Nature and Art. Mrs. Inchbald

near so old had she not constantly attempted to appear much younger. Her dress was fantastically fashionable, her manners affected all the various passions of youth, and her conversation was perpetually embellished with accusations against her own “heedlessness, thoughtlessness, carelessness, and childishness.”

      There is, perhaps in each individual, one parent motive to every action, good or bad. Be that as it may, it was evident, that with Lady Clementina, all she said or did, all she thought or looked, had but one foundation—vanity. If she were nice, or if she were negligent, vanity was the cause of both; for she would contemplate with the highest degree of self-complacency, “What such-a-one would say of her elegant preciseness, or what such-a-one would think of her interesting neglect.”

      If she complained she was ill, it was with the certainty that her languor would be admired: if she boasted she was well, it was that the spectator might admire her glowing health: if she laughed, it was because she thought it made her look pretty: if she cried, it was because she thought it made her look prettier still. If she scolded her servants, it was from vanity, to show her knowledge superior to theirs: and she was kind to them from the same motive, that her benevolence might excite their admiration. Forward and impertinent in the company of her equals, from the vanity of supposing herself above them, she was bashful even to shamefacedness in the presence of her superiors, because her vanity told her she engrossed all their observation. Through vanity she had no memory, for she constantly forgot everything she heard others say, from the minute attention which she paid to everything she said herself.

      She had become an old maid from vanity, believing no offer she received worthy of her deserts; and when her power of farther conquest began to be doubted, she married from vanity, to repair the character of her fading charms. In a word, her vanity was of that magnitude, that she had no conjecture but that she was humble in her own opinion; and it would have been impossible to have convinced her that she thought well of herself, because she thought so well, as to be assured that her own thoughts undervalued her.

CHAPTER VIII.

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      That, which in a weak woman is called vanity, in a man of sense is termed pride. Make one a degree stronger, or the other a degree weaker, and the dean and his wife were infected with the self-same folly. Yet, let not the reader suppose that this failing (however despicable) had erased from either bosom all traces of humanity. They are human creatures who are meant to be portrayed in this little book: and where is the human creature who has not some good qualities to soften, if not to counterbalance, his bad ones?

      The dean, with all his pride, could not wholly forget his brother, nor eradicate from his remembrance the friend that he had been to him: he resolved, therefore, in spite of his wife’s advice, to make him some overture, which he had no doubt Henry’s good-nature would instantly accept. The more he became acquainted with all the vain and selfish propensities of Lady Clementina, the more he felt a returning affection for his brother: but little did he suspect how much he loved him, till (after sending to various places to inquire for him) he learned—that on his wife’s decease, unable to support her loss in the surrounding scene, Henry had taken the child she brought him in his arms, shaken hands with all his former friends—passing over his brother in the number—and set sail in a vessel bound for Africa, with a party of Portuguese and some few English adventurers, to people there the uninhabited part of an extensive island.

      This was a resolution, in Henry’s circumstances, worthy a mind of singular sensibility: but William had not discerned, till then, that every act of Henry’s was of the same description; and more than all, his every act towards him. He staggered when he heard the tidings; at first thought them untrue; but quickly recollected, that Henry was capable of surprising deeds! He recollected with a force which gave him torture, the benevolence his brother had ever shown to him—the favours he had heaped upon him—the insults he had patiently endured in requital!

      In the first emotion, which this intelligence gave the dean, he forgot the dignity of his walk and gesture: he ran with frantic enthusiasm to every corner of his deanery where the least vestige of what belonged to Henry remained—he pressed close to his breast, with tender agony, a coat of his, which by accident had been left there—he kissed and wept over a walking-stick which Henry once had given him—he even took up with delight a music book of his brother’s—nor would his poor violin have then excited anger.

      When his grief became more calm, he sat in deep and melancholy meditation, calling to mind when and where he saw his brother last. The recollection gave him fresh cause of regret. He remembered they had parted on his refusing to suffer Lady Clementina to admit the acquaintance of Henry’s wife. Both Henry and his wife he now contemplated beyond the reach of his pride; and he felt the meanness of his former and the imbecility of his future haughtiness towards them.

      To add to his self-reproaches, his tormented memory presented to him the exact countenance of his brother at their last interview, as it changed, while he censured his marriage, and treated with disrespect the object of his conjugal affection. He remembered the anger repressed, the tear bursting forth, and the last glimpse he had of him, as he left his presence, most likely for ever.

      In vain he now wished that he had followed him to the door—that he had once shaken hands and owned his obligations to him before they had parted. In vain he wished too, that, in this extreme agony of his mind, he had such a friend to comfort him, as Henry had ever proved.

CHAPTER IX.

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      The avocations of an elevated life erase the deepest impressions. The dean in a few months recovered from those which his brother’s departure first made upon him: and he would now at times even condemn, in anger, Henry’s having so hastily abandoned him and his native country, in resentment, as he conceived, of a few misfortunes which his usual fortitude should have taught him to have borne. Yet was he still desirous of his return, and wrote two or three letters expressive of his wish, which he anxiously endeavoured should reach him. But many years having elapsed without any intelligence from him, and a report having arrived that he, and all the party with whom he went, were slain by the savage inhabitants of the island, William’s despair of seeing his brother again caused the desire to diminish; while attention and affection to a still nearer and dearer relation than Henry had ever been to him, now chiefly engaged his mind.

      Lady Clementina had brought him a son, on whom from his infancy, he doated—and the boy, in riper years, possessing a handsome person and evincing a quickness of parts, gratified the father’s darling passion, pride, as well as the mother’s vanity.

      The dean had, beside this child, a domestic comfort highly gratifying to his ambition: the bishop of --- became intimately acquainted with him soon after his marriage, and from his daily visits had become, as it were, a part of the family. This was much honour to the dean, not only as the bishop was his superior in the Church, but was of that part of the bench whose blood is ennobled by a race of ancestors, and to which all wisdom on the plebeian side crouches in humble respect.

      Year after year rolled on in pride and grandeur; the bishop and the dean passing their time in attending levées and in talking politics; Lady Clementina passing hers in attending routs and in talking of herself, till the son arrived at the age of thirteen.

      Young William passed his time, from morning till night, with persons who taught him to walk, to ride, to talk, to think like a man—a foolish man, instead of a wise child, as nature designed him to be.

      This unfortunate youth was never permitted to have one conception of his own—all were taught him—he was never once asked, “What he thought;” but men were paid to tell “how to think.” He was taught to revere such and such persons, however unworthy of his reverence; to believe such and such things, however unworthy of his credit: and to act so and so, on such and such occasions, however unworthy of his feelings.