The Luck of Barry Lyndon quotes

Since the days of Adam, there has been hardly a mischief done in this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it.

Ever since ours was a family (and that must be very near Adam’s time—so old, noble, and illustrious are the Barrys, as everybody knows) women have played a mighty part with the destinies of our race.

But alas! he was taken in charge by another monarch, whose will have no delay or denial—by Death, namely, who seized upon my father at Chester races, leaving me a helpless orphan. Peace be to his ashes!

He was not faultless, and dissipated all our princely family property; but he was as brave a fellow as ever tossed a bumper or called a main, and he drove his coach-and-six like a man of fashion.

I do not know whether His gracious Majesty was much affected by this sudden demise of my father, though my mother says he shed some royal tears on the occasion. But they helped us to nothing:

So indeed I had, but

I was not, of course, allowed at my tender years to drink any of the wine; which thus attained a considerable age, even in the decanter.

Uncle Brady (in spite of the family quarrel) found out the above fact one day by calling at Barryville at dinnertime, and unluckily tasting the liquor. You should have seen how he sputtered and made faces!

Handsome and ugly (and, faith, before fifty, I never saw such a thing as a plain woman), it’s the subject next to the hearts of all of you; and I think you guess my riddle without more trouble.

Love! sure the word is formed on purpose out of the prettiest soft vowels and consonants in the language, and he or she who does not care to read about it is not worth a fig, to my thinking.

My uncle’s family consisted of ten children; who, as is the custom in such large families, were divided into two camps, or parties;

In ten years, when you’re old enough to marry, she will be an old woman; and, my poor boy, don’t you see—though it’s a hard matter to see—that she’s a flirt, and does not care a pin for you or Quin either?”

But who in love (or in any other point, for the matter of that) listens to advice?

I never did, and I told Captain Fagan fairly, that Nora might love me or not as she liked, but that Quin should fight me before he married her—that I swore.

The crumpled riband which I had flung at Quin lay in the walk, and I sat there for hours, as wretched as any man in Ireland, I believe, for the time being. But it’s a changeable world!

When we consider how great our sorrows seem, and how small they are; how we think we shall die of grief, and how quickly we forget, I think we ought to be ashamed of ourselves and our fickle-heartedness.

For, after all, what business has time to bring us consolation? I have not, perhaps, in the course of my multifarious adventures and experience, hit upon the right woman; and have forgotten, after a little, every single creature I adored;

“She was practising,” replied Mr. Fagan, with a sneer. “

I know women, sir. Give them time, and let nobody else come to the house, and they’ll fall in love with a chimney-sweep.

There was a young lady in Fermoy—”

but in helping myself to salt I spilled it, on which she started up with a scream. “Thank God,” said she, “It’s fallen towards me.” And then, her heart being too full, she left the room.

Ah! they have their faults, those mothers; but are there any other women like them?

When she was gone I went to take down the sword with which my father had vanquished the Hampshire baronet, and, would you believe it?—the brave woman had tied a new riband to the hilt:

but in those simple days of youth I took his tales for truth, and fancied myself in high luck at being, at my outset into life, introduced into such a family.

Alas! we are the sport of destiny.

When I consider upon what small circumstances all the great events of my life have turned, I can hardly believe myself to have been anything but a puppet in the hands of Fate; which has played its most fantastic tricks upon me.

But my kind friend Fagan came to my aid in the circumstance, with some very timely consolation. “My poor boy,” said he, “you must not take the matter to heart so.

Caning is only a relative disgrace.

Young Ensign Fakenham was flogged himself at Eton School only a month ago: I would lay a wager that his scars are not yet healed. You must cheer up, my boy; do your duty, be a gentleman, and no serious harm can fall on you.”

… admiring the “Great Frederick,” as we call him, and his philosophy, and his liberality, and his military genius, I, who have served him, and been, as it were, behind the scenes of which that great spectacle is composed, can only look at it with horror.

What a number of items of human crime, misery, slavery, go to form that sum-total of glory!

