diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-0.txt | 11080 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/75943-h.htm | 13207 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 1375659 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_004.jpg | bin | 0 -> 139644 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_008.jpg | bin | 0 -> 171944 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_011.jpg | bin | 0 -> 141226 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_015.jpg | bin | 0 -> 160652 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_024.jpg | bin | 0 -> 121856 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_027.jpg | bin | 0 -> 132022 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_032.jpg | bin | 0 -> 172065 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_036.jpg | bin | 0 -> 173738 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_057.jpg | bin | 0 -> 126217 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_072.jpg | bin | 0 -> 137682 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_078.jpg | bin | 0 -> 233257 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_082.jpg | bin | 0 -> 96877 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_098.jpg | bin | 0 -> 148978 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_110.jpg | bin | 0 -> 88692 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_123.jpg | bin | 0 -> 142625 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_138.jpg | bin | 0 -> 113592 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_141.jpg | bin | 0 -> 102033 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_145.jpg | bin | 0 -> 114086 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_158.jpg | bin | 0 -> 138111 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_172.jpg | bin | 0 -> 77163 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_176.jpg | bin | 0 -> 131150 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_179.jpg | bin | 0 -> 126435 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_183.jpg | bin | 0 -> 142026 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_203.jpg | bin | 0 -> 133012 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_213.jpg | bin | 0 -> 148703 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_221.jpg | bin | 0 -> 130905 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_236.jpg | bin | 0 -> 196423 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_240.jpg | bin | 0 -> 155926 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_246.jpg | bin | 0 -> 136046 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_253.jpg | bin | 0 -> 138059 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_257.jpg | bin | 0 -> 120092 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_263.jpg | bin | 0 -> 143494 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_279.jpg | bin | 0 -> 169146 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_304.jpg | bin | 0 -> 148494 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_308.jpg | bin | 0 -> 167321 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_311.jpg | bin | 0 -> 187335 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_318.jpg | bin | 0 -> 109003 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_320.jpg | bin | 0 -> 111521 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_322.jpg | bin | 0 -> 127869 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_frontispiece.jpg | bin | 0 -> 159054 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75943-h/images/i_ii.jpg | bin | 0 -> 19449 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
47 files changed, 24304 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75943-0.txt b/75943-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..684b427 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11080 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75943 *** + + + + + + MELINCOURT + + +[Illustration: [Logo] + +[Illustration: _Sir Oran Haut-ton._] + + + + + MELINCOURT + OR + SIR ORAN HAUT-TON + + + BY + + THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK + + + ILLUSTRATED BY F. H. TOWNSEND + + WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY + + + =London= + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. + + NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO. + + 1896 + + _All rights reserved_ + + + + + INTRODUCTION + + +_Melincourt_ is usually considered the least interesting of Peacock’s +novels; and in the strictly comparative sense—that is to say that it is +the least interesting of a group, every one of which has peculiar and +exceptional interest—the statement is no doubt true. The defects of the +book are very obvious, and exceedingly easy to account for. _Headlong +Hall_ had been very popular; and it was only in the course of nature +that the author should repeat his successful experiment. But _Headlong +Hall_ had been by no means free from faults; and it certainly was not +out of the course of nature that they should reappear in the new +venture. In the very noteworthy introduction which the author wrote +nearly forty years later, and which contains the promise of _Gryll +Grange_ as supplement to complete the satire, it is not unimportant to +observe that he pays no attention to anything but the satirical purport. +A man of seventy, satiated with business and not specially hungering +after popularity, was not perhaps very likely to discuss his own novels +in detail, even to the extent to which Scott and other persons of +irreproachable taste have discussed theirs in separate or collected +editions. But it is not extravagant to take his silence as a kind of +indication of his point of view. + +His practice, however, if not his expressed theory, testifies to a +consciousness that he had made a mistake in the scale of this novel. +_Nightmare Abbey_, the next, is only just a third of its length: no two +of the next three, even if added together, come up to it; and though +_Gryll Grange_ is not so very much shorter, _Gryll Grange_ contains the +accumulated irony of a lifetime, and is not open to any of the +objections to which _Melincourt_ is exposed. + +These objections, put briefly, come to this, that the author has not yet +acquired the knack of telling a story, and that he has not discarded the +habit of inapposite dissertation. There is truth in this summary, sharp +and blunt at once as it is, and there is probably no reader who will not +sometimes put up a prayer for the excision, extinction, expulsion, and +general extermination of Mr. Fax. But political economy had always been +a favourite subject of Peacock’s French masters; it had acquired, +through Malthus (of whom Mr. Fax has sometimes been thought to be a +Peacockian portrait), considerable vogue in England; and we have seen it +reappear in our own time as a loading or padding to novels. Mr. +Forester’s anti-saccharine fervour was a real thing for many years after +_Melincourt_ was published—though I have never heard whether the amiable +anti-saccharists or their descendants have founded any association to +weep for the ruin of the West India planters first, and the West India +Islands afterwards. + +Two other kinds of purpose appear in the novel, both of them distinctly +political. In _Headlong Hall_ the attack on the _Quarterly Review_ had +been tolerably obvious, but it had kept, if not entirely, yet mainly +free of personalities. The scenes at Cimmerian Lodge and Mainchance +Villa, with Mr. Feathernest’s sojourn at Melincourt, substitute for this +impersonality a directness of personal lampoon as to the taste of which +there cannot be very much question, while as to the justice and accuracy +of it there cannot be, and among rational people of both sides never has +been, any but one opinion. Mr. Vamp (Gifford), Mr. Anyside Antijack +(Canning), and Mr. Killthedead (believed to be Barrow, Secretary to the +Admiralty, and a well-known writer on naval subjects), were perhaps fair +game, for the two last were public men—in other words, public +targets—and Gifford had only himself to blame if, after playing all his +life at the roughest and most vicious of bowls, he got some rubbers. But +the animus, the injustice, and, above all, the ludicrous inaccuracy of +the attacks on Coleridge (Mr. Mystic), Southey (Mr. Feathernest), and +Wordsworth (Mr. Paperstamp), are still almost inconceivable. That there +was a certain superficial justification for accusing them all, +especially Coleridge and Southey, of rather remarkable changes of +opinion, that Coleridge was apt to be a little transcendental, and so +forth, may be granted. But the attempt to carry the satire on to their +moral and personal conduct is not only unjustifiable in itself, but +displays a quite ludicrous ignorance and recklessness. Coleridge, heaven +knows, was open enough to satire; and if Peacock had known anything +whatever about him, he might have made a rather terrible exposure. But +‘Mr. Mystic,’ with his elaborate establishment at Cimmerian Lodge, is so +unlike the fugitive philosopher who seldom had where to lay his head +except in other men’s houses, that even amusement is difficult. And when +we remember the style of living in which Wordsworth, even at his +wealthiest, indulged, and his tastes in all matters of art, coarse and +fine, the extensive dinner-party at Mainchance Villa and its ‘mighty +claret-shed’ become a very poor jest. The ‘sooth bourd’ may be ‘nae +bourd,’ but the bourd which is altogether and glaringly opposite to the +truth is a good deal worse. Most inexcusable of the three attacks, +however, is that on Southey, which, I am sorry to say, is renewed (as it +were, _sotto voce_) by the allusions to ‘Mr. Sackbut’ in _Nightmare +Abbey_. That Southey gave some provocation to the irregulars of the Whig +party by his slightly pharisaic airs of virtue, and some handle not +merely by his curious political history, but by his more voluminous than +impeccable poetical work, is undeniable. But to represent him as a +rascal, though it might be worthy of Byron, was not worthy of Peacock; +and to represent him as selling his soul for the pittance of the +laureateship was unpardonable. Southey, as Shelley himself and many +others of Peacock’s friends could have told the author of _Melincourt_, +‘feathered his nest’ with nothing but books, worked like a navvy (only +that the navvy works in bursts and Southey worked unceasingly), at the +least paying kinds of literature, in order to procure that lining, and +lived, though not sordidly, with the utmost simplicity. It would perhaps +be less difficult to forgive this unfairness if the result were more +amusing, but as it is Peacock is condemned by the laws of art no less +than by those of ethics. + +He was quite infinitely more fortunate in his other political foray—the +satire on rotten boroughs in the history of the Onevote election. The +rotten-borough system may have had its advantages, but nobody ever +denied that it lent itself admirably to satire; and I am rather inclined +to fix on this as the first complete example of Peacock’s method of +sarcastic exposure. Indeed, ‘Mr. Sarcastic’ himself, unless my +imagination deceives me, comes nearer to Peacock’s own character than +almost any other of his personages. And the whole thing, in a bravura +style, is capital. It is indeed sad to notice that the constant +legislative curtailments of the picturesque and pleasing in politics +have quite recently done away with the last shred of actuality in the +Onevote episode. For it was recorded, during the first Parish Council +elections recently, that an actual Mr. Christopher Corporate was +practically disfranchised, because, though he proposed his candidate, +and might have voted for him, he was not allowed as a seconder, and no +other existed. + +The not sarcastic or not purely sarcastic scenes and personages of the +novel have considerable merit, which would be more easily perceptible if +they were not kept apart from each other by so much of the +Fax-and-Forester business. Anthelia has excited interest and admiration +as a reminiscence of Peacock’s first love, and a first draft of the more +perfectly conceived Susannah Touchandgo in _Crotchet Castle_. They both +exhibit—with some modern touches, chiefly in the latter of the pair—the +sentimental but intelligent heroine of the last century. Mrs. Pinmoney +and her daughter are slight, but good, and the former’s list of tastes +is a capital passage, while Sir Telegraph Paxarett is an excellent +personage, showing something of Thackeray’s partiality for making a +young man of fashion not quite a coxcomb, such as the older novelists +had been prone to draw him. Mr. Derrydown, who is a sort of first sketch +of Mr. Chainmail in _Crotchet Castle_, is a very intelligent +mediaevalist; and the ‘supers,’ Mr. O’Scarum and the rest, play their +parts very well. + +These compliments, however, will hardly extend to the hero or the +villains, though they apply with redoubled force to Sir Oran Haut-ton. +The quadrumanous baronet, indeed, is such an excellent fellow, that one +almost wishes he could have been discovered to be no Orang at all, but a +baby lost early in the woods, could have recovered his speech, improved +his good looks, and married Anthelia. For his patron, friend, rival, and +almost namesake, Sylvan Forester, is a terrible prig and bore. It is +difficult to believe that Peacock can have sympathised with him, and +impossible not to think that he simply followed the old theory of the +good young hero, as he did other old theories in the elopement and +recovery. But Mr. Forester is not much worse than the villains. +Grovelgrub indeed, though he is much worse than Portpipe (who is not +detestable), and is the sequel to Gaster in Peacock’s curious warfare +against the clergy, has a touch of wit now and then. But Lord Anophel +Achthar (how with that title he came to be heir-apparent to a marquis +Peacock does not explain) is an exceeding poor creature, not much more +valorous than Bob Acres, without any of Bob’s redeeming fun, and as dull +a dog as need or need not be. + +One very curious feature in the book is the chess dance, which has been +sometimes carried out since in reality. It is one of not the least +interesting points in Peacock’s rather enigmatic character that he seems +to have had a liking for pageants and shows, whether in themselves, or +(in this particular instance) because of the example in his beloved +Rabelais, or as fashions of old time—for there never was such a lover of +old time as this Liberal free-lance. His grand-daughter tells us that he +used to hold Lady-of-the-May revels in his old age for the children at +Halliford, and the Aristophanic play in _Gryll Grange_ partakes at least +as much of this fancy as of the direct liking for theatrical performance +proper which Peacock had, and which made him for some years a regular +theatrical and operatic critic. + +The songs of _Melincourt_ are, considering its length, not numerous, and +only one of them is, for Peacock, of the first class. Anthelia’s first +ballad, “The Tomb of Love,” is not very much above the strains of the +unhappy Della Crusca and his mates, whose bodies in her time still, to +speak figuratively, lay scattered on the critic mountains cold, where +they had been left by Gifford’s tomahawk. Nor is her second, “The Flower +of Love,” much better. The terzetto, which immediately follows this, is +not very strong, though “Hark o’er the Silent Waters Stealing” is +tolerable, and “The Morning of Love” is very fair imitation-Moore, and +the Antijacobin quintet very fair Hook. Of the two remaining serious +pieces “The Sun-Dial” is much better than “The Magic Bark.” But the +credit of the verse of this novel must rest upon “The Ghosts.” It faces +a page in which Southey is represented as saying of himself, “I knocked +myself down to the highest bidder,” and interrupts a discussion which, +putting aside this childish injustice, Mr. Hippy most properly describes +as “dry,” so that it must have been a considerable relief at the time. +The disputants, it is true, relapse; but probably few attended to them +originally, and now, through most of the rest of the novel, the reader +catches himself humming at intervals, + + Let the Ocean be Port, and we’ll think it good sport + To be laid in that Red Sea! + + GEORGE SAINTSBURY. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + PREFACE TO THE EDITION PUBLISHED IN 1856 1 + + CHAPTER I + ANTHELIA 5 + + CHAPTER II + FASHIONABLE ARRIVALS 14 + + CHAPTER III + HYPOCON HOUSE 22 + + CHAPTER IV + REDROSE ABBEY 29 + + CHAPTER V + SUGAR 38 + + CHAPTER VI + SIR ORAN HAUT-TON 44 + + CHAPTER VII + THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION 56 + + CHAPTER VIII + THE SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY 62 + + CHAPTER IX + THE PHILOSOPHY OF BALLADS 67 + + CHAPTER X + THE TORRENT 75 + + CHAPTER XI + LOVE AND MARRIAGE 85 + + CHAPTER XII + LOVE AND POVERTY 91 + + CHAPTER XIII + DESMOND 95 + + CHAPTER XIV + THE COTTAGE 107 + + CHAPTER XV + THE LIBRARY 115 + + CHAPTER XVI + THE SYMPOSIUM 121 + + CHAPTER XVII + MUSIC AND DISCORD 132 + + CHAPTER XVIII + THE STRATAGEM 139 + + CHAPTER XIX + THE EXCURSION 147 + + CHAPTER XX + THE SEA-SHORE 155 + + CHAPTER XXI + THE CITY OF NOVOTE 161 + + CHAPTER XXII + THE BOROUGH OF ONEVOTE 168 + + CHAPTER XXIII + THE COUNCIL OF WAR 182 + + CHAPTER XXIV + THE BAROUCHE 188 + + CHAPTER XXV + THE WALK 195 + + CHAPTER XXVI + THE COTTAGERS 200 + + CHAPTER XXVII + THE ANTI-SACCHARINE FÊTE 206 + + CHAPTER XXVIII + THE CHESS DANCE 212 + + CHAPTER XXIX + THE DISAPPEARANCE 220 + + CHAPTER XXX + THE PAPER-MILL 226 + + CHAPTER XXXI + CIMMERIAN LODGE 232 + + CHAPTER XXXII + THE DESERTED MANSION 243 + + CHAPTER XXXIII + THE PHANTASM 250 + + CHAPTER XXXIV + THE CHURCHYARD 256 + + CHAPTER XXXV + THE RUSTIC WEDDING 261 + + CHAPTER XXXVI + THE VICARAGE 268 + + CHAPTER XXXVII + THE MOUNTAINS 273 + + CHAPTER XXXVIII + THE FRACAS 276 + + CHAPTER XXXIX + MAINCHANCE VILLA 281 + + CHAPTER XL + THE HOPES OF THE WORLD 295 + + CHAPTER XLI + ALGA CASTLE 305 + + CHAPTER XLII + CONCLUSION 316 + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + Sir Oran Haut-ton _Frontispiece_ + Both Irishmen and clergymen 4 + He was always found in the morning comfortably asleep 8 + A journey to London 11 + Fashionable arrivals 15 + Old Harry had become, by long habit, a curious species of + animated mirror 24 + Sprang up, flung his night-gown one way, his night-cap + another 27 + ‘Possibly,’ thought Sir Telegraph, ‘possibly I may have + seen an uglier fellow’ 32 + Sir Oran took a flying leap through the window 36 + Mr. Fax 57 + Anthelia 72 + Proceeded very deliberately to pull up a pine 78 + Alighted on the doctor’s head as he was crossing the + court 82 + ‘My dear sir, only take the trouble of sitting a few + hours in my shop’ 98 + Sir Oran sat down in the artist’s seat 110 + Mr. Feathernest 123 + He managed so skilfully that his Lordship became himself + the proposer of the scheme 138 + She thought there was something peculiar in his look 141 + He caught them both up, one under each arm 145 + Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of + Mr. Hippy 158 + ‘We shall always be deeply attentive to your interests’ 172 + ‘Hail, plural unit!’ 176 + Began to lay about him with great vigour and effect 179 + Perched on the summit of the rock 183 + ‘My father,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘began what I merely + perpetuate’ 203 + The company was sipping, not without many wry faces, + their anti-saccharine tea 213 + Mr. Fax was of opinion that he was smitten 221 + Mr. Mystic observed that they must go farther 236 + Sir Oran Haut-ton ascending the stairs with the great + rain-water tub 240 + Mr. Forester made inquiries of him 246 + Sir Oran, throwing himself into a chair, began to shed + tears in great abundance 253 + A great press of business to dispose of 257 + ‘Do you know, that in all likelihood, in the course of + six years, you will have as many children?’ 263 + Sir Bonus Mac Scrip retreated through the breach, and + concealed himself under the dining-table 279 + She immediately ran through the shrubbery 304 + He flattered himself that Anthelia would at length come + to a determination 308 + Gazing on the changeful aspects of the wintry sea 311 + Preparing to administer natural justice by throwing him + out at the window 318 + We shall leave them to run _ad libitum_ 320 + ‘He would confess all’ 322 + + + + + MELINCOURT + + OR + + SIR ORAN HAUT-TON + + _VOCEM COMOEDIA TOLLIT_[1] + + + + + PREFACE + TO THE EDITION PUBLISHED IN 1856[2] + + +‘Melincourt’ was first published thirty-nine years ago. Many changes +have since occurred, social, mechanical, and political. The boroughs of +Onevote and Threevotes have been extinguished: but there remain boroughs +of Fewvotes, in which Sir Oran Haut-ton might still find a free and +enlightened constituency. Beards disfigure the face, and tobacco poisons +the air, in a degree not then imagined. A boy, with a cigar in his +mouth, was a phenomenon yet unborn. Multitudinous bubbles have been +blown and have burst: sometimes prostrating dupes and impostors +together; sometimes leaving a colossal jobber upright in his triumphal +chariot, which has crushed as many victims as the car of Juggernaut. +Political mountebanks have founded profitable investments on public +gullibility. British colonists have been compelled to emancipate their +slaves; and foreign slave labour, under the pretext of free trade, has +been brought to bear against them by the friends of liberty. The Court +is more moral: therefore, the public is more moral; more decorous, at +least in external semblance, wherever the homage, which Hypocrisy pays +to Virtue, can yield any profit to the professor: but always ready for +the same reaction, with which the profligacy of the Restoration rolled, +like a spring-tide, over the Puritanism of the Commonwealth. The +progress of intellect, with all deference to those who believe in it, is +not quite so obvious as the progress of mechanics. The ‘reading public’ +has increased its capacity of swallow, in a proportion far exceeding +that of its digestion. Thirty-nine years ago, steamboats were just +coming into action, and the railway locomotive was not even thought of. +Now everybody goes everywhere: going for the sake of going, and +rejoicing in the rapidity with which they accomplish nothing. _On va, +mais on ne voyage pas._ Strenuous idleness drives us on the wings of +steam in boats and trains, seeking the art of enjoying life, which, +after all, is in the regulation of the mind, and not in the whisking +about of the body.[3] Of the disputants whose opinions and public +characters (for I never trespassed on private life) were shadowed in +some of the persons of the story, almost all have passed from the +diurnal scene. Many of the questions, discussed in the dialogues, have +more of general than of temporary application, and have still their +advocates on both sides: and new questions have arisen, which furnish +abundant argument for similar conversations, and of which I may yet, +perhaps, avail myself on some future occasion. + + THE AUTHOR OF ‘HEADLONG HALL.’ + + + _March 1856._ + + +[Illustration: _Both Irishmen and clergymen._] + + + + + CHAPTER I + ANTHELIA + + +Anthelia Melincourt, at the age of twenty-one, was mistress of herself +and of ten thousand a year, and of a very ancient and venerable castle +in one of the wildest valleys in Westmoreland. It follows of course, +without reference to her personal qualifications, that she had a very +numerous list of admirers, and equally of course that there were both +Irishmen and clergymen among them. The young lady nevertheless possessed +sufficient attractions to kindle the flames of disinterested passion; +and accordingly we shall venture to suppose that there was at least one +in the number of her sighing swains with whom her rent-roll and her old +castle were secondary considerations; and if the candid reader should +esteem this supposition too violent for the probabilities of daily +experience in this calculating age, he will at least concede it to that +degree of poetical licence which is invariably accorded to a tale +founded on facts. + +Melincourt Castle had been a place of considerable strength in those +golden days of feudal and royal prerogative, when no man was safe in his +own house unless he adopted every possible precaution for shutting out +all his neighbours. It is, therefore, not surprising, that a rock, of +which three sides were perpendicular, and which was only accessible on +the fourth by a narrow ledge, forming a natural bridge over a tremendous +chasm, was considered a very enviable situation for a gentleman to build +on. An impetuous torrent boiled through the depth of the chasm, and +after eddying round the base of the castle-rock, which it almost +insulated, disappeared in the obscurity of a woody glen, whose +mysterious recesses, by popular superstition formerly consecrated to the +devil, are now fearlessly explored by the solitary angler, or laid open +to view by the more profane hand of the picturesque tourist, who +contrives, by the magic of his pencil, to transport their romantic +terrors from the depths of mountain solitude to the gay and crowded, +though not very wholesome, atmosphere of a metropolitan exhibition. + +The narrow ledge, which formed the only natural access to the +castle-rock, had been guarded by every impediment which the genius of +fortification could oppose to the progress of the hungry Scot, who might +be disposed, in his neighbourly way, to drop in without invitation and +carouse at the expense of the owner, rewarding him, as usual, for his +extorted hospitality, by cutting his throat and setting fire to his +house. A drawbridge over the chasm, backed by a double portcullis, +presented the only mode of admission. In this secure retreat thus +strongly guarded both by nature and art, and always plentifully +victualled for a siege, lived the lords of Melincourt in all the luxury +of rural seclusion, throwing open their gates on occasional halcyon days +to regale all the peasants and mountaineers of the vicinity with roasted +oxen and vats of October. + +When these times of danger and turbulence had passed, Melincourt Castle +was not, as most of its brother edifices were, utterly deserted. The +drawbridge, indeed, became gradually divorced from its chains; the +double portcullis disappeared; the turrets and battlements were +abandoned to the owl and the ivy; and a very spacious wing was left free +to the settlement of a colony of ghosts, which, according to the report +of the peasantry and the domestics, very soon took possession, and +retained it most pertinaciously, notwithstanding the pious incantations +of the neighbouring vicar, the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, who often passed +the night in one of the dreaded apartments over a blazing fire with the +same invariable exorcising apparatus of a large venison pasty, a little +Prayer-book, and three bottles of Madeira: for the reverend gentleman +sagaciously observed, that as he had always found the latter an +infallible charm against blue devils, he had no doubt of its proving +equally efficacious against black, white, and gray. In this opinion +experience seemed to confirm him; for though he always maintained a +becoming silence as to the mysteries of which he was a witness during +his spectral vigils, yet a very correct inference might be drawn from +the fact that he was always found in the morning comfortably asleep in +his large arm-chair, with the dish scraped clean, the three bottles +empty, and the Prayer-book clasped and folded precisely in the same +state and place in which it had lain the preceding night. + +[Illustration: _He was always found in the morning comfortably asleep._] + +But the larger and more commodious part of the castle continued still to +be inhabited; and while one half of the edifice was fast improving into +a picturesque ruin, the other was as rapidly degenerating, in its +interior at least, into a comfortable modern dwelling. + +In this romantic seclusion Anthelia was born. Her mother died in giving +her birth. Her father, Sir Henry Melincourt, a man of great +acquirements, and of a retired disposition, devoted himself in solitude +to the cultivation of his daughter’s understanding; for he was one of +those who maintained the heretical notion that women are, or at least +may be, rational beings; though, from the great pains usually taken in +what is called education to make them otherwise, there are unfortunately +very few examples to warrant the truth of the theory. + +The majestic forms and wild energies of Nature that surrounded her from +her infancy impressed their character on her mind, communicating to it +all their own wildness, and more than their own beauty. Far removed from +the pageantry of courts and cities, her infant attention was awakened to +spectacles more interesting and more impressive: the misty mountain-top, +the ash-fringed precipice, the gleaming cataract, the deep and shadowy +glen, and the fantastic magnificence of the mountain clouds. The murmur +of the woods, the rush of the winds, and the tumultuous dashing of the +torrents, were the first music of her childhood. A fearless wanderer +among these romantic solitudes, the spirit of mountain liberty diffused +itself through the whole tenor of her feelings, modelled the symmetry of +her form, and illumined the expressive but feminine brilliancy of her +features: and when she had attained the age at which the mind expands +itself to the fascinations of poetry, the muses of Italy became the +chosen companions of her wanderings, and nourished a naturally +susceptible imagination by conjuring up the splendid visions of chivalry +and enchantment in scenes so congenial to their development. + +It was seldom that the presence of a visitor dispelled the solitude of +Melincourt; and the few specimens of the living world with whom its +inmates held occasional intercourse were of the usual character of +country acquaintance, not calculated to leave behind them any very +lively regret, except for the loss of time during the period of their +stay. One of these was the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, whom we have already +celebrated for his proficiency in the art of exorcising goblins by dint +of venison and Madeira. His business in the ghost line had, indeed, +declined with the progress of the human understanding, and no part of +his vocation was in very high favour with Sir Henry, who, though an +unexceptionable moral character, was unhappily not one of the children +of grace, in the theological sense of the word: but the vicar, adopting +St. Paul’s precept of being all things to all men, found it on this +occasion his interest to be liberal; and observing that no man could +coerce his opinions, repeated with great complacency the line of Virgil: + + Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine agetur; + +though he took especial care that his heterodox concession should not +reach the ears of his bishop, who would infallibly have unfrocked him +for promulgating a doctrine so subversive of the main pillar of all +orthodox establishments. + +When Anthelia had attained her sixteenth year, her father deemed it +necessary to introduce her to that human world of which she had hitherto +seen so little, and for this purpose took a journey to London, where he +was received by the surviving portion of his old acquaintance as a ghost +returned from Acheron. The impression which the gay scenes of the +metropolis made on the mind of Anthelia—to what illustrious characters +she was introduced—‘and all she thought of all she saw,’—it would be +foreign to our present purpose to detail; suffice it to say, that from +this period Sir Henry regularly passed the winter in London and the +summer in Westmoreland, till his daughter attained the age of twenty, +about which period he died. + +Anthelia passed twelve months from this time in total seclusion at +Melincourt, notwithstanding many pressing invitations from various +match-making dowagers in London, who were solicitous to dispose of her +according to their views of her advantage; in which how far their own +was lost sight of it may not be difficult to determine. + +[Illustration: _A journey to London._] + +Among the numerous lovers who had hitherto sighed at her shrine, not one +had succeeded in making the slightest impression on her heart; and +during the twelve months of seclusion which elapsed from the death of +her father to the commencement of this authentic history, they had all +completely vanished from the tablet of her memory. Her knowledge of love +was altogether theoretical; and her theory, being formed by the study of +Italian poetry in the bosom of mountain solitude, naturally and +necessarily pointed to a visionary model of excellence which it was very +little likely the modern world could realise. + +The dowagers, at length despairing of drawing her from her retirement, +respectively came to various resolutions for the accomplishment of their +ends; some resolving to go in person to Melincourt, and exert all their +powers of oratory to mould her to their wishes, and others instigating +their several _protégés_ to set boldly forward in search of fortune, and +lay siege to the castle and its mistress together. + + + + + CHAPTER II + FASHIONABLE ARRIVALS + + +It was late in the afternoon of an autumnal day, when the elegant +post-chariot of the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, a lady of high renown in +the annals of match-making, turned the corner of a stupendous precipice +in the narrow pass which formed the only access to the valley of +Melincourt. This honourable lady was accompanied by her only daughter +Miss Danaretta Contantina; which names, by the bye, appear to be female +diminutives of the Italian words _danaro contante_, signifying _ready +money_, and genteelly hinting to all fashionable Strephons, the only +terms on which the _commodity_ so denominated would be disposed of, +according to the universal practice of this liberal and enlightened +generation, in that most commercial of all bargains, marriage. + +[Illustration: _Fashionable arrivals._] + +The ivied battlements and frowning towers of Melincourt Castle, as they +burst at once upon the sight, very much astonished the elder and +delighted the younger lady; for the latter had cultivated a great deal +of theoretical romance—in taste, not in feeling—an important +distinction—which enabled her to be most liberally sentimental in words, +without at all influencing her actions; to talk of heroic affection and +selfsacrificing enthusiasm, without incurring the least danger of +forming a disinterested attachment, or of erring in any way whatever on +the score of practical generosity. Indeed, in all respects of practice +the young lady was the true counterpart of her mother, though they +sometimes differed a little in the forms of sentiment: thus, for +instance, when any of their dear friends happened to go, as it is +called, down hill in the world, the old lady was generally very severe +on their _imprudence_, and the young lady very pathetic on their +_misfortune_: but as to holding any further intercourse with, or +rendering any species of assistance to, any dear friend so +circumstanced, neither the one nor the other was ever suspected of +conduct so very unfashionable. In the main point, therefore, of both +their lives, that of making a _good match_ for Miss Danaretta, their +views perfectly coincided; and though Miss Danaretta, in her speculative +conversations on this subject, among her female acquaintance, talked as +young ladies always talk, and laid down very precisely _the only kind of +man she would ever think of marrying_, endowing him, of course, with all +the virtues in our good friend Hookman’s Library; yet it was very well +understood, as it usually is on similar occasions, that no other proof +of the possession of the aforesaid virtues would be required from any +individual who might present himself in the character of _Corydon +sospiroso_ than a satisfactory certificate from the old lady in +Threadneedle Street, that the bearer was a _good man_, and could be +proved so in the _Alley_. + +Such were the amiable specimens of worldly wisdom, and affected romance, +that prepared to invade the retirement of the mountain-enthusiast, the +really romantic unworldly Anthelia. + +‘What a strange-looking old place!’ said Mrs. Pinmoney; ‘it seems like +anything but the dwelling of a young heiress. I am afraid the rascally +postboys have joined in a plot against us, and intend to deliver us to a +gang of thieves!’ + +‘Banditti, you should say, mamma,’ said Miss Danaretta; ‘thieves is an +odious word.’ + +‘Pooh, child!’ said Mrs. Pinmoney. ‘The reality is odious enough, let +the word be what it will. Is not a rogue a rogue, call him by what name +you may?’ + +‘Oh, certainly not,’ said Miss Danaretta; ‘for in that case a poor rogue +without a title, would not be more a rogue than a rich rogue with one; +but that he is so in a most infinite proportion, the whole experience of +the world demonstrates.’ + +‘True,’ said the old lady; ‘and as our reverend friend Dr. Bosky +observes, to maintain the contrary would be to sanction a principle +utterly subversive of all social order and aristocratical privilege.’ + +The carriage now rolled over the narrow ledge which connected the site +of the castle with the neighbouring rocks. A furious peal at the outer +bell brought forth a venerable porter, who opened the gates with +becoming gravity, and the carriage entered a spacious court, of much +more recent architecture than the exterior of the castle, and built in a +style of modern Gothic, that seemed to form a happy medium between the +days of feudality, commonly called the dark ages, and the nineteenth +century, commonly called the enlightened age: _why_ I could never +discover. + +The inner gates were opened by another grave and venerable domestic, +who, with all the imperturbable decorum and formality of the old school, +assisted the ladies to alight, and ushered them along an elegant +colonnade into the library, which we shall describe no further than by +saying that the apartment was Gothic, and the furniture Grecian: whether +this be an unpardonable incongruity calculated to disarrange all +legitimate associations, or a judicious combination of solemnity and +elegance, most happily adapted to the purposes of study, we must leave +to the decision, or rather discussion, of picturesque and antiquarian +disputants. + +The windows, which were of stained glass, were partly open to a +shrubbery, which admitting the meditative mind into the recesses of +nature, and excluding all view of distant scenes, heightened the deep +seclusion and repose of the apartment. It consisted principally of +evergreens; but the parting beauty of the last flowers of autumn, and +the lighter and now fading tints of a few deciduous shrubs, mingled with +the imperishable verdure of the cedar and the laurel. + +The old domestic went in search of his young mistress, and the ladies +threw themselves on a sofa in graceful attitudes. They were shortly +joined by Anthelia, who welcomed them to Melincourt with all the +politeness which the necessity of the case imposed. + +The change of dress, the dinner, the dessert, seasoned with the _newest +news_ of the fashionable world, which the visitors thought must be of +all things the most delightful to the mountain recluse, filled up a +portion of the evening. When they returned from the dining-room to the +library, the windows were closed, the curtains drawn, and the tea and +coffee urns bubbling on the table, and sending up their steamy columns: +an old fashion to be sure, and sufficiently rustic, for which we +apologise in due form to the reader, who prefers his tea and coffee +brought in cool by the butler in little cups on a silver salver, and +handed round to the simpering company till it is as cold as an Iceland +spring. There is no disputing about taste, and the taste of Melincourt +Castle on this subject had been always very poetically unfashionable; +for the tea would have satisfied Johnson, and the coffee enchanted +Voltaire. + +‘I must confess, my dear,’ said the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘there is +a great deal of comfort in your way of living, that is, there would be, +in good company; but you are so solitary——’ + +‘Here is the best of company,’ said Anthelia, smiling, and pointing to +the shelves of the library. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ Very true: books are very good things in their +way; but an hour or two at most is quite enough of them for me; more can +serve no purpose but to muddle one’s head. If I were to live such a life +for a week as you have done for the last twelve months, I should have +more company than I like, in the shape of a whole legion of blue devils. + +_Miss Danaretta._ Nay, I think there is something delightfully romantic +in Anthelia’s mode of life; but I confess I should like now and then, +peeping through the ivy of the battlements, to observe a _preux +chevalier_ exerting all his eloquence to persuade the inflexible porter +to open the castle gates, and allow him one opportunity of throwing +himself at the feet of the divine lady of the castle, for whom he had +been seven years dying a lingering death. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ And growing fatter all the while. Heaven +defend me from such hypocritical fops! Seven years indeed! It did not +take as many weeks to bring me and poor dear dead Mr. Pinmoney together. + +_Anthelia._ I should have been afraid that so short an acquaintance +would scarcely have been sufficient to acquire that mutual knowledge of +each other’s tastes, feelings, and character, which I should think the +only sure basis of matrimonial happiness. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ Tastes, feelings, and character! Why, my love, +you really do seem to believe yourself in the age of chivalry, when +those words certainly signified very essential differences. But now the +matter is, very happily, simplified. Tastes,—they depend on the fashion. +There is always a fashionable taste: a taste for driving the mail—a +taste for acting Hamlet—a taste for philosophical lectures—a taste for +the marvellous—a taste for the simple—a taste for the brilliant—a taste +for the sombre—a taste for the tender—a taste for the grim—a taste for +banditti—a taste for ghosts—a taste for the devil—a taste for French +dancers and Italian singers, and German whiskers and tragedies—a taste +for enjoying the country in November, and wintering in London till the +end of the dog-days—a taste for making shoes—a taste for picturesque +tours—a taste for taste itself, or for essays on taste;—but no gentleman +would be so rash as have a taste of his own, or his last winter’s taste, +or any taste, my love, but the fashionable taste. Poor dear Mr. Pinmoney +was reckoned a man of exquisite taste among all his acquaintance; for +the new taste, let it be what it would, always fitted him as well as his +new coat, and he was the very pink and mirror of fashion, as much in the +one as the other.—So much for tastes, my dear. + +_Anthelia._ I am afraid I shall always be a very unfashionable creature; +for I do not think I should have sympathised with any one of the tastes +you have just enumerated. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ You are so contumacious, such a romantic +heretic from the orthodox supremacy of fashion. Now, as for feelings, my +dear, you know there are no such things in the fashionable world; +therefore that difficulty vanishes even more easily than the first. + +_Anthelia._ I am sorry for it. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ Sorry! Feelings are very troublesome things, +and always stand in the way of a person’s own interests. Then, as to +character, a gentleman’s character is usually in the keeping of his +banker, or his agent, or his steward, or his solicitor; and if they can +certify and demonstrate that he has the means of keeping a handsome +equipage, and a town and country house, and of giving routs and dinners, +and of making a good settlement on the happy object of his choice—what +more of any gentleman’s character would you desire to know? + +_Anthelia._ A great deal more. I would require him to be free in all his +thoughts, true in all his words, generous in all his actions—ardent in +friendship, enthusiastic in love, disinterested in both—prompt in the +conception, and constant in the execution, of benevolent enterprise—the +friend of the friendless, the champion of the feeble, the firm opponent +of the powerful oppressor—not to be enervated by luxury, nor corrupted +by avarice, nor intimidated by tyranny, nor enthralled by +superstition—more desirous to distribute wealth than to possess it, to +disseminate liberty than to appropriate power, to cheer the heart of +sorrow than to dazzle the eyes of folly. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ And do you really expect to find such a +knight-errant? The age of chivalry is gone. + +_Anthelia._ It is, but its spirit survives. Disinterested benevolence, +the mainspring of all that is really admirable in the days of chivalry, +will never perish for want of some minds calculated to feel its +influence, still less for want of a proper field of exertion. To protect +the feeble, to raise the fallen—to liberate the captive—to be the +persevering foe of tyrants (whether the great tyrant of an overwhelming +empire, the petty tyrant of the fields, or the ‘little tyrant of a +little corporation,’)[4] it is not necessary to wind the bugle before +enchanted castles, or to seek adventures in the depths of mountain +caverns and forests of pine; there is no scene of human life but +presents sufficient scope to energetic generosity; the field of action, +though less splendid in its accompaniments, is not less useful in its +results, nor less attractive to a liberal spirit: and I believe it is +possible to find as true a knight-errant in a brown coat in the +nineteenth century, as in a suit of golden armour in the days of +Charlemagne. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ Well! well! my dear, when you have seen a +little more of the world, you will get rid of some of your chivalrous +whimsies; and I think you will then agree with me that there is not, in +the whole sphere of fashion, a more elegant, fine-spirited, dashing, +generous fellow than my nephew Sir Telegraph Paxarett, who, by the bye, +will be driving his barouche this way shortly, and if you do not +absolutely forbid it, will call on me in his route. + +These words seemed to portend that the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney’s visit +would be a visitation, and at the same time threw a clear light on its +motive; but they gave birth in the mind of Anthelia to a train of ideas +which concluded in a somewhat singular determination. + + + + + CHAPTER III + HYPOCON HOUSE + + +Anthelia had received intimations from various quarters of similar +intentions on the part of various individuals, not less valuable than +Sir Telegraph Paxarett in the scale of moral utility; and though there +was not one among them for whom she felt the slightest interest, she +thought it would be too uncourteous in a pupil of chivalry, and too +inhospitable in the mistress of an old English castle, to bar her gates +against them. At the same time she felt the want of a lord seneschal to +receive and entertain visitors so little congenial to her habits and +inclinations: and it immediately occurred to her that no one would be +more fit for this honourable office, if he could be prevailed on to +undertake it, than an old relation—a medium, as it were, between cousin +and great-uncle; who had occasionally passed a week or a month with her +father at Melincourt. The name of this old gentleman was Hippy—Humphrey +Hippy, Esquire, of Hypocon House, in the county of Durham. He was a +bachelor, and his character exhibited a singular compound of +kind-heartedness, spleen, and melancholy, which governed him by turns, +and sometimes in such rapid succession that they seemed almost +co-existent. To him Anthelia determined on sending an express, with a +letter entreating him to take on himself, for a short time, the +superintendence of Melincourt Castle, and giving as briefly as possible +her reasons for the request. In pursuance of this determination, old +Peter Gray, a favourite domestic of Sir Henry, and, I believe, a distant +relation of little Lucy,[5] was despatched the following morning to +Hypocon House, where the gate was opened to him by old Harry Fell, a +distant relation of little Alice, who, as the reader well knows, +‘belonged to Durham.’ Old Harry had become, by long habit, a curious +species of animated mirror, and reflected all the humours of his master +with wonderful nicety. When Mr. Hippy was in a rage, old Harry looked +fierce; when Mr. Hippy was in a good humour, old Harry was the picture +of human kindness; when Mr. Hippy was blue-devilled, old Harry was +vapourish; when Mr. Hippy was as melancholy as a gib-cat, old Harry was +as dismal as a screech-owl. The latter happened to be the case when old +Peter presented himself at the gate, and old Harry accordingly opened it +with a most rueful elongation of visage. Peter Gray was ready with a +warm salutation for his old acquaintance Harry Fell; but the lamentable +cast of expression in the physiognomy of the latter froze it on his +lips, and he contented himself with asking in a hesitating tone, ‘Is Mr. +Hippy at home?’ + +[Illustration: _Old Harry had become, by long habit, a curious species +of animated mirror._] + +‘He is,’ slowly and sadly articulated Harry Fell, shaking his head. + +‘I have a letter for him,’ said Peter Gray. + +‘Ah!’ said Harry Fell, taking the letter, and stalking off with it as +solemnly as if he had been following a funeral. + +‘A pleasant reception,’ thought Peter Gray, ‘instead of the old ale and +cold sirloin I dreamed of.’ + +Old Harry tapped three times at the door of his master’s chamber, +observing the same interval between each tap as is usual between the +sounds of a muffled drum: then, after a due pause, he entered the +apartment. Mr. Hippy was in his night-gown and slippers, with one leg on +a cushion, suffering under an imaginary attack of the gout, and in the +last stage of despondency. Old Harry walked forward in the same slow +pace till he found himself at the proper distance from his master’s +chair. Then putting forth his hand as deliberately as if it had been the +hour-hand of the kitchen clock, he presented the letter. Mr. Hippy took +it in the same manner, sank back in his chair as if exhausted with the +effort, and cast his eyes languidly on the seal. Immediately his eyes +brightened, he tore open the letter, read it in an instant, sprang up, +flung his night-gown one way, his night-cap another, kicked off his +slippers, kicked away his cushion, kicked over his chair, and bounced +downstairs, roaring for his coat and boots, and his travelling chariot, +with old Harry capering at his heels, and re-echoing all his +requisitions. Harry Fell was now a new man. Peter Gray was seized by the +hand and dragged into the buttery, where a cold goose and a flagon of +ale were placed before him, to which he immediately proceeded to do +ample justice; while old Harry rushed off with a cold fowl and ham for +the refection of Mr. Hippy, who had been too seriously indisposed in the +morning to touch a morsel of breakfast. Having placed these and a bottle +of Madeira in due form and order before his master, he flew back to the +buttery, to assist old Peter in the demolition of the goose and ale, his +own appetite in the morning having sympathised with his master’s, and +being now equally disposed to make up for lost time. + +Mr. Hippy’s travelling chariot was rattled up to the door by four +high-mettled posters from the nearest inn. Mr. Hippy sprang into the +carriage, old Harry vaulted into the dicky, the postilions cracked their +whips, and away they went, + + Over the hills and the plains, + Over the rivers and rocks, + +leaving old Peter gaping after them at the gate, in profound +astonishment at their sudden metamorphosis, and in utter despair of +being able, by any exertions of his own, to be their forerunner and +announcer at Melincourt. Considering, therefore, that when the necessity +of being too late is inevitable, hurry is manifestly superfluous, he +mounted his galloway with great gravity and deliberation, and trotted +slowly off towards the mountains, philosophising all the way in the +usual poetical style of a Cumberland peasant. Our readers will of course +feel much obliged to us for not presenting them with his meditations. +But instead of jogging back with old Peter Gray, or travelling post with +Humphrey Hippy, Esquire, we shall avail ourselves of the four-in-hand +barouche which is just coming in view, to take a seat on the box by the +side of Sir Telegraph Paxarett, and proceed in his company to +Melincourt. + +[Illustration: _Sprang up, flung his night-gown one way, his night-cap +another._] + + + + + CHAPTER IV + REDROSE ABBEY + + +Sir Telegraph Paxarett had entered the precincts of the mountains of +Westmoreland, and was bowling his barouche along a romantic valley, +looking out very anxiously for an inn, as he had now driven his regular +diurnal allowance of miles, and was becoming very impatient for his +equally regular diurnal allowance of fish, fowl, and Madeira. A wreath +of smoke ascending from a thick tuft of trees at a distance, and in a +straight direction before him, cheered up his spirits, and induced him +to cheer up those of his horses with two or three of those technical +terms of the road, which we presume to have formed part of the genuine +language of the ancient Houyhnhnms, since they seem not only much better +adapted to equine than human organs of sound, but are certainly much +more generally intelligible to four-footed than to two-footed animals. +Sir Telegraph was doomed to a temporary disappointment; for when he had +attained the desired point, the smoke proved to issue from the chimneys +of an ancient abbey which appeared to have been recently converted from +a pile of ruins into the habitation of some variety of the human +species, with very singular veneration for the relics of antiquity, +which, in their exterior aspect, had suffered little from the +alteration. There was something so analogous between the state of this +building and what he had heard of Melincourt, that if it had not been +impossible to mistake an abbey for a castle, he might almost have +fancied himself arrived at the dwelling of the divine Anthelia. Under a +detached piece of ruins near the road, which appeared to have been part +of a chapel, several workmen were busily breaking the ground with spade +and pickaxe: a gentleman was superintending their operations, and seemed +very eager to arrive at the object of his search. Sir Telegraph stopped +his barouche to inquire the distance to the nearest inn: the gentleman +replied, ‘Six miles.’ ‘That is just five miles and a half too far,’ said +Sir Telegraph, and was proceeding to drive on, when, on turning round to +make his parting bow to the stranger, he suddenly recognised him for an +old acquaintance and fellow-collegian. + +‘Sylvan Forester!’ exclaimed Sir Telegraph; ‘who should have dreamed of +meeting you in this uncivilised part of the world?’ + +‘I am afraid,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘this part of the world does not +deserve the compliment implied in the epithet you have bestowed on it. +Within no very great distance from this spot are divers towns, villages, +and hamlets, in any one of which, if you have money, you may make pretty +sure of being cheated, and if you have none, quite sure of being +starved—strong evidences of a state of civilisation.’ + +‘Aha!’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘your old way, now I recollect—always fond of +railing at civilised life, and holding forth in praise of savages and +what you called original men. But what, in truth, make you in +Westmoreland?’ + +‘I have purchased this old abbey,’ said Mr. Forester ‘(anciently called +the abbey of Rednose, which I have altered to Redrose, as being more +analogous to my notions of beauty, whatever the reverend Fellows of our +old college might have thought of it), and have fitted it up for my +habitation, with the view of carrying on in peace and seclusion some +peculiar experiments on the nature and progress of man. Will you dine +with me, and pass the night here? and I will introduce you to an +original character.’ + +‘With all my heart,’ said Sir Telegraph; ‘I can assure you, +independently of the pleasure of meeting an old acquaintance, it is a +great comfort to dine in a gentleman’s house, after living from inn to +inn and being poisoned with bad wine for a month.’ + +Sir Telegraph descended from his box, and directed one of his grooms to +open the carriage-door and emancipate the coachman, who was fast asleep +inside. Sir Telegraph gave him the reins, and Mr. Forester sent one of +his workmen to show him the way to the stables. + +[Illustration: ‘_Possibly_,’ _thought Sir Telegraph_, ‘_possibly I may +have seen an uglier fellow_.’] + +‘And pray,’ said Sir Telegraph, as the barouche disappeared among the +trees, ‘what may be the object of your researches in this spot?’ + +‘You know,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘it is a part of my tenets that the human +species is gradually decreasing in size and strength, and I am digging +in the old cemetery for bones and skulls to establish the truth of my +theory.’ + +‘Have you found any?’ said Sir Telegraph. + +‘Many,’ said Mr. Forester. ‘About three weeks ago we dug up a very fine +skeleton, no doubt of some venerable father, who must have been, in more +senses than one, a pillar of the Church. I have had the skull polished +and set in silver. You shall drink your wine out of it, if you please, +to-day.’ + +‘I thank you,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘but I am not particular; a glass +will suit me as well as the best skull in Europe. Besides, I am a +moderate man: one bottle of Madeira and another of claret are enough for +me at any time; so that the quantity of wine a reverend sconce can carry +would be just treble my usual allowance.’ + +They walked together towards the abbey. Sir Telegraph earnestly +requested, that, before they entered, he might be favoured with a peep +at the stable. Mr. Forester of course complied. Sir Telegraph found this +important part of the buildings capacious and well adapted to its +purpose, but did not altogether approve its being totally masked by an +old ivied wall, which had served in former times to prevent the braw and +bonny Scot from making too free with the beeves of the pious fraternity. + +The new dwelling-house was so well planned, and fitted in so well +between the ancient walls, that very few vestiges of the modern +architect were discernible; and it was obvious that the growth of the +ivy, and of numerous trailing and twining plants, would soon overrun all +vestiges of the innovation, and blend the whole exterior into one +venerable character of antiquity. + +‘I do not think,’ said Mr. Forester, as they proceeded through part of +the grounds, ‘that the most determined zealot of the picturesque would +quarrel with me here. I found the woods around the abbey matured by time +and neglect into a fine state of wildness and intricacy, and I think I +have left enough of them to gratify their most ardent admirer.’ + +‘Quite enough, in all conscience,’ said Sir Telegraph, who was in white +jean trousers, with very thin silk stockings and pumps. ‘I do not +generally calculate on being, as an old song I have somewhere heard +expresses it, + + Forced to scramble, + When I ramble, + Through a copse of furze and bramble; + +which would be all very pleasant perhaps, if the fine effect of +picturesque roughness were not unfortunately, as Macbeth says of his +dagger, “sensible to feeling as to sight.” But who is that gentleman, +sitting under the great oak yonder in the green coat and nankins? He +seems very thoughtful.’ + +‘He is of a contemplative disposition,’ said Mr. Forester: ‘you must not +be surprised if he should not speak a word during the whole time you are +here. The politeness of his manner makes amends for his habitual +taciturnity. I will introduce you.’ + +The gentleman under the oak had by this time discovered them, and came +forward with great alacrity to meet Mr. Forester, who cordially shook +hands with him, and introduced him to Sir Telegraph as Sir Oran +Haut-ton, Baronet. + +Sir Telegraph looked earnestly at the stranger, but was too polite to +laugh, though he could not help thinking there was something very +ludicrous in Sir Oran’s physiognomy, notwithstanding the air of high +fashion which characterised his whole deportment, and which was +heightened by a pair of enormous whiskers, and the folds of a vast +cravat. He therefore bowed to Sir Oran with becoming gravity, and Sir +Oran returned the bow with very striking politeness. + +‘Possibly,’ thought Sir Telegraph, ‘possibly I may have seen an uglier +fellow.’ + +The trio entered the abbey, and shortly after sat down to dinner. + +Mr. Forester and Sir Oran Haut-ton took the head and foot of the table. +Sir Telegraph sat between them. ‘Some soup, Sir Telegraph?’ said Mr. +Forester. ‘I rather think,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘I shall trouble Sir +Oran for a slice of fish.’ Sir Oran helped him with great dexterity, and +then performed the same office for himself. ‘I think you will like this +Madeira?’ said Mr. Forester. ‘Capital!’ said Sir Telegraph: ‘Sir Oran, +shall I have the pleasure of taking wine with you?’ Sir Oran Haut-ton +bowed gracefully to Sir Telegraph Paxarett, and the glasses were tossed +off with the usual ceremonies. Sir Oran preserved an inflexible silence +during the whole duration of dinner, but showed great proficiency in the +dissection of game. + +[Illustration: _Sir Oran took a flying leap through the window._] + +When the cloth was removed, the wine circulated freely, and Sir +Telegraph, as usual, filled a numerous succession of glasses. Mr. +Forester, not as usual, did the same; for he was generally very +abstemious in this respect; but, on the present occasion, he relaxed +from his severity, quoting the _Placari genius festis impune diebus_, +and the _Dulce est desipere in loco_, of Horace. Sir Oran likewise +approved, by his practice, that he thought the wine particularly +excellent, and _Beviamo tutti tre_ appeared to be the motto of the +party. Mr. Forester inquired into the motives which had brought Sir +Telegraph to Westmoreland; and Sir Telegraph entered into a rapturous +encomium of the heiress of Melincourt which was suddenly cut short by +Sir Oran, who, having taken a glass too much, rose suddenly from table, +took a flying leap through the window, and went dancing along the woods +like a harlequin. + +‘Upon my word,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘a devilish lively, pleasant fellow! +Curse me if I know what to make of him.’ + +‘I will tell you his history,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘by and by. In the +meantime I must look after him, that he may neither do nor receive +mischief. Pray take care of yourself till I return.’ Saying this, he +sprang through the window after Sir Oran, and disappeared by the same +track among the trees. + +‘Curious enough!’ soliloquised Sir Telegraph; ‘however, not much to +complain of, as the best part of the company is left behind: videlicet, +the bottle.’ + + + + + CHAPTER V + SUGAR + + +Sir Telegraph was tossing off the last heeltap of his regular diurnal +allowance of wine, when Mr. Forester and Sir Oran Haut-ton reappeared, +walking past the window arm in arm; Sir Oran’s mode of progression being +very vacillating, indirect, and titubant; enough so, at least, to show +that he had not completely danced off the effects of the Madeira. Mr. +Forester shortly after entered; and Sir Telegraph inquiring concerning +Sir Oran, ‘I have persuaded him to go to bed,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘and I +doubt not he is already fast asleep.’ A servant now entered with tea. +Sir Telegraph proceeded to help himself, when he perceived there was no +sugar, and reminded his host of the omission. + +_Mr. Forester._ If I had anticipated the honour of your company, Sir +Telegraph, I would have provided myself with a small quantity of that +nefarious ingredient: but in this solitary situation, these things are +not to be had at a moment’s notice. As it is, seeing little company, and +regulating my domestic arrangements on philosophical principles, I never +suffer an atom of West Indian produce to pass my threshold. I have no +wish to resemble those pseudo-philanthropists, those miserable +declaimers against slavery, who are very liberal of words which cost +them nothing, but are not capable of advancing the object they profess +to have at heart, by submitting to the smallest personal privation. If I +wish seriously to exterminate an evil, I begin by examining how far I am +myself, in any way whatever, an accomplice in the extension of its +baleful influence. My reform commences at home. How can I unblushingly +declaim against thieves, while I am a receiver of stolen goods? How can +I seriously call myself an enemy to slavery, while I indulge in the +luxuries that slavery acquires? How can the consumer of sugar pretend to +throw on the grower of it the exclusive burden of their participated +criminality? How can he wash his hands, and say with Pilate, “_I am +innocent of this blood, see ye to it_”? + +Sir Telegraph poured some cream into his unsweetened tea, drank it, and +said nothing. Mr. Forester proceeded: + +If every individual in this kingdom, who is truly and conscientiously an +enemy to the slave-trade, would subject himself to so very trivial a +privation as abstinence from colonial produce, I consider that a mortal +blow would be immediately struck at the roots of that iniquitous system. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ If every individual enemy to the slave-trade +would follow your example, the object would no doubt be much advanced; +but the practice of one individual more or less has little or no +influence on general society: most of us go on with the tide, and the +dread of the single word _quiz_ has more influence in keeping the +greater part of us within the pale of custom, fashion, and precedent, +than all the moral reasonings and declamations in the world will ever +have in persuading us to break through it. As to the diffusion of +liberty, and the general happiness of mankind, which used to be your +favourite topics when we were at college together, I should have thought +your subsequent experience would have shown you that there is not one +person in ten thousand who knows what liberty means, or cares a single +straw for any happiness but his own—— + +_Mr. Forester._ Which his own miserable selfishness must estrange from +him for ever. He whose heart has never glowed with a generous +resolution, who has never felt the conscious triumph of a disinterested +sacrifice, who has never sympathised with human joys or sorrows, but +when they have had a direct and palpable reference to himself, can never +be acquainted with even the semblance of happiness. His utmost enjoyment +must be many degrees inferior to that of a pig, inasmuch as the sordid +mire of selfish and brutal stupidity is more defiling to the soul, than +any coacervation of mere material mud can possibly be to the body. The +latter may be cleared away with two or three ablutions, but the former +cleaves and accumulates into a mass of impenetrable corruption, that +bids defiance to the united powers of Hercules and Alpheus. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Be that as it may, every man will continue to +follow his own fancy. The world is bad enough, I daresay; but it is not +for you or me to mend it. + +_Mr. Forester._ There is the keystone of the evil—mistrust of the +influence of individual example. ‘We are bad ourselves, because we +despair of the goodness of others.’[6] Yet the history of the world +abounds with sudden and extraordinary revolutions in the opinions of +mankind, which have been effected by single enthusiasts. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Speculative opinions have been sometimes +changed by the efforts of roaring fanatics. Men have been found very +easily permutable into _ites_ and _onians_, _avians_, and _arians_, +Wesleyites or Whitfieldites, Huntingdonians or Muggletonians, Moravians, +Trinitarians, Unitarians, Anythingarians: but the metamorphosis only +affects a few obscure notions concerning types, symbols, and mysteries, +which have scarcely any effect on moral theory, and of course, _a +fortiori_, none whatever on moral practice: the latter is for the most +part governed by the general habits and manners of the society we live +in. One man may twang responses in concert with the parish clerk; +another may sit silent in a Quakers’ meeting, waiting for the +inspiration of the Spirit; a third may groan and howl in a tabernacle; a +fourth may breakfast, dine, and sup in a Sandemanian chapel: but meet +any of the four in the common intercourse of society, you will scarcely +know one from another. The single adage, _Charity begins at home_, will +furnish a complete key to the souls of all four; for I have found, as +far as my observation has extended, that men carry their religion[7] in +other men’s heads, and their morality in their own pockets. + +_Mr. Forester._ I think it will be found that individual example has in +many instances produced great moral effects on the practice of society. +Even if it were otherwise, is it not better to be Abdiel among the +fiends, than to be lost and confounded in the legion of imps grovelling +in the train of the evil power? + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ There is something in that. + +_Mr. Forester._ To borrow an allegory from Homer: I would say society is +composed of two urns, one of good, and one of evil. I will suppose that +every individual of the human species receives from his natal genius a +little phial, containing one drop of a fluid, which shall be evil, if +poured into the urn of evil, and good if into that of good. If you were +proceeding to the station of the urns with ten thousand persons, every +one of them predetermined to empty his phial into the urn of evil, which +I fear is too true a picture of the practice of society, should you +consider their example, if you were hemmed in in the centre of them, a +sufficient excuse for not breaking from them, and approaching the +neglected urn? Would you say, “The urn of good will derive little +increase from my solitary drop, and one more or less will make very +little difference in the urn of ill; I will spare myself trouble, do as +the world does, and let the urn of good take its chance, from those who +can approach it with less difficulty”? No: you would rather say, “That +neglected urn contains the hopes of the human species: little, indeed, +is the addition I can make to it, but it will be good as far as it +goes”; and if, on approaching the urn, you should find it not so empty +as you had anticipated, if the genius appointed to guard it should say +to you, “There is enough in this urn already to allow a reasonable +expectation that it will one day be full, and yet it has only +accumulated drop by drop through the efforts of individuals, who broke +through the pale and pressure of the multitude, and did not despair of +human virtue”; would you not feel ten thousand times repaid for the +difficulties you had overcome, and the scoffs of the fools and slaves +you had abandoned, by the single reflection that would then rush upon +your mind, _I am one of these_? + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Gad, very likely: I never considered the +subject in that light. You have made no allowance for the mixture of +good and evil, which I think the fairest state of the case. It seems to +me, that the world always goes on pretty much in one way. People eat, +drink, and sleep, make merry with their friends, get as much money as +they can, marry when they can afford it, take care of their children +because they are their own, are thought well of while they live in +proportion to the depth of their purse, and when they die, are sure of +as good a character on their tombstones as the bellman and stonemason +can afford for their money. + +_Mr. Forester._ Such is the multitude; but there are noble exceptions to +this general littleness. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Now and then an original genius strikes out of +the common track; but there are two ways of doing that—into a worse as +well as a better. + +_Mr. Forester._ There are some assuredly who strike into a better, and +these are the ornaments of their age, and the lights of the world. You +must admit too, that there are many, who, though without energy or +capacity to lead, have yet virtue enough to follow an illustrious +example. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ One or two. + +_Mr. Forester._ In every mode of human action there are two ways to be +pursued—a good and a bad one. It is the duty of every man to ascertain +the former, as clearly as his capacity will admit, by an accurate +examination of general relations; and to act upon it rigidly, without +regard to his own previous habits, or the common practice of the world. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ And you infer from all this that it is my duty +to drink my tea without sugar. + +_Mr. Forester._ I infer that it is the duty of every one, thoroughly +penetrated with the iniquity of the slave-trade, to abstain entirely +from the use of colonial produce. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ I may do that, without any great effort of +virtue. I find the difference, in this instance, more trivial than I +could have supposed. In fact, I never thought of it before. + +_Mr. Forester._ I hope I shall before long have the pleasure of +enrolling you a member of the Anti-saccharine Society, which I have had +the happiness to organise, and which is daily extending its numbers. +Some of its principal members will shortly pay a visit to Redrose Abbey; +and I purpose giving a festival, to which I shall invite all that is +respectable and intelligent in this part of the country, and in which I +intend to demonstrate practically, that a very elegant and luxurious +entertainment may be prepared without employing a single particle of +that abominable ingredient, and theoretically, that the use of sugar is +economically superfluous, physically pernicious, morally atrocious, and +politically abominable. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ I shall be happy to join the party, and I may +possibly bring with me one or two inside passengers, who will prove both +ornamental and attractive to your festival. But you promised me an +account of Sir Oran. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + SIR ORAN HAUT-TON + + +_Mr. Forester._ Sir Oran Haut-ton was caught very young in the woods of +Angola. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Caught! + +_Mr. Forester._ Very young. He is a specimen of the natural and original +man—the wild man of the woods; called in the language of the more +civilised and sophisticated natives of Angola, _Pongo_, and in that of +the Indians of South America, _Oran Outang_. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ The devil he is! + +_Mr. Forester._ Positively. Some presumptuous naturalists have refused +his species the honours of humanity; but the most enlightened and +illustrious philosophers agree in considering him in his true light as +the natural and original man.[8] One French philosopher, indeed, has +been guilty of an inaccuracy, in considering him as a degenerated +man;[9] degenerated he cannot be; as his prodigious physical strength, +his uninterrupted health, and his amiable simplicity of manners +demonstrate. He is, as I have said, a specimen of the natural and +original man—a genuine facsimile of the philosophical Adam. + +He was caught by an intelligent negro very young, in the woods of +Angola; and his gentleness and sweet temper[10] winning the hearts of +the negro and negress, they brought him up in their cottage as the +playfellow of their little boys and girls, where, with the exception of +speech, he acquired the practice of such of the simpler arts of life as +the degree of civilisation in that part of Africa admits. In this way he +lived till he was about seventeen years of age—— + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ By his own reckoning? + +_Mr. Forester._ By analogical computation. At this period, my old friend +Captain Hawltaught of the Tornado frigate, being driven by stress of +weather to the coast of Angola, was so much struck with the +contemplative cast of Sir Oran’s countenance,[11] that he offered the +negro an irresistible bribe to surrender him to his possession. The +negro brought him on board, and took an opportunity to leave him slily, +but with infinite reluctance and sympathetic grief. When the ship +weighed anchor, and Sir Oran found himself separated from the friends of +his youth, and surrounded with strange faces, he wept bitterly,[12] and +fell into such deep grief that his life was despaired of.[13] The +surgeon of the ship did what he could for him; and a much better doctor, +Time, completed his cure. By degrees a very warm friendship for my +friend Captain Hawltaught extinguished his recollection of his negro +friends. Three years they cruised together in the Tornado, when a +dangerous wound compelled the old captain to renounce his darling +element, and lay himself up in ordinary for the rest of his days. He +retired on his half-pay and the produce of his prize-money to a little +village in the West of England, where he employed himself very +assiduously in planting cabbages and watching the changes of the wind. +Mr. Oran, as he was then called, was his inseparable companion, and +became a very expert practical gardener. The old captain used to +observe, he could always say he had an honest man in his house, which +was more than could be said of many honourable houses where there was +much vapouring about honour. + +Mr. Oran had long before shown a taste for music, and with some little +instruction from a marine officer in the Tornado, had become a +proficient on the flute and French horn.[14] He could never be brought +to understand the notes; but, from hearing any simple tune played or +sung two or three times, he never failed to perform it with great +exactness and brilliancy of execution. I shall merely observe, _en +passant_, that music appears, from this and several similar +circumstances, to be more natural to man than speech. The old captain +was fond of his bottle of wine after dinner, and his glass of grog at +night. Mr. Oran was easily brought to sympathise in this taste;[15] and +they have many times sat up together half the night over a flowing bowl, +the old captain singing Rule Britannia, True Courage, or Tom Tough, and +Sir Oran accompanying him on the French horn. + +During a summer tour in Devonshire, I called on my old friend Captain +Hawltaught, and was introduced to Mr. Oran. You, who have not forgotten +my old speculations on the origin and progress of man, may judge of my +delight at this happy _rencontre_. I exerted all the eloquence I was +master of to persuade Captain Hawltaught to resign him to me, that I +might give him a philosophical education.[16] Finding this point +unattainable, I took a house in the neighbourhood, and the intercourse +which ensued was equally beneficial and agreeable to all three. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ And what part did you take in their nocturnal +concerts, with Tom Tough and the French horn? + +_Mr. Forester._ I was seldom present at them, and often remonstrated, +but ineffectually, with the captain, on his corrupting the amiable +simplicity of the natural man by this pernicious celebration of vinous +and spirituous orgies; but the only answer I could ever get from him was +a hearty damn against all water-drinkers, accompanied with a reflection +that he was sure every enemy to wine and grog must have clapped down the +hatches of his conscience on some secret villainy, which he feared good +liquor would pipe ahoy; and he usually concluded by striking up _Nothing +like Grog_, _Saturday Night_, or _Swing the flowing Bowl_, his friend +Oran’s horn ringing in sympathetic symphony. + +The old captain used to say that grog was the elixir of life: but it did +not prove so to him; for one night he tossed off his last bumper, sang +his last stave, and heard the last flourish of his Oran’s horn. I +thought poor Oran would have broken his heart; and, had he not been +familiarised to me, and conceived a very lively friendship for me before +the death of his old friend, I fear the consequences would have been +fatal. + +Considering that change of scene would divert his melancholy, I took him +with me to London. The theatres delighted him, particularly the opera, +which not only accorded admirably with his taste for music, but where, +as he looked round on the ornaments of the fashionable world, he seemed +to be particularly comfortable, and to feel himself completely at home. + +There is, to a stranger, something ludicrous in a first view of his +countenance, which led me to introduce him only into the best society, +where politeness would act as a preventive to the propensity to laugh; +for he has so nice a sense of honour (which I shall observe, by the way, +is peculiar to man), that if he were to be treated with any kind of +contumely, he would infallibly die of a broken heart, as has been seen +in some of his species.[17] With a view of ensuring him the respect of +society which always attends on rank and fortune, I have purchased him a +baronetcy, and made over to him an estate. I have also purchased of the +Duke of Rottenburgh one half of the elective franchise vested in the +body of Mr. Christopher Corporate, the free, fat, and dependent burgess +of the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote, who returns two +members to Parliament, one of whom will shortly be Sir Oran. (_Sir +Telegraph gave a long whistle._) But before taking this important step, +I am desirous that he should _finish his education_. (_Sir Telegraph +whistled again._) I mean to say that I wish, if possible, to put a few +words into his mouth, which I have hitherto found impracticable, though +I do not entirely despair of ultimate success. But this circumstance, +for reasons which I will give you by and by, does not at all militate +against the proofs of his being a man. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ If he be but half a man, he will be the fitter +representative of half an elector; for as that ‘large body corporate of +one,’ the free, fat, and dependent burgess of Onevote, returns two +members to the honourable house, Sir Oran can only be considered as the +representative of half of him. But, seriously, is not your principal +object an irresistible exposure of the universality and omnipotence of +corruption by purchasing for an oran outang one of those seats, the sale +of which is unblushingly acknowledged to be _as notorious as the sun at +noonday_? or do you really think him _one of us_? + +_Mr. Forester._ I really think him a variety of the human species; and +this is a point which I have it much at heart to establish in the +acknowledgment of the civilised world. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Buffon, whom I dip into now and then in the +winter, ranks him, with Linnaeus, in the class of _Simiae_. + +_Mr. Forester._ Linnaeus has given him the curious denominations of +_Troglodytes_, _Homo nocturnus_, and _Homo silvestris_: but he evidently +thought him a man; he describes him as having a hissing speech, +thinking, reasoning, believing that the earth was made for him, and that +he will one day be its sovereign.[18] + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ God save King Oran! By the bye, you put me +very much in mind of Valentine and Orson. This wild man of yours will +turn out some day to be the son of a king, lost in the woods, and +suckled by a lioness:—‘No waiter, but a knight templar’:—no Oran, but a +true prince. + +_Mr. Forester._ As to Buffon, it is astonishing how that great +naturalist could have placed him among the _singes_, when the very words +of his description give him all the characteristics of human nature.[19] +It is still more curious to think that modern travellers should have +made beasts, under the names of Pongos, Mandrills, and Oran Outangs, of +the very same beings whom the ancients worshipped as divinities under +the names of Fauns and Satyrs, Silenus and Pan.[20] + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Your Oran rises rapidly in the scale of +being:—from a baronet and M.P. to a king of the world, and now to a god +of the woods. + +_Mr. Forester._ When I was in London last winter, I became acquainted +with a learned mythologist, who has long laboured to rebuild the fallen +temple of Jupiter. I introduced him to Sir Oran, for whom he immediately +conceived a high veneration, and would never call him by any name but +Pan. His usual salutation to him was in the following words: + + ἐλθε, μακαρ, σκιρτητα, φιλενθεος, ἀντροδιαιτε, + ἁρμονιην κοσμοιο κρεκων φιλοπαιγμονι μολπῃ, + κοσμοκρατωρ, βακχευτα![21] + +Which he thus translated: + + King of the world! enthusiast free, + Who dwell’st in caves of liberty! + And on thy wild pipe’s notes of glee + Respondent Nature’s harmony! + Leading beneath the spreading tree + The Bacchanalian revelry! + +‘This,’ said he, ‘is part of the Orphic invocation of Pan. It alludes to +the happy existence of the dancing Pans, Fauns, Orans, _et id genus +omne_, whose dwellings are the caves of rocks and the hollows of trees, +such as undoubtedly was, or would have been, the natural mode of life of +our friend Pan among the woods of Angola. It alludes, too, to their +musical powers, which in our friend Pan it gives me indescribable +pleasure to find so happily exemplified. The epithet _Bacchic_, our +friend Pan’s attachment to the bottle demonstrates to be very +appropriate; and the epithet κοσμοκρατωρ, king of the world, points out +a striking similarity between the Orphic Pan and the Troglodyte of +Linnaeus, _who believes that the earth was made for him, and that he +will again be its sovereign_.’ He laid great stress on the word AGAIN, +and observed, if he were to develop all the ideas to which this word +gave rise in his mind, he should find ample matter for a volume. Then +repeating several times, Παν κοσμοκρατωρ, and _iterum fore telluris +imperantem_, he concluded by saying he had known many profound +philosophical and mythological systems founded on much slighter +analogies. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Your learned mythologist appears to be non +compos. + +_Mr. Forester._ By no means. He has a system of his own, which only +appears in the present day more absurd than other systems, because it +has fewer followers. The manner in which the spirit of system twists +everything to its own views is truly wonderful. I believe that in every +nation of the earth the system which has most followers will be found +the most absurd in the eye of an enlightened philosophy. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ But if your Oran be a man, how is it that his +long intercourse with other varieties of the human species has not +taught him to speak? + +_Mr. Forester._ Speech is a highly artificial faculty. Civilised man is +a highly artificial animal. The change from the wild to the civilised +state affects not only his moral, but his physical nature, and this not +rapidly and instantly, but in a long process of generations. The same +change is obvious in domestic animals, and in cultivated plants. You +know not where to look for the origin of the common dog, or the common +fowl. The wild and tame hog, and the wild and tame cat, are marked by +more essential differences than the oran and the civilised man. The +origin of corn is as much a mystery to us as the source of the Nile was +to the ancients. Innumerable flowers have been so changed from their +original simplicity, that the art of horticulture may almost lay claim +to the magic of a new creation. Is it then wonderful that the civilised +man should have acquired some physical faculties which the natural man +has not? It is demonstrable that speech is one. I do not, however, +despair of seeing him make some progress in this art. Comparative +anatomy shows that he has all the organs of articulation. Indeed he has, +in every essential particular, the human form, and the human anatomy. +_Now I will only observe that if an animal who walks upright—is of the +human form, both outside and inside—uses a weapon for defence and +attack—associates with his kind—makes huts to defend himself from the +weather, better I believe than those of the New Hollanders—is tame and +gentle—and instead of killing men and women, as he could easily do, +takes them prisoners and makes servants of them—who has, what I think +essential to the human kind, a sense of honour_; which is shown by +breaking his heart, if laughed at, or made a show, or treated with any +kind of contumely—_who, when he is brought into the company of civilised +men, behaves_ (as you have seen) _with dignity and composure, altogether +unlike a monkey; from whom he differs likewise in this material respect, +that he is capable of great attachment to particular persons, of which +the monkey is altogether incapable; and also in this respect, that a +monkey never can be so tamed that we may depend on his not doing +mischief when left alone, by breaking glasses or china within his reach; +whereas the oran outang is altogether harmless;—who has so much of the +docility of a man that he learns not only to do the common offices of +life, but also to play on the flute_ and French horn; _which shows that +he must have an idea of melody and concord of sounds, which no brute +animal has;—and lastly, if joined to all these qualities he has the +organ of pronunciation, and consequently the capacity of speech, though +not the actual use of it; if, I say, such an animal be not a man, I +should desire to know in what the essence of a man consists, and what it +is that distinguishes a natural man from the man of art_.[22] That he +understands many words, though he does not yet speak any, I think you +may have observed, when you asked him to take wine, and applied to him +for fish and partridge.[23] + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ The gestures, however slight, that accompany +the expression of the ordinary forms of intercourse, may possibly +explain that. + +_Mr. Forester._ You will find that he understands many things addressed +to him on occasions of very unfrequent occurrence. _With regard to his +moral character, he is undoubtedly a man, and a much better man than +many that are to be found in civilised countries_,[24] as, when you are +better acquainted with him, I feel very confident you will readily +acknowledge.[25] + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ I shall be very happy, when his election comes +on for Onevote, to drive him down in my barouche to the honourable and +ancient borough. + +Mr. Forester promised to avail himself of this proposal; when the iron +tongue of midnight tolling twelve induced them to separate for the +night. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION + + +The next morning, while Sir Telegraph, Sir Oran, and Mr. Forester were +sitting down to their breakfast, a post-chaise rattled up to the door; +the glass was let down, and a tall, thin, pale, grave-looking personage +peeped from the aperture. ‘This is Mr. Fax,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘the +champion of calm reason, the indefatigable explorer of the cold clear +springs of knowledge, the bearer of the torch of dispassionate truth, +that gives more light than warmth. He looks on the human world, the +world of mind, the conflict of interests, the collision of feelings, the +infinitely diversified developments of energy and intelligence, as a +mathematician looks on his diagrams, or a mechanist on his wheels and +pulleys, as if they were foreign to his own nature, and were nothing +more than subjects of curious speculation.’ + +Mr. Forester had not time to say more; for Mr. Fax entered, and shook +hands with him, was introduced in due form to Sir Telegraph, and sat +down to assist in the demolition of the _matériel_ of breakfast. + +_Mr. Fax._ Your Redrose Abbey is a beautiful metamorphosis.—I can +scarcely believe that these are the mouldering walls of the pious +fraternity of Rednose, which I contemplated two years ago. + +_Mr. Forester._ The picturesque tourists will owe me no goodwill for the +metamorphosis, though I have endeavoured to leave them as much mould, +mildew, and weather-stain as possible. + +_Mr. Fax._ The exterior has suffered little; it still retains a truly +venerable monastic character. + +[Illustration: _Mr. Fax._] + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Something monastic in the interior too.—Very +orthodox old wine in the cellar, I can tell you. And the Reverend Father +Abbot there, as determined a bachelor as the Pope. + +_Mr. Forester._ If I am so, it is because, like the Squire of Dames, I +seek and cannot find. I see in my mind’s eye the woman I would choose, +but I very much fear that is the only mode of optics in which she will +ever be visible. + +_Mr. Fax._ No matter. Bachelors and spinsters I decidedly venerate. The +world is overstocked with featherless bipeds. More men than corn is a +fearful pre-eminence, the sole and fruitful cause of penury, disease, +and war, plague, pestilence, and famine. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ I hope you will not long have cause to +venerate me. What is life without love? A rosebush in winter, all +thorns, and no flowers. + +_Mr. Fax._ And what is it with love? A double-blossomed cherry, flowers +without fruit; if the blossoms last a month, it is as much as can be +expected: they fall, and what comes in their place? Vanity, and vexation +of spirit. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Better vexation than stagnation: marriage may +often be a stormy lake, but celibacy is almost always a muddy horsepond. + +_Mr. Fax._ Rather a calm clear river—— + +_Mr. Forester._ Flowing through a desert, where it moves in loneliness, +and reflects no forms of beauty. + +_Mr. Fax._ That is not the way to consider the case. Feelings and +poetical images are equally out of place in a calm philosophical view of +human society. Some must marry, that the world may be peopled: many must +abstain, that it may not be overstocked. _Little and good_ is very +applicable in this case. It is better that the world should have a +smaller number of peaceable and rational inhabitants, living in +universal harmony and social intercourse, than the disproportionate mass +of fools, slaves, coxcombs, thieves, rascals, liars, and cutthroats, +with which its surface is at present encumbered. It is in vain to +declaim about the preponderance of physical and moral evil, and +attribute it, with the Manicheans, to a mythological principle, or, with +some modern philosophers, to the physical constitution of the globe. The +cause of all the evils of human society is single, obvious, reducible to +the most exact mathematical calculation; and of course susceptible not +only of remedy but even of utter annihilation. The cause is the tendency +of population to increase beyond the means of subsistence. The remedy is +an universal social compact, binding both sexes to equally rigid +celibacy, till the prospect of maintaining the average number of six +children be as clear as the arithmetic of futurity can make it. + +_Mr. Forester._ The arithmetic of futurity has been found in a more than +equal number of instances to baffle human skill. The rapid and sudden +mutations of fortune are the inexhaustible theme of history, poetry, and +romance; and they are found in forms as various and surprising, in the +scenes of daily life, as on the stage of Drury Lane. + +_Mr. Fax._ That the best prospects are often overshadowed, is most +certainly true; but there are degrees and modes of well-grounded +reliance on futurity, sufficient to justify the enterprises of prudence, +and equally well-grounded prospiciences of hopelessness and +helplessness, that should check the steps of rashness and passion, in +their headlong progress to perdition. + +_Mr. Forester._ You have little cause to complain of the present age. It +is calculating enough to gratify the most determined votary of moral and +political arithmetic. This certainly is not the time + + When unrevenged stalks Cocker’s injured ghost. + +What is friendship—except in some most rare and miraculous instances—but +the fictitious bond of interest, or the heartless intercourse of +idleness and vanity? What is love, but the most venal of all venal +commodities? What is marriage, but the most sordid of bargains, the most +cold and slavish of all the forms of commerce? We want no philosophical +ice-rock, towed into the Dead Sea of modern society, to freeze that +which is too cold already. We want rather the torch of Prometheus to +revivify our frozen spirits. We are a degenerate race, half-reasoning +developments of the principle of infinite littleness, ‘with hearts in +our bodies no bigger than pins’ heads.’ We are in no danger of +forgetting that two and two make four. There is no fear that the warm +impulses of feeling will ever overpower, with us, the tangible eloquence +of the pocket. + +_Mr. Fax._ With relation to the middle and higher classes, you are right +in a great measure as to fact, but wrong, as I think, in the asperity of +your censure. But among the lower orders the case is quite different. +The baleful influence of the poor laws has utterly destroyed the +principle of calculation in them. They marry by wholesale, without +scruple or compunction, and commit the future care of their family to +Providence and the overseer. They marry even in the workhouse, and +convert the intended asylum of age and infirmity into a flourishing +manufactory of young beggars and vagabonds. + +Sir Telegraph’s barouche rolled up gracefully to the door. Mr. Forester +pressed him to stay another day, but Sir Telegraph’s plea of urgency was +not to be overcome. He promised very shortly to revisit Redrose Abbey, +shook hands with Mr. Forester and Sir Oran, bowed politely to Mr. Fax, +mounted his box, and disappeared among the trees. + +‘Those four horses,’ said Mr. Fax, as the carriage rolled away, ‘consume +the subsistence of eight human beings, for the foolish amusement of one. +As Solomon observes: “This is vanity, and a great evil.”’ + +‘Sir Telegraph is thoughtless,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘but he has a good +heart and a good natural capacity. I have great hopes of him. He had +some learning, when he went to college; but he was cured of it before he +came away. Great, indeed, must be the zeal for improvement which an +academical education cannot extinguish.’ + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + THE SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY + + +Sir Telegraph was welcomed to Melincourt in due form by Mr. Hippy, and +in a private interview with the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, was exhorted +to persevere in his suit to Anthelia, though she could not flatter him +with very strong hopes of immediate success, the young lady’s notions +being, as she observed, extremely outré and fantastical, but such as she +had no doubt time and experience would cure. She informed him at the +same time, that he would shortly meet a formidable rival, no less a +personage than Lord Anophel Achthar,[26] son and heir of the Marquis of +Agaric[27] who was somewhat in favour with Mr. Hippy, and seemed +determined at all hazards to carry his point; ‘and with any other girl +than Anthelia,’ said Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘considering his title and fortune, +I should pronounce his success infallible, unless a duke were to make +his appearance.’ She added, ‘The young lord would be accompanied by his +tutor, the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, and by a celebrated poet, Mr. +Feathernest, to whom the Marquis had recently given a place in exchange +for his conscience. It was thought by Mr. Feathernest’s friends that he +had made a very good bargain. The poet had, in consequence, burned his +old _Odes to Truth and Liberty_, and had published a volume of +Panegyrical Addresses “to all the crowned heads in Europe,” with the +motto, “Whatever is at court, is right.”’ + +The dinner-party that day at Melincourt Castle consisted of Mr. Hippy, +in the character of lord of the mansion; Anthelia, in that of his +inmate; Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney, as her visitors; and Sir Telegraph, as +the visitor of Mrs. Pinmoney, seconded by Mr. Hippy’s invitation to +stay. Nothing very luminous passed on this occasion. + +The fame of Mr. Hippy, and his hospitable office, was rapidly diffused +by Dr. Killquick, the physician of the district; who thought a draught +or pill could not possibly be efficacious, unless administered with an +anecdote, and who was called in, in a very few hours after Mr. Hippy’s +arrival, to cure the hypochondriacal old gentleman of an imaginary +swelling in his elbow. The learned doctor, who had studied with peculiar +care the symptoms, diagnostics, prognostics, sedatives, lenitives, and +sanatives of hypochondriasis, had arrived at the sagacious conclusion +that the most effectual method of curing an imaginary disease was to +give the patient a real one; and he accordingly sent Mr. Hippy a pint +bottle of mixture, to be taken by a tablespoonful every two hours, which +would have infallibly accomplished the purpose, but that the bottle was +cracked over the head of Harry Fell, for treading on his master’s toe, +as he presented the composing potion, which would perhaps have composed +him in the Roman sense. + +The fashionable attractions of Low-Wood and Keswick afforded facilities +to some of Anthelia’s lovers to effect a _logement_ in her +neighbourhood, from whence occasionally riding over to Melincourt +Castle, they were hospitably received by the lord seneschal, Humphrey +Hippy, Esquire, who often made them fixed stars in the circumference of +that jovial system, of which the bottle and glasses are the sun and +planets, till it was too late to dislodge for the night; by which means +they sometimes contrived to pass several days together at the Castle. + +The gentlemen in question were Lord Anophel Achthar, with his two +parasites, Mr. Feathernest and the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub; Harum +O’Scarum, Esquire, the sole proprietor of a vast tract of undrained bog +in the county of Kerry; and Mr. Derrydown, the only son of an old lady +in London, who having in vain solicited a visit from Anthelia, had sent +off her hopeful progeny to try his fortune in Westmoreland. Mr. +Derrydown had received a laborious education, and had consumed a great +quantity of midnight oil over ponderous tomes of ancient and modern +learning, particularly of moral, political, and metaphysical philosophy, +ancient and modern. His lucubrations in the latter branch of science +having conducted him, as he conceived, into the central opacity of utter +darkness, he formed a hasty conclusion ‘that all human learning is +vanity’; and one day, in a listless mood, taking down a volume of the +_Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, he found, or fancied he found, in the +plain language of the old English ballad, glimpses of the truth of +things, which he had vainly sought in the vast volumes of philosophical +disquisition. In consequence of this luminous discovery, he locked up +his library, purchased a travelling chariot, with a shelf in the back, +which he filled with collections of ballads and popular songs; and +passed the greater part of every year in posting about the country, for +the purpose, as he expressed it, of studying together poetry and the +peasantry, unsophisticated nature and the truth of things. + +Mr. Hippy introduced Lord Anophel, and his two learned friends, to Sir +Telegraph and Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney. Mr. Feathernest whispered to the +Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, ‘This Sir Telegraph Paxarett has some good +livings in his gift’; which bent the plump figure of the reverend +gentleman into a very orthodox right angle. + +Anthelia, who felt no inclination to show particular favour to any one +of her Strephons, was not sorry to escape the evil of a solitary +persecutor, more especially as they so far resembled the suitors of +Penelope, as to eat and drink together with great cordiality. She could +have wished, when she left them to the congenial society of Bacchus, to +have retired to company more congenial to her than that of Mrs. Pinmoney +and Miss Danaretta; but she submitted to the course of necessity with +the best possible grace. + +She explicitly made known to all her suitors her ideas on the subject of +marriage. She had never perverted the simplicity of her mind by +indulging in the usual cant of young ladies, that she should prefer a +single life: but she assured them that the spirit of the age of +chivalry, manifested in the forms of modern life, would constitute the +only character on which she could fix her affections. + +Lord Anophel was puzzled, and applied for information to his tutor. +‘Grovelgrub,’ said he, ‘what is the spirit of the age of chivalry?’ + +‘Really, my lord,’ said the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, ‘my studies never +lay that way.’ + +‘True,’ said Lord Anophel; ‘it was not necessary to your degree.’ + +His lordship’s next recourse was to Mr. Feathernest. ‘Feathernest, what +is the spirit of the age of chivalry?’ + +Mr. Feathernest was taken by surprise. Since his profitable +metamorphosis into an _ami du prince_, he had never dreamed of such a +question. It burst upon him like the spectre of his youthful integrity, +and he mumbled a half-intelligible reply about truth and +liberty—disinterested benevolence—self-oblivion—heroic devotion to love +and honour—protection of the feeble, and subversion of tyranny. + +‘All the ingredients of a rank Jacobin, Feathernest, ‘pon honour!’ +exclaimed his lordship. + +There was something in the word Jacobin very grating to the ears of Mr. +Feathernest, and he feared he had thrown himself between the horns of a +dilemma; but from all such predicament he was happily provided with an +infallible means of extrication. His friend Mr. Mystic, of Cimmerian +Lodge, had initiated him in some of the mysteries of the transcendental +philosophy, which on this, as all similar occasions, he called in to his +assistance; and overwhelmed his lordship with a volley of ponderous +jargon, which left him in profound astonishment at the depth of Mr. +Feathernest’s knowledge. + +‘The spirit of the age of chivalry!’ soliloquised Mr. O’Scarum; ‘I think +I know what that is: I’ll shoot all my rivals, one after another, as +fast as I can find a decent pretext for picking a quarrel. I’ll write to +my friend Major O’Dogskin to come to Low-Wood Inn, and hold himself in +readiness. He is the neatest hand in Ireland at delivering a challenge.’ + +‘The spirit of the age of chivalry!’ soliloquised Mr. Derrydown; ‘I +think I am at home there. I will be a knight of the round table. I will +be Sir Lancelot, or Sir Gawaine, or Sir Tristram. No: I will be a +troubadour—a love-lorn minstrel. I will write the most irresistible +ballads in praise of the beautiful Anthelia. She shall be my lady of the +lake. We will sail about Ulleswater in our pinnace, and sing duets about +Merlin, and King Arthur, and Fairyland. I will develop the idea to her +in a ballad; it cannot fail to fascinate her romantic spirit.’ And he +sat down to put his scheme in execution. + +Sir Telegraph’s head ran on tilts and tournaments, and trials of skill +and courage. How could they be resolved into the forms of modern life? A +four-in-hand race he thought would be a pretty substitute; Anthelia to +be arbitress of the contest, and place the Olympic wreath on the head of +the victor, which he had no doubt would be himself, though Harum +O’Scarum, Esquire, would dash through neck or nothing, and Lord Anophel +Achthar was reckoned one of the best coachmen in England. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + THE PHILOSOPHY OF BALLADS + + +The very indifferent success of Lord Anophel did not escape the eye of +his abject slave, the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, whose vanity led him to +misinterpret Anthelia’s general sweetness of manner into the +manifestation of something like a predilection for himself. Having made +this notable discovery, he sat down to calculate the probability of his +chance of Miss Melincourt’s fortune on the one hand, and the certainty +of church-preferment, through the patronage of the Marquis of Agaric, on +the other. The sagacious reflection, that a bird in the hand was worth +two in the bush, determined him not to risk the loss of the Marquis’s +favour for the open pursuit of a doubtful success; but he resolved to +carry on a secret attack on the affections of Anthelia, and not to throw +off the mask to Lord Anophel till he could make sure of his prize. + +It would have totally disconcerted the schemes of the Honourable Mrs. +Pinmoney, if Lord Anophel had made any progress in the favour of +Anthelia—not only because she had made up her mind that her young friend +should be her niece and Lady Paxarett, but because, from the moment of +Lord Anophel’s appearance, she determined on drawing lines of +circumvallation round him, to compel him to surrender at discretion to +her dear Danaretta, who was very willing to second her views. That Lord +Anophel was both a fool and a coxcomb, did not strike her at all as an +objection; on the contrary, she considered them as very favourable +circumstances for the facilitation of her design. + +As Anthelia usually passed the morning in the seclusion of her library +Lord Anophel and the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub killed the time in +shooting; Sir Telegraph, in driving Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney in his +barouche, to astonish the natives of the mountain-villages; Harum +O’Scarum, Esquire, in riding full gallop along the best roads, looking +every now and then at his watch, to see how time went; Mr. Derrydown, in +composing his troubadour ballad; Mr. Feathernest, in writing odes to all +the crowned heads in Europe; and Mr. Hippy, in getting very ill after +breakfast every day of a new disease, which came to its climax at the +intermediate point of time between breakfast and dinner, showed symptoms +of great amendment at the ringing of the first dinner-bell, was very +much alleviated at the butler’s summons, vanished entirely at the sight +of Anthelia, and was consigned to utter oblivion after the ladies +retired from table, when the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub lent his clerical +assistance to lay its ghost in the Red Sea of a copious libation of +claret. + +Music and conversation consumed the evenings. Mr. Feathernest and Mr. +Derrydown were both zealous admirers of old English literature; but the +former was chiefly enraptured with the ecclesiastical writers and the +translation of the Bible; the latter admired nothing but ballads, which +he maintained to be, whether ancient or modern, the only manifestations +of feeling and thought containing any vestige of truth and nature. + +‘Surely,’ said Mr. Feathernest one evening, ‘you will not maintain that +Chevy Chase is a finer poem than Paradise Lost?’ + +_Mr. Derrydown._ I do not know what you mean by a fine poem; but I will +maintain that it gives a much deeper insight into the truth of things. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ I do not know what you mean by the truth of things. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Define, gentlemen, define; let the one +explain what he means by a fine poem, and the other what he means by the +truth of things. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ A fine poem is a luminous development of the +complicated machinery of action and passion, exalted by sublimity, +softened by pathos, irradiated with scenes of magnificence, figures of +loveliness, and characters of energy, and harmonised with infinite +variety of melodious combination. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Admirable! + +_Miss Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney._ Admirable, indeed, my lord! (_With +a sweet smile at his Lordship, which unluckily missed fire._) + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Now, sir, for the truth of things. + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ Troth, sir, that is the last point about which I should +expect a gentleman of your cloth to be very solicitous. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ I must say, sir, that is a very uncalled-for +and very illiberal observation. + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ Your coat is your protection, sir. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ I will appeal to his lordship if—— + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ I shall be glad to know his lordship’s opinion. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Really, sir, I have no opinion on the subject. + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ I am sorry for it, my lord. + +_Mr. Derrydown._ The truth of things is nothing more than an exact view +of the necessary relations between object and subject, in all the modes +of reflection and sentiment which constitute the reciprocities of human +association. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ I must confess I do not exactly comprehend—— + +_Mr. Derrydown._ I will illustrate. You all know the ballad of Old Robin +Gray. + + Young Jamie loved me well, and ask’d me for his bride; + But saving a crown, he had nothing else beside. + To make the crown a pound my Jamie went to sea, + And the crown and the pound they were both for me. + + He had not been gone a twelvemonth and a day, + When my father broke his arm, and our cow was stolen away; + My mother she fell sick, and Jamie at the sea, + And old Robin Gray came a-courting to me. + +In consequence whereof, as you all very well know, old Robin being rich, +the damsel married the aforesaid old Robin. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ In the heterodox kirk of the north? + +_Mr. Derrydown._ Precisely. Now, in this short space, you have a more +profound view than the deepest metaphysical treatise or the most +elaborate history can give you of the counteracting power of opposite +affections, the conflict of duties and inclinations, the omnipotence of +interest, tried by the test of extremity, and the supreme and +irresistible dominion of universal moral necessity. + + Young Jamie loved me well, and ask’d me for his bride; + +and would have had her, it is clear, though she does not explicitly say +so, if there had not been a necessary moral motive counteracting what +would have been otherwise the plain free will of both. ‘Young Jamie +loved me well.’ She does not say that she loved young Jamie; and here is +a striking illustration of that female decorum which forbids young +ladies to speak as they think on any subject whatever: an admirable +political institution, which has been found by experience to be most +happily conducive to that ingenuousness of mind and simplicity of manner +which constitute so striking a charm in the generality of the fair sex. + + But saving a crown, he had nothing else beside. + +Here is the quintessence of all that has been said and written on the +subject of love and prudence, a decisive refutation of the stoical +doctrine that poverty is no evil, a very clear and deep insight into the +nature of the preventive or prudential check to population, and a +particularly luminous view of the respective conduct of the two sexes on +similar occasions. The poor love-stricken swain, it seems, is ready to +sacrifice all for love. He comes with a crown in his pocket, and asks +for his bride. The damsel is a better arithmetician. She is fully +impressed with the truth of the old proverb about poverty coming in at +the door, and immediately stops him short with ‘What can you settle on +me, Master Jamie?’ or, as Captain Bobadil would express it, ‘How much +money ha’ you about you, Master Matthew?’ Poor Jamie looks very +foolish—fumbles in his pocket—produces his crown-piece—and answers like +Master Matthew with a remarkable elongation of visage, ‘’Faith, I ha’n’t +past a five shillings or so.’ ‘Then,’ says the young lady, in the words +of another very admirable ballad—where you will observe it is also the +damsel who asks the question: + + Will the love that you’re so rich in, + Make a fire in the kitchen? + +[Illustration: _Anthelia._] + +On which the poor lover shakes his head, and the lady gives him leave of +absence. Hereupon Jamie falls into a train of reflections. + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ Never mind his reflections. + +_Mr. Derrydown._ The result of which is, that he goes to seek his +fortune at sea; intending, with the most perfect and disinterested +affection, to give all he can get to his mistress, who seems much +pleased with the idea of having it. But when he comes back, as you will +see in the sequel, he finds his mistress married to a rich old man. The +detail of the circumstances abounds with vast and luminous views of +human nature and society, and striking illustrations of the truth of +things. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ I do not yet see that the illustration throws any +light on the definition, or that we are at all advanced in the answer to +the question concerning Chevy Chase and Paradise Lost. + +_Mr. Derrydown._ We will examine Chevy Chase, then, with a view to the +truth of things, instead of Old Robin Gray: + + God prosper long our noble king, + Our lives and safeties all. + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ God prosper us all, indeed! if you are going through +Chevy Chase at the same rate as you were through Old Robin Gray, there +is an end of us all for a month. The truth of things, now!—is it that +you’re looking for? Ask Miss Melincourt to touch the harp. The harp is +the great key to the truth of things: and in the hand of Miss Melincourt +it will teach you the music of the spheres, the concord of creation, and +the harmony of the universe. + +_Anthelia._ You are a libeller of our sex, Mr. Derrydown, if you think +the truth of things consists in showing it to be more governed by the +meanest species of self-interest than yours. Few, indeed, are the +individuals of either in whom the spirit of the age of chivalry +survives. + +_Mr. Derrydown._ And yet, a man distinguished by that spirit would not +be in society what Miss Melincourt is—a phoenix. Many knights can wield +the sword of Orlando, but only one nymph can wear the girdle of +Florimel. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ That would be a very pretty compliment, Mr. +Derrydown, if there were no other ladies in the room. + +Poor Mr. Derrydown looked a little disconcerted: he felt conscious that +he had on this occasion lost sight of his usual politeness by too close +an adherence to the truth of things. + +_Anthelia._ Both sexes, I am afraid, are too much influenced by the +spirit of mercenary calculation. The desire of competence is prudence; +but the desire of more than competence is avarice: it is against the +latter only that moral censure should be directed: but I fear that in +ninety-nine cases out of a hundred in which the course of true love is +thwarted by considerations of fortune, it will be found that avarice +rather than prudence is to be considered as the cause. Love in the age +of chivalry, and love in the age of commerce, are certainly two very +different deities; so much so, that the former may almost be regarded as +a departed power; and, perhaps, the little ballad I am about to sing +does not contain too severe an allegory in placing the tomb of chivalric +love among the ruins of the castles of romance. + + THE TOMB OF LOVE + + By the mossy weed-flower’d column, + Where the setting moonbeam’s glance + Streams a radiance cold and solemn + On the haunts of old romance: + Know’st thou what those shafts betoken, + Scatter’d on that tablet lone, + Where the ivory bow lies broken + By the monumental stone! + + When true knighthood’s shield, neglected, + Moulder’d in the empty hall; + When the charms that shield protected + Slept in death’s eternal thrall; + When chivalric glory perish’d + Like the pageant of a dream, + Love in vain its memory cherish’d, + Fired in vain the minstrel’s theme. + + Falsehood to an elfish minion + Did the form of Love impart; + Cunning plumed its vampire pinion; + Avarice tipp’d its golden dart. + Love, the hideous phantom flying, + Hither came, no more to rove: + There his broken bow is lying + On that stone—the tomb of Love! + + + + + CHAPTER X + THE TORRENT + + +Anthelia did not wish to condemn herself to celibacy, but in none of her +present suitors could she discover any trace of the character she had +drawn in her mind for the companion of her life: yet she was aware of +the rashness of precipitate judgments, and willing to avail herself of +this opportunity of studying the kind of beings that constitute modern +society. She was happy in the long interval between breakfast and +dinner, to retire to the seclusion of her favourite apartment; whence +she sometimes wandered into the shades of her shrubbery: sometimes +passing onward through a little postern door, she descended a flight of +rugged steps, which had been cut in the solid stone, into the gloomy +glen of the torrent that dashed round the base of the castle-rock; and +following a lonely path through the woods that fringed its sides, +wandered into the deepest recesses of mountain solitude. The sunshine of +a fine autumnal day, the solemn beauty of the fading woods, the thin +gray mist, that spread waveless over the mountains, the silence of the +air, the deep stillness of nature, broken only by the sound of the +eternal streams, tempted her on one occasion beyond her usual limits. + +Passing over the steep and wood-fringed hills of rock that formed the +boundary of the valley of Melincourt, she descended through a grove of +pines into a romantic chasm, where a foaming stream was crossed by a +rude and ancient bridge, consisting of two distinct parts, each of which +rested against a columnar rock, that formed an island in the roaring +waters. An ash had fixed its roots in the fissures of the rock, and the +knotted base of its aged trunk offered to the passenger a natural seat, +over-canopied with its beautiful branches and leaves, now tinged with +their autumnal yellow. Anthelia rested awhile in this delightful +solitude. There was no breath of wind, no song of birds, no humming of +insects, only the dashing of the waters beneath. She felt the presence +of the genius of the scene. She sat absorbed in a train of +contemplations, dimly defined, but infinitely delightful: emotions +rather than thoughts, which attention would have utterly dissipated, if +it had paused to seize their images. + +She was roused from her reverie by sounds of music, issuing from the +grove of pines through which she had just passed, and which skirted the +hollow. The notes were wild and irregular, but their effect was singular +and pleasing. They ceased. Anthelia looked to the spot from whence they +had proceeded, and saw, or thought she saw, a face peeping at her +through the trees; but the glimpse was momentary. There was in the +expression of the countenance something so extraordinary, that she +almost felt convinced her imagination had created it; yet her +imagination was not in the habit of creating such physiognomies. She +could not, however, apprehend that this remarkable vision portended any +evil to her; for, if so, alone and defenceless as she was, why should it +be deferred? She rose, therefore, to pursue her walk, and ascended, by a +narrow winding path, the brow of a lofty hill, which sank precipitously +on the other side, to the margin of a lake, that seemed to slumber in +the same eternal stillness as the rocks that bordered it. The murmur of +the torrent was inaudible at that elevation. There was an almost +oppressive silence in the air. The motion and life of nature seemed +suspended. The gray mist that hung on the mountains, spreading its thin +transparent uniform veil over the whole surrounding scene, gave a deeper +impression to the mystery of loneliness, the predominant feeling that +pressed on the mind of Anthelia, to seem the only thing that lived and +moved in all that wide and awful scene of beauty. + +[Illustration: _Proceeded very deliberately to pull up a pine._] + +Suddenly the gray mist fled before the rising wind, and a deep black +line of clouds appeared in the west, that, rising rapidly, volume on +volume, obscured in a few minutes the whole face of the heavens. There +was no interval of preparation, no notice for retreat. The rain burst +down in a sheeted cataract, comparable only to the bursting of a +waterspout. The sides of the mountains gleamed at once with a thousand +torrents. Every little hollow and rain-worn channel, which but a few +minutes before was dry, became instantaneously the bed of a foaming +stream. Every half-visible rivulet swelled to a powerful and turbid +river. Anthelia glided down the hill like an Oread, but the wet and +slippery footing of the steep descent necessarily retarded her progress. +When she regained the bridge, the swollen torrent had filled the chasm +beneath, and was still rising like a rapid and impetuous tide, rushing +and roaring along with boiling tumult and inconceivable swiftness. She +had passed one half of the bridge—she had gained the insular rock—a few +steps would have placed her on the other side of the chasm—when a large +trunk of an oak, which months, perhaps years, before had baffled the +woodman’s skill, and fallen into the dingle above, now disengaged by the +flood, and hurled onward with irresistible strength, with large and +projecting boughs towering high above the surface, struck the arch she +had yet to pass, which, shattered into instant ruin, seemed to melt like +snow into the torrent, leaving scarcely a vestige of its place. + +Anthelia followed the trunk with her eyes till it disappeared among the +rocks, and stood gazing on the torrent with feelings of awful delight. +The contemplation of the mighty energies of nature, energies of liberty +and power which nothing could resist or impede, absorbed, for a time, +all considerations of the difficulty of regaining her home. The water +continued to rise, but still she stood riveted to the spot, watching +with breathless interest its tumultuous revolutions. She dreamed not +that its increasing pressure was mining the foundation of the arch she +had passed. She was roused from her reverie only by the sound of its +dissolution. She looked back, and found herself on the solitary rock +insulated by the swelling flood. + +Would the flood rise above the level of the rock? The ash must in that +case be her refuge. Could the force of the torrent rend its massy roots +from the rocky fissures which grasped them with giant strength? Nothing +could seem less likely: yet it was not impossible. But she had always +looked with calmness on the course of necessity: she felt that she was +always in the order of nature. Though her life had been a series of +uniform prosperity, she had considered deeply the changes of things, and +_the nearness of the paths of night and day_[28] in every pursuit and +circumstance of human life. She sat on the stem of the ash. The torrent +rolled almost at her feet. Could this be the calm sweet scene of the +morning, the ivied bridges, the romantic chasm, the stream far below, +bright in its bed of rocks, chequered by the pale sunbeams through the +leaves of the ash? + +She looked towards the pine-grove, through which she had descended in +the morning; she thought of the wild music she had heard, and of the +strange face that had appeared among the trees. Suddenly it appeared +again: and shortly after a stranger issuing from the wood ran with +surprising speed to the edge of the chasm. + +Anthelia had never seen so singular a physiognomy; but there was nothing +in it to cause alarm. The stranger seemed interested for her situation, +and made gestures expressive of a design to assist her. He paused a +moment, as if measuring with his eyes the breadth of the chasm, and +then, returning to the grove, proceeded very deliberately to pull up a +pine.