A Love Story, by a Bushman - - (the speed reading book .TXT) 📗

returned

his dinner? It would be folly to assert it. Cabinet dinners—corporation

dinners—election dinners—and vestry dinners—and rail-road

dinners—we pass by these things, and triumphantly ask—does not the

Ship par excellence—the Ship of Greenwich—annually assemble under its

revered roof the luminaries of the nation? Oh, whitebait! called so

early to your last account! a tear is all we give, but it flows

spontaneously at the memory of your sorrows!

 

As Mr. Belliston Græme was much talked of in his day, it may not be

amiss to say a few words regarding him. He was an only child, and at an

early age lost his parents. The expense of his education was defrayed

by a wealthy uncle, the second partner in a celebrated banking house.

His tutor, with whom he may be said to have lived from boyhood—for his

uncle had little communication with him, except to write to him one

letter half-yearly, when he paid his school bill—was a shy retiring

clergyman—a man of very extensive acquirements, and a first rate

classical scholar. After a short time, the curate and young Græme

became attached to each other. The tutor was a bachelor, and Græme was

his only pupil. The latter was soon inoculated with the classical mania

of his preceptor; and, as he grew up, it was quite a treat to hear the

pair discourse of Greeks and Romans. A stranger who had then heard

them would have imagined that Themistocles and Scipio Africanus were

stars of the present generation. When Græme was nineteen, his uncle

invited him to town for a month—a most unusual proceeding. During this

period he studied closely his nephew’s character. At the end of this

term, Mr. Hargrave and his young charge were on their way to the

classical regions, where their fancy had been so long straying. They

explored France, and the northern parts of Italy—came on the shores of

the Adriatic—resided and secretly made excavations near the

amphitheatre of Polo—and finally reached the Morea. Not a crag,

valley, or brook, that they were not conversant with before they left

it. They at length tore themselves away; and found themselves at the

ancient Parthenope. It was at Pompeii Mr. Græme first saw the

beautiful Miss Vignoles, the Mrs. Glenallan of our story; and, in a

strange adventure with some Neapolitan guides, was of some service to

her party. They saw his designs of some tombs, and took the trouble of

drawing him out. The young man now for the first time basked in the

sweets of society; in a fortnight, to Mr. Hargrave’s horror, was

rolling in its vortex; in a couple of months found himself indulging

in, and avowing, a hopeless passion; and in three, was once again in

his native land, falsely deeming that his peace of mind had fled for

ever. He was shortly, however, called upon to exert his energies. The

death of his uncle suddenly made him, to his very great surprise, one

of the wealthiest commoners of England. At this period he was quite

unknown. In a short time Mr. Hargrave and himself were lodged

luxuriously—were deep in the pursuit of science, literature, and the

belle arte—and on terms of friendship with the cleverest and most

original men of the day. Mr. Græme’s occupations being sedentary, and

his habits very regular, he shortly found that his great wealth enabled

him, not only to indulge in every personal luxury at Rendlesham Park,

but to patronise largely every literary work of merit. In him the needy

man of genius found a friend, the man of wit a companion, and the

publisher a generous customer. He became famous for his house, his

library, his exclusive society. But he did not become spoilt by his

prosperity, and never neglected his old tutor.

 

Our party from Delmé were ushered into a large drawing-room, the sole

light of which was from an immense bow window, looking out on the

extensive lawn. The panes were of enormous size, and beautiful specimens

of classique plated glass. The only articles of furniture, were some

crimson ottomans which served to set off the splendid paintings; and one

table of the Florentine manufacture of pietra dura, on which stood a

carved bijou of Benvenuto Cellini’s. Our party were early. They were

welcomed by Mr. Græme with great cordiality, and by Mr. Hargrave with

some embarrassment, for the tutor was still the bashful man of former

days. Mr. Græme’s dress shamed these degenerate days of black stock and

loose trowser. Diamond buckles adorned his knees, and fastened his

shoes. His clear blue eye—the high polished forehead—the deep lines of

the countenance—revealed the man of thought and intellect. The playful

lip shewed he could yet appreciate a flash of wit or spark of humour.

 

“Miss Delmé, you are looking at my paintings; let me show you my late

purchases. Observe this sweet Madonna, by Murillo! I prefer it to the

one in the Munich Gallery. It may not boast Titian’s glow of colour, or

Raphael’s grandeur of design,—in delicate angelic beauty, it may yield

to the delightful efforts of Guido’s or Correggio’s pencil,—but surely

no human conception can ever have more touchingly portrayed the

beauteous resigned mother. The infant, too! how inimitably blended is

the God-like serenity of the Saviour, with the fond and graceful

witcheries of the loving child! How little we know of the beauties of

the Spanish school! Would I could ransack their ancient monasteries, and

bring a few of them to light!

 

“You are a chess player! Pass not by this check-mate of Caravaggio’s.

What undisguised triumph in one countenance! What a struggle to repress

nature’s feelings in the other! Here is a Guido! sweet, as his ever are!

He may justly be styled the female laureat. What artist can compete with

him in delineating the blooming expression, or the tender, but lighter,

shades of female loveliness? who can pause between even the Fornarina,

and that divine effort, the Beatrice Cenci of the Barberini?”

