What Will He Do with It? — Volume 04Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
What Will He Do with It? — Volume 04
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
"Had I a heart for falsehood framed,
I neer could injure you."
Another, generally to be applied when confessing that his career had been
interestingly wild, and would, if pity were denied him, be pathetically
short,
"When he who adores thee has left but the name
Of his faults and his follies behind."
Armed with these quotations, many a sentence from the "Polite Letter-
Writer" or the "Elegant Extracts," and a quire of rose-edged paper,
Losely sat down to Ovidian composition.
But as he approached the close of epistle the first, it occurred to him
that a signature and address were necessary. The address was not
difficult. He could give Poole's (hence his confidence to that
gentleman): Poole had a lodging in Bury Street, St. James's, a
fashionable locality for single men. But the name required more
consideration. There were insuperable objections against signing his own
to any person who might be in communication with Mr. Darrell; a pity, for
there was a good old family of the name of Losely. A name of
aristocratic sound might indeed be readily borrowed from any lordly
proprietor thereof without asking a formal consent. But this loan was
exposed to danger. Mrs. Haughton might very naturally mention such name,
as borne by her husband's friend, to Colonel Morley; and Colonel Morley
would most probably know enough of the connections and relations of any
peer so honoured to say, "There is no such Greville, Cavendish, or
Talbot." But Jasper Losely was not without fertility of invention and
readiness of resource. A grand idea, worthy of a master, and proving
that, if the man had not been a rogue in grain, he could have been reared
into a very clever politician, flashed across him. He would sign himself
"SMITH." Nobody could say there is no such Smith; nobody could say that
a Smith might not be a most respectable, fashionable, highly-connected
man. There are Smiths who are millionaires; Smiths who are large-acred
squires; substantial baronets; peers of England, and pillars of the
State. You can no more question a man's right to be a Smith than his
right to be a Briton; and wide as the diversity of rank, lineage, virtue,
and genius in Britons is the diversity in Smiths. But still a name so
generic often affects a definitive precursor. Jasper signed himself "J.
COURTENAY SMITH." He called, and left epistle the first with his own
kid-gloved hand, inquiring first if Mrs. Haughton were at home, and,
responded to in the negative this time, he asked for her son. "Her son
was gone abroad with Colonel Morley." Jasper, though sorry to lose
present hold over the boy, was consoled at learning that the Colonel was
off the ground. Afore sanguine of success, he glanced up at the window,
and, sure that Mrs. Haughton was there, though he saw her not, lifted his
hat with as melancholy an expression of reproach as he could throw into
his face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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