University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
OUR HERO RETURNS TO HIS NATIVE CITY.

Rumour had wafted the fame of Sopus to the
uttermost ends of the city, even into the farthest
parts of Pump-street. It was reported by divers
supercargoes and sea captains, who had been to
London and Paris, that he moved in the highest
circles—that he had lost a thousand guineas to the
Duke of York, on a race—dined with the Duke
of Sussex—had his health drank at a sheep shearing,
at Holkham—and danced a minuet at Almacks
with a dutchess, of three tails. These were
his English glories. At Paris he was in the first
circles too—supped with the Sontag—was admitted
behind the scenes at the grand opera—and
played duetts with the Grandissimo Rossini. The
very paving stones of the happy city, pricked up
their ears, when our hero first set foot upon them;
the fashionable world received him with open
arms; the young ladies looked up to him as a
glorious conquest—the young gentlemen studied
him as a model; the mothers took every opportunity
of telling him how much he was admired by
their daughters; and the rich brokers hailed him
as an accession of specie, or a rise in bank stock.

But they did not know he was only worth five
thousand franks in the world. “What a wonderful
improvement,” cried Mrs Cridler, who had
never seen him before in her life—“What an
air—O, there is nothing like travelling,” cried Mrs.
Crawbuck—“What a head, a perfect Appleo,”
cried Mrs. Smirk—And “Heavens! what a pair
of whiskers!” cried Mrs. Rosencrantz—at a small
party given in honour of our hero's arrival.

“I wonder if they are natural,” cried a young
lady of great inexperience, being just from the
Springs, after six weeks absence from town.

“O certainly,” answered Heartwell, a young
fellow of whom the reader will hear more anon,
“certainly, it is a revival of an old fashion, with a
little alteration. Then the swallows built in old
men's beards, now they prefer young ones—that's
all, madam.”

“La!” cried the inexperienced young lady,
“you don't say so?” a question not to be answered;
so Heartwell strolled away in search of farther
food for his satire. He was one of those men who
can say what they please. What a glorious privilege!
It is better than being an English bishop!

Sopus—unhappy name to pollute our high bred
pages—Sopus, after he had been in town about a
fortnight, thought he would go and see Miss Angelina.
It was rather an impudent thing, but nothing
for a man who had finished his education
abroad. He knocked at the door of the widow,

and asked for the young lady. She was married
and had six children! “Base woman!” exclaimed
our hero to himself, “I'll go and reproach her
for her falsehood. It is true I resigned her when I
went abroad, but how could she tell whether I
would not have claimed her when I came home.
But these women have no patience.” He went
according to the direction given him, and found
the house where his mistress resided, large and
splendid. The broker had got rich, heaven knows
how, it is not my business. “Faith,” said Sopus,
“the lady is not without excuse.” He rung, and
was admitted. The lady of the house came forward
without knowing to whom, as we don't announce
names here. She was as fat and as ugly
as—there is no comparison that will do her justice.
Sopus was struck into a cold shiver at the
precipice he had escaped, and finding the lady did
not immediately recollect him, made a low bow,
saying he had unfortunately mistaken the house,
and retreated with vast precipitation. “I forgive
her,” said he, “for not waiting for me;” and Angelina
told every body of the strange man with
great whiskers, that had called to see her by mistake.

Our hero notwithstanding the numerous invitations
he received, and the life of pleasure he led,
felt himself frequently at a loss for excitement.
Excitement! that is as necessary to people that
have nothing to do as air is to animated nature.

It is in search of excitement, that men plunge into
vices, and women into follies if not crimes.
Excitement is the will o' the wisp, that leads to a
thousand paths of misery and repentance; that
like jealousy increases by what it feeds on, and
finally from gentle impulses, proceeds to excesses
that mar the ends of our existence, and end in
irretrievable misery and disgrace. “When I hear
young ladies talk as they do about wanting excitement,”
said Heartwell one day to me, “I figure to
myself a being sated with all the rational delights
of the world, wasted by indolence—weakened by
dissipation—pampering her imagination with dangerous
delusions, and sighing for fleeting pleasures
either beyond her reach or if within it, fatal
in the enjoyment.” So said Heartwell, but he
was sometimes a most intolerable proser.

When men lose their taste for innocent amusements
and rational pleasures, if they are not restrained
either by conscience, or by want of means
and opportunity, they begin to seek those that are
neither one nor the other. A life of pleasure is
therefore, too often a life of progressive deterioration.
He who is tired of the company of pure
and innocent females, sinks too often down to the
society of those who are not so. He to whom the
gentle smiles of young unsuspecting preference,
the speaking eye full of innocent yet expressive
meanings, has become incapable of making his
heart throb, and his imagination dance, will most

likely seek these excitements in tumultuous revelry,
or lascivious debaucheries. He, in short, who has
properly completed his education abroad, cannot
possibly live without the excitement of something a
little piquant in morals, a little spice of foreign seasoning,
in short he will require the excitement of
something either unattainable, or attainable only
at the price of some little delicious fashionable
wickedness such as is quite compatible with the
character of a gentleman. It was so with our
hero—to him fruit was of no value unless it was
forbidden fruit. He would not have picked up a
pippin on the highway, but he was ready to risk
his neck in climbing after a crab apple. He pined
for two things especially. A single lady with
plenty of money for a wife; a married one with
plenty of beauty for a friend. To these objects
he was resolved to devote himself. In the mean
time, he made acquaintance with several fashionable
young men of fortune about town, whom he
tried all he could to enlighten in the ways of the
old world. Among the rest he became acquainted
with Heartwell, a youth of about seven-and-twenty,
tall, handsome, well born, well brought up, and
well educated. Heartwell had been abroad too,
but he brought home something besides vices and
follies. He brought home a diminished admiration
of Europe, and an increased admiration of
his own country. Simple, yet dignified high bred
manners, a simple taste in dress, a fine, open, manly
heart, and not whiskers enough for a humming
bird to build his nest in. He was in the main,
good natured and tolerant of foibles, but withal
this, there was a vein of sarcastic humour about
him, that some people who dreaded it, called ill-nature.