CHAPTER I. THE CORONATION.
The 8th of September, 1831, was a holiday in London. William the Fourthreceived the crown of his ancestors in that mighty church in which themost impressive monitors to human pomp are the monuments of the dead.The dust of conquerors and statesmen, of the wise heads and the boldhands that had guarded the thrones of departed kings, slept around; andthe great men of the Modern time were assembled in homage to the monarchto whom the prowess and the liberty of generations had bequeathed anempire in which the sun never sets. In the Abbey--thinking little of thepast, caring little for the future--the immense audience gazed eagerlyon the pageant that occurs but once in that division of history,--thelifetime of a king. The assemblage was brilliant and imposing. Thegalleries sparkled with the gems of women who still upheld the celebrityfor form and feature which, from the remotest times, has been awarded tothe great English race. Below, in their robes and coronets, were menwho neither in the senate nor the field have shamed their fathers.Conspicuous amongst all for grandeur of mien and stature towered thebrothers of the king; while, commanding yet more the universal gaze,were seen, here the eagle features of the old hero of Waterloo, andthere the majestic brow of the haughty statesman who was leading thepeople (while the last of the Bourbons, whom Waterloo had restored tothe Tuileries, had left the orb and purple to the kindred house so fatalto his name) through a stormy and perilous transition to a bloodlessrevolution and a new charter.
Tier upon tier, in the division set apart for them, the members of theLower House moved and murmured above the pageant; and the coronation ofthe new sovereign was connected in their minds with the great measurewhich, still undecided, made at that time a link between the Peopleand the King, and arrayed against both, if not, indeed, the realAristocracy, at least the Chamber recognized by the Constitution asits representative. Without the space was one dense mass. Houses,from balcony to balcony, window to window, were filled as some immensetheatre. Up, through the long thoroughfare to Whitehall, the eye sawthat audience,--A PEOPLE; and the gaze was bounded at the spot whereCharles the First had passed from the banquet-house to the scaffold.
The ceremony was over, the procession had swept slowly by, the lasthuzza had died away; and after staring a while upon Orator Hunt, whohad clambered up the iron palisade near Westminster Hall, to exhibit hisgoodly person in his court attire, the serried crowds, hurrying fromthe shower which then unseasonably descended, broke into large masses orlengthening columns.
In that part of London which may be said to form a boundary betweenits old and its new world, by which, on the one hand, you pass toWestminster, or through that gorge of the Strand which leads alongendless rows of shops that have grown up on the sites of theancient halls of the Salisburys and the Exeters, the Buckinghams andSouthamptons; to the heart of the City built around the primeval palaceof the "Tower;" while, on the other hand, you pass into the new city ofaristocracy and letters, of art and fashion, embracing the whilom chaseof Marylebone, and the once sedge-grown waters of Pimlico,--by thisignoble boundary (the crossing from the Opera House, at the bottom ofthe Haymarket, to the commencement of Charing Cross) stood a personwhose discontented countenance was in singular contrast with the generalgayety and animation of the day. This person, O gentle reader, thissour, querulous, discontented person, was a king, too, in his own walk!None might dispute it. He feared no rebel; he was harassed by no reform;he ruled without ministers. Tools he had; but when worn out, he replacedthem without a pension or a sigh. He lived by taxes, but they werevoluntary; and his Civil List was supplied without demand for theredress of grievances. This person, nevertheless, not deposed, wassuspended from his empire for the day. He was pushed aside; he wasforgotten. He was not distinct from the crowd. Like Titus, he had losta day,--his vocation was gone. This person was the Sweeper of theCrossing!
