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

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

cn A AE SO 2 THE MYSTRRIES OF THE COURT. collegiate education, to fit them for such professions | to look up to them with perhaps too much defe- as they might respectively be led by taste or 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 destiny’s arbiters was likely to push them on. They were twohand-jin respect to the worldly career of those some youths,—reflecting in their own persons the | whom the laws of primogeniture and entail thus masculine beauty of a fine and haughty race,— with dispositions naturally good, but nevertheless already somewhat warped by a fond father’s too great indulgence, as well as by the influences of that sphere of life in which they were born, and in the midst of which they had been caressed, petted, and flattered. At the time when they entered Oxford Univer- sity, Hugh, the elder, was in the opening of his twenty-first year—Bertram, the younger, a little past eighteen. They were of equal stature: but Hugh was more strongly and stoutly built than his brother,—not merely because his additional two years had given to his form more manly develop- ments, but because the younger was naturally of a more slender and more gracefully symmetrical figure. Though it was impossible not to be struck by the haughtily handsome countenance of the elder, it was equally impossible to avoid drawing a com- parison in favour of the more delicately chiselled Grecian profile of the latter. The expression of Hugh’s features was entirely of the sense: that of Bertram’s of the sentiment. While the former indicated a love of pleasure, strong passions, and a disposition which was sensuous as well as proud, —that of the latter denoted a rare intelligence blended with its pride; and the classic curl of the short upper lip declared an instinctive disdain of falsehood. Hugh’s forehead was large, prominent, and massive—that of Bertram high and arched: the former pale from a too early acquaintance with dissipation—the latter pale likewise, but as if Genius itself bad stamped that pallor there. Thus the brow of the elder brother seemed one on which passion and pleasure might m after years trace their lines; while that of the younger brother had all the immortality of the intellect predicted in its marble dream. The eyes of both were dark,— those of the elder flashing with all worldly feelings, —those of the younger with the lightnings of the mind. Hugh’s hair was black, strong even to coarseness, and without a gloss: that of Bertram — throw in dependence upon them. Moreover, there is often, even in the breasts of the best-disposed youths, a spirited and prideful disinclination to be taunted with being ‘“ bookworms” and “ saints,” when elder brothers invite them to partake im pleasures and amusements: and thus is it that well-principled lads are frequently led, by a sense of false shame, to quit pursuits in reality most congenial to their tastes, and deviate into others but little consonant with their inclinations. To all these varied but potent influences was Bertram Vivian subjected; and when once the ice was broken,—when once, in other words, he had left his studies to accompany his brother and that brother’s boon companions amidst scenes of pleasure—the compunctious feelings attendant thereon gradually wore off. Not however that Bertram became in- veterately dissipated, or that he abandoned himself so completely to pleasure, as did Hugh: but still he was not eo steady as he ought to have been. The consequences were, that at the end of the first year of the two young men’s collegiate experience, they found that they had fer outstripped their pecuniary means, and that they had contracted debts which they dared not mention to their father, and which nevertheless without his suc- cour they had not the remotest chance of liqui- dating. The University tradesmen were not however clamorous. It was sufficient for them to know that the Viyians belonged to a family in which there were lofty titles that bespoke the accom- paniment of great wealth; and they considered themselves tolerably safe in being sooner or later paid by some member of this aristocratic family. Hugh pursued his career of extravagance as if he were actual heir to the Marquisate of Viviandale from which the family lustre was derived,—be- tween which and himeelf there were nevertheless great gulfs fixed: while Bertram, though without the moral courage to stop short in the pathway 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 ante 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 formed acquaintances of dispositions congenial with his own, and gave himself up to manly sports by day and dissipated pleasures by night. Hunting, racing, boating, fishing, and cock-fighting, con- something occurred which turned all his thoughts and ail his feelings into a completely new channel. The brothers had been about a year at the University—they were now respectively somewhat past twenty-one and nineteen—when Bertram ac- nw 2 emumgineemiinge Caatiye— ir _ 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 alliance—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 Eliza in a becoming manner, ditary titles and estates, younger brothers are aps | He had stinted himself to give her a good educas EORAIClIOO© So (COL