The Adventures of Philip

by William Makepeace Thackeray

all. I can see that by the way in which I am writing of these folks. By the way,

  whilst I am giving this candid opinion of the Twysdens, do I sometimes pause to

  consider what they think of me? What do I care? Think what you like. Meanwhile

  we bow to one another at parties. We smile at each other in a sickly way. And as

  for the dinners in Beaunash Street, I hope those who eat them enjoy their food.

  Twysden is one of the chiefs now of the Powder and Pomatum Office (the Pigtail

  branch was finally abolished in 1833, after the Reform Bill, with a compensation

  to the retiring under-secretary), and his son is a clerk in the same office.

  When they came out, the daughters were very pretty��even my wife allows that.

  One of them used to ride in the Park with her father or brother daily; and

  knowing what his salary and wife's fortune were, and what the rent of his house

  in Beaunash Street, everybody wondered how the Twysdens could make both ends

  meet. They had horses, carriages, and a great house fit for at least five

  thousand a year; they had not half as much, as everybody knew; and it was

  supposed that old Ringwood must make his niece an allowance. She certainly

  worked hard to get it. I spoke of stabs anon, and poor little breasts and sides

  scarred all over. No nuns, no monks, no fakeers take whippings more kindly than

  some devotees of the world; and, as the punishment is one for edification, let

  us hope the world lays smartly on to back and shoulders, and uses the thong

  well.

  When old Ringwood, at the close of his lifetime, used to come to visit his dear

  niece and her husband and children, he always brought a cat-of-nine-tails in his

  pocket, and administered it to the whole household. He grinned at the poverty,

  the pretence, the meanness of the people, as they knelt before him and did him

  homage. The father and mother trembling brought the girls up for punishment,

  and, piteously smiling, received their own boxes on the ear in presence of their

  children. "Ah!" the little French governess used to say, grinding her white

  teeth, "I like milor to come. All day you vip me. When milor come, he vip you,

  and you kneel down and kiss de rod."

  They certainly knelt and took their whipping with the most exemplary fortitude.

  Sometimes the lash fell on papa's back, sometimes on mamma's: now it stung

  Agnes, and now it lighted on Blanche's pretty shoulders. But I think it was on

  the heir of the house, young Ringwood Twysden, that my lord loved best to

  operate. Ring's vanity was very thin-skinned, his selfishness easily wounded,

  and his contortions under punishment amused the old tormentor.

  As my lord's brougham drives up��the modest little brown brougham, with the

  noble horse, the lord chancellor of a coachman, and the ineffable footman��the

  ladies, who know the whirr of the wheels, and may be quarrelling in the

  drawing-room, call a truce to the fight, and smooth down their ruffled tempers

  and raiment. Mamma is writing at her table in that beautiful, clear hand which

  we all admire; Blanche is at her book; Agnes is rising from the piano quite

  naturally. A quarrel between those gentle, smiling, delicate creatures!

  Impossible! About your most common piece of hypocrisy how men will blush and

  bungle: how easily, how gracefully, how consummately, women will perform it!

  "Well," growls my lord, "you are all in such pretty attitudes, I make no doubt

  you have been sparring. I suspect, Maria, the men must know what devilish bad

  tempers the girls have got. Who can have seen you fighting? You're quiet enough

  here, you little monkeys. I tell you what it is. Ladies'-maids get about and

  talk to the valets in the housekeeper's room, and the men tell their masters.

  Upon my word I believe it was that business last year at Whipham which

  frightened Greenwood off. Famous match. Good house in town and country. No

  mother alive. Agnes might have had it her own way, but for that��"

  "We are not all angels in our family, uncle!" cries Miss Agnes, reddening.

  "And your mother is too sharp. The men are afraid of you, Maria. I've heard

  several young men say so. At White's they talk about it quite freely. Pity for

  the girls. Great pity. Fellows come and tell me. Jack Hall, and fellows who go

  about everywhere."

  "I'm sure I don't care what Captain Hall says about me��odious little wretch!"

  cries Blanche.

  "There you go off in a tantrum! Hall never has any opinion of his own. He only

  fetches and carries what other people say. And he says, fellows say they are

  frightened of your mother. La bless you! Hall has no opinion. A fellow might

  commit murder, and Hall would wait at the door. Quite a discreet man. But I told

  him to ask about you. And that's what I hear. And he says that Agnes is making

  eyes at the doctor's boy."

