| Share page |
|
Beau Nash at Tunbridge Wells
people " on equal terms. It was not a lofty dream, indeed, but it served to save his self-respect. A man, it may be said, suffers or gains in character, not so much by what he does as by what he feels regarding his actions. Nash did not consider that there was anything derogatory in his desire to mix with the fashionable world : to do him justice, when he met any member of that world, even in the days of his utmost poverty, he was not servile, rather was he patronising, he who was presently to hold his own against a princess and browbeat duchesses.
Nash might have led this life so long as his father would support him in what to that parent must have seemed inglorious idleness, and then he would have gone under. Before that inauspicious day arrived, kindly fortune, that seems to reward those who rely upon it improvidently, befriended him. In honour of the accession of William and Mary, the Inns of Court decided to revive the ancient revels that had been discontinued for many years, and Nash was appointed to organise the pageant. This he did very successfully. Indeed, the King was so well entertained that he proposed to bestow upon Nash the honour of
133 |
||