212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 183
or condescend to keep candid readers in suspense about many
matters which might possibly interest them. For instance, the
matter of love has interested novel-readers for hundreds of years
past, and doubtless will continue so to interest them. Almost all
young people read love-books and histories with eagerness, as oldsters
read books of medicine, and whatever it is—heart complaint, gout,
liver, palsy—cry, " Exactly so, precisely my case !" Phil's first
love affair, to which we are now coming, was a false start. I own
it at once. And in this commencement of his career I believe he
was not more or less fortunate than many and many a man and
woman in this world. Suppose the course of true love always did
run smooth, and everybody married his or her first love. Ah ! what
would marriage be 1
A generous young fellow comes to market with a heart ready to
leap out of his waistcoat, for ever thumping and throbbing, and so
wild that he can't have any rest till he has disposed of it. What
wonder if he falls upon a wily merchant in Vanity Fair, and barters
his all for a stale bauble not worth sixpence ? Phil chose to fall in
love with his cousin; and I warn you that nothing will come of
that passion, except the influence which it had upon the young
man's character. Though my wife did not love the Twysdens, she
loves sentiment, she loves love affairs—all women do. Poor Phil
used to bore me after dinner with endless rodomontades about his
passion and his charmer ; but my wife was never tired of listening.
" You are a selfish, heartless, blasé man of the world, you are," he
would say. "Your own immense and undeserved good fortune in
the matrimonial lottery has rendered you hard, cold, crass, indifferent.
You have been asleep, sir, twice to-night, whilst I was talking. I
will go up and tell Madam everything. She has a heart." And
presently, engaged with my book or my after-dinner doze, I would
hear Phil striding and creaking overhead, and plunging energetic
pokers in the drawing-room fire.
Thirty thousand pounds to begin with ; a third part of that sum
coming to the lady from her mother ; all the Doctor's savings and
property ;—here certainly was enough in possession and expectation
to satisfy many young couples; and as Phil is twenty-two, and
Agnes (must I own it?) twenty-five, and as she has consented to
listen to the warm outpourings of the eloquent and passionate youth,
and exchange for his fresh, new-minted, golden sovereign heart, that
used little threepenny-piece, her own—why should they not marry
at once, and so let us have an end of them and this history ? They
have plenty of money to pay the parson and the post-chaise ; they
may drive off to the country, and live on their means, and lead an
existence so humdrum and tolerably happy that Phil may grow