he first two
or three appearances in the magazine or newspaper page. Pegasus put
into harness, and obliged to run a stage every day, is as prosaic as
any other hack, and won't work without his whip or his feed of corn.
So, indeed, Mr. Arthur performed his work at the Pall Mall Gazette (and
since his success as a novelist with an increased salary), but without
the least enthusiasm, doing his best or pretty nearly, and sometimes
writing ill and sometimes well. He was a literary hack, naturally fast
in pace, and brilliant in action.

Neither did society, or that portion which he saw, excite or amuse him
over much. In spite of his brag and boast to the contrary, he was too
young as yet for women's society, which probably can only be had in
perfection when a man has ceased to think about his own person, and has
given up all designs of being a conqueror of ladies; he was too young
to be admitted as an equal amongst men who had made their mark in the
world, and of whose conversation he could scarcely as yet expect to be
more than a listener. And he was too old for the men of pleasure of his
own age; too much a man of pleasure for the men of business; destinied
in a word to be a good deal alone. Fate awards this lot of solitude to
many a man; and many like it from taste, as many without difficulty bear
it. Pendennis, in reality, suffered it very equanimously; but in words,
and according to his wont, grumbled over it not a little.

"What a nice little artless creature that was," Mr. Pen thought at the
very instant of waking after the Vauxhall affair; "what a pretty natural
manner she has; how much pleasanter than the minauderies of the young
ladies in the ballrooms" (and here he recalled to himself some instances
of what he could not help seeing was the artful simplicity of Miss
Blanche, and some of the stupid graces of other young ladies in the
polite world); "who could have thought that such a pretty rose could
grow in a porter's lodge, or bloom in that dismal old flower-pot of
a Shepherd's Inn? So she learns to sing from old Bows? If her singing
voice is as sweet as her speaking voice, it must be pretty. I like those
low voilees voices. 'What would you like me to call you?' indeed, poor
little Fanny! It went to my heart to adopt the grand air with her and
tell her to call me, 'Sir.' But we'll have no nonsense of that sort--no
Faust and Margaret business for me. That old Bows! So he teaches her to
sing, does he? He's a dear o