He was a character. He was young, in the fairest prime of youth; but itwas the face of an old man on young shoulders. His hair was long,thin, and prematurely streaked with gray; his face was pale and deeplyfurrowed; his eyes were hollow, and their stare gleamed, cold andstolid, under his bent and shaggy brows. The figure was at once fragileand ungainly, and the narrow shoulders curved in a perpetual stoop.It was a person, once noticed, that you would easily remember, andassociate with some undefined, painful impression. The manner washumble, but not meek; the voice was whining, but without pathos. Therewas a meagre, passionless dulness about the aspect, though at timesit quickened into a kind of avid acuteness. No one knew by what humanparentage this personage came into the world. He had been reared bythe charity of a stranger, crept through childhood and misery andrags mysteriously; and suddenly succeeded an old defunct negro inthe profitable crossing whereat he is now standing. All education wasunknown to him, so was all love. In those festive haunts at St. Giles'swhere he who would see "life in London" may often discover the boy whohas held his horse in the morning dancing merrily with his chosen damselat night, our sweeper's character was austere as Charles the Twelfth's.And the poor creature had his good qualities. He was sensitively aliveto kindness,--little enough had been shown him to make the luxury themore prized from its rarity! Though fond of money, he would part with it(we do not say cheerfully, but part with it still),--not to mere want,indeed (for he had been too pinched and starved himself, and had growntoo obtuse to pinching and to starving for the sensitiveness thatprompts to charity), but to any of his companions who had done him agood service, or who had even warmed his dull heart by a friendly smile.He was honest, too,--honest to the backbone. You might have trustedhim with gold untold. Through the heavy clod which man's care had notmoulded, nor books enlightened, nor the priest's solemn lore informed,still natural rays from the great parent source of Deity struggled,fitful and dim. He had no lawful name; none knew if sponsors had everstood security for his sins at the sacred fount. But he had christenedhimself by the strange, unchristian like name of "Beck." There he was,then, seemingly without origin, parentage, or kindred tie,--a lonesome,squalid, bloodless thing, which the great monster, London, seemedto have spawned forth of its own self; one of its sickly, miserable,rickety offspring, whom it puts out at nurse to Penury, at school toStarvation, and, finally, and literally, gives them stones for bread,with the option of the gallows or the dunghill when the desperateoffspring calls on the giant mother for return and home.
And this creature did love something,--loved, perhaps, somefellow-being; of that hereafter, when we dive into the secrets of hisprivacy. Meanwhile, openly and frankly, he loved his crossing; he wasproud of his crossing; he was grateful to his crossing. God help thee,son of the street, why not? He had in it a double affection,--that ofserving and being served. He kept the crossing, if the crossing kepthim. He smiled at times to himself when he saw it lie fair and brilliantamidst the mire around; it bestowed on him a sense of property! Whata man may feel for a fine estate in a ring fence, Beck felt for thatisthmus of the kennel which was subject to his broom. The coronation hadmade one rebellious spirit when it swept the sweeper from his crossing.
He stood, then, half under the colonnade of the Opera House as the crowdnow rapidly grew thinner and more scattered: and when the last carriageof a long string of vehicles had passed by, he muttered audibly,--
"It'll take a deal of pains to make she right agin!"
"So you be's 'ere to-day, Beck!" said a ragamuffin boy, who, pushing andscrambling through his betters, now halted, and wiped his forehead as helooked at the sweeper. "Vy, ve are all out pleasuring. Vy von't you comewith ve? Lots of fun!"
The sweeper scowled at the urchin, and made no answer, but begansedulously to apply himself to the crossing.
"Vy, there isn't another sweep in the streets, Beck. His Majesty KingBill's currynation makes all on us so 'appy!"
"It has made she unkimmon dirty!" returned Beck, pointing to the dingycrossing, scarce distinguished from the rest of the road.
The ragamuffin laughed.
"But ve be's goin' to 'ave Reform now, Beck. The peopul's to have theirrights and
libties, hand the luds is to be put down, hand beefsteaks isto be a penny a pound, and--"
"What good will that do to she?"
"Vy, man, ve shall take turn about, and sum vun helse will sveepthe crossings, and ve shall ride in sum vun helse's coach and four,p'r'aps,--cos vy? ve shall hall be hequals!"
"Hequals! I tells you vot, if you keeps jawing there, atween me and she,I shall vop you, Joe,--cos vy? I be's the biggest!" was the answer ofBeck the sweeper to Joe the ragamuffin.
