He sang Italian and French songs
with great taste and execution, and was a fine performer on the violin.
Such was the careless being to whom Mr. Hurdlestone, for the sake of
saving a few pounds per annum, entrusted the education of his sons.
As far as the mere technicalities of education went, they could not have
had a more conscientious or efficient teacher; but his morality and
theology were alike defective, and, instead of endeavoring to make them
good men, Uncle Alfred's grand aim was to make them fine gentlemen. With
Algernon, he succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations, for there
was a strong family likeness between that young gentleman and his uncle,
and a great similarity in their tastes and pursuits. Mark, however,
proved a most dogged and refractory pupil, and though he certainly owed
the fine upright carriage, by which he was distinguished, to Uncle
Alfred's indefatigable drilling, yet, like Lord Chesterfield's son, he
profited very little by his lessons in politeness.
When the time arrived for him to finish his studies, by going to college
and travelling abroad, the young heir of the Hurdlestones obstinately
refused to avail himself of these advantages. He declared that the
money, so uselessly bestowed, would add nothing to his present stock of
knowledge, but only serve to decrease his patrimony; that all the
learning that books could convey, could be better acquired in the quiet
and solitude of home; that he knew already as much of the dead
languages as he ever would have occasion for, as he did not mean to
enter the church or to plead at the bar; and there was no character he
held in greater abhorrence than a fashionable beau or a learned pedant.
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