  "It's a shame," cries Agnes, shedding tears under her martyrdom.

  "Older than he is; but that's no obstacle. Good-looking boy, I suppose you don't

  object to that? Has his poor mother's money, and his father's: must be well to

  do. A vulgar fellow, but a clever fellow, and a determined fellow, the

  doctor��and a fellow who, I suspect, is capable of anything. Shouldn't wonder at

  that fellow marrying some rich dowager. Those doctors get an immense influence

  over women; and unless I'm mistaken in my man, Maria, your poor sister got hold

  of a��"

  "Uncle!" cries Mrs. Twysden, pointing to her daughters, "before these��"

  "Before those innocent lambs! Hem! Well, I think Firmin is of the wolf sort:"

  and the old noble laughed, and showed his own fierce fangs as he spoke.

  "I grieve to say, my lord, I agree with you," remarks Mr. Twysden. I don't think

  Firmin a man of high principle. A clever man? Yes. An accomplished man? Yes. A

  good physician? Yes. A prosperous man? Yes. But what's a man without principle?"

  "You ought to have been a parson, Twysden."

  "Others have said so, my lord. My poor mother often regretted that I didn't

  choose the Church. When I was at Cambridge, I used to speak constantly at the

  Union. I practised. I do not disguise from you that my aim was public life. I am

  free to confess I think the House of Commons would have been my sphere; and, had

  my means permitted, I should certainly have come forward."

  Lord Ringwood smiled, and winked to his niece��

  "He means, my dear, that he would like to wag his jaws at my expense, and that I

  should put him in for Whipham."

  "There are, I think, worse members of Parliament," remarked Mr. Twysden.

  "If there was a box of 'em like you, what a cage it would be!" roared my lord.

  "By George, I'm sick of jaw. And I would like to see a king of spirit in this

  country, who would shut up the talking shops, and gag the whole chattering

  crew!"

  "I am a partisan of order��but a lover of freedom," continues Twysden. "I hold

  that the balance of our constitution��"

  I think my lord would have indulged in a few of those oaths with which his

  old-fashioned conversation was liberally garnished; but the servant, entering at

  this moment, announces Mr. Philip Firmin; and ever so faint a blush flutters up

  in Agnes' cheek, who feels that the old l
ord's eye is upon her.

  "So, sir, I saw you at the opera last night," says Lord Ringwood.

  "I saw you, too," says downright Phil.

  The women looked terrified, and Twysden scared. The Twysdens had Lord Ringwood's

  box sometimes. But there were boxes in which the old man sate, and in which they

  never could see him.

  "Why don't you look at the stage, sir, when you go to the opera, and not me?

  When you go to church you ought to look at the parson, oughtn't you?" growled

  the old man. "I'm about as good to look at as the fellow who dances first in the

  ballet��and very nearly as old. But if I were you, I should think looking at the

  Ellsler better fun."

  And now you may fancy of what old, old times we are writing��times in which

  those horrible old male dancers yet existed��hideous old creatures, with low

  dresses and short sleeves, and wreaths of flowers, or hats and feathers round

  their absurd old wigs��who skipped at the head of the ballet. Let us be thankful

  that those old apes have almost vanished off the stage, and left it in

  possession of the beauteous bounders of the other sex. Ah, my dear young

  friends, time will be when these too will cease to appear more than mortally

  beautiful! To Philip, at his age, they yet looked as lovely as houris. At this

  time the simple young fellow, surveying the ballet from his stall at the opera,

  mistook carmine for blushes, pearl powder for native snows, and cotton-wool for

  natural symmetry; and I dare say when he went into the world, he was not more

  clear-sighted about its rouged innocence, its padded pretension, and its painted

  candour.