The jovial Joe laughed aloud, snapped his fingers, threw up his raggedcap with a shout for King Bill, and set off scampering and whooping tojoin those festivities which Beck had so churlishly disdained.
Time crept on; evening began to close in, and Beck was still at hiscrossing, when a young gentleman on horseback, who, after seeing theprocession, had stolen away for a quiet ride in the suburbs, reined inclose by the crossing, and looking round, as for some one to hold hishorse, could discover no loiterer worthy that honour except the solitaryBeck. So young was the rider that he seemed still a boy. On his smoothcountenance all that most prepossesses in early youth left its witchingstamp. A smile, at once gay and sweet, played on his lips. There was acharm, even in a certain impatient petulance, in his quick eye and theslight contraction of his delicate brows. Almaviva might well have beenjealous of such a page. He was the beau-ideal of Cherubino. He held uphis whip, with an arch sign, to the sweeper. "Follow, my man," he said,in a tone the very command of which sounded gentle, so blithe wasthe movement of the lips, and so silvery the easy accent; and withoutwaiting, he cantered carelessly down Pall Mall.
The sweeper cast a rueful glance at his melancholy domain. But hehad gained but little that day, and the offer was too tempting to berejected. He heaved a sigh, shouldered his broom, and murmuring tohimself that he would give her a last brush before he retired for thenight, he put his long limbs into that swinging, shambling trot whichcharacterizes the motion of those professional jackals who, having oncecaught sight of a groomless rider, fairly hunt him down, and appear whenhe least expects it, the instant he dismounts. The young rider lightlyswung himself from his sleek, high-bred gray at the door of one of theclubs in St. James's Street, patted his horse's neck, chucked the reinto the sweeper, and sauntered into the house, whistling musically,--ifnot from want of thought, certainly from want of care.
As he entered the club, two or three men, young indeed, but much older,to appearance at least, than himself, who were dining together at thesame table, nodded to him their friendly greeting.
"Ah, Perce," said one, "we have only just sat down; here is a seat foryou."
The boy blushed shyly as he accepted the proposal, and the young menmade room for him at the table, with a smiling alacrity which showedthat his shyness was no hindrance to his popularity.
"Who," said an elderly dandy, dining apart with one of hiscontemporaries,--"who is that lad? One ought not to admit such mere boysinto the club."
"He is the only surviving son of an old friend of ours," answered theother, dropping his eyeglass,--"young Percival St. John."
"St. John! What! Vernon St. John's son?"
"Yes."
"He has not his father's good air. These young fellows have a tone, asomething,--a want of self-possession, eh?"
"Very true. The fact is, that Percival was meant for the navy, and evenserved as a mid for a year or so. He was a younger son, then,--third,I think. The two elder ones died, and Master Percival walked into theinheritance. I don't think he is quite of age yet."
"Of age! he does not look seventeen."
"Oh, he is more than that; I remember him in his jacket at Laughton. Afine property!"
"Ay, I don't wonder those fellows are so civil to him. This claret iscorked! Everything is so bad at this d----d club,--no wonder, when atroop of boys are let in! Enough to spoil any club; don't know Larosefrom Lafitte! Waiter!"
Meanwhile, the talk round the table at which sat Percival St. John wasanimated, lively, and various,--the talk common with young idlers; ofhorses, and steeplechases, and opera-dancers, and reigning beauties,and good-humoured jests at each other. In all this babble there was afreshness about Percival St. John's conversation which showed that, asyet, for him life had the zest of novelty. He was more at home abouthorses and steeplechases than about opera-dancers and beauties and thesmall scandals of town. Talk on these latter topics did not seem tointerest him, on the contrary, almost to pain. Shy and modest as a girl,he coloured or looked aside when his more hardened friends boasted ofassignations and love-affairs. Spirited, gay, and manly enough in allreally manly points, the virgin bloom of innocence was yet visible inhis frank, charming manner; and often, out of respect for his delicacy,some hearty son of pleasure stopped short in his narrative, or lostthe point of his anecdote. And yet so lovable was Percival in his goodhumour, his naivete, his joyous entrance into innocent joy, that hiscompanions were scarcely conscious of the gene and restraint heimposed on them. Those merry, dark eyes and that flashing smilewere conviviality of themselves. They brought with them a contagiouscheerfulness which compensated for the want of corruption.