 

The party were by this time assembled. Besides our immediate friends,

there was his Grace the Duke of Gatten, a good-natured fox-hunting

nobleman, whose estate adjoined Mr. Græme’s; there was the Viscount

Chambéry, who had penned a pamphlet on finance—indited a folio on

architecture—and astonished Europe with an elaborate dissertation on

modern cookery; there was Charles Selby, the poet and essayist;

Daintrey, the sculptor—a wonderful Ornithologist—a deep read

Historian—a learned Orientalist—and a novelist, from France; whose

works exhibited such unheard of horrors, and made man and woman so

irremediably vicious, as to make this young gentleman celebrated, even

in Paris—that Babylonian sink of iniquity.

 

Dinner was announced, and our host, giving his arm very stoically to

Mrs. Glenallan, his love of former days, led the way to the dining-room.

Round the table were placed beautifully carved oaken fauteuils, of a

very old pattern. The service of plate was extremely plain, but of

massive gold. But the lamp! It was of magnificent dimensions! The light

chains hanging from the frescoed ceiling, the links of which were hardly

perceptible, were of silver, manufactured in Venice; the lower part was

of opal-tinted glass, exactly portraying some voluptuous couch, on which

the beautiful Amphitrite might have reclined, as she hastened through

beds of coral to crystal grot, starred with transparent stalactites. In

the centre of this shell, were sockets, whence verged small hollow

golden tubes, resembling in shape and size the stalks of a flower. At

the drooping ends of these, were lamps shaped and coloured to imitate

the most beauteous flowers of the parterre. This bouquet of light had

been designed by Mr. Græme. Few novelties had acquired greater

celebrity than the Græme astrale. The room was warmed by heating the

pedestals of the statues.

 

“Potage à la fantôme, and à l’ourika.”

 

“I will trouble you, Græme,” said my Lord Chambéry, “for the fantôme. I

have dined on la pritannière for the last three months, and a novel soup

is a novel pleasure.”

 

Of the fish, the soles were à la Rowena, the salmon à l’amour. Emily

flirted with the wing of a chicken sauté au suprême, coquetted with

perdrix perdu masqué à la Montmorenci, and tasted a boudin à la

Diebitsch. The wines were excellent—the Geisenheim delicious—the

Champagne sparkling like a pun of Jekyll’s. But nothing aroused the

attention of the Viscount Chambéry so much as a liqueur, which Mr.

Græme assured him was new, and had just been sent him by the Conte de

Desir. The dessert had been some time on the table, when the Viscount

addressed his host.

 

“Græme! I am delighted to find that you at length agree with me as to

the monstrous superiority of a French repast. Your omelette imaginaire

was faultless, and as for your liqueur, I shall certainly order a supply

on my return to Paris.”

 

“That liqueur, my dear lord,” replied Mr. Græme, “is good old cowslip

mead, with a flask of Maraschino di Zara infused in it. For the rest,

the dinner has been almost as imaginaire as the omelet. The greater part

of the recipes are in an old English volume in my library, or perhaps

some owe their origin to the fertile invention of my housekeeper. Let

us style them à la Dorothée.”

 

“Capital! I thank you, Græme!” said his Grace of Gatten, as he shook

his host by the hand, till the tears stood in his eyes.

 

The prescient Chambéry had made a good dinner, and bore the joke

philosophically. Coffee awaited the gentlemen in a small octagonal

chamber, adjoining the music room. There stood Mr. Græme’s three

favourite modern statues:—a Venus, by Canova—a Discobole, by

Thorwaldson—and a late acquisition—the Ariadne, of Dannecker.

 

“This is the work of an artist,” said Mr. Græme, “little known in

this country, but in Germany ranking quite as high as Thorwaldson.

This is almost a duplicate of his Ariadne at Frankfort, but the

marble is much more pure. How wonderfully fine the execution! Pray

notice the bold profile of the face; how energetic her action as she

sits on the panther!”

 

Mr. Græme touched the spring of a window frame. A curtain of crimson

gauze fell over a globe lamp, and threw a rich shade on the marble.

The features remained as finely chiselled, but their expression was

totally changed.

 

They adjourned to the music-room, which deserved its title. Save some

seats, which were artfully formed to resemble lyres, nothing broke the

continuity of music’s tones, which ascended majestically to the lofty

dome, there to blend and wreath, and fall again. At one extremity of

music’s hall was an organ; at the other a grand piano, built by a German

composer. Ranged on carved slabs, at intermediate distances, was placed

almost every instrument that may claim a votary. Of viols, from the violin

to the double bass,—of instruments of brass, from trombones and bass

kettledrums even unto trumpet and cymbal,—of instruments of wood, from

winding serpents to octave flute,—and of fiddles of parchment, from the

grosse caisse to the tambourine. Nor were ancient instruments wanting.

These were of quaint forms and diverse constructions. Mr. Græme would

descant for hours on an antique species of spinnet, which he procured from

the East, and which he vehemently averred, was the veritable dulcimer. He

would display with great gusto, his specimens of harps of Israel; whose

deep-toned chorus, had perchance thrilled through the breast of more than

one of Judea’s dark-haired daughters. Greece, too, had her

representatives, to remind the spectators that there had been an Orpheus.

There were flutes of the Doric and of the Phrygian mode, and—let us

forget not—the Tyrrhenian trumpet, with its brazen-cleft pavilion. But by

far the greater part of his musical relics he had acquired during his stay

in Italy. He could show the litui with their carved clarions—the twisted

cornua—the tuba, a trumpet so long and taper,—the concha wound by

Tritons—and eke the buccina, a