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DIARY AND NOTES OF HORACE TEMPLETON, Esq.

DIARY AND NOTES HORACE TEMPLETON, Esq.

Author Of "Harry Lorrequer," "Knight Of Gwynne," Etc. Etc.

Second Edition.

London: Chapman And Hall, 186 Strand.

HORACE TEMPLETON.

It is a strange thing to begin a "Log" when the voyage is nigh ended! A voyage without chart or compass has it been: and now is land in sight--the land of the weary and heart-tired!

Terrific and heart-stirring as the death-bed scenes are, they are not true to nature: the vice and the virtue are alike exaggerated. Few, very few persons can bring themselves by an effort to believe that they are dying--easy as it seems, often as we talk of it, frequent as the very expression becomes in a colloquialism, it is still a most difficult process; but once thoroughly felt, there is an engrossing power, in the thought that excludes all others.'

At times, indeed, Hope will triumph for a brief interval, and "tell of bright days to come." Hope! the glorious phantom that we follow up the Rhine--through the deep glens of the Tyrol, and over the Alps!--Only content to die when we have lost it!

There are men to whom the truth, however shocking, is always revealed--to whom the Lawyer says, "You have no case," and the Physician confesses, "You have no constitution." Happily or unhappily--I will not deny it may be both--I am one of these. Of the three doctors summoned to consult on my health, one spoke confidently and cheeringly; he even assumed that kind of professional jocularity that would imply, "the patient is making too much of it." The second, more reserved from temperament, and graver, counselled caution and great care--hinted at the danger of the malady--coupling his fears with the hopes he derived from the prospect of climate. The third closed the door after them, and resumed his seat.

He blushed deeply before he could answer. He felt ashamed that he had failed in one great requisite of his art. I hastened to relieve him, by saying with a joyous air, "Well, I will go. I like the notion myself; it is at least a truce with physic. It is like drawing a game before one has completely lost it."

And so here I am--somewhat wearied and fevered by the unaccustomed exertion, but less so than I expected.

Yet I would far rather think this want of due tolerance for my travelling companions was a symptom of my malady, than of that truly English disease--self-importance, I know of nothing that tracks our steps on the Continent so invariably, nor is there any quality which earns for us so much ill-will.

Paris is very beautiful in spring. There is something radiant and gorgeous in the commingled splendour of a great city, with the calmer beauties of leafy foliage and the sparkling eddies of the bright river. Better, however, not to dwell longer on this theme, lest my gloomy thoughts should stray into the dark and crime-trodden alleys of the Bois de Boulogne, or the still more terrible filets de St. Cloud! How sad is it when one's temperament should, as if instinctively, suggest the mournful view of each object! Rather let me jot down a little incident of this morning--an event which has set my heart throbbing, and my pulse fluttering, at a rate that all the Prussic acid I have learned to take cannot calm down again.

There come now and then moments to the sick man, when to be well and vigorous he would consent to be poor, unfriended in the world--taking health alone for his heritage. I felt that half an hour ago--but it is gone again. And now to my adventure, for, in my unbroken dream of daily life, it seems such.

I have said I am lodged at the H?tel des Princes. How different are my quarters from those I inhabited when first I saw this city! This would entail a confession, however, and I shall make it some other day. My salon is No. 21, the first drawing-room to the right as you turn from the grand staircase, and opening by the three spacious windows on a balcony overlooking the Rue de Richlieu. It is, indeed, a very splendid apartment, as much so as immense mirrors, gilding, bronze, and or moulu can make it. There are soft couches and chairs, and ottomans too, that would inspire rest, save when the soul itself was restless.

Well. I lounged out after breakfast for a short stroll along the Boulevards, where the shade of the trees and the well-watered path were most inviting. Soon wearied--I cannot walk in a crowd--I returned to the h?tel; slowly toiled up-stairs, waking the echoes with my teasing cough; and, instead of turning to the right, I went left, taking the wrong road, as I have so often done in life; and then, mistaking the numerals, I entered No. 12 instead of No. 21. Who would credit it, that the misplacement of a unit could prove so singular.

There was one change alone which struck me. I could not find the book I was reading--a little volume of Auerbach's village stories of the Schwartz-Walders. There was, however, another in its place, one that told of humble life in the provinces--not less truthful and heart-appealing--but how very unlike! It was Balzac's story of "Eug?nie Grandet," the most touching tale I have ever read in any language. I have read it a hundred times, and ever with renewed delight. Little troubling myself to think how it came there--for, like an old and valued friend, its familiar features were always welcome--I began again to read it.