Night had set in. St. John's companions had departed to their severalhaunts, and Percival himself stood on the steps of the club, resolvingthat he would join the crowds that swept through the streets to gazeon the illuminations, when he perceived Beck (still at the rein of hisdozing horse), whom he had quite forgotten till that moment. Laughing athis own want of memory, Percival put some silver into Beck's hand,--moresilver than Beck had ever before received for similar service,--andsaid,--
"Well, my man, I suppose I can trust you to take my horse to hisstables,--No.----, the Mews, behind Curzon Street. Poor fellow, he wantshis supper,--and you, too, I suppose!"
Beck smiled a pale, hungry smile, and pulled his forelock politely.
"I can take the 'oss werry safely, your 'onor."
"Take him, then, and good evening; but don't get on, for your life."
"Oh, no, sir; I never gets on,--'t aint in my ways."
And Beck slowly led the horse through the crowd, till he vanished fromPercival's eyes.
Just then a man passing through the street paused as he saw the younggentleman on the steps of the club, and said gayly, "Ah! how do you do?Pretty faces in plenty out to-night. Which way are you going?"
"That is more than I can tell you, Mr. Varney. I was just thinking whichturn to take,--the right or the left."
"Then let me be your guide;" and Varney offered his arm.
Percival accepted the courtesy, and the two walked on towardsPiccadilly. Many a kind glance from the milliners--and maid-servantswhom the illuminations drew abroad, roved, somewhat impartially, towardsSt. John and his companion; but they dwelt longer on the last, for thereat least they were sure of a return. Varney, if not in his first youth,was still in the prime of life, and Time had dealt with him so lenientlythat he retained all the personal advantages of youth itself. Hiscomplexion still was clear; and as only his upper lip, decorated witha slight silken and well-trimmed mustache, was unshaven, the contourof the face added to the juvenility of his appearance by the roundedsymmetry it betrayed. His hair escaped from his hat in fair unchangedluxuriance. And the nervous figure, agile as a panther's, thoughbroad-shouldered and deep-chested, denoted all the slightness andelasticity of twenty-five, combined with the muscular power of forty.His dress was rather fantastic,--too showy for the good taste which ishabitual to the English gentleman,--and there was a peculiarity in hisgait, almost approaching to a strut, which bespoke a desire of effect,a consciousness of personal advantages, equally opposed to the mienand manner of Percival's usual companions; yet withal, even the mostfastidious would have hesitated to apply to Gabriel Varney the epithetof "vulgar." Many turned to look again, but it was not to remark thedress or the slight swagger; an expression of reckless, sinister powerin the countenance, something of vigour and determination even in thatvery walk, foppish as it would have been in most, made you sink allobservation of the mere externals, in
a sentiment of curiosity towardsthe man himself. He seemed a somebody,--not a somebody of conventionalrank, but a somebody of personal individuality; an artist, perhaps apoet, or a soldier in some foreign service, but certainly a man whosename you would expect to have heard of. Amongst the common mob ofpassengers he stood out in marked and distinct relief.
"I feel at home in a crowd," said Varney. "Do you understand me?"
"I think so," answered Percival. "If ever I could become distinguished,I, too, should feel at home in a crowd."
"You have ambition, then; you mean to become distinguished?" askedVarney, with a sharp, searching look.
There was a deeper and steadier flash than usual from Percival's darkeyes, and a manlier glow over his cheek, at Varney's question. But hewas slow in answering; and when he did so, his manner had all its wontedmixture of graceful bashfulness and gay candour.
