His finished
manner, his experience of society, his pretensions to taste, the
gaiety of his temper, and the liveliness of his imagination, gradually
developed themselves with the developing hours.
The banquet was over: the Duke of St. James passed his examination with
unqualified approval; and having been stamped at the mint of fashion as
a sovereign of the brightest die, he was flung forth, like the rest
of his golden brethren, to corrupt the society of which he was the
brightest ornament.
CHAPTER V.
_Sweeping Changes_
THE morning after the initiatory dinner the young Duke drove to
Hauteville House, his family mansion, situated in his family square. His
Grace particularly prided himself on his knowledge of the arts; a taste
for which, among other things, he intended to introduce into England.
Nothing could exceed the horror with which he witnessed the exterior of
his mansion, except the agony with which he paced through the interior.
'Is this a palace?' thought the young Duke; 'this hospital a palace!'
He entered. The marble hall, the broad and lofty double staircase
painted in fresco, were not unpromising, in spite of the dingy gilding;
but with what a mixed feeling of wonder and disgust did the Duke roam
through clusters of those queer chambers which in England are called
drawing-rooms!
'Where are the galleries, where the symmetrical saloons, where the
lengthened suite, where the collateral cabinets, sacred to the statue of
a nymph or the mistress of a painter, in which I have been customed to
reside? What page would condescend to lounge in this ante-chamber? And
is this gloomy vault, that you call a dining-room, to be my hall of
Apollo? Order my carriage.
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