Читать книгу Patronage - Maria Edgeworth - Страница 9

“MY DEAR FATHER,

“Pray do not feel disappointed when I tell you that I am not getting on quite so fast as I expected. I assure you, however, that I have not neglected any honourable means of bringing myself into notice. But it is very difficult for a young man to rise without puffing, or using low means.

“I met Lady Jane Granville a few days ago. She gave me a note to Sir Amyas Courtney, a fashionable physician and a great favourite of hers.—She told me that he had formerly been acquainted with some of my family, and she so strongly urged me to wait upon him, that to avoid offending her ladyship, I promised to avail myself of her introduction.

“I called several times before I found Sir Amyas at home. At last, by appointment, I went to breakfast with him one morning when he was confined to the house by an influenza. He received me in the most courteous manner—recollected to have danced with my mother years ago, at a ball at Lord Somebody’s—professed the greatest respect for the name of Percy—asked me various questions about my grandfather, which I could not answer, and paid you more compliments than I can remember. Sir Amyas is certainly the prettiest behaved physician breathing, with the sweetest assortment of tittle-tattle, with an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes and compliments for the great, and an intimate acquaintance with the fair and fashionable. He has also the happiest art of speaking a vast deal, and yet saying nothing; seeming to give an opinion, without ever committing himself.—The address with which he avoids contested points of science, and the art with which he displays his superficial knowledge, and conceals his want of depth, is truly amusing. He slid away from science as soon as he could, to politics, where he kept safe in commonplace newspaper-phrases; and in the happy persuasion that every thing is for the best, and that every man in power, let him be of what party he may, can do no wrong. He did not seem quite satisfied with my countenance as he spoke, and once or twice paused for my acquiescence—in vain.

“We were interrupted by the entrance of a Mr. Gresham, a rich merchant, who came to look at a picture which Sir Amyas shows as a true Titian. Mr. Gresham spoke, as I thought, with much good sense and taste about it, and Sir Amyas talked a great deal of amateur-nonsense. Still in the same namby-pamby style, and with the same soft voice and sweet smile, Sir Amyas talked on of pictures and battles, and carnage and levees, and drawing-rooms and balls, and butterflies.—He has a museum for the ladies, and he took me to look at it.—Sad was the hour and luckless was the day!—Among his shells was one upon which he peculiarly prided himself, and which he showed me as an unique. I was, I assure you, prudently silent till he pressed for my opinion, and then I could not avoid confessing that I suspected it to be a made shell—made, Caroline knows how, by the application of acids. The countenance of Sir Amyas clouded over, and I saw that I at this moment lost all chance of his future favour. He made me some fine speeches, when I was going away, and dwelt upon his great desire to oblige any friend of Lady Jane Granville’s.

“A few days afterwards, I saw her ladyship again, and found, by her manner, that she had not been satisfied by Sir Amyas Courtney’s report of me. She pressed me to tell her all that had passed between us. She was provoked by my imprudence, as she called it, about the shell, and exhorted me to repair it by future attentions and complaisance. When I declined paying court to Sir Amyas, as inconsistent with my ideas and feelings of independence, her ladyship grew angry—said that my father had inspired all his sons with absurd notions of independence, which would prevent their rising in the world, or succeeding in any profession. I believe I then grew warm in defence of my father and myself. The conclusion of the whole was, that we remained of our own opinions, and that her ladyship protested she would never more attempt to serve us. Alfred has called since on Lady Jane, but has not been admitted. I am sorry that I too have offended her, for I really like her, and am grateful for her kindness, but I cannot court her patronage, nor bend to her idol, Sir Amyas.—

“Your affectionate son,

“ERASMUS PERCY.”