"Our rise does not always depend on ourselves. We are not all borngreat, nor do we all have 'greatness thrust on us.'"
"One can be what one likes, with your fortune," said Varney; and therewas a growl of envy in his voice.
"What, be a painter like you! Ha, ha!"
"Faith," said Varney, "at least, if you could paint at all, you wouldhave what I have not,--praise and fame."
Percival pressed kindly on Varney's arm. "Courage! you will get justicesome day."
Varney shook his head. "Bah! there is no such thing as justice; all areunderrated or overrated. Can you name one man who you think is estimatedby the public at his precise value? As for present popularity, itdepends on two qualities, each singly, or both united,--cowardice andcharlatanism; that is, servile compliance with the taste and opinion ofthe moment, or a quack's spasmodic efforts at originality. But why boreyou on such matters? There are things more attractive round us. A goodankle that, eh? Why, pardon me, it is strange, but you don't seem tocare much for women?"
"Oh, yes, I do," said Percival, with a sly demureness. "I am very fondof--my mother!"
"Very proper and filial," said Varney, laughing; "and does your love forthe sex stop there?"
"Well, and in truth I fancy so,--pretty nearly. You know my grandmotheris not alive! But that is something really worth looking at!" AndPercival pointed, almost with a child's delight, at an illumination morebrilliant than the rest.
"I suppose, when you come of age, you will have all the cedars atLaughton hung with coloured lamps. Ah, you must ask me there some day; Ishould so like to see the old place again."
"You never saw it, I think you say, in my poor father's time?"
"Never."
"Yet you knew him."
"But slightly."
"And you never saw my mother?"
"No; but she seems to have such influence over you that I am sure shemust be a very superior person,--rather proud, I suppose."
"Proud, no,--that is, not exactly proud, for she is very meek and veryaffable. But yet--"
"'But yet--' You hesitate: she would not like you to be seen, perhaps,walking in Piccadilly with Gabriel Varney, the natural son of old SirMiles's librarian,--Gabriel Varney the painter; Gabriel Varney theadventurer!"
"As long as Gabriel Varney is a man without stain on his character andhonour, my mother would only be pleased that I should know an able andaccomplished person, whatever his origin or parentage. But my motherwould be sad if she knew me intimate with a Bourbon or a Raphael, thefirst in rank or the first in genius, if either prince or artist hadlost, or even sullied, his scutcheon of gentleman. In a word, she ismost sensitive as to honour and conscience; all else she disregards."
"Hem!" Varney stooped down, as if examining the polish of his boot,while he continued carelessly: "Impossible to walk the streets and keepone's boots out of the mire. Well--and you agree with your mother?"
"It would be strange if I did not. When I was scarcely four years old,my poor father used to lead me through the long picture-gallery atLaughton and say: 'Walk through life as if those brave gentlemen lookeddown on you.' And," added St. John, with his ingenuous smile, "my motherwould put in her word,--'And those unstained women too, my Percival.'"
There was something noble and touching in the boy's low accents ashe said this; it gave the key to his unusual modesty and his frank,healthful innocence of character.
The devil in Varney's lip sneered mockingly.
"My young friend, you have never loved yet. Do you think you evershall?"
"I have dreamed that I could love one day. But I can wait."
Varney was about to reply, when he was accosted abruptly by three menof that exaggerated style of dress and manner which is implied by thevulgar appellation of "Tigrish." Each of the three men had a cigar inhis mouth, each seemed flushed with wine. One wore long brass spurs andimmense mustaches; another was distinguished by an enormous surface ofblack satin cravat, across which meandered a Pactolus of gold chain;a third had his coat laced and braided a la Polonaise, and pinched andpadded a la Russe, with trousers shaped to the calf of a sinewy leg, anda glass screwed into his right eye.
"Ah, Gabriel! ah, Varney! ah, prince of good fellows, well met! You supwith us to-night at little Celeste's; we were just going in search ofyou."
"Who's your friend,--one of us?" whispered a second. And the thirdscrewed his arm tight and lovingly into Varney's.