[29] Anthelia thought him mad; but infinite was her astonishment to +see the tree sway and bend beneath the efforts of his incredible +strength, till at length he tore it from the soil, and bore it on his +shoulders to the chasm: where placing one end on a high point of the +bank, and lowering the other on the insulated rock, he ran like a flash +of lightning along the stem, caught Anthelia in his arms, and carried +her safely over in an instant: not that we should wish the reader to +suppose our heroine, a mountaineer from her infancy, could not have +crossed a pine-bridge without such assistance; but the stranger gave her +no time to try the experiment. + +The remarkable physiognomy and unparalleled strength of the stranger +caused much of surprise, and something of apprehension to mingle with +Anthelia’s gratitude: but the air of high fashion which characterised +his whole deportment diminished her apprehension, while it increased her +surprise at the exploit he had performed. + +[Illustration: _Alighted on the doctor’s head as he was crossing the +court._] + +Shouts were now heard in the wood, from which shortly emerged Mr. Hippy, +Lord Anophel Achthar, and the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub. Anthelia had been +missed at Melincourt at the commencement of the storm, and Mr. Hippy had +been half distracted on the occasion. The whole party had in consequence +dispersed in various directions in search of her, and accident had +directed these three gentlemen to the spot where Anthelia was just set +down by her polite deliverer, Sir Oran Haut-ton, Baronet. + +Mr. Hippy ran up with great alacrity to Anthelia, assuring her that at +the time when Miss Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney informed him his dear +niece was missing, he was suffering under a complete paralysis of his +right leg, and was on the point of swallowing a potion sent to him by +Dr. Killquick, which, on receiving the alarming intelligence, he had +thrown out of the window, and he believed it had alighted on the +doctor’s head as he was crossing the court. Anthelia communicated to him +the particulars of the signal service she had received from the +stranger, whom Mr. Hippy stared at heartily, and shook hands with +cordially. + +Lord Anophel now came up, and surveyed Sir Oran through his +quizzing-glass, who, making him a polite bow, took his quizzing-glass +from him, and examined him through it in the same manner. Lord Anophel +flew into a furious passion; but receiving a gentle hint from Mr. Hippy, +that the gentleman to whom he was talking had just pulled up a pine, he +deemed it prudent to restrain his anger within due bounds. + +The Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub now rolled up to the party, muffled in a +ponderous greatcoat, and surmounted with an enormous umbrella, humbly +soliciting Miss Melincourt to take shelter. Anthelia assured him that +she was so completely wet through, as to render all shelter superfluous, +till she could change her clothes. On this, Mr. Hippy, who was wet +through himself, but had not till that moment been aware that he was so, +voted for returning to Melincourt with all possible expedition; adding +that he feared it would be necessary, immediately on their arrival, to +send off an express for Dr. Killquick, for his dear Anthelia’s sake, as +well as his own. Anthelia disclaimed any intention or necessity on her +part of calling in the services of the learned doctor, and, turning to +Sir Oran, requested the favour of his company to dinner at Melincourt. +This invitation was warmly seconded by Mr. Hippy, with gestures as well +as words. Sir Oran bowed acknowledgment, but pointing in a direction +different from that of Melincourt, shook his head, and took a respectful +farewell. + +‘I wonder who he is,’ said Mr. Hippy, as they walked rapidly homewards: +‘manifestly dumb, poor fellow! a man of consequence, no doubt: no great +beauty, by the bye; but as strong as Hercules—quite an Orlando Furioso. +He pulled up a pine, my lord, as you would do a mushroom.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Lord Anophel, ‘I have nothing to do with mushrooms; and as +to this gentleman, whoever he is, I must say, notwithstanding his +fashionable air, his taking my quizzing-glass was a piece of +impertinence, for which I shall feel necessitated to require gentlemanly +satisfaction.’ + +A long, toilsome, and slippery walk brought the party to the castle +gate. + + + + + CHAPTER XI + LOVE AND MARRIAGE + + +Sir Oran Haut-ton, as we conjecture, had taken a very long ramble beyond +the limits of Redrose Abbey, and had sat down in the pine-grove to +solace himself with his flute, when Anthelia, bursting upon him like a +beautiful vision, riveted him in silent admiration to the spot whence +she departed, about which he lingered in hopes of her reappearance, till +the accident which occurred on her return enabled him to exert his +extraordinary physical strength in a manner so remarkably advantageous +to her. On parting from her and her companions, he ran back all the way +to the Abbey, a formidable distance, and relieved the anxious +apprehensions which his friend Mr. Forester entertained respecting him. + +A few mornings after this occurrence, as Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir +Oran were sitting at breakfast, a letter was brought in, addressed to +_Sir Oran Haut-ton, Baronet, Redrose Abbey_; a circumstance which very +much surprised Mr. Forester, as he could not imagine how Sir Oran had +obtained a correspondent, seeing that he could neither write nor read. +He accordingly took the liberty of opening the letter himself. + +It proved to be from a limb of the law, signing himself Richard +Ratstail, and purporting to be a notice to Sir Oran to defend himself in +an action brought against him by the said Richard Ratstail, solicitor, +in behalf of his client, Lawrence Litigate, Esquire, lord of the manor +of Muckwormsby, for that he, the said Oran Haut-ton, did, with force and +arms, videlicet, sword, pistols, daggers, bludgeons, and staves, break +into the manor of the said Lawrence Litigate, Esquire, and did then and +there, with malice aforethought, and against the peace of our sovereign +lord the King, his crown and dignity, cut down, root up, hew, hack, and +cut in pieces, sundry and several pine-trees, of various sizes and +dimensions, to the utter ruin, havoc, waste, and devastation of a large +tract of pine-land; and that he had wilfully, maliciously, and with +intent to injure the said Lawrence Litigate, Esquire, carried off with +force and arms, namely, swords, pistols, bludgeons, daggers, and staves, +fifty cartloads of trunks, fifty cartloads of bark, fifty cartloads of +loppings, and fifty cartloads of toppings. + +This was a complete enigma to Mr. Forester; and his surprise was +increased when, on reading further, he found that Miss Melincourt, of +Melincourt Castle, was implicated in the affair, as having aided and +abetted Sir Oran in devastating the pine-grove, and carrying it off by +cartloads with force and arms. + +It immediately occurred to him that the best mode he could adopt of +elucidating the mystery would be to call on Miss Melincourt, whom, +besides, Sir Telegraph’s enthusiastic description had given him some +curiosity to see; and the present appeared a favourable opportunity to +indulge it. + +He therefore asked Mr. Fax if he were disposed for a very long walk. Mr. +Fax expressed a cordial assent to the proposal, and no time was lost in +preparation. + +Mr. Forester, though he had built stables for the accommodation of his +occasional visitors, kept no horses himself, for reasons which will +appear hereafter. + +They set forth accordingly, accompanied by Sir Oran, who joined them +without waiting for an invitation. + +‘We shall see Sir Telegraph Paxarett,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘and, perhaps, +his phoenix, Miss Melincourt.’ + +_Mr. Fax._ If a woman be the object, and a lover’s eyes the medium, I +should say there is nothing in nature so easily found as a phoenix. + +_Mr. Forester._ My eyes have no such magical property. I am not a lover, +it is true, but it is because I have never found a phoenix. + +_Mr. Fax._ But you have one in your mind, a _beau ideal_, I doubt not. + +_Mr. Forester._ Not too ideal to exclude the possible existence of its +material archetype, though I have never found it yet. + +_Mr. Fax._ You will, however, find a female who has some one at least of +the qualities of your imaginary damsel, and that one quality will serve +as a peg on which your imagination will suspend all the others. This is +the usual process of mental hallucination. A little truth forms the +basis, and the whole superstructure is falsehood. + +_Mr. Forester._ I shall guard carefully against such self-deception; +though, perhaps, a beautiful chimera is better than either a hideous +reality or a vast and formless void. + +_Mr. Fax._ As an instrument of transitory pleasure, probably; but very +far from it as a means of permanent happiness, which is only consistent +with perfect mental tranquillity, which again is only consistent with +the calm and dispassionate contemplation of truth. + +_Mr. Forester._ What say you, then, to the sentiment of Voltaire?— + + Le raisonneur tristement s’accrédite: + On court, dit-on, après la vérité, + Ah! croyez-moi, l’erreur a son mérite. + +_Mr. Fax._ You will scarcely coincide with such a sentiment, when you +consider how much this doctrine of happy errors, and pleasing illusions, +and salutary prejudices, has tended to rivet the chains of superstition +on the necks of the grovelling multitude. + +_Mr. Forester._ And yet, if you take the colouring of imagination from +the objects of our mental perception, and pour the full blaze of +daylight into all the dark recesses of selfishness and cunning, I am +afraid a refined and enthusiastic benevolence will find little to +interest or delight in the contemplation of the human world. + +_Mr. Fax._ That should rather be considered the consequence of morbid +feelings, and exaggerated expectations of society and human nature. It +is the false colouring in which youthful enthusiasm depicts the scenes +of futurity that throws the gloom of disappointment so deeply on their +actual presence. You have formed to yourself, as you acknowledge, a +visionary model of female perfection, which has rendered you utterly +insensible to the real attractions of every woman you have seen. This +exaggerated imagination loses more than it gains. It has not made a fair +calculation of the mixture of good and evil in every constituent portion +of the world of reality. It has utterly excluded the latter from the +objects of its hope, and has magnified the former into such gigantic +proportions, that the real goodness and beauty, which would be visible +and delightful to simpler optics, vanish into imperceptibility in the +infinity of their diminution. + +_Mr. Forester._ I desire no phantasm of abstract perfection—no visionary +creation of a romantic philosophy: I seek no more than I know to have +existed—than, I doubt not, does exist, though in such lamentable rarity +that the calculations of probability make the search little better than +desperate. I would have a woman that can love and feel poetry, not only +in its harmony and decorations, which limit the admiration of ordinary +mortals, but in the deep sources of love, and liberty, and truth, which +are its only legitimate springs, and without which, well-turned periods +and glittering images are nothing more nor less than the vilest and most +mischievous tinsel. She should be musical, but she should have music in +her soul as well as her fingers: her voice and her touch should have no +one point in common with that mechanical squalling and jingling which +are commonly dignified with the insulted name of music: they should be +modes of the harmony of her mind. + +_Mr. Fax._ I do not very well understand that; but I think I have a +glimpse of your meaning. Pray proceed. + +_Mr. Forester._ She should have charity—not penny charity—— + +_Mr. Fax._ I hope not. + +_Mr. Forester._ But a liberal discriminating practical philanthropy, +that can select with justice the objects of its kindness, and give that +kindness a form of permanence equally delightful and useful to its +object and to society, by increasing the aggregate mass of intelligence +and happiness. + +_Mr. Fax._ Go on. + +_Mr. Forester._ She should have no taste for what are called public +pleasures. Her pleasures should be bounded in the circle of her family, +and a few, a very few congenial friends, her books, her music, her +flowers—she should delight in flowers—the uninterrupted cheerfulness of +domestic concord, the delightful effusions of unlimited confidence. The +rocks, and woods, and mountains, boundaries of the valley of her +dwelling, she should be content to look on as the boundaries of the +world. + +_Mr. Fax._ Anything more? + +_Mr. Forester._ She should have a clear perception of the beauty of +truth. Every species of falsehood, even in sportiveness, should be +abhorrent to her. The simplicity of her thoughts should shine through +the ingenuousness of her words. Her testimony should convey as +irresistible conviction as the voice of the personified nature of +things. And this ingenuousness should comprise, in its fullest extent, +that perfect conformity of feelings and opinions which ought to be the +most common, but is unfortunately the most rare, of the qualities of the +female mind. + +_Mr. Fax._ You say nothing of beauty. + +_Mr. Forester._ As to what is usually called beauty, mere symmetry of +form and features, it would be an object with me in purchasing a statue, +but none whatever in choosing a wife. Let her countenance be the mirror +of such qualities as I have described, and she cannot be otherwise than +beautiful. I think with the Athenians, that beauty and goodness are +inseparable. I need not remind you of the perpetual καλος κἀγαθος. + +_Mr. Fax._ You have said nothing of the principal, and, indeed, almost +the only usual consideration in marriage—fortune. + +_Mr. Forester._ I am rich enough myself to dispense with such +considerations. Even were I not so, I doubt if worldly wisdom would ever +influence me to bend my knee with the multitude at the shrine of the +omnipotence of money. Nothing is more uncertain, more transient, more +perishable, than riches. How many prudent marriages of interest and +convenience were broken to atoms by the French revolution! Do you think +there was one couple, among all those calculating characters, that acted +in those trying times like Louvet and his Lodoiska?[30] But without +looking to periods of public convulsion, in no state of society is any +individual secure against the changes of fortune. What becomes of those +ill-assorted unions, which have no basis but money, when, as is very +often the case, the money departs, and the persons remain? The qualities +of the heart and of the mind are alone out of the power of accident; and +by these, and these only, shall I be guided in the choice of the +companion of my life. + +_Mr. Fax._ Are there no other indispensable qualities that you have +omitted in your enumeration? + +_Mr. Forester._ None, I think, but such as are implied in those I have +mentioned, and must necessarily be co-existent with them; an endearing +sensibility, an agreeable cheerfulness, and that serenity of temper +which is truly the balm of being, and the absence of which, in the +intercourse of domestic life, obliterates all the radiance of beauty, +all the splendour of talent, and all the dignity of virtue. + +_Mr. Fax._ I presume, then, you seriously purpose to marry, when you can +find such a woman as this you have described? + +_Mr. Forester._ Seriously I do. + +_Mr. Fax._ And not till then? + +_Mr. Forester._ Certainly not. + +_Mr. Fax._ Then your present heir presumptive has nothing to fear for +his reversion. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + LOVE AND POVERTY + + +‘We shall presently,’ said Mr. Fax, as they pursued their walk, ‘come in +sight of a cottage, which I remarked two years ago: a deplorable +habitation! A picture of its exterior and interior suspended in some +public place, in every town in the kingdom, with a brief commentary +subjoined, would operate _in terrorem_ in favour of the best interests +of political economy, by placing before the eyes of the rising +generation the lamentable consequences of imprudent marriage, and the +necessary result of attachment, of which romance is the foundation and +marriage the superstructure, without the only cement which will make it +wind and water tight—money.’ + +_Mr. Forester._ Nothing but money! The resemblance Fluellen found +between Macedon and Monmouth, because both began with an M, holds +equally true of money and marriage: but there seems to be a much +stronger connection in the latter case; for marriage is but a body, of +which money is the soul. + +_Mr. Fax._ It is so. It must be so. The constitution of society +imperiously commands it to be so. The world of reality is not the world +of romance. When a lover talks of lips of coral, teeth of pearl, tresses +of gold, and eyes of diamonds, he knows all the while that he is lying +by wholesale; and that no baker in England would give him credit for a +penny roll on all this display of his Utopian treasury. All the aerial +castles that are founded in the contempt of worldly prudence have not +half the solidity of the cloud-built towers that surround the setting of +the autumnal sun. + +_Mr. Forester._ I maintain, on the contrary, that, _let all possible +calamities be accumulated on two affectionate and congenial spirits, +they will find more true happiness in weeping together than they would +have found in all the riches of the world, poisoned by the disunion of +hearts_.[31] + +_Mr. Fax._ The disunion of hearts is an evil of another kind. It is not +a comparison of evils I wish to institute. That two rich people fettered +by the indissoluble bond of marriage, and hating each other cordially, +are two as miserable animals as any on the face of the earth, is +certain; but that two poor ones, let them love each other ever so +fondly, starving together in a garret, are therefore in a less +positively wretched condition, is an inference which no logic, I think, +can deduce. For the picture you must draw in your mind’s eye is not that +of a neatly-dressed, young, healthy-looking couple, weeping in each +other’s arms in a clean, however homely cottage, in a fit of tender +sympathy; but you must surround them with all the squalid accompaniments +of poverty, rags, and famine, the contempt of the world, the dereliction +of friends, half a dozen hungry squalling children, all clothed perhaps +in the cutting up of an old blanket, duns in presence, bailiffs in +prospect, and the long perspective of hopelessness closed by the +workhouse or the gaol. + +_Mr. Forester._ You imagine an extreme case, which something more than +the original want of fortune seems requisite to produce. + +_Mr. Fax._ I have heard you declaim very bitterly against those who +maintain the necessary connection between misfortune and imprudence. + +_Mr. Forester._ Certainly. To assert that the unfortunate must +necessarily have been imprudent, is to furnish an excuse to the +cold-hearted and illiberal selfishness of a state of society, which +needs no motive superadded to its own miserable narrow-mindedness, to +produce the almost total extinction of benevolence and sympathy. Good +and evil fortune depend so much on the combination of external +circumstances, that the utmost skill and industry cannot command +success; neither is the result of the most imprudent actions always +fatal: + + Our indiscretions sometimes serve us well, + When our deep plots do pall.[32] + +_Mr. Fax._ Sometimes, no doubt; but not so often as to equalise the +probable results of indiscretion and prudence. ‘Where there is +prudence,’ says Juvenal, ‘fortune is powerless’; and this doctrine, +though liable to exceptions, is replete with general truth. We have a +nice balance to adjust. To check the benevolence of the rich, by +persuading them that all misfortune is the result of imprudence, is a +great evil; but it would be a much greater evil to persuade the poor +that indiscretion may have a happier result than prudence; for where +this appears to be true in one instance, it is manifestly false in a +thousand. It is certainly not enough to possess industry and talent; +there must be means for exerting them; and in a redundant population +these means are often wanting, even to the most skilful and the most +industrious: but though calamity sometimes seizes those who use their +best efforts to avoid her, yet she seldom disappoints the intentions of +those who leap headlong into her arms. + +_Mr. Forester._ It seems, nevertheless, peculiarly hard that all the +blessings of life should be confined to the rich. If you banish the +smiles of love from the cottage of poverty, what remains to cheer its +dreariness? The poor man has no friends, no amusements, no means of +exercising benevolence, nothing to fill up the gloomy and desolate +vacancy of his heart, if you banish love from his dwelling. ‘There is +one alone, and there is not a second,’ says one of the greatest poets +and philosophers of antiquity: ‘there is one alone, and there is not a +second: yea, he hath neither child nor brother; yet is there no end of +all his labour: ... neither saith he, For whom do I labour and bereave +my soul of good?... Two are better than one ... for if they fall, the +one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he +falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.’[33] Society in poverty +is better than solitude in wealth: but solitude and poverty together it +is scarcely in human nature to tolerate. + +_Mr. Fax._ This, if I remember rightly, is the cottage of which I was +speaking. + +The cottage was ruined and uninhabited. The roof had fallen in. The +garden was choked with weeds. ‘What,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘can have become of +its unfortunate inhabitants?’ + +_Mr. Forester._ What were they? + +_Mr. Fax._ A couple for whom nature had done much, and fortune nothing. +I took shelter in their cottage from a passing storm. The picture which +you called the imagination of an extreme case falls short of the reality +of what I witnessed here. It was the utmost degree of misery and +destitution compatible with the preservation of life. A casual observer +might have passed them by, as the most abject of the human race. But +their physiognomy showed better things. It was with the utmost +difficulty I could extract a word from either of them: but when I at +last succeeded I was astonished, in garments so mean and a dwelling so +deplorable, to discover feelings so generous and minds so enlightened. +The semblance of human sympathy seemed strange to them; little of it as +you may suppose could be discovered through my saturnine complexion, and +the habitual language of what you call my frosty philosophy. By degrees +I engaged their confidence, and he related to me his history, which I +will tell you, as nearly as I can remember, in his own words. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + DESMOND + + +My name is Desmond. My father was a naval officer, who in the prime of +life was compelled by wounds to retire from the service on his half-pay +and a small additional pension. I was his only son, and he submitted to +the greatest personal privations to procure me a liberal education, in +the hope that by these means he should live to see me making my way in +the world: but he always accompanied his wishes for this consummation +with a hope that I should consider money as a means, and not as an end, +and that I should remember the only real treasures of human existence +were truth, health, and liberty. You will not wonder that, with such +principles, the father had been twenty years a lieutenant, and that the +son was looked on at College as a fellow that would come to nothing. + +I profited little at the University, as you will easily suppose. The +system of education pursued there appeared to me the result of a +deep-laid conspiracy against the human understanding, a mighty effort of +political and ecclesiastical machiavelism, to turn the energies of +inquiring minds into channels, where they will either stagnate in +disgust, or waste themselves in nugatory labour. To discover or even to +illustrate a single moral truth, to shake the empire of a single +prejudice, to apply a single blow of the axe of philosophy to the +wide-spreading roots of superstition and political imposture, is to +render a real service to the best hopes of mankind; but all this is +diametrically opposed to the selfish interests of the hired misleaders +of society, the chosen few, as they are called, before whom the wretched +multitude grovel in the dust as before + + The children of a race, + Mightier than they, and wiser, and by heaven + Beloved and favoured more. + +Moral science, therefore, moral improvement, the doctrines of +benevolence, the amelioration of the general condition of mankind, will +not only never form a part of any public institution for the performance +of that ridiculous and mischievous farce called the _Finishing of +Education_; but every art of clerical chicanery and fraudulent +misrepresentation will be practised, to render odious the very names of +philosophy and philanthropy, and to extinguish, by ridicule and +persecution, that enthusiastic love of truth, which never fails to +conduct its votaries to conclusions very little compatible with the +views of those who have built, or intend to build, their own worldly +prosperity on the foundation of hypocrisy and servility in themselves, +and ignorance and credulity in others. + +The study of morals and of mind occupied my exclusive attention. I had +little taste for the science of lines and numbers, and still less for +verbal criticism, the pinnacle of academical glory. + +I delighted in the poets of Greece and Rome, but I thought that the +_igneus vigor et coelestis origo_ of their conceptions and expressions +was often utterly lost sight of in the microscopic inspection of +philological minutiae. I studied Greek, as the means of understanding +Homer and Aeschylus: I did not look on them as mere secondary +instruments to the attainment of a knowledge of their language. I had no +conception of the taste that could prefer Lycophron to Sophocles because +he had the singular advantage of being obscure; and should have been +utterly at a loss to account for such a phenomenon, if I had not seen +that the whole system of public education was purposely calculated to +make inferior minds recoil in disgust and terror from the vestibule of +knowledge, and superior minds consume their dangerous energies in the +_difficiles nugae_ and _labor ineptiarum_ of its adytum. + +I did not _finish_, as it is called, my college _education_. My father’s +death compelled me to leave it before the expiration of the usual +period, at the end of which the same distinction is conferred on all +capacities, by the academical noometry, not of merit but of time. I +found myself almost destitute; but I felt the consciousness of talents, +that I doubted not would amply provide for me in that great centre of +intellect and energy, London. To London I accordingly went, and became a +boarder in the humble dwelling of a widow, who maintained herself and an +only daughter by the perilous and precarious income derived from +lodgers. + +[Illustration: ‘_My dear sir, only take the trouble of sitting a few +hours in my shop._’] + +My first application was to a bookseller in Bond Street, to whom I +offered the copyright of a treatise on the Elements of Morals. ‘My dear +sir,’ said he, with an air of supercilious politeness, ‘only take the +trouble of sitting a few hours in my shop, and if you detect any one of +my customers in the act of pronouncing the word _morals_, I will give +any price you please to name for your copyright.’ But, glancing over the +manuscript, ‘I perceive,’ said he, ‘there are some smart things here; +and though they are good for nothing where they are, they would cut a +pretty figure in a Review. My friend Mr. Vamp, the editor, is in want of +a hand for the moral department of his Review: I will give you a note to +him.’ I thanked him for his kindness, and, furnished with the note, +proceeded to the lodgings of Mr. Vamp, whom I found in an elegant first +floor, lounging over a large quarto, which he was marking with a pencil. +A number of books and pamphlets, and fragments of both curiously cut up, +were scattered on the table before him, together with a large pot of +paste and an enormous pair of scissors. + +He received me with great hauteur, read the note, and said, ‘Mr. +Foolscap has told you we are in want of a hand, and he thinks you have a +turn in the moral line: I shall not be sorry if it prove so, for we have +been very ill provided in that way a long while; and though morals are +not much in demand among our patrons and customers, and will not do, by +any means, for a standing dish, they make, nevertheless, a very pretty +seasoning for our politics, in cases where they might otherwise be +rather unpalatable and hard of digestion. You see this pile of +pamphlets, these volumes of poetry, and this rascally quarto: all these, +though under very different titles, and the productions of very +different orders of mind, have, either openly or covertly, only one +object; and a most impertinent one it is. This object is twofold: first, +to prove the existence, to an immense extent, of what these writers +think proper to denominate political corruption; secondly, to convince +the public that this corruption ought to be extinguished. Now, we are +anxious to do away the effect of all these incendiary clamours. As to +the existence of corruption (it is a villainous word, by the bye—we call +it _persuasion in a tangible shape_): as to the existence, then, of +_persuasion in a tangible shape_, we do not wish to deny it; on the +contrary, we have no hesitation in affirming that it is _as notorious as +the sun at noonday_: but as to the inference that it ought to be +extinguished—that is the point against which we direct the full fire of +our critical artillery; we maintain that it ought to exist; and here is +the leading article of our next number, in which we confound in one mass +all these obnoxious publications, putting the weakest at the head of the +list, that if any of our readers should feel inclined to judge for +themselves (I must do them the credit to say I do not suspect many of +them of such a democratical propensity), they may be stopped _in +limine_, by finding very little temptation to proceed. The political +composition of this article is beautiful; it is the production of a +gentleman high in office, who is indebted to _persuasion in a tangible +shape_ for his present income of several thousands per annum; but it +wants, as I have hinted, a little moral seasoning; and there, as +ill-luck will have it, we are all thrown out. We have several reverend +gentlemen in our corps, but morals are unluckily quite out of their way. +We have, on some occasions, with their assistance, substituted theology +for morals; they manage this very cleverly, but I am sorry to say it +only takes among the old women; and though the latter are our best and +most numerous customers, yet we have some very obstinate and hard-headed +readers who will not, as I have observed, swallow our politics without a +little moral seasoning; and, as I told Mr. Foolscap, if we did not +contrive to pick up a spice of morals somewhere or other, all the +eloquence of _persuasion in a tangible shape_ would soon become of +little avail. Now, if you will undertake the seasoning of this article +in such a manner as to satisfy my employers, I will satisfy you: you +understand me.’ + +I observed that I hoped he would allow me the free exercise of my own +opinion; and that I should wish to season his article in such a manner +as to satisfy myself, which I candidly told him would not be in such a +manner as seemed likely to satisfy him. + +On this he flew into a rage, and vowed vengeance against Mr. Foolscap +for having sent him a Jacobin. I strenuously disclaimed this +appellation; and being then quite a novice in the world, I actually +endeavoured to reason with him, as if the conviction of general right +and wrong could have any influence upon him; but he stopped me short, by +saying that till I could reason him out of his pension I might spare +myself the trouble of interfering with his opinions; as the logic from +which they were deduced had presented itself to him in a much more +_tangible shape_ than any abstract notions of truth and liberty. He had +thought, from Mr. Foolscap’s letter, that I had a talent for moral +theory, and that I was inclined to turn it to account; as for moral +practice, he had nothing to do with it, desired to know nothing about +it, and wished me a good-morning. + +I was not yet discouraged, and made similar applications to the editors +and proprietors of several daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly +publications, but I found everywhere the same indifference or aversion +to general principles, the same partial and perverted views: every one +was the organ of some division or subdivision of a faction; and had +entrenched himself in a narrow circle, within the pale of which all was +honour, consistency, integrity, generosity, and justice; while all +without it was villainy, hypocrisy, selfishness, corruption, and lies. +Not being inclined to imprison myself in any one of these magical rings, +I found all my interviews terminate like that with Mr. Vamp. + +By the advice and introduction of a college acquaintance, I accepted the +situation of tutor in the family of Mr. Dross, a wealthy citizen, who +had acquired a large fortune by contracts with Government, in the +execution of which he had not forgotten to charge for his vote and +interest. His conscience, indeed, of all the commodities he dealt in, +was that which he had brought to the best market; though, among his more +fair-dealing, and consequently poorer neighbours, it was thought he had +made the ministry pay too dearly for so very rotten an article. They +seemed not to be aware that a corrupt administration estimates +conscience and Stilton cheese by the same criterion, and that its +rottenness was its recommendation. + +Mr. Dross was a tun of man, with the soul of a hazel-nut: his wife was a +tun of woman, without any soul whatever. The principle that animated her +bulk was composed of three ingredients—arrogance, ignorance, and the +pride of money. They were, in every sense of the word, what the world +calls respectable people. + +Mrs. Dross aspired to be _somebody_, aped the nobility, and gave +magnificent routs, which were attended by many noble personages, and by +all that portion of the fashionable world that will go anywhere for a +crowd and a supper. + +Their idea of virtue consisted in having no debts, going regularly to +church, and feeding the parson; their idea of charity, in paying the +poor-rates, and putting down their names to public subscriptions: and +they had a profound contempt for every species of learning, which they +associated indissolubly with rags and famine, and with that neglect of +the main chance, which they regarded as the most deadly of all deadly +sins. But as they had several hopeful children, and as Mrs. Dross found +it was fashionable to have a governess and a _tutorer_, they had looked +out for two pieces of human furniture under these denominations, and my +capricious destiny led me to their splendid dwelling in the latter +capacity. + +I found the governess, Miss Pliant, very admirably adapted to her +situation. She did not presume to have a will of her own. Suspended like +Mahomet’s coffin between the mistress and the housekeeper, despising the +one, and despised by the other, her mind seemed unconscious of its +vacancy, and her heart of its loneliness. She had neither feelings nor +principles, either of good or ill: perfectly selfish, perfectly +cold-hearted, and perfectly obsequious, she was contented with her +situation, because it seemed likely to lead to an advantageous +establishment; for if ever she thought of marriage, it was only in the +light of a system of bargain, in which youth and beauty were very well +disposed of when bartered for age and money. She was highly +accomplished: a very scientific musician, without any soul in her +performance; a most skilful copier of landscapes, without the least +taste for the beauties of nature; and a proficient in French grammar, +though she had read no book in that language but _Telemaque_, and hated +the names of Rousseau and Voltaire, because she had heard them called +rascals by her father, who had taken his opinion on trust from the +Reverend Mr. Simony, who had never read a page of either of them. + +I very soon found that I was regarded as an upper servant—as a person of +more pretension, but less utility, than the footman. I was expected to +be really more servile, in mind especially. If I presumed to differ in +opinion from Mr. or Mrs. Dross, they looked at each other and at me with +the most profound astonishment, wondering at so much audacity in one of +their movables. I really envied the footman, living as he did among his +equals, where he might have his own opinion, as far as he was capable of +forming one, and express it without reserve or fear; while all my +thoughts were to be those of a mirror, and my motions those of an +automaton. I soon saw that I had but the choice of alternatives: either +to mould myself into a slave, liar, and hypocrite, or to take my leave +of Mr. Dross. I therefore embraced the latter, and determined from that +moment never again to live under the roof of a superior, if my own +dwelling were to be the most humble and abject of human habitations. + +I returned to my old lodgings, and, after a short time, procured some +employment in the way of copying for a lawyer. My labour was assiduous, +and my remuneration scanty; but my habits were simple, my evenings were +free, and in the daughter of the widow with whom I lodged I found a +congenial mind: a desire for knowledge, an ardent love of truth, and a +capacity that made my voluntary office of instruction at once easy and +delightful. + +The widow died embarrassed: her creditors seized her effects, and her +daughter was left destitute. I was her only friend: to every other human +being, not only her welfare, but even her existence, were matters of +total indifference. The course of necessity seemed to have thrown her on +my protection, and if I before loved her, I now regarded her as a +precious trust, confided to me by her evil fate. Call it what you +may—imprudence, madness, frenzy—we were married. + +The lawyer who employed me had chosen his profession very injudiciously, +for he was an honest and benevolent man. He interested himself for me, +acquainted himself with my circumstances, and without informing me of +his motives, increased my remuneration; though, as I afterwards found, +he could very ill afford to do so. By this means we lived twelve months +in comfort, I may say, considering the simplicity of our habits, in +prosperity. The birth of our first child was an accession to our +domestic happiness. We had no pleasures beyond the limits of our humble +dwelling. Our circumstances and situation were much below the ordinary +level of those of well-educated people: we had, therefore, no society, +but we were happy in each other: our evenings were consecrated to our +favourite authors; and the din of the streets, the tumult of crowds and +carriages thronging to parties of pleasure and scenes of public +amusement, came to us like the roar of a stormy ocean on which we had +neither wish nor power to embark. + +One evening we were surprised by an unexpected visitor; it was the +lawyer, my employer. ‘Desmond!’ said he, ‘I am a ruined man. For having +been too scrupulous to make beggars of others, I have a fair prospect of +becoming one myself. You are shocked and astonished. Do not grieve on my +account. I have neither wife nor children. Very trivial and very +remediable is the evil that can happen to me. “The valiant by himself, +what can he suffer?” You will think a lawyer has as little business with +poetry as he has with justice. Perhaps so. I have been too partial to +both.’ + +I was glad to see him so cheerful, and expressed a hope that his affairs +would take a better turn than he seemed to expect. ‘You shall know +more,’ said he, ‘in a few days; in the meantime, here are the arrears I +owe you.’ + +When he came again, he said: ‘My creditors are neither numerous nor +cruel. I have made over to them all my property, but they allow me to +retain possession of a small house in Westmoreland, with an annuity for +my life, sufficient to maintain me in competence. I could propose a wild +scheme to you if I thought you would not be offended.’ + +‘That,’ said I, ‘I certainly will not, propose what you may.’ + +‘Tell me,’ said he, ‘which do you think the most useful and +uncontaminating implement, the quill or the spade?’ + +‘The spade,’ said I, ‘generally speaking, unquestionably: the quill in +some most rare and solitary instances.’ + +‘In the hand of Homer and Plutarch, of Seneca and Tacitus, of +Shakespeare and Rousseau? I am not speaking of them, or of those who, +however humbly, reflect their excellencies. But in the hands of the +slaves of commerce, the minions of law, the venal advocates of +superstition, the sycophants of corruption, the turnspits of literature, +the paragraph-mongers of prostituted journals, the hireling compounders +of party-praise and censure, under the name of periodical criticism, +what say you to it?’ + +‘What can I say,’ said I, ‘but that it is the curse of society, and the +bane of the human mind?’ + +‘And yet,’ said he, ‘in some of these ways must you employ it, if you +wish to live by it. Literature is not the soil in which truth and +liberty can flourish, unless their cultivators be independent of the +world. Those who are not so, whatever be the promise of their beginning, +will end either in sycophants or beggars. As mere mechanical +instruments, in pursuits unconnected with literature, what say you to +the comparison?’ + +‘What Cincinnatus would have said,’ I answered. + +‘I am glad,’ said he, ‘to hear it. You are not one of the multitude, +neither, I believe, am I. I embraced my profession, I assure you, from +very disinterested motives. I considered that, the greater the powers of +mischief with which that profession is armed, and, I am sorry to add, +the practice of mischief in the generality of its professors, the +greater might be the scope of philanthropy, in protecting weakness and +counteracting oppression. Thus I have passed my life in an attempt to +reconcile philanthropy and law. I had property sufficient to enable me +to try the experiment. The natural consequence is, my property has +vanished. I do not regret it, for I have done some good. But I can do no +more. My power is annulled. I must retire from the stage of life. If I +retire alone, I must have servants; I had much rather have friends. If +you will accompany me to Westmoreland, we will organise a little +republic of our own. Your wife shall be our housekeeper. We will +cultivate our garden. We shall want little more, and that my annuity +will amply supply. We will select a few books, and we will pronounce +eternal banishment on pen and ink.’ + +I could not help smiling at the earnestness with which he pronounced the +last clause. The change of a lawyer into a Roman republican appeared to +me as miraculous as any metamorphosis in Ovid. Not to weary you with +details, we carried this scheme into effect, and passed three years of +natural and healthy occupation, with perfect simplicity and perfect +content. They were the happiest of our lives. But at the end of this +period our old friend died. His annuity died with him. He left me his +heir, but his habitation and its furniture were all he had to leave. I +procured a tenant for the house, and we removed to this even yet more +humble dwelling. The difference of the rent, a very trifling sum indeed, +constituted our only income. The increase of our family, and the +consequent pressure of necessity, compelled us to sell the house. From +the same necessity we have become strict Pythagoreans. I do not complain +that we live hardly: it is almost wonderful that we live at all. The +produce of our little garden preserves us from famine: but this is all +it does. I consider myself a mere rustic, and very willingly engage in +agricultural labour, when the neighbouring farmers think proper to +employ me: but they feel no deficiency of abler hands. There are more +labourers than means of labour. In the cities it is the same. If all the +modes of human occupation in this kingdom, from the highest to the +lowest, were to require at once a double number of persons, there would +not remain one of them twelve hours unfilled. + +With what views could I return to London? Of the throng continually +pressing onward, to spring into the vacancies of employment, the +foremost ranks are unfortunately composed of the selfish, the servile, +the intriguing; of those to whose ideas general justice is a chimaera, +liberty an empty name, and truth at best a verbal veil for the +sycophantic falsehood of a mercenary spirit. To what end could a pupil +of the ancient Romans mingle with such a multitude? To cringe, to lie, +to flatter? To bow to the insolence of wealth, the superciliousness of +rank, the contumely of patronage, that, while it exacts the most abject +mental prostration, in return for promises never meant to be performed, +despises the servility it fosters, and laughs at the credulity it +betrays? + +The wheel of fortune is like a water-wheel, and human beings are like +the waters it disturbs. Many are thrown into the channels of action, +many are thrown back to be lost for ever in the stream. I am one of the +latter: but I shall not consider it disgraceful to me that I am so, till +I see that candour, simplicity, integrity, and intellectual power, +directed by benevolence and liberty, have a better claim to worldly +estimation, than either venal talent prostituted to the wages of +corruption, or ignorance, meanness, and imbecility, exalted by influence +and interest. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + THE COTTAGE + + +_Mr. Fax (in continuation)._ ‘I cannot help thinking,’ said I, when +Desmond had done speaking, ‘that you have formed too hasty an estimate +of the world. Mr. Vamp and Mr. Dross are bad specimens of human nature: +but there are many good specimens of it in both those classes of men. +The world is, indeed, full of prejudices and superstitions, which +produce ample profit to their venal advocates, who consequently want +neither the will nor the power to calumniate and persecute the +enlightened and the virtuous. The rich, too, are usually arrogant and +exacting, and those feelings will never perish for want of sycophants to +nourish them. An ardent love of truth and liberty will, therefore, +always prove an almost insuperable barrier to any great degree of +worldly advancement. A celebrated divine, who turned his theological +morality to very excellent account, and died _en bonne odeur_, used to +say, _he could not afford to have a conscience, for it was the most +expensive luxury a man could indulge in_. So it certainly is: but, +though a conscientious man who has his own way to make in the world, +will very seldom flourish in the sunshine of prosperity, it is not, +therefore, necessary that he should sit quietly down and starve.’ He +said he would think of it, and if he could find any loophole in the +great feudal fortress of society, at which poverty and honesty could +creep in together, he would try to effect an entrance. I made more +particular inquiry into their circumstances, and they at length +communicated to me, but with manifest reluctance, that they were in +imminent danger of being deprived of their miserable furniture, and +turned out of their wretched habitation, by Lawrence Litigate, Esquire, +their landlord, for arrears of rent amounting to five pounds. + +_Mr. Forester._ Which, of course, you paid? + +_Mr. Fax._ I did so; but I do not see that it is of course. + +Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran were still leaning over the gate of +the cottage, when a peasant came whistling along the road. ‘Pray, my +honest friend,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘can you inform me what has become of the +family which inhabited this cottage two years ago?’—‘Ye’ll voind them,’ +said the peasant, ‘about a mile vurther an, just by the lake’s edge +like, wi’ two large elms by the door, and a vir tree.’ He resumed his +tune and his way. + +The philosophical trio proceeded on their walk. + +_Mr. Forester._ You have said little of his wife. + +_Mr. Fax._ She was an interesting creature. With her the feelings of +misfortune had subsided into melancholy silence, while with him they +broke forth in misanthropical satire. + +_Mr. Forester._ And their children? + +_Mr. Fax._ They would have been fine children, if they had been better +clothed and fed. + +_Mr. Forester._ Did they seem to repent their marriage? + +_Mr. Fax._ Not for themselves. They appeared to have no wish but to live +and die together. For their children, indeed, I could easily perceive +they felt more grief than they expressed. + +_Mr. Forester._ You have scarcely made out your case. Poverty had +certainly come in at the door, but Love does not seem to have flown out +at the window. You would not have prevailed on them to separate at the +price of living in palaces. The energy of intellect was not deadened; +the independence of spirit was not broken. The participation of love +communicates a luxury to sorrow, that all the splendour of selfishness +can never bestow. If, as has been said, a friend is more valuable than +the elements of fire and water, how much more valuable must be the one +only associate, the more than friend, to him whom in affliction and in +poverty all other friends have abandoned! If the sun shines equally on +the palace and the cottage, why should not love, the sun of the +intellectual world, shine equally on both? More needful, indeed, is its +genial light to the latter, where there is no worldly splendour to +diminish or divide its radiance. + +[Illustration: _Sir Oran sat down in the artist’s seat._] + +With a sudden turn of the road, a scene of magnificent beauty burst upon +their view: the still expanse of a lake, bordered with dark precipices +and fading woods, and mountains rising above them, height on height, +till the clouds rested on their summits. A picturesque tourist had +planted his travelling-chair under the corner of a rock, and was +intently occupied in sketching the scene. The process attracted Sir +Oran’s curiosity; he walked up to the tourist, who was too deeply +engaged to notice his approach, and peeped over his shoulder. Sir Oran, +after looking at the picture, then at the landscape, then at the +picture, then at the landscape again, at length suddenly expressed his +delight in a very loud and very singular shout, close in the painter’s +ear, that re-echoed from rock to rock. The tourist sprang up in violent +alarm, and seeing the extraordinary physiognomy of the personage at his +elbow, drew a sudden conclusion of evil intentions, and ran off with +great rapidity, leaving all his apparatus behind him. Sir Oran sat down +in the artist’s seat, took up the drawing utensils, placed the +unfinished drawing on his knee, and sat in an attitude of deep +contemplation, as if meditating on the means to be pursued for doing the +same thing himself. + +The flying tourist encountered Messieurs Fax and Forester, who had +observed the transaction, and were laughing at it as heartily as +Democritus himself could have done. They tranquillised his +apprehensions, and led him back to the spot. Sir Oran, on a hint from +his friend Mr. Forester, rose, made the tourist a polite bow, and +restored to him his beloved portfolio. They then wished him a +good-morning, and left him in a state of nervous trepidation, which made +it very obvious that he would draw no more that day. + +_Mr. Fax._ Can Sir Oran draw? + +_Mr. Forester._ No; but I think he would easily acquire the art. It is +very probable that in the nation of the Orans, which I take to be _a +barbarous nation that has not yet learned the use of speech_,[34] +drawing, as a means of communicating ideas, may be in no contemptible +state of forwardness.[35] + +_Mr. Fax._ He has, of course, seen many drawings since he has been among +civilised men; what so peculiarly delighted and surprised him in this? + +_Mr. Forester._ I suspect this is the first opportunity he has had of +comparing the natural original with the artificial copy; and his delight +was excited by seeing the vast scene before him transferred so +accurately into so small a compass, and growing, as it were, into a +distinct identity under the hand of the artist. + +They now arrived at the elms and the fir-tree, which the peasant had +pointed out as the landmarks of the dwelling of Desmond. They were +surprised to see a very pretty cottage, standing in the midst of a +luxuriant garden, one part of which sloped down to the edge of the lake. +Everything bore the air of comfort and competence. They almost doubted +if the peasant had been correct in his information. Three rosy children, +plainly but neatly dressed, were sitting on the edge of the shallow +water, watching with intense delight and interest the manœuvres of a +paper flotilla, which they had committed to the mercy of the waves. + +_Mr. Fax._ What is the difference between these children and Xerxes on +the shores of Salamis? + +_Mr. Forester._ None, but that where they have pure and unmingled +pleasure, his feelings began in selfish pride, and ended in slavish +fear; their amusement is natural and innocent; his was unnatural, cruel, +and destructive, and therefore more unworthy of a rational being. +_Better is a poor and wise child than a foolish king that will not be +admonished._ + +A female came from the cottage. Mr. Fax recognised Mrs. Desmond. He was +surprised at the change in her appearance. Health and content animated +her countenance. The simple neatness of her dress derived an appearance +of elegance from its interesting wearer; contrary to the fashionable +process, in which dress neither neat nor simple, but a heterogeneous +mixture of all the fripperies of Europe, gives what the world calls +elegance, where less partial nature has denied it. There are, in this +respect, two classes of human beings: Nature makes the first herself, +for the beauty of her own creation; her journeymen cut out the second +for tailors and mantua-makers to finish. The first, when apparelled, may +be called dressed people—the second, peopled dresses; the first bear the +same relation to their clothes as an oak bears to its foliage—the +second, the same as a wig-block bears to a wig; the first may be +compared to cocoa-nuts, in which the kernel is more valuable than the +shell—the second, to some varieties of the _Testaceous Mollusca_, where +a shell of infinite value covers a stupid fish that is good for nothing. + +Mrs. Desmond recognised Mr. Fax. ‘O sir!’ said she, ‘I rejoice to see +you.’—‘And I rejoice,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘to see you as you now are; Fortune +has befriended you.’—‘You rendered us great service, sir, in our +wretched condition; but the benefit, of course, was transient. With the +next quarter-day Mr. Litigate, our landlord, resumed his persecutions; +and we should have been turned out of our wretched dwelling to perish in +the roads, had not some happy incident made Miss Melincourt acquainted +with our situation. To know what it was, and to make it what it is, were +the same thing to her. So suddenly, when the extremity of evil was +impending over us, to be placed in this little Paradise in +competence—nay, to our simple habits, in affluence, and in such a +manner, as if we were bestowing, not receiving favours——O sir, there +cannot be two Miss Melincourts! But will you not walk in and take some +refreshment?—we can offer you refreshment now. My husband is absent at +present, but he will very soon return.’ + +While she was speaking he arrived. Mr. Fax congratulated him. At his +earnest solicitation they entered the cottage, and were delighted with +the beautiful neatness that predominated in every part of it. The three +children ran in to see the strangers. Mr. Forester took up the little +girl, Mr. Fax a boy, and Sir Oran Haut-ton another. The latter took +alarm at the physiognomy of his new friend, and cried and kicked, and +struggled for release; but Sir Oran, producing a flute from his pocket, +struck up a lively air, which reconciled the child, who then sat very +quietly on his knee. + +Some refreshment was placed before them, and Sir Oran testified, by a +copious draught, that he found much virtue in home-brewed ale. + +‘There is a farm attached to this cottage,’ said Mr. Desmond; ‘and Miss +Melincourt, by having placed me in it, enabled me to maintain my family +in comfort and independence, and to educate them in a free, healthy, and +natural occupation. I have ever thought agriculture the noblest of human +pursuits; to the theory and practice of it I now devote my whole +attention, and I am not without hopes that the improvement of this part +of my benefactress’s estate will justify her generous confidence in a +friendless stranger; but what can repay her benevolence?’ + +‘I will answer for her,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘though she is as yet +personally unknown to me, that she loves benevolence for its own sake, +and is satisfied with its consummation.’ + +After a short conversation, and a promise soon to revisit the now happy +family, Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran Haut-ton resumed their walk. +Mr. Forester, at parting, put, unobserved, into the hand of the little +boy, a folded paper, telling him to give it to his father. It was a leaf +which he had torn from his pocket-book; he had enclosed in it a +bank-note, and had written on it with a pencil, ‘Do not refuse to a +stranger the happiness of reflecting that he has, however tardily and +slightly, co-operated with Miss Melincourt in a work of justice.’ + + + + + CHAPTER XV + THE LIBRARY + + +Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran Haut-ton arrived at Melincourt +Castle. They were shown into a parlour, where they were left alone a few +minutes; when Mr. Hippy made his appearance, and recognising Sir Oran, +shook hands with him very cordially. Mr. Forester produced the letter he +had received from Mr. Ratstail, which Mr. Hippy having read, vented a +string of invectives against the impudent rascal, and explained the +mystery of the adventure, though he seemed to think it strange that Sir +Oran could not have explained it himself. Mr. Forester shook his head +significantly; and Mr. Hippy, affecting to understand the gesture, +exclaimed, ‘Ah! poor gentleman!’ He then invited them to stay to dinner. +‘I won’t be refused,’ said he; ‘I am lord and master of this castle at +present, and here you shall stay till to-morrow. Anthy will be delighted +to see her friend here’ (bowing to Sir Oran, who returned it with great +politeness), ‘and we will hold a council of war, how to deal with this +pair of puppies, Lawrence Litigate, Esquire, and Richard Ratstail, +Solicitor. I have several visitors here already: lords, baronets, and +squires, all Corydons, sighing for Anthy; but it seems _Love’s Labour +Lost_ with all of them. However, love and wine, you know! Anthy won’t +give them the first, so I drench them with the second: there will be +more bottles than hearts cracked in the business, for all Anthy’s +beauty. _Men die and worms eat them_, as usual, _but not for love_. + +Mr. Forester inquired for Sir Telegraph Paxarett. ‘An excellent fellow +after dinner!’ exclaimed Mr. Hippy. ‘I never see him in the morning; nor +any one else, but my rascal, Harry Fell, and now and then Harry +Killquick. The moment breakfast is over, one goes one way, and another +another. Anthy locks herself up in the library.’ + +‘Locks herself up in the library!’ said Mr. Fax: ‘a young lady, a +beauty, and an heiress, in the nineteenth century, think of cultivating +her understanding!’ + +‘Strange, but true,’ said Mr. Hippy; ‘and here am I, a poor invalid, +left alone all the morning to prowl about the castle like a ghost; that +is, when I am well enough to move, which is not always the case. But the +library is opened at four, and the party assembles there before dinner; +and as it is now about the time, come with me, and I will introduce +you.’ + +They followed Mr. Hippy to the library, where they found Anthelia alone. + +‘Anthy,’ said Mr. Hippy, after the forms of introduction, ‘do you know +you are accused of laying waste a pine-grove, and carrying it off by +cartloads, with force and arms?’ + +Anthelia read Mr. Ratstail’s letter. ‘This is a very strange piece of +folly,’ she said; ‘I hope it will not be a mischievous one.’ She then +renewed the expressions of her gratitude to Sir Oran, and bade him +welcome to Melincourt. Sir Oran bowed in silence. + +‘Folly and mischief,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘are very nearly allied; and nowhere +more conspicuously than in the forms of the law.’ + +_Mr. Forester._ You have an admirable library, Miss Melincourt: and I +judge from the great number of Italian books, you are justly partial to +the poets of that exquisite language. The apartment itself seems +singularly adapted to the genius of their poetry, which combines the +magnificent simplicity of ancient Greece with the mysterious grandeur of +the feudal ages. Those windows of stained glass would recall to an +enthusiastic mind the attendant spirit of Tasso; and the waving of the +cedars beyond, when the wind makes music in their boughs, with the birds +singing in their shades and the softened dash of the torrent from the +dingle below, might with little aid from fancy be modulated into that +exquisite combination of melody which flowed from the enchanted wood at +the entrance of Rinaldo, and which Tasso has painted with a degree of +harmony not less magical than the music he describes. Italian poetry is +all fairyland: I know not any description of literature so congenial to +the tenderness and delicacy of the female mind, which, however opposite +may be the tendency of modern education, Nature has most pre-eminently +adapted to be ‘a mansion for all lovely forms: a dwelling-place for all +sweet sounds and harmonies.’