Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 02

								

citizens.  With all his energies braced and strengthened; with his mind
stored with profusest gifts; in the vigour of a constitution to which a
hardy life had imparted a second and fresher youth; so trained by stern
experience as to redeem with an easy effort all the deficiencies and
faults which had once resulted from too sensitive an imagination and too
high a standard for human actions; formed to render to his race the most
brilliant and durable service, and to secure to himself the happiness
which results from sobered fancy, a generous heart, and an approving
conscience,--here was Ernest Maltravers, backed, too, by the appliances
and gifts of birth and fortune, perversely shutting up genius, life, and
soul in their own thorny leaves, and refusing to serve the fools and
rascals who were formed from the same clay, and gifted by the same God.
Morbid and morose philosophy, begot by a proud spirit on a lonely heart!

CHAPTER V.


LET such amongst us as are willing to be children again, if it be
only for an hour, resign ourselves to the sweet enchantment that
steals upon the spirit when it indulges in the memory of early
and innocent enjoyment.
D. L. RICHARDSON.
AT dinner, Caroline's lively recital of their adventures was received
with much interest, not only by the Merton family, but by some of the
neighbouring gentry who shared the rector's hospitality.  The sudden
return of any proprietor to his old hereditary seat after a prolonged
absence makes some sensation in a provincial neighbourhood.  In this
case, where the proprietor was still young, unmarried, celebrated, and
handsome, the sensation was of course proportionably increased.  Caroline
and Evelyn were beset by questions, to which the former alone gave any
distinct reply.  Caroline's account was, on the whole, gracious and
favourable, and seemed complimentary to all but Evelyn, who thought that
Caroline was a very indifferent portrait-painter.
It seldom happens that a man is a prophet in his own neighbourhood; but
Maltravers had been so little in the county, and in his former visit his
life had been so secluded, that he was regarded as a stranger.  He had
neither outshone the establishments nor interfered with the sporting of
his fellow-squires; and on the whole, they made just allowance for his
habits of distant reserve.  Time, and his retirement from the busy scene,
long enough to cause him to be missed, not long enough for new favourites
to supply his place, had greatly served to mellow and consolidate his
reputation, and his country was proud to claim him.  Thus (though
Maltravers would not have believed it had an angel told him) he was not
spoken ill of behind his back: a thousand little anecdotes of his
personal habits, of his generosity, independence of spirit, and
eccentricity were told.  Evelyn listened in rapt delight to all; she had
never passed so pleasant an evening; and she smiled almost gratefully on