Whether the result of some peculiar organisation, or the mere consequence of ill health, I know not, but I have long remarked, that when a book has taken a strong hold upon me--fascinating my attention and engaging all my sympathies, I cannot long continue its perusal. I grow dreary and speculative; losing the thread of the narrative, I create one for myself, imagining a variety of incidents and scenes quite foreign to the intention of the writer, and identifying myself usually with some one personage or other of the story--till the upshot of all is, I drop off asleep, to awake an hour or so afterwards with a very tired brain, and a very confused sense of the reality or unreality of my last waking sensations.

It is, therefore, rather a relief to me, when, as in the present case, the catastrophe is known to me, and all speculation on the future denied. Poor Eug?nie, how I felt for all your sorrows!--wondrous spectacle of a heart that could transmute its one absorbing passion into another, and from love, the fondest and most confiding, beget a pure and disinterested friendship!

I must some day or other jot down a few recollections of my life at Gortham, Lord Elderton's seat, where, with Grotius and Puffendorf of a morning, and old Sir Robert Adams and Lord Hailiebury of an evening, I was believed to be inhaling the very atmosphere of learned diplomacy. Tiresome old gentlemen, whose thoughts stood fast at the time of Fox and Pitt, and, like a clock that went down in the night, steadily pointed to an hour long bygone. How wearied I was of discussions as to whether the King of Prussia would declare war, or the Emperor of Austria make peace! whether we should give up Malta, and lose Hanover! Pitt must, indeed, have been a man of "dark counsels," for, whether he wished for an alliance with France or not was a nightly topic of debate, without a chance of agreement.

All these discussions, far from tending to excite my ardour for the career, served to make me dread it, as the most tiresome of all possible pursuits. The light gossip, too, over which they regaled themselves with such excellent relish, was insupportably dull. Who could care for the pointless repartees of defunct Grand Dukes, or the meaningless caprices of long-buried Archduchesses?

If, then, I was glad to escape from Gortham and its weary company, I had formed no very sanguine expectations of pleasure at Vienna.

I stood within the doorway of the grand salon, almost stunned by the sudden transition from the dark monotony of a night-journey to the noonday blaze of splendour before me, when a gentle tap from a bouquet on my arm aroused me, and a very silvery voice, in accents every one of which sank into my heart, bade me welcome to Vienna. It was Lady Blanche Newington that spoke--the most lovely creature that ever beauty and station combined to form. Fascinations like hers were new to me: she mingled gentleness of manner with a spiritual liveliness, that seemed ever ready to say the right thing at the right moment. The ease with which, in different languages, she addressed the various individuals of the company, employing all the little delicate forms of those conventionalities French and Italian so abound in, and through all, an unobtrusive solicitude to please, that was most captivating.

My whole occupation that night was to steal after her unobserved, and gaze with delight at traits of manner that my ardent imagination had already elevated into graces of mind. I was very much in love--so much so that, ere a few weeks went over, iny brother attach?s saw it, and tormented me unceasingly on the subject. Nay, they went further: they actually told Lady Blanche herself, so that I dreaded to meet her, not knowing how she might treat my presumption. I fancied all manner of changes in her bearing towards me--reserve, coldness, perhaps disdain. Nothing of the kind! She was only more familiar and cordial than ever. Had I known more of the world, or of the feminine part of it, I should have read this differently: as it was, it overwhelmed me with delight. There was a frankness in her tone towards me, too; for, now, she discussed the temper and character of our mutual acquaintances, and with a shrewdness of criticism strange in one so young. At last we came to talk of a certain Count de Favancourt, the secretary of the French embassy; and as I mentioned his name she said, somewhat abruptly,

"I half suspect you don't like the Count?"

She laughed, and I went on, not sorry to have an opportunity of severity on one for whom I had conceived an especial hatred--indeed, not altogether without cause, since he had, on more than one occasion, marked the difference of our official rank in a manner sufficiently pointed to be offensive;

and yet, the rigid etiquette observable to another embassy forbade all notice of whatever could be passed over.