I can recollect a certain day about three weeks after the battle of Minden, and a farmhouse in which some of us entered; and how the old woman and her daughters served us, trembling, to wine;

now mounting French colours, now green and yellow Saxon, now black and white Prussian, as the case may be.

A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.

The German surgeon who attended us after the departure of the English only condescended to pay our house a visit twice during my residence;

“It has been a very strange one,” said I; “and, perhaps, there is no man in the world, of my birth, whose misfortunes can at all be compared to mine.”

I do not object to own that I am disposed to brag of my birth and other acquirements; for I have always found that if a man does not give himself a good word, his friends will not do it for him.

“Well,” said my fellow-patient, “I have no doubt yours is a strange tale, and shall be glad to hear it anon; but at present you must not be permitted to speak much, for your fever has been long, and your exhaustion great.”

especially in the resolution with which he bore his calamities. Many a gallant man of the highest honour is often not proof against these, and has been known to despair over a bad dinner, or to be cast down at a ragged-elbowed coat.

My maxim is to bear all, to put up with water if you cannot get Burgundy, and if you have no velvet to be content with frieze.

But Burgundy and velvet are the best, bien entendu, and the man is a fool who will not seize the best when the scramble is open.

My maxim is to bear all, to put up with water if you cannot get Burgundy, and if you have no velvet to be content with frieze.

But Burgundy and velvet are the best, bien entendu, and the man is a fool who will not seize the best when the scramble is open.

The heads of the sermon which my friend the theologian intended to impart to me, were, however, never told; for, after our coming out of the hospital, he was drafted into a regiment quartered as far as possible from his native country, in Pomerania;

who did not think of asking whether I could pay or not upon losing.

Such, at least, is the advantage of having a gentlemanlike appearance; it has saved me many a time since by procuring me credit when my fortunes were at their lowest ebb.

Among the Frenchmen there was a splendid man and soldier, whose real name we never knew, but whose ultimate history created no small sensation, when it came to be known in the Prussian army.

but strange were the stories told about the plot amongst us privates: for the news was spread from garrison to garrison, and talked of by the army, in spite of all the Government efforts to hush it up—hush it up, indeed!

I have been of the people myself; I have seen the Irish rebellion, and I know what is the freemasonry of the poor.

He made himself the head of the plot. There were no writings nor papers. No single one of the conspirators communicated with any other than the Frenchman; but personally he gave his orders to them all.

This man destroyed two sentinels to get his liberty; how many hundreds of thousands of his own and the Austrian people did King Frederick kill because he took a fancy to Silesia?

It was the accursed tyranny of the system that sharpened the axe which brained the two sentinels of Neiss: and so let officers take warning, and think twice ere they visit poor fellows with the cane.

I could tell many more stories about the army; but as, from having been a soldier myself, all my sympathies are in the ranks, no doubt my tales would be pronounced to be of an immoral tendency, and I had best, therefore, be brief.

for that bullet had already served me to kill an Austrian colonel, and I would have given it to a Prussian with as little remorse. For what cared I for their quarrels, or whether the eagle under which I marched had one head or two?

All I said was, “No man shall find me tripping in my duty; but no man shall ever lay a hand upon me.”

And by this maxim I abided as long as I remained in the service.

… them as well as another, and by the time that my moustache had grown to a decent length, which it did when I was twenty years of age, there was not a braver, cleverer, handsomer, and I must own, wickeder soldier in the Prussian army.

I had formed myself to the condition of the proper fighting beast; on a day of action I was savage and happy; out of the field I took all the pleasure I could get, and was by no means delicate as to its quality or the manner of procuring it.

The truth is, however, that there was among our men a much higher tone of society than among the clumsy louts in the English army, and our service was generally so strict that we had little time for doing mischief.

and made use of a great number more phrases that I could not understand; but one thing was clear in the midst of all this jargon, that the good soul loved her son still, and thought and prayed day and night for her wild Redmond.

Has it not come across many a poor fellow, in a solitary night’s watch, or in sorrow, sickness, or captivity, that at that very minute, most likely, his mother is praying for him?