[36] Of these, Italian poetry is a most +inexhaustible fountain; and for that reason I could wish it to be +generally acknowledged a point of the very first importance in female +education. + +_Anthelia._ You have a better opinion of the understandings of women, +sir, than the generality of your lordly sex seems disposed to entertain. + +_Mr. Forester._ The conduct of men, in this respect, is much like that +of a gardener who should plant a plot of ground with merely ornamental +flowers, and then pass sentence on the soil for not bearing substantial +fruit. If women are treated only as pretty dolls, and dressed in all the +fripperies of irrational education; if the vanity of personal adornment +and superficial accomplishments be made from their very earliest years +to suppress all mental aspirations, and to supersede all thoughts of +intellectual beauty, is it to be inferred that they are incapable of +better things? But such is the usual logic of tyranny, which first +places its extinguisher on the flame, and then argues that it cannot +burn. + +_Mr. Fax._ Your remark is not totally just: for though custom, how +justly I will not say, banishes women from the fields of classical +literature, yet the study of Italian poetry, of which you think so +highly, is very much encouraged among them. + +_Mr. Forester._ You should rather say it is not discouraged. They are +permitted to know it: but in very few instances is the permission +accompanied by any practical aid. The only points practically enforced +in female education are sound, colour, and form,—music, dress, drawing, +and dancing. The mind is left to take care of itself. + +_Mr. Fax._ And has as much chance of doing so as a horse in a pound, +circumscribed in the narrowest limits, and studiously deprived of +nourishment. + +_Anthelia._ The simile is, I fear, too just. To think is one of the most +unpardonable errors a woman can commit in the eyes of society. In our +sex a taste for intellectual pleasures is almost equivalent to taking +the veil; and though not absolutely a vow of perpetual celibacy, it has +almost always the same practical tendency. In that universal system of +superficial education which so studiously depresses the mind of women, a +female who aspires to mental improvement will scarcely find in her own +sex a congenial associate; and the other will regard her as an intruder +on its prescriptive authority, its legitimate and divine right over the +dominion of thought and reason: and the general consequence is, that she +remains insulated between both, in more than cloistered loneliness. Even +in its effect on herself, the ideal beauty which she studies will make +her fastidious, too fastidious, perhaps, to the world of realities, and +deprive her of the happiness that might be her portion, by fixing her +imagination on chimaeras of unattainable excellence. + +_Mr. Forester._ I can answer for men, Miss Melincourt, that there are +some, many I hope, who can appreciate justly that most heavenly of +earthly things, an enlightened female mind; whatever may be thought by +the pedantry that envies, the foppery that fears, the folly that +ridicules, or the wilful blindness that will not see its loveliness. I +am afraid your last observation approaches most nearly to the truth, and +that it is owing more to their own fastidiousness than to the want of +friends and admirers, that intelligent women are so often alone in the +world. But were it otherwise, the objection will not apply to Italian +poetry, a field of luxuriant beauty, from which women are not +interdicted even by the most intolerant prejudice of masculine +usurpation. + +_Anthelia._ They are not interdicted, certainly; but they are seldom +encouraged to enter it. Perhaps it is feared, that, having gone thus +far, they might be tempted to go farther: that the friend of Tasso might +aspire to the acquaintance of Virgil, or even to an introduction to +Homer and Sophocles. + +_Mr. Forester._ And why should she not? Far from desiring to suppress +such a noble ambition, how delightful should I think the task of +conducting the lovely aspirant through the treasures of Grecian +genius!—to wander hand in hand with such a companion among the valleys +and fountains of Ida, and by the banks of the eddying Scamander;[37] +through the island of Calypso, and the gardens of Alcinous;[38] to the +rocks of the Scythian desert;[39] to the caverned shores of the solitary +Lemnos;[40] and to the fatal sands of Troezene[41] to kindle in such +scenes the enthusiasm of such a mind, and to see the eyes of love and +beauty beaming with their reflected inspiration! Miserably perverted, +indeed, must be the selfishness of him who, having such happiness in his +power, would, + + Like the base Indian, throw a pearl away, + Richer than all his tribe. + +_Mr. Fax._ My friend’s enthusiasm, Miss Melincourt, usually runs away +with him when any allusion is made to ancient Greece. + +Mr. Forester had spoken with ardour and animation; for the scenes of +which he spoke rose upon his mind and depicted in the incomparable +poetry to which he had alluded; the figurative idea of wandering among +them with a young and beautiful female aspirant assumed for a moment a +visionary reality; and when he subsequently reflected on it it appeared +to him very singular that the female figure in the mental picture had +assumed the form and features of Anthelia Melincourt. + +Anthelia, too, saw in the animated countenance of Sylvan Forester traces +of more than common feeling, generosity, and intelligence: his imaginary +wanderings through the classic scenes of antiquity assumed in her +congenial mind the brightest colours of intellectual beauty; and she +could not help thinking that if he were what he appeared, such +wanderings, with such a guide, would not be the most unenviable of +earthly destinies. + +The other guests dropped in by ones and twos. Sir Telegraph was +agreeably surprised to see Mr. Forester. ‘By the bye,’ said he, ‘have +you heard that a general election is to take place immediately?’ + +‘I have,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘and was thinking of putting you and your +barouche in requisition very shortly.’ + +‘As soon as you please,’ said Sir Telegraph. + +The Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney took Sir Telegraph aside, to make inquiry +concerning the new-comers. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ Who is that very bright-eyed, wild-looking +young man? + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ That is my old acquaintance and +fellow-collegian, Sylvan Forester, now of Redrose Abbey, in this county. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ Is he respectable? + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ He has a good estate, if you mean that. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ To be sure I mean that. And who is that tall +thin saturnine personage? + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ I know nothing of him but that his name is +Fax, and that he is now on a visit to Mr. Forester at Redrose Abbey. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ And who is that _very_ tall and remarkably +ugly gentleman? + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ That is Sir Oran Haut-ton, Baronet; to which +designation you may shortly add M.P. for the ancient and honourable +borough of Onevote. + +_The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ A Baronet! and M.P.! Well, now I look at him +again, I certainly do not think him so very plain: he has a very +fashionable air. Haut-ton! French extraction, no doubt. And now I think +of it, there is something very French in his physiognomy. + +Dinner was announced, and the party adjourned to the dining-room. Mr. +Forester offered his hand to Anthelia; and Sir Oran Haut-ton, following +the example, presented his to the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney.[42] + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + THE SYMPOSIUM + + +The dinner passed off with great harmony. The ladies withdrew. The +bottle revolved with celerity, under the presidency of Mr. Hippy, and +the vice-presidency of Sir Telegraph Paxarett. The Reverend Mr. +Portpipe, who was that day of the party, pronounced an eulogium on the +wine, which was echoed by the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, Mr. O’Scarum, +Lord Anophel Achthar, Mr. Feathernest, and Mr. Derrydown. Mr. Forester +and Mr. Fax showed no disposition to destroy the unanimity of opinion on +this interesting subject. Sir Oran Haut-ton maintained a grave and +dignified silence, but demonstrated by his practice that his taste was +orthodox. Mr. O’Scarum sat between Sir Oran and the Reverend Mr. +Portpipe, and kept a sharp look-out on both sides of him; but did not, +during the whole course of the sitting, detect either of his supporters +in the heinous fact of a heeltap. + +_Mr. Hippy._ Dr. Killquick may say what he pleases + + Of mithridate, cordials, and elixirs; + But from my youth this was my only physic.— + Here’s a colour! what lady’s cheek comes near it? + It sparkles, hangs out diamonds! O my sweet heart! + Mistress of merry hearts! they are not worth thy favours + Who number thy moist kisses in these crystals![43] + +_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._ An excellent text!—sound doctrine, plain and +practical. When I open the bottle, I shut the book of Numbers. There are +two reasons for drinking: one is, when you are thirsty, to cure it; the +other, when you are not thirsty, to prevent it. The first is obvious, +mechanical, and plebeian; the second is most refined, abstract, +prospicient, and canonical. I drink by anticipation of thirst that may +be. Prevention is better than cure. Wine is the elixir of life. ‘The +soul,’ says St. Augustine, ‘cannot live in drought.’[44] What is death? +Dust and ashes. There is nothing so dry. What is life? Spirit. What is +Spirit? Wine. + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ And whisky. + +_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._ Whisky is hepatic, phlogistic, and +exanthematous. Wine is the hierarchical and archiepiscopal fluid. +Bacchus is said to have conquered the East, and to have returned loaded +with its spoils. ‘Marry how? tropically.’ The conquests of Bacchus are +the victories of imagination, which, sublimated by wine, puts to rout +care, fear, and poverty, and revels in the treasures of Utopia. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ The juice of the grape is the liquid quintessence of +concentrated sunbeams. Man is an exotic, in this northern climate, and +must be nourished like a hot-house plant, by the perpetual adhibition of +artificial heat. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ You were not always so fond of wine, +Feathernest? + +_Mr. Feathernest._ Oh, my lord! no allusion, I beseech you, to my +youthful errors. Demosthenes, being asked what wine he liked best, +answered, that which he drank at the expense of others. + +_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._ Demosthenes was right. His circumstance, or +qualification, is an accompaniment of better relish than a devilled +biscuit or an anchovy toast. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ In former days, my lord, I had no experience that +way; therefore I drank water against my will. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ And wrote Odes upon it, to Truth and Liberty. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ ‘Ah, no more of that, an’ thou lovest me.’ Now that I +can get it for a song, I take my pipe of wine a year: and what is the +effect? Not cold phlegmatic lamentations over the sufferings of the +poor, but high-flown, jovial, reeling dithyrambics ‘to all the crowned +heads in Europe.’ I had then a vague notion that all was wrong. +Persuasion has since appeared to me in a tangible shape, and convinced +me that all is right, especially at court. Then I saw darkly through a +glass—of water. Now I see clearly through a glass of wine. + +[Illustration: _Mr. Feathernest._] + +_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe_ (_looking through his glass at the light_). An +infallible telescope! + +_Mr. Forester._ I am unfortunately one of those, sir, who very much +admired your Odes to Truth and Liberty, and read your royal lyrics with +very different sensations. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ I presume, sir, every man has a right to change his +opinions. + +_Mr. Forester._ From disinterested conviction undoubtedly: but when it +is obviously from mercenary motives, the apostasy of a public man is a +public calamity. It is not his single loss to the cause he supported, +that is alone to be lamented: the deep shade of mistrust which his +conduct throws on that of all others who embark in the same career tends +to destroy all sympathy with the enthusiasm of genius, all admiration +for the intrepidity of truth, all belief in the sincerity of zeal for +public liberty: if their advocates drop one by one into the vortex of +courtly patronage, every new one that arises will be more and more +regarded as a hollow-hearted hypocrite, a false and venal angler for +pension and place; for there is in these cases no criterion by which the +world can distinguish the baying of a noble dog that will defend his +trust till death, from the yelping of a political cur, that only infests +the heels of power to be silenced with the offals of corruption. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Cursed severe, Feathernest, ‘pon honour. + +_Mr. Fax._ _The gradual falling off of prudent men from unprofitable +virtues is perhaps too common an occurrence to deserve much notice, or +justify much reprobation._[45] + +_Mr. Forester._ If it were not common, it would not need reprobation. +Vices of unfrequent occurrence stand sufficiently self-exposed in the +insulation of their own deformity. The vices that call for the scourge +of satire are those which pervade the whole frame of society, and which, +under some specious pretence of private duty, or the sanction of custom +and precedent, are almost permitted to assume the semblance of virtue, +or at least to pass unstigmatised in the crowd of congenial +transgressions. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ You may say what you please, sir. I am accustomed to +this language, and am quite callous to it, I assure you. I am in good +odour at court, sir; and you know, _Non cuivis homini contingit adire +Corinthum_. While I was out, sir, I made a great noise till I was let +in. There was a pack of us, sir, to keep up your canine metaphor: two or +three others got in at the same time: we knew very well that those who +were shut out would raise a hue and cry after us: it was perfectly +natural: we should have done the same in their place: mere envy and +malice, nothing more. Let them bark on: when they are either wanted or +troublesome, they will be let in, in their turn. If there be any man who +prefers a crust and water to venison and sack, I am not of his mind. It +is pretty and politic to make a virtue of necessity: but when there is +an end of the necessity I am very willing that there should be an end of +the virtue. _If you could live on roots_, said Diogenes to Aristippus, +_you would have nothing to do with kings_.—_If you could live on kings_, +replied Aristippus, _you would have nothing to do with roots_.—Every man +for himself, sir, and God for us all. + +_Mr. Derrydown._ The truth of things on this subject is contained in the +following stave: + + This world is a well-furnish’d table, + Where guests are promiscuously set: + We all fare as well as we’re able, + And scramble for what we can get. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Buz the bottle. + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ Over, by Jupiter! + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ No. + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ Yes. + +_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._ No. The baronet has a most mathematical eye. +Buzzed to a drop! + +_Mr. Forester._ Fortunately, sir, for the hopes of mankind, every man +does not bring his honour and conscience to market, though I admit the +majority do: there are some who dare be honest in the worst of times. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ Perhaps, sir, you are one of those who can _afford to +have a conscience_, and are therefore under no necessity of bringing it +to market. If so, you should ‘give God thanks, and make no boast of it.’ +It is a great luxury certainly, and well worth keeping, _caeteris +paribus_. But it is neither meat, clothes, nor fire. It becomes a good +coat well; but it will never make one. Poets are verbal musicians, and, +like other musicians, they have a right to sing and play, where they can +be best paid for their music. + +_Mr. Forester._ There could be no objection to that, if they would be +content to announce themselves as dealers and chapmen: but the poetical +character is too frequently a combination of the most arrogant and +exclusive assumption of freedom and independence in theory, with the +most abject and unqualified venality, servility, and sycophancy in +practice. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ It is _as notorious_, sir, _as the sun at noonday_, +that theory and practice are never expected to coincide. If a West +Indian planter declaims against the Algerines, do you expect him to lose +any favourable opportunity of increasing the number of his own slaves? +If an invaded country cries out against spoliation, do you suppose, if +the tables were turned, it would show its weaker neighbours the +forbearance it required? If an Opposition orator clamours for a reform +in Parliament, does any one dream that, if he gets into office, he will +ever say another word about it? If one of your reverend friends should +display his touching eloquence on the subject of temperance, would you +therefore have the barbarity to curtail him of one drop of his three +bottles? Truth and liberty, sir, are pretty words, very pretty words—a +few years ago they were the gods of the day—they superseded in poetry +the agency of mythology and magic: they were the only passports into the +poetical market: I acted accordingly the part of a prudent man: I took +my station, became my own crier, and vociferated Truth and Liberty, till +the noise I made brought people about me, to bid for me: and to the +highest bidder I knocked myself down, at less than I am worth certainly; +but when an article is not likely to keep, it is by no means prudent to +postpone the sale. + + What makes all doctrines plain and clear? + About two hundred pounds a year.— + And that which was proved true before, + Prove false again?—Two hundred more. + +_Mr. Hippy._ A dry discussion! Pass the bottle, and moisten it. + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ Here’s half of us fast asleep. Let us make a little +noise to wake us. A glee now: I’ll be one: who’ll join? + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ I. + +_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._ And I. + +_Mr. Hippy._ Strike up then. Silence! + + GLEE—THE GHOSTS + + In life three ghostly friars were we, + And now three friarly ghosts we be. + Around our shadowy table placed, + The spectral bowl before us floats: + With wine that none but ghosts can taste + We wash our unsubstantial throats. + Three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts are we: + Let the ocean be Port, and we’ll think it good sport + To be laid in that Red Sea. + + With songs that jovial spectres chaunt, + Our old refectory still we haunt. + The traveller hears our midnight mirth: + ‘O list!’ he cries, ‘the haunted choir! + The merriest ghost that walks the earth + Is sure the ghost of a ghostly friar.’ + Three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts are we: + Let the ocean be Port, and we’ll think it good sport + To be laid in that Red Sea. + +_Mr. Hippy._ Bravo! I should like to have my house so haunted. The deuce +is in it, if three such ghosts would not keep the blue devils at bay. +Come, we’ll lay them in a bumper of claret. + +(_Sir Oran Haut-ton took his flute from his pocket, and played over the +air of the glee. The company was at first extremely surprised, and then +joined in applauding his performance. Sir Oran bowed acknowledgment, and +returned his flute to his pocket._) + +_Mr. Forester._ It is, perhaps, happy for yourself, Mr. Feathernest, +that you can treat with so much levity a subject that fills me with the +deepest grief. Man under the influence of civilisation has fearfully +diminished in size and deteriorated in strength. The intellectual are +confessedly nourished at the expense of the physical faculties. Air, the +great source and fountain of health and life, can scarcely find access +to civilised man, muffled as he is in clothes, pent in houses, +smoke-dried in cities, half-roasted by artificial fire, and parboiled in +the hydrogen of crowded apartments. Diseases multiply upon him in +compound proportion. Even if the prosperous among us enjoy some comforts +unknown to the natural man, yet what is the poverty of the savage, +compared with that of the lowest classes of civilised nations? The +specious aspect of luxury and abundance in one is counterbalanced by the +abject penury and circumscription of hundreds. Commercial prosperity is +a golden surface, but all beneath it is rags and wretchedness. It is not +in the splendid bustle of our principal streets—in the villas and +mansions that sprinkle our valleys—for those who enjoy these things +(even if they did enjoy them—even if they had health and happiness—and +the rich have seldom either) bear but a small proportion to the whole +population:—but it is in the mud hovel of the labourer—in the cellar of +the artisan—in our crowded prisons—our swarming hospitals—our +overcharged workhouses—in those narrow districts of our overgrown cities +which the affluent never see—where thousands and thousands of families +are compressed within limits not sufficient for the pleasure-ground of a +simple squire,—that we must study the true mechanism of political +society. When the philosopher turns away in despair from this dreadful +accumulation of moral and physical evil, where is he to look for +consolation, if not in the progress of science, in the enlargement of +mind, in the diffusion of philosophical truth? But if truth is a +chimaera—if virtue is a name—if science is not the handmaid of moral +improvement, but the obsequious minister of recondite luxury, the +specious appendage of vanity and power—then indeed, _that man has fallen +never to rise again_,[46] is as much the cry of nature as the dream of +superstition. + +_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._ Man has fallen, certainly, by the fruit of the +tree of knowledge: which shows that human learning is vanity and a great +evil, and therefore very properly discountenanced by all bishops, +priests, and deacons. + +_Mr. Fax._ The picture which you have drawn of poverty is not very +tempting; and you must acknowledge that it is most galling to the most +refined feelings. You must not, therefore, wonder that it is peculiarly +obnoxious to the practical notions of poets. If the radiance of gold and +silver gleam not through the foliage of the Pierian laurel, there is +something to be said in their excuse if they carry their chaplet to +those who will gild its leaves; and in that case they will find their +best customers and patrons among those who are ambitious of acquiring +panegyric by a more compendious method than the troublesome practice of +the virtues that deserve it. + +_Mr. Forester._ You have quoted Juvenal, but you should have completed +the sentence: ‘If you see no glimpse of coin in the Pierian shade, you +will prefer the name and occupation of a barber or an auctioneer.’[47] +This is most just: if the pursuits of literature, conscientiously +conducted, condemn their votary to famine, let him live by more humble, +but at least by honest, and therefore honourable occupations: he may +still devote his leisure to his favourite pursuits. If he produce but a +single volume consecrated to moral truth, its effect must be good as far +as it goes; but if he purchase leisure and luxury by the prostitution of +talent to the cause of superstition and tyranny, every new exertion of +his powers is a new outrage to reason and virtue, and in precise +proportion to those powers is he a curse to his country and a traitor to +mankind. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ A barber, sir!—a man of genius turn barber! + +_Mr. O’Scarum._ Troth, sir, and I think it is better he should be in the +suds himself, than help to bring his country into that situation. + +_Mr. Forester._ I can perceive, sir, in your exclamation the principle +that has caused so enormous a superabundance in the number of bad books +over that of good ones. The objects of the majority of men of talent +seem to be exclusively two: the first, to convince the world of their +transcendent abilities; the second, to convert that conviction into a +source of the greatest possible pecuniary benefit to themselves. But +there is no class of men more resolutely indifferent to the moral +tendency of the means by which their ends are accomplished. Yet this is +the most extensively pernicious of all modes of dishonesty; for that of +a private man can only injure the pockets of a few individuals (a great +evil, certainly, but light in comparison); while that of a public +writer, who has previously taught the multitude to respect his talents, +perverts what is much more valuable, the mental progress of thousands; +misleading, on the one hand, the shallow believers in his sincerity; and +on the other, stigmatising the whole literary character in the opinions +of all who see through the veil of his venality. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ All this is no reason, sir, why a man of genius +should condescend to be a barber. + +_Mr. Forester._ He condescends much more in being a sycophant. The +poorest barber in the poorest borough in England, who will not sell his +vote, is a much more honourable character in the estimate of moral +comparison than the most self-satisfied dealer in courtly poetry, whose +well-paid eulogiums of licentiousness and corruption were ever re-echoed +by the ‘most sweet voices’ of hireling gazetteers and pensioned +reviewers. + +The summons to tea and coffee put a stop to the conversation. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + MUSIC AND DISCORD + + +The evenings were beginning to give symptoms of winter, and a large fire +was blazing in the library. Mr. Forester took the opportunity of +stigmatising the use of sugar, and had the pleasure of observing that +the practice of Anthelia in this respect was the same as his own. He +mentioned his intention of giving an anti-saccharine festival at Redrose +Abbey, and invited all the party at Melincourt to attend it. He observed +that his aunt, Miss Evergreen, who would be there at the time, would +send an invitation in due form to the ladies, to remove all scruples on +the score of propriety; and added, that if he could hope for the +attendance of half as much moral feeling as he was sure there would be +of beauty and fashion, he should be satisfied that a great step would be +made towards accomplishing the object of the Anti-saccharine Society. + +The Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub felt extremely indignant at Mr. Forester’s +notion ‘of every real enemy to slavery being bound by the strictest +moral duty to practical abstinence from the luxury which slavery +acquires’; but when he found that the notion was to be developed in the +shape of a festival, he determined to suspend his judgment till he had +digested the solid arguments that were to be brought forward on the +occasion. + +Mr. O’Scarum was, as usual, very clamorous for music, and was seconded +by the unanimous wish of the company, with which Anthelia readily +complied, and sang as follows: + + THE FLOWER OF LOVE + + ’Tis said the rose is Love’s own flower, + Its blush so bright, its thorns so many; + And winter on its bloom has power, + But has not on its sweetness any. + For though young Love’s ethereal rose + Will droop on Age’s wintry bosom, + Yet still its faded leaves disclose + The fragrance of their earliest blossom. + + But ah! the fragrance lingering there + Is like the sweets that mournful duty + Bestows with sadly-soothing care, + To deck the grave of bloom and beauty. + For when its leaves are shrunk and dry, + Its blush extinct, to kindle never, + That fragrance is but Memory’s sigh, + That breathes of pleasures past for ever. + + Why did not Love the amaranth choose, + That bears no thorns, and cannot perish? + Alas! no sweets its flowers diffuse, + And only sweets Love’s life can cherish. + But be the rose and amaranth twined, + And Love, their mingled powers assuming, + Shall round his brows a chaplet bind, + For ever sweet, for ever blooming. + +‘I am afraid,’ said Mr. Derrydown, ‘the flower of modern love is neither +the rose nor the amaranth, but the _chrysanthemum_, or _gold-flower_. If +Miss Danaretta and Mr. O’Scarum will accompany me, we will sing a little +harmonised ballad, something in point, and rather more conformable to +the truth of things.’ Mr. O’Scarum and Miss Danaretta consented, and +they accordingly sang the following:— + + BALLAD TERZETTO—THE LADY, THE KNIGHT, AND THE FRIAR + + THE LADY + + O cavalier! what dost thou here, + Thy tuneful vigils keeping; + While the northern star looks cold from far, + And half the world is sleeping? + + + THE KNIGHT + + O lady! here, for seven long year, + Have I been nightly sighing, + Without the hope of a single tear + To pity me were I dying. + + + THE LADY + + Should I take thee to have and to hold, + Who hast nor lands nor money? + Alas! ’tis only in flowers of gold + That married bees find honey. + + + THE KNIGHT + + O lady fair! to my constant prayer + Fate proves at last propitious: + And bags of gold in my hand I bear, + And parchment scrolls delicious. + + + THE LADY + + My maid the door shall open throw, + For we too long have tarried: + The friar keeps watch in the cellar below, + And we will at once be married. + + + THE FRIAR + + My children! great is Fortune’s power; + And plain this truth appears, + That gold thrives more in a single hour + Than love in seven long years. + +During this terzetto the Reverend Mr. Portpipe fell asleep, and +accompanied the performance with rather a deeper bass than was generally +deemed harmonious. + +Sir Telegraph Paxarett took Mr. Forester aside, to consult him on the +subject of the journey to Onevote. + +‘I have asked,’ said he, ‘my aunt and cousin, Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney, to +join the party, and have requested them to exert their influence with +Miss Melincourt to induce her to accompany them.’ + +‘That would make it a delightful expedition, indeed,’ said Mr. Forester, +‘if Miss Melincourt could be prevailed on to comply.’ + +‘_Nil desperandum_,’ said Sir Telegraph. + +The Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney drew Anthelia into a corner, and developed +all her eloquence in enforcing the proposition. Miss Danaretta joined in +it with great earnestness; and they kept up the fire of their +importunity till they extorted from Anthelia a promise that she would +consider of it. + +Mr. Forester took down a splendid edition of Tasso, printed by Bodoni at +Parma, and found it ornamented with Anthelia’s drawings. In the magic of +her pencil the wild and wonderful scenes of Tasso seemed to live under +his eyes: he could not forbear expressing to her the delight he +experienced from these new proofs of her sensibility and genius, and +entered into a conversation with her concerning her favourite poet, in +which the congeniality of their tastes and feelings became more and more +manifest to each other. + +Mr. Feathernest and Mr. Derrydown got into a hot dispute over Chapman’s +_Homer_ and Jeremy Taylor’s _Holy Living_: Mr. Derrydown maintaining +that the ballad metre which Chapman had so judiciously chosen rendered +his volume the most divine poem in the world; Mr. Feathernest asserting +that Chapman’s verses were mere doggerel: which vile aspersion Mr. +Derrydown revenged by depreciating Mr. Feathernest’s favourite Jeremy. +Mr. Feathernest said he could expect no better judgment from a man who +was mad enough to prefer _Chevy Chase_ to _Paradise Lost_; and Mr. +Derrydown retorted, that it was idle to expect either taste or justice +from one who had thought fit to unite in himself two characters so +anomalous as those of a poet and a critic, in which duplex capacity he +had first deluged the world with torrents of execrable verses, and then +written anonymous criticisms to prove them divine. ‘Do you think, sir,’ +he continued, ‘that it is possible for the same man to be both Homer and +Aristotle? No, sir; but it is very possible to be both Dennis and Colley +Cibber, as in the melancholy example before me.’ + +At this all the blood of the _genus irritabile_ boiled in Mr. +Feathernest’s veins, and uplifting the ponderous folio, he seemed +inclined to bury his antagonist under Jeremy’s _weight of words_, by +applying them in a _tangible shape_; but wisely recollecting that this +was not the time and place + + To prove his doctrine orthodox + By apostolic blows and knocks, + +he contented himself with a point-blank denial of the charge that he +wrote critiques on his own works, protesting that all the articles on +his poems were written either by his friend Mr. Mystic, of Cimmerian +Lodge, or by Mr. Vamp, the amiable editor of the _Legitimate Review_. +‘Yes,’ said Mr. Derrydown, ‘on the “_Tickle me, Mr. Hayley_” principle; +by which a miserable cabal of doggerel rhymesters and worn-out +paragraph-mongers of bankrupt gazettes ring the eternal changes of +panegyric on each other, and on everything else that is either rich +enough to buy their praise, or vile enough to deserve it: like a gang in +a country steeple, paid for being a public nuisance, and maintaining +that noise is melody.’ + +Mr. Feathernest on this became perfectly outrageous; and waving Jeremy +Taylor in the air, exclaimed, ‘_Oh that mine enemy had written a book!_ +Horrible should be the vengeance of the _Legitimate Review_!’ + +Mr. Hippy now deemed it expedient to interpose for the restoration of +order, and entreated Anthelia to throw in a little musical harmony as a +sedative to the ebullitions of a poetical discord. At the sound of the +harp the antagonists turned away, the one flourishing his Chapman and +the other his Jeremy with looks of lofty defiance. + +[Illustration: _He managed so skilfully that his Lordship became himself +the proposer of the scheme._] + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + THE STRATAGEM + + +The Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, who had acquired a great proficiency in the +art of hearing without seeming to listen, had overheard Mrs. Pinmoney’s +request to Anthelia; and, notwithstanding the young lady’s hesitation, +he very much feared she would ultimately comply. He had seen, much +against his will, a great congeniality in feelings and opinions between +her and Mr. Forester, and had noticed some unconscious external +manifestations of the interior mind on both sides, some outward and +visible signs of the inward and spiritual sentiment, which convinced him +that a more intimate acquaintance with each other would lead them to a +conclusion, which, for the reasons we have given in the ninth chapter, +he had no wish to see established. After long and mature deliberation, +he determined to rouse Lord Anophel to a sense of his danger, and spirit +him up to an immediate _coup-de-main_. He calculated that, as the young +Lord was a spoiled child, immoderately vain, passably foolish, and +totally unused to contradiction, he should have little difficulty in +moulding him to his views. His plan was, that Lord Anophel, with two or +three confidential fellows, should lie in ambush for Anthelia in one of +her solitary rambles, and convey her to a lonely castle of his +Lordship’s on the seacoast, with a view of keeping her in close custody, +till fair means or foul should induce her to regain her liberty in the +character of Lady Achthar. This was to be Lord Anophel’s view of the +subject; but the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub had in the inner cave of his +perceptions a very promising image of a different result. As he would +have free access to Anthelia in her confinement, he intended to worm +himself into her favour, under the cover of friendship and sympathy, +with the most ardent professions of devotion to her cause and promises +of endeavours to effect her emancipation, involving the accomplishment +of this object in a multitude of imaginary difficulties, which it should +be his professed study to vanquish. He deemed it very probable that, by +a skilful adoperation of these means, and by moulding Lord Anophel, at +the same time, into a system of conduct as disagreeable as possible to +Anthelia, he might himself become the lord and master of the lands and +castle of Melincourt, when he would edify the country with the example +of his truly orthodox life, faring sumptuously every day, raising the +rents of his tenants, turning out all who were in arrear, and +occasionally treating the rest with discourses on temperance and +charity. + +With these ideas in his head, he went in search of Lord Anophel, and +proceeding _pedetentim_, and opening the subject _peirastically_, he +managed so skilfully that his Lordship became himself the proposer of +the scheme, with which the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub seemed unwillingly to +acquiesce. + +Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran Haut-ton took leave of the party at +Melincourt Castle; the former having arranged with Sir Telegraph +Paxarett that he was to call for them at Redrose Abbey in the course of +three days, and reiterated his earnest hopes that Anthelia would be +persuaded to accompany Mrs. Pinmoney and her beautiful daughter in the +expedition to Onevote. + +Lord Anophel Achthar and the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub also took leave, as +a matter of policy, that their disappearance at the same time with +Anthelia might not excite surprise. They pretended a pressing temporary +engagement in a distant part of the country, and carried off with them +Mr. Feathernest the poet, whom, nevertheless, they did not deem it +prudent to let into the secret of their scheme. + +[Illustration: _She thought there was something peculiar in his look._] + +The next day Anthelia, still undecided on this subject, wandered alone +to the ruined bridge, to contemplate the scene of her former +misadventure. As she ascended the hill that bounded the valley of +Melincourt, a countryman crossed her path, and touching his hat passed +on. She thought there was something peculiar in his look, but had quite +forgotten him, when, on looking back as she descended on the other side, +she observed him making signs, as if to some one at a distance: she +could not, however, consider that they had any relation to her. The day +was clear and sunny; and when she entered the pine-grove, the gloom of +its tufted foliage, with the sunbeams chequering the dark-red soil, +formed a grateful contrast to the naked rocks and heathy mountains that +lay around it, in the full blaze of daylight. In many parts of the grove +was a luxuriant laurel underwood, glittering like silver in the partial +sunbeams that penetrated the interstices of the pines. Few scenes in +nature have a more mysterious solemnity than such a scene as this. +Anthelia paused a moment. She thought she heard a rustling in the +laurels, but all was again still. She proceeded; the rustling was +renewed. She felt alarmed, yet she knew not why, and reproached herself +for such idle and unaccustomed apprehensions. She paused again to +listen; the soft tones of a flute sounded from a distance: these gave +her confidence, and she again proceeded. She passed by the tuft of +laurels in which she had heard the rustling. Suddenly a mantle was +thrown over her. She was wrapped in darkness, and felt that she was +forcibly seized by several persons, who carried her rapidly along. She +screamed, but the mantle was immediately pressed on her mouth, and she +was hurried onward. After a time the party stopped: a tumult ensued: she +found herself at liberty, and threw the mantle from her head. She was on +a road at the verge of the pine-grove: a chaise-and-four was waiting. +Two men were running away in the distance: two others, muffled and +masked, were rolling on the ground, and roaring for mercy, while Sir +Oran Haut-ton was standing over them with a stick,[48] and treating them +as if he were a thresher and they were sheaves of corn. By her side was +Mr. Forester, who, taking her hand, assured her that she was in safety, +while at the same time he endeavoured to assuage Sir Oran’s wrath, that +he might raise and unmask the fallen foes. Sir Oran, however, proceeded +in his summary administration of natural justice till he had dispensed +what was to his notion a _quantum sufficit_ of the application: then +throwing his stick aside, he caught them both up, one under each arm, +and climbing with great dexterity a high and precipitous rock, left them +perched upon its summit, bringing away their masks in his hand, and +making them a profound bow at taking leave.[49] + +Mr. Forester was anxious to follow them to their aerial seat, that he +might ascertain who they were, which Sir Oran’s precipitation had put it +out of his power to do; but Anthelia begged him to return with her +immediately to the Castle, assuring him that she thought them already +sufficiently punished, and had no apprehension that they would feel +tempted again to molest her. + +Sir Oran now opened the chaise-door, and drew out the postboys by the +leg, who, at the beginning of the fray, had concealed themselves from +his fury under the seat. Mr. Forester succeeded in rescuing them from +Sir Oran, and endeavoured to extract from them information as to their +employers: but the boys declared that they knew nothing of them, the +chaise having been ordered by a strange man to be in waiting at that +place, and the hire paid in advance. + +Anthelia, as she walked homeward, leaning on Mr. Forester’s arm, +inquired to what happy accident she was indebted for the timely +intervention of himself and Sir Oran Haut-ton. Mr. Forester informed +her, that having a great wish to visit the scene which had been the +means of introducing him to her acquaintance, he had made Sir Oran +understand his desire, and they had accordingly set out together, +leaving Mr. Fax at Redrose Abbey, deeply engaged in the solution of a +problem in political arithmetic. + +[Illustration: _He caught them both up, one under each arm._] + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + THE EXCURSION + + +Anthelia found, from what Mr. Forester had said, that she had excited a +much greater interest in his mind than she had previously supposed; and +she did not dissemble to herself that the interest was reciprocal. The +occurrence of the morning, by taking the feeling of safety from her +solitary walks, and unhinging her long associations with the freedom and +security of her native mountains, gave her an inclination to depart for +a time at least from Melincourt Castle; and this inclination, combining +with the wish to see more of one who appeared to possess so much +intellectual superiority to the generality of mankind, rendered her very +flexible to Mrs. Pinmoney’s wishes, when that honourable lady renewed +her solicitations to her to join the expedition to Onevote. Anthelia, +however, desired that Mr. Hippy might be of the party, and that her +going in Sir Telegraph’s carriage should not be construed in any degree +into a reception of his addresses. The Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, +delighted to carry her point, readily complied with the condition, +trusting to the influence of time and intimacy to promote her own wishes +and the happiness of her dear nephew. + +Mr. Hippy was so overjoyed at the project, that, in the first +ebullitions of his transport, meeting Harry Fell on the landing-place, +with a packet of medicine from Dr. Killquick, he seized him by the arm, +and made him dance a _pas de deux_: the packet fell to the earth, and +Mr. Hippy, as he whirled old Harry round to the tune of _La Belle +Laitière_, danced over that which, but for this timely demolition, might +have given his heir an opportunity of dancing over him. + +It was accordingly arranged that Sir Telegraph Paxarett, with the ladies +and Mr. Hippy, should call on the appointed day at Redrose Abbey for Mr. +Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran Haut-ton. + +Mr. Derrydown and Mr. O’Scarum were inconsolable on the occasion, +notwithstanding Mr. Hippy’s assurance that they should very soon return, +and that the hospitality of Melincourt Castle should then be resumed +under his supreme jurisdiction. Mr. Derrydown determined to consume the +interval at Keswick, in the composition of dismal ballads; and Mr. +O’Scarum to proceed to Low-wood Inn, and drown his cares in claret with +Major O’Dogskin. + +We shall pass over the interval till the arrival of the eventful day on +which Mr. Forester, from the windows of Redrose Abbey, watched the +approach of Sir Telegraph’s barouche. The party from Melincourt arrived, +as had been concerted, to breakfast; after which, they surveyed the +Abbey, and perambulated the grounds. Mr. Forester produced the Abbot’s +skull,[50] and took occasion to expatiate very largely on the diminution +of the size of mankind; illustrating his theory by quotations and +anecdotes from Homer,[51] Herodotus[52] Arrian, Plutarch, Philostratus, +Pausanias, and Solinus Polyhistor. He asked if it were possible that men +of such a stature as they have dwindled to in the present age could have +erected that stupendous monument of human strength, Stonehenge? in the +vicinity of which, he said, a body had been dug up, measuring fourteen +feet ten inches in length.[53] + +The barouche bowled off from the Abbey gates, carrying four inside, and +eight out; videlicet, the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, Miss Danaretta, Mr. +Hippy, and Anthelia, inside; Sir Telegraph Paxarett and Sir Oran +Haut-ton on the box, the former with his whip, and the latter with his +French horn, in the characters of coachman and guard; Mr. Forester and +Mr. Fax in the front of the roof; and Sir Telegraph’s two grooms, with +Peter Gray and Harry Fell, behind. Sir Telegraph’s coachman, as the +inside of the carriage was occupied, had been left at Melincourt. + +In addition to Sir Telegraph’s travelling library—(which consisted +of a single quarto volume, magnificently bound: videlicet, a Greek +Pindar, which Sir Telegraph always carried with him; not that he +ever read a page of it, but that he thought such a classical +inside passenger would be a perpetual vindication of his +tethrippharmatelasipedioploctypophilous pursuits), Anthelia and +Mr. Forester had taken with them a few of their favourite authors; +for, as the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote was situated +almost at the extremity of the kingdom, and as Sir Telegraph’s +diurnal stages were necessarily limited, they had both conjectured +that + + the poet’s page, by one + Made vocal for the amusement of the rest, + +might furnish an agreeable evening employment in the dearth of +conversation. Anthelia also, in compliance with the general desire, had +taken her lyre, by which the reader may understand, if he pleases, the +_harp-lute-guitar_; which, whatever be its merit as an instrument, has +so unfortunate an appellation, that we cannot think of dislocating our +pages with such a cacophonous compound. + +They made but a short stage from Redrose Abbey, and stopped for the +first evening at Low-wood Inn, to the great joy of Mr. O’Scarum and +Major O’Dogskin. Mr. O’Scarum introduced the Major; and both offered +their services to assist Mr. Hippy and Sir Telegraph Paxarett in the +council they were holding with the landlady on the eventful subject of +dinner. This being arranged, and the hour and minute punctually +specified, it was proposed to employ the interval in a little excursion +on the lake. The party was distributed in two boats: Sir Telegraph’s +grooms rowing the one, and Peter Gray and Harry Fell the other. They +rowed to the middle of the lake, and rested on their oars. The sun sank +behind the summits of the western mountains: the clouds that, like other +mountains, rested motionless above them, crested with the towers and +battlements of aerial castles, changed by degrees from fleecy whiteness +to the deepest hues of crimson. A solitary cloud, resting on an eastern +pinnacle, became tinged with the reflected splendour of the west: the +clouds overhead spreading, like a uniform veil of network, through the +interstices of which the sky was visible, caught in their turn the +radiance, and reflected it on the lake, that lay in its calm expanse +like a mirror, imaging with such stillness and accuracy the forms and +colours of all around and above it, that it seemed as if the waters were +withdrawn by magic, and the boats floated in crimson light between the +mountains and the sky. + +The whole party was silent, even the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, till Mr. +O’Scarum entreated Anthelia to sing ‘something neat and characteristic; +or a harmony now for three voices, would be the killing thing; eh! +Major?’—‘Indeed and it would,’ said Major O’Dogskin; ‘there’s something +very soft and pathetic in a cool evening on the water, to sit still +doing nothing at all but listening to pretty words and tender melodies.’ +And lest the sincerity of his opinion should be questioned, he +accompanied it with an emphatical oath, to show that he was in earnest; +for which the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney called him to order. + +Major O’Dogskin explained. + +Anthelia, accompanied by Miss Danaretta and Mr. O’Scarum, sang the +following + + TERZETTO + + 1. Hark! o’er the silent waters stealing, + The dash of oars sounds soft and clear: + Through night’s deep veil, all forms concealing, + Nearer it comes, and yet more near. + + 2. See! where the long reflection glistens, + In yon lone tower her watch-light burns: + 3. To hear our distant oars she listens, + And, listening, strikes the harp by turns. + + 1. The stars are bright, the skies unclouded; + No moonbeam shines; no breezes wake. + Is it my love, in darkness shrouded, + Whose dashing oar disturbs the lake? + + 2. O haste, sweet maid, the cords unrolling; + 1. The holy hermit chides our stay! + 2. 3. Hark! from his lonely islet tolling, + His midnight bell shall guide our way. + +Sir Oran Haut-ton now produced his flute, and treated the company with a +solo. Another pause succeeded. The contemplative silence was broken by +Major O’Dogskin, who began to fidget about in the boat, and drawing his +watch from his fob held it up to Mr. Hippy, and asked him if he did not +think the partridges would be spoiled? ‘To be sure they will,’ said Mr. +Hippy, ‘unless we make the best of our way. Cold comfort this, after +all: sharp air and water;—give me a roaring fire and a six-bottle cooper +of claret.’ + +The oars were dashed into the water, and the fairy reflections of +clouds, rocks, woods, and mountains were mingled in the confusion of +chaos. The reader will naturally expect that, having two lovers on a +lake, we shall not lose the opportunity of throwing the lady into the +water, and making the gentleman fish her out; but whether that our +Thalia is too veridicous to permit this distortion of facts, or that we +think it the more original incident to return them to the shore as dry +as they left it, the reader must submit to the disappointment, and be +content to see the whole party comfortably seated, without let, +hindrance, or molestation, at a very excellent dinner, served up under +the judicious inspection of mine hostess of Low-wood. + +The heroes and heroines of Homer used to eat and drink all day till the +setting sun;[54] and by dint of industry, contrived to finish that +important business by the usual period at which modern beaux and belles +begin it—who are, therefore, necessitated, like Penelope, to sit up all +night; not, indeed, to destroy the works of the day, for how can nothing +be annihilated? This does not apply to all our party, and we hope not to +many of our readers. + + + + + CHAPTER XX + THE SEA-SHORE + + +They stopped the next evening at a village on the sea-shore. The wind +rose in the night, but without rain. Mr. Forester was up before the sun, +and descending to the beach, found Anthelia there before him, sitting on +a rock, and listening to the dash of the waves, like a Nereid to +Triton’s shell. + +_Mr. Forester._ You are an early riser, Miss Melincourt. + +_Anthelia._ I always was so. The morning is the infancy of the day, and, +like the infancy of life, has health and bloom, and cheerfulness and +purity, in a degree unknown to the busy noon, which is the season of +care, or the languid evening, which is the harbinger of repose. Perhaps +the song of the nightingale is not in itself less cheerful than that of +the lark: it is the season of her song that invests it with the +character of melancholy.[55] It is the same with the associations of +infancy: it is all cheerfulness, all hope: its path is on the flowers of +an untried world. The daisy has more beauty in the eye of childhood than +the rose in that of maturer life. The spring is the infancy of the year: +its flowers are the flowers of promise and the darlings of poetry. The +autumn, too, has its flowers; but they are little loved, and little +praised: for the associations of autumn are not with ideas of +cheerfulness, but with yellow leaves and hollow winds, heralds of winter +and emblems of dissolution. + +_Mr. Forester._ These reflections have more in them of the autumn than +of the morning. But the mornings of autumn participate in the character +of the season. + +_Anthelia._ They do so; yet even in mists and storms the opening must be +always more cheerful than the closing day. + +_Mr. Forester._ But this morning is fine and clear, and the wind blows +over the sea. Yet this, to me at least, is not a cheerful scene. + +_Anthelia._ Nor to me. But our long habits of association with the sound +of the winds and the waters have given them to us a voice of melancholy +majesty: a voice not audible by those little children who are playing +yonder on the shore. To them all scenes are cheerful. It is the morning +of life: it is infancy that makes them so. + +_Mr. Forester._ Fresh air and liberty are all that is necessary to the +happiness of children. In that blissful age ‘when nature’s self is new,’ +the bloom of interest and beauty is found alike in every object of +perception—in the grass of the meadow, the moss on the rock, and the +seaweed on the sand. They find gems and treasures in shells and pebbles; +and the gardens of fairyland in the simplest flowers. They have no +melancholy associations with autumn or with evening. The falling leaves +are their playthings; and the setting sun only tells them that they must +go to rest as he does, and that he will light them to their sports in +the morning. It is this bloom of novelty, and the pure, unclouded, +unvitiated feelings with which it is contemplated, that throw such an +unearthly radiance on the scenes of our infancy, however humble in +themselves, and give a charm to their recollections which not even Tempe +can compensate. It is the force of first impressions. The first meadow +in which we gather cowslips, the first stream on which we sail, the +first home in which we awake to the sense of human sympathy, have all a +peculiar and exclusive charm, which we shall never find again in richer +meadows, mightier rivers, and more magnificent dwellings; nor even in +themselves, when we revisit them after the lapse of years, and the sad +realities of noon have dissipated the illusions of sunrise. It is the +same, too, with first love, whatever be the causes that render it +unsuccessful: the second choice may have just preponderance in the +balance of moral estimation; but the object of first affection, of all +the perceptions of our being, will be most divested of the attributes of +mortality. The magical associations of infancy are revived with double +power in the feelings of first love; but when they too have departed, +then, indeed, the light of the morning is gone. + +[Illustration: _Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of +Mr. Hippy._] + + Pensa che questo di mai non raggiorna! + +_Anthelia._ If this be so, let me never be the object of a second +choice: let me never love, or love but once. + +_Mr. Forester._ The object of a second choice you cannot be with any one +who will deserve your love; for to have loved any other woman, would +show a heart too lightly captivated to be worthy of yours. The only mind +that can deserve to love you is one that would never have known love if +it never had known you. + +Anthelia and Mr. Forester were both so unfashionably sincere, that they +would probably, in a very few minutes, have confessed to each other more +than they had till that morning, perhaps, confessed to themselves, but +that their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hippy +fuming for his breakfast, accompanied by Sir Telegraph cracking his +whip, and Sir Oran blowing the réveillée on his French horn. + +‘So ho!’ exclaimed Sir Telegraph; ‘Achilles and Thetis, I protest, +consulting on the sea-shore.’ + +_Anthelia._ Do you mean to say, Sir Telegraph, that I am old enough to +be Mr. Forester’s mother? + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ No, no; that is no part of the comparison; but +we are the ambassadors of Agamemnon (videlicet, Mr. Fax, whom we left +very busily arranging the urns, not of lots by the bye, but of tea and +coffee); here is old Phoenix on one side of me, and Ajax on the other. + +_Mr. Forester._ And you of course are the wise Ulysses. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ There the simile fails again. _Comparatio non +urgenda_, as I think Heyne used to say, before I was laughed out of +reading at College. + +_Mr. Forester._ You should have found me too, if you call me Achilles, +solacing my mind with music, φρενα τερπομενον φορμιγγι λιγειῃ; but, to +make amends for the deficiency, you have brought me a musical Ajax. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ You have no reason to wish even for the golden +lyre of my old friend Pindar himself: you have been listening to the +music of the winds and the waters, and to what is more than music, the +voice of Miss Melincourt. + +_Mr. Hippy._ And there is a very pretty concert waiting for you at the +inn—the tinkling of cups and spoons, and the divine song of the tea-urn. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + THE CITY OF NOVOTE + + +On the evening of the tenth day the barouche rattled triumphantly into +the large and populous city of Novote, which was situated at a short +distance from the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote. The city +contained fifty thousand inhabitants, and had no representative in the +Honourable House, the deficiency being virtually supplied by the two +members for Onevote; who, having no affairs to attend to for the +borough, or rather the burgess, that did return them, were supposed to +have more leisure for those of the city which did not; a system somewhat +analogous to that which the learned author of _Hermes_ calls _a method +of supply by negation_. + +Sir Oran signalised his own entrance by playing on his French horn, _See +the conquering hero comes!_ Bells were ringing, ale was flowing, mobs +were huzzaing, and it seemed as if the inhabitants of the large and +populous city were satisfied of the truth of the admirable doctrine, +that the positive representation of one individual is a virtual +representation of fifty thousand. They found afterwards that all this +festivity had been set in motion by Sir Oran’s brother candidate, Simon +Sarcastic, Esq., to whom we shall shortly introduce our readers. + +The barouche stopped at the door of a magnificent inn, and the party was +welcomed with some scores of bows from the whole _corps d’hôtel_, with +the fat landlady in the van, and Boots in the rear. They were shown into +a splendid apartment, a glorious fire was kindled in a minute, and while +Mr. Hippy looked over the bill of fare, and followed mine hostess to +inspect the state of the larder, Sir Telegraph proceeded to _peel_, and +emerged from his four _benjamins_, like a butterfly from its chrysalis. + +After dinner they formed, as usual, a semicircle round the fire, with +the table in front supported by Mr. Hippy and Sir Telegraph Paxarett. + +‘Now this,’ said Sir Telegraph, rubbing his hands, ‘is what I call +devilish comfortable after a cold day’s drive—an excellent inn, a superb +fire, charming company, and better wine than has fallen to our lot since +we left Melincourt Castle.’ + +The waiter had picked up from the conversation at dinner that one of the +destined members for Onevote was in the company; and communicated this +intelligence to Mr. Sarcastic, who was taking his solitary bottle in +another apartment. Mr. Sarcastic sent his compliments to Sir Oran +Haut-ton, and hoped he would allow his future colleague the honour of +being admitted to join his party. Mr. Hippy, Mr. Forester, and Sir +Telegraph, undertook to answer for Sir Oran, who was silent on the +occasion: Mr. Sarcastic was introduced, and took his seat in the +semicircle. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Your future colleague, Mr. Sarcastic, is _a +man of few words_; but he will join in a bumper to your better +acquaintance. (_The collision of glasses ensued between Sir Oran and Mr. +Sarcastic._) + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ I am proud of the opportunity of this introduction. The +day after to-morrow is fixed for the election. I have made some +preparations to give a little _éclat_ to the affair, and have begun by +intoxicating half the city of Novote, so that we shall have a great +crowd at the scene of election, whom I intend to harangue from the +hustings, on the great benefits and blessings of virtual representation. + +_Mr. Forester._ I shall, perhaps, take the opportunity of addressing +them also, but with a different view of the subject. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ Perhaps our views of the subject are not radically +different, and the variety is in the mode of treatment. In my ordinary +intercourse with the world I reduce practice to theory; it is a habit, I +believe, peculiar to myself, and a source of inexhaustible amusement. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Fill and explain. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ Nothing, you well know, is so rare as the coincidence +of theory and practice. A man who ‘will go through fire and water to +serve a friend’ in words, will not give five guineas to save him from +famine. A poet will write Odes to Independence, and become the +obsequious parasite of any great man who will hire him. A burgess will +hold up one hand for purity of election, while the price of his own vote +is slily dropped into the other. I need not accumulate instances. + +_Mr. Forester._ You would find it difficult, I fear, to adduce many to +the contrary. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ This then is my system. I ascertain the practice of +those I talk to, and present it to them as from myself, in the shape of +theory; the consequence of which is, that I am universally stigmatised +as a promulgator of rascally doctrines. Thus I said to Sir Oliver +Oilcake, ‘When I get into Parliament I intend to make the sale of my +vote as notorious as the sun at noonday. I will have no rule of right, +but my own pocket. I will support every measure of every administration, +even if they ruin half the nation for the purpose of restoring the Great +Lama, or of subjecting twenty millions of people to be hanged, drawn, +and quartered at the pleasure of the man-milliner of Mahomet’s mother. I +will have shiploads of turtle and rivers of Madeira for myself, if I +send the whole swinish multitude to draff and husks.’ Sir Oliver flew +into a rage, and swore he would hold no further intercourse with a man +who maintained such infamous principles. + +_Mr. Hippy._ Pleasant enough, to show a man his own picture, and make +him damn the ugly rascal. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ I said to Miss Pennylove, whom I knew to be _laying +herself out for a good match_, ‘When my daughter becomes of marriageable +age, I shall commission Christie to put her up to auction, “the highest +bidder to be the buyer; and if any dispute arise between two or more +bidders, the lot to be put up again and resold.”’ Miss Pennylove +professed herself utterly amazed and indignant that any man, and a +father especially, should imagine a scheme so outrageous to the dignity +and delicacy of the female mind. + +_The Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney and Miss Danaretta._ A most horrid idea +certainly. