The Eustace Diamonds | Page 4

Anthony Trollope
Florian was not
more likely to die than another man--if only he would get married; all
of which statement on her ladyship's part was a lie. When the same
friend hinted the same thing to Lizzie herself, Lizzie resolved that she
would have her revenge upon that friend. At any rate the courtship went
on.
We have said that Sir Florian was vicious; but he was not altogether a
bad man, nor was he vicious in the common sense of the word. He was
one who denied himself no pleasure let the cost be what it might in
health, pocket, or morals. Of sin or wickedness he had probably no
distinct idea. In virtue, as an attribute of the world around him, he had
no belief. Of honour he thought very much, and had conceived a
somewhat noble idea that because much had been given to him much
was demanded of him. He was haughty, polite, and very generous.
There was almost a nobility even about his vices. And he had a special
gallantry of which it is hard to say whether it is or is not to be admired.
They told him that he was like to die--very like to die, if he did not
change his manner of living. Would he go to Algiers for a period?
Certainly not. He would do no such thing. If he died, there was his
brother John left to succeed him. And the fear of death never cast a
cloud over that grandly beautiful brow. They had all been
short-lived--the Eustaces. Consumption had swept a hecatomb of
victims from the family. But still they were grand people, and never
were afraid of death.
And then Sir Florian fell in love. Discussing this matter with his

brother, who was perhaps his only intimate friend, he declared that if
the girl he loved would give herself to him, he would make what
atonement he could to her for his own early death by a princely
settlement. John Eustace, who was somewhat nearly concerned in the
matter, raised no objection to this proposal. There was ever something
grand about these Eustaces. Sir Florian was a grand gentleman; but
surely he must have been dull of intellect, slow of discernment,
blear-eyed in his ways about the town, when he took Lizzie
Greystock--of all the women whom he could find in the world--to be
the purest, the truest, and the noblest. It has been said of Sir Florian that
he did not believe in virtue. He freely expressed disbelief in the virtue
of women around him--in the virtue of women of all ranks. But he
believed in his mother and sisters as though they were heaven-born;
and he was one who could believe in his wife as though she were the
queen of heaven. He did believe in Lizzie Greystock, thinking that
intellect, purity, truth, and beauty, each perfect in its degree, were
combined in her. The intellect and beauty were there; but for the purity
and truth, how could it have been that such a one as Sir Florian Eustace
should have been so blind!
Sir Florian was not indeed a clever man; but he believed himself to be a
fool, and believing himself to be a fool, he desired, nay, painfully
longed, for some of those results of cleverness which might, he thought,
come to him from contact with a clever woman. Lizzie read poetry well,
and she read verses to him, sitting very near to him, almost in the dark,
with a shaded lamp throwing its light on her book. He was astonished
to find how sweet a thing was poetry. By himself he could never read a
line, but as it came from her lips it seemed to charm him. It was a new
pleasure, and one which, though he had ridiculed it, he had so often
coveted! And then she told him of such wondrous thoughts, such
wondrous joys in the world which would come from thinking! He was
proud, I have said, and haughty; but he was essentially modest and
humble in his self-estimation. How divine was this creature, whose
voice to him was that of a goddess!
Then he spoke out to her with a face a little turned from her. Would she
be his wife? But before she answered him, let her listen to him. They

had told him that an early death must probably be his fate. He did not
himself feel that it must be so. Sometimes he was ill, very ill; but often
he was well. If she would run the risk with him he Would endeavour to
make her such recompense as might come from his wealth. The speech
he made was somewhat long, and as he made it he hardly looked into
her face.
But it
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