  Old Lord Ringwood had a humorous pleasure in petting and coaxing Philip Firmin

  before Philip's relatives of Beaunash Street. Even the girls felt a little

  plaintive envy at the partiality which uncle Ringwood exhibited for Phil; but

  the elder Twysdens and Ringwood Twysden, their son, writhed with agony at the

  preference which the old man sometimes showed for the doctor's boy. Phil was

  much taller, much handsomer, much stronger, much better tempered, and much

  richer, than young Twysden. He would be the sole inheritor of his father's

  fortune, and had his mother's thirty thousand pounds. Even when they told him

  his father would marry again, Phil laughed, and did not seem to care�� "I wish

  him joy of his new wife," was all he could be got to say: "when he gets one, I

  suppose I shall go into chambers. Old Parr Street is not as gay as Pall Mall." I

  am not angry with Mrs. Twysden for having a little jealousy of her nephew. Her

  boy and girls were the fruit of a dutiful marriage; and Phil was the son of a

  disobedient child. Her children were always on their best behaviour before their

  great uncle; and Phil cared for him no more than for any other man; and he liked

  Phil the best. Her boy was as humble and eager to please as any of his

  lordship's humblest henchmen; and Lord Ringwood snapped at him, browbeat him,

  and trampled on the poor darling's tenderest feelings, and treated him scarcely

  better than a lacquey. As for poor Mr. Twysden, my lord not only yawned

  unreservedly in his face (that could not be helped�� poor Talbot's talk set many

  of his acquaintance asleep) ��but laughed at him, interrupted him, and told him

  to hold his tongue. On this day as the family sat together, at the pleasant

  hour��the before dinner hour��the fireside and tea-table hour��Lord Ringwood

  said to Phil��

  "Dine with me to-day, sir?"

  "Why does he not ask me, with my powers of conversation?" thought old Twysden to

  himself.

  "Hang him, he always asks that beggar," writhed young Twysden, in his corner.

  "Very sorry, sir, can't come. Have asked some fellows to dine at the Blue

  Posts," says Phil.

  "Confound you, sir, why don't you put 'em off?" cries the old lord. "You'd put

  'em off, Twysden, wouldn't you?"

  "Oh, sir!" The heart of father and son both beat.

  "You know you would; and you quarrel with this boy for not throwing his friends

  over. Good-night, Firmin, since you won't come."

  And with this my lord was gone.

  The two gentlemen of the house glumly looked from the window, and saw my lord's

  brougham drive swiftly away in the rain.

  "I hate your dining at those horrid taverns," whispered a young lady to Philip.

  "It is better fun than dining at home," Philip remarks.

  "You smoke and drink too much. You come home late, and you don't live in a

  proper monde, sir!" continues the young lady.

  "What would you have me do?"

  "Oh, nothing! You must dine with those horrible men," cries Agnes; else you

  might have gone to Lady Pendleton's to-night."

  "I can throw over the men easily enough, if you wish," answered the young man.

  "I? I have no wish of the sort. Have you not already refused uncle Ringwood?"

  "You are not Lord Ringwood," says Phil, with a tremor in his voice. "I don't

  know there is much I would refuse you."

  "You silly boy! What do I ever ask you to do that you ought to refuse? I want

  you to live in our world, and not with your dreadful wild Oxford and Temple

  bachelors. I don't want you to smoke. I want you to go into the world of which

  you have the entr�e��and you refuse your uncle on account of some horrid

  engagement at a tavern!"

  "Shall I stop here? Aunt, will you give me some dinner��here?" asks the young

  man.

  "We have dined: my husband and son dine out," said gentle Mrs. Twysden.

  There was cold mutton and tea for the ladies; and Mrs. Twysden did not like to

  seat her nephew, who was accustomed to good fare and high living, to that meagre

  meal.

  "You see I must console myself at the tavern," Philip said. "We shall have a

  pleasant party there."

  "And pray who makes it?" asks the lady.

  "There is Ridley, the painter."

  "My dear Philip! Do you know that his father was actually��"

  "In the service of Lord Todmorden? He often tells us so. He is a queer

  character, the old man."

  "Mr. Ridley is a man of genius, certainly. His pictures are delicious, and he

  goes everywhere��but�� but you provoke me, Philip, by your carelessness; indeed

  you do. Why should you be dining with the sons of footmen, when the first houses

  in the country might be open to you? You pain me, you foolish boy."

  "For dining in company of a man of genius? Come, Agnes!" And the young man's

  brow grew dark. "Besides," he added, with a tone of sarcasm in his voice, which

  Miss Agnes did not like at all��"besides, my dear, you know he dines at Lord

  Pendleton's."

