will look back with pride upon having contributed your part to the formation of one whom all here at St Petersburg, not soldiers only, but we diplomates, look upon as certain to prove a great man, and a leader amongst the intellects of Christendom."
Two or three other letters followed; and at length it was arranged that Mr Maximilian Wyndham should take up his residence at my monastic abode for one year. He was to keep a table, and an establishment of servants, at his own cost; was to have an apartment of some dozen or so of rooms; the unrestricted use of the library; with some other public privileges willingly conceded by the magistracy of the town; in return for all which he was to pay me a thousand guineas: and already beforehand, by way of acknowledgment for the public civilities of the town, he sent, through my hands, a contribution of three hundred guineas to the various local institutions for education of the poor, or for charity.
The Russian Secretary had latterly corresponded with me from a little German town not more than ninety miles distant: and, as he had special couriers at his service, the negotiation advanced so rapidly, that all was closed before the end of September. And, when once that consummation was attained, I, that previously had breathed no syllable of what was stirring, now gave a loose to the interesting tidings, and suffered them to spread through the whole compass of the town. It will be easily imagined that such a story, already romantic enough in its first outline, would lose nothing in the telling. An Englishman to begin with, which name of itself, and at all times, is a passport into German favour, but much more since the late memorable wars that, but for Englishmen, would have drooped into disconnected efforts—next, an Englishman of rank and of the haute noblesse,—then a soldier covered with brilliant distinctions, and in the most brilliant arm of the service; young, moreover, and yet a veteran by his experience, fresh from the most awful battle of this planet since the day of Pharsalia,—radiant with the favour of courts and of Imperial ladies,—finally (which alone would have given him an interest in all female hearts), an Antinous of faultless beauty, a Grecian statue, as it were, into which the breath of life had been breathed by some modern Pygmalion,—such a pomp of gifts and endowments settling upon one man's head, should not have required for its effect the vulgar consummation (and yet to many it was the consummation and crest of the whole) that he was reputed to be rich beyond the dreams of romance or the necessities of a fairy tale. Unparalleled was the impression made upon our stagnant society; every tongue was busy in discussing the marvellous young Englishman from morning to night; every female fancy was busy in depicting the personal appearance of this gay apparition.
On his arrival at my house, I became sensible of a truth which I had observed some years before. The commonplace maxim is that it is dangerous to raise expectations too high. This, which is thus generally expressed, and without limitation, is true only conditionally; it is true then and there only where there is but little merit to sustain and justify the expectation. But in any case where the merit is transcendent of its kind, it is always useful to rack the expectation up to the highest point; in any thing which partakes of the infinite, the most unlimited expectations will find ample room for gratification; whilst it is certain that ordinary observers, possessing little sensibility, unless where they have been warned to expect, will often fail to see what exists in the most conspicuous splendour. In this instance it certainly did no harm to the subject of expectation, that I had been warned to look for so much. The warning, at any rate, put me on the look-out for whatever eminence there might be of grandeur in his personal appearance; whilst, on the other hand, this existed in such excess, so far transcending any thing I had ever met with in my experience, that no expectation which it is in words to raise could have been disappointed.
These thoughts travelled with the rapidity of light through my brain as at one glance my eye took in the supremacy of beauty and power which seemed to have alighted from the clouds before me. Power, and the contemplation of power, in any absolute incarnation of grandeur or excess, necessarily have the instantaneous effect of quelling all perturbation. My composure was restored in a moment. I looked steadily at him. We