Gabriel, despite his habitual assurance, looked abashed foz a moment,and would have extricated himself from cordialities not at that momentwelcome; but he saw that his friends were too far gone in their cupsto be easily shaken off, and he felt relieved when Percival, after adissatisfied glance at the three, said quietly: "I must detain you nolonger; I shall soon look in at your studio;" and without waiting for ananswer, slid off, and was lost among the crowd.
Varney walked on with his new-found friends, unheeding for some momentstheir loose remarks and familiar banter. At length he shook off hisabstraction, and surrendering himself to the coarse humours of hiscompanions, soon eclipsed them all by the gusto of his slang and themocking profligacy of his sentiments; for here he no longer played apart, or suppressed his grosser instincts. That uncurbed dominion of thesenses, to which his very boyhood had abandoned itself, found a willingslave in the man. Even the talents themselves that he displayed camefrom the cultivation of the sensual. His eye, studying externals, madehim a painter,--his ear, quick and practised, a musician. His wild,prodigal fancy rioted on every excitement, and brought him in a vastharvest of experience in knowledge of the frailties and the vices onwhich it indulged its vagrant experiments. Men who over-cultivate theart that connects itself with the senses, with little counterpoise fromthe reason and pure intellect, are apt to be dissipated and irregularin their lives. This is frequently noticeable in the biographies ofmusicians, singers, and painters; less so in poets, because he who dealswith words, not signs and tones, must perpetually compare his senseswith the pure images of which the senses only see the appearances,--in aword, he must employ his intellect, and his self-education must be largeand comprehensive. But with most real genius, however fed merely by thesenses,--most really great painters, singers, and musicians, howevereasily led astray into temptation,--the richness of the soil throwsup abundant good qualities to countervail or redeem the evil; they areusually compassionate, generous, sympathizing. That Varney had not suchbeauties of soul and temperament it is unnecessary to add,--principally,it is true, because of his nurture, education, parental example, theutter corruption in which his childhood and youth had passed; partlybecause he had no real genius,---it was a false apparition of the divinespirit, reflected from the exquisite perfection of his frame (whichrendered all his senses so vigorous and acute) and his riotous fancy andhis fitful energy, which was capable at times of great application, butnot of definite purpose or earnest study. All about him was flashyand hollow. He had not the natural subtlety and depth of mind that hadcharacterized his terrible father. The graft of the opera-dancer wasvisible on the stock of the scholar; wholly without the habits of methodand order, without the patience, without the mathema
tical calculatingbrain of Dalibard, he played wantonly with the horrible and loathsomewickedness of which Olivier had made dark and solemn study. Extravagantand lavish, he spent money as fast as he gained it; he threw away allchances of eminence and career. In the midst of the direst plots ofhis villany or the most energetic pursuit of his art, the poorestexcitement, the veriest bauble would draw him aside. His heart was withFalri in the sty, his fancy with Aladdin in the palace. To make a showwas his darling object; he loved to create effect by his person, histalk, his dress, as well as by his talents. Living from hand to mouth,crimes through which it is not our intention to follow him had at timesmade him rich to-day, for vices to make him poor again to-morrow.What he called "luck," or "his star," had favoured him,--he was nothanged!--he lived; and as the greater part of his unscrupulous careerhad been conducted in foreign lands and under other names, in his ownname and in his own country, though something scarcely to be defined,but equivocal and provocative of suspicion, made him displeasing tothe prudent, and vaguely alarmed the experience of the sober, still,no positive accusation was attached to the general integrity of hischaracter, and the mere dissipation of his habits was naturally littleknown out of his familiar circle. Hence he had the most presumptuousconfidence in himself,--a confidence native to his courage, andconfirmed by his experience. His conscience was so utterly obtuse thathe might almost be said to present the phenomenon of a man withoutconscience at all. Unlike Conrad, he did not "know himself a villain;"all that he knew of himself was that he