These elegant Pendennises we saw at Mrs. Potiphar's, but not without a
sadness which can hardly be explained. They had been boys once, all of
them, fresh and frank-hearted, and full of a noble ambition. They had
read and pondered the histories of great men; how they resolved, and
struggled, and achieved. In the pure portraiture of genius, they had
loved and honored noble women, and each young heart was sworn to truth
and the service of beauty. Those feelings were chivalric and
fair. Those boyish instincts clung to whatever was lovely, and
rejected the specious snare, however graceful and elegant. They
sailed, new knights, upon that old and endless crusade against
hypocrisy and the devil, and they were lost in the luxury of Corinth,
nor longer seek the difficult shores beyond. A present smile was worth
a future laurel. The ease of the moment was worth immortal
tranquillity. They renounced the stern worship of the unknown God, and
acknowledged the deities of Athens. But the seal of their shame is
their own smile at their early dreams, and the high hopes of their
boyhood, their sneering infidelity of simplicity, their skepticism of
motives and of men. Youths, whose younger years were fervid with the
resolution to strike and win, to deserve, at least, a gentle
remembrance, if not a dazzling fame, are content to eat, and drink,
and sleep well; to go to the opera and all the balls; to be known as
"gentlemanly," and "aristocratic," and "dangerous," and "elegant;" to
cherish a luxurious and enervating indolence, and to "succeed," upon
the cheap reputation of having been "fast" in Paris. The end of such
men is evident enough from the beginning. They are snuffed out by a
"great match," and become an appendage to a rich woman; or they
dwindle off into old roues, men of the world in sad earnest, and not
with elegant affectation, _blase_; and as they began Arthur
Pendennises, so they end the Major. But, believe it, that old fossil
heart is wrung sometimes by a mortal pang, as it remembers those