Pelham — Volume 04Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
History
Pelham — Volume 04
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Adventure stories; English fiction -- 19th century; Great Britain -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction
"He is the best premier we could have," thought I; "but he deceives
himself, if he thinks Henry Pelham will play the jackall to his lion. He
will soon see that I shall keep for myself what he thinks I hunt for
him." I passed through Pall Mall, and thought of Glanville. I knocked at
his door: he was at home. I found him leaning his cheek upon his hand, in
a thoughtful position; an open letter was before him.
"Read that," he said, pointing to it.
I did so. It was from the agent to the Duke of--, and contained his
appointment to an opposition borough.
"A new toy, Pelham," said he, faintly smiling; "but a little longer, and
they will all be broken--the rattle will be the last."
"My dear, dear Glanville," said I, much affected, "do not talk thus; you
have every thing before you."
"Yes," interrupted Glanville, "you are right, for every thing left for me
is in the grave. Do you imagine that I can taste one of the possessions
which fortune has heaped upon me, that I have one healthful faculty, one
sense of enjoyment, among the hundred which other men are 'heirs to?'
When did you ever see me for a moment happy? I live, as it were, on a
rock, barren, and herbless, and sapless, and cut off from all human
fellowship and intercourse. I had only a single object left to live for,
when you saw me at Paris; I have gratified that, and the end and purpose
of my existence is fulfilled. Heaven is merciful; but a little while, and
this feverish and unquiet spirit shall be at rest."
I took his hand and pressed it.
"Feel," said he, "this dry, burning skin; count my pulse through the
variations of a single minute, and you will cease either to pity me, or
to speak to me of life. For months I have had, night and day, a wasting--
wasting fever, of brain, and heart, and frame; the fire works well, and
the fuel is nearly consumed."
He paused, and we were both silent. In fact, I was shocked at the fever
of his pulse, no less than affected at the despondency of his words. At
last I spoke to him of medical advice.
"'Canst thou,'" he said, with a deep solemnity of voice and manner,
"'administer to a mind diseased--pluck from the memory'--Ah! away with
the quotation and the reflection." And he sprung from the sofa, and going
to the window, opened it, and leaned out for a few moments in silence.
When he turned again towards me, his manner had regained its usual quiet.
He spoke about the important motion approaching on the--, and promised to
attend; and then, by degrees, I led him to talk of his sister.
He mentioned her with enthusiasm. "Beautiful as Ellen is," he said, "her
face is the very faintest reflection of her mind. Her habits of thought
are so pure, that every impulse is a virtue. Never was there a person to
whom goodness was so easy. Vice seems something so opposite to her
nature, that I cannot imagine it possible for her to sin."
"Will you not call with me at your mother's?" said I. "I am going there
to-day."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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