“Would you then be deceived?” said Lady Davenant. “Yes,” cried he; “sooner would I believe in all the fables of the Talmud than be without the ecstasy of veneration. It is the curse of age to be thus miserably disenchanted; to outlive all our illusions, all our hopes. That may be my doom in age, but, in youth, the high spring-time of existence, I will not be cursed with such a premature ossification of the heart. Oh! rather, ten thousand times rather, would I die this instant!” “Well! but there is not the least occasion for your dying,” said Lady Davenant, “and I am seriously surprised that you should suffer so much from such slight causes; how will you ever get through the world if you stop thus to weigh every light word?” “The words of most people,” replied he, “pass by me like the idle wind; but I do weigh every word from the very few whom I esteem, admire, and love; with my friends, perhaps, I am too susceptible, I love them so deeply.” This is an excuse for susceptibility of temper which flatters friends too much to be easily rejected. Even Lady Davenant admitted it, and Helen thought it was all natural. CHAPTER XIII. Lady Cecilia was now impatient to have the house filled with company. She gave Helen a _catalogue raisonné_ of all who were expected at Clarendon Park, some for a fashionable three days’ visit; some for a week; some for a fortnight or three weeks, be the same more or less. “I have but one fixed principle,” said she, “but I _have_ one,--never to have tiresome people when it can possibly be avoided. Impossible, you know, it is sometimes. One’s own and one’s husband’s relations one must have; but, as for the rest, it’s one’s own fault if one fails in the first and last maxim of hospitality--to welcome the coming and speed the parting guest.” The first party who arrived were of Lady Davenant’s particular friends, to whom Cecilia had kindly given the precedence, if not the preference, that her mother might have the pleasure of seeing them, and that they might have the honour of taking leave of her, before her departure from England. They were political, fashionable, and literary; some of ascendency in society, some of parliamentary promise, and some of ministerial eminence--the aristocracy of birth and talents well mixed. The aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy of talents are words now used more as a commonplace antithesis, than as denoting a real difference or contrast. In many instances, among those now living, both are united in a manner happy for themselves and glorious for their country. England may boast of having among her young nobility “The first in birth, the first in fame.” men distinguished in literature and science, in senatorial eloquence and statesmanlike abilities.