His uncle's lessons had not been thrown away
upon him; the mist of passion had passed from his eyes now, and he saw
her as she was. To think that he, Pendennis, had been enslaved by such a
woman, and then jilted by her! that he should have stooped so low, to be
trampled on the mire! that there was a time in his life, and that but a
few months back, when he was willing to take Costigan for his
father-in-law!
"Poor old Smirke!" Pen presently laughed out--"well, I'll write and try
and console the poor old boy. He won't die of his passion, ha, ha!" The
Major, had he been awake, might have heard a score of such ejaculations
uttered by Pen as he lay awake and restless through the first night of
his residence at Oxbridge.
It would, perhaps, have been better for a youth, the battle of whose life
was going to begin on the morrow, to have passed the eve in a fferent
sort of vigil: but the world had got hold of Pen in the shape of his
selfish old Mentor: and those who have any interest in his character must
have perceived ere now, that this lad was very weak as well as very
impetuous, very vain as well as very frank, and if of a generous
disposition, not a little selfish in the midst of his profuseness, and
also rather fickle, as all eager pursuers of self-gratification are.
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