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;
destined, 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 minanderies of
the young ladies in the ball-rooms" (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.
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