I often have had these thoughts; but they are none of the gayest, and it’s quite as well that they don’t come to you in company; for where would be a set of jolly fellows then?—as mute as undertakers at a funeral, I promise you.

This hope of liberty was therefore vain; nor could I hope to purchase my discharge, unless any charitable soul would lend me a large sum of money; for, though I made a good deal, as I have said, yet

I have always had through life an incorrigible knack of spending, and (such is my generosity of disposition) have been in debt ever since I was born.

My captain, the sly rascal! gave me a very different version of his conversation with his uncle to that which I knew to be the true one;

You who have never been out of your country, know little what it is to hear a friendly voice in captivity;

and there’s many a man that will not understand the cause of the burst of feeling which I have confessed took place on my seeing my uncle. He never for a minute thought to question the truth of what I said. “Mother of God!”

When I told him (with a great deal of hesitation) of this fact, he burst out laughing, and enjoyed the joke amazingly. “The rascals!” said he; “they think to catch me, do they?

Why, Redmond, my chief conspiracy is a faro-bank.

But the King is so jealous, that he will see a spy in every person who comes to his miserable capital in the great sandy desert here. Ah, my boy, I must show you Paris and Vienna!”

and my advice to people who see such a vulgar person at his pranks is, of course, to back him while he plays, but never—never to have anything to do with him.

Play grandly, honourably. Be not, of course, cast down at losing; but above all, be not eager at winning, as mean souls are.

And, indeed, with all one’s skill and advantages, winning is often problematical; I have seen a sheer ignoramus that knows no more of play than of Hebrew, blunder you out of five thousand pounds in a few turns of the cards.

and, having a remarkably fine eyesight and a great natural aptitude, I was speedily able to give my dear uncle much assistance against his opponents at the green table. Some prudish persons may affect indignation at the frankness of these confessions, but Heaven pity them!

Do you suppose that any man who has lost or won a hundred thousand pounds at play will not take the advantages which his neighbour enjoys?

They are all the same. But it is only the clumsy fool who cheats; who resorts to the vulgar expedients of cogged dice and cut cards.

There is no need to particularise here the little arrangements made between us; the playmen of the present day want no instruction, I take it, and the public have little interest in the matter. But simplicity was our secret.

Everything successful is simple.

If, for instance, I wiped the dust off a chair with my napkin, it was to show that the enemy was strong in diamonds; if I pushed it, he had ace, king; if I said, “Punch or wine, my Lord?” hearts was meant;

… character pretty well, and had (as is usually the case) the work of the mission performed by a steady roturier, while the young brilliant bloods of the suite sported their embroidery at the balls, or shook their Mechlin ruffles over the green tables at faro.

I have seen many scores of these young sprigs since, of these and their principals, and, mon Dieu! what fools they are! What dullards, what fribbles, what addle-headed simple coxcombs!

This is one of the lies of the world, this diplomacy;

The broker of the Exchange who bulls and bears, and buys and sells, and dabbles with lying loans, and trades on State secrets, what is he but a gamester? The merchant who deals in teas and tallow, is he any better?

His bales of dirty indigo are his dice, his cards come up every year instead of every ten minutes, and the sea is his green table.

You call the profession of the law an honourable one, where a man will lie for any bidder; lie down poverty for the sake of a fee from wealth, lie down right because wrong is in his brief.

You call the profession of the law an honourable one, where a man will lie for any bidder; lie down poverty for the sake of a fee from wealth, lie down right because wrong is in his brief.

You call a doctor an honourable man, a swindling quack, who does not believe in the nostrums which he prescribes, and takes your guinea for whispering in your ear that it is a fine morning;

and yet, forsooth, a gallant man who sits him down before the baize and challenges all comers, his money against theirs, his fortune against theirs, is proscribed by your modern moral world. It is a conspiracy of the middle classes against gentlemen:

and yet, forsooth, a gallant man who sits him down before the baize and challenges all comers, his money against theirs, his fortune against theirs, is proscribed by your modern moral world.

