The Tale of Chloe | Page 3

countenance, for if I am here in breach of your
prohibition, I shall presently depart in compliance with it. I could
indeed deplore the loss of the passion for play of which you effectually
cured me. I was then armed against a crueller, that allows of no interval
for a man to make his vow to recover!'
'The disease which is all crisis, I apprehend,' Mr. Beamish remarked.
'Which, sir, when it takes hold of dry wood, burns to the last splinter. It
is now'--the duke fetched a tender groan--'three years ago that I had a
caprice to marry a grandchild!'
'Of Adam's,' Mr. Beamish said cheerfully. 'There was no legitimate bar
to the union.'
'Unhappily none. Yet you are not to suppose I regret it. A most
admirable creature, Mr. Beamish, a real divinity! And the better known,
the more adored. There is the misfortune. At my season of life, when
the greater and the minor organs are in a conspiracy to tell me I am
mortal, the passion of love must be welcomed as a calamity, though
one would not be free of it for the renewal of youth. You are to
understand, that with a little awakening taste for dissipation, she is the
most innocent of angels. Hitherto we have lived . . . To her it has been a

new world. But she is beginning to find it a narrow one. No, no, she is
not tired of my society. Very far from that. But in her present station an
inclination for such gatherings as you have here, for example, is like a
desire to take the air: and the healthy habits of my duchess have not
accustomed her to be immured. And in fine, devote ourselves as we
will, a term approaches when the enthusiasm for serving as your wife's
playfellow all day, running round tables and flying along corridors
before a knotted handkerchief, is mightily relaxed. Yet the dread of a
separation from her has kept me at these pastimes for a considerable
period beyond my relish of them. Not that I acknowledge fatigue. I
have, it seems, a taste for reflection; I am now much disposed to read
and meditate, which cannot be done without repose. I settle myself, and
I receive a worsted ball in my face, and I am expected to return it. I
comply; and then you would say a nursery in arms. It would else be the
deplorable spectacle of a beautiful young woman yawning.'
'Earthquake and saltpetre threaten us less terribly,' said Mr. Beamish.
'In fine, she has extracted a promise that 'this summer she shall visit the
Wells for a month, and I fear I cannot break my pledge of my word; I
fear I cannot.'
'Very certainly I would not,' said Mr. Beamish.
The duke heaved a sigh. 'There are reasons, family reasons, why my
company and protection must be denied to her here. I have no wish . . .
indeed my name, for the present, until such time as she shall have
found her feet . . . and there is ever a penalty to pay for that. Ah, Mr.
Beamish, pictures are ours, when we have bought them and hung them
up; but who insures us possession of a beautiful work of Nature? I have
latterly betaken me to reflect much and seriously. I am tempted to side
with the Divines in the sermons I have read; the flesh is the habitation
of a rebellious devil.'
'To whom we object in proportion as we ourselves become quit of him,'
Mr. Beamish acquiesced.
'But this mania of young people for pleasure, eternal pleasure, is one of

the wonders. It does not pall on them; they are insatiate.'
'There is the cataract, and there is the cliff. Potentate to potentate,
duke--so long as you are on my territory, be it understood. Upon my
way to a place of worship once, I passed a Puritan, who was
complaining of a butterfly that fluttered prettily abroad in desecration
of the Day of Rest. "Friend," said I to him, "conclusively you prove to
me that you are not a butterfly." Surly did no more than favour me with
the anathema of his countenance.'
'Cousin Beamish, my complaint of these young people is, that they
miss their pleasure in pursuing it. I have lectured my duchess--'
'Ha!'
'Foolish, I own,' said the duke. 'But suppose, now, you had caught your
butterfly, and you could neither let it go nor consent to follow its
vagaries. That poses you.'
'Young people,' said Mr. Beamish, 'come under my observation in this
poor realm of mine--young and old. I find them prodigiously alike in
their love of pleasure, differing mainly in their capacity to satisfy it.
That is no uncommon observation. The young, have an