“No doubt he is a contributor to ‘The
Londoner,’” said the Parson, sarcastically.
“True. He writes our classical, theological,
and metaphysical articles. Suppose I invite
him to come here for a day or two, and you can see
him and judge for yourself, Sir Peter?”
“Do.”
MR. WELBY arrived, and pleased everybody. A
man of the happiest manners, easy and courteous.
There was no pedantry in him, yet you could soon
see that his reading covered an extensive surface,
and here and there had dived deeply. He enchanted
the Parson by his comments on Saint Chrysostom; he
dazzled Sir Peter with his lore in the antiquities
of ancient Britain; he captivated Kenelm by his readiness
to enter into that most disputatious of sciences called
metaphysics; while for Lady Chillingly, and the three
sisters who were invited to meet him, he was more
entertaining, but not less instructive. Equally
at home in novels and in good books, he gave to the
spinsters a list of innocent works in either; while
for Lady Chillingly he sparkled with anecdotes of
fashionable life, the newest bons mots, the
latest scandals. In fact, Mr. Welby was one
of those brilliant persons who adorn any society amidst
which they are thrown. If at heart he was a
disappointed man, the disappointment was concealed
by an even serenity of spirits; he had entertained
high and justifiable hopes of a brilliant career and
a lasting reputation as a theologian and a preacher;
the succession to his estate at the age of twenty-three
had changed the nature of his ambition. The
charm of his manner was such that he sprang at once
into the fashion, and became beguiled by his own genial
temperament into that lesser but pleasanter kind of
ambition which contents itself with social successes
and enjoys the present hour. When his circumstances
compelled him to eke out his income by literary profits,
he slid into the grooves of periodical composition,
and resigned all thoughts of the labour required for
any complete work, which might take much time and
be attended with scanty profits. He still remained
very popular in society, and perhaps his general reputation
for ability made him fearful to hazard it by any great
undertaking. He was not, like Mivers, a despiser
of all men and all things; but he regarded men and
things as an indifferent though good-natured spectator
regards the thronging streets from a drawing-room
window. He could not be called blase,
but he was thoroughly desillusionne.
Once over-romantic, his character now was so entirely
imbued with the neutral tints of life that romance
offended his taste as an obtrusion of violent colour
into a sober woof. He was become a thorough
Realist in his code of criticism, and in his worldly
mode of action and thought. But Parson John did
not perceive this, for Welby listened to that gentleman’s
eulogies on the Ideal school without troubling himself
to contradict them. He had grown too indolent
to be combative in conversation, and only as a critic
betrayed such pugnacity as remained to him by the polished
cruelty of sarcasm.
