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five hours --- Yes, said the other, with a friendly shake of the hand, at
parting, and lost fifty men, in place of one, by the step.
CHAPTER XVII.
The Hon. General Denbigh was the youngest of three sons. His seniors, Francis
and George, were yet bachelors. The death of a cousin had made Francis a Duke,
while a child, and both he and his favourite brother George, had decided on
lives of inactivity and sluggishness.
When I die, brother, the oldest would say, you will succeed me, and
Frederic can provide heirs for the name hereafter.
This arrangement had been closely adhered to, and the brothers had reached
the ages of fifty-five and fifty-six, without altering their condition. In the
mean time, Frederic had married a young woman of rank and fortune, and the
fruits of their union, were the two young candidates for the hand of Isabel
Howell.
Francis Denbigh, the eldest son of the General, was diffident of himself by
nature, and in addition thereto, it was his misfortune to be the reverse of
captivating in his external appearance. The small pox sealed his
doom;---ignorance, and the violence of his attack, left him indelibly
impressed with the ravages of that dreadful disorder. On the other hand, his
brother escaped without any vestiges of the complaint, and his spotless skin,
and fine open countenance, met the gaze of his mother, as contrasted with the
deformed lineaments of his elder brother. Such an occurrence is sure to excite
one of two feelings in the breast of every beholder---pity or disgust---and,
unhappily for Francis, maternal tenderness was unable to counteract the latter
sensation in his case. George became a favourite, and Francis a neutral. The
effect was now easy to be seen---it was rapid, as it was indelible.
The feelings of Francis were tensitive to an extreme---he had more
quickness---more sensibility---more real talents than George--- and all these
enabled him to perceive, and the more acutely to feel, the partiality of his
mother, to his own prejudice.
As yet, the engagements and duties of the General, had kept his children, and
their improvements, out of his sight; but at the ages of eleven and twelve,
the feelings of a father, began to pride themselves in the possession of his
sons.
On his return from a foreign station, after an absence of two years, his
children were ordered from school to meet him. Francis had improved in
stature, but not in beauty--- George had flourished in both.
The natural diffidence of the former was increased, by perceiving himself no
favourite, and the effects began to show itself in his manners, at no time
engaging. He met his father with doubts as to his impressing him favourably,
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and he saw with anguish, that the embrace received by his brother far exceeded
in warmth, what had been bestowed on himself.
Lady Margaret, said the General to his wife, as he followed the retiring
boys with his eyes from the dinner table, it is a thousand pity s George had
not been the elder.He would have graced a dukedom or a throne. Frank is only
fit for a parson.
This ill-judged speech was uttered sufficiently loud to be overheard by both
the sons; on the younger, it made a pleasurable sensation for the moment. His
father---his dear father, had thought him fit to be a king---and his father
must be a judge, whispered his native vanity---but all this time the connexion
between the speech and his brother s rights did not present themselves to his
mind.--- George loved this brother too well---too sincerely, to have injured
him even in thought; and so far as Francis was concerned, his vanity was as
blameless, as it was natural.
The effect produced on the mind of Francis, was both different in substance
and degree. It mortified his pride---alarmed his delicacy---and wounded his
already morbid sensibility to such an extent, as to make him entertain the
romantic notion of withdrawing from the world, and yielding a birthright to
one so every way more deserving of it than himself.
From this period, might be dated the opinion of Francis, which never
afterwards left him; that he was doing injustice to another, and that other, a
brother whom he ardently loved, by continuing to exist. Had he met with
fondness in his parents, or sociability in his play-fellows, these fancies
would have left him as he grew into life. But the affections of his parents
were settled on his more promising brother, and his manners, daily increasing
in their repulsive traits, drove his companions to the society of others, more
agreeable to their own buoyancy and joy.
Had Francis Denbigh, at this age, met with a guardian, clear-sighted enough
to fathom his real character, and competent to direct his course onward, to
his great and prominent duties in life, he would yet have become an ornament
to his name and country, and a useful member of society. But no such guide
existed. His natural guardians, in his particular case, were his worst
enemies---and the boys left school for college four years afterwards, each
advanced in their respective properties of attraction and repulsion.
Irreligion is hardly a worse evil in a family than favouritism; when once
allowed to exist, acknowledged, in the breast of the parent, though hid
apparently from all other eyes--- its sad consequences begin to show
themselves --effects are produced, and we look in vain for the cause. The
awakened sympathies of reciprocal caresses and fondness, are mistaken for
uncommon feelings, and the forbidding aspect of deadened affections miscalled
native insensibility.
In this manner the evil increases itself, until manners are formed, and
characters created, that must descend, with their possessor, to the tomb.
In the peculiar formation of the mind of Francis Denbigh, the evil was doubly
injurious. His feelings required sympathy and softness, when they met only
with coldness and disgust. George alone was an exception to the rule.He did
love his brother; but even his gayety and spirits, soon tired of the dull
uniformity of the diseased habits of his elder.
The only refuge Francis found in his solitude, amidst the hundreds of the
university, was in his muse and powers of melody. The voice of his family has
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been frequently mentioned in these pages. And if, as Lady Laura had intimated,
there had ever been a syren in the race, it was a male one. He wrote prettily,
and would sing these efforts of his muse, to music of his own, that would
often draw crowds around his windows, in the stillness of the night, to listen
to sounds, as melodious as they were mournful. His poetical efforts partook of
the distinctive character of the man, and were melancholy-- wild--and
sometimes pious.
George was always amongst the most admiring of his brother s auditors, and
would feel a yearning of his heart towards him at such moments, that was
painful. But George was too young, and too heedless, to supply the place of a
monitor, or a guide, for Francis, to draw his thoughts into a more salutary
train. This was theduty of his parents, and should have been theirtask . But
the world --his rising honours--and his professional engagements, occupied the
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