The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 15: what you’re looking at

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, THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. collegiate education, to fit them for such professions { tu Jouk up to them with perhaps too much defe- as they might respectively be led by taste ur oppor- | rence, from a sense that they may in process of tynity to adopt, and in which the family interest | time be placed in the position of destany’s arbiters was likely to push them on. They were twohand-}in respect to the worldly career of those some youths,—reflecting in their own persons the | whom the laws of primogeniture and entail thas masculine beauty of a fine and haughty race,— | throw in dependence upon them. Moreover, there with dispositions naturally good, but nevertheless | is often, even in the breasts of the best-disposed already somewhat warped by a fond father’s tov | youths, a spirited and prideful disinclination to be great indulgence, as well as by the influences of | taumted with being “bookworms” and “ saints,” that sphere of life in which they were born, and in | when elder brothers invite them to partake im the midst of which they bad been caressed, petted, pleasures and amusements: and thus is it that and flattered. well-principled lads are frequently led, by a sense At the time when they entered Oxfurd Univer- ; of false shame, to quit pursuits in reality most sity, Hugh, the elder, was in the vupenjng of his | congenial to their tastes, and deviate into others twenty-first year—Bertram, the younger, a little | but little consonant with their inclinations. To past eighteen. They were of equal stature: but: all these varied but potent influences was Bertram Hugh was more strongly and stoutly built then , Vivian subjected; and when once the ice was his brother,—not merely because his additional two | bruken,—when once, in other words, he had left his years had given to his form more manly develop- , studies to accompany his brother and that brother's ments, but because the younger was naturally of a, boon companions amidst scenes of pleasure—the more slender and more gracefully symmetrical | compunctious feclings attendant thereon gradually figure. Though it was impossible not to be struck | wore off. Nut however that Bertram became h- by the haughtily handsome countenance of the elder, | veterately dissipated, or that he abandoned himself it was equally impossible to avoid drawing a com- | so completely to pleasure, as did Hugh: but sull parison in favour of the more delicately chiselled | he was not so steady as he ought to have been. Grecian profile of the latter. The expression of | The consequences were, that at the end of the first Hugh's features was entirely of the sense: that of | year of the two young men’s collegiate experience, Bertram’s of the sentiment. While the former! they found that they had far outstripped their indicated a love of pleasure, strong passions, and a | pecuniary means, and that they had contracted disposition which was sensuous as well as proud, debts which they dared not mention to their —that of the latter denoted a rare intelligence | father, and which nevertheless without his suc- blended with its pride; and the classic curl of the | cour they had not the remotest chance of liqui- short upper lip declared an instinctive disdain of | dating. falsehood. Hugh’s forehead was large, prominent,; The University tradesmen were not however and massive—that of Bertram high and arched: | clamorous. It was sufficient for them to know the former pale from a too early acquaintance with | that the Viyians belonged to a family in which disstpation—the latter pale likewise, but as if| there were lofty titles that bespoke the accom- Genius itself had stamped that pallor there. Thus | paniment of great wealth; and they considered the brow of the elder brother seemed one on which | themselves tolerably safe in being sooner or later passion and pleasure might m after years trace | paid by eome member of this aristocratic family. their lines; while that of the younger brother had | Hugh pursued his career of extravagance as if he all the immortality of the intellect predicted in its | were actual heir to the Marquisate of Viviandale marble dream. The eyes of both were dark,— {from which the family lustre was derived,—bde- those of the elder flashing with all worldly feelings, | tween which and himself there were nevertheless —those of the younger with the lightnings of the ) great gulfs fixed: while Bertram, though without mind. Hugh's hair was black, strong even tothe moral courage to stop short in the pathway coarseness, and without a gloss: that of Bertram | of ruin, was at times distracted by the sense of was of raven richness, shining with its own natural ' those difficulties that were gradually enmeshing velvety brightness, and clustering in excessive lux- ! him in a web which he feared to be inextricable. uriance over the small, delicate, well-folded ears, | He had not, we say, the moral courage to check. and by the sides of the alabaster temples. Alto- | himself: that feeling of false shame, and that idea gether, the elder brother was one whose fine appear- of more or less dependence on his brother, to ance could not fail to command admiration, but which we have already alluded, prevented him nothing else: while that of the younger brother | from asserting the natural rectitude of his position inspired the same feeling, but blended with interest, , and courageously obeying its impulses in spite of and almost love. | | all other considerations. But fortunately for him, On entering upon their college life, Hugh soon | something occurred which turned all his thoughts formed acquaintances of dispositions congenial with | and ail his feelings into a completely new channel. his own, and gave himself up to manly sports by| The brothers had been about a year at the day and dissipated pleasures by night. Hunting, | University—they were now respectively somewhat racing, boating, fishing, and cock-fighting, con-| past twenty-one and nineteen—when Bertram ac- stituted the former: revelling, cards, and visits to ' cidentally formed the acquaintance of a half-pay forbidden haunts of pleasurable vice, composed the | Captain in the Army and his daughter. The latter. On the other hand, Bertram—led by taste . gentleman, whose name was Lacey, was stricken . as well as by a sense of duty—applied himself to: in years: he had married late in life—one child , his studies: but he could not altogether escape the ' was the issue of this allianoe—but the event which influences of an elder brother's example. In aris- | rendered him a father, made him also a widower. tocratic families, where the casualties of nature | His means were limited: but he had done his beat may raise elder brothers to the possession of here- | to rear his darling Elisa in a becoming mannes. ditary titles and estates, younger brothers are aps | He had stinted himself to give her a good educa a ee me we re cm ee re ee oo COMMIC DOO Col