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Pelham, a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
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Volume 1 - Chapter 12 |
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_ VOLUME I CHAPTER XII Pia mater, Plus quam se sapere, et virtutibus esse priorem Vult, et ait prope vera.--Horace. Vere mihi festus atras Eximet curas.--Horace. The next morning I received a letter from my mother. "My dear Henry," began my affectionate and incomparable parent-- "My dear Henry, "You have now fairly entered the world, and though at your age my advice may be but little followed, my experience cannot altogether be useless. I shall, therefore, make no apology for a few precepts, which I hope may tend to make you a wiser and better man. "I hope, in the first place, that you have left your letter at the ambassador's, and that you will not fail to go there as often as possible. Pay your court in particular to Lady--She is a charming person, universally popular, and one of the very few English people to whom one may safely be civil. Apropos, of English civility, you have, I hope, by this time discovered, that you have to assume a very different manner with French people than with our own countrymen: with us, the least appearance of feeling or enthusiasm is certain to be ridiculed every where; but in France, you may venture to seem not quite devoid of all natural sentiments: indeed, if you affect enthusiasm, they will give you credit for genius, and they will place all the qualities of the heart to the account of the head. You know that in England, if you seem desirous of a person's acquaintance you are sure to lose it; they imagine you have some design upon their wives or their dinners; but in France you can never lose by politeness: nobody will call your civility forwardness and pushing. If the Princess De T--, and the Duchesse de D--, ask you to their houses (which indeed they will, directly you have left your letters), go there two or three times a week, if only for a few minutes in the evening. It is very hard to be acquainted with great French people, but when you are, it is your own fault if you are not intimate with them. "Most English people have a kind of diffidence and scruple at calling in the evening--this is perfectly misplaced: the French are never ashamed of themselves, like us, whose persons, families, and houses are never fit to be seen, unless they are dressed out for a party. "Don't imagine that the ease of French manners is at all like what we call ease: you must not lounge on your chair--nor put your feet upon a stool--nor forget yourself for one single moment when you are talking with women. "You have heard a great deal about the gallantries of the French ladies; but remember that they demand infinitely greater attention than English women do; and that after a month's incessant devotion, you may lose every thing by a moment's impolitesse. "You will not, my dear son, misinterpret these hints. I suppose, of course, that all your liaisons are platonic. "Your father is laid up with the gout, and dreadfully ill-tempered and peevish; however, I keep out of the way as much as possible. I dined yesterday at Lady Roseville's: she praised you very much, said your manners were particularly good, and that you had already quite the usage du monde. Lord Vincent is, I understand, at Paris: though very tiresome with his learning and Latin, he is exceedingly clever and repandu; be sure to cultivate his acquaintance. "If you are ever at a loss as to the individual character of a person you wish to gain, the general knowledge of human nature will teach you one infallible specific,--flattery! The quantity and quality may vary according to the exact niceties of art; but, in any quantity and in any quality, it is more or less acceptable, and therefore certain to please. Only never (or at least very rarely) flatter when other people, besides the one to be flattered, are by; in that case you offend the rest, and you make even your intended dupe ashamed to be pleased. "In general, weak minds think only of others, and yet seem only occupied with themselves; you, on the contrary, must appear wholly engrossed with those about you, and yet never have a single idea which does not terminate in yourself: a fool, my dear Henry, flatters himself--a wise man flatters the fool. "God bless you, my dear child, take care of your health--don't forget Coulon; and believe me your most affectionate mother, "F. P."
"Yes," said Vincent; "but the moral Horace reminds us of our remedies as well as our misfortune-- "'Jam galeam Pallas, et aegida, Currusque parat,'-- that is, 'Providence that prepares the gale, gives us also a great coat and a carriage.'" We were not long driving to the Palais Royal. Very's was crowded to excess--"A very low set!" said Lord Vincent, (who, being half a liberal, is of course a thorough aristocrat) looking round at the various English who occupied the apartment. There was, indeed, a motley congregation; country esquires; extracts from the Universities; half-pay officers; city clerks in frogged coats and mustachios; two or three of a better looking description, but in reality half swindlers half gentlemen. All, in short, fit specimens of that wandering tribe, which spread over the continent the renown and the ridicule of good old England. I know not why it is that we should look and act so very disgracefully abroad; but I never meet in any spot out of this happy island, a single Englishman, without instinctively blushing for my native country. "Garcon, garcon," cried a stout gentleman, who made one of three at the table next to us. "Donnez-nous une sole frite pour un, et des pommes de terre pour trois!" "Humph!" said Lord Vincent; "fine ideas of English taste these garcons must entertain; men who prefer fried soles and potatoes to the various delicacies they can command here, might, by the same perversion of taste, prefer Bloomfield's poems to Byron's. Delicate taste depends solely upon the physical construction; and a man who has it not in cookery, must want it in literature. Fried sole and potatoes!! If I had written a volume, whose merit was in elegance, I would not show it to such a man!--but he might be an admirable critic upon 'Cobbett's Register,' or 'Every Man his own Brewer.'" "Excessively true," said I; "what shall we order?" "D'abord des huitres d'Ostende," said Vincent; "as to the rest," taking hold of the carte, "deliberare utilia mora utilissima est." We were soon engaged in all the pleasures and pains of a dinner. "Petimus," said Lord Vincent, helping himself to some poulet a l'Austerlitz, "petimus bene vivere--quod petis, hic est?" We were not, however, assured of that fact at the termination of dinner. If half the dishes were well conceived and better executed, the other half were proportionably bad. Very is, indeed, no longer the prince of Restaurateurs. The low English who have flocked there, have entirely ruined the place. What waiter--what cook can possibly respect men who take no soup, and begin with a roti; who know neither what is good nor what is bad; who eat rognons at dinner instead of at breakfast, and fall into raptures over sauce Robert and pieds de cochon; who cannot tell, at the first taste, whether the beaune is premiere qualite, or the fricassee made of yesterday's chicken; who suffer in the stomach after champignon, and die with indigestion of a truffle? O! English people, English people! why can you not stay and perish of apoplexy and Yorkshire pudding at home? By the time we had drank our coffee it was considerably past nine o'clock, and Vincent had business at the ambassador's before ten; we therefore parted for the night. "What do you think of Very's?" said I, as we were at the door. "Why," replied Vincent, "when I recal the astonishing heat of the place, which has almost sent me to sleep; the exceeding number of times in which that becasse had been re-roasted, and the extortionate length of our bills, I say of Very's, what Hamlet said of the world, 'Weary, stale, and unprofitable!'" _ |
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