  "What is that you are talking of Lady Pendleton, children?" asked watchful mamma

  from her corner.

  "Ridley dines there. He is going to dine with me at a tavern to-day. And Lord

  Halden is coming��and Mr. Winton is coming��having heard of the famous

  beefsteaks."

  "Winton! Lord Halden! Beefsteaks! Where? By George! I have a mind to go, too!

  Where do you fellows dine? au cabaret? Hang me, I'll be one," shrieked little

  Twysden, to the terror of Philip, who knew his uncle's awful powers of

  conversation. But Twysden rem
embered himself in good time, and to the intense

  relief of young Firmin. "Hang me. I forgot! Your aunt and I dine with the

  Bladeses. Stupid old fellow, the admiral, and bad wine��which is unpardonable;

  but we must go��on n'a que sa parole, hey? Tell Winton that I had meditated

  joining him, and that I have still some of that Ch�teau Margaux he liked.

  Halden's father I know well. Tell him so. Bring him here. Maria, send a Thursday

  card to Lord Halden! You must bring him here to dinner, Philip. That's the best

  way to make acquaintance, my boy!" And the little man swaggers off, waving a

  bed-candle, as if he was going to quaff a bumper of sparkling spermaceti.

  The mention of such great personages as Lord Halden and Mr. Winton silenced the

  reproofs of the pensive Agnes.

  "You won't care for our quiet fireside whilst you live with those fine people,

  Philip," she sighed. There was no talk now of his throwing himself away on bad

  company.

  So Philip did not dine with his relatives: but Talbot Twysden took good care to

  let Lord Ringwood know how young Firmin had offered to dine with his aunt that

  day after refusing his lordship. And everything to Phil's discredit, and every

  act of extravagance or wildness which the young man committed, did Phil's uncle,

  and Phil's cousin Ringwood Twysden, convey to the old nobleman. Had not these

  been the informers, Lord Ringwood would have been angry; for he exacted

  obedience and servility from all round about him. But it was pleasanter to vex

  the Twysdens than to scold and browbeat Philip, and so his lordship chose to

  laugh and be amused at Phil's insubordination. He saw, too, other things of

  which he did not speak. He was a wily old man, who could afford to be blind upon

  occasion.

  What do you judge from the fact that Philip was ready to make or break

  engagements at a young lady's instigation? When you were twenty years old, had

  no young ladies an influence over you? Were they not commonly older than

  yourself? Did your youthful passion lead to anything, and are you very sorry now

  that it did not? Suppose you had had your soul's wish and married her, of what

  age would she be now? And now when you go into the world and see her, do you on

  your conscience very much regret that the little affair came to an end? Is it

  that (lean, or fat, or stumpy, or tall) woman with all those children whom you

  once chose to break your heart about; and do you still envy Jones? Philip was in

  live with his cousin, no doubt, but at the university had he not been previously

  in love with the Tomkinsian professor's daughter, Miss Budd; and had he not

  already written verses to Miss Flower, his neighbour's daughter in Old Parr

  Street? And don't young men always begin by falling in love with ladies older

  than themselves? Agnes certainly was Philip's senior, as her sister constantly

  took care to inform him.

  And Agnes might have told stories about Blanche, if she choose��as you may about

  me, and I about you. Not quite true stories, but stories with enough alloy of

  lies to make them serviceable coin; stories such as we hear daily in the world;

  stories such as we read in the most learned and conscientious history-books,

  which are told by the most respectable persons, and perfectly authentic until

  contradicted. It is only our histories that can't be contradicted (unless, to be

  sure, novelists coantradict themselves, as sometimes they will). What we say

  about people's virtues, failings, characters, you may be sure is all true. And I

  defy any man to assert that my opinion of the Twysden family is malicious, or

  unkind, or unfounded in any particular. Agnes wrote verses, and set her own and

  other writers' poems to music. Blanche was scientific, and attended the

  Albemarle Street lectures sedulously. They are both clever women as times go;

  well educated and accomplished, and very well-mannered when they choose to be

  pleasant. If you were a bachelor, say, with a good fortune, or a widower who

  wanted consolation, or a lady giving very good parties and belonging to the