently a flower, unless one should make a pun about the seedy contents of his valise. I studied botany once, and I [pg 625] know a pun can be made of it. Madame knows no more and cares no more about his learning than a cat does, but she has tact, and does contrive to smile at the right time. I never could do that. When I smile, Cousin Bently is sure to push out his under lip, and stop talking. But she will look and listen with such rapture that you would positively think he were describing the dress the empress wore at the last ball; and sometimes she even says something that he will seem pleased with. That very evening of the Porson collapse she talked with him half an hour of molecules, whatever they are. I actually thought they were speaking of people. Fancy being called a molecule! Yes, Cousin Bently is a great credit, and a great convenience to me. Why, but for him, I couldn't have gone to those stupid exclusive lectures of Mr. Vertebrare's, where I yawned myself to death among the very cream of society.”
The lady paused for breath, and her companion, feeling obliged to say something, faltered out that she always feared those very clever persons.
“I should think you would after the experience you had with that dragon,” replied Mrs. Clay significantly.
Miss Bird colored, and was silent. “That dragon” was a rather difficult old lady, a Miss Clinton, with whom she had lived and suffered many years, and who had lately died.
“And so,” Mrs. Clay summed up, “I have Cousin Bently on my hands for a week or ten days, and must make the best of it. And”—suddenly lowering her voice—“speak of angels—ahem! Cousin Bently, allow me to make you acquainted with Miss Bird, an old schoolmate of mine.”