Guy Livingstone; or, 'Thorough'. George A. Lawrence
d' ara kuma peristathê, oureï ison,
Kurtôthen, krupsen de Theon thnêtên te gunaika.
And yet they say that the glorious old Sciote was a myth, and the Odyssey a magazine worked out by clever contributors. They might as well assert that all his marshals would have made up one Napoleon.
I remember how we used to pass in review the beauties of old time, for whom "many drew swords and died," whose charms convulsed kingdoms and ruined cities, who called the stars after their own names.
Ah! Gyneth and Ida, peerless queens of beauty, it was exciting, doubtless, to gaze down from your velveted gallery on the mad tilting below, to see ever and anon through the yellow dust a kind, handsome face looking up at you, pale but scarcely reproachful, just before the horse-hoofs trod it down; ah! fairest Ninons and Dianas—prizes that, like the Whip at Newmarket, were always to be challenged for—you were proud when your reckless lover came to woo, with the blood of last night's favorite not dry on his blade; but what were your fatal honors compared to those of a reigning toast in the rough, ancient days? The demigods and heroes that were suitors did not stand upon trifles, and the contest often ended in the extermination of all the lady's male relatives to the third and fourth generation. People then took it quite as a matter of course—rather a credit to the family than otherwise.
Guy and I discussed, often and gravely, the relative merits of Evadne the violet-haired, Helen, Cleopatra, and a hundred others, just as, on the steps of White's, or in the smoking-room at the "Rag," men compare the points of the débutantes of the season.
His knowledge of feminine psychology—it must have been theoretical, for he was not seventeen—implied a study and depth of research that was quite surprising; but I am bound to state that his estimate of the strength of character and principle inherent in the weaker sex was any thing but high; nearly, indeed, identical with that formed by the learned lady who, to the question, "Did she think the virtue of any single one of her sisterhood impregnable?" replied "C'est selon." He often used to astonish my weak mind by his observations on this head. I did not know till afterward that Sir Henry Fallowfield, the Bassompierre of his day, came for the Christmas pheasant-shooting every year into Guy's neighborhood, and that he had already imbibed lessons of questionable morality, sitting at the gouty feet of that evil Gamaliel.
He spoke of and to women of every class readily whenever he got the chance, always with perfect aplomb and self-possession; and I have heard older men remark since, that in him it did not appear the precocity of "the rising generation," but rather the confidence of one who knew his subject well. Perhaps the fact of his father having died when he was an infant, and his having always been suzerain among his women at home, may have had something to do with this. An absurd instance of what I have been saying happened just before Guy left.
By time-honored custom, four or five of the Sixth were invited every week to dine with the head master. They were not, strictly speaking, convivial, those solemn banquets; where the host was condescendingly affable, and his guests cheerful, as it were, under protest; resembling somewhat the entertainments in the captain's cabin, where the chief is unpopular.
Our Archididascalus was a kind-hearted, honest man, albeit, by virtue of his office, somewhat strict and stern. You could read the Categories in the wrinkles of his colorless face, and contested passages of Thucydides in the crows'-feet round his eyes. The everlasting grind at the educational tread-mill had worn away all he might once have had of imagination; he translated with precisely the same intonations the Tusculan Disputations and—"Ἔρως ἀνίκατε μάχαν. [Erôs anikate machan.]
He had lately taken to himself a wife, his junior by a score of years. The academic atmosphere had not had time then to freeze her into the dignity befitting her position; when I met her ten years later, she was steady and staid enough, poor thing, to have been the wife of Grotius.
Guy sat next to her that evening, and before the first course was over a decided flirtation was established. The pretty hostess, albeit wife of a doctor and daughter of a dean, had evidently a strong coquettish element in her composition, and a very slight spark was sufficient to relight the veteris vestigia flammæ.
For some time her husband did not seem to realize the position; but gradually his sentences grew rare and curt; he opened his mouth, no longer to let fall the pearls of his wisdom, but to stop it with savory meat; finally this last resource failed, and he sat, looking wrathfully but helplessly on the proceedings at the other end of the table—a lamentable instance of prostrated ecclesiastical dignity. His disgust, however, was far exceeded by the horror of one of the party, a meek, cadaverous-looking boy, whose parents lived in the town, and who was wont to regard the head master as the vicegerent of all powers, civil and sacerdotal—I am not sure he did not include military as well. I caught him looking several times at the door and the ceiling with a pale, guilty face, as if he expected some immediate visitation to punish the sacrilege. However, heaven, which did not interrupt the feast of Atreus or of Tereus (till the dessert), allowed us to finish our dinner in peace. During the interval when we sat alone over his claret, our host revived a little; but utterly relapsed in the drawing-room, where things went on worse than ever. Guy leaned over the fair Penelope (such was her classical and not inappropriate name) while she was singing, and over her sofa afterward, evidently considering himself her legitimate proprietor for the time, and regarding the husband, as he hovered round them, in the light of an unauthorized intruder. The latter would have given any thing, once or twice, to have interfered, I am sure; but, apart from, the extreme ridicule of the thing, he was in his own house, and as hospitable as Saladin.
It was a great scene, when, at parting, she gave Guy the camellia that she wore at her breast; the doctor gasped thrice convulsively and said no word; but I wonder how she accounted afterward for the smile and blush which answered some whispered thanks? There are certain limits that even the historian dares not transgress; a veil falls between the profane and the thalamus of an LL.D.; but I rather imagine she had a hard time of it that night, the poor little woman! Let us hope, in charity, that she held her own.
When the Count was questioned as to the conversation that had passed, he declined to give any particulars, merely remarking that "he had to thank Dr. ——for for a very pleasant evening, and he hoped everyone had enjoyed themselves very much"—which was philanthropic, to say the least of it.
I don't know if it was our imagination, but we fancied that when the head master called up Livingstone in form after this, he did so with an air of grave defiance, such as a duelist of the Old Régime may have worn when, doffing his plumed hat, he said to his adversary, "En garde!"
There was little time to make observations, for shortly afterward Guy went up to Oxford, whither, six months later, I followed him.
CHAPTER III.
"Through many an hour of summer suns,
By many pleasant ways,
Like Hezekiah's, backward runs
The shadow of my days."
When I came up, I found Guy quite established and at home. He was a general favorite with all the men he knew at college, though intimate with but very few. There was but one individual who hated him thoroughly, and I think the feeling was mutual—the senior tutor, a flaccid being, with a hand that felt like a fish two days out of water, a large nose, and a perpetual cold in his head. He consistently and impartially disbelieved every one on their word, requiring material proof of each assertion; an original mode of acquiring the confidence of his pupils, and precluding any thing like an attempt at deception on their part. I remember well a discussion on his merits that took place in the porter's lodge one night just after twelve. When several had given their opinions more or less strongly, some one asked the gate-ward what he thought of the individual in question, to which that eminent functionary thus replied: "Why, you see, sir, I'm only a servant, and,