was a remarkably clever fellow,without prejudice or superstition. That, with all his gifts, he hadnot succeeded better in life, he ascribed carelessly to the surpassingwisdom of his philosophy. He could have done better if he had enjoyedhimself less; but was not enjoyment the be-all and end-all of thislittle life? More often, indeed, in the moods of his bitter envy, hewould lay the fault upon the world. How great he could have been, if hehad been rich and high-born! Oh, he was made to spend, not to save,--tocommand, not to fawn! He was not formed to plod through the dullmediocrities of fortune; he must toss up for the All or the Nothing! Itwas no control over himself that made Varney now turn his thoughts fromcertain grave designs on Percival St. John to the brutal debauchery ofhis three companions,--rather, he then yielded most to his naturalself. And when the morning star rose over the night he passed with lowprofligates and venal nymphs; when over the fragments on the board andemptied bottles and drunken riot dawn gleamed and saw him in all thepride of his magnificent organization and the cynicism of his measuredvice, fair, fresh, and blooming amidst those maudlin eyes and flushedcheeks and reeling figures, laughing hideously over the spectacle he hadprovoked, and kicking aside, with a devil's scorn, the prostrate form ofthe favoured partner whose head had rested on his bosom, as alone witha steady step, he passed the threshold and walked into the fresh,healthful air,--Gabriel Varney enjoyed the fell triumph of his hell-bornvanity, and revelled in his sentiment of superiority and power.
Meanwhile, on quitting Varney young Percival strolled on as the whimdirected him. Turning down the Haymarket, he gained the colonnade ofthe Opera House. The crowd there was so dense that his footsteps werearrested, and he leaned against one of the columns in admiration of thevarious galaxies in view. In front blazed the rival stars of the UnitedService Club and the Athenaeum; to the left, the quaint and peculiardevice which lighted up Northumberland House; to the right, the anchors,cannons, and bombs which typified ingeniously the martial attributes ofthe Ordnance Office.
At that moment there were three persons connected with this narrativewithin a few feet of each other, distinguished from the multitude by thefeelings with which each regarded the scene, and felt the jostle of thecrowd. Percival St. John, in whom the harmless sense of pleasure wasyet vivid and unsatiated, caught from the assemblage only that physicalhilarity which heightened his own spirits. If in a character as yet soundeveloped, to which the large passions and stern ends of life wereas yet unknown, stirred some deeper and more musing thoughts andspeculations, giving gravity to the habitual smile on his rosy lip, andsteadying the play of his sparkling eyes, he would have been at a losshimself to explain the dim sentiment and the vague desire.
Screened by another column from the pressure of the mob, with his armsfolded on his breast, a man some few years older in point oftime,--many years older in point of character,--gazed (with thoughts howturbulent,--with ambition how profound!) upon the dense and dark massesthat covered space and street far as the eye could reach. He, indeed,could not have said, with Varney, that he was "at home in a crowd." Fora crowd did not fill him with the sense of his own individual beingand importance, but grappled him to its mighty breast with the thousandtissues of a common destiny. Who shall explain and disentangle thosehigh and restless and interwoven emotions with which intellectualambition, honourable and ardent, gazes upon that solemn thing withwhich, in which, for which it lives and labours,--the Human Multitude?To that abstracted, solitary man, the illumination, the festivity, thecuriosity, the holiday, were nothing, or but as fleeting phantoms andvain seemings. In his heart's eye he saw before him but the PEOPLE, theshadow of an everlasting audience,--audience at once and judge.
And literally touching him as he stood, the ragged sweeper, who hadreturned in vain to devote a last care to his beloved charge, stoodarrested with the rest, gazing joylessly on the blazing lamps, dead asthe stones he heeded, to the young vivacity of the one man, the solemnvisions of the other. So, O London, amidst the universal holiday tomonarch and to mob, in those three souls lived the three elements which,duly mingled and administered, make thy vice and thy virtue, thy gloryand thy shame, thy labour and thy luxury; pervading the palace and thestreet, the hospital and the prison,--enjoyment, which is pleasure;energy, which is action; torpor, which is want!