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ The fact, my dear ladies, the fact; how stands the +fact? Miss Pennylove afterwards married a man old enough to be her +grandfather, for no other reason but because he was rich; and broke the +heart of a very worthy friend of mine, to whom she had been previously +engaged, who had no fault but the folly of loving her, and was quite +rich enough for all purposes of matrimonial happiness. How the dignity +and delicacy of such a person could have been affected, if the +preliminary negotiation with her hobbling Strephon had been conducted +through the instrumentality of honest Christie’s hammer, I cannot +possibly imagine. + +_Mr. Hippy._ Nor I, I must say. All the difference is in the form, and +not in the fact. It is a pity that form does not come into fashion; it +would save a world of trouble. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ I irreparably offended the Reverend Doctor Vorax by +telling him, that having a nephew, whom I wished to shine in the church, +I was on the look-out for a luminous butler, and a cook of solid +capacity, under whose joint tuition he might graduate. ‘Who knows,’ said +I, ‘but he may immortalise himself at the University, by giving his name +to a pudding?’—I lost the acquaintance of Mrs. Cullender, by saying to +her, when she had told me a piece of gossip as a very particular secret, +that there was nothing so agreeable to me as to be in possession of a +secret, for I made a point of telling it to all my acquaintance; + + Intrusted under solemn vows, + Of Mum, and Silence, and the Rose, + To be retailed again in whispers, + For the easy credulous to disperse.[56] + +Mrs. Cullender left me in great wrath, protesting she would never again +throw away _her_ confidence on so leaky a vessel. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Ha! ha! ha! Bravo! Come, a bumper to Mrs. +Cullender. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ With all my heart; and another if you please to Mr. +Christopher Corporate, the free, fat, and dependent burgess of Onevote, +of which ‘plural unit’ the Honourable Baronet and myself are to be the +joint representatives. (_Sir Oran Haut-ton bowed._) + +_Mr. Hippy._ And a third, by all means, to his Grace the Duke of +Rottenburgh. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ And a fourth, to crown all, to _the blessings of +virtual representation_, which I shall endeavour to impress on as many +of the worthy citizens of Novote as shall think fit to be present, the +day after to-morrow, at the proceedings of the borough of Onevote. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ And now for tea and coffee. Touch the bell for +the waiter. + +The bottles and glasses vanished, and the beautiful array of urns and +cups succeeded. Sir Telegraph and Mr. Hippy seceded from the table, and +resigned their stations to Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney. + +_Mr. Forester._ Your system is sufficiently amusing, but I much question +its utility. The object of moral censure is reformation, and its proper +vehicle is plain and fearless sincerity: VERBA ANIMI PROFERRE, ET VITAM +IMPENDERE VERO. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ I tried that in my youth, when I was troubled with the +_passion for reforming the world_;[57] of which I have been long cured +by the conviction of the inefficacy of moral theory with respect to +producing a practical change in the mass of mankind. Custom is the +pillar round which opinion twines, and interest is the tie that binds +it. It is not by reason that practical change can be effected, but by +making a puncture to the quick in the feelings of personal hope and +personal fear. The Reformation in England is one of the supposed +triumphs of reason. But if the passions of Henry the Eighth had not been +interested in that measure, he would as soon have built mosques as +pulled down abbeys; and you will observe that, in all cases, reformation +never goes as far as reason requires, but just as far as suits the +personal interest of those who conduct it. Place Temperance and Bacchus +side by side, in an assembly of jolly fellows, and endow the first with +the most powerful eloquence that mere reason can give, with the absolute +moral force of mathematical demonstration, Bacchus need not take the +trouble of refuting one of her arguments; he will only have to say, +‘Come, my boys, here’s _Damn Temperance_ in a bumper,’ and you may rely +on the toast being drunk with an unanimous three times three. + +(_At the sound of the word_ bumper, _with which Captain Hawltaught had +made him very familiar, Sir Oran Haut-ton looked round for his glass, +but, finding it vanished, comforted himself with a dish of tea from the +fair hand of Miss Danaretta, which, as his friend Mr. Forester had +interdicted him from the use of sugar, he sweetened as well as he could +with a copious infusion of cream_.)[58] + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ As an Opposition orator in the Honourable +House will bring forward a long detail of unanswerable arguments, +without even expecting that they will have the slightest influence on +the vote of the majority. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ A reform of that honourable body, if ever it should +take place, will be one of the ‘_triumphs of reason_.’ But reason will +have little to do with it. All that reason can say on the subject has +been said for years, by men of all parties—while they were _out_; but +the moment they were _in_, the moment their own interest came in contact +with their own reason, the victory of interest was never for a moment +doubtful. While the great fountain of interest, rising in the caverns of +borough patronage and ministerial influence, flowed through the whole +body of the kingdom in channels of paper-money, and loans, and +contracts, and jobs, and places either found or made for the useful +dealers in secret services, so long the predominant interests of +corruption overpowered the true and permanent interests of the country; +but as those channels become dry, and they are becoming so with fearful +rapidity, the crew of every boat that is left aground are convinced, not +by reason—that they had long heard and despised—but by the unexpected +pressure of personal suffering, that they had been going on in the wrong +way. Thus the reaction of interest takes place; and when the +concentrated interests of thousands, combined by the same pressure of +personal suffering, shall have created an independent power, greater +than the power of the interest of corruption, then, and not till then, +the latter will give way, and this will be called the triumph of reason; +though, in truth, like all the changes in human society that have ever +taken place from the birthday of the world, it will be only the triumph +of one mode of interest over another; but as the triumph in this case +will be of the interest of the many over that of the few, it is +certainly a consummation devoutly to be wished. + +_Mr. Forester._ If I should admit that ‘the hope of personal advantage, +and the dread of personal punishment,’ are the only springs that set the +mass of mankind in action, the inefficacy of reason, and the inutility +of moral theory, will by no means follow from the admission. The +progress of truth is slow, but its ultimate triumph is secure; though +its immediate effects may be rendered almost imperceptible by the power +of habit and interest. If the philosopher cannot reform his own times, +he may lay the foundation of amendment in those that follow. Give +currency to reason, improve the moral code of society, and the theory of +one generation will be the practice of the next. After a certain period +of life, and that no very advanced one, men in general become perfectly +unpersuadable to all practical purposes. Few philosophers, therefore, I +believe, expect to produce much change in the habits of their +contemporaries, as Plato proposed to banish from his republic all above +the age of ten, and give a good education to the rest. + +_Mr. Sarcastic._ Or, as Heraclitus the Ephesian proposed to his +countrymen, that all above the age of fourteen should hang themselves, +before he would consent to give laws to the remainder. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII + THE BOROUGH OF ONEVOTE + + +The day of election arrived. Mr. Sarcastic’s rumoured preparations, and +the excellence of the ale which he had broached in the city of Novote, +had given a degree of _éclat_ to the election for the borough of +Onevote, which it had never before possessed; the representatives +usually sliding into their nomination with the same silence and decorum +with which a solitary spinster slides into her pew at Wednesday’s or +Friday’s prayers in a country church. The resemblance holds good also in +this respect, that, as the curate addresses the solitary maiden with the +appellation of _dearly beloved brethren_, so the representatives always +pluralised their solitary elector, by conferring on him the appellation +of _a respectable body of constituents_. Mr. Sarcastic, however, being +determined to amuse himself at the expense of this most ‘venerable +_feature_’ in our old constitution, as Lord C. calls a rotten borough, +had brought Mr. Christopher Corporate into his views by the adhibition +of _persuasion in a tangible shape_. It was generally known in Novote +that something would be going forward at Onevote, though nobody could +tell precisely what, except that a long train of brewer’s drays had left +the city for the borough, in grand procession, on the preceding day, +under the escort of a sworn band of special constables, who were to keep +guard over the ale all night. This detachment was soon followed by +another, under a similar escort, and with similar injunctions; and it +was understood that this second expedition of _frothy rhetoric_ was sent +forth under the auspices of Sir Oran Haut-ton, Baronet, the brother +candidate of Simon Sarcastic, Esquire, for the representation of the +ancient and honourable borough. + +The borough of Onevote stood in the middle of a heath, and consisted of +a solitary farm, of which the land was so poor and untractable, that it +would not have been worth the while of any human being to cultivate it, +had not the Duke of Rottenburgh found it very well worth his to pay his +tenant for living there, to keep the honourable borough in existence. + +Mr. Sarcastic left the city of Novote some hours before his new +acquaintance, to superintend his preparations, followed by crowds of +persons of all descriptions, pedestrians and equestrians; old ladies in +chariots, and young ladies on donkeys; the farmer on his hunter, and the +tailor on his hack; the grocer and his family six in a chaise; the +dancing-master in his tilbury; the banker in his tandem; mantua-makers +and servant-maids twenty-four in the waggon, fitted up for the occasion +with a canopy of evergreens; pastry-cooks, men-milliners, and journeymen +tailors, by the stage, running for that day only, six inside and +fourteen out; the sallow artisan emerging from the cellar or the +furnace, to freshen himself with the pure breezes of Onevote Heath; the +bumpkin in his laced boots and Sunday coat, trudging through the dust +with his cherry-cheeked lass on his elbow; the gentleman coachman on his +box, with his painted charmer by his side; the lean curate on his +half-starved Rosinante; the plump bishop setting an example of Christian +humility in his carriage and six; the doctor on his white horse, like +Death in the Revelation; and the lawyer on his black one, like the devil +in the Wild Huntsmen. + +Almost in the rear of this motley cavalcade went the barouche of Sir +Telegraph Paxarett, and rolled up to the scene of action amidst the +shouts of the multitude. + +The heath had very much the appearance of a race-ground; with booths and +stalls, the voices of pie-men and apple-women, the grinding of barrel +organs, the scraping of fiddles, the squeaking of ballad-singers, the +chirping of corkscrews, the vociferations of ale-drinkers, the cries of +the ‘last dying speeches of desperate malefactors,’ and of ‘The History +and Antiquities of the honourable Borough of Onevote, a full and +circumstantial account, all in half a sheet, for the price of one +halfpenny!’ + +The hustings were erected in proper form, and immediately opposite to +them was an enormous marquee with a small opening in front, in which was +seated the important person of Mr. Christopher Corporate, with a tankard +of ale and a pipe. The ladies remained in the barouche under the care of +Sir Telegraph and Mr. Hippy. Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran +Haut-ton joined Mr. Sarcastic on the hustings. + +Mr. Sarcastic stepped forward amidst the shouts of the assembled crowd, +and addressed Mr. Christopher Corporate: + +‘Free, fat, and dependent burgess of this ancient and honourable +borough! I stand forward an unworthy candidate, to be the representative +of so important a personage, who comprises in himself a three-hundredth +part of the whole elective capacity of this extensive empire. For if the +whole population be estimated at eleven millions, with what awe and +veneration must I look on one who is, as it were, the abstract and +quintessence of thirty-three thousand six hundred and sixty-six people! +The voice of Stentor was like the voice of fifty, and the voice of Harry +Gill[59] was like the voice of three; but what are these to the voice of +Mr. Christopher Corporate, which gives utterance in one breath to the +concentrated power of thirty-three thousand six hundred and sixty-six +voices? Of such an one it may indeed be said, that _he is himself an +host_, and that _none but himself can be his parallel_. + +‘Most potent, grave, and reverend signor! it is usual on these occasions +to make a great vapouring about honour and conscience; but as those +words are now generally acknowledged to be utterly destitute of meaning, +I have too much respect for your understanding to say anything about +them. The _monied interest_, Mr. Corporate, for which you are as +illustrious _as the sun at noonday_, is the great point of connection +and sympathy between us; and no circumstances can throw a _wet blanket_ +on the ardour of our reciprocal esteem, while the _fundamental feature_ +of our mutual interests presents itself to us in so _tangible a +shape_.[60] How high a value I set upon your voice, you may judge by the +price I have paid for half of it; which, indeed, deeply lodged as my +feelings are in my pocket, I yet see no reason to regret, since you will +thus confer on mine a transmutable and marketable value which I trust by +proper management will leave me no loser by the bargain.’ + +[Illustration: ‘_We shall always be deeply attentive to your +interests._’] + +‘Huzza!’ said Mr. Corporate. + +‘People of the city of Novote!’ proceeded Mr. Sarcastic, ‘some of you, I +am informed, consider yourselves aggrieved, that while your large and +populous city has no share whatever in the formation of the Honourable +House, the _plural unity_ of Mr. Christopher Corporate should be +invested with the privilege of double representation. But, gentlemen, +representation is of two kinds, actual and virtual; an important +distinction, and of great political consequence. + +‘The Honourable Baronet and myself, being the actual representatives of +the fat burgess of Onevote, shall be the virtual representatives of the +worthy citizens of Novote; and you may rely on it, gentlemen (_with his +hand on his heart_), we shall always be deeply attentive to your +interests, when they happen, as no doubt they sometimes will, to be +perfectly compatible with our own. + +‘A member of Parliament, gentlemen, to speak to you in your own phrase, +is a sort of staple commodity, manufactured for home consumption. Much +has been said of the improvement of machinery in the present age, by +which one man may do the work of a dozen. If this be admirable, and +admirable it is acknowledged to be by all the civilised world, how much +more admirable is the improvement of political machinery, by which one +man does the work of thirty thousand! I am sure I need not say another +word to a great manufacturing population like the inhabitants of the +city of Novote, to convince them of the beauty and utility of this most +luminous arrangement. + +‘The duty of a representative of the people, whether actual or virtual, +is simply _to tax_. Now this important branch of public business is much +more easily and expeditiously transacted by the means of virtual, than +it possibly could be by that of actual representation. For when the +minister draws up his scheme of ways and means, he will do it with much +more celerity and confidence, when he knows that the propitious +countenance of virtual representation will never cease to smile upon him +as long as he continues in place, than if he had to encounter the +doubtful aspect of actual representation, which might, perhaps, look +black on some of his favourite projects, thereby greatly impeding the +distribution of secret service money at home, and placing foreign +legitimacy in a very awkward predicament. The carriage of the state +would then be like a chariot in a forest, turning to the left for a +troublesome thorn, and to the right for a sturdy oak; whereas it now +rolls forward like the car of Juggernaut over the plain crushing +whatever offers to impede its way. + +‘The constitution says that no man shall be taxed but by his own +consent; a very plausible theory, gentlemen, but not reducible to +practice. Who will apply a lancet to his own arm, and bleed himself? +Very few, you acknowledge. Who then, _a fortiori_, would apply a lancet +to his own pocket, and draw off what is dearer to him than his blood—his +money? Fewer still, of course; I humbly opine, none.—What then remains +but to appoint a royal college of state surgeons, who may operate on the +patient according to their views of his case? Taxation is political +phlebotomy: the Honourable House is, figuratively speaking, a royal +college of state surgeons. A good surgeon must have firm nerves and a +steady hand; and, perhaps, the less feeling the better. Now, it is +manifest that, as all feeling is founded on sympathy, the fewer +constituents a representative has, the less must be his sympathy with +the public, and the less, of course as is desirable, his feeling for his +patient—the people:—who, therefore, with so much _sang froid_, can +phlebotomise the nation, as the representative of half an elector? + +‘Gentlemen, as long as a _full Gazette_ is pleasant to the _quidnunc_; +as long as an empty purse is delightful to the spendthrift; as long as +the cry of _Question_ is a satisfactory _answer_ to an argument, and to +outvote reason is to refute it; as long as the way to pay old debts is +to incur new ones of five times the amount; as long as the grand recipes +of political health and longevity are _bleeding_ and _hot water_—so long +must you rejoice in the privileges of Mr. Christopher Corporate, so long +must you acknowledge from the very bottom of your pockets the benefits +and blessings of _virtual representation_.’ + +This harangue was received with great applause, acclamations rent the +air, and ale flowed in torrents. Mr. Forester declined speaking, and the +party on the hustings proceeded to business. Sir Oran Haut-ton, Baronet, +and Simon Sarcastic, Esquire, were nominated in form. Mr. Christopher +Corporate held up both his hands, with his tankard in one, and his pipe +in the other; and neither poll nor scrutiny being demanded, the two +candidates were pronounced duly elected as representatives of the +ancient and honourable borough of Onevote. + +[Illustration: ‘_Hail, plural unit!_’] + +The shouts were renewed; the ale flowed rapidly; the pipe and tankard of +Mr. Corporate were replenished. Sir Oran Haut-ton, Baronet, M.P., bowed +gracefully to the people with his hand on his heart. + +A cry was now raised of ‘Chair ’em! chair ’em!’ when Mr. Sarcastic again +stepped forward. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said he, ‘a slight difficulty opposes itself to the honour +you would confer on us. The members should, according to form, be +chaired by their electors; and how can one elector, great man as he is, +chair two representatives? But to obviate this dilemma as well as +circumstances admit, I move that the “large body corporate of one” whom +the Honourable Baronet and myself have the honour to represent, do +resolve himself into a committee.’ + +He had no sooner spoken, than the marquee opened, and a number of bulky +personages, all in dress, aspect, size, and figure, very exact +resemblances of Mr. Christopher Corporate, each with his pipe and his +tankard, emerged into daylight, who, encircling their venerable +prototype, lifted their tankards high in air, and pronounced with +Stentorian symphony, ‘HAIL, PLURAL UNIT!’ Then, after a simultaneous +draught, throwing away their pipes and tankards, for which the mob +immediately scrambled, they raised on high two magnificent chairs, and +prepared to carry into effect the last ceremony of the election. The +party on the hustings descended. Mr. Sarcastic stepped into his chair; +and his part of the procession, headed by Mr. Christopher Corporate, and +surrounded by a multiform and many-coloured crowd, moved slowly off +towards the city of Novote, amidst the undistinguishable clamour of +multitudinous voices. + +Sir Oran Haut-ton watched the progress of his precursor, as his chair +rolled and swayed over the sea of heads, like a boat with one mast on a +stormy ocean; and the more he watched the agitation of its movements, +the more his countenance gave indications of strong dislike to the +process; so that when his seat in the second chair was offered to him, +he with a very polite bow declined the honour. The party that was to +carry him, thinking that his repugnance arose entirely from diffidence, +proceeded with gentle force to overcome his scruples, when not precisely +penetrating their motives, and indignant at this attempt to violate the +freedom of the natural man, he seized a stick from a sturdy farmer at +his elbow, and began to lay about him with great vigour and effect. +Those who escaped being knocked down by the first sweep of his weapon +ran away with all their might, but were soon checked by the pressure of +the crowd, who, hearing the noise of conflict, and impatient to +ascertain the cause, bore down from all points upon a common centre, and +formed a circumferential pressure that effectually prohibited the egress +of those within; and they, in their turn, in their eagerness to escape +from Sir Oran (who like Artegall’s Iron Man, or like Ajax among the +Trojans, or like Rodomonte in Paris, or like Orlando among the soldiers +of Agramant, kept clearing for himself an ample space in the midst of +the encircling crowd), waged desperate conflict with those without; so +that from the equal and opposite action of the centripetal and +centrifugal forces, resulted a stationary combat, raging between the +circumferences of two concentric circles, with barbaric dissonance of +deadly feud, and infinite variety of oath and execration, till Sir Oran, +charging desperately along one of the radii, fought a free passage +through all opposition; and rushing to the barouche of Sir Telegraph +Paxarett, sprang to his old station on the box, from whence he shook his +sapling at the foe with looks of mortal defiance. Mr. Forester, who had +been forcibly parted from him at the commencement of the strife, had +been all anxiety on his account, mounted with great alacrity to his +station on the roof; the rest of the party was already seated; the +Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, half-fainting with terror, earnestly entreated +Sir Telegraph to fly: Sir Telegraph cracked his whip, the horses sprang +forward like racers, the wheels went round like the wheels of a +firework. The tumult of battle, lessening as they receded, came wafted +to them on the wings of the wind; for the flame of discord having been +once kindled, was not extinguished by the departure of its first +flambeau—Sir Oran; but war raged wide and far, here in the thickest mass +of central fight, there in the light skirmishing of flying detachments. +The hustings were demolished, and the beams and planks turned into +offensive weapons: the booths were torn to pieces, and the canvas +converted into flags floating over the heads of magnanimous heroes that +rushed to revenge they knew not what, in deadly battle with they knew +not whom. The stalls and barrows were upset; and the pears, apples, +oranges, mutton-pies, and masses of gingerbread, flew like missiles of +fate in all directions. The _sanctum sanctorum_ of the ale was broken +into, and the guardians of the Hesperian liquor were put to ignominious +rout. Hats and wigs were hurled into the air, never to return to the +heads from which they had suffered violent divorce. The collision of +sticks, the ringing of empty ale-casks, the shrieks of women, and the +vociferations of combatants, mingled in one deepening and indescribable +tumult; till at length, everything else being levelled with the heath, +they turned the mingled torrent of their wrath on the cottage of Mr. +Corporate, to which they triumphantly set fire, and danced round the +blaze like a rabble of village boys round the effigy of the immortal +Guy. In a few minutes the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote was +reduced to ashes; but we have the satisfaction to state that it was +rebuilt a few days afterwards, at the joint expense of its two +representatives, and His Grace the Duke of Rottenburgh. + +[Illustration: _Began to lay about him with great vigour and effect._] + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII + THE COUNCIL OF WAR + + +The compassionate reader will perhaps sympathise in our anxiety to take +one peep at Lord Anophel Achthar and the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, whom +we left perched on the summit of the rock where Sir Oran had placed +them, looking at each other as ruefully as Hudibras and Ralpho in their +‘wooden bastile,’ and falling by degrees into as knotty an argument, the +_quaeritur_ of which was, how to descend from their elevation—an exploit +which to them seemed replete with danger and difficulty. Lord Anophel, +having, for the first time in his life, been made acquainted with the +salutary effects of manual discipline, sate boiling with wrath and +revenge; while the Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub, who in his youthful days had +been beaten black and blue in the capacity of _fag_ (a practice which +reflects so much honour on our public seminaries), bore the infliction +with more humility. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar_ (_rubbing his shoulder_). This is all your doing, +Grovelgrub—all your fault, curse me! + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Oh, my Lord! my intention was good, though +the catastrophe is ill. The race is not always to the swift, nor the +battle to the strong. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ But the battle was to the strong in this +instance, Grovelgrub, curse me! though from the speed with which you +began to run off on the first alarm, it was no fault of yours that the +race was not to the swift. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ I must do your Lordship the justice to say, +that you too started with a degree of celerity highly creditable to your +capacity of natural locomotion; and if that ugly monster, the dumb +Baronet, had not knocked us both down in the incipiency of our +progression—— + +[Illustration: _Perched on the summit of the rock._] + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ We should have escaped as our two rascals did, +who shall bitterly rue their dereliction. But as to the dumb Baronet, +who has treated me with gross impertinence on various occasions, I shall +certainly call him out, to give me the satisfaction of a gentleman. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Oh, my Lord. + + Though with pistols ’tis the fashion + To satisfy your passion; + Yet where’s the satisfaction, + If you perish in the action? + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ One of us must perish, Grovelgrub, ‘pon honour. +Death or revenge! We’re blown, Grovelgrub. He took off our masks; and +though he can’t speak, he can write, no doubt, and read too, as I shall +try with a challenge. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Can’t speak, my Lord, is by no means clear. +Won’t speak, perhaps; none are so dumb as those who won’t speak. Don’t +you think, my Lord, there was a sort of melancholy about him—a kind of +sullenness? Crossed in love, I suspect. People crossed in love, Saint +Chrysostom says, lose their voice. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Then I wish you were crossed in love, +Grovelgrub, with all my heart. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Nay, my Lord, what so sweet in calamity as +the voice of the spiritual comforter? All shall be well yet, my Lord. I +have an infallible project hatching here; Miss Melincourt shall be +ensconced in Alga Castle, and then the day is our own. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Grovelgrub, you know the old receipt for stewing +a carp: ‘First, catch your carp.’ + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Your Lordship is pleased to be facetious; but +if the carp be not caught, let me be devilled like a biscuit after the +second bottle, or a turkey’s leg at a twelfth night supper. The carp +shall be caught. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Well, Grovelgrub, only take notice that I’ll not +come again within ten miles of dummy. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ You may rely upon it, my Lord, I shall always +know my distance from the Honourable Baronet. But my plot is a good +plot, and cannot fail of success. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ You are a very skilful contriver, to be sure; +this is your contrivance, our perch on the top of this rock. Now +contrive, if you can, some way of getting to the bottom of it. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ My Lord, there is a passage in Aeschylus very +applicable to our situation, where the chorus wishes to be in precisely +such a place. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Then I wish the chorus were here instead of us, +Grovelgrub, with all my soul. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ It is a very fine passage, my Lord, and worth +your attention: the rock is described as + + λισσας αἰγιλιψ ἀπροσδεικτος + οἰοφρων ἐρημας γυπιας πετρα, + βαθυ πτωμα μαρτυρουσα μοι.[61] + +That is, my Lord, a precipitous rock, inaccessible to the goat—not to be +pointed at (from having, as I take it, its head in the clouds), where +there is the loneliness of mind, and the solitude of desolation, where +the vulture has its nest, and the precipice testifies a deep and +headlong fall. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ I’ll tell you what, Grovelgrub; if ever I catch +you quoting Aeschylus again, I’ll cashier you from your tutorship—that’s +positive. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ I am dumb, my Lord. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Think, I tell you, of some way of getting down. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Nothing more easy, my Lord. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Plummet fashion, I suppose? + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Why, as your Lordship seems to hint, that +certainly is the most expeditious method; but not, I think, in all +points of view, the most advisable. On this side of the rock is a +_dumetum_: we can descend, I think, by the help of the roots and shoots. +O dear! I shall be like Virgil’s goat: I shall be seen from far to hang +from the bushy rock _dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbor_! + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._—Confound your Greek and Latin! you know there is +nothing I hate so much; and I thought you did so too, or you have +_finished_ your _education_ to no purpose at college. + +_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ I do, my Lord; I hate them mortally, more +than anything except philosophy and the dumb Baronet. + +Lord Anophel Achthar proceeded to examine the side of the rock to which +the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub had called his attention; and as it seemed +the most practicable mode of descent, it was resolved to submit to +necessity, and make a valorous effort to regain the valley; Lord +Anophel, however, insisting on the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub leading the +way. The reverend gentleman seized with one hand the stem of a hazel, +with the other the branch of an ash; set one foot on the root of an oak, +and deliberately lowered the other in search of a resting-place; which +having found on a projecting point of stone, he cautiously disengaged +one hand and the upper foot, for which in turn he sought and found a +firm _appui_; and thus by little and little he vanished among the boughs +from the sight of Lord Anophel, who proceeded with great circumspection +to follow his example. + +Lord Anophel had descended about one third of the elevation, comforting +his ear with the rustling of the boughs below, that announced the safe +progress of his reverend precursor; when suddenly, as he was shifting +his right hand, a treacherous twig in his left gave way, and he fell +with fearful lapse from bush to bush, till, striking violently on a +bough to which the unfortunate divine was appended, it broke beneath the +shock, and down they went, crashing through the bushes together. Lord +Anophel was soon wedged into the middle of a large holly, from which he +heard the intermitted sound of the boughs as they broke and were broken +by the fall of his companion; till at length they ceased, and fearful +silence succeeded. He then extricated himself from the holly as well as +he could, at the expense of a scratched face, and lowered himself down +without further accident. On reaching the bottom, he had the pleasure to +find the reverend gentleman in safety, sitting on a fragment of stone, +and rubbing his shin. ‘Come, Grovelgrub,’ said Lord Anophel, ‘let us +make the best of our way to the nearest inn.’—‘And pour oil and wine +into our wounds,’ pursued the reverend gentleman, ‘and over our Madeira +and walnuts lay a more hopeful scheme for our next campaign.’ + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV + THE BAROUCHE + + +The morning after the election Sir Oran Haut-ton and his party took +leave of Mr. Sarcastic, Mr. Forester having previously obtained from him +a promise to be present at the anti-saccharine fête. The barouche left +the city of Novote, decorated with ribands; Sir Oran Haut-ton was loudly +cheered by the populace, and not least by those whom he had most +severely beaten; the secret of which was, that a double allowance of ale +had been distributed over-night, to wash away the effects of his +indiscretion; it having been ascertained by political economists, that a +practical appeal either to the palm or the palate will induce the +friends of _things as they are_ to submit to anything. + +Autumn was now touching on the confines of winter, but the day was mild +and sunny. Sir Telegraph asked Mr. Forester if he did not think the mode +of locomotion very agreeable. + +_Mr. Forester._ That I never denied; all I question is, the right of any +individual to indulge himself in it. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Surely a man has a right to do what he pleases +with his own money. + +_Mr. Forester._ A legal right, certainly, not a moral one. The +possession of power does not justify its abuse. The quantity of money in +a nation, the quantity of food, and the number of animals that consume +that food, maintain a triangular harmony, of which, in all the +fluctuations of time and circumstance, the proportions are always the +same. You must consider, therefore, that for every horse you keep for +pleasure, you pass sentence of non-existence on two human beings. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Really, Forester, you are a very singular +fellow. I should not much mind what you say, if you had not such a +strange habit of practising what you preach; a thing quite +unprecedented, and, egad, preposterous. I cannot think where you got it: +I am sure you did not learn it at college. + +_Mr. Fax._ In a political light, every object of perception may be +resolved into one of these three heads: the food consumed—the +consumers—and money. In this point of view all convertible property that +does not eat and drink is money. Diamonds are money. When a man changes +a bank-note for a diamond, he merely changes one sort of money for +another, differing only in the facility of circulation and the stability +of value. None of the produce of the earth is wasted by the permutation. + +_Mr. Forester._ The most pernicious species of luxury, therefore, is +that which applies the fruits of the earth to any other purposes than +those of human subsistence. All luxury is indeed pernicious, because its +infallible tendency is to enervate the few and enslave the many; but +luxury, which, in addition to this evil tendency, destroys the fruits of +the earth in the wantonness of idle ostentation, and thereby prevents +the existence of so many human beings as the quantity of food so +destroyed would maintain, is marked by criminality of a much deeper dye. + +_Mr. Fax._ At the same time you must consider that, in respect of +population, the great desideratum is not number, but quality. If the +whole surface of this country were divided into gardens, and in every +garden were a cottage, and in every cottage a family living entirely on +potatoes, the number of its human inhabitants would be much greater than +at present; but where would be the spirit of commercial enterprise, the +researches of science, the exalted pursuits of philosophical leisure, +the communication with distant lands, and all that variety of human life +and intercourse, which is now so beautiful and interesting? Above all, +where would be the refuge of such a population in times of the slightest +defalcation? Now, the waste of plenty is the resource of scarcity. The +canal that does not overflow in the season of rain will not be navigable +in the season of drought. The rich have been often ready, in days of +emergency, to lay their superfluities aside; but when the fruits of the +earth are applied in plentiful or even ordinary seasons, to the utmost +possibility of human subsistence, the days of deficiency in their +produce must be days of inevitable famine. + +_Mr. Forester._ What then will you say of those who in times of actual +famine persevere in their old course, in the wanton waste of luxury? + +_Mr. Fax._ Truly I have nothing to say for them but that they know not +what they do. + +_Mr. Forester._ If, in any form of human society, any one human being +dies of hunger, while another wastes or consumes in the wantonness of +vanity as much as would have preserved his existence, I hold that second +man guilty of the death of the first. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Surely, Forester, you are not serious. + +_Mr. Forester._ Indeed I am. What would you think of a family of four +persons, two of whom should not be contented with consuming their own +share of diurnal provision but, having adventitiously the pre-eminence +of physical power, should either throw the share of the two others into +the fire, or stew it down into a condiment for their own? + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ I should think it very abominable, certainly. + +_Mr. Forester._ Yet what is human society but one great family? What is +moral duty, but that precise line of conduct which tends to promote the +greatest degree of general happiness? And is not this duty most +flagrantly violated, when one man appropriates to himself the +subsistence of twelve; while, perhaps in his immediate neighbourhood, +eleven of his fellow-beings are dying with hunger? I have seen such a +man walk with a demure face into church, as regularly as if the Sunday +bell had been a portion of his corporeal mechanism, to hear a bloated +and beneficed sensualist hold forth on the text of _Do as ye would be +done by_, or _Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my +brethren, ye have done it unto me_: whereas, if he had wished his theory +to coincide with his practice he would have chosen for his text, _Behold +a man gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and +sinners_:[62] and when the duty of words was over, the auditor and his +ghostly adviser, issuing forth together, have committed poor Lazarus to +the care of Providence, and proceeded to feast in the lordly mansion, +like Dives that lived in purple.[63] + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Well, Forester, there I escape your shaft; for +I have ‘forgotten what the inside of a church is made of,’ since they +made me go to chapel twice a day at college. But go on, and don’t spare +_me_. + +_Mr. Fax._ Let us suppose that ten thousand quarters of wheat will +maintain ten thousand persons during any given portion of time: if the +ten thousand quarters be reduced to five, or if the ten thousand persons +be increased to twenty, the consequence will be immediate and general +distress: yet if the proportions be equally distributed, as in a ship on +short allowance, the general perception of necessity and justice will +preserve general patience and mutual goodwill; but let the first +supposition remain unaltered, let there be ten thousand quarters of +wheat, which shall be full allowance for ten thousand people; then, if +four thousand persons take to themselves the portion of eight thousand, +and leave to the remaining six thousand the portion of two (and this I +fear is even an inadequate picture of the common practice of the world), +these latter will be in a much worse condition on the last than on the +first supposition; while the habit of selfish prodigality deadening all +good feelings and extinguishing all sympathy on the one hand, and the +habit of debasement and suffering combining with the inevitable sense of +oppression and injustice on the other, will produce an action and +reaction of open, unblushing, cold-hearted pride, and servile, +inefficient, ill-disguised resentment, which no philanthropist can +contemplate without dismay. + +_Mr. Forester._ What then will be the case if the same disproportionate +division continues by regular gradations through the remaining six +thousand, till the lowest thousand receive such a fractional pittance as +will scarcely keep life together? If any of these perish with hunger, +what are they but the victims of the first four thousand, who +appropriated more to themselves than either nature required or justice +allowed? This, whatever the temporisers with the world may say of it, I +have no hesitation in pronouncing to be wickedness of the most atrocious +kind; and this I make no doubt was the sense of the founder of the +Christian religion when he said, _It is easier for a camel to pass +through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of +heaven_. + +_Mr. Fax._ You must beware of the chimaera of an agrarian law, the +revolutionary doctrine of an equality of possession; which can never be +possible in practice, till the whole constitution of human nature be +changed. + +_Mr. Forester._ I am no revolutionist. I am no advocate for violent and +arbitrary changes in the state of society. I care not in what +proportions property is divided (though I think there are certain limits +which it ought never to pass, and approve the wisdom of the American +laws in restricting the fortune of a private citizen to twenty thousand +a year), provided the rich can be made to know that they are but the +stewards of the poor, that they are not to be the monopolisers of +solitary spoil, but the distributors of general possession; that they +are responsible for that distribution to every principle of general +justice, to every tie of moral obligation, to every feeling of human +sympathy; that they are bound to cultivate simple habits in themselves, +and to encourage most such arts of industry and peace as are most +compatible with the health and liberty of others. + +_Mr. Fax._ On this principle, then, any species of luxury in the +artificial adornment of persons and dwellings, which condemns the +artificer to a life of pain and sickness in the alternations of the +furnace and the cellar, is more baleful and more criminal than even that +which, consuming in idle prodigality the fruits of the earth, destroys +altogether, in the proportion of its waste, so much of the possibility +of human existence: since it is better not to be than to be in misery. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ That is some consolation for me, as it shows +me that there are others worse than myself; for I really thought you +were going between you to prove me one of the greatest rogues in +England. But seriously, Forester, you think the keeping of +pleasure-horses, for the reasons you have given, a selfish and criminal +species of luxury? + +_Mr. Forester._ I am so far persuaded of it, that I keep none myself. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ But are not these four very beautiful +creatures? Would you wish not to see them in existence, living as they +do a very happy and easy kind of life? + +_Mr. Forester._ That I am disposed to question, when I compare the wild +horse, in his native deserts, in the full enjoyment of health and +liberty, and all the energies of his nature, with those docked, cropped, +curtailed, mutilated animals, pent more than half their lives in the +close confinement of a stable, never let out but to run in trammels, +subject, like their tyrant man, to an infinite variety of diseases, the +produce of civilisation and unnatural life, and tortured every now and +then by some villain of a farrier, who has no more feeling for them than +a West Indian planter has for his slaves; and when you consider, too, +the fate of the most cherished of the species, racers and hunters, +instruments and often victims of sports equally foolish and cruel, you +will acknowledge that the life of the civilised horse is not an enviable +destiny. + +_Mr. Fax._ Horses are noble and useful animals; but as they must +necessarily exist in great numbers for almost every purpose of human +intercourse and business, it is desirable that none should be kept for +purposes of mere idleness and ostentation. A pleasure-horse is a sort of +four-footed sinecurist. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Not quite so mischievous as a two-footed one. + +_Mr. Forester._ Perhaps not: but the latter has always a large retinue +of the former, and therefore the evil is doubled. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Upon my word, Forester, you will almost talk +me out of my barouche, and then what will become of me? What shall I do +to kill time? + +_Mr. Forester._ Read ancient books, the only source of permanent +happiness left in this degenerate world. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Read ancient books! That may be very good +advice to some people: but you forget that I have been at college, and +_finished_ my _education_. By the bye I have one inside, a portable +advocate for my proceedings, no less a personage than old Pindar. + +_Mr. Forester._ Pindar has written very fine odes on driving, as +Anacreon has done on drinking; but the first can no more be adduced to +prove the morality of the whip, than the second to demonstrate the +virtue of intemperance. Besides, as to the mental tendency and emulative +associations of the pursuit itself, no comparison can be instituted +between the charioteers of the Olympic games and those of our turnpike +roads; for the former were the emulators of heroes and demigods, and the +latter of grooms and mail coachmen. + +_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Well, Forester, as I recall to mind the +various subjects against which I have heard you declaim, I will make you +a promise. When ecclesiastical dignitaries imitate the temperance and +humility of the founder of that religion by which they feed and +flourish: when the man in place acts on the principles which he +professed while he was out: when borough electors will not sell their +suffrage, nor their representatives their votes: when poets are not to +be hired for the maintenance of any opinion: when learned divines can +afford to have a conscience: when universities are not a hundred years +in knowledge behind all the rest of the world: when young ladies speak +as they think, and when those who shudder at a tale of the horrors of +slavery will deprive their own palates of a sweet taste, for the purpose +of contributing all in their power to its extinction:—why then, +Forester, I will lay down my barouche. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV + THE WALK + + +They were to pass, in their return, through an estate belonging to Mr. +Forester, for the purpose of taking up his aunt Miss Evergreen, who was +to accompany them to Redrose Abbey. On arriving at an inn on the nearest +point of the great road, Mr. Forester told Sir Telegraph that, from the +arrangements he had made, it was impossible for any carriage to enter +his estate, as he had taken every precaution for preserving the +simplicity of his tenants from the contagious exhibitions and examples +of luxury. ‘This road,’ said he, ‘is only accessible to pedestrians and +equestrians: I have no wish to exclude the visits of laudable curiosity, +but there is nothing I so much dread and deprecate as the intrusion of +those heartless fops, who take their fashionable autumnal tour, to gape +at rocks and waterfalls, for which they have neither eyes nor ears, and +to pervert the feelings and habits of the once simple dwellers of the +mountains.[64] Nature seems to have raised her mountain-barriers for the +purpose of rescuing a few favoured mortals from the vortex of that +torrent of physical and moral degeneracy which seems to threaten nothing +less than the extermination of the human species:[65] but in vain, while +the annual opening of its sluices lets out a side stream of the worst +specimens of what is called refined society, to inundate the mountain +valleys with the corruptions of metropolitan folly. Thus innocence, and +health, and simplicity of life and manners, are banished from their last +retirement, and nowhere more lamentably so than in the romantic scenery +of the northern lakes, where every wonder of nature is made an article +of trade, where the cataracts are locked up, and the echoes are sold: so +that even the rustic character of that ill-fated region is condemned to +participate in the moral stigma which must dwell indelibly on its +poetical name.’ + +The party alighted, and a consultation being held, it was resolved to +walk to the village in a body, the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney lifting her +hands and eyes in profound astonishment at Mr. Forester’s old-fashioned +notions. + +They followed a narrow winding path through rocky and sylvan hills. +They walked in straggling parties of ones, twos, and threes. Mr. +Forester and Anthelia went first. Sir Oran Haut-ton followed alone, +playing a pensive tune on his flute. Sir Telegraph Paxarett walked +between his aunt and cousin, the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney and Miss +Danaretta. Mr. Hippy, in a melancholy vein, brought up the rear with +Mr. Fax. A very beautiful child which had sat on the old gentleman’s +knee, at the inn where they breakfasted, had thrown him, not for the +first time on a similar occasion, into a fit of dismal repentance that +he had not one of his own: he stalked along accordingly, with a most +ruefully lengthened aspect, uttering every now and then a deep-drawn +sigh. Mr. Fax in philosophic sympathy determined to console him, by +pointing out to him the true nature and tendency of the principle of +population, and the enormous evils resulting from the multiplication +of the human species: observing that the only true criterion of the +happiness of a nation was to be found in the number of its old maids +and bachelors, whom he venerated as the sources and symbols of +prosperity and peace. Poor Mr. Hippy walked on sighing and groaning, +deaf as the adder to the voice of the charmer: for, in spite of all +the eloquence of the antipopulationist, the image of the beautiful +child which he had danced on his knee continued to haunt his +imagination, and threatened him with the blue devils for the rest of +the day. + +‘I see,’ said Sir Telegraph to Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘my hopes are at an end. +Forester is the happy man, though I am by no means sure that he knows it +himself.’ + +‘Impossible,’ said Mrs. Pinmoney; ‘Anthelia may be amused a little while +with his rhapsodies, but nothing more, believe me. The man is out of his +mind. Do you know, I heard him say the other day, “that not a shilling +of his property was his own, that it was a portion of the general +possession of human society, of which the distribution had devolved upon +him: and that for the mode of that distribution he was most rigidly +responsible to the principles of immutable justice.” If such a mode of +talking——’ + +‘And acting too,’ said Sir Telegraph; ‘for I assure you he quadrates his +practice as nearly as he can to his theory.’ + +‘Monstrous!’ said Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘what would our reverend friend, poor +dear Doctor Bosky, say to him? But if such a way of talking and acting +be the way to win a young heiress, I shall think the whole world is +turned topsy-turvy.’ + +‘Your remark would be just,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘were that young +heiress any other than Anthelia Melincourt.’ + +‘Well,’ said Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘there are maidens in Scotland more lovely +by far——’ + +‘That I deny,’ said Sir Telegraph. + +‘Who will gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar,’ proceeded Mrs. +Pinmoney. + +‘That will not do,’ said Sir Telegraph: ‘I shall resign with the best +grace I can muster to a more favoured candidate, but I shall never think +of another choice.’ + +‘Twelve months hence,’ said Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘you will tell another tale. +In the meantime you will not die of despair as long as there is a good +turnpike road and a pipe of Madeira in England.’ + + +‘You will find,’ said Mr. Forester to Anthelia, ‘in the little valley we +are about to enter, a few specimens of that simple and natural life +which approaches as nearly as the present state of things will admit to +my ideas of the habits and manners of the primaeval agriculturists, or +the fathers of the Roman republic. You will think perhaps of Fabricius +under his oak, of Curius in his cottage, of Regulus, when he solicited +recall from the command of an army, because the man whom he had +intrusted, in his absence, with the cultivation of his field and garden +had run away with his spade and rake, by which his wife and children +were left without support; and when the senate decreed that the +implements should be replaced, and a man provided at the public expense +to maintain the consul’s family, by cultivating his fields in his +absence. Then poverty was as honourable as it is now disgraceful: then +the same public respect was given to him who could most simplify his +habits and manners that is now paid to those who can make the most +shameless parade of wanton and selfish prodigality. Those days are past +for ever: but it is something in the present time to resuscitate their +memory, to call up even the shadow of the reflection of republican +Rome—_Rome the seat of glory and of virtue, if ever they had one on +earth_.[66] + +‘You excite my curiosity very highly,’ said Anthelia, ‘for, from the +time when I read + + ——in those dear books that first + Woke in my heart the love of poesy, + How with the villagers Erminia dwelt, + And Calidore, for a fair shepherdess, + Forgot his guest to learn the shepherd’s lore; + +how much have I regretted never to discover in the actual inhabitants of +the country the realisation of the pictures of Spenser and Tasso!’ + +‘The palaces,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘that everywhere rise around them to +shame the meanness of their humble dwellings, the great roads that +everywhere intersect their valleys, and bring them continually in +contact with the overflowing corruption of cities, the devastating +monopoly of large farms, that has almost swept the race of cottagers +from the face of the earth, sending the parents to the workhouse or the +army, and the children to perish like untimely blossoms in the blighting +imprisonment of manufactories, have combined to diminish the numbers and +deteriorate the character of the inhabitants of the country; but +whatever be the increasing ravages of the Triad of Mammon, avarice, +luxury, and disease, they will always be the last involved in the vortex +of progressive degeneracy, realising the beautiful fiction of ancient +poetry, that, when primaeval Justice departed from the earth, her last +steps were among the cultivators of the fields.’[67] + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI + THE COTTAGERS + + +The valley expanded into a spacious amphitheatre, with a beautiful +stream winding among pastoral meadows, which, as well as the surrounding +hills, were studded with cottages, each with its own trees, its little +garden, and its farm. Sir Telegraph was astonished to find so many human +dwellings in a space that, on the modern tactics of rural economy, +appeared only sufficient for three or four _moderate_ farms; and Mr. Fax +looked perfectly aghast to perceive the principle of population in such +a fearful state of activity. Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney expressed their +surprise at not seeing a single lordly mansion asserting its regal +pre-eminence over the dwellings of its miserable vassals; while the +voices of the children at play served only to condense the vapours that +obfuscated the imagination of poor Mr. Hippy. Anthelia, as their path +wound among the cottages, was more and more delighted with the neatness +and comfort of the dwellings, the exquisite order of the gardens, the +ingenuous air of happiness and liberty that characterised the simple +inhabitants, and the health and beauty of the little rosy children that +were sporting in the fields. Mr. Forester had been recognised from a +distance. The cottagers ran out in all directions to welcome him: the +valley and the hills seemed starting into life, as men, women, and +children poured down, as with one impulse, on the path of his approach, +while some hastened to the residence of Miss Evergreen, ambitious of +being the first to announce to her the arrival of her nephew. Miss +Evergreen came forward to meet the party, surrounded by a rustic crowd +of both sexes, and of every age, from the old man leaning on his stick, +to the little child that could just run alone, but had already learnt to +attach something magical to the sound of the name of Forester. + +The first idea they entertained at the sight of his party was that he +was married, and had brought his bride to visit his little colony; and +Anthelia was somewhat disconcerted by the benedictions that were poured +upon her under this impression of the warm-hearted rustics. + +They entered Miss Evergreen’s cottage, which was small, but in a style +of beautiful simplicity. Anthelia was much pleased with her countenance +and manners; for Miss Evergreen was an amiable and intelligent woman, +and was single, not from having wanted lovers, but from being of that +order of minds which can love but once. + +Mr. Fax took occasion, during a temporary absence of Miss Evergreen from +the apartment in which they were taking refreshment, to say he was happy +to have seen so amiable a specimen of that injured and calumniated class +of human beings commonly called old maids, who were often so from +possessing in too high a degree the qualities most conducive to domestic +happiness; for it might naturally be imagined that the least refined and +delicate minds would be the soonest satisfied in the choice of a +partner, and the most ready to repair the loss of a first love by the +substitution of a second. This might have led to a discussion, but Miss +Evergreen’s re-entrance prevented it. They now strolled out among the +cottages in detached parties and in different directions. Mr. Fax +attached himself to Mr. Hippy and Miss Evergreen. Anthelia and Mr. +Forester went their own way. She was above the little affectation of +feeling her _dignity_ offended, as our female novel-writers express it, +by the notions which the peasants had formed respecting her. ‘You see,’ +said Mr. Forester, ‘I have endeavoured as much as possible to recall the +images of better times, when the country was well peopled, from the +farms being small, and cultivated chiefly by cottagers who lived in what +was in Scotland called a _cottar town_.[68] Now you may go over vast +tracts of country without seeing anything like an _old English Cottage_, +to say nothing of the fearful difference which has been caused in the +interior of the few that remain by the pressure of exorbitant taxation, +of which the real, though not the nominal burden, always falls most +heavily on the labouring classes, backed by that _canker at the heart of +national prosperity_, the imaginary riches of paper-credit, of which the +means are delusion, the progress monopoly, and the ultimate effect the +extinction of the best portion of national population, a healthy and +industrious peasantry. Large farms bring more rent to the landlord, and +therefore landlords in general make no scruple to increase their rents +by depopulating their estates,[69] though Anthelia Melincourt will not +comprehend the mental principle in which such feelings originate.’ + +‘Is it possible,’ said Anthelia, ‘that you, so young as you are, can +have created such a scene as this?’ + +‘My father,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘began what I merely perpetuate. He +estimated his riches, not by the amount of rent his estate produced, but +the number of simple and happy beings it maintained. He divided it into +little farms of such a size as were sufficient, even in indifferent +seasons, to produce rather more than the necessities of their +cultivators required. So that all these cottagers are rich, according to +the definition of Socrates;[70] for they have at all times a little more +than they actually need, a subsidium for age or sickness, or any +accidental necessity.’ + +They entered several of the cottages, and found in them all the same +traces of comfort and content, and the same images of the better days of +England: the clean-tiled floor, the polished beechen table, the tea-cups +on the chimney, the dresser with its glittering dishes, the old woman +with her spinning-wheel by the fire, and the old man with his little +grandson in the garden, giving him his first lessons in the use of the +spade, the good wife busy in her domestic arrangements, and the pot +boiling on the fire for the return of her husband from his labour in the +field. + +[Illustration: _‘My father,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘began what I merely +perpetuate.’_] + +‘Is it not astonishing,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘that there should be any +who think, as I know many do, the number of cottagers on their land a +grievance, and desire to be quit of them,[71] and have no feeling of +remorse in allotting to one solitary family as much extent of cultivated +land as was ploughed by the whole Roman people in the days of +Cincinnatus?[72] The three great points of every political system are +the health, the morals, and the number of the people. Without health and +morals the people cannot be happy; but without numbers they cannot be a +great and powerful nation, nor even exist for any considerable time.[73] +And by numbers I do not mean the inhabitants of the cities, the sordid +and sickly victims of commerce, and the effeminate and enervated slaves +of luxury; but in estimating the power and the riches of a country, I +take my only criterion from its agricultural population.’ + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII + THE ANTI-SACCHARINE FÊTE + + +Miss Evergreen accompanied them in their return, to preside at the +anti-saccharine fête. Mr. Hippy was turned out to make room for her in +the barouche, and took his seat on the roof with Messieurs Forester and +Fax. Anthelia no longer deemed it necessary to keep a guard over her +heart: the bud of mutual affection between herself and Mr. Forester, +both being, as they were, perfectly free and perfectly ingenuous, was +rapidly expanding into the full bloom of happiness: they dreamed not +that evil was near to check, if not to wither it. + +The whole party was prevailed on by Miss Evergreen to be her guests at +Redrose Abbey till after the anti-saccharine fête, which very shortly +took place, and was attended by the principal members of the +Anti-saccharine Society, and by an illustrious assemblage from near and +from far: amongst the rest by our old acquaintance, Mr. Derrydown, Mr. +O’Scarum, Major O’Dogskin, Mr. Sarcastic, the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, and +Mr. Feathernest the poet, who brought with him his friend Mr. Vamp the +reviewer. Lord Anophel Achthar and the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub deemed it +not expedient to join the party, but ensconced themselves in Alga +Castle, studying _michin malicho_, which means mischief. + +The anti-saccharine fête commenced with a splendid dinner, as Mr. +Forester thought to make luxury on this occasion subservient to +morality, by showing what culinary art could effect without the +intervention of West Indian produce; and the preparers of the feast, +under the superintendence of Miss Evergreen, had succeeded so well, that +the company testified very general satisfaction, except that a worthy +Alderman and Baronet from London (who had been studying the picturesque +at Low-wood Inn, and had given several manifestations of exquisite taste +that had completely won the hearts of Mr. O’Scarum and Major O’Dogskin) +having just helped himself to a slice of venison, fell back aghast +against the back of his chair, and dropped the knife and fork from his +nerveless hands, on finding that currant-jelly was prohibited: but being +recovered by an application of the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney’s +vinaigrette, he proceeded to revenge himself on a very fine pheasant, +which he washed down with floods of Madeira, being never at a loss for +some one to take wine with him, as he had the good fortune to sit +opposite to the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, who was _toujours prêt_ on the +occasion, and a _coup-d’œil_ between them arranged the whole preliminary +of the compotatory ceremonial. + +After dinner Mr. Forester addressed the company. They had seen, he said, +that culinary luxury could be carried to a great degree of refinement +without the intervention of West Indian produce: and though he himself +deprecated luxury altogether, yet he would waive that point for the +present, and concede a certain degree of it to those who fancied they +could not do without it, if they would only in return make so very +slight a concession to philanthropy, to justice, to liberty, to every +feeling of human sympathy, as to abstain from an indulgence which was +obtained by the most atrocious violation of them all, an indulgence of +which the foundations were tyranny, robbery, and murder, and every form +of evil, anguish, and oppression, at which humanity shudders; all which +were comprehended in the single name of SLAVERY. ‘Sugar,’ said he, ‘is +economically superfluous, nay, worse than superfluous: in the middling +classes of life it is a formidable addition to the expenses of a large +family, and for no benefit, for no addition to the stock of domestic +comfort, which is often sacrificed in more essential points to this +frivolous and wanton indulgence. It is physically pernicious, as its +destruction of the teeth, and its effects on the health of children much +pampered with sweetmeats, sufficiently demonstrate. It is morally +atrocious, from being the primary cause of the most complicated +corporeal suffering and the most abject mental degradation that ever +outraged the form and polluted the spirit of man. It is politically +abominable, for covering with every variety of wretchedness some of the +fairest portions of the earth, which, if the inhabitants of free +countries could be persuaded _to abstain from sugar till it were sent to +them by free men_, might soon become the abodes of happiness and +liberty. Slaves cannot breathe in the air of England: ‘They touch our +country and their fetters fall.’ Who is there among you that is not +proud of this distinction?—Yet this is not enough: the produce of the +labour of slavery should be banished from our shores. Not anything, not +an atom of anything, should enter an Englishman’s dwelling, on which the +Genius of Liberty had not set his seal. What would become of slavery if +there were no consumers of its produce? Yet I have seen a party of +pretended philanthropists sitting round a tea-table, and while they +dropped the sugar into their cups repeat some tale of the sufferings of +a slave, and execrate the colonial planters, who are but their caterers +and stewards—the obsequious ministers of their unfeeling sensuality! O +my fair countrywomen! you who have such tender hearts, such affectionate +spirits, such amiable and delicate feelings, do you consider the mass of +mischief and cruelty to which you contribute, nay, of which you are +among the primary causes, when you indulge yourselves in so paltry, so +contemptible a gratification as results from the use of sugar? while to +abstain from it entirely is a privation so trivial, that it is most +wonderful to think that Justice and Charity should have such a boon to +beg from Beauty in the name of the blood and the tears of human beings. +Be not deterred by the idea that you will have few companions by the +better way: so much the rather should it be strictly followed by amiable +and benevolent minds.[74] Secure to yourselves at least the delightful +consciousness of reflecting that you are in no way whatever accomplices +in the cruelty and crime of slavery, and accomplices in it you certainly +are, nay, its very original springs, as long as you are receivers and +consumers of its iniquitous acquisitions.’ + +‘I will answer you, Mr. Forester,’ said Mr. Sarcastic, ‘for myself and +the rest of the company. You shock our feelings excessively by calling +us the primary causes of slavery; and there are very few among us who +have not shuddered at the tales of West Indian cruelty. I assure you we +are very liberal of theoretical sympathy; but as to practical abstinence +from the use of sugar, do you consider what it is you require? Do you +consider how very agreeable to us is the sensation of sweetness in our +palates? Do you suppose we would give up that sensation because human +creatures of the same flesh and blood as ourselves are oppressed and +enslaved, and flogged and tortured, to procure it for us? Do you +consider that Custom[75] is the great lord and master of our conduct? +And do you suppose that any feeling of pity, and sympathy, and charity, +and benevolence, and justice, will overcome the power of Custom, more +especially where any pleasure of sense is attached to his dominion? In +appealing to our pockets, indeed, you touched us to the quick: you aimed +your eloquence at our weak side—you hit us in the vulnerable point; but +if it should appear that in this particular we really might save our +money, yet being expended in a matter of personal and sensual +gratification, it is not to be supposed so completely lost and wasted as +it would be if it were given either to a friend or a stranger in +distress. I will admit, however, that you have touched our feelings a +little, but this disagreeable impression will soon wear off: with some +of us it will last as long as pity for a starving beggar, and with +others as long as grief for the death of a friend; and I find, on a very +accurate average calculation, that the duration of the former may be +considered to be at least three minutes, and that of the latter at most +ten days. + +‘Mr. Sarcastic,’ said Anthelia, ‘you do not render justice to the +feelings of the company; nor is human nature so selfish and perverted as +you seem to consider it. Though there are undoubtedly many who sacrifice +the general happiness of humankind to their own selfish gratification, +yet even these, I am willing to believe, err not in cruelty but in +ignorance, from not seeing the consequences of their own actions; but it +is not by persuading them that all the world is as bad as themselves, +that you will give them clearer views and better feelings. Many are the +modes of evil—many the scenes of human suffering; but if the general +condition of man is ever to be ameliorated, it can only be through the +medium of BELIEF IN HUMAN VIRTUE.’ + +‘Well, Forester,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘if you wish to increase the +numbers of the Anti-saccharine Society, set me down for one.’ + +‘Remember,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘by enrolling your name among us you +pledge yourself to perpetual abstinence from West Indian produce.’ + +‘I am aware of it,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘and you shall find me zealous +in the cause.’ + +The fat Alderman cried out about the ruin of commerce, and Mr. Vamp was +very hot on the subject of the revenue. The question was warmly +canvassed, and many of the party who had not been quite persuaded by +what Mr. Forester had said in behalf of the anti-saccharine system, were +perfectly convinced in its favour when they had heard what Mr. Vamp and +the fat Alderman had to say against it; and the consequence was, that, +in spite of Mr. Sarcastic’s opinion of the general selfishness of +mankind, the numbers of the Anti-saccharine Society were very +considerably augmented. + +‘You see,’ said Mr. Fax to Mr. Sarcastic, ‘the efficacy of associated +sympathies. It is but to give an impulse of cooperation to any good and +generous feeling, and its progressive accumulation, like that of an +Alpine avalanche, though but a snowball at the summit, becomes a +mountain in the valley.’ + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII + THE CHESS DANCE + + +The dinner was followed by a ball, for the opening of which Sir +Telegraph Paxarett, who officiated as master of the ceremonies, had +devised a fanciful scheme, and had procured for the purpose a number of +appropriate masquerade dresses. An extensive area in the middle of the +ballroom was chalked out into sixty-four squares of alternate white and +red, in lines of eight squares each. Sir Telegraph, while the rest of +the company was sipping, not without many wry faces, their +anti-saccharine tea, called out into another apartment the gentlemen +whom he had fixed on to perform in his little ballet; and Miss Evergreen +at the same time withdrew with the intended female performers. Sir +Telegraph now invested Mr. Hippy with the dignity of White King, Major +O’Dogskin with that of Black King, and the Reverend Mr. Portpipe with +that of White Bishop, which the latter hailed as a favourable omen, not +precisely comprehending what was going forward. As the reverend +gentleman was the only one of his cloth in the company, Sir Telegraph +was under the necessity of appointing three lay Bishops, whom he fixed +on in the persons of two country squires, Mr. Hermitage and Mr. Heeltap, +and of the fat Alderman already mentioned, Sir Gregory Greenmould. Sir +Telegraph himself, Mr. O’Scarum, Mr. Derrydown, and Mr. Sarcastic, were +the Knights: and the Rooks were Mr. Feathernest the poet; Mr. +Paperstamp, another variety of the same genus, chiefly remarkable for an +affected infantine lisp in his speech, and for always wearing waistcoats +of a duffel gray; Mr. Vamp the reviewer; and Mr. Killthedead, from +Frogmarsh Hall, a great compounder of narcotics, under the denomination +of BATTLES, for he never heard of a deadly field, especially if dotage +and superstition, to which he was very partial, gained the advantage +over generosity and talent, both of which he abhorred, but immediately +seizing his goosequill and foolscap, + + He fought the BATTLE o’er again, + And twice he slew the slain. + +[Illustration: _The company was sipping, not without many wry faces, +their anti-saccharine tea._] + +Mr. Feathernest was a little nettled on being told that he was to be the +_King’s Rook_, but smoothed his wrinkled brow on being assured that no +_mauvaise plaisanterie_ was intended. + +The Kings were accordingly crowned, and attired in regal robes. The +Reverend Mr. Portpipe and his three brother Bishops were arrayed in full +canonicals. The Knights were equipped in their white and black armour, +with sword, and dazzling helm, and nodding crest. The Rooks were +enveloped in a sort of mural robe, with a headpiece formed on the model +of that which occurs in the ancient figures of Cybele; and thus attired +they bore a very striking resemblance to the walking wall in Pyramus and +Thisbe. + +The Kings now led the way to the ballroom, and the two beautiful Queens, +Miss Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney and Miss Celandina Paperstamp, each +with eight beautiful nymphs, arrayed for the mimic field in light +Amazonian dresses, white and black, did such instant execution among the +hearts of the young gentlemen present, that they might be said to have +‘fought and conquered ere a sword was drawn.’ + +They now proceeded to their stations on their respective squares: but +before we describe their manœuvres we will recapitulate the + + TRIPUDII PERSONAE + + WHITE + + _King_ MR. HIPPY. + _Queen_ MISS DANARETTA CONTANTINA PINMONEY. + _King’s Bishop_ THE REVEREND MR. PORTPIPE. + _Queen’s Bishop_ SIR GREGORY GREENMOULD. + _King’s Knight_ MR. O’SCARUM. + _Queen’s Knight_ SIR TELEGRAPH PAXARETT. + _King’s Rook_ MR. FEATHERNEST. + _Queen’s Rook_ MR. PAPERSTAMP. + _Eight Nymphs._ + + BLACK + + _King_ MAJOR O’DOGSKIN. + _Queen_ MISS CELANDINA PAPERSTAMP. + _King’s Bishop_ SQUIRE HERMITAGE. + _Queen’s Bishop_ SQUIRE HEELTAP. + _King’s Knight_ MR. SARCASTIC. + _Queen’s Knight_ MR. DERRYDOWN. + _King’s Rook_ MR. KILLTHEDEAD. + _Queen’s Rook_ MR. VAMP. + _Eight Nymphs._ + +Mr. Hippy took his station on a black square, near the centre of one of +the extreme lines, and Major O’Dogskin on an opposite white square of +the parallel extreme. The Queens, who were to command in chief, stood on +the left of the Kings: the Bishops were posted to the right and left of +their respective sovereigns; the Knights next to the Bishops; the +corners were occupied by the Rooks. The two lines in front of these +principal personages were occupied by the Nymphs;—a space of four lines +of eight squares each being left between the opposite parties for the +field of action. + +The array was now complete, with the exception of the Reverend Mr. +Portpipe, who being called by Miss Danaretta to take his place at the +right hand of Mr. Hippy, and perceiving that he should be necessitated, +in his character of Bishop, to take a very active part in the diversion, +began to exclaim with great vehemence, NOLO EPISCOPARI! which is +probably the only occasion on which these words were ever used with +sincerity. But Mr. O’Scarum, in his capacity of White Knight, pounced on +the reluctant divine, and placing him between himself and Mr. Hippy, +stood by him with his sword drawn, as if to prevent his escape; then +clapping a sword into the hand of the reverend gentleman, exhorted him +to conduct himself in a manner becoming an efficient member of the true +church militant. + +Lots were then cast for the privilege of attack; and the chance falling +on Miss Danaretta, the music struck up the tune of _The Triumph_, and +the whole of the white party began dancing, with their faces towards the +King, performing at the same time various manœuvres of the sword +exercise, with appropriate pantomimic gestures, expressive of their +entire devotion to His Majesty’s service, and their desire to be +immediately sent forward on active duty. In vain did the Reverend Mr. +Portpipe remonstrate with Mr. O’Scarum that his dancing days were over: +the inexorable Knight compelled him to caper and flourish his sword, +‘till the toil-drops fell from his brows like rain.’ Sir Gregory +Greenmould did his best on the occasion, and danced like an elephant in +black drapery; but Miss Danaretta and her eight lovely Nymphs rescued +the exertions of the male performers from too critical observation. King +Hippy received the proffered service of his army with truly royal +condescension. Miss Danaretta waved her sword with inimitable grace, and +made a sign to the damsel in front of the King to advance two squares. +The same manœuvres now took place on the black side; and Miss Celandina +sent forward the Nymph in front of Major O’Dogskin to obstruct the +further progress of the white damsel. The dancing now recommenced on the +white side, and Miss Danaretta ordered out the Reverend Mr. Portpipe to +occupy the fourth square in front of Squire Heeltap. The reverend +gentleman rolled forward with great alacrity, in the secret hope that he +should very soon be taken prisoner, and put _hors de combat_ for the +rest of the evening. Squire Hermitage was detached by Miss Celandina on +a similar service; and these two episcopal heroes being thus brought +together in the centre of the field, entered, like Glaucus and Diomede, +into a friendly parle, in the course of which the words Claret and +Burgundy were repeatedly overheard. The music frequently varied as in a +pantomime, according to circumstances: the manœuvres were always +directed by the waving of the sword of the Queen, and were always +preceded by the dancing of the whole party, in the manner we have +mentioned, which continued _ad libitum_, till she had decided on her +movement. The Nymph in front of Sir Gregory Greenmould advanced one +square. Mr. Sarcastic stepped forward to the third square of Squire +Hermitage. Miss Danaretta’s Nymph advanced two squares, and being +immediately taken prisoner by the Nymph of Major O’Dogskin, conceded her +place with a graceful bow, and retired from the field. The Nymph in +front of Sir Gregory Greenmould avenged the fate of her companion; and +Mr. Hippy’s Nymph withdrew in a similar manner. Squire Hermitage was +compelled to cut short his conversation with Mr. Portpipe, and retire to +the third square in front of Mr. Derrydown. Sir Telegraph skipped into +the place which Sir Gregory Greenmould’s Nymph had last forsaken. Mr. +Killthedead danced into the deserted quarters of Squire Hermitage, and +Major O’Dogskin swept round him with a minuet step into those of Mr. +Sarcastic. To carry on the detail would require more time than we can +spare, and, perhaps, more patience than our readers possess. The +Reverend Mr. Portpipe saw his party fall around him, one by one, and +survived against his will to the close of the contest. Miss Danaretta +and Miss Celandina moved like light over the squares, and Fortune +alternately smiled and frowned on their respective banners, till the +heavy mural artillery of Mr. Vamp being brought to bear on Mr. +Paperstamp, who fancied himself a tower of strength, the latter was +overthrown and carried off the field. Mr. Feathernest avenged his fate +on the embattled front of Mr. Killthedead, and fell himself beneath the +sword of Mr. Sarcastic. Squire Heeltap was taken off by the Reverend Mr. +Portpipe, who begged his courteous prisoner to walk to the sideboard and +bring him a glass of Madeira; for Homer, he said, was very orthodox in +his opinion that wine was a great refresher in the toils of war.[76] + +The changeful scene concluded by Miss Danaretta, with the aid of Sir +Telegraph and the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, hemming Major O’Dogskin into a +corner, where he was reduced to an incapacity of locomotion; on which +the Major bowed and made the best of his way to the sideboard, followed +by the reverend gentleman, who, after joining the Major in a pacific +libation, threw himself into an arm-chair, and slept very comfortably +till the annunciation of supper. + +Waltzes, quadrilles, and country dances followed in succession, and, +with the exception of the interval of supper, in which Miss Evergreen +developed all the treasures of anti-saccharine taste, were kept up with +great spirit till the rising of the sun. + +Anthelia, who of course did not join in the former, expressed to Mr. +Forester her astonishment to see waltzing in Redrose Abbey. ‘I did not +dream of such a thing,’ said Mr. Forester; ‘but I left the whole +arrangement of the ball to Sir Telegraph, and I suppose he deemed it +incumbent on him to consult _the general taste of the young ladies_. +Even I, young as I am, can remember the time when there was no point of +resemblance between an English girl in a private ballroom and a French +_figurante_ in a theatrical _ballet_; but waltzing and Parisian drapery +have levelled the distinction, and the only criterion of the difference +is the place of the exhibition. Thus every succeeding year witnesses +some new inroad on the simple manners of our ancestors; some importation +of continental vice and folly; some unnatural fretwork of tinsel and +frippery on the old Doric column of the domestic virtues of England. An +Englishman in stays, and an Englishwoman waltzing in treble-flounced +short petticoats, are anomalies so monstrous, that till they actually +existed, they never entered the most ominous visions of the speculators +on progressive degeneracy. What would our Alfred, what would our third +Edward, what would our Milton, and Hampden, and Sidney, what would the +barons of Runnymead have thought, if the voice of prophecy had denounced +to them a period, when the perfection of accomplishment in the daughters +of England would be found in the dress, manner, and action of the +dancing girls of Paris?’ + +The supper, of course, did not pass off without songs; and among them +Anthelia sang the following, which recalled to Mr. Forester their +conversation on the sea-shore. + + THE MORNING OF LOVE + + O the spring-time of life is the season of blooming, + And the morning of love is the season of joy; + Ere noontide and summer, with radiance consuming, + Look down on their beauty, to parch and destroy. + + O faint are the blossoms life’s pathway adorning, + When the first magic glory of hope is withdrawn; + For the flowers of the spring, and the light of the morning, + Have no summer budding, and no second dawn. + + Through meadows all sunshine, and verdure, and flowers, + The stream of the valley in purity flies; + But mix’d with the tides, where some proud city lowers, + O where is the sweetness that dwelt on its rise? + + The rose withers fast on the breast it first graces; + Its beauty is fled ere the day be half done:— + And life is that stream which its progress defaces, + And love is that flower which can bloom but for one. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX + THE DISAPPEARANCE + + +The morning after the fête Anthelia and her party returned to +Melincourt. Before they departed she conversed a few minutes alone with +Mr. Forester in his library. What was said on this occasion we cannot +precisely report; but it seemed to be generally suspected that Mr. +Hippy’s authority would soon be at an end, and that the services of the +Reverend Mr. Portpipe would be required in the old chapel of Melincourt +Castle, which, we are sorry to say, had fallen for some years past very +much into disuse, being never opened but on occasions of birth, +marriage, and death in the family; and these occasions, as our readers +are aware, had not of late been very numerous. + +The course of mutual love between Anthelia and Mr. Forester was as +smooth as the gliding of a skiff down a stream, through the flowery +meadows of June: and if matters were not quite definitely settled +between them, yet, as Mr. Forester was shortly to be a visitor at the +Castle, there was a very apparent probability that their intercourse +would terminate in that grand climax and finale of all romantic +adventure—marriage. + +After the departure of the ladies, Mr. Forester observed with concern +that his friend Sir Oran’s natural melancholy was visibly increased, and +Mr. Fax was of opinion that he was smitten with the tender passion: but +whether for Miss Melincourt, Mrs. Pinmoney, or Miss Danaretta, it was +not so easy to determine. But Sir Oran grew more and more fond of +solitude, and passed the greater part of the day in the woods, though it +was now the reign of the gloomy November, which, however, accorded with +the moody temper of his spirit; and he often went without his breakfast, +though he always came home to dinner. His perpetual companion was his +flute, with which he made sad response to the wintry wind. + +[Illustration: _Mr. Fax was of opinion that he was smitten._] + +Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax were one morning consulting on the means to be +adopted for diverting Sir Oran’s melancholy, when Sir Telegraph Paxarett +drove up furiously to the door—sprang from the box—and rushed into the +apartment with the intelligence that Anthelia had disappeared. No one +had seen her since the hour of breakfast on the preceding day. Mr. +Hippy, Mr. Derrydown, Mr. O’Scarum, and Major O’Dogskin were scouring +the country in all directions in search of her. + +Mr. Forester determined not to rest night or day till he had discovered +Anthelia. Sir Telegraph drove him, with Mr. Fax and Sir Oran, to the +nearest inn, where leaving Sir Telegraph to pursue another track, they +took a chaise-and-four, and posted over the country in all directions, +day after day, without finding any clue to her retreat. Mr. Forester had +no doubt that this adventure was connected with that which we have +detailed in the eighteenth chapter; but his ignorance of the actors on +that occasion prevented his deriving any light from the coincidence. At +length, having investigated in vain all the main and cross roads for +fifty miles round Melincourt, Mr. Fax was of opinion that she could not +have passed so far along any of them, being conveyed, as no doubt she +was, against her will, without leaving some trace of her course, which +their indefatigable inquiries must have discovered. He therefore advised +that they should discontinue their system of posting, and take a +thorough pedestrian perlustration of all the most bye and unfrequented +paths of the whole mountain-district, in some secluded part of which he +had a strong presentiment she would be found. This plan was adopted; but +the season was unfavourable to its expeditious accomplishment; and they +could sometimes make but little progress in a day, being often compelled +to turn aside from the wilder tracks, in search of a town or village, +for the purposes of refreshment or rest:—there being this remarkable +difference between the lovers of the days of chivalry and those of +modern times, that the former could pass a week or two in a desert or a +forest, without meat, drink, or shelter—a very useful art for all +travellers, whether lovers or not, which these degenerate days have +unfortunately lost. + +They arrived in the evening of the first day of their pedestrianism at a +little inn among the mountains. They were informed they could have no +beds; and that the only parlour was occupied by two gentlemen, who meant +to sit up all night, and would, perhaps, have no objection to their +joining the party. A message being sent in, an affirmative answer was +very politely returned; and on entering the apartment they discovered +Mr. O’Scarum and Major O’Dogskin engaged in a deep discussion over a +large jug of wine. + +‘Troth, now,’ said Mr. O’Scarum, ‘and this is a merry meeting, sure +enough, though it’s on a dismal occasion, for it’s Miss Melincourt +you’re looking for, as we are too, though you have most cause, Mr. +Forester; for I understand you are to be the happy man. Troth, and I did +not know so much when I came to your fête, or, perhaps, I should have +been for arguing the point of a prior claim (as far as my own consent +was concerned) over a bit of neat turf, twelve yards long; but Major +O’Dogskin tells me, that by getting muzzy, and so I did, sure enough, on +your old Madeira, and rare stuff it is, by my conscience, when Miss +Melincourt was in your house, I have sanctioned the matter, and there’s +an end of it: but, by my soul, I did not mean to have been cut out +quietly: and the Major says, too, you’re too good a fellow to be kilt, +and that’s true enough: so I’ll keep my ammunition for other friends; +and here’s to you and Miss Melincourt, and a happy meeting to you both, +and the devil take him that parts you, says Harum O’Scarum.’—‘And so +says Dermot O’Dogskin,’ said the Major. ‘And my friend O’Scarum and +myself will ride about till we get news of her, for we don’t mind a +little hardship.—You shall be wanting some dinner, joys, and there’s +nothing but fat bacon and potatoes; but we have made a shift with it, +and then here is the very creature itself, old sherry, my jewels! troth, +and how did we come home by it, think you? I know what it is to pass a +night in a little inn in the hills, and you don’t find Major O’Dogskin +turning out of the main road, without giving his man a couple of kegs of +wine just to balance the back of his saddle. Sherry’s a good traveller, +and will stand a little shaking; and what would one do without it in +such a place as this, where it is water in the desert, and manna in the +wilderness?’ + +Mr. Forester thanked them very warmly for their good wishes and active +exertions. The humble dinner of himself and his party was soon +despatched; after which, the Major placed the two little kegs on the +table and said, ‘They were both filled to-day; so, you see, there is no +lack of the good creature to keep us all alive till morning, and then we +shall part again in search of Miss Melincourt, the jewel! for there is +not such another on the face of the earth. Och!’ continued the Major, as +he poured the wine from one of the kegs into a brown jug; for the house +could not afford them a decanter, and some little ale tumblers supplied +the place of wine-glasses,—‘Och! the ould jug that never held anything +better than sour ale: how proud he must feel of being filled to the brim +with sparkling sherry, for the first and last time in the course of his +life!’ + + + + + CHAPTER XXX + THE PAPER-MILL + + +Taking leave of Mr. O’Scarum and Major O’Dogskin, they continued their +wandering as choice or chance directed: sometimes penetrating into the +most sequestered valleys; sometimes returning into the principal roads, +and investigating the most populous districts. Passing through the town +of Gullgudgeon, they found an immense crowd assembled in a state of +extreme confusion, exhibiting every symptom of hurry, anxiety, +astonishment, and dismay. They stopped to inquire the cause of the +tumult, and found it to proceed from the sudden explosion of a +paper-mill, in other words, the stoppage of the country bank of +Messieurs Smokeshadow, Airbubble, Hopthetwig, and Company. Farmers, +bumpkins, artisans, mechanics, tradesmen of all descriptions, the +innkeeper, the lawyer, the doctor, and the parson; soldiers from the +adjoining barracks, and fishermen from the neighbouring coast, with +their shrill-voiced and masculine wives, rolled in one mass, like a +stormy wave, around a little shop, of which the shutters were closed, +with the word BANK in golden letters over the door, and a large board on +the central shutter, notifying that ‘Messieurs Smokeshadow, Airbubble, +Hopthetwig, and Company had found themselves under the disagreeable +necessity of suspending their payments’; in plain English, had found it +expedient to fly by night, leaving all the machinery of their mill, and +all the treasures of their mine, that is to say, several reams of paper, +half a dozen account-books, a desk, a joint-stool, and inkstand, a bunch +of quills, and a copper-plate, to satisfy the claims of the distracted +multitude, who were shoaling in from all quarters, with _promises to +pay_, of the said Smokeshadow, Airbubble, Hopthetwig, and Company, to +the amount of a hundred thousand pounds. + +Mr. Fax addressed himself for an explanation of particulars to a plump +and portly divine, who was standing at a little distance from the rest +of the crowd, and whose countenance exhibited no symptoms of the rage, +grief, and despair which were depicted on the physiognomies of his +dearly beloved brethren of the town of Gullgudgeon. + +‘You seem, sir,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘to bear the general calamity with +Christian resignation.’ + +‘I do, sir,’ said the reverend gentleman, ‘and for a very orthodox +reason—I have none of their notes—not I. I was obliged to take them now +and then against my will, but I always sent them off to town, and got +cash for them directly.’ + +‘You mean to say,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘you got a Threadneedle Street +note for them.’ + +‘To be sure, sir,’ said the divine, ‘and that is the same thing as cash. +There is a Jacobin rascal in this town, who says it is a bad sign when +the children die before the parent, and that a day of reckoning must +come sooner or later for the old lady as well as for her daughters; but +myself and my brother magistrates have taken measures for him, and shall +soon make the town of Gullgudgeon too hot to hold him, as sure as my +name is Peppertoast.’ + +‘You seriously think, sir,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘that his opinion is false?’ + +‘Sir,’ said the reverend gentleman, somewhat nettled, ‘I do not know +what right any one can have to ask a man of my cloth what he seriously +thinks, when all that the world has to do with is what he seriously +says.’ + +‘Then you seriously say it, sir?’ said Mr. Fax. + +‘I do, sir,’ said the divine; ‘and for this very orthodox reason, that +the system of paper-money is inseparably interwoven with the present +order of things, and the present order of things I have made up my mind +to stick by, precisely as long as it lasts.’ + +‘_And no longer?_’ said Mr. Fax. + +‘I am no fool, sir,’ said the divine. + +‘But, sir,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘as you seem to have perceived the instability +of what is called (like _lucus a non lucendo_) the _firm_ of +Smokeshadow, Airbubble, Hopthetwig, and Company, why did not you warn +your flock of the impending danger?’ + +‘Sir,’ said the reverend gentleman, ‘I dined every week with one of the +partners.’ + +Mr. Forester took notice of an elderly woman who was sitting with a +small handful of dirty paper, weeping bitterly on the step of a door. +‘Forgive my intrusion,’ said he; ‘I need not ask you why you weep; the +cause is in your hand.’—‘Ah, sir!’ said the poor woman, who could hardly +speak for sobbing, ‘all the savings of twenty years taken from me in a +moment; and my poor boy, when he comes home from sea——’ She could say no +more: grief choked her utterance. + +‘Good God!’ said Mr. Fax, ‘did you lay by your savings in country +paper?’ + +‘O sir!’ said the poor woman, ‘how was I to know that one piece of paper +was not as good as another? And everybody said that the firm of +Smokeshadow, Airbubble, Hopthetwig, and Company was as good as the Bank +of England.’ She then unfolded one of the _promises to pay_, and fell to +weeping more bitterly than ever. Mr. Forester comforted her as well as +he could; but he found the purchasing of one or two of her notes much +more efficacious than all the lessons of his philosophy. + +‘This is all your fault,’ said a fisherman to his wife; ‘you would be +hoarding and hoarding, and stinting me of my drop of comfort when I came +in after a hard day’s work, tossed and beaten, and wet through with salt +water, and there’s what we’ve got by it.’ + +‘It was all your fault,’ retorted the wife; ‘when we had scraped +together twenty as pretty golden guineas as ever laid in a chest, you +would sell ’em, so you would, for twenty-seven pounds of Mr. +Smokeshadow’s paper; _and now you see the difference_.’ + +‘Here is an illustration,’ said Mr. Fax to Mr. Forester, ‘of the old +maxim of _experience teaching wisdom_, or, as Homer expresses it, ῥεχθεν +δε τε νηπιος ἐγνω.’ + +‘_We ought now to be convinced, if not before_,’ said Mr. Forester, +‘_that what Plato has said is strictly true, that there will be no end +of human misery till governors become philosophers or philosophers +governors_; and that all the evils which this country suffers, and, I +fear, will suffer to a much greater extent, from the bursting of this +fatal bubble of paper-money—this chimerical symbol of imaginary +riches—_are owing to the want of philosophy and true political wisdom in +our rulers, by which they might have seen things in their causes, not +felt them only in their effects, as even the most vulgar man does: and +by which foresight, all the mischiefs that are befalling us might have +been prevented_.’[77] + +‘Very hard,’ said an old soldier, ‘very, very hard:—a poor five pounds, +laid up for a rainy day,—hardly got, and closely kept—very, very hard.’ + +‘Poor man!’ said Mr. Forester, who was interested in the soldier’s +physiognomy, ‘let me repair your loss. Here is better paper for you; but +get gold and silver for it as soon as you can.’ + +‘God bless your honour,’ said the soldier, ‘and send as much power as +goodwill to all such generous souls. Many is the worthy heart that this +day’s work will break, and here is more damage than one man can mend. +God bless your honour.’ + +A respectable-looking female approached the crowd, and addressing +herself to Mr. Fax, who seemed most at leisure to her, asked him what +chance there seemed to be for the creditors of Messieurs Smokeshadow, +Airbubble, Hopthetwig, and Company. ‘By what I can gather from the +people around me,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘none whatever.’ The lady was in great +distress at this intelligence, and said they were her bankers, and it +was the second misfortune of the kind that had happened to her. Mr. Fax +expressed his astonishment that she should have been twice the victim of +the system of paper-coinage, which seemed to contradict the old adage +about a burnt child; and said it was for his part astonishing to him how +any human being could be so deluded after the perils of the system had +been so clearly pointed out, and amongst other things, in a pamphlet of +his own on the Insubstantiality of Smoke. ‘Indeed,’ she said, ‘she had +something better to do than to trouble herself about politics, and +wondered he should insult her in her distress by talking of such stuff +to her.’ + +‘Was ever such infatuation?’ said Mr. Fax, as the lady turned away. +‘This is one of those persons who choose to walk blindfold on the edge +of a precipice, because it is too much trouble to see, and quarrel with +their best friends for requesting them to make use of their eyes. There +are many such, who think they have no business with politics; but they +find to their cost that politics will have business with them.’ + +‘A curse light on all kite-flyers!’ vociferated a sturdy farmer. ‘Od +rabbit me, here be a bundle o’ trash, measters! not worth a +voive-and-zixpenny dollar all together. This comes o’ peaper-mills. “I +promise to pay,” ecod! O the good old days o’ goulden guineas, when I +used to ride whoame vrom market wi’ a great heavy bag in my pocket; and +when I whopped it down on the old oak teable, it used to make zuch a +zound as did one’s heart good to hear it. No _promise to pay_ then. Now +a man may eat his whole vortin in a zandwich, or zet vire to it in a +vardin rushlight. Promise to pay!—the lying rascals, they never meant to +pay: they knew all the while they had no effects to pay; but zuch a +pretty, zmooth-spoken, palavering zet o’ fellers! why, Lord bless you! +they’d ha’ made you believe black was white! and though you could never +get anything of ’em but one o’ their own dirty bits o’ peaper in change +vor another, they made it out as clear as daylight that they were as +rich as zo many Jews. Ecod! and we were all vools enough to believe ’em, +and now mark the end o’t.’ + +‘Yes, father,’ said a young fop at his elbow, ‘all blown, curse me!’ + +‘Ees,’ said the farmer, ‘and thee beest blown, and thee mun zell thy +hunter, and turn to the plough-tail; and thy zisters mun churn butter, +and milk the cows, instead of jingling penny-vorties, and dancing at +race-balls wi’ squires. We mun be old English varmers again, and none o’ +your voine high-flying promise-to-pay gentlevolks. There they be—spell +’em: _I promise to pay to Mr. Gregory Gas, or bearer, on demand, the zum +o’ voive pounds. Gullgudgeon Bank, April the virst. Vor Zmokeshadow, +Airbubble, Zelf, and Company, Henry Hopthetwig. Entered, William +Walkoff._ And there be their coat o’ arms: two blacksmiths blowing a +vorge, wi’ the chimney vor a crest, and a wreath o’ smoke coming out +o’t; and the motto, ‘YOU CAN’T CATCH A BOWLFUL.’ Od rabbit me! here be a +whole handvul of ’em, and I’ll zell ’em all vor a voive-and-zixpenny +dollar.’ + +The ‘Jacobin rascal,’ of whom the reverend gentleman had spoken, +happened to be at the farmer’s elbow. ‘I told you how it would be,’ said +he, ‘Master Sheepshead, many years ago; and I remember you wanted to put +me in the stocks for my trouble.’ + +‘Why, I believe I did, Mr. Lookout,’ said the farmer, with a very +penitent face; ‘but if you’ll call on me zome day we’ll drown old +grudges in a jug o’ ale, and light our poipes wi’ the promises o’ +Measter Hopthetwig and his gang.’ + +‘Not with all of them I entreat you,’ said Mr. Lookout. ‘I hope you will +have one of them framed and glazed, and suspended over your chimney, as +a warning to your children, and your children’s children for ever, +against “_the blessed comforts of paper-money_.”’ + +‘Why, Lord love you, Measter Lookout,’ said the farmer, ‘we shall ha’ +nothing but peaper-money still, you zee, only vrom another mill like.’ + +‘As to that, Master Sheepshead,’ replied Mr. Lookout, ‘I will only say +to you in your own phrase, MARK THE END O’T.’ + +‘Do you hear him?’ said the Rev. Mr. Peppertoast; ‘do you hear the +Jacobin rascal? Do you hear the libellous, seditious, factious, +levelling, revolutionary, republican, democratical, atheistical +villain?’ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI + CIMMERIAN LODGE + + +After a walk of some miles from the town of Gullgudgeon, where no +information was to be obtained of Anthelia, their path wound along +the shores of a lonely lake, embosomed in dark pine-groves and +precipitous rocks. As they passed near a small creek, they +observed a gentleman just stepping into a boat, who paused and +looked up at the sound of their approximation; and Mr. Fax +immediately recognised the poeticopolitical, rhapsodicoprosaical, +deisidaemoniacoparadoxographical, pseudolatreiological, +transcendental meteorosophist, Moley Mystic, Esquire, of Cimmerian +Lodge. This gentleman’s Christian name, according to his own +account, was improperly spelt with an _e_, and was in truth +nothing more nor less than + + That Moly, + Which Hermes erst to wise Ulysses gave; + +and which was, in the mind of Homer, _a pure anticipated cognition_ of +the system of Kantian metaphysics, or grand transcendental science of +the _luminous obscure_; for it had a _dark root_,[78] which was mystery; +and _a white flower_, which was abstract truth: _it was called Moly by +the gods_, who then kept it to themselves; and was _difficult to be dug +up by mortal men_, having, in fact, lain _perdu_ in subterranean +darkness till the immortal Kant dug for it _under the stone of doubt_, +and produced it to the astonished world as the _root of human science_. +Other persons, however, derived his first name differently; and +maintained that the _e_ in it showed it very clearly to be a corruption +of _Mole-eye_, it being the opinion of some naturalists that the _mole_ +has _eyes_, which it can withdraw or project at pleasure, implying a +faculty of wilful blindness, most happily characteristic of a +transcendental metaphysician; since, according to the old proverb, _None +are so blind as those who won’t see_. But be that as it may, Moley +Mystic was his name, and Cimmerian Lodge was his dwelling. + +Mr. Mystic invited Mr. Fax and his friends to step with him into the +boat, and cross over his lake, which he called the _Ocean of Deceitful +Form_, to the _Island of Pure Intelligence_, on which Cimmerian Lodge +was situated: promising to give them a great treat in looking over his +grounds, which he had laid out according to the _topography of the human +mind_; and to enlighten them, through the medium of ‘darkness visible,’ +with an opticothaumaturgical process of transcendentalising a +_cylindrical mirror_, which should teach them the difference between +_objective_ and _subjective reality_.[79] Mr. Forester was unwilling to +remit his search, even for a few hours; but Mr. Fax observing that great +part of the day was gone, and that Cimmerian Lodge was very remote from +the human world; so that if they did not avail themselves of Mr. +Mystic’s hospitality, they should probably be reduced to the necessity +of passing the night among the rocks, _sub Jove frigido_, which he did +not think very inviting, Mr. Forester complied; and with Mr. Fax and Sir +Oran Haut-ton stepped into the boat. The reader who is deficient in +_taste for the bombast_, and is no _admirer of the obscure_, may as well +wait on the shore till they return. But we must not enter the regions of +mystery without an Orphic invocation. + + ὙΠΝΕ ἀναξ, καλεω δε μολειν κεχαρηοτα ΜΥΣΤΑΙΣ· + και δε, μακαρ, λιτομαι, Tανυδιπτερε, οὐλε ὈΝΕΙΡΕ· + και ΝΕΦΕΛΑΣ καλεω, δροσοειμονας, ἠεροπλαγκτους· + ΝΥΚΤΑ τε πρεσβιστην, πολυηρατον ὈΡΓΙΟΦΑΝΤΑΙΣ, + ΝΥΚΤΕΡΙΟΥΣ τε ΘΕΟΥΣ, ὑπο κευθεδιν οἰκι έχοντας, + ἀντρῳ ἐν ἠεροεντι, παρα ΣΤΥΓΟΣ ἱερον ὑδωρ· + ΠΡΩΤΕΙ συν πολυβουλῳ, ὁν ὈΛΒΟΔΟΤΗΝ[80] καλεουσιν. + + Ο sovereign Sleep! in whose papaverous glen + Dwell the dark Muses of Cimmerian men! + O Power of Dreams! whose dusky pinions shed + Primaeval chaos on the slumberer’s head! + Ye misty Clouds! amid whose folds sublime + Blind Faith invokes the Ghost of Feudal Time! + And thou, thick night! beneath whose mantle rove + The Phantom Powers of Subterranean Jove! + Arise, propitious to the mystic strain, + From Lethe’s flood, and Zeal’s Tartarian fane; + Where Freedom’s Shade, ‘mid Stygian vapours damp, + Sits, cold and pale, by Truth’s extinguished lamp; + While Cowls and Crowns portentous orgies hold, + And tuneful Proteus seals his eyes with gold! + +They had scarcely left the shore when they were involved in a fog of +unprecedented density, so that they could not see one another; but they +heard the dash of Mr. Mystic’s oars, and were consoled by his assurances +that he could not miss his way in a state of the atmosphere so +consentaneous to his peculiar mode of vision; for that, though, in +navigating his little skiff on the _Ocean of Deceitful Form_, he had +very often wandered wide and far from the _Island of Pure Intelligence_, +yet this had always happened when he went with his eyes open, in broad +daylight; but that he had soon found the means of obviating this little +inconvenience, by always keeping his eyes close shut whenever the sun +had the impertinence to shine upon him. + +He immediately added that he would take the opportunity of making a +remark perfectly in point: ‘that Experience was a Cyclops, with his eye +in the back of his head’; and when Mr. Fax remarked that he did not see +the connection, Mr. Mystic said he was very glad to hear it; for he +should be sorry if any one but himself could see the connection of his +ideas, as he arranged his thoughts _on a new principle_. + +They went steadily on through the dense and heavy air, over waters that +slumbered like the Stygian pool; a chorus of frogs, that seemed as much +delighted with their own melody as if they had been an oligarchy of +poetical critics, regaling them all the way with the Aristophanic +symphony of BREK-EK-EK-EX! KO-AX! KO-AX![81] till the boat fixed its +keel in the _Island of Pure Intelligence_; and Mr. Mystic landed his +party, as Charon did Aeneas and the Sibyl, in a bed of weeds and +mud:[82] after floundering in which for some time, from losing their +guide in the fog, they were cheered by the sound of his voice from +above, and scrambling up the bank, found themselves on a hard and barren +rock; and, still following the sound of Mr. Mystic’s voice, arrived at +Cimmerian Lodge. + +The fog had penetrated into all the apartments: there was fog in the +hall, fog in the parlour, fog on the staircases, fog in the bedrooms; + + The fog was here, the fog was there, + The fog was all around. + +It was a little rarefied in the kitchen, by virtue of the enormous fire; +so far, at least, that the red face of the cook shone through it, as +they passed the kitchen door, like the disk of the rising moon through +the vapours of an autumnal river: but to make amends for this, it was +condensed almost into solidity in the library, where the voice of their +invisible guide bade them welcome to the _adytum_ of the LUMINOUS +OBSCURE. + +Mr. Mystic now produced what he called his _synthetical torch_, and +requested them to follow him, and look over his grounds. Mr. Fax said it +was perfectly useless to attempt it in such a state of the atmosphere; +but Mr. Mystic protested that it was the only state of the atmosphere in +which they could be seen to advantage; as daylight and sunshine utterly +destroyed their beauty. + +They followed the ‘darkness visible’ of the _synthetical torch_, which, +according to Mr. Mystic, _shed around it the rays of transcendental +illumination_; and he continued to march before them, walking, and +talking, and pointing out innumerable images of singularly nubilous +beauty, though Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax both declared they could see +nothing but the fog and ‘_la pale lueur du magique flambeau_‘: till Mr. +Mystic observing that they were now in a _Spontaneity free from Time or +Space_, and at the point of _Absolute Limitation_, Mr. Fax said he was +very glad to hear it; for in that case they could go no farther. Mr. +Mystic observed that they must go farther; for they were entangled in a +maze, from which they would never be able to extricate themselves +without his assistance; and he must take the liberty to tell them that +_the categories of modality were connected into the idea of absolute +necessity_. As this was spoken in a high tone, they took it to be meant +for a reprimand; which carried the more weight as it was the less +understood. At length, after floundering on another half-hour, the fog +still thicker and thicker, and the torch still dimmer and dimmer, they +found themselves once more in Cimmerian Lodge. + +[Illustration: _Mr. Mystic observed that they must go farther._] + +Mr. Mystic asked them how they liked his grounds, and they both repeated +they had seen nothing of them: on which he flew into a rage and called +them _empirical psychologists_, and _slaves of definition, induction, +and analysis_, which he intended for terms of abuse, but which were not +taken for such by the persons to whom he addressed them. + +Recovering his temper, he observed that it was nearly the hour of +dinner: and as they did not think it worth while to be angry with him, +they contented themselves with requesting that they might dine in the +kitchen, which seemed to be the only spot on the _Island of Pure +Intelligence_ in which there was a glimmer of light. + +Mr. Mystic remarked that he thought this very bad taste, but that he +should have no objection if the cook would consent; who, he observed, +had paramount dominion over that important division of the _Island of +Pure Intelligence_. The cook, with a little murmuring, consented for +once to evacuate her citadel as soon as the dinner was on table; +entering, however, a protest, that this infringement on her privileges +should not be pleaded as a precedent. + +Mr. Fax was afraid that Mr. Mystic would treat them as Lord Peter +treated his brothers; that he would put nothing on the table, and regale +them with a dissertation on the _pure idea of absolute substance_; but +in this he was agreeably disappointed; for the _anticipated cognition_ +of a good dinner very soon smoked before them, in the _relation of +determinate coexistence_; and the _objective phenomenon_ of some +superexcellent Madeira quickly put the whole party in perfect good +humour. It appeared, indeed, to have a diffusive quality of occult and +mysterious virtue; for, with every glass they drank, the fog grew thin, +till by the time they had taken off four bottles among them, it had +totally disappeared. + +Mr. Mystic now prevailed on them to follow him to the library, where +they found a blazing fire and a four-branched gas-lamp, shedding a much +brighter radiance than that of the _synthetical torch_. He said he had +been obliged to light this lamp, as it seemed they could not see by the +usual illumination of Cimmerian Lodge. The brilliancy of the gas-lights +he much disapproved; but he thought it would be very unbecoming in a +transcendental philosopher to employ any other material for a purpose to +which _smoke_ was applicable. Mr. Fax said he should have thought, on +the contrary, that _ex fumo dare lucem_ would have been, of all things, +the most repugnant to his principles; and Mr. Mystic replied that it had +not struck him so before, but that Mr. Fax’s view of the subject ‘was +exquisitely dusky and fuliginous’: this being his usual mode of +expressing approbation, instead of the common phraseology of _bright +thoughts_ and _luminous ideas_, which were equally abhorrent to him both +in theory and practice. However, he said, there the light was, for their +benefit, and not for his: and as other men’s light was his darkness, he +should put on a pair of spectacles of smoked glass, which no one could +see through but himself. Having put on his spectacles, he undrew a black +curtain, discovered a _cylindrical mirror_, and placed a sphere before +it with great solemnity. ‘This sphere,’ said he, ‘is an oblong spheroid +in the perception of the cylindrical mirror: as long as the mirror +thought that the object of his perception was the real external oblong +spheroid, he was a mere _empirical philosopher_; but he has grown wiser +since he has been in my library; and by reflecting very deeply on the +degree in which the manner of his construction might influence the forms +of his perception, has taken a very opaque and tenebricose view of how +much of the spheroidical perception belongs to the _object_, which is +the sphere, and how much to the _subject_, which is himself, in his +quality of _cylindrical mirror_. He has thus discovered the difference +between _objective_ and _subjective reality_: and this point of view is +_transcendentalism_.’ + +‘A very dusky and fuliginous speculation, indeed,’ said Mr. Fax, +complimenting Mr. Mystic in his own phrase. + +Tea and coffee were brought in. ‘I divide my day,’ said Mr. Mystic, ‘_on +a new principle_: I am always poetical at breakfast, moral at luncheon, +metaphysical at dinner, and political at tea. Now you shall know my +opinion of the hopes of the world.—General discontent shall be the basis +of public resignation![83] The materials of political gloom will build +the steadfast frame of hope.[84] The main point is to get rid of +analytical reason, which is experimental and practical, and live only by +faith,[85] which is synthetical and oracular. The contradictory +interests of ten millions may neutralise each other.[86] But the spirit +of Antichrist is abroad:[87]—the people read!—nay, they think!! The +people read and think!!! The public, the public in general, the swinish +multitude, the many-headed monster, actually reads and thinks!!!![88] +Horrible in thought, but in fact most horrible! Science classifies +flowers. Can it make them bloom where it has placed them in its +classification![89] No. Therefore flowers ought not to be classified. +This is transcendental logic. Ha! in that cylindrical mirror I see three +shadowy forms:—dimly I see them through the smoked glass of my +spectacles. Who art thou?—MYSTERY!—I hail thee! Who art thou?—JARGON—I +love thee! Who art thou?—SUPERSTITION!—I worship thee! Hail, +transcendental TRIAD!’ + +Mr. Fax cut short the thread of his eloquence by saying he would trouble +him for the cream-jug. + +[Illustration: _Sir Oran Haut-ton ascending the stairs with the great +rain-water tub._] + +Mr. Mystic began again, and talked for three hours without intermission, +except that he paused a moment on the entrance of sandwiches and +Madeira. His visitors sipped his wine in silence till he had fairly +talked himself hoarse. Neither Mr. Fax nor Mr. Forester replied to his +paradoxes; for to what end, they thought, should they attempt to answer +what few would hear and none would understand? + +It was now time to retire, and Mr. Mystic showed his guests to the doors +of their respective apartments, in each of which a gas-light was +burning, and ascended another flight of stairs to his own dormitory, +with a little twinkling taper in his hand. Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax +stayed a few minutes on the landing-place, to have a word of +consultation before they parted for the night. Mr. Mystic gained the +door of his apartment—turned the handle of the lock—and had just +advanced one step—when the whole interior of the chamber became suddenly +sheeted with fire: a tremendous explosion followed; and he was +precipitated to the foot of the stairs in _the smallest conceivable +fraction of the infinite divisibility of time_. + +Mr. Forester picked him up, and found him not much hurt, only a little +singed, and very much frightened. But the whole interior of the +apartment continued to blaze. Mr. Forester and Sir Oran Haut-ton ran for +water: Mr. Fax rang the nearest bell: Mr. Mystic vociferated ‘Fire!’ +with singular energy: the servants ran about half-undressed: pails, +buckets, and pitchers, were in active requisition; till Sir Oran +Haut-ton ascending the stairs with the great rain-water tub, containing +one hundred and eight gallons of water,[90] threw the whole contents on +the flames with one sweep of his powerful arm. + +The fire being extinguished, it remained to ascertain its cause. It +appeared that the gas-tube in Mr. Mystic’s chamber had been left +unstopped, and the gas evolving without combustion (the apartment being +perfectly air-tight), had condensed into a mass, which, on the approach +of Mr. Mystic’s taper, instantly ignited, blowing the transcendentalist +downstairs, and setting fire to his curtains and furniture. + +Mr. Mystic, as soon as he recovered from his panic, began to bewail the +catastrophe: not so much, he said, for itself, as because such an event +in Cimmerian Lodge was an infallible omen of evil—a type and symbol of +an approaching period of public light—when the smoke of metaphysical +mystery, and the vapours of ancient superstition, which he had done all +that in him lay to consolidate in the spirit of man, would explode at +the touch of analytical reason, leaving nothing but the plain common +sense matter-of-fact of moral and political truth—a day that he +earnestly hoped he might never live to see. + +‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘it is a very bad omen for all who make +it their study to darken the human understanding, when one of the +pillars of their party _is blown up by his own smoke_; but the symbol, +as you call it, may operate as a warning to the apostles of +superstitious chimaera and political fraud, that it is very possible +_for smoke to be too thick_; and that, in condensing in the human mind +the vapours of ignorance and delusion, they are only compressing a body +of inflammable gas, of which the explosion will be fatal in precise +proportion to its density.’ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII + THE DESERTED MANSION + + +They rose, as usual, before daylight, that they might pursue their +perlustration; and, on descending, found Mr. Mystic awaiting them at a +table covered with a sumptuous apparatus of tea and coffee, a pyramid of +hot rolls, and a variety of cold provision. Cimmerian Lodge, he said, +was famous for its breed of tame geese, and he could recommend the cold +one on the table as one of his own training. The breakfast being +despatched, he rowed them over the _Ocean of Deceitful Form_ before the +sun rose to disturb his navigation. + +After walking some miles, a ruined mansion at the end of an ancient +avenue of elms attracted their attention. As they made a point of +leaving no place unexamined, they walked up to it. There was an air of +melancholy grandeur in its loneliness and desolation which interested +them to know its history. The briers that choked the court, the weeds +that grew from the fissures of the walls and on the ledges of the +windows, the fractured glass, the half-fallen door, the silent and +motionless clock, the steps worn by the tread of other years, the total +silence of the scene of ancient hospitality, broken only by the voices +of the rooks whose nests were in the elms, all carried back the mind to +the years that were gone. There was a sun-dial in the centre of the +court: the sun shone on the brazen plate, and the shadow of the index +fell on the line of noon. ‘Nothing impresses me more,’ said Mr. +Forester, ‘in a ruin of this kind, than the contrast between the +sun-dial and the clock, which I have frequently observed. This contrast +I once made the basis of a little poem, which the similarity of +circumstances induces me to repeat to you though you are no votary of +the spirit of rhyme.’ + + THE SUN-DIAL + + The ivy o’er the mouldering wall + Spreads like a tree, the growth of years: + The wild wind through the doorless hall + A melancholy music rears, + A solitary voice, that sighs, + O’er man’s forgotten pageantries. + Above the central gate, the clock, + Through clustering ivy dimly seen, + Seems, like the ghost of Time, to mock + The wrecks of power that once has been. + The hands are rusted on its face; + Even where they ceased, in years gone by, + To keep the flying moments’ pace: + Fixing, in Fancy’s thoughtful eye, + A point of ages passed away, + A speck of time, that owns no tie + With aught that lives and breathes to-day. + But ‘mid the rank and towering grass, + Where breezes wave, in mournful sport, + The weeds that choke the ruined court, + The careless hours, that circling pass, + Still trace upon the dialled brass + The shade of their unvarying way: + And evermore, with every ray + That breaks the clouds and gilds the air, + Time’s stealthy steps are imaged there: + Even as the long-revolving years + In self-reflecting circles flow, + From the first bud the hedgerow bears, + To wintry nature’s robe of snow. + The changeful forms of mortal things + Decay and pass; and art and power + Oppose in vain the doom that flings + Oblivion on their closing hour; + While still, to every woodland vale, + New blooms, new fruits, the seasons bring, + For other eyes and lips to hail + With looks and sounds of welcoming: + As where some stream light-eddying roves + By sunny meads and shadowy groves, + Wave following wave departs for ever, + But still flows on the eternal river. + +[Illustration: _Mr. Forester made inquiries of him._] + +An old man approached them, in whom they observed that look of healthy +and cheerful antiquity which showed that time only, and neither pain nor +sickness, had traced wrinkles on his cheek. Mr. Forester made inquiries +of him on the object he had most at heart: but the old man could give no +gleam of light to guide his steps. Mr. Fax then asked some questions +concerning the mansion before them. + +‘Ah, zur!’ said the old man, ‘this be the zeat o’ Squire Openhand: but +he doan’t live here now; the house be growed too large vor’n, as one may +zay. I remember un playing about here on the grass-plot, when he was +half as high as the sun-dial poast, as if it was but yesterday. The days +that I ha’ zeed here! Rare doings there used to be wi’ the house vull o’ +gentlevolks zometimes to be zure: but what he loiked best was, to zee a +merry-making of all his tenants, round the great oak that stands there +in the large vield by himzelf. He used to zay if there was anything he +could not abide it was the zight of a zorrowful feace; and he was always +prying about to voind one: and if he did voind one, Lord bless you! it +was not a zorrowful feace long, if it was anything that he could mend. +Zo he lived to the length of his line, as the zaying is; and when times +grew worse, it was a hard matter to draw in; howsomdever he did; and +when the tax-gatherers came every year vor more and more, and the +peaper-money flew about, buying up everything in the neighbourhood; and +every vifty pounds he got in peaper wasn’t worth, as he toald me, vorty +pounds o’ real money, why there was every year fewer horses in his +steable, and less wine on his board: and every now and then came a queer +zort o’ chap dropped out o’ the sky like—a vundholder he called un—and +bought a bit of ground vor a handvul o’ peaper, and built a cottage +horny, as they call it—there be one there on the hill-zide—and had +nothing to do wi’ the country people, nor the country people wi’ he: +nothing in the world to do, as we could zee, but to eat and drink, and +make little bits o’ shrubberies, o’ quashies, and brutuses, and zelies, +and cubies, and filigrees, and ruddydunderums, instead o’ the oak +plantations the old landlords used to plant; and the Squire could never +abide the zight o’ one o’ they gimcrack boxes; and all the while he was +nailing up a window or two every year, and his horses were going one +way, and his dogs another, and his old zervants were zent away, one by +one, wi’ heavy hearts, poor souls, and at last it came that he could not +get half his rents, and zome o’ his tenants went to the workhouse, and +others ran away, because o’ the poor-rates, and everything went to zixes +and zevens, and I used to meet the Squire in his walks, and think to +myzelf it was very hard that he who could not bear to zee a zorrowful +feace should have zuch a zorrowful one of his own; and he used to zay to +me whenever I met un: “All this comes o’ peaper-money, Measter +Hawthorn.” Zo the upshot was, he could not afford any longer to live in +his own great house, where his vorevathers had lived out o’ memory of +man, and went to zome outlandish place wi’ his vamily to live, as he +said, in much zuch a box as that gimcrack thing on the hill.’ + +‘You have told us a very melancholy story,’ said Mr. Forester; ‘but at +present, I fear, a very common one, and one of which, if the present +system continue, every succeeding year will multiply examples.’ + +‘Ah, zur!’ said the old man, ‘there was them as vorezeed it long ago, +and voretold it too, up in the great house in Lunnon, where they zettles +the affairs o’ the nation: a pretty of zettling it be, to my thinking, +to vill the country wi’ tax-gatherers and vundholders, and peaper-money +men, that turns all the old families out o’ the country, and zends their +tenants to the workhouse: but there was them as vorezeed and voretold it +too, but nobody minded ’em then: they begins to mind ’em now.’ + +‘But how do you manage in these times?’ said Mr. Forester. + +‘I lives, measter,’ said the old man, ‘and pretty well too, vor myself. +I had a little vreehold varm o’ my own, that has been in my vamily zeven +hundred year, and we woan’t part wi’ it, I promise you, vor all the +tax-collectors and vundholders in England. But my zon was never none o’ +your gentleman varmers, none a’ your reacing and hunting bucks, that +it’s a shame vor a honest varmer to be: he always zet his shoulder to +the wheel—alway a-vield by peep o’ day: zo now I be old, I’ve given up +the varm to him; and that I wouldn’t ha’ done to the best man in all the +county bezide: but he’s my son, and I loves un. Zo I walks about the +vields all day, and sits all the evening in the chimney-corner wi’ an +old neighbour or zo, and a jug o’ ale, and talks over old times, when +the Openhands, and zuch as they, could afford to live in the homes o’ +their vorevathers. It be a bad state o’ things, my measters, and must +come to a bad end, zooner or later; but it’ll last my time.’ + +‘You are not in the last stage of a consumption, are you, honest +friend?’ said Mr. Fax. + +‘Lord love you, no, measter,’ said the old farmer, rather frightened; +‘do I look zo?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr. Fax; ‘but you talked so.’ + +‘Ah! thee beest a wag, I zee,’ said the farmer. ‘Things be in a +conzumption zure enough, but they’ll last my time vor all that; and if +they doan’t it’s no fault o’ mine; and I’se no money in the vunds, nor +no sinecure pleace, zo I eats my beefsteak and drinks my ale, and lets +the world slide.’ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIII + THE PHANTASM + + +The course of their perambulations brought them into the vicinity of +Melincourt, and they stopped at the Castle to inquire if any +intelligence had been obtained of Anthelia. The gate was opened to them +by old Peter Gray, who informed them that himself and the female +domestics were at that time the only inmates of the Castle, as the other +male domestics had gone off at the same time with Mr. Hippy in search of +their young mistress; and the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney and Miss +Danaretta were gone to London, because of the opera being open. + +Mr. Forester inquired of the manner of Anthelia’s disappearance. Old +Peter informed him that she had gone into her library as usual after +breakfast, and when the hour of dinner arrived she was missing. The +central window was open, as well as the little postern door of the +shrubbery that led into the dingle, the whole vicinity of which they had +examined, and had found the recent print of horses’ feet on a narrow +green road that skirted the other side of the glen; these traces they +had followed till they had totally lost them in a place where the road +became hard and rocky, and divided into several branches: the pursuers +had then separated into parties of two and three, and each party had +followed a different branch of the road, but they had found no clue to +guide them, and had hitherto been unsuccessful. He should not himself, +he said, have remained inactive, but Mr. Hippy had insisted on his +staying to take care of the Castle. He then observed that, as it was +growing late, he should humbly advise their continuing where they were +till morning. To this they assented, and he led the way to the library. + +Everything in the library remained precisely in the place in which +Anthelia left it. Her chair was near the table, and the materials of +drawing were before it. The gloom of the winter evening, which was now +closing in, was deepened through the stained glass of the windows. The +moment the door was thrown open, Mr. Forester started, and threw himself +forward into the apartment towards Anthelia’s chair; but before he +reached it, he stopped, placed his hand before his eyes, and, turning +round, leaned for support on the arm of Mr. Fax. He recovered himself in +a few minutes, and sate down by the table. Peter Gray, after kindling +the fire, and lighting the Argand lamp that hung from the centre of the +apartment, went to give directions on the subject of dinner. + +Mr. Forester observed, from the appearance of the drawing materials, +that they had been hastily left, and he saw that the last subject on +which Anthelia had been employed was a sketch of Redrose Abbey. He sate +with his head leaning on his hand, and his eyes fixed on the drawing in +perfect silence. Mr. Fax thought it best not to disturb his meditations, +and took up a volume that was lying open on the table, the last that +Anthelia had been reading. It was a posthumous work of the virtuous and +unfortunate Condorcet, in which that most amiable and sublime +enthusiast, contemplating human nature in the light of his own exalted +spirit, had delineated a beautiful vision of the future destinies of +mankind.[91] + +Sir Oran Haut-ton kept his eyes fixed on the door with looks of anxious +impatience, and showed manifest and increasing disappointment at every +re-entrance of Old Peter, who at length summoned them to dinner. + +Mr. Fax was not surprised that Mr. Forester had no appetite, but that +Sir Oran had lost his appeared to him extremely curious. The latter grew +more and more uneasy, rose from table, took a candle in his hand, and +wandered from room to room, searching every closet and corner in the +Castle, to the infinite amazement of Old Peter Gray, who followed him +everywhere, and became convinced that the poor gentleman was crazed for +love of his young mistress, who, he made no doubt, was the object of his +search; and the conviction was strengthened by the perfect inattention +of Sir Oran to all his assurances that his dear young lady was not in +any of those places which he searched so scrupulously. Sir Oran at +length, having left no corner of the habitable part of the Castle +unexamined, returned to the dining-room, and throwing himself into a +chair began to shed tears in great abundance. + +Mr. Fax made his two disconsolate friends drink several glasses of +Madeira, by way of raising their spirits, and then asked Mr. Forester +what it was that had so affected him on their first entering the +library. + +_Mr. Forester._ It was the form of Anthelia, in the place where I first +saw her, in that chair by the table. The vision was momentary, but, +while it lasted, had all the distinctness of reality. + +_Mr. Fax._ This is no uncommon effect of the association of ideas when +external objects present themselves to us after an interval of absence, +in their remembered arrangement, with only one form wanting, and that +the dearest among them, to perfect the resemblance between the present +sensation and the recollected idea. A vivid imagination, more especially +when the nerves are weakened by anxiety and fatigue, will, under such +circumstances, complete the imperfect scene, by replacing for a moment +the one deficient form among those accustomed objects which had long +formed its accompaniments in the contemplation of memory. This single +mental principle will explain the greater number of _credible_ tales of +apparitions, and at the same time give a very satisfactory reason why a +particular spirit is usually found haunting a particular place. + +_Mr. Forester._ Thus Petrarch’s beautiful pictures of the Spirit of +Laura on the banks of the Sorga are assuredly something more than the +mere fancies of the closet, and must have originated in that system of +mental connection, which, under peculiar circumstances, gives ideas the +force of sensations. Anxiety and fatigue are certainly great promoters +of the state of mind most favourable to such impressions. + +[Illustration: _Sir Oran, throwing himself into a chair, began to shed +tears in great abundance._] + +_Mr. Fax._ It was under the influence of such excitements that Brutus +saw the spirit of Caesar; and in similar states of feeling the phantoms +of poetry are usually supposed to be visible: the ghost of Banquo, for +example, and that of Patroclus. But this only holds true of the poets +who paint from nature; for their artificial imitators, when they wish to +call a spirit from the vasty deep, are not always so attentive to the +mental circumstances of the persons to whom they present it. In the +early periods of society, when apparitions form a portion of the general +creed; when the life of man is wandering, precarious, and turbulent; +when the uncultured wildness of the heath and the forest harmonises with +the chimaeras of superstition; and when there is not, as in later times, +a rooted principle of reason and knowledge, to weaken such perceptions +in their origin, and destroy the seeming reality of their subsequent +recollection, impressions of this nature will be more frequent, and will +be as much invested with the character of external existence, as the +scenes to which they are attached by the connecting power of the mind. +They will always be found with their own appropriate character of time, +and place, and circumstance. The ghost of the warrior will be seen on +the eve of battle by him who keeps his lonely watch near the blaze of +the nightly fire, and the spirit of the huntress maid will appear to her +lover when he pauses on the sunny heath, or rests in the moonlit cave. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIV + THE CHURCHYARD + + +The next morning Mr. Forester determined on following the mountain road +on the other side of the dingle, of which Peter Gray had spoken: but +wishing first to make some inquiries of the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, they +walked to his vicarage, which was in a village at some distance. Just as +they reached it, the reverend gentleman emerged in haste, and seeing Mr. +Forester and his friends, said he was very sorry that he could not +attend to them just then, as he had a great press of business to dispose +of; namely, a christening, a marriage, and a funeral; but he would knock +them off as fast as he could, after which he should be perfectly at +their service, hoped they would wait in the vicarage till his return, +and observed he had good ale and a few bottles of London Particular. He +then left them to despatch his affairs in the church. + +They preferred waiting in the churchyard. ‘A christening, a marriage, +and a funeral!’ said Mr. Forester. ‘With what indifference he runs +through the whole drama of human life, raises the curtain on its +commencement, superintends the most important and eventful action of its +progress, and drops the curtain on its close!’ + +_Mr. Fax._ Custom has rendered them all alike indifferent to him. In +every human pursuit and profession the routine of ordinary business +renders the mind indifferent to all the forms and objects of which that +routine is composed. The sexton ‘sings at grave-making’; the undertaker +walks with a solemn face before the coffin, because a solemn face is +part of his trade; but his heart is as light as if there were no funeral +at his heels: he is quietly conning over the items of his bill, or +thinking of the party in which he is to pass his evening; and the +reverend gentleman who concludes the process, and consigns to its last +receptacle the shell of extinguished intelligence, has his thoughts on +the wing of the sports of the field or the jovial board of the Squire. + +[Illustration: _A great press of business to dispose of._] + +_Mr. Forester._ Your observation is just. It is this hardening power of +custom that gives steadiness to the hand of the surgeon, firmness to the +voice of the criminal judge, coolness to the soldier ‘in the imminent +deadly breach,’ self-possession to the sailor in the rage of the +equinoctial storm. It is under this influence that the lawyer deals out +writs and executions as carelessly as he deals out cards at his evening +whist; that the gaoler turns the key with the same stern indifference on +unfortunate innocence as on hardened villainy; that the venal senator +votes away by piecemeal the liberties of his country; and that the +statesman sketches over the bottle his series of deliberate schemes for +the extinction of human freedom, the enchaining of human reason, and the +waste of human life. + +_Mr. Fax._ Contemplate any of these men only in the sphere of their +routine, and you will think them utterly destitute of all human +sympathy. Make them change places with each other, and you will see +symptoms of natural feelings. Custom cannot kill the better feelings of +human nature: it merely lays them asleep. + +_Mr. Forester._ You must acknowledge, then, at least, that their sleep +is very sound. + +_Mr. Fax._ In most cases certainly as sound as that of Epimenides, or of +the seven sleepers of Ephesus. But these did wake at last, and, +therefore, according to Aristotle, they had always the capacity of +waking. + +_Mr. Forester._ You must allow me to wait for a similar proof before I +admit such a capacity in respect to the feelings of some of the +characters we have mentioned. Yet I am no sceptic in human virtue. + +_Mr. Fax._ You have no reason to be, with so much evidence before your +eyes of the excellence of the past generation, and I do not suppose the +present is much worse than its predecessors. Read the epitaphs around +you, and see what models and mirrors of all the social virtues have left +the examples of their shining light to guide the steps of their +posterity. + +_Mr. Forester._ I observe the usual profusion of dutiful sons, +affectionate husbands, faithful friends, kind neighbours, and honest +men. These are the luxuriant harvest of every churchyard. But is it not +strange that even the fertility of fiction should be so circumscribed in +the variety of monumental panegyric? Yet a few words comprehend the +summary of all the moral duties of ordinary life. Their degrees and +diversities are like the shades of colour, that shun for the most part +the power of language: at all events, the nice distinctions and +combinations that give individuality to historical character scarcely +come within the limits of sepulchral inscription, which merely serves to +testify the regret of the survivors for one whose society was dear, and +whose faults are forgotten. For there is a feeling in the human mind, +that, in looking back on former scenes of intercourse with those who are +passed for ever beyond the limits of injury and resentment, gradually +destroys all the bitterness and heightens all the pleasures of the +remembrance; as, when we revert in fancy to the days of our childhood, +we scarcely find a vestige of their tears, pains, and disappointments, +and perceive only their fields, their flowers, and their sunshine, and +the smiles of our little associates. + +_Mr. Fax._ The history of common life seems as circumscribed as its +moral attributes: for the most extensive information I can collect from +these gravestones is, that the parties married, lived in trouble, and +died of a conflict between a disease and a physician. I observe a last +request, which I suppose was very speedily complied with—that of a +tender husband to his loving wife not to weep for him long. If it be as +you say, that the faults of the dead are soon forgotten, yet the memory +of their virtues is not much longer lived; and I have often thought that +these words of Rabelais would furnish an appropriate inscription for +ninety-nine gravestones out of every hundred:—_Sa mémoire expira avecque +le son des cloches qui carillonèrent à son enterrement._ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXV + THE RUSTIC WEDDING + + +The bride and bridegroom, with half a dozen of their friends, now +entered the churchyard. The bride, a strong, healthy-looking country +girl, was clinging to the arm of her lover, not with the light and +scarcely perceptible touch with which Miss Simper complies with the +request of Mr. Giggle, ‘that she will do him the honour to take his +arm,’ but with a cordial and unsophisticated pressure that would have +made such an arm as Mr. Giggle’s black and blue. The bridegroom, with a +pair of chubby cheeks, which in colour precisely rivalled his new +scarlet waistcoat, and his mouth expanded into a broad grin that +exhibited the total range of his teeth, advanced in a sort of step that +was half a walk and half a dance, as if the preconceived notion of the +requisite solemnity of demeanour were struggling with the natural +impulses of the overflowing joy of his heart. + +Mr. Fax looked with great commiseration on this bridal pair, and +determined to ascertain if they had a clear notion of the evils that +awaited them in consequence of the rash step they were about to take. He +therefore accosted them with an observation that the Reverend Mr. +Portpipe was not at leisure, but would be in a few minutes. ‘In the +meantime,’ said he, ‘I stand here as the representative of general +reason, to ask if you have duly weighed the consequences of your present +proceeding.’ + +_The Bridegroom._ General Reason! I be’s no soger man, and bean’t +countable to no General whatzomecomedever. We bean’t under martial law, +be we? Voine times indeed if General Reason be to interpose between a +poor man and his sweetheart. + +_Mr. Fax._ That is precisely the case which calls most loudly for such +an interposition. + +_The Bridegroom._ If General Reason waits till I or Zukey calls loudly +vor’n, he’ll wait long enough. Woan’t he, Zukey? + +_The Bride._ Ees, zure, Robin. + +_Mr. Fax._ General reason, my friend, I assure you, has nothing to do +with martial law, nor with any other mode of arbitrary power, but with +authority that has truth for its foundation, benevolence for its end, +and the whole universe for its sphere of action. + +_The Bridegroom_ (_scratching his head_). There be a mort o’ voine +words, but I zuppose you means to zay as how this General Reason be a +Methody preacher; but I be’s true earthy-ducks church, and zo be Zukey: +bean’t you, Zukey? + +_The Bride._ Ees, zure, Robin. + +_The Bridegroom._ And we has nothing to do wi’ General Reason neither on +us. Has we, Zukey? + +_The Bride._ No, zure, Robin. + +_Mr. Fax._ Well, my friend, be that as it may, you are going to be +married? + +_The Bridegroom._ Why, I think zo, zur, wi’ General Reason’s leave. +Bean’t we, Zukey? + +_The Bride._ Ees, zure, Robin. + +_Mr. Fax._ And are you fully aware, my honest friend, what marriage is? + +_The Bridegroom._ Vor zartin I be: Zukey and I ha’ got it by heart out +o’ t’ Book o’ Common Prayer. Ha’n’t we, Zukey? (_This time Susan did not +think proper to answer._) It be ordained that zuch persons as hav’n’t +the gift of——(_Susan gave him such a sudden and violent pinch on the +arm, that his speech ended in a roar_). Od rabbit me! that wur a +twinger! I’ll have my revenge, howzomecomedever. (_And he imprinted a +very emphatical kiss on the lips of his blushing bride that greatly +scandalised Mr. Fax._) + +_Mr. Fax._ Do you know, that in all likelihood, in the course of six +years, you will have as many children? + +_The Bridegroom._ The more the merrier, zur. Bean’t it, Zukey? (_Susan +was mute again._) + +_Mr. Fax._ I hope it may prove so, my friend; but I fear you will find +the more the sadder. What are your occupations? + +_The Bridegroom._ Anan, zur? + +[Illustration: ‘_Do you know, that in all likelihood, in the course of +six years, you will have as many children?_’] + +_Mr. Fax._ What do you do to get your living? + +_The Bridegroom._ Works vor Varmer Brownstout: zows and reaps, threshes, +and goes to market wi’ corn and cattle, turns to plough-tail when hap +chances, cleans and feeds horses, hedges and ditches, fells timber, +gathers in t’ orchard, brews ale, and drinks it, and gets vourteen +shill’n’s a week for my trouble. And Zukey here ha’ laid up a mint o’ +money: she wur dairymaid at Varmer Cheesecurd’s, and ha’ gotten vour +pounds zeventeen shill’n’s and ninepence in t’ old chest wi’ three vlat +locks and a padlock. Ha’n’t you, Zukey? + +_The Bride._ Ees, zure, Robin. + +_Mr. Fax._ It does not appear to me, my worthy friend, that your +fourteen shillings a week, even with Mrs. Susan’s consolidated fund of +four pounds seventeen shillings and ninepence, will be altogether +adequate to the maintenance of such a family as you seem likely to have. + +_The Bridegroom._ Why, sir, in t’ virst pleace I doan’t know what be +Zukey’s intentions in that respect——Od rabbit it, Zukey! doan’t pinch +zo——and in t’ next pleace, wi’ all due submission to you and General +Reason the Methody preacher, I takes it to be our look-out, and none o’ +nobody’s else. + +_Mr. Fax._ But it is somebody’s else, for this reason; that if you +cannot maintain your own children, the parish must do it for you. + +_The Bridegroom._ Vor zartin—in a zort o’ way; and bad enough at best. +But I wants no more to do wi’ t’ parish than parish wi’ me. + +_Mr. Fax._ I dare say you do not, at present. But, my good friend, when +the cares of a family come upon you, your independence of spirit will +give way to necessity; and if, by any accident, you are thrown out of +work, as in the present times many honest fellows are, what will you do +then? + +_The Bridegroom._ Do the best I can, measter, az I always does, and +nobody can’t do no better. + +_Mr. Fax._ Do you suppose, then, you are doing the best you can now, in +marrying, with such a doubtful prospect before you? How will you bring +up your children? + +_The Bridegroom._ Why, in the vear o’ the Lord, to be zure. + +_Mr. Fax._ Of course: but how will you bring them up to get their +living? + +_The Bridegroom._ That’s as thereafter may happen. They woan’t starve, +I’se warrant ’em, if they teakes after their veyther. But I zees now who +General Reason be. He be one o’ your sinecure vundholder peaper-money +taxing men, as isn’t satisfied wi’ takin’ t’ bread out o’ t’ poor man’s +mouth, and zending his chilern to army and navy, and vactories, and +suchlike, but wants to take away his wife into t’ bargain. + +_Mr. Fax._ There, my honest friend, you have fallen into a radical +mistake, which I shall try to elucidate for your benefit. It is owing to +poor people having more children than they can maintain, that those +children are obliged to go to the army and navy, and consequently that +statesmen and conquerors find so many ready instruments for the +oppression and destruction of the human species: it follows, therefore, +that if people would not marry till they could be certain of maintaining +all their children comfortably at home—— + +_The Bridegroom._ Lord love you, that be all mighty voine rigmarole; but +the short and the long be this: I can’t live without Zukey, nor Zukey +without I, can you, Zukey? + +_The Bride._ No, zure, Robin. + +_The Bridegroom._ Now there be a plain downright honest-hearted old +English girl; none o’ your quality madams, as zays one thing and means +another; and zo you may tell General Reason he may teake away chair and +teable, salt-box and trencher, bed and bedding, pig and pig-stye, but +neither he nor all his peaper-men together shall take away his own Zukey +vrom Robin Ruddyfeace; if they shall I’m doomed. + +‘What profane wretch,’ said the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, emerging from the +church, ‘what profane wretch is swearing in the very gate of the +temple?’ and seeing by the bridegroom’s confusion that he was the +culprit, he reprimanded him severely, and declared he would not marry +him that day. The very thought of such a disappointment was too much for +poor Robin to bear, and, after one or two ineffectual efforts to speak, +he distorted his face into a most rueful expression, and struck up such +a roar of crying as completely electrified the Rev. Mr. Portpipe, whose +wrath, nevertheless, was not to be mollified by Robin’s grief and +contrition, but yielded at length to the intercessions of Mr. Forester. +Robin’s face cleared up in an instant, and the natural broad grin of his +ruddy countenance shone forth through his tears like the sun through a +shower. ‘You are such an honest and warm-hearted fellow,’ said Mr. +Forester, putting a bank-note into Robin’s hand, ‘that you must not +refuse me the pleasure of making this little addition to Mistress +Susan’s consolidated fund.’—‘Od rabbit me!’ said the bridegroom, +overcome with joy and surprise, ‘I doan’t know who thee beest, but thee +beesn’t General Reason, that’s vor zartin.’ + +The rustic party then followed the Reverend Mr. Portpipe into the +church. Robin, when he reached the porch, looked round over his shoulder +to Mr. Fax, and said with a very arch look, ‘My dutiful sarvice to +General Reason.’ And looking round a second time before he entered the +door, added: ‘and Zukey’s too.’ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVI + THE VICARAGE + + +When the Rev. Mr. Portpipe had despatched his ‘press of business,’ he +set before his guests in the old oak parlour of the vicarage a cold +turkey and ham, a capacious jug of ‘incomparable ale,’ and a bottle of +his London Particular; all which, on trial, were approved to be +excellent, and a second bottle of the latter was very soon required, and +produced with great alacrity. The reverend gentleman expressed much +anxiety in relation to the mysterious circumstance of the disappearance +of Anthelia, on whom he pronounced a very warm eulogium, saying she was +the flower of the mountains, the type of ideal beauty, the daughter of +music, the rosebud of sweetness, and the handmaid of charity. He +professed himself unable to throw the least light on the transaction, +but supposed she had been spirited away for some nefarious purpose. He +said that the mountain road had been explored without success in all its +ramifications, not only by Mr. Hippy and the visitors and domestics of +Melincourt, but by all the peasants and mountaineers of the +vicinity—that it led through a most desolate and inhospitable tract of +country, and he would advise them, if they persisted in their intention +of following it themselves, to partake of his poor hospitality till +morning, and set forward with the first dawn of daylight. Mr. Fax +seconded this proposal, and Mr. Forester complied. + +They spent the evening in the old oak parlour, and conversed on various +subjects, during which a knotty point opposing itself to the solution of +an historical question, Mr. Forester expressed a wish to be allowed +access to the reverend gentleman’s library. The reverend gentleman +hummed awhile with great gravity and deliberation: then slowly rising +from his large arm-chair, he walked across the room to the farther +corner, where throwing open the door of a little closet, he said with +extreme complacency, ‘There is my library: Homer, Virgil, and Horace, +for old acquaintance sake, and the credit of my cloth: Tillotson, +Atterbury, and Jeremy Taylor, for materials of exhortation and +ingredients of sound doctrine: and for my own private amusement in an +occasional half-hour between my dinner and my nap, a translation of +Rabelais and _The Tale of a Tub_.’ + +_Mr. Fax._ A well-chosen collection. + +_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._—_Multum in parvo._ But there is something that +may amuse you: a little drawer of mineral specimens that have been +picked up in this vicinity, and a fossil or two. Among the latter is a +curious bone that was found in a hill just by, invested with stalactite. + +_Mr. Forester._ The bone of a human thumb, unquestionably. + +_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._ Very probably. + +_Mr. Forester._ Which, by its comparative proportion, must have belonged +to an individual about eleven feet six or seven inches in height: there +are no such men now. + +_Mr. Fax._ Except, perhaps, among the Patagonians, whose existence is, +however, disputed. + +_Mr. Forester._ It is disputed on no tenable ground, but that of the +narrow and bigoted vanity of civilised men, who, pent in the unhealthy +limits of towns and cities, where they dwindle from generation to +generation in a fearful rapidity of declension towards the abyss of the +infinitely little, in which they will finally vanish from the system of +nature, will not admit that there ever were, or are, or can be, better, +stronger, and healthier men than themselves. The Patagonians are a +vagrant nation, without house or home, and are, therefore, only +occasionally seen on the coast: but because some voyagers have not seen +them, I know not why we should impeach the evidence of those who have. +The testimony of a man of honour, like Mr. Byron, would alone have been +sufficient: but all his officers and men gave the same account. And +there are other testimonies: that, for instance, of M. de Guyot, who +brought from the coast of Patagonia a skeleton of one of these great +men, which measured between twelve and thirteen feet. This skeleton he +was bringing to Europe, but happening to be caught in a great storm, and +having on board a Spanish Bishop (the Archbishop of Lima), who was of +opinion that the storm was caused by the bones of this Pagan which they +had on board; and having persuaded the crew that this was the case, the +captain was obliged to throw the skeleton overboard. The Bishop died +soon after, and was thrown overboard in his turn. I could have wished +that he had been thrown overboard sooner, and then the bones of the +Patagonian would have arrived in Europe.[92] + +_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._ Your wish is orthodox, inasmuch as the Bishop +was himself a Pagan, and moreover an Inquisitor. And your doctrine of +large men is also orthodox, for the sons of Anak and the family of +Goliath did once exist, though now their race is extinct. + +_Mr. Forester._ The multiplication of diseases, the diminution of +strength, and the contraction of the term of existence, keep pace with +the diminution of the stature of men. The mortality of a manufacturing +town, compared with that of a mountain village, is more than three to +one, which clearly shows the evil effects of the departure from natural +life, and of the coacervation of multitudes within the narrow precincts +of cities, where the breath of so many animals, and the exhalations from +the dead, the dying, and corrupted things of all kinds, make the air +little better than a slow poison, and so offensive as to be perceptible +to the sense of those who are not accustomed to it; for the wandering +Arabs will smell a town at the distance of several leagues. And in this +country the cottagers who are driven by the avarice of landlords and +great tenants to seek a subsistence in towns, are very soon destroyed by +the change.[93] And this hiving of human beings is not the only evil +effect of commerce, which tends also to keep up a constant circulation +of the elements of destruction, and to make the vices and diseases of +one country the vices and diseases of all.[94] Thus, with every +extension of our intercourse with distant lands, we bring home some new +seed of death; and how many we leave as vestiges of our visitation, let +the South Sea Islanders testify. Consider, too, the frightful +consequences of the consumption of spirituous liquors: a practice so +destructive, that if all the devils were again to be assembled in +Pandemonium to contrive the ruin of the human species, nothing so +mischievous could be devised by them;[95] but which it is considered +politic to encourage, according to our method of raising money on the +vices of the people.[96] When these and many other causes of destruction +are considered, it would be wonderful indeed if every new generation +were not, as all experience proves that it is, smaller, weaker, more +diseased, and more miserable than the preceding. + +_Mr. Fax._ Do you find, in the progress of science and the rapid +diffusion of intellectual light, no counterpoise to this mass of +physical calamity, even admitting it to exist in the extent you suppose? + +_Mr. Forester._ Without such a counterpoise the condition of human +nature would be desperate indeed. The intellectual, as I have often +observed to you, are nourished at the expense of the animal faculties. + +_Mr. Fax._ You cannot, then, conceive the existence of _mens sana in +corpore sano_? + +_Mr. Forester._ Scarcely in the present state of human degeneracy: at +best in a very limited sense. + +_Mr. Fax._ Nevertheless you do, nay, you must acknowledge that the +intellectual, which is the better part of human nature, is in a progress +of rapid improvement, continually enlarging its views and multiplying +its acquisitions. + +_Mr. Forester._ The collective stock of knowledge which is the common +property of scientific men necessarily increases, and will increase from +the circumstance of admitting the cooperation of numbers: but collective +knowledge is as distinct from individual mental power as it is +confessedly unconnected with wisdom and moral virtue, and independent of +political liberty. A man of modern times, with machines of complicated +powers, will lift a heavier mass than that which Hector hurled from his +unassisted arm against the Grecian gates; but take away his mechanism, +and what comparison is there between him and Hector? In the same way a +modern man of science _knows_ more than Pythagoras knew: but consider +them with relation only to _mental power_, and what comparison remains +between them? No more than between a modern poet and Homer—a comparison +which the most strenuous partisan of modern improvement will scarcely +venture to institute. + +_Mr. Fax._ I will venture to oppose Shakespeare to him nevertheless. + +_Mr. Forester._ That is, however, going back two centuries, to a state +of society very peculiar, and very fertile in genius. Shakespeare is the +great phenomenon of the modern world, but his men and women are beings +like ourselves; whereas those of Homer are of a nobler and mightier +race; and his poetry is worthy of his characters: it is the language of +the gods. + +Mr. Forester rose, and approached the little closet, with the avowed +intention of taking down Homer. ‘Take care how you touch him,’ said the +Reverend Mr. Portpipe: ‘he is in a very dusty condition, for he has not +been disturbed these thirty years.’ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVI + THE MOUNTAINS + + +They followed the mountain road till they arrived at the spot where it +divided into several branches, one of which they selected on some +principle of preference, which we are not sagacious enough to penetrate. +They now proceeded by a gradual ascent of several miles along a rugged +passage of the hills, where the now flowerless heath was the only +vestige of vegetation; and the sound of the little streams that +everywhere gleamed beside their way, the only manifestation of the life +and motion of nature. + +‘It is a subject worthy of consideration,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘how far scenes +like these are connected with the genius of liberty: how far the dweller +of the mountains, who is certainly surrounded by more sublime +excitements, has more loftiness of thought, and more freedom of spirit, +than the cultivator of the plains.’ + +_Mr. Forester._ A modern poet has observed, that the voices of the sea +and the mountains are the two voices of liberty: the words mountain +liberty have, indeed, become so intimately associated, that I never yet +found any one who even thought of questioning their necessary and +natural connection. + +_Mr. Fax._ And yet I question it much; and in the present state of human +society I hold the universal inculcation of such a sentiment, in poetry +and romance, to be not only a most gross delusion, but an error replete +with the most pernicious practical consequences. For I have often seen a +young man of high and aspiring genius, full of noble enthusiasm for the +diffusion of truth and the general happiness of mankind, withdrawn from +all intercourse with polished and intellectual society, by the +distempered idea that he would nowhere find fit aliment for his high +cogitations, but among heaths, and rocks, and torrents. + +_Mr. Forester._ In a state of society so corrupted as that in which we +live, the best instructors and companions are ancient books; and these +are best studied in those congenial solitudes, where the energies of +nature are most pure and uncontrolled, and the aspect of external things +recalls in some measure the departed glory of the world. + +_Mr. Fax._ Holding, as I do, that no branch of knowledge is valuable, +but such as in its ultimate results has a plain and practical tendency +to the general diffusion of moral and political truth, you must allow me +to doubt the efficacy of solitary intercourse with stocks and stones, +however rugged and fantastic in their shapes, towards the production of +this effect. + +_Mr. Forester._ It is matter of historical testimony that occasional +retirement into the recesses of nature has produced the most salutary +effects of the very kind you require, in the instance of some of the +most illustrious minds that have adorned the name of man. + +_Mr. Fax._ That the health and purity of the country, its verdure and +its sunshine, have the most beneficial influence on the mental and +corporeal faculties, I am very far from being inclined to deny: but this +is a different consideration from that of the connection between the +scenery of the mountains and the genius of liberty. Look into the +records of the world. What have the mountains done for freedom and +mankind? When have the mountains, to speak in the cant of the new school +of poetry, ‘sent forth a voice of power’ to awe the oppressors of the +world? Mountaineers are for the most part a stupid and ignorant race: +and where there are stupidity and ignorance, there will be superstition; +and where there is superstition, there will be slavery. + +_Mr. Forester._ To a certain extent I cannot but agree with you. The +names of Hampden and Milton are associated with the level plains and +flat pastures of Buckinghamshire; but I cannot now remember what names +of true greatness and unshaken devotion to general liberty are +associated with these heathy rocks and cloud-capped mountains of +Cumberland. We have seen a little horde of poets, who brought hither +from the vales of the south the harps which they had consecrated to +Truth and Liberty, to acquire new energy in the mountain winds: and now +those harps are attuned to the praise of luxurious power, to the strains +of courtly sycophancy, and to the hymns of exploded superstition. But +let not the innocent mountains bear the burden of their transgressions. + +_Mr. Fax._ All I mean to say is, that there is nothing in the nature of +mountain scenery either to make men free or to keep them so. The only +source of freedom is intellectual light. The ignorant are always slaves, +though they dwell among the Andes. The wise are always free, though they +cultivate a savannah. Who is so stupid and so servile as a Swiss, whom +you find, like a piece of living furniture, the human latch of every +great man’s door? + +_Mr. Forester._ Let us look back to former days, to the mountains of the +North: + + Wild the Runic faith, + And wild the realms where Scandinavian chiefs + And Scalds arose, and hence the Scald’s strong verse + Partook the savage wildness. And methinks, + Amid such scenes as these the poet’s soul + Might best attain full growth. + +_Mr. Fax._ As to the ‘Scald’s strong verse,’ I must say I have never +seen any specimens of it that I did not think mere trash. It is little +more than a rhapsody of rejoicing in carnage, a ringing of changes on +the biting sword and the flowing of blood and the feast of the raven and +the vulture, and fulsome flattery of the chieftain, of whom the said +Scald was the abject slave, vassal, parasite, and laureate, interspersed +with continual hints that he ought to be well paid for his lying +panegyrics. + +_Mr. Forester._ There is some justice in your observations: +nevertheless, I must still contend that those who seek the mountains in +a proper frame of feeling will find in them images of energy and +liberty, harmonising most aptly with the loftiness of an unprejudiced +mind, and nerving the arm of resistance to every variety of oppression +and imposture that winds the chains of power round the free-born spirit +of man. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVIII + THE FRACAS + + +After a long ramble among heath and rock, and over moss and moor, they +began to fear the probability of being benighted among those desolate +wilds, when fortunately they found that their track crossed one of the +principal roads, which they followed for a short time, and entered a +small town, where they stopped for the night at an inn. They were shown +upstairs into an apartment separated from another only by a movable +partition, which allowed the two rooms to be occasionally laid into one. +They were just sitting down to dinner when they heard the voices of some +newly-arrived company in the adjoining apartment, and distinguished the +tones of a female voice indicative of alarm and anxiety, and the +masculine accents of one who seemed to be alternately comforting the +afflicted fair one, and swearing at the obsequious waiter, with +reiterated orders, as it appeared, for another chaise immediately. Mr. +Fax was not long in divining that the new-comers were two runaway lovers +in momentary apprehension of being overtaken; and this conjecture was +confirmed, when, after a furious rattle of wheels in the yard, the door +of the next apartment was burst open, and a violent scream from the lady +was followed by a gruff shout of—‘So ho, miss, here you are. Gretna, eh? +Your journey’s marred for this time; and if you get off again, say you +have my consent—that’s all.’ Low soft tones of supplication ensued, but +in undistinguishable words, and continued to be repeated in the +intervals of the following harangue: ‘Love indeed! don’t tell me. Aren’t +you my daughter? Answer me that. And haven’t I a right over you till you +are twenty-one? You may marry then; but not a rap of the ready: my +money’s my own all my life. Haven’t I chosen you a proper husband—a nice +rich young fellow not above forty-five?—Sixty, you minx! no such thing. +Rolling in riches: member for Threevotes: two places, three pensions, +and a sinecure: famous borough interest to make all your children +generals and archbishops. And here a miserable vagabond with only five +hundred a year in landed property.—Pish! love indeed!—own age—congenial +minds—pshaw! all a farce. Money—money—money—that’s the matter: money is +the first thing—money is the second thing—money is the third thing—money +is the only thing—money is everything and all things.’—‘Vagabond, sir,’ +said a third voice: ‘I am a gentleman, and have money sufficient to +maintain your daughter in comfort.’—‘Comfort!’ said the gruff voice +again; ‘comfort with five hundred a year, ha! ha! ha! eh, Sir +Bonus?’—‘Hooh! hooh! hooh! very droll indeed,’ said a fourth voice, in a +sound that seemed a mixture of a cough and a laugh.—‘Very well, sir,’ +said the third voice; ‘I shall not part with my treasure quietly, I +assure you.’—‘Rebellion! flat rebellion against parental authority,’ +exclaimed the second. ‘But I’m too much for you, youngster. Where are +all my varlets and rascals?’ + +A violent trampling of feet, and various sounds of tumult ensued, as if +the old gentleman and his party were tearing the lovers asunder by main +force; and at length an agonising scream from the young lady seemed to +announce that their purpose was accomplished. Mr. Forester started up +with a view of doing all in his power to assist the injured damsel; and +Sir Oran Haut-ton, who, as the reader has seen, had very strong feelings +of natural justice, and a most chivalrous sympathy with females in +distress, rushed with a desperate impulse against the partition, and +hurled a great portion of it, with a violent crash, into the adjoining +apartment. This unexpected event had the effect of fixing the whole +group within for a few moments in motionless surprise in their +respective places. + +The fat and portly father, who was no other than our old acquaintance +Sir Gregory Greenmould, and the old valetudinarian he had chosen for his +daughter, Sir Bonus Mac Scrip, were directing the efforts of their +myrmidons to separate the youthful pair. The young lady was clinging to +her lover with the tenacity of the tendrils of a vine: the young +gentleman’s right arm was at liberty, and he was keeping the assailants +at bay with the poker, which he had seized on the first irruption of the +foe, and which had left vestiges of its impression, to speak in ancient +phraseology, in various green wounds and bloody coxcombs. + +As Sir Oran was not habituated to allow any very long process of +syllogistic reasoning to interfere between his conception and execution +of the dictates of natural justice, he commenced operations by throwing +the assailants one by one downstairs, who, as fast as they could rise +from the ground, ran or limped away into sundry holes and coverts. Sir +Bonus Mac Scrip retreated through the breach, and concealed himself +under the dining-table in Mr. Forester’s apartment. Mr. Forester +succeeded in preventing Sir Gregory from being thrown after his +myrmidons: but Sir Oran kept the fat baronet a close prisoner in the +corner of the room, while the lovers slipped away into the inn-yard, +where the chaise they had ordered was in readiness; and the cracking of +whips, the trampling of horses, and the rattling of wheels announced the +final discomfiture of the schemes of Sir Gregory Greenmould and the +hopes of Sir Bonus Mac Scrip. + +[Illustration: _Sir Bonus Mac Scrip retreated through the breach, and +concealed himself under the dining-table._] + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIX + MAINCHANCE VILLA + + +The next day they resumed their perquisitions, still without any clue to +guide them in their search. They had hitherto had the advantage of those +halcyon days which often make the middle of winter a season of serenity +and sunshine; but, on this day, towards the evening, the sky grew black +with clouds, the snow fell rapidly in massy flakes, and the mountains +and valleys were covered with one uniform veil of whiteness. All +vestiges of roads and paths were obliterated. They were winding round +the side of a mountain, and their situation began to wear a very +unpromising aspect, when, on a sudden turn of the road, the trees and +chimneys of a villa burst upon their view in the valley below. To this +they bent their way, and on ringing at the gate-bell, and making the +requisite inquiries, they found it to be Mainchance Villa, the new +residence of Peter Paypaul Paperstamp, Esquire, whom we introduced to +our readers in the twenty-eighth chapter. They sent in their names, and +received a polite invitation to walk in. They were shown into a parlour, +where they found their old acquaintance Mr. Derrydown tête-à-tête at the +piano with Miss Celandina, with whom he was singing a duet. Miss +Celandina said, ‘her papa was just then engaged, but would soon have the +pleasure of waiting on them: in the meantime Mr. Derrydown would do the +honours of the house.’ Miss Celandina left the room; and they learned in +conversation with Mr. Derrydown, that the latter, finding his case +hopeless with Anthelia, had discovered some good reasons in an old +ballad for placing his affections where they would be more welcome; he +had therefore thrown himself at the feet of Miss Celandina Paperstamp; +the young lady’s father, having inquired into Mr. Derrydown’s fortune, +had concluded, from the answer he received, that it would be a very +_good match_ for his daughter; and the day was already definitely +arranged on which Miss Celandina Paperstamp was to be metamorphosed into +Mrs. Derrydown. + +Mr. Derrydown informed them that they would not see Mr. Paperstamp till +dinner, as he was closeted in close conference with Mr. Feathernest, Mr. +Vamp, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. Anyside Antijack, a very important +personage just arrived from abroad on the occasion of a letter from Mr. +Mystic of Cimmerian Lodge, denouncing an approaching period of public +light, which had filled Messieurs Paperstamp, Feathernest, Vamp, +Killthedead, and Antijack with the deepest dismay; and they were now +holding a consultation on the best means to be adopted for totally and +finally extinguishing the light of the human understanding. ‘I am +excluded from the council,’ proceeded Mr. Derrydown, ‘and it is their +intention to keep me altogether in the dark on the subject; but I shall +wait very patiently for the operation of the second bottle, when the wit +will be out of the brain, and the cat will be out of the bag.’ + +‘Is that picture a family piece?’ said Mr. Fax. + +‘I hardly know,’ said Mr. Derrydown, ‘whether there is any relationship +between Mr. Paperstamp and the persons there represented; but there is +at least a very intimate connection. The old woman in the scarlet cloak +is the illustrious Mother Goose;—the two children playing at see-saw are +Margery Daw and Tommy with his Banbury cake;—the little boy and girl, +the one with a broken pitcher, and the other with a broken head, are +little Jack and Jill: the house, at the door of which the whole party is +grouped, is the famous house that Jack built; you see the clock through +the window and the mouse running up it, as in that sublime strain of +immortal genius, entitled Dickery Dock: and the boy in the corner is +little Jack Horner eating his Christmas pie. The latter is one of the +most splendid examples on record of the admirable practical doctrine of +“taking care of number one,” and he is therefore in double favour with +Mr. Paperstamp, for his excellence as a pattern of moral and political +wisdom, and for the beauty of the poetry in which his great achievement +of extracting a plum from the Christmas pie is celebrated. Mr. +Paperstamp, Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Vamp, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. Anyside +Antijack are unanimously agreed that the Christmas pie in question is a +type and symbol of the public purse; and as that is a pie in which every +one of them has a finger, they look with great envy and admiration on +little Jack Horner, who extracted a _plum_ from it, and who, I believe, +haunts their dreams with his pie and his plum, saying, “Go, and do thou +likewise!”’ + +The secret council broke up, and Mr. Paperstamp entering with his four +compeers, bade the new-comers welcome to Mainchance Villa, and +introduced to them Mr. Anyside Antijack. Mr. Paperstamp did not much +like Mr. Forester’s modes of thinking; indeed he disliked them the more, +from their having once been his own; but a man of large landed property +was well worth a little civility, as there was no knowing what turn +affairs might take, what party might come into place, and who might have +the cutting up of the Christmas pie. + +They now adjourned to dinner, during which, as usual, little was said, +and much was done. When the wine began to circulate, Mr. Feathernest +held forth for some time in praise of himself; and by the assistance of +a little smattering in Mr. Mystic’s synthetical logic, proved himself to +be a model of taste, genius, consistency, and public virtue. This was +too good an example to be thrown away; and Mr. Paperstamp followed it up +with a very lofty encomium on his own virtues and talents, declaring he +did not believe so great a genius, or so amiable a man as himself, Peter +Paypaul Paperstamp, Esquire, of Mainchance Villa, had appeared in the +world since the days of Jack the Giantkiller, whose _coat of darkness_ +he hoped would become the costume of all the rising generation, whenever +adequate provision should be made for the whole people to be taught and +trained. + +Mr. Vamp, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. Anyside Antijack were all very loud +in their encomiums of the wine, which Mr. Paperstamp observed had been +tasted for him by his friend Mr. Feathernest, who was a great +connoisseur in ‘Sherris sack.’ + +Mr. Derrydown was very intent on keeping the bottle in motion, in the +hope of bringing the members of the critico-poetical council into that +state of blind self-love, when the great vacuum of the head, in which +brain was, like Mr. Harris’s indefinite article, _supplied by negation_, +would be inflated with oenogen gas, or, in other words, with the fumes +of wine, the effect of which, according to psychological chemistry, is, +after filling up every chink and crevice of the cranial void, to evolve +through the labial valve, bringing with it all the secrets both of +memory and anticipation which had been carefully laid up in the said +chinks and crevices. This state at length arrived; and Mr. Derrydown, to +quicken its operation, contrived to pick a quarrel with Mr. Vamp, who +being naturally very testy and waspish, poured out upon him a torrent of +invectives, to the infinite amusement of Mr. Derrydown, who, however, +affecting to be angry, said to him in a tragical tone, + + Thus in dregs of folly sunk, + Art thou, miscreant, mad or drunk? + Cups intemperate always teach + Virulent abusive speech.[97] + +This produced a general cry of ‘Chair! chair!’ Mr. Paperstamp called Mr. +Derrydown to order. The latter apologised with as much gravity as he +could assume, and said, to make amends for his warmth, he would give +them a toast, and pronounced accordingly: ‘Your scheme for extinguishing +the light of the human understanding: may it meet the success it +merits.’ + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ Nothing can be in a more hopeful train. We must +set the alarmists at work, as in the Antijacobin war: when, to be sure, +we had one or two honest men among our opposers[98]—(_Mr. Feathernest +and Mr. Paperstamp smiled and bowed_)—though they were for the most part +ill-read in history, and ignorant of human nature.[99] + +_Mr. Feathernest and Mr. Paperstamp._ How, sir? + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ For the most part, observe me. Of course I do +not include my quondam antagonists, and now very dear friends, Mr. +Paperstamp and Mr. Feathernest, who have altered their minds, as the +sublime Burke altered his mind,[100] from the most disinterested +motives. + +_Mr. Forester._ Yet there are some persons, and those not the lowest in +the scale of moral philosophy, who have called the sublime Burke a +pensioned apostate. + +_Mr. Vamp._ Moral philosophy! Every man who talks of moral philosophy is +a thief and a rascal, and will never make any scruple of seducing his +neighbour’s wife, or stealing his neighbour’s property.[101] + +_Mr. Forester._ You can prove that assertion of course. + +_Mr. Vamp._ Prove it! The editor of the Legitimate Review required to +prove an assertion! + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ The church is in danger! + +_Mr. Forester._ I confess I do not see how the church is endangered by a +simple request to prove the asserted necessary connection between the +profession of moral philosophy and the practice of robbery. + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ For your satisfaction, sir, and from my +disposition to oblige you, as you are a gentleman of family and fortune, +I will prove it. Every moral philosopher discards the creed and +commandments:[102] the sixth commandment says, Thou shalt not steal; +therefore, every moral philosopher is a thief. + +_Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. Paperstamp._ Nothing can be +more logical. The church is in danger! The church is in danger! + +_Mr. Vamp._ Keep up that. It is an infallible tocsin for rallying all +the old women about us when everything else fails. + +_Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Paperstamp, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. +Anyside Antijack._ The church is in danger! the church is in danger! + +_Mr. Forester._ I am very well aware that the time has been when the +voice of reason could be drowned by clamour, and by rallying round the +banners of corruption and delusion a mass of blind and bigoted +prejudices, that had no real connection with the political question +which it was the object to cry down: but I see with pleasure that those +days are gone. The people read and think: their eyes are opened; they +know that all their grievances arise from the pressure of taxation far +beyond their means, from the fictitious circulation of paper-money, and +from the corrupt and venal state of popular representation. These facts +lie in a very small compass; and till you can reason them out of this +knowledge, you may vociferate ‘The church is in danger’ for ever, +without a single unpaid voice to join in the outcry. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ My friend Mr. Mystic holds that it is a very bad +thing for the people to read: so it certainly is. Oh for the happy +ignorance of former ages! when the people were dolts, and knew +themselves to be so.[103] An ignorant man, judging from instinct, judges +much better than a man who reads, and is consequently misinformed.[104] + +_Mr. Vamp._ Unless he reads the Legitimate Review. + +_Mr. Paperstamp._ Darkness! darkness! Jack the Giantkiller’s coat of +darkness! That is your only wear. + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ There was a time when we could lead the people +any way, and make them join with all their lungs in the yell of war: +then they were people of sound judgment, and of honest and honourable +feelings:[105] but when they pretend to feel the pressure of personal +suffering, and to read and think about its causes and remedies—such +impudence is intolerable. + +_Mr. Fax._ Are they not the same people still? If they were capable of +judging then, are they not capable of judging now? + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ By no means: they are only capable of judging +when they see with our eyes; then they see straight forward; when they +pretend to use their own, they squint.[106] They saw with our eyes in +the beginning of the Antijacobin war. They would have determined on that +war, if it had been decided by universal suffrage.[107] + +_Mr. Fax._ Why was not the experiment tried? + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ It was not convenient. But they were in a most +amiable ferment of intolerant loyalty.[108] + +_Mr. Forester._ Of which the proof is to be found in the immortal +Gagging Bills, by which that intolerant loyalty was coerced. + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ The Gagging Bills? Hem! ha! What shall we say to +that? (_To Mr. Vamp._) + +_Mr. Vamp._ Say? The church is in danger! + +_Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Paperstamp, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. Anyside +Antijack._ The church is in danger! the church is in danger! + +_Mr. Forester._ Why was a war undertaken to prevent revolution, if all +the people of this country were so well fortified in loyalty? Did they +go to war for the purpose of forcibly preventing themselves from +following a bad example against their own will? For this is what your +argument seems to imply? + +_Mr. Fax._ That the people were in a certain degree of ferment is true: +but it required a great deal of management and delusion to turn that +ferment into the channel of foreign war. + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ Well, sir, and there was no other way to avoid +domestic reform, which every man who desires is a ruffian, a scoundrel, +and an incendiary,[109] as much so as those two rascals Rousseau and +Voltaire, who were the trumpeters of Hebert and Marat.[110] Reform, sir, +is not to be thought of; we have been at war twenty-five years to +prevent it; and to have it, after all, would be very hard. We have got +the national debt instead of it: in my opinion a very pretty substitute. + +_Mr. Derrydown_ sings— + + And I’ll hang on thy neck, my love, my love, + And I’ll hang on thy neck for aye! + And closer and closer I’ll press thee, my love, + Until my _dying day_. + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ I am happy to reflect that the silly question of +reform will have very few supporters in the Honourable House: but few as +they are, the number would be lessened if all who come into Parliament +by means which that question attempts to stigmatise would abstain from +voting upon it. Undoubtedly such practices are scandalous, as being +legally, and therefore morally wrong: but it is false that any evil to +the legislature arises from them.[111] + +_Mr. Forester._ Perhaps not, sir; but very great evil arises through +them from the legislature to the people. Your admission, that they are +legally, and _therefore_ morally wrong, implies a very curious method of +deriving morality from law; but I suspect there is much immorality that +is perfectly legal, and much legality that is supremely immoral. But +these practices, you admit, are both legally and morally wrong; yet you +call it a silly question to propose their cessation; and you assert that +all who wish to abolish them, all who wish to abolish illegal and +immoral practices, are ruffians, scoundrels, and incendiaries. + +_Mr. Killthedead._ Yes, and madmen moreover, and villains.[112] We are +all upon gunpowder! The insane and the desperate are scattering +firebrands![113] We shall all be blown up in a body: sinecures, rotten +boroughs, secret-service-men, and the whole _honourable band of +gentlemen pensioners_, will all be blown up in a body! _A stand! a +stand! it is time to make a stand against popular encroachment!