Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering
at the practice of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds
so ridiculous; that it was I who laughed good-humouredly
at the reeling old Silenus of a baronet—
whereas the laughter comes from one who has no reverence
except for prosperity, and no eye for anything beyond
success. Such people there are living and flourishing
in the world—Faithless, Hopeless, Charityless:
let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main.
Some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks
and fools: and it was to combat and expose such
as those, no doubt, that Laughter was made.
Family Portraits
Sir Pitt Crawley was a philosopher with a taste for
what is called low life. His first marriage
with the daughter of the noble Binkie had been made
under the auspices of his parents; and as he often
told Lady Crawley in her lifetime she was such a confounded
quarrelsome high-bred jade that when she died he was
hanged if he would ever take another of her sort,
at her ladyship’s demise he kept his promise,
and selected for a second wife Miss Rose Dawson, daughter
of Mr. John Thomas Dawson, ironmonger, of Mudbury.
What a happy woman was Rose to be my Lady Crawley!
Let us set down the items of her happiness.
In the first place, she gave up Peter Butt, a young
man who kept company with her, and in consequence
of his disappointment in love, took to smuggling,
poaching, and a thousand other bad courses. Then
she quarrelled, as in duty bound, with all the friends
and intimates of her youth, who, of course, could
not be received by my Lady at Queen’s Crawley—nor
did she find in her new rank and abode any persons
who were willing to welcome her. Who ever did?
Sir Huddleston Fuddleston had three daughters who
all hoped to be Lady Crawley. Sir Giles Wapshot’s
family were insulted that one of the Wapshot girls
had not the preference in the marriage, and the remaining
baronets of the county were indignant at their comrade’s
misalliance. Never mind the commoners, whom
we will leave to grumble anonymously.
Sir Pitt did not care, as he said, a brass farden
for any one of them. He had his pretty Rose,
and what more need a man require than to please himself?
So he used to get drunk every night: to beat his
pretty Rose sometimes: to leave her in Hampshire
when he went to London for the parliamentary session,
without a single friend in the wide world. Even
Mrs. Bute Crawley, the Rector’s wife, refused
to visit her, as she said she would never give the
pas to a tradesman’s daughter.