It is a conspiracy of the middle classes against gentlemen: it is only the shopkeeper cant which is to go down nowadays.

I say that play was an institution of chivalry: it has been wrecked, along with other privileges of men of birth. When Seingalt engaged a man for six-and-thirty hours without leaving the table, do you think he showed no courage?

I have gout, rheumatism, gravel, and a disordered liver. I have two or three wounds in my body, which break out every now and then, and give me intolerable pain, and a hundred more signs of breaking up.

Such are the effects of time, illness, and free-living, upon one of the strongest constitutions and finest forms the world ever saw.

Ah! I suffered from none of these ills in the year ’66, when there was no man in Europe more gay in spirits, more splendid in personal accomplishments, than young Redmond Barry.

She was extravagant beyond all measure; so false, that you could not trust her; but her very weaknesses were more winning than the virtues of other women, her selfishness more delightful than others’ generosity.

I never knew a woman whose faults made her so attractive. She used to ruin people, and yet they all loved her.

My old uncle has seen her cheating at ombre, and let her win 400 louis without resisting in the least. Her caprices with the officers and ladies of her household were ceaseless: but they adored her.

… two years at Paris under the guardianship of Mesdames the daughters of His Most Christian Majesty, and who was the life and soul of the Court of X⸺, the gayest of the gay, the idol of her august father-in-law, and, indeed, of the whole Court.

She was not beautiful, but charming; not witty, but charming, too, in her conversation as in her person.

She was extravagant beyond all measure; so false, that you could not trust her; but her very weaknesses were more winning than the virtues of other women, her selfishness more delightful than others’ generosity. I never knew a woman whose faults made her so attractive.

and, though some rigid moralist may object to its propriety, I say that anything is fair in love, and that men so poor as myself can’t afford to be squeamish about their means of getting on in life.

The great and rich are welcomed, smiling, up the grand staircase of the world; the poor but aspiring must clamber up the wall, or push and struggle up the back stair, or, pardi, crawl through any of the conduits of the house, never mind how foul and narrow, that lead to the top.

The unambitious sluggard pretends that the eminence is not worth attaining, declines altogether the struggle, and calls himself a philosopher. I say he is a poor-spirited coward. What is life good for but for honour?

The unambitious sluggard pretends that the eminence is not worth attaining, declines altogether the struggle, and calls himself a philosopher. I say he is a poor-spirited coward.

What is life good for but for honour? and that is so indispensable, that we should attain it anyhow.

The manner to be adopted for Magny’s retreat was proposed by myself, and was arranged so as to consult the feelings of delicacy of both parties.

Oh, the woes that have been worked by women in this world! the misery into which men have lightly stepped with smiling faces; often not even with the excuse of passion, but from mere foppery, vanity, and bravado!

Men play with these dreadful two-edged tools, as if no harm could come to them.

I, who have seen more of life than most men, if I had a son, would go on my knees to him and beg him to avoid woman, who is worse than poison. Once intrigue, and your whole life is endangered:

What became of the minor actors in the great tragedy, who knows? Only Monsieur de Strasbourg was restored to his duties. Of the rest—the Jew, the chamber-woman, the spy on Magny—I know nothing.

Those sharp tools with which great people cut out their enterprises are generally broken in the using: nor did I ever hear that their employers had much regard for them in their ruin.

the lace of my jabot was worth a thousand crowns, and the buttons of my amaranth velvet coat alone cost eighty thousand livres. Look at the difference now!

The gentlemen are dressed like boxers, Quakers, or hackney-coachmen; and the ladies are not dressed at all.

There is no elegance, no refinement; none of the chivalry of the old world, of which I form a portion. Think of the fashion of London being led by a Br-mm-l! a nobody’s son:

But upon these subjects I am dumb. Charming Schuvaloff, black-eyed Sczotarska, dark Valdez, tender Hegenheim, brilliant Langeac!—ye gentle hearts that knew how to beat in old times for the warm young Irish gentleman, where are you now?

