Vivian Grey | Page 2

after dinner to her
husband, "I am told, my dear, that Dr. Flummery's would do very well
for Vivian. Nothing can exceed the attention which is paid to the pupils.
There are sixteen young ladies, all the daughters of clergymen, merely
to attend to the morals and the linen; terms moderate: 100 guineas per
annum, for all under six years of age, and few extras, only for fencing,
pure milk, and the guitar. Mrs. Metcalfe has both her boys there, and
she says their progress is astonishing! Percy Metcalfe, she assures me,
was quite as backward as Vivian; indeed, backwarder; and so was
Dudley, who was taught at home on the new system, by a pictorial
alphabet, and who persisted to the last, notwithstanding all the
exertions of Miss Barrett, in spelling A-P-E, monkey, merely because
over the word there was a monster munching an apple."
"And quite right in the child, my dear. Pictorial alphabet! pictorial
fool's head!"
"But what do you say to Flummery's, Horace?"
"My dear, do what you like. I never trouble myself, you know, about
these matters;" and Mr. Grey refreshed himself, after this domestic
attack, with a glass of claret.
Mr. Grey was a gentleman who had succeeded, when the heat of youth
was over, to the enjoyment of a life estate of some two thousand a year.
He was a man of lettered tastes, and had hailed with no slight pleasure
his succession to a fortune which, though limited in its duration, was
still a great thing for a young lounger about town, not only with no
profession, but with a mind unfitted for every species of business. Grey,

to the astonishment of his former friends, the wits, made an excellent
domestic match; and, leaving the whole management of his household
to his lady, felt himself as independent in his magnificent library as if
he had never ceased to be that true freeman, A MAN OF CHAMBERS.
The young Vivian had not, by the cares which fathers are always heirs
to, yet reminded his parent that children were anything else but
playthings. The intercourse between father and son was, of course,
extremely limited; for Vivian was, as yet, the mother's child; Mr.
Grey's parental duties being confined to giving his son a daily glass of
claret, pulling his ears with all the awkwardness of literary affection,
and trusting to God "that the urchin would never scribble."
"I won't go to school, mamma," bawled Vivian.
"But you must, my love," answered Mrs. Grey; "all good boys go to
school;" and in the plenitude of a mother's love she tried to make her
offspring's hair curl.
"I won't have my hair curl, mamma; the boys will laugh at me,"
rebawled the beauty.
"Now who could have told the child that?" monologised mamma, with
all a mamma's admiration.
"Charles Appleyard told me so; his hair curled, and the boys called him
girl. Papa! give me some more claret; I won't go to school."
CHAPTER II
Three or four years passed over, and the mind of Vivian Grey
astonishingly developed itself. He had long ceased to wear frills, had
broached the subject of boots three or four times, made a sad inroad
during the holidays in Mr. Grey's bottle of claret, and was reported as
having once sworn at the butler. The young gentleman began also to
hint, during every vacation, that the fellows at Flummery's were
somewhat too small for his companionship, and (first bud of puppyism!)
the former advocate of straight hair now expended a portion of his

infant income in the purchase of Macassar, and began to cultivate his
curls. Mrs. Grey could not entertain for a moment the idea of her son's
associating with children, the eldest of whom (to adopt his own account)
was not above eight years old; so Flummery, it was determined, he
should leave. But where to go? Mr. Grey was for Eton, but his lady was
one of those women whom nothing in the world can persuade that a
public school is anything else but a place where boys are roasted alive;
and so with tears, and taunts, and supplications, the point of private
education was conceded.
At length it was resolved that the only hope should remain at home a
season, until some plan should be devised for the cultivation of his
promising understanding. During this year Vivian became a somewhat
more constant intruder into the library than heretofore; and living so
much among books, he was insensibly attracted to those silent
companions, that speak so eloquently.
How far the character of the parent may influence the character of the
child the metaphysician must decide. Certainly the character of Vivian
Grey underwent, at this period of his life, a sensible change. Doubtless,
constant communion with a mind highly refined,