here
that has not courted some such windy mistress in his time?

Yes, Pen began to feel the necessity of a first love--of a consuming
passion--of an object on which he could concentrate all those vague
floating fancies under which he sweetly suffered--of a young lady to
whom he could really make verses, and whom he could set up and adore, in
place of those unsubstantial Ianthes and Zuleikas to whom he addressed
the outpourings of his gushing muse. He read his favourite poems over
and over again, he called upon Alma Venus the delight of gods and men,
he translated Anacreon's odes, and picked out passages suitable to his
complaint from Waller, Dryden, Prior, and the like. Smirke and he
were never weary, in their interviews, of discoursing about love. The
faithless tutor entertained him with sentimental conversations in place
of lectures on algebra and Greek; for Smirke was in love too. Who could
help it, being in daily intercourse with such a woman? Smirke was madly
in love (as far as such a mild flame as Mr. Smirke's may be called
madness) with Mrs. Pendennis. That honest lady, sitting down below
stairs teaching little Laura to play the piano, or devising flannel
petticoats for the poor round about her, or otherwise busied with the
calm routine of her modest and spotless Christian life, was little aware
what storms were brewing in two bosoms upstairs in the study--in
Pen's, as he sate in his shooting jacket, with his elbows on the green
study-table, and his hands clutching his curly brown hair, Homer under
his nose,--and in worthy Mr. Smirke's, with whom he was reading. Here
they would talk about Helen and Andromache. "Andromache's like my
mother," Pen used to avouch; "but I say, Smirke, by Jove I'd cut off my
nose to see Helen;" and he would spout certain favourite lines which
the reader will find in their proper place in the third book. He
drew portraits of her--they are extant still--with straight noses and
enormous eyes, and 'Arthur Pendennis delineavit et pinxit' gallantly
written underneath.

As for Mr. Smirke he naturally preferred Andromache. And in consequence
he was uncommonly kind to Pen. He gave him his Elzevir Horace, of which
the boy was fond, and his little Greek Testament which his own mamma
at Clapham had purchased and presented to him. He bought him a silver
pencil-case; and in the matter of learning let him do just as much or
as little as ever he pleased. He always seemed to be on the point of
unboso