Pelham | Page 4

modern education.

CHAPTER III.
Thus does a false ambition rule us, Thus pomp delude, and folly fool us. --Shenstone.
An open house, haunted with great resort. --Bishop Hall's Satires.
I left Cambridge in a very weak state of health; and as nobody had yet come to London, I accepted the invitation of Sir Lionel Garrett to pay him a visit at his country seat. Accordingly, one raw winter's day, full of the hopes of the reviving influence of air and exercise, I found myself carefully packed up in three great coats, and on the high road to Garrett Park.
Sir Lionel Garrett was a character very common in England, and, in describing him, I describe the whole species. He was of an ancient family, and his ancestors had for centuries resided on their estates in Norfolk. Sir Lionel, who came to his majority and his fortune at the same time, went up to London at the age of twenty-one, a raw, uncouth sort of young man, in a green coat and lank hair. His friends in town were of that set whose members are above ton, whenever they do not grasp at its possession, but who, whenever they do, lose at once their aim and their equilibrium, and fall immeasurably below it. I mean that set which I call "the respectable," consisting of old peers of an old school; country gentlemen, who still disdain not to love their wine and to hate the French; generals who have served in the army; elder brothers who succeed to something besides a mortgage; and younger brothers who do not mistake their capital for their income. To this set you may add the whole of the baronetage--for I have remarked that baronets hang together like bees or Scotchmen; and if I go to a baronet's house, and speak to some one whom I have not the happiness to know, I always say "Sir John--."
It was no wonder, then, that to this set belonged Sir Lionel Garrett--no more the youth in a green coat and lank hair, but pinched in, and curled out--abounding in horses and whiskers--dancing all night--lounging all day--the favourite of the old ladies, the Philander of the young.
One unfortunate evening Sir Lionel Garrett was introduced to the celebrated Duchess of D. From that moment his head was turned. Before then, he had always imagined that he was somebody--that he was Sir Lionel Garrett, with a good-looking person and eight thousand a-year; he now knew that he was nobody unless he went to Lady G.'s and unless he bowed to Lady S. Disdaining all importance derived from himself, it became absolutely necessary to his happiness, that all his importance should be derived solely from his acquaintance with others. He cared not a straw that he was a man of fortune, of family, of consequence; he must be a man of ton; or he was an atom, a nonentity, a very worm, and no man. No lawyer at Gray's Inn, no galley slave at the oar, ever worked so hard at his task as Sir Lionel Garrett at his. Ton, to a single man, is a thing attainable enough. Sir Lionel was just gaining the envied distinction, when he saw, courted, and married Lady Harriett Woodstock.
His new wife was of a modern and not very rich family, and striving like Sir Lionel for the notoriety of fashion; but of this struggle he was ignorant. He saw her admitted into good society--he imagined she commanded it; she was a hanger on--he believed she was a leader. Lady Harriett was crafty and twenty-four--had no objection to be married, nor to change the name of Woodstock for Garrett. She kept up the baronet's mistake till it was too late to repair it.
Marriage did not bring Sir Lionel wisdom. His wife was of the same turn of mind as himself: they might have been great people in the country-- they preferred being little people in town. They might have chosen friends among persons of respectability and rank--they preferred being chosen as acquaintance by persons of ton. Society was their being's end and aim, and the only thing which brought them pleasure was the pain of attaining it. Did I not say truly that I would describe individuals of a common species? Is there one who reads this, who does not recognize that overflowing class of the English population, whose members would conceive it an insult to be thought of sufficient rank to be respectable for what they are?--who take it as an honour that they are made by their acquaintance?--who renounce the ease of living for themselves, for the trouble of living for persons who care not a pin for their existence--who are wretched if they are not dictated to by others--and who toil, groan, travail, through the whole course of life, in