The Man of the World (1792) | Page 4

the only weak ingredient in your nature, and you ought to watch it carefully. If I am wrong,--I will submit without reserve;--but consider the nature of your request--and how it would affect me:--from your earliest youth, your father has honoured me with the care of your education, and the general conduct of your mind; and, however singular and morose his temper may be to others,--to me--he has ever been respectful and liberal.--I am now under his roof too,--and because I will not abet an unwarrantable passion by an abuse of my sacred character, in marrying you beneath your rank,--and in direct opposition to your father's hopes and happiness,--you blame me--you angrily break from me--and call me unkind.
_Eger. [With tenderness and conviction_.] Dear Sidney,--for my warmth I stand condemned: but for my marriage with Constantia, I think I can justify it upon every principle of filial duty,--honour,--and worldly prudence.
Sid. Only make that appear, Charles, and you know you may command me.
_Eger. [With great filial regret_.] I am sensible how unseemly it appears in a son to descant on the unamiable passions of a parent;--but, as we are alone, and friends,--I cannot help observing in my own defence,--that when a father will not allow the use of reason to any of his family--when his pursuit of greatness makes him a slave abroad--only to be a tyrant at home,--when a narrow partiality to Scotland, on every trivial occasion, provokes him to enmity even with his wife and children, only because they dare give a national preference where they think it most justly due;--and when, merely to gratify his own ambition, he would marry his son into a family he detests,--[great warmth.] sure, Sidney, a son thus circumstanced (from the dignity of human reason and the feelings of a loving heart) has a right--not only to protest against the blindness of a parent, but to pursue those measures that virtue and happiness point out.
Sid. The violent temper of Sir Pertinax, I own, cannot be defended on many occasions, but still--your intended alliance with Lord Lumbercourt--
Eger. [_With great impatience._] O! contemptible!--a trifling, quaint, haughty, voluptuous, servile tool,--the mere lackey of party and corruption; who, for the prostitution of near thirty years and the ruin of a noble fortune, has had the despicable satisfaction, and the infamous honour--of being kicked up and kicked down--kicked in and kicked out,-- just as the insolence, compassion, or convenience of leaders predominated:--and now--being forsaken by all parties, his whole political consequence amounts to the power of franking a letter, and the right honourable privilege of not paying a tradesman's bill.
Sid. Well, but, dear Charles, you are not to wed my lord,--but his daughter.
Eger. Who is as disagreeable to me for a companion, as her father for a friend, or an ally.
Sid. What--her Scotch accent, I suppose, offends you?
Eger. No, upon my honour--not in the least,--I think it entertaining in her;--but were it otherwise--in decency--and indeed in national affection (being a Scotchman myself), I can have no objection to her on that account,--besides, she is my near relation.
Sid. So I understand. But pray, Charles, how came Lady Rodolpha, who, I find, was born in England, to be bred in Scotland?
Eger. From the dotage of an old, formal, obstinate, stiff, rich, Scotch grandmother, who, upon a promise of leaving this grandchild all her fortune, would have the girl sent to her to Scotland, when she was but a year old, and there has she been ever since, bred up with this old lady in all the vanity and unlimited indulgence that fondness and admiration could bestow on a spoiled child--a fancied beauty and a pretended wit.
Sid. O! you are too severe upon her.
Eger. I do not think so, Sidney; for she seems a being expressly fashioned by nature to figure in these days of levity and dissipation:-- her spirits are inexhaustible: her parts strong and lively; with a sagacity that discerns, and a talent not unhappy in painting out the weak side of whatever comes before her:--but what raises her merit to the highest pitch in the laughing world is her boundless vanity and spirits in the exertion of those talents, which often render her much more ridiculous than the most whimsical of the characters she exposes--[_in a tone of friendly affection._] and is this a woman fit to make my happiness?-- this the partner that Sidney would recommend to me for life?--to _you_, who best know me, I appeal.
Sid. Why, Charles, it is a delicate point,--unfit for me to determine--besides, your father has set his heart upon the match.
Eger. [_Impatiently._] All that I know:--but still I ask and insist upon your candid judgment,--is she the kind of woman that you think could possibly contribute to my happiness? I beg you will give me an explicit answer.
Sid. The subject is disagreeable;--but, since