Though my hair has grown grey now, and my sight dim, and my heart cold with years, and ennui, and disappointment, and the treachery of friends, yet I have but to lean back in my armchair and think, and those sweet figures come rising up before me out of the past, with their smiles, and their kindnesses, and their bright tender eyes!

There are no women like them now—no manners like theirs! Look you at a bevy of women at the Prince’s, stitched up in tight white satin sacks, with their waists under their arms, and compare them to the graceful figures of the old time!

nor let any scoundrel presume to sneer because I carried off and married my Lady Lyndon (as you shall presently hear), and call me an adventurer, or say I was penniless, or the match unequal.

Penniless! I had the wealth of Europe at my command. Adventurer! So is a meritorious lawyer or a gallant soldier; so is every man who makes his own fortune an adventurer.

My profession was play: in which I was then unrivalled. No man could play with me through Europe, on the square;

I never kept any beggarly books of accounts in those days. I had no debts.

I paid royally for everything I took; and I took everything I wanted.

My income must have been very large. My entertainments and equipages were those of a gentleman of the highest distinction;

“

They will beat you in the long run, my Tipperary Alcibiades.

As soon as you are married, take my word of it, you are conquered. Look at me. I married my cousin, the noblest and greatest heiress in England—married her in spite of herself almost” (here a dark shade passed over Sir Charles Lyndon’s countenance).

“She is a weak woman. You shall see her, sir, how weak she is; but she is my mistress. She has embittered my whole life.

She is a fool; but she has got the better of one of the best heads in Christendom.

She is enormously rich; but somehow I have never been so poor as since I married her. I thought to better myself; and she has made me miserable and killed me. And she will do as much for my successor, when I am gone.”

“She is a weak woman. You shall see her, sir, how weak she is; but she is my mistress. She has embittered my whole life. She is a fool; but she has got the better of one of the best heads in Christendom.

She is enormously rich; but somehow I have never been so poor as since I married her.

I thought to better myself; and she has made me miserable and killed me. And she will do as much for my successor, when I am gone.”

carried my gout down to my grave in quiet, lived in my modest tenement in Mayfair, had every house in England open to me; and now, now I have six of my own, and every one of them is a hell to me.

Beware of greatness, Mr. Barry.

Take warning by me. Ever since I have been married and have been rich, I have been the most miserable wretch in the world. Look at me. I am dying a worn-out cripple at the age of fifty.

This was his way. He laughed and sneered at everything.

He laughed when he was in a paroxysm of pain; he laughed when he won money, or when he lost it: his laugh was not jovial or agreeable, but rather painful and sardonic.

“Gentlemen,” said he to Punter, Colonel Loder, Count du Carreau, and several jovial fellows with whom he used to discuss a flask of champagne and a Rhenish trout or two after play, “see this amiable youth!

She piqued herself on knowing Greek and Latin; but the truth is, that Mr. Runt used to supply her with the quotations which she introduced into her voluminous correspondence.

She had as much love of admiration, as strong, uneasy a vanity, and as little heart, as any woman I ever knew.

Otherwise, when her son, Lord Bullingdon, on account of his differences with me, ran—but that matter shall be told in its proper time. Finally, my Lady Lyndon was about a year older than myself;

She had as much love of admiration, as strong, uneasy a vanity, and as little heart, as any woman I ever knew. Otherwise, when her son, Lord Bullingdon, on account of his differences with me, ran—but that matter shall be told in its proper time.

Finally, my Lady Lyndon was about a year older than myself; though, of course, she would take her Bible oath that she was three years younger.

Few men are so honest as I am; for few will own to their real motives, and I don’t care a button about confessing mine. What Sir Charles Lyndon said was perfectly true. I made the acquaintance of Lady Lyndon with ulterior views.

Finally, my Lady Lyndon was about a year older than myself; though, of course, she would take her Bible oath that she was three years younger.

Few men are so honest as I am; for few will own to their real motives, and I don’t care a button about confessing mine.

What Sir Charles Lyndon said was perfectly true. I made the acquaintance of Lady Lyndon with ulterior views. “Sir,” said I to him, when, after the scene described and the jokes he made upon me, we met alone, “let those laugh that win.