_ + +_Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, and Mr. Paperstamp._ The church is in +danger! + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ Here is the great blunderbuss that is to blow +the whole nation to atoms! the Spencean blunderbuss! (_Saying these +words he produced a popgun from his pocket_,[114] _and shot off a paper +pellet in the ear of Mr. Paperstamp_, + + _Who in a kind of study sate + Denominated brown_; + +_which made the latter spring up in sudden fright, to the irremediable +perdition of a decanter of ‘Sherris sack,’ over which Mr. Feathernest +lamented bitterly._) + +_Mr. Forester._ I do not see what connection the Spencean theory, the +impracticable chimaera of an obscure herd of fanatics, has with the +great national question of parliamentary reform. + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ Sir, you may laugh at this popgun, but you will +find it the mallet of Thor.[115] The Spenceans are far more respectable +than the parliamentary reformers, and have a more distinct and +intelligible system!!![116] + +_Mr. Vamp._ Bravo! bravo! bravo! There is not another man in our corps +with brass enough to make such an assertion, but Mr. Anyside Antijack. +(_Reiterated shouts of Bravo! from Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, Mr. +Paperstamp, and Mr. Killthedead._) + +_Mr. Killthedead._ Make out that, and our job is done. + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ Make it out! Nonsense! I shall take it for +granted: I shall set up the Spencean plan as a more sensible plan than +that of the parliamentary reformers: then knock down the former, and +argue against the latter, _a fortiori_. (_The shouts of Bravo! here +became perfectly deafening, the critico-poetical corps being by this +time much more than half-seas-over._) + +_Mr. Killthedead._—The members for rotten boroughs are the most +independent members in the Honourable House, and the representatives of +most constituents least so.[117] + +_Mr. Fax._ How will you prove that? + +_Mr. Killthedead._ By calling the former gentlemen, and the latter mob +representatives.[118] + +_Mr. Vamp._ Nothing can be more logical. + +_Mr. Fax._ Do you call that logic? + +_Mr. Vamp._ Excellent logic. At least it will pass for such with our +readers. + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ We, and those who think with us, are the only +wise and good men.[119] + +_Mr. Forester._ May I take the liberty to inquire what you mean by a +wise and a good man? + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ A wise man is he who looks after the one thing +needful; and a good man is he who has it. The acme of wisdom and +goodness in conjunction consists in appropriating as much as possible of +the public money; and saying to those from whose pockets it is taken, ‘I +am perfectly satisfied with things as they are. Let _well_ alone!’ + +_Mr. Paperstamp._ We shall make out a very good case; but you must not +forget to call the present public distress an awful dispensation:[120] a +little pious cant goes a great way towards turning the thoughts of men +from the dangerous and jacobinical propensity of looking into moral and +political causes for moral and political effects. + +_Mr. Fax._ But the moral and political causes are now too obvious, and +too universally known, to be obscured by any such means. All the arts +and eloquence of corruption may be overthrown by the enumeration of +these simple words: boroughs, taxes, and paper-money. + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ Paper-money! What, is the ghost of bullion +abroad?[121] + +_Mr. Forester._ Yes! and till you can make the buried substance burst +the paper cerements of its sepulchre, its ghost will continue to walk +like the ghost of Caesar, saying to the desolated nation: ‘I am thy evil +spirit!’ + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ I must say, I am very sorry to find a gentleman +like you taking the part of the swinish multitude, who are only fit for +beasts of burden, to raise subsistence for their betters, pay taxes for +placemen, and recruit the army and navy for the benefit of legitimacy, +divine right, the Jesuits, the Pope, the Inquisition, and the Virgin +Mary’s petticoat. + +_Mr. Paperstamp._ Hear! hear! hear! Hear the voice which the stream of +Tendency is uttering for elevation of our thought! + +_Mr. Forester._ It was once said by a poet, whose fallen state none can +more bitterly lament than I do: + + We shall exult if they who rule the land + Be men who hold its many blessings dear, + Wise, upright, valiant; not a venal band, + Who are to judge of danger which they fear, + And honour which they do not understand. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ Poets, sir, are not amenable to censure, however +frequently their political opinions may exhibit marks of +inconsistency.[122] The Muse, as a French author says, is a mere +_étourdie_, a _folâtre_ who may play at her option on heath or on turf, +and transfer her song at pleasure from Hampden to Ferdinand, and from +Washington to Louis. + +_Mr. Forester._ If a poet be contented to consider himself in the light +of a merry-andrew, be it so. But if he assume the garb of moral +austerity, and pour forth against corruption and oppression the language +of moral indignation, there would at least be some decency, if, when he +changes sides, he would let the world see that conversion and promotion +have not gone hand in hand. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ What decency might be in that, I know not: but of +this I am very certain, that there would be no wisdom in it. + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ No! no! there would be no wisdom in it. + +_Mr. Feathernest._ Sir, I am a wise and a good man: mark that, sir; ay, +and an honourable man. + +_Mr. Vamp._ ‘So are we all, all honourable men!’ + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ And we will stick by one another with heart and +hand—— + +_Mr. Killthedead._ To make a stand against popular encroachment—— + +_Mr. Feathernest._ To bring back the glorious ignorance of the feudal +ages—— + +_Mr. Paperstamp._ To rebuild the mystic temples of venerable +superstition—— + +_Mr. Vamp._ To extinguish, totally and finally, the light of the human +understanding—— + +_Mr. Anyside Antijack._ And to get all we can for our trouble! + +_Mr. Feathernest._ So we will all say. + +_Mr. Paperstamp._ And so we will all sing. + + + QUINTETTO + + MR. FEATHERNEST, MR. VAMP, MR. KILLTHEDEAD, MR. PAPERSTAMP, AND MR. + ANYSIDE ANTIJACK + + To the tune of ‘_Turning, turning, turning, as the wheel goes round_.’ + + RECITATIVE—MR. PAPERSTAMP + + Jack Horner’s CHRISTMAS PIE my learned nurse + Interpreted to mean the _public purse_. + From thence a _plum_ he drew. O happy Horner! + Who would not be ensconced in thy snug corner? + + + THE FIVE + + While round the public board all eagerly we linger, + For what we can get we will try, try, try: + And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, + We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + + + MR. FEATHERNEST + + By my own poetic laws, I’m a dealer in applause + For those who don’t deserve it, but will buy, buy, buy: + So round the court I linger, and thus I get a finger, + A finger, finger, finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + + + THE FIVE + + And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, + We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + + + MR. VAMP + + My share of pie to win, I will dash through thick and thin, + And philosophy and liberty shall fly, fly, fly: + And truth and taste shall know, that their everlasting foe + Has a finger, finger, finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + + + THE FIVE + + And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, + We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + + + MR. KILLTHEDEAD + + I’ll make my verses rattle with the din of war and battle, + For war doth increase sa-la-ry, ry, ry: + And I’ll shake the public ears with the triumph of Algiers, + And thus I’ll get a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + + + THE FIVE + + And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, + We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + + + MR. PAPERSTAMP + + And while you thrive by ranting, I’ll try my luck at canting, + And scribble verse and prose all so dry, dry, dry: + And Mystic’s patent smoke public intellect shall choke, + And we’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + + + THE FIVE + + We’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, + We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + +MR. ANYSIDE ANTIJACK + + My tailor is so clever, that my coat will turn for ever + And take any colour you can dye, dye, dye: + For my earthly wishes are among the loaves and fishes, + And to have my little finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + + + THE FIVE + + And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, + We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE. + + + + + CHAPTER XL + THE HOPES OF THE WORLD + + +The mountain-roads being now buried in snow, they were compelled, on +leaving Mainchance Villa, to follow the most broad and beaten track, and +they entered on a turnpike road which led in the direction of the sea. + +‘I no longer wonder,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘that men in general are so much +disposed as I have found them to look with supreme contempt on the +literary character, seeing the abject servility and venality by which it +is so commonly debased.’[123] + +_Mr. Forester._ What then becomes of the hopes of the world, which you +have admitted to consist entirely in the progress of the mind, allowing, +as you must allow, the incontrovertible fact of the physical +deterioration of the human race? + +_Mr. Fax._ When I speak of the mind, I do not allude either to poetry or +to periodical criticism, nor, in any great degree, to physical science; +but I rest my hopes on the very same basis with Mr. Mystic’s fear—the +general diffusion of moral and political truth. + +_Mr. Forester._ For poetry, its best days are gone. Homer, Shakspeare, +and Milton will return no more. + +_Mr. Fax._ Lucretius we yet may hope for. + +_Mr. Forester._ Not till superstition and prejudice have been shorn of a +much larger portion of their power. If Lucretius should arise among us +in the present day, exile or imprisonment would be his infallible +portion. We have yet many steps to make before we shall arrive at the +liberality and toleration of Tiberius![124] And as to physical science, +though it does in some measure weaken the dominion of mental error, yet +I fear, where it proves itself in one instance the friend of human +liberty, it will be found in ninety-nine the slave of corruption and +luxury. + +_Mr. Fax._ In many cases science is both morally and politically +neutral, and its speculations have no connection whatever with the +business of life. + +_Mr. Forester._ It is true; and such speculations are often called +sublime: though the sublimity of uselessness passes my comprehension. +But the neutrality is only apparent: for it has in these cases the real +practical effect, and a most pernicious one it is, of withdrawing some +of the highest and most valuable minds from the only path of real +utility, which I agree with you to be that of moral and political +knowledge, to pursuits of no more real importance than that of keeping a +dozen eggs at a time dancing one after another in the air. + +_Mr. Fax._ If it be admitted, on the one hand, that the progress of +luxury has kept pace with that of physical science, it must be +acknowledged, on the other, that superstition has decayed in at least an +equal proportion; and I think it cannot be denied that the world is a +gainer by the exchange. + +_Mr. Forester._ The decay of superstition is immeasurably beneficial; +but the growth of luxury is not, therefore, the less pernicious. It is +lamentable to reflect that _there is most indigence in the richest +countries_;[125] and that the increase of superfluous enjoyment in the +few is counterbalanced by the proportionate diminution of comfort in the +many. Splendid equipages and sumptuous dwellings are far from being +symbols of general prosperity. The palace of luxurious indolence is much +rather the symbol of a thousand hovels, by the labours and privations of +whose wretched inhabitants that baleful splendour is maintained. +Civilisation, vice, and folly grow old together. Corruption begins among +the higher orders, and from them descends to the people; so that in +every nation the ancient nobility is the first to exhibit symptoms of +corporeal and mental degeneracy, and to show themselves unfit both for +council and war. If you recapitulate the few titled names that will +adorn the history of the present times, you will find that almost all of +them are new creations. The corporeal decay of mankind I hold to be +undeniable: the increase of general knowledge I allow: but reason is of +slow growth; and if men in general only become more corrupt as they +become more learned, the progress of literature will oppose no adequate +counterpoise to that of avarice, luxury, and disease. + +_Mr. Fax._ Certainly, the progress of reason is slow, but the ground +which it has once gained it never abandons. The interest of rulers, and +the prejudices of the people, are equally hostile to everything that +comes in the shape of innovation; but all that now wears the strongest +sanction of antiquity was once received with reluctance under the +semblance of novelty: and that reason, which in the present day can +scarcely obtain a footing from the want of precedents, will grow with +the growth of years, and become a precedent in its turn.[126] + +_Mr. Forester._ Reason may be diffused in society, but it is only in +minds which _have courage enough to despise prejudice and virtue enough +to love truth only for itself_,[127] that its seeds will germinate into +wholesome and vigorous life. The love of truth is the most noble quality +of human intellect, the most delightful in the interchange of private +confidence, the most important in the direction of those speculations +which have public happiness for their aim. Yet of all qualities this is +the most rare: it is the Phoenix of the intellectual world. In private +intercourse, how very very few are they whose assertions carry +conviction! How much petty deception, paltry equivocation, hollow +profession, smiling malevolence, and polished hypocrisy combine to make +a desert and a solitude of what is called society! How much empty +pretence and simulated patriotism, and shameless venality, and +unblushing dereliction of principle, and clamorous recrimination, and +daring imposture, and secret cabal, and mutual undermining of +‘Honourable Friends,’ render utterly loathsome and disgusting the +theatre of public life! How much timid deference to vulgar prejudice, +how much misrepresentation of the motives of conscientious opponents, +how many appeals to unreflecting passion, how much assumption of +groundless hypothesis, how many attempts to darken the clearest light +and entangle the simplest clue, render not only nugatory, but +pernicious, the speculations of moral and political reason! Pernicious, +inasmuch as it is better for the benighted traveller to remain +stationary in darkness, than to follow an _ignis fatuus_ through the +fen! Falsehood is the great vice of the age: falsehood of heart, +falsehood of mind, falsehood of every form and mode of intellect and +intercourse: so that it is hardly possible _to find a man of worth and +goodness of whom to make a friend: but he who does find such an one will +have more enjoyment of friendship than in a better age; for he will be +doubly fond of him, and will love him as Hamlet does Horatio, and with +him retiring and getting, as it were, under the shelter of a wall, will +let the storm of life blow over him_.[128] + +_Mr. Fax._ But that retirement must be consecrated to philosophical +labour, or, however delightful to the individuals, it will be treason to +the public cause. Be the world as bad as it may, it would necessarily be +much worse if the votaries of truth and the children of virtue were all +to withdraw from its vortex, and leave it to itself. If reason be +progressive, however slowly, the wise and good have sufficient +encouragement to persevere; and even if the doctrine of deterioration be +true, it is no less their duty to contribute all in their power to +retard its progress, by investigating its causes and remedies. + +_Mr. Forester._ Undoubtedly. But the progress of theoretical knowledge +has a most fearful counterpoise in the accelerated depravation of +practical morality. The frantic love of money, which seems to govern our +contemporaries to a degree unprecedented in the history of man, +paralyses the energy of independence, darkens the light of reason, and +blights the blossoms of love. + +_Mr. Fax._ The _amor sceleratus habendi_ is not peculiar either to our +times or to civilised life. _Money you must have, no matter from +whence_, is a sentence, if we may believe Euripides, as old as the +heroic age: and _the monk Rubruquis says of the Tartars, that, as +parents keep all their daughters till they can sell them, their maids +are sometimes very stale before they are married_.[129] + +_Mr. Forester._ In that respect, then, I must acknowledge the Tartars +and we are much on a par. It is a collateral question well worth +considering, how far the security of property, which contributes so much +to the diffusion of knowledge and the permanence of happiness, is +favourable to the growth of individual virtue. + +_Mr. Fax._ Security of property tranquillises the minds of men, and fits +them to shine rather in speculation than in action. In turbulent and +insecure states of society, when the fluctuations of power, or the +incursions of predatory neighbours, hang like the sword of Damocles over +the most flourishing possessions, friends are more dear to each other, +mutual services and sacrifices are more useful and more necessary, the +energies of heart and hand are continually called forth, and shining +examples of the self-oblivious virtues are produced in the same +proportion as mental speculation is unknown or disregarded: but our +admiration of these virtues must be tempered by the remark, that they +arise more from impulsive feeling than from reflective principle; and +that where life and fortune hold by such a precarious tenure, the first +may be risked, and the second abandoned, with much less effort than +would be required for inferior sacrifices in more secure and tranquil +times. + +_Mr. Forester._ Alas, my friend! I would willingly see such virtues as +do honour to human nature, without being very solicitous as to the +comparative quantities of impulse and reflection in which they +originate. If the security of property and the diffusion of general +knowledge were attended with a corresponding increase of benevolence and +_individual mental power_, no philanthropist could look with despondency +on the prospects of the world: but I can discover no symptoms of either +the one or the other. Insatiable accumulators, overgrown capitalists, +fatteners on public spoil, I cannot but consider as excrescences on the +body politic, typical of disease and prophetic of decay: yet it is to +these and such as these that the poet tunes his harp, and the man of +science consecrates his labours: it is for them that an enormous portion +of the population is condemned to unhealthy manufactories, not less +deadly but more lingering than the pestilence: it is for them that the +world rings with lamentations, if the most trivial accident, the most +transient sickness, the most frivolous disappointment befall them: but +when the prisons swarm, when the workhouses overflow, when whole +parishes declare themselves bankrupt, when thousands perish by famine in +the wintry streets, where then is the poet, where is the man of science, +where is the _elegant_ philosopher? The poet is singing hymns to the +great ones of the world, the man of science is making discoveries for +the adornment of their dwellings or the enhancement of their culinary +luxuries, and the _elegant_ philosopher is much too refined a personage +to allow such vulgar subjects as the sufferings of the poor to interfere +with his sublime speculations. _They are married and cannot come!_ + +_Mr. Fax._ Ἐψαυσας ἀλγεινοτατας ἐμοι μεριμνας![130] Those _elegant_ +philosophers are among the most fatal enemies to the advancement of +moral and political knowledge; laborious triflers, profound +investigators of nothing, everlasting talkers about taste and beauty, +who see in the starving beggar only the picturesqueness of his rags, and +in the ruined cottage only the harmonising tints of moss, mildew, and +stonecrop. + +_Mr. Forester._ We talk of public feeling and national sympathy. Our +dictionaries may define those words and our lips may echo them, but we +must look for the realities among less enlightened nations. The Canadian +savages cannot imagine the possibility of any individual in a community +having a full meal while another has but half an one:[131] still less +could they imagine that one should have too much, while another had +nothing. Theirs is that bond of brotherhood which nature weaves and +civilisation breaks, and from which the older nations grow the farther +they recede. + +_Mr. Fax._ It cannot be otherwise. The state you have described is +adapted only to a small community, and to the infancy of human society. +I shall make a very liberal concession to your views, if I admit it to +be possible that the middle stage of the progress of man is worse than +either the point from which he started or that at which he will arrive. +But it is my decided opinion that we have passed that middle stage, and +that every evil incident to the present condition of human society will +be removed by the diffusion of moral and political knowledge, and the +general increase of moral and political liberty. I contemplate with +great satisfaction the rapid decay of many hoary absurdities, which a +few transcendental hierophants of the venerable and the mysterious are +labouring in vain to revive. I look with well-grounded confidence to a +period when there will be neither slaves among the northern, nor monks +among the southern Americans. The sun of freedom has risen over that +great continent, with the certain promise of a glorious day. I form the +best hopes for my own country, in the mental improvement of the people, +whenever she shall breathe from the pressure of that preposterous system +of finance which sooner or later must fall by its own weight. + +_Mr. Forester._ I apply to our system of finance a fiction of the +northern mythology. The ash of Yggdrasil overshadows the world: +Ratatosk, the squirrel, sports in the branches: Nidhogger, the serpent, +gnaws at the root.[132] The ash of Yggdrasil is the tree of national +prosperity: Ratatosk the squirrel is the careless and unreflecting +fundholder: Nidhogger the serpent is POLITICAL CORRUPTION, which will in +time consume the root, and spread the branches on the dust. What will +then become of the squirrel? + +_Mr. Fax._ Ratatosk must look to himself: Nidhogger must be killed, and +the ash of Yggdrasil will rise like a vegetable Phoenix to flourish +again for ages. + +Thus conversing, they arrived on the sea-shore, where we shall leave +them to pursue their way, while we investigate the fate of Anthelia. + +[Illustration: _She immediately ran through the shrubbery._] + + + + + CHAPTER XLI + ALGA CASTLE + + +Anthelia had not ventured to resume her solitary rambles after her +return from Onevote; more especially as she anticipated the period when +she should revisit her favourite haunts in the society of one congenial +companion whose presence would heighten the magic of their interest, and +restore to them that feeling of security which her late adventure had +destroyed. But as she was sitting in her library on the morning of her +disappearance, she suddenly heard a faint and mournful cry, like the +voice of a child in distress. She rose, opened the window, and listened. +She heard the sounds more distinctly. They seemed to ascend from that +part of the dingle immediately beneath the shrubbery that fringed her +windows. It was certainly the cry of a child. She immediately ran +through the shrubbery and descended the rocky steps into the dingle, +where she found a little boy tied to the stem of a tree, crying and +sobbing as if his heart would break. Anthelia easily set him at liberty, +and his grief passed away like an April shower. She asked who had the +barbarity to treat him in such a manner. He said he could not tell—four +strange men on horseback had taken him up on the common where his father +lived, and brought him there and tied him to the tree, he could not tell +why. Anthelia took his hand and was leading him from the dingle, +intending to send him home by Peter Gray, when the men who had made the +little child their unconscious decoy broke from their ambush, seized +Anthelia, and taking effectual precautions to stifle her cries, placed +her on one of their horses, and travelled with great rapidity along +narrow and unfrequented ways, till they arrived at a solitary castle on +the sea-shore, where they conveyed her to a splendid suite of +apartments, and left her in solitude, locking, as they retired, the door +of the outer room. + +She was utterly unable to comprehend the motive of so extraordinary a +proceeding, or to form any conjecture as to its probable result. An old +woman of a very unmeaning physiognomy shortly after entered, to tender +her services; but to all Anthelia’s questions she only replied with a +shake of the head, and a smile which she meant to be very consolatory. + +The old woman retired, and shortly after reappeared with an elegant +dinner, which Anthelia dismissed untouched. ‘There is no harm intended +you, my sweet lady,’ said the old woman; ‘so pray don’t starve +yourself.’ Anthelia assured her she had no such intention, but had no +appetite at that time; but she drank a glass of wine at the old woman’s +earnest entreaty. + +In the evening the mystery was elucidated by a visit from Lord Anophel +Achthar; who, falling on his knees before her, entreated her to allow +the violence of his passion to plead his pardon for a proceeding which +nothing but the imminent peril of seeing her in the arms of a rival +could have induced him to adopt. Anthelia replied that, if his object +were to obtain her affections, he had taken the most effectual method to +frustrate his own views; that if he thought by constraint and cruelty to +obtain her hand without her affections, he might be assured that he +would never succeed. Her heart, however, she candidly told him, was no +longer in her power to dispose of; and she hoped, after this frank +avowal, he would see the folly, if not the wickedness, of protracting +his persecution. + +He now, still on his knees, broke out into a rhapsody about love, and +hope, and death, and despair, in which he developed the whole treasury +of his exuberant and overflowing folly. He then expatiated on his +expectations, and pointed out all the advantages of wealth and +consequence attached to the title of Marchioness of Agaric, and +concluded by saying that she must be aware so important and decisive a +measure had not been taken without the most grave and profound +deliberation, and that he never could suffer her to make her exit from +Alga Castle in any other character than that of Lady Achthar. He then +left her to meditate on his heroic resolution. + +[Illustration: _He flattered himself that Anthelia would at length come +to a determination._] + +The next day he repeated his visit—resumed his supplications—reiterated +his determination to persevere—and received from Anthelia the same +reply. She endeavoured to reason with him on the injustice and absurdity +of his proceedings; but he told her the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub and Mr. +Feathernest the poet had taught him that all reasonings pretending to +point out absurdity and injustice were manifestly jacobinical, which he, +as one of the pillars of the state, was bound not to listen to. + +He renewed his visits every day for a week, becoming with every new +visit less humble and more menacing, and consequently more disagreeable +to Anthelia, as the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, by whose instructions he +acted, secretly foresaw and designed. The latter now undertook to plead +his Lordship’s cause, and set in a clear point of view to Anthelia the +inflexibility of his Lordship’s resolutions, which, properly expounded, +could not fail to have due weight against the alternatives of protracted +solitude and hopeless resistance. + +The reverend gentleman, however, had other views than those he held out +to Lord Anophel, and presented himself to Anthelia with an aspect of +great commiseration. He said he was an unwilling witness of his +Lordship’s unjust proceedings, which he had done all in his power to +prevent, and which had been carried into effect against his will. It was +his firm intention to set her at liberty as soon as he could devise the +means of doing so; but all the outlets of Alga Castle were so guarded +that he had not yet been able to devise any feasible scheme for her +escape; but it should be his sole study night and day to effect it. + +Anthelia thanked him for his sympathy, and asked why he could not give +notice to her friends of her situation, which would accomplish the +purpose at once. He replied that Lord Anophel already mistrusted him, +and that if anything of the kind were done, however secretly he might +proceed, the suspicion would certainly fall upon him, and that he should +then be a ruined man, as all his worldly hopes rested on the Marquis of +Agaric. Anthelia offered to make him the utmost compensation for the +loss of the Marquis of Agaric’s favour; but he said that was impossible, +unless she could make him a bishop, as the Marquis of Agaric would do. +His plan, he said, must be to effect her liberation, without seeming to +be himself in any way whatever concerned in it; and though he would +willingly lose everything for her sake, yet he trusted she would not +think ill of him for wishing to wait a few days, that he might try to +devise the means of serving her without ruining himself. + +He continued his daily visits of sympathy, sometimes amusing her with a +hopeful scheme, at others detailing with a rueful face the formidable +nature of some unexpected obstacle, hinting continually at his readiness +to sacrifice everything for her sake, lamenting the necessity of delay, +and assuring her that in the meanwhile no evil should happen to her. He +flattered himself that Anthelia, wearied out with the irksomeness of +confinement, and the continual alternations of hope and disappointment, +and contrasting the respectful tenderness of his manner with the +disagreeable system of behaviour to which he had fashioned Lord Anophel, +would at length come to a determination of removing all his difficulties +by offering him her hand and fortune as a compensation for his +anticipated bishopric. It was not, however, very long before Anthelia +penetrated his design; but as she did not deem it prudent to come to a +rupture with him at that time, she continued to listen to his daily +details of plans and impediments, and allowed him to take to himself all +the merit he seemed to assume for supplying her with music and books; +though he expressed himself very much shocked at her asking him for +Gibbon and Rousseau, whose works, he said, ought to be burned _in foro_ +by the hands of _Carnifex_. + +The windows of her apartment were at an immense elevation from the +beach, as that part of the castle-wall formed a continued line with the +black and precipitous side of the rock on which it stood. During the +greater portion of the hours of daylight she sate near the window with +her harp, gazing on the changeful aspects of the wintry sea, now +slumbering like a summer lake in the sunshine of a halcyon day—now +raging beneath the sway of the tempest, while the dancing snow-flakes +seemed to accumulate on the foam of the billows, and the spray was +hurled back like snow-dust from the rocks. The feelings these scenes +suggested she developed in the following stanzas, to which she adapted a +wild and impassioned air, and they became the favourite song of her +captivity. + +[Illustration: _Gazing on the changeful aspects of the wintry sea._] + + THE MAGIC BARK + + I + + O Freedom! power of life and light! + Sole nurse of truth and glory! + Bright dweller on the rocky cliff! + Lone wanderer on the sea! + Where’er the sunbeam slumbers bright + On snow-clad mountains hoary; + Wherever flies the veering skiff, + O’er waves that breathe of thee! + Be thou the guide of all my thought— + The source of all my being— + The genius of my waking mind— + The spirit of my dreams! + To me thy magic spell be taught, + The captive spirit freeing, + To wander with the ocean-wind + Where’er thy beacon beams. + + + II + + O sweet it were, in magic bark, + On one loved breast reclining, + To sail around the varied world, + To every blooming shore; + And oft the gathering storm to mark + Its lurid folds combining; + And safely ride, with sails unfurled, + Amid the tempest’s roar; + And see the mighty breakers rave + On cliff and sand and shingle, + And hear, with long re-echoing shock, + The caverned steeps reply; + And while the storm-cloud and the wave + In darkness seemed to mingle, + To skim beside the surf-swept rock, + And glide uninjured by. + + + III + + And when the summer seas were calm, + And summer skies were smiling, + And evening came, with clouds of gold, + To gild the western wave; + And gentle airs and dews of balm, + The pensive mind beguiling, + Should call the Ocean Swain to fold + His sea-flocks in the cave, + Unearthly music’s tenderest spell, + With gentlest breezes blending + And waters softly rippling near + The prow’s light course along, + Should flow from Triton’s winding shell, + Through ocean’s depths ascending + From where it charmed the Nereid’s ear, + Her coral bowers among. + + + IV + + How sweet, where eastern Nature smiles, + With swift and mazy motion + Before the odour-breathing breeze + Of dewy morn to glide; + Or ‘mid the thousand emerald isles + That gem the southern ocean, + Where fruits and flowers, from loveliest trees, + O’erhang the slumbering tide: + Or up some western stream to sail, + To where its myriad fountains + Roll down their everlasting rills + From many a cloud-capped height, + Till mingling in some nameless vale, + ‘Mid forest-cinctured mountains, + The river-cataract shakes the hills + With vast and volumed might. + + + V + + The poison-trees their leaves should shed, + The yellow snake should perish, + The beasts of blood should crouch and cower, + Where’er that vessel past: + All plagues of fens and vapours bred, + That tropic fervours cherish, + Should fly before its healing power, + Like mists before the blast. + Where’er its keel the strand imprest + The young fruit’s ripening cluster, + The bird’s free song, its touch should greet + The opening flower’s perfume; + The streams along the green earth’s breast + Should roll in purer lustre, + And love should heighten every sweet, + And brighten every bloom. + + + VI + + And, Freedom! thy meridian blaze + Should chase the clouds that lower, + Wherever mental twilight dim + Obscures Truth’s vestal flame, + Wherever Fraud and Slavery raise + The throne of bloodstained Power, + Wherever Fear and Ignorance hymn + Some fabled daemon’s name! + The bard, where torrents thunder down + Beside thy burning altar, + Should kindle, as in days of old, + The mind’s ethereal fire; + Ere yet beneath a tyrant’s frown + The Muse’s voice could falter, + Or Flattery strung with chords of gold + The minstrel’s venal lyre. + + + + + CHAPTER XLII + CONCLUSION + + +Lord Anophel one morning paid Anthelia his usual visit. ‘You must be +aware, Miss Melincourt,’ said he, ‘that if your friends could have found +you out, they would have done it before this; but they have searched the +whole country far and near, and have now gone home in despair.’ + +_Anthelia._ That, my Lord, I cannot believe; for there is one, at least, +who I am confident will never be weary of seeking me, and who, I am +equally confident, will not always seek in vain. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ If you mean the young lunatic of Redrose Abbey, +or his friend the dumb Baronet, they are both gone to London to attend +the opening of the Honourable House; and if you doubt my word, I will +show you their names in the _Morning Post_, among the Fashionable +Arrivals at Wildman’s Hotel. + +_Anthelia._ Your Lordship’s word is quite as good as the authority you +have quoted. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Well, then, Miss Melincourt, I presume you +perceive that you are completely in my power, and that I have gone too +far to recede. If, indeed, I had supposed myself an object of such very +great repugnance to you, which I must say (_looking at himself in a +glass_) is quite unaccountable, I might not, perhaps, have laid this +little scheme, which I thought would be only settling the affair in a +compendious way; for that any woman in England would consider it a very +great hardship to be Lady Achthar, and hereafter Marchioness of Agaric, +and would feel any very mortal resentment for means that tended to make +her so, was an idea, egad, that never entered my head. However, as I +have already observed, you are completely in my power: both our +characters are compromised, and there is only one way to mend the +matter, which is to call in Grovelgrub, and make him strike up ‘Dearly +beloved.’ + +[Illustration: _Preparing to administer natural justice by throwing him +out at the window._] + +_Anthelia._ As to your character, Lord Anophel, that must be your +concern. Mine is in my own keeping; for, having practised all my life a +system of uniform sincerity, which gives me a right to be believed by +all who know me, and more especially by all who love me, I am perfectly +indifferent to private malice or public misrepresentation. + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ There is such a thing, Miss Melincourt, as +tiring out a man’s patience; and, ‘pon honour, if gentle means don’t +succeed with you, I must have recourse to rough ones, ‘pon honour. + +_Anthelia._ My Lord! + +_Lord Anophel Achthar._ I am serious, curse me. You will be glad enough +to hush all up, then, and we’ll go to court together in due form. + +_Anthelia._ What you mean by hushing up, Lord Anophel, I know not: but +of this be assured, that under no circumstances will I ever be your +wife; and that whatever happens to me in any time or place, shall be +known to all who are interested in my welfare. I know too well the +difference between the true quality of a pure and simple mind and the +false affected modesty which goes by that name in the world, to be +intimidated by threats which can only be dictated by a supposition that +your wickedness would be my disgrace, and that false shame would induce +me to conceal what both truth and justice would command me to make +known. + +[Illustration: _We shall leave them to run_ ad libitum.] + +Lord Anophel stood aghast for a few minutes, at the declaration of such +unfashionable sentiments. At length saying, ‘Ay, preaching is one thing, +and practice another, as Grovelgrub can testify,’ he seized her hand +with violence, and threw his arm round her waist. Anthelia screamed, and +at that very moment a violent noise of ascending steps was heard on the +stairs; the door was burst open, and Sir Oran Haut-ton appeared in the +aperture, with the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub in custody, whom he dragged +into the apartment, followed by Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax. Mr. Forester +flew to Anthelia, who threw herself into his arms, hid her face in his +bosom, and burst into tears: which when Sir Oran saw, his wrath grew +boundless, and quitting his hold of the Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub (who +immediately ran downstairs, and out of the castle, as fast as a pair of +short thick legs could carry him), seized on Lord Anophel Achthar, and +was preparing to administer natural justice by throwing him out at the +window; but Mr. Fax interposed, and calling Mr. Forester’s attention, +which was totally engaged with Anthelia, they succeeded in rescuing the +terrified sprig of nobility; who immediately, leaving the enemy in free +possession, flew downstairs after his reverend tutor; whom, on issuing +from the castle, he discovered at an immense distance on the sands, +still running with all his might. Lord Anophel gave him chase, and after +a long time came within hail of him, and shouted to him to stop. But +this only served to quicken the reverend gentleman’s speed; who, hearing +the voice of pursuit, and too much terrified to look back, concluded +that the dumb Baronet had found his voice, and was then in the very act +of gaining on his flight. Therefore, the more Lord Anophel shouted +‘Stop!’ the more nimbly the reverend gentleman sped along the sands, +running and roaring all the way, like Falstaff on Gadshill; his Lordship +still exerting all his powers of speed in the rear, and gaining on his +flying Mentor by very imperceptible gradations: where we shall leave +them to run _ad libitum_, while we account for the sudden appearance of +Mr. Forester and his friends. + +[Illustration: ‘_He would confess all._’] + +We left them walking along the shore of the sea, which they followed +till they arrived in the vicinity of Alga Castle, from which the +Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub emerged in evil hour, to take a meditative walk +on the sands. The keen sight of the natural man descried him from far. +Sir Oran darted on his prey; and though it is supposed that he could not +have overtaken the swift-footed Achilles,[133] he had very little +difficulty in overtaking the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, who had begun to +run for his life as soon as he was aware of the foe. Sir Oran shook his +stick over his head, and the reverend gentleman dropping on his knees, +put his hands together, and entreated for mercy, saying ‘he would +confess all.’ Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax came up in time to hear the +proposal: the former restrained the rage of Sir Oran, who, however, +still held his prisoner fast by the arm; and the reluctant divine, with +many a heavy groan, conducted his unwelcome company to the door of +Anthelia’s apartments. + +‘O Forester!’ said Anthelia, ‘you have realised all my wishes. I have +found you the friend of the poor, the enthusiast of truth, the +disinterested cultivator of the rural virtues, the active promoter of +the cause of human liberty. It only remained that you should emancipate +a captive damsel, who, however, will but change the mode of her durance, +and become your captive for life.’ + + +It was not long after this event, before the Reverend Mr. Portpipe and +the old chapel of Melincourt Castle were put in requisition, to make a +mystical unit of Anthelia and Mr. Forester. The day was celebrated with +great festivity throughout their respective estates, and the Reverend +Mr. Portpipe was _voti compos_, that is to say, he had taken a +resolution on the day of Anthelia’s christening, that he would on the +day of her marriage drink one bottle more than he had ever taken at one +sitting on any other occasion; which resolution he had now the +satisfaction of carrying into effect. + +Sir Oran Haut-ton continued to reside with Mr. Forester and Anthelia. +They discovered in the progress of time that he had formed for the +latter the same kind of reverential attachment as the Satyr in Fletcher +forms for the Holy Shepherdess:[134] and Anthelia might have said to him +in the words of Corin: + + They wrong thee that do call thee rude: + Though thou be’st outward rough and tawny-hued, + Thy manners are as gentle and as fair + As his who boasts himself born only heir + To all humanity. + +His greatest happiness was in listening to the music of her harp and +voice: in the absence of which he solaced himself, as usual, with his +flute and French horn. He became likewise a proficient in drawing; but +what progress he made in the art of speech we have not been able to +ascertain. + +Mr. Fax was a frequent visitor at Melincourt, and there was always a +cover at the table for the Reverend Mr. Portpipe. + +Mr. Hippy felt half inclined to make proposals to Miss Evergreen; but +understanding from Mr. Forester that, from the death of her lover in +early youth, that lady had irrevocably determined on a single life,[135] +he comforted himself with passing half his time at Melincourt Castle, +and dancing the little Foresters on his knee, whom he taught to call him +‘grandpapa Hippy,’ and seemed extremely proud of the imaginary +relationship. + +Mr. Forester disposed of Redrose Abbey to Sir Telegraph Paxarett, who, +after wearing the willow twelve months, married, left off driving, and +became a very respectable specimen of an English country gentleman. + +We must not conclude without informing those among our tender-hearted +readers who would be much grieved if Miss Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney +should have been disappointed in her principal object of making a _good +match_, that she had at length the satisfaction, through the skilful +management of her mother, of making the happiest of men of Lord Anophel +Achthar. + + + THE END + + + _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. + +----- + +Footnote 1: + + The following is the motto of the title-page of the first + edition:—‘Nous nous moquons des Paladins! quand ces maximes + romanesques commencèrent à devenir ridicules, ce changement fut moins + l’ouvrage de la raison que celui des mauvaises mœurs.’—ROUSSEAU. + +Footnote 2: + + Written in 1817.—Published in 1818. + +Footnote 3: + + Hor. Epist. I. ii. 27–30. + +Footnote 4: + + Junius. + +Footnote 5: + + For Lucy Gray and Alice Fell, see Mr. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads. + +Footnote 6: + + Coleridge’s ‘Friend.’ + +Footnote 7: + + ‘There is not any burden that some would gladlier post off to + another than the charge and care of their religion. There be of + Protestants and professors who live and die in as arrant and + implicit faith as any lay Papist of Loretto. A wealthy man, addicted + to his pleasure and to his profits, finds religion to be a traffic + so entangled and of so many peddling accounts, that, of all + mysteries, he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. + What should he do? Fain would he have the name to be religious: fain + would he bear up with his neighbours in that. What does he, + therefore, but resolves to give over toiling, and to find himself + out some factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole + management of his religious affairs; some divine of note and + estimation that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole + warehouse of his religion, with all the locks and keys, into his + custody, and, indeed, makes the very person of that man his + religion, esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and + commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say, his religion + is now no more within himself, but is become a dividual movable, and + goes and comes near him according as that good man frequents the + house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him: + his religion comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and + sumptuously laid to sleep, rises, is saluted, and after the malmsey, + or some well-spiced brewage, and better breakfasted than he whose + morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany + and Jerusalem, his religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his + kind entertainer in the shop, trading all day without his + religion.’—MILTON’S _Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing_. + +Footnote 8: + + ‘I think I have established his humanity by proof that ought to + satisfy every one who gives credit to human testimony.’—_Ancient + Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 40. + + ‘I have brought myself to a perfect conviction that the oran outang is + a human creature as much as any of us.’—_Ibid._ + + ‘Nihil humani ei deesse diceres praeter loquelam.’—BONTIUS. + + ‘The fact truly is, that the man is easily distinguishable in him; nor + are there any differences betwixt him and us, but what may be + accounted for in so satisfactory a manner that it would be + extraordinary and unnatural if they were not to be found. His body, + which is of the same shape as ours, is bigger and stronger than + ours, ... according to that general law of nature above observed + (_that all animals thrive best in their natural state_). His mind is + such as that of a man must be, uncultivated by arts and sciences, and + living wild in the woods.... One thing, at least, is certain: that if + ever men were in that state which I call natural, it must have been in + such a country and climate as Africa, where they could live without + art upon the natural fruits of the earth. “Such countries,” Linnaeus + says, “are the native country of man; there he lives naturally; in + other countries, _non nisi coacte_, that is, by force of art.” If this + be so, then the short history of man is, that the race, having begun + in those fine climates, and having, as is natural, multiplied there so + much that the spontaneous productions of the earth could not support + them, they migrated into other countries, where they were obliged to + invent arts for their subsistence; and with such arts, language, in + process of time, would necessarily come.... That my facts and + arguments are so convincing as to leave no doubt of the humanity of + the oran outang, I will not take upon me to say; but thus much I will + venture to affirm, that I have said enough to make the philosopher + consider it as problematical, and a subject deserving to be inquired + into. _For, as to the vulgar, I can never expect that they should + acknowledge any relation to those inhabitants of the woods of Angola_; + but that they should continue, through a false pride, to think highly + derogatory from human nature what the philosopher, on the contrary, + will think the greatest praise of man, that from the savage state in + which the oran outang is, he should, by his own sagacity and industry, + have arrived at the state in which we now see him.’—_Origin and + Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 5. + +Footnote 9: + + ‘L’Oran Outang, ou l’homme des bois, est un être particulier à la zone + torride de notre hémisphère: le Pline de la nation qui l’a rangé dans + la classe de singes ne me paroît pas conséquent; car il résulte des + principaux traits de sa description que c’est un homme + dégénère.’—_Philosophie de la Nature._ + +Footnote 10: + + ‘The dispositions and affections of his mind are mild, gentle, and + humane.’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4. + + ‘The oran outang whom Buffon himself saw was of a sweet + temper.’—_Ibid._ + +Footnote 11: + + ‘But though I hold the oran outang to be of our species, it must not + be supposed that I think the monkey or ape, with or without a tail, + participates of our nature: on the contrary, I maintain that, however + much his form may resemble man’s, yet he is, as Linnaeus says, of the + Troglodyte, _nec nostri generis nec sanguinis_. For as the mind, or + internal principle, is the chief part of every animal, it is by it + principally that the ancients have distinguished the several species. + Now it is laid down by Mr. Buffon, and I believe it to be a fact that + cannot be contested, that neither monkey, ape, nor baboon, have + anything mild or gentle, tractable or docile, benevolent or humane in + their dispositions; but, on the contrary, are malicious and + untractable, to be governed only by force and fear, and without any + _gravity or composure in their gait or behaviour, such as the oran + outang has_.’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4. + +Footnote 12: + + ‘He is capable of the greatest affection, not only to his brother oran + outangs, but to such among us as use him kindly. And it is a fact well + attested to me by a gentleman who was an eye-witness of it, that an + oran outang on board his ship conceived such an affection for the + cook, that when upon some occasion he left the ship to go ashore, the + gentleman saw the oran outang shed tears in great abundance.’—_Ibid._ + book ii. chap. 4. + +Footnote 13: + + ‘One of them was taken, and brought with some negro slaves to the + capital of the kingdom of Malemba. He was a young one, but six feet + and a half tall. Before he came to this city he had been kept some + months in company with the negro slaves, and during that time was tame + and gentle, and took his victuals very quietly; but when he was + brought into the town, such crowds of people came about him to gaze at + him, that he could not bear it, but grew sullen, abstained from food, + and died in four or five days.’—_Ibid._ book ii. chap. 4. + +Footnote 14: + + ‘He has the capacity of being a musician, and has actually learned to + play upon the pipe and harp: a fact attested, not by a common + traveller, but by a man of science, Mr. Peiresc, and who relates it, + not as a hearsay, but as a fact consisting with his own knowledge. And + this is the more to be attended to, as it shows that the oran outang + has a perception of numbers, measure, and melody, which has always + been accounted peculiar to our species. But the learning to speak, as + well as the learning music, must depend upon particular circumstances; + and men living as the oran outangs do, upon the natural fruits of the + earth, with few or no arts, are not in a situation that is proper for + the invention of language. The oran outangs who played upon the pipe + had certainly not invented this art in the woods, but they had learned + it from the negroes or the Europeans; and that they had not at the + same time learned to speak, may be accounted for in one or other of + two ways: either the same pains had not been taken to teach them + articulation; or, secondly, music is more natural to man, and more + easily acquired than speech.’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book + ii. chap. 5. + +Footnote 15: + + ‘Ces animaux,’ dit M. de la Brosse, ‘ont l’instinct de s’asseoir à + table comme les hommes; ils mangent de tout sans distinction; ils se + servent du couteau, de la cuillère, et de la fourchette, pour prendre + et couper ce qu’on sert sur l’assiette: _ils boivent du vin et + d’autres liqueurs_: nous les portâmes à bord; quand ils étoient à + table ils se faisoient entendre des mousses lorsqu’ils avoient besoin + de quelque chose.’—BUFFON. + +Footnote 16: + + ‘If I can believe the newspapers, there was an oran outang of the + great kind, that was some time ago shipped aboard a French East India + ship. I hope he has had a safe voyage to Europe, and that his + education will be taken care of.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. + 40. + +Footnote 17: + + _Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4. + +Footnote 18: + + ‘Homo nocturnus, Troglodytes, silvestris, orang outang Bontii. Corpus + album, incessu erectum.... Loquitur sibilo, cogitat, ratiocinatur, + credit sui causa factam tellurem, se aliquando iterum fore + imperantem.’—LINNAEUS. + +Footnote 19: + + ‘Il n’a point de queue: ses bras, ses mains, ses doigts, ses ongles, + sont pareils aux nôtres: il marche toujours debout: il a des traits + approchans de ceux de l’homme, des oreilles de la même forme, des + cheveux sur la tête, de la barbe au menton, et du poil ni plus ni + moins que l’homme en a dans l’état de nature. Aussi les habitans de + son pays, les Indiens policés, n’ont pas hésité de l’associer à + l’espèce humaine, par le nom d’oran outang, _homme sauvage_. Si l’on + ne faisoit attention qu’à la figure, on pourroit regarder l’oran + outang comme le premier des singes ou le dernier des hommes, parce + qu’à l’exception de l’âme, il ne lui manque rien de tout ce que nous + avons, et parce qu’il diffère moins de l’homme pour le corps qu’il ne + diffère des autres animaux auxquels on a donné le même nom de + singe.—S’il y avoit un degré par lequel on pût descendre de la nature + humaine à celle des animaux, si l’essence de cette nature consistoit + en entier dans la forme du corps et dépendoit de son organisation, + l’oran outang se trouveroit plus près de l’homme que d’aucun animal: + assis au second rang des êtres, s’il ne pouvoit commander en premier, + il feroit au moins sentir aux autres sa supériorité, et s’efforceroit + à ne pas obéir: si l’imitation qui semble copier de si près la pensée + en étoit le vrai signe ou l’un des résultats, il se trouveroit encore + à une plus grande distance des animaux et plus voisin de + l’homme.’—BUFFON. + + ‘On est tout étonné, d’après tous ces aveux, que M. de Buffon ne fasse + de l’oran outang qu’une espèce de magot, essentiellement circonscrit + dans les bornes de l’animalité: il falloit, ou infirmer les rélations + des voyageurs, ou s’en tenir à leurs résultats.—Quand on lit dans ce + naturaliste l’histoire du Nègre blanc, on voit que ce bipède diffère + de nous bien plus que l’oran outang, soit par l’organisation, soit par + l’intelligence, et cependant on ne balance pas à le mettre dans la + classe des hommes.’—_Philosophie de la Nature._ + +Footnote 20: + + ‘Les jugemens précipités, et qui ne sont point le fruit d’une raison + éclairée, sont sujets à donner dans l’excès. Nos voyageurs font sans + façon des bêtes, sous les noms de pongos, de mandrills, d’oran + outangs, de ces mêmes êtres, dont, sous le nom de satyres, de faunes, + de sylvains, les anciens faisoient des divinités. Peut-être, après des + recherches plus exactes, trouvera-t-on que ce sont des + hommes.’—ROUSSEAU, _Discours sur l’Inégalité_, note 8. + + ‘Il est presque démontré que les faunes, les satyres, les sylvains, + les ægipans, et toute cette foule de demi-dieux, difformes et + libertins, à qui les filles des Phocion et des Paul Émile s’avisèrent + de rendre hommage, ne furent dans l’origine que des oran outangs. Dans + la suite, les poëtes chargèrent le portrait de l’homme des bois, en + lui donnant des pieds de chèvre, une queue et des cornes; mais le type + primordial resta, et le philosophe l’apperçoit dans les monumens les + plus défigurés par l’imagination d’Ovide et le ciseau de Phidias. Les + anciens, très embarrassés de trouver la filiation de leurs sylvains, + et de leurs satyres, se tirèrent d’affaire en leur donnant des dieux + pour pères: les dieux étoient d’un grand secours aux philosophes des + temps reculés, pour résoudre les problèmes d’histoire naturelle; ils + leur servoient comme les cycles et les épicycles dans le système + planétaire de Ptolomée: avec des cycles et des dieux on répond à tout, + quoiqu’on ne satisfasse personne.’—_Philosophie de la Nature._ + +Footnote 21: + + Orphica, Hymn. XI. (X _Gesn._) + +Footnote 22: + + The words in italics are from the _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. pp. + 41, 42. Lord Monboddo adds: ‘I hold it to be impossible to convince + any philosopher, or any man of common sense, who has bestowed any time + to consider the mechanism of speech, that such various actions and + configurations of the organs of speech as are necessary for + articulation can be natural to man. Whoever thinks this possible, + should go and see, as I have done, Mr. Braidwood of Edinburgh, or the + Abbé de l’Epée in Paris, teach the dumb to speak; and when he has + observed all the different actions of the organs, which those + professors are obliged to mark distinctly to their pupils with a great + deal of pains and labour, so far from thinking articulation natural to + man, he will rather wonder how, by any teaching or imitation, he + should attain to the ready performance of such various and complicated + operations.’ + + ‘Quoique l’organe de la parole soit naturel à l’homme, la parole + elle-même ne lui est pourtant pas naturelle.’—ROUSSEAU, _Discours sur + l’Inégalité_, note 8. + + ‘The oran outang, so accurately dissected by Tyson, had exactly the + same organs of voice that a man has.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. + p. 44. + + ‘I have been told that the oran outang who is to be seen in Sir Ashton + Lever’s collection, had learned before he died to articulate some + words.’—_Ibid._ p. 40. + +Footnote 23: + + ‘I desire any philosopher to tell me the specific difference between + an oran outang sitting at table, and behaving as M. de la Brosse or M. + Buffon himself has described him, and one of our dumb persons; and in + general I believe it will be very difficult, or rather impossible, for + a man who is accustomed to divide things according to specific marks, + not individual differences, to draw the line betwixt the oran outang + and the dumb persons among us: they have both their organs of + pronunciation, and both show signs of intelligence by their + actions.’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4. + +Footnote 24: + + _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iv. p. 55. + +Footnote 25: + + ‘Toute la terre est couverte de nations, dont nous ne connoissons que + les noms, et nous nous mêlons de juger le genre humain! Supposons un + Montesquieu, un Buffon, un Diderot, un Duclos, un d’Alembert, un + Condillac, ou des hommes de cette trempe, voyageant pour instruire + leurs compatriotes, observant et décrivant comme ils sçavent faire, la + Turquie, l’Égypte, la Barbarie, l’Empire de Maroc, la Guinée, le pays + des Caffres, l’intérieur de l’Afrique et ses côtes orientales, les + Malabares, le Mogol, les rives du Gange, les royaumes de Siam, de Pégu + et d’Ava, la Chine, la Tartarie, et sur-tout le Japon; puis dans + l’autre hémisphère le Méxique, le Pérou, le Chili, les Terres + Magellaniques, sans oublier les Patagons vrais ou faux, le Tucuman, le + Paraguai, s’il étoit possible, le Brésil, enfin les Caraïbes, la + Floride, et toutes les contrées sauvages, voyage le plus important de + tous, et celui qu’il faudroit faire avec le plus de soin; supposons + que ces nouveaux Hercules, de retour de ces courses mémorables, + fissent à loisir l’histoire naturelle, morale, et politique de ce + qu’ils auroient vus, nous verrions nous-mêmes sortir un monde nouveau + de dessous leur plume, et nous apprendrions ainsi à connoître le + nôtre: je dis que quand de pareils observateurs affirmeront d’un tel + animal que c’est un homme, et d’un autre que c’est une bête, il faudra + les en croire: mais ce seroit une grande simplicité de s’en rapporter + là-dessus à des voyageurs grossiers, sur lesquels on seroit + quelquefois tenté de faire la même question qu’ils se mêlent de + résoudre sur d’autres animaux.’—ROUSSEAU, _Discours sur l’Inégalité_, + note 8. + +Footnote 26: + + ΑΝΩΦΕΛον ΑΧΘος ΑΡουρας. _Terrae pondus inutile._ + +Footnote 27: + + _Agaricus_, in Botany, a genus of plants of the class Cryptogamia, + comprehending the mushroom, and a copious variety of toadstools. + +Footnote 28: + + ἐγγυς γαρ νυκτος τε και ἡματος εἰσι κελευθοι. + +Footnote 29: + + ‘Ils sont si robustes, dit le traducteur de l’Histoire des Voyages, + que dix hommes ne suffiroient pas pour les arrêter.’—ROUSSEAU. + + ‘The oran outang is prodigiously strong.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. + iv. p. 51; vol. v. p. 4. + + ‘I have heard the natives say, he can throw down a palm-tree, by his + amazing strength, to come at the wine.’—_Letter of a Bristol Merchant + in a note to the Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4. + +Footnote 30: + + See Louvet’s _Récit de mes Périls_. + +Footnote 31: + + Rousseau, _Émile_, liv. 5. + +Footnote 32: + + ‘L’issue aucthorise souvent une tres-inepte conduitte. Nostre + entremise n’est quasy qu’une routine, et plus communement + consideration d’usage et d’exemple que de raison.... L’heur et le + malheur sont à mon gré deux souveraines puissances. C’est imprudence + d’estimer que l’humaine prudence puisse remplir le roolle de la + fortune. Et vaine est l’entreprinse de celuy qui presume d’embrasser + et causes et consequences, et meiner par la main le progrez de son + faict.... Qu’on reguarde qui sont les plus puissans aux villes, et + qui font mieulx leurs besongnes, on trouvera ordinairement que ce + sont les moins habiles.... Nous attribuons les effects de leur bonne + fortune à leur prudence.... Parquoy je dy bien, en toutes façