Rawdon Crawley, the dragoon, had a great contempt for the establishment altogether, and seldom came
thither except when his aunt paid her annual visit. The great good quality of this old lady has been mentioned.
She possessed seventy thousand pounds, and had almost adopted Rawdon. She disliked her elder
nephew exceedingly, and despised him as a milksop. In return he did not hesitate to state that her soul
was irretrievably lost, and was of opinion that his brothers chance in the next world was not a whit better.
She is a godless woman of the world, would Mr. Crawley say; she lives with atheists and Frenchmen.
My mind shudders when I think of her awful, awful situation, and that, near as she is to the grave, she
should be so given up to vanity, licentiousness, profaneness, and folly. In fact, the old lady declined
altogether to hear his hours lecture of an evening; and when she came to Queens Crawley alone, he
was obliged to pretermit his usual devotional exercises. Shut up your sarmons, Pitt, when Miss Crawley
comes down, said his father; she has written to say that she wont stand the preachifying. O, sir! consider
the servants. The servants be hanged, said Sir Pitt; and his son thought even worse would happen
were they deprived of the benefit of his instruction. Why, hang it, Pitt! said the father to his remonstrance.
You wouldnt be such a flat as to let three thousand a year go out of the family? What is money compared
to our souls, sir? continued Mr. Crawley. You mean that the old lady wont leave the money to you?and
who knows but it was Mr. Crawleys meaning? Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate.
She had a snug little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate and drank a great deal too much during the
season in London, she went to Harrowgate or Cheltenham for the summer. She was the most hospitable
and jovial of old vestals, and had been a beauty in her day, she said. (All old women were beauties
once, we very well know.) She was a bel esprit, and a dreadful Radical for those days. She had been
in France (where St. Just, they say, inspired her with an unfortunate passion), and loved, ever after,
French novels, French cookery, and French wines. She read Voltaire, and had Rousseau by heart; talked
very lightly about divorce, and most energetically of the rights of women. She had pictures of Mr. Fox in
every room in the house: when that statesman was in opposition, I am not sure that she had not flung
a main with him; and when he came into office, she took great credit for bringing over to him Sir Pitt
and his colleague for Queens Crawley, although Sir Pitt would have come over himself, without any
trouble on the honest ladys part. It is needless to say that Sir Pitt was brought to change his views after
the death of the great Whig statesman. This worthy old lady took a fancy to Rawdon Crawley when
a boy, sent him to Cambridge (in opposition to his brother at Oxford), and, when the young man was
requested by the authorities of the first-named University to quit after a residence of two years, she
bought him his commission in the Life Guards Green. A perfect and celebrated blood, or dandy about
town, was this young officer. Boxing, rat-hunting, the fives court, and four-in-hand driving were then
the fashion of our British aristocracy; and he was an adept in all these noble sciences. And though he
belonged to the household troops, who, as it was their duty to rally round the Prince Regent, had not
shown their valour in foreign service yet, Rawdon Crawley had already (àpropos of play, of which he was
immoderately fond) fought three bloody duels, in which he gave ample proofs of his contempt for death.
And for what follows after death, would Mr. Crawley observe, throwing his gooseberry-coloured eyes
up to the ceiling. He was always thinking of his brothers soul, or of the souls of those who differed with
him in opinion: it is a sort of comfort which many of the serious give themselves. Silly, romantic Miss
Crawley, far from being horrified at the courage of her favourite, always used to pay his debts after his
duels; and would not listen to a word that was whispered against his morality. He will sow his wild oats,
she would say, and is worth far more than that puling hypocrite of a brother of his.