That is my way of fascinating women. Let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim.

Attacking is his only secret. Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.

In those days my spirit was so great, that if I had set my heart upon marrying a princess of the blood, I would have had her!

That is my way of fascinating women. Let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim. Attacking is his only secret. Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.

In those days my spirit was so great, that if I had set my heart upon marrying a princess of the blood, I would have had her!

I told Calista my story, and altered very very little of the truth. My object was to frighten her: to show her that what I wanted, that I dared; that what I dared, that I won;

and I do believe my feelings were as strong then as they had been when I was a boy, eleven years before; and I caught myself almost crying again, to think that Nora Brady had deserted me.

I believe a man forgets nothing.

I’ve seen a flower, or heard some trivial word or two, which have awakened recollections that somehow had lain dormant for scores of years;

I thought the old man would have fired his piece at me at first, for he pointed it at the window; but I called to him to hold his hand, and came down and embraced him. … Psha! I don’t care to tell the rest:

Phil and I had a long night, and talked over a thousand foolish old things that have no interest for any soul alive now: for what soul is there alive that cares for Barry Lyndon?

I settled a hundred guineas on the old man when I got to Dublin, and made him an annuity which enabled him to pass his old days in comfort.

and so I presented him with a handsome gratuity, and promised to stand godfather to his next child: the eleventh since my absence.

There is no country in the world where the work of multiplying is carried on so prosperously as in my native island.

Mr. Tim had married the girls’ waiting-maid, who had been a kind friend of mine in the early times;

… conclude the evening, Phil, Tim, and I, had a bottle of usquebaugh, the taste of which I had remembered for eleven good years, and did not part except with the warmest terms of fellowship, and until the sun had been some time in the sky.

I am exceedingly affable; that has always been one of my characteristics.

I have no false pride, as many men of high lineage like my own have, and, in default of better company, will hob and nob with a ploughboy or a private soldier just as readily as with the first noble in the land.

There was a simplicity about this Irish gentry which amused and made me wonder.

If they tell more fibs than their downright neighbours across the water, on the other hand they believe more;

and I made myself in a single week such a reputation in Dublin as would take a man ten years and a mint of money to acquire in London. I had won five hundred thousand pounds at play;

I wrote her a dutiful and soothing letter, to which there was no answer returned; although I mentioned that on my way to the capital I had been at Barryville, and revisited the old haunts of my youth.

I don’t care to own that she is the only human being whom I am afraid to face.

I can recollect her fits of anger as a child, and the reconciliations, which used to be still more violent and painful: and so, instead of going myself, I sent my factotum, Ulick Brady, to her;

“One of the noblest and richest women in the empire, mother,” answered I. “No mere Brady this time,” I added, laughing: with which hopes I left Mrs. Barry in the best of tempers.

No man can bear less malice than I do; and, when I have once carried my point, I am one of the most placable creatures in the world.

I was a week in Dublin before I thought it necessary to quit that capital. I had become quite reconciled to my rival in that time; made a point of calling at his lodgings, and speedily became an intimate consoler of his bedside.

saw her turn red and pale with fear and wonder; saw that my praise of her charms and the exposition of my passion were not unwelcome to her, and witnessed with triumphant composure the mastery I was gaining over her.

Terror, be sure of that, is not a bad ingredient of love. A man who wills fiercely to win the heart of a weak and vapourish woman must succeed, if he have opportunity enough.

“Terrible man!” said Lady Lyndon, shrinking from me as soon as I had done speaking (indeed, I was at a loss for words, and thinking of another speech to make to her)—“terrible man! leave me.”

Everyone thought I had a share in the Brady marriage; though no one could prove it. Everyone thought I was well with the widowed Countess; though no one could show that I said so.

But there is a way of proving a thing even while you contradict it, and I used to laugh and joke so apropos that all men began to wish me joy of my great fortune

, and look up to me as the affianced husband of the greatest heiress in the kingdom. The papers took up the matter; the female friends of Lady Lyndon remonstrated with her and cried “Fie!”

what a passion for play there was among young and old, male and female; what thousands were lost and won in a night; what beauties there were—how brilliant, gay, and dashing!