Like a very young man, I did not bound my criticism on the Count by what I saw and observed in his manner, but extended it to every possible deduction I could draw from his air and bearing; winding up all by a very broadly-hinted doubt that those ferocious whiskers and that deep baritone were any thing but a lion's skin over a very craven heart.

The last words were scarcely uttered, when a servant announced the Count de Favancourt. There is something, to a young person at least--I fancy I should not mind it now--so overwhelming on the sudden appearance of any one on whom the conversation has taken a turn of severity, that I arose confused and uneasy--I believe I blushed; at all events, I perceived that Lady Blanche remarked my discomfiture, and her eyes glanced on me with an expression I never observed before. As for the Count, he advanced and made his deep reverence without ever noticing me, nor, even while taking his seat, once shewed any consciousness of my presence.

Burning with indignation that I could scarce repress, I turned towards a table, and affected to occupy myself tossing over the prints and drawings that lay about--my maddened thoughts rendered still more insufferable from fancying that Lady Blanche and the Count seemed on far better and more intimate footing than I had ever known them before.

Some other visitors being announced, I took the occasion to retire unobserved, and had just reached the landing of the stairs when I heard a foot behind me. I turned--it was Favancourt. For the first time in my life, I perceived a smile upon his countenance--an expression, I own, that became it even less than his habitual stern scowl.

He made a pause at these words, and so long that I felt bound to speak, and, in a voice that passion had rendered slightly tremulous, said,

"Am I to receive this, sir, in the light of a rebuke? because, as yet, I only perceive it conveys the expression of your own regret that you cannot demand an explanation I am most ready to afford you.

"Stop, sir, I beg of you: I cannot be answerable for my temper, if you persist to outrage it. While you may press me to acknowledge that, while half an hour ago I only deemed you a 'Fat,' I now account you an imbecile.'"

"Enough!" said the Count, passing down the stairs before me.

When I reached my lodgings, I found a "friend" from him, who arranged a speedy meeting. We fought that same evening, behind the Prater, and I received his ball in my shoulder--mine, pierced his hat. I was recalled before my wound permitted me to leave my bed. The day I left Vienna, Lady Blanche was married to Count Favancourt!

"E tu, qui sa si te Ti sovrerai di me."

I started--there she was before me, bending over the harp, whose cords still trembled with the dying sounds; the same Blanche I had known and loved, but slightly changed indeed: more beautiful perhaps in womanhood than as a girl. Her long and silky hair fell over her white wrist and taper hand in loose and careless tresses, for she had taken off her bonnet, which lay on the floor beside her; her attitude was that of weariness--nay, there was a sigh! Good Heavens! is she weeping? My book fell to the ground; she started up, and, in a voice not louder than a whisper, exclaimed, "Mr. Templeton!"

"Blanche!--Lady Blanche!" cried I, as my head swam round in a strange confusion, and a dim and misty vapour danced before my eyes.

"Is this a visit, Mr. Templeton?" said she, with that soft smile I had loved so well; "am I to take this surprise for a visit?"

"I really--I cannot understand--I thought--I was certain that I was in my own apartment. I believed I was in Paris, in the H?tel des Princes."

"Oh, forgive me, I beg, Lady Blanche!--the similarity of the rooms, the inattentive habit of an invalid, has led to this mistake."

"I heard you had been ill," said she, in an accent full of melting tenderness; while taking a seat on a sofa, by a look rather than an actual gesture she motioned me to sit beside her: "you are much paler than you used to be."

"I have been ill," said I, struggling to repress emotion and a fit of coughing together.

"It is that dreadful life of England, depend upon it," said she eagerly; "that fearful career of high excitement and dissipation combined--the fatigues of parliament--the cares and anxieties of party--the tremendous exertions for success--the torturing dread of failure. Why didn't you remain in diplomacy?"

"It looked so very like idling," said I, laughingly, and endeavouring to assume something of her own easy tone.

"So it is. But what better can one have, after all?" said she, with a faint sigh.

"When they are happy," added I, stealing a glance at her beneath my eyelids. She turned away, however, before I had succeeded, and I could merely mark that her breathing was quick and hurried.

"I hope you have no grudge towards Favancourt?" said she hastily, and with a manner that shewed how difficult it was to disguise agitation. "He would be delighted to see you again! He is always talking of your success in the House, and often prophesies the most brilliant advancement for you."

"I have outlived resentment," said I, in a low whisper: "would that I could add, other feelings were as easily forgotten."

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