However, I am familiar with this state of mind – and as I passed through the wicket that shuts in Louisa’s lawn, and turning round paused in the green alley, and saw between the laurels the glittering red sky, clear as fire, which the sun had left far over the hills, I, Townshend, felt that, still and bright as the day was closing, fair as it promised to rise on the morrow, this summer loveliness was nothing to me – no.

‘So I walked up to the house; I entered this room, wishing to find Louisa. She was not there, and when I inquired for her I was told she would not return for some hours. I sat down to wait. The dusk approached, and in that mood of mind I watched it slowly veiling every object, clothing every tree of the shrubbery, with such disguises as a haunted, a disturbed, a blackened imagination could suggest. Memory whispered to me that in former years I could have sat at such an hour, in such a scene; and from the rising moon, the darkening landscape on which I looked, the quiet little chamber where I sat, have gathered images all replete with bliss for the present, with softened happiness for the future. Was it so now? No, Mr Townshend; I was in a state of mind which I will not mock you by endeavouring to describe. But the gloom, the despair, became unendurable; dread forebodings rushed upon me, whose power I could not withstand. I felt myself on the brink of some hideous disaster and a vague influence ever and anon pushed me over, till clinging wildly to life and reason, I almost lost consciousness in the faintness of mortal terror.

‘Now, Townshend, so suffering, how far did I err when I had resource to the sovereign specific which a simple narcotic drug offered me? I opened this little box, and, sir, I did not hesitate. No, I tasted. The change was wrought quickly. In five minutes I, who had been the most miserable wretch under that heaven, sat a rational, happy man, soothed to peace of mind, to rest of body, capable of creating sweet thoughts, of tasting bliss, of dropping those fetters of anguish which had restrained me, and floating away with light brain and soaring soul into the fairest regions imagination can disclose. Now, Townshend, I injured no fellow-creature by this: I did not even brutalize myself. Probably my life may be shortened by indulgence of this kind – but what of that? The eternal sleep will come sometime, and as well sooner as later.’

‘I’ve no objection,’ returned I, coolly. ‘Louisa, have you?’

‘I can’t understand the pleasure of that opium,’ said the Marchioness. ‘And as to low spirits, I often tell Macara that I think there must be a great deal of fancy in them.’

The Viscount gently sighed, and, dropping his hand on hers, said, as he softly pressed it with his wan fingers, ‘May you long think so, Louisa!’

Finding that his lordship was in much too sentimental a mood to serve my turn, I shortly after rose and took my leave. The Marchioness attended me to the hall-door.

‘Is he not frénétique, Charles?’ said she. ‘What nonsense to make such a piece of work about low spirits! I declare he reminds me of Ashworth. He, poor man, after a few days of hard preaching and harder drinking used to say that he had a muttering devil at his side. He told Bromley so once, and Bromley believed him. Would you have done, Charles?’

‘Implicitly, madam. Goodnight.’

Charles Townshend decides to
pay a visit to the country

I like the city. So long as winter lasts, it would be no easy task to entice me from its warm and crowded precincts. So long even as spring, with lingering chill, scatters her longer showers and fitful blinks of sunshine, I would cling to the theatre at night and the news-room in the morning. But at last, I do confess, as June advances, and ushers in a long series of warm days, of soft sunsets and mellow moonlight evenings, I do begin to feel certain intuitive longings for an excursion, a jaunt out into the country, a sojourn somewhere far off, where there are woods, pastoral hills and bright pebbled becks.

This feeling came strong over me the other day, when, sitting in Grant’s Coffee-House, I took up a fashionable paper whose columns teemed with such announcements as the following:

Preparations are making at Roslyn castle, the seat of Lord St Clair in the North, for the reception of his Lordship’s family and a party of illustrious visitors, who are invited to spend the summer quarter amidst the beautiful forest scenery with which that part of the St Clair estate abounds.

Prince Augustus of Fidena set out yesterday, accompanied by his tutor, for Northwood-Zara, whither the Duke and Duchess of Fidena are to follow in a few days.

Lord and Lady Stuartville leave town to-morrow. Their destination is Stuartville Park in Angria.

The Earl of Northangerland is still at Selden House. It is understood that his lordship expresses little interest in politics.

General Thornton and his lady took their departure for Girnington Hall last week. The General intends adding to the plantations on his already finely wooded property in Angria.

The Earl and Countess of Arundel are at their seat of Summerfield House, in the province of Arundel.

General and Mrs Grenville propose to spend the summer at Warner Hall, the residence of W. H. Warner Esqre, premier of Angria.

John Bellingham Esqre, banker, is rusticating at Goldthorpe Mowbray. The physicians have advised sea bathing for the perfect restoration of Mr Bellingham’s health, which has suffered considerably from a severe attack of influenza.

The Marquis of Harlaw, with a party of friends, J.