him? Arthur gone, he would only be allowed to make visits like any other acquaintance: little Laura could not accommodate him by learning the Catechism more than once a week: he had curled himself like ivy round Fairoaks: he pined at the thought that he must lose his hold of the place. Should he speak his mind and go down on his knees to the widow? He thought over any indications in her behavior which flattered his hopes. She had praised his sermon three weeks before she had thanked him exceedingly for his present of a melon, for a small dinner party which Mrs. Pendennis gave: she said she should always be grateful to him for his kindness to Arthur: and when he declared that there were no bounds to his love and affection for that dear boy, she had certainly replied in a romantic manner, indicating her own strong grati tude and regard to all her son's friends. Should he speak out? or should he delay? If he spoke and she refused him, it was awful to think that the gate of Fairoaks might be shut upon him forever — and within that door lay all the world for Mr. Smirke. Thus, O friendly readers, we see how every man in the world has his own private griefs and business, by which he is more cast down or occupied than by the affairs or sorrows of any other person. While Mrs. Pendennis is disquieting herself about losing her son, and that anxious hold she has had of him, as long as he has remained in the mother's nest, whence he is about to take flight into the great world beyond while the Major's great soul chafes and frets, inwardly vexed as he thinks what great parties are going on in London, and that he might be sunning himself in the glances of Dukes and Duchesses, but for those cursed affairs which keep him in a wretched little country hole - while Pen is tossing between his passion and a more agreeable sensation, unacknowledged yet, but swaying him considerably, namely, his longing to see the world-Mr. Smirke has a private care watching at his bedside, and sitting behind him on his pony; and is no more satisfied than the rest of us. How lonely we are in the world! how selfish and secret, everybody! You and your wife. have pressed the same pillow for forty years and fancy yourselves united.-Psha, does she cry out when you have the gout, or do you lie awake when she has the toothache? Your artless daughter, seemingly all innocence and devoted to her mamma and her pianolesson, is thinking of neither, but of the young Lieutenant with whom she danced at the last ball-the honest frank boy just returned from school is secretly speculating upon the money you will give him, and the debts he owes the tart-man. The old grandmother crooning in the corner and bound to another world within a few months, has some business or cares which are quite private and her own very likely she is thinking of fifty years back, and that night when she made such an impression, and danced a cotillon with the Captain before your father proposed for her: or, what a silly little over-rated creature your wife is, and how absurdly you are infatuated about her-and, as for your wife - O philosophic reader, answer and say, Do you tell her all? Ah, sir, a distinct universe walks about under your hat and under mine-all things in nature are differ ent to each the woman we look at has not the same features, the dish we eat from has not the same taste to the one and the other - you and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with some fellow-islands a little more or less near to us. Let us return, however, to the solitary Smirke. - |