It is often said of those who, in their incessant daydreaming and Miltonian fashions conjure up portraits or other reflections of the ideal, that one must be, in trite fashion, ever aware of one’s own constitution, or temperament. So it was for one M. de Morpois, one friend of I, the Vis. A. Beresford. Thanks to a rather obscure history, and related enigmatic elements in his youth, Morpois was sent forth from his paternal family’s barony, an increasingly irrelevant yet quintessential peerage from the West-central regions of Old Toulouse. Issued forth to the streets of East London in the years immediately following the Great Reform Act, he was, like so many progeny of those members of the traditional, diplomatic circles, irreducibly calm, yet preening and, I dare say, resolutely insufferable when confronted outside of his official dignities.
His finest form was illuminated in the social setting. For, in spite of his strained schedule, he was always invited to the house of one M. and Mdm. Nelson, a methodical married couple who painstakingly created a small, rotating band of guests who, perhaps in spite of their upbringing, found the Nelson locale the utmost of civility and prideful indulgence. M. Nelson was himself a reserved man, who neither sought accolade nor accommodation in front of his esteemed audiences, though he was quite so, to the contrary, with the egress sealed shut and the last guest harkening to his darkened, candle-lit carriage. Mdm. Nelson assumed the role of the facilitator, espousing dry wit and candor to those ambitious folk venturing opinions on the trivial or mundane. It was here that Morpois found his strongest element, namely, his inability to decipher the impact of the aura of his graceful career on the gatherings which, in its subtler fashions, undermined his very existence in the greater London scene. Nevertheless, and in true fashion, ever did he fail to consistently arrive at the Nelson home on time, always claiming the “requirements of the service,” in the parlance of the Queen’s naval academy, which he often mused to be the “pastoral indicia” of his time. At this unequivocating expression, which Morpois never failed to deliver with succinct timing and a conclusively emphatic accent, Mdm. Nelson would burst forth with her regular guffaw, a muffled, high-pitched yelp followed by much closeted shaking, an effort surely designed to lull the unsuspecting persons adjacent to her in the sense that, decidedly, a wickedly sound cultural truth had been uttered for the benefit of the few who, in their transcendence, understood not only the background and context, but also the furthest nuances of everyday life.
“Of course, I never suspected our own M. Andusal here, with whom you are all well-acquainted, to shift the proverbial mechanism of our time in furtherance of his basest desire to enthrall this undeserving table with yet another tale of woe emanating from his stockholdings,” said Morpois with a flowing spectrum of forced shock, sadness, and knowing acceptance as he removed his immaculate blue coat to reveal perfectly-starched linen, and gracefully set his white gloves on the magnificently-appointed credenza to the rear of the table, as was the French custom at the time. At this display of exegesis and interpolation of niceties with a flagrant foreign custom, Mdm. Nelson cautiously yielded an optimistic response, “Well, my dear Morpois, we certainly have room at the “proverbial” table of our minds for the chair of your charming company,” while M. Nelson, eager to avoid injecting his sense of regal ownership into the fray, offered a look of mild condescension tempered with sufficiently relaxed eyebrows to offer the other patrons the notion that Morpois had not really offended anyone’s dignity, but rather had surreptitiously engaged in the conversation with an air of progress and improvement. Morpois’s foil, to those who knew him, displayed itself once more, for this temperament was the sole practical reason for his unceasing invitation, for the trained eye could easily discern that Morpois’s genteel upbringing and social circles, notorious in London for their level of attainment, were but only the superficial justification upon which everyone present had built their foundations of reliance; that is to say, that this solidly ambitious grouping of individuals, middle-class at origin, and perhaps low in nobility at best, viewed outside the thresholds of the Nelson’s limited range of influence as banal and vapid, secretly prized Morpois’s apparent ability to deride their own selves into a Deus Ex Machina, thereby causing a lifting of the group into the finest circles offered south of Manchester. What Morpois could not do merely by his range of friends and connections, he could, in reverse form, do by executing said arrangements through his tones of derision and wit. To achieve the same effect, it may be said, could be effected through either method; however, had Morpois been consciously aware of the conflicting reasons for his visits, he may well have found the whole ordeal terribly imprudent, and beneath his family’s “inevitable” upwards trajectory (though he never once considered his parents’ obscure warnings and heedings of a path wearing ever thinner, overgrown by the brambles of the intruding linear time, to which all things must succumb).
“Ah, my dear Morpois, I would never ‘endeavour’ to forsake this fine evening that Mdm. Nelson has, in her tireless effort, instigated for our benefit, you may be sure, with what you consider to be the ‘fearful yet cordial terror’ with which you believe we infuse the financials of our day,” responded M. Andusal, a man of humble upbringing in the Altamira of Cantabria, Spain, a region noted for its proximity to separatist leanings countered with fiercely loyal submission to the Crown (for Morpois was often fond of regaling others with his notion that Andusal’s branded loyalty was forged in the fires of “border disputes” inherent to the lands surrounding the Bay of Biscay, yet another trifle that so amused Mdm. Nelson). “I merely offered the conclusion that, yes, one would do well to avoid the flighty disposition of our Germanic brethren who constantly seek to impart traditional Prussian claims on our industries,” said Andusal with a convicted air of knowledge, surely fundamentally known only by those within his industry. At this, a round of agreement echoed from the other guests.
Morpois (with no element of surprise displayed by myself, I should add) retorted with his usual response for Andusal’s rustic range of mutual exclusivity, though adding his required, expected diplomatic approval at such vehemence towards cross-Channel perspectives. “Yes, we should all so agree,” said Morpois, eager to concede the point while retaining the “essential hill” of his prior statements (a classical Morpois-ism that uniquely refused the common approach to such concepts with the colloquialism inherent in the militaristic “high ground” expression catching on in the philosophical circles). Having parried Andusal’s response, the guests (not least of whom, the Nelsons in their respective forms), silently breathed a sigh of relief, and displayed a convincing countenance of joy, at the “repartee” that they, in their blinded manner, believed to have so witness (for Morpois, despite his own aforementioned obtuseness, never let slip his tight grip on discussion reserved solely for his more noble and elite circles, and knew enough to play each crowd in accordance with their own “musical tastes,” as he was also fond of saying).