Everybody was delightfully wicked: the Royal Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland set the example; the nobles followed close behind. Running away was the fashion.

Ah! it was a pleasant time; and lucky was he who had fire, and youth, and money, and could live in it! I had all these;

and lucky was he who had fire, and youth, and money, and could live in it! I had all these; and the old frequenters of White’s, Wattier’s, and Goosetree’s could tell stories of the gallantry, spirit, and high fashion of Captain Barry.

The progress of a love-story is tedious to all those who are not concerned, and I leave such themes to the hack novel-writers, and the young boarding-school misses for whom they write.

It is not my intention to follow, step by step, the incidents of my courtship, or to narrate all the difficulties I had to contend with, and my triumphant manner of surmounting them. Suffice it to say, I did overcome these difficulties.

and as for young Bullingdon, who was grown a tall lad of fourteen, when called upon by the Countess to embrace his papa, he shook his fist in my face and said, “

He my father! I would as soon call one of your Ladyship’s footmen Papa!

”

and also her Ladyship chose to take umbrage both at Ilminster and Andover, because in the evenings when we lay there I chose to invite the landlords of the Bell and the Lion to crack a bottle with me.

Lady Lyndon was a haughty woman, and I hate pride; and I promise you that in both instances I overcame this vice in her.

On the third day of our journey I had her to light my pipematch with her own hands, and made her deliver it to me with tears in her eyes;

I know nothing more culpable than the carelessness of ancestors in planting their grounds with timber of small value, when they might just as easily raise oak.

Thus I have always said that the Roundhead Lyndon of Hackton, who planted these elms in Charles II’s time, cheated me of ten thousand pounds.

For the first few days after our arrival, my time was agreeably spent in receiving the visits of the nobility and gentry who came to pay their respects to the noble new-married couple, and, like Bluebeard’s wife in the fairy tale, in inspecting the treasures, …

The troubles of property, the rascality of agents, the quibbles of lawyers, are endless.

Humble people envy us great men, and fancy that our lives are all pleasure.

Many a time in the course of my prosperity I have sighed for the days of my meanest fortune, and envied the boon companions at my table, with no clothes to their backs but such as my credit supplied them, without a guinea but what …

and we passed our summers at Buxton, Bath, and Harrogate, while Hackton Castle was being beautified in the elegant manner already described by me, and the season at our mansion in Berkeley Square.

It is wonderful how the possession of wealth brings out the virtues of a man; or, at any rate, acts as a varnish or lustre to them, and brings out their brilliancy and colour in a manner never known when the individual stood in the cold grey atmosphere of poverty.

I assure you it was a very short time before I was a pretty fellow of the first class; made no small sensation at the coffeehouses in Pall Mall and afterwards at the most famous clubs.

She gave the law to the servants; and if I showed any particular attention to any of the ladies who visited us, the slut would not scruple to show her jealousy, and to find means to send them packing.

The fact is, a generous man is always made a fool of by some woman or other, and this one had such an influence over me that she could turn me round her finger.

Her infernal temper (Mrs. Stammer was the jade’s name) and my wife’s moody despondency, made my house and home not over-pleasant:

I know not. But now I was arrived at the height of my ambition, both my skill and my luck seemed to be deserting me. Everything I touched crumbled in my hand; every speculation I had failed, every agent I trusted deceived me.

I am, indeed, one of those born to make, and not to keep fortunes; for the qualities and energy which lead a man to effect the first are often the very causes of his ruin in the latter case

: indeed, I know of no other reason for the misfortunes which finally befell me.

poor Hackman, that afterwards was hanged for killing Miss Reay, and (on the sly) his Reverence Doctor Simony, whom my friend Sam Foote, of the Little Theatre, bade to live even after forgery and the rope cut short the unlucky parson’s career.

It was a merry place, London, in those days, and that’s the truth.

I’m writing now in my gouty old age, and people have grown vastly more moral and matter-of-fact than they were at the close of the last century, when the world was young with me.

A man could drink four times as much as the milksops nowadays can swallow; but ’tis useless expatiating on this theme.

Gentlemen are dead and gone.

The fashion has now turned upon your soldiers and sailors, and I grow quite moody and sad when I think of thirty years ago.

In a former chapter I have given you a description of it.

It was the Warsaw of our part of the world: there was a splendid, ruined, half-civilised nobility, ruling over a half-savage population.

I say half-savage advisedly. The commonalty in the streets were wild, unshorn, and in rags. The most public places were not safe after nightfall. The College, the public buildings, and the great gentry’s houses were splendid (the latter unfinished for the most part);

I am a man full of errors, certainly, but not the devil that these odious backbiters at Tiptoff represented me to be. For the first three years I never struck my wife but when I was in liquor.

When I flung the carving-knife at Bullingdon I was drunk, as everybody present can testify

; but as for having any systematic scheme against the poor lad, I can declare solemnly that, beyond merely hating him (and one’s inclinations are not in one’s power), I am guilty of no evil towards him.

Lady Lyndon fought very hard against this condescension; but I had a way with her, as the saying is, and though she had a temper, yet I had a better one.

A temper, psha! A wildcat has a temper, but a keeper can get the better of it; and I know very few women in the world whom I could not master.

Well, I made much of the mayor and corporation; sent them bucks for their dinners, or asked them to mine;

… had won, and that wealth, splendour, thirty thousand per annum, and a seat in Parliament, are often purchased at too dear a rate, when one has to buy those enjoyments at the price of personal liberty, and saddled with the charge of a troublesome wife.

They are the deuce, these troublesome wives, and that is the truth.

No man knows until he tries how wearisome and disheartening the burden of one of them is, and how the annoyance grows and strengthens from year to year, and the courage becomes weaker to bear it;

I have seen the most elegant creatures at St. James’s grow wild for love of the coarsest and most vulgar of men; the cleverest women passionately admire the most illiterate of our sex, and so on.

There is no end to the contrariety in the foolish creatures

;

Lyndon, raise another company; and go with them, too!” But this was by no means, as the reader may suppose, to my notions.

A man with thirty thousand pounds per annum is a fool to risk his life like a common beggar

: and on this account I have always admired the conduct of my friend Jack Bolter, who had been a most active and resolute cornet of horse, and, as such, engaged in every scrape and skirmish which could fall to his lot;

“My father, madam?” said he; “surely you mistake.

My father was the Right Honourable Sir Charles Lyndon. I at least have not forgotten him, if others have.

” It was a declaration of war to me, as I saw at once; though I declare I was willing enough to have received the boy well on his coming amongst us, and to have lived with him on terms of friendliness.

… the county ball, where I led out Lady Susan Capermore, and took my place third in the dance after the duke and the marquis, as was my wont, all the couples turned away as we came to them, and we were left to dance alone.

Sukey Capermore has a love of dancing which would make her dance at a funeral if anybody asked her

, and I had too much spirit to give in at this signal instance of insult towards me;

and been the first in the morning, too, to bring me my drink of small-beer.

Mine were no milksop times, I can tell you.

A gentleman thought no shame of taking his half-dozen bottles; and, as for your coffee and slops, they were left to Lady Lyndon, her doctor, and the other old women.

Had she left me, I was ruined the next day. This (which my mother knew) compelled us to keep a tight watch over her; but as for imprisoning her, I repel the imputation with scorn.

Every man imprisons his wife to a certain degree; the world would be in a pretty condition if women were allowed to quit home and return to it whenever they had a mind.

In watching over my wife, Lady Lyndon, I did no more than exercise the legitimate authority which awards honour and obedience to every husband.

I would have left you months ago, but I hoped for some chance of rescuing this unhappy lady. I swore I would try, the day I saw you strike her.

Kill me, you woman’s bully! You would if you dared; but you have not the heart.

Your very servants like me better than you. Touch me, and they will rise and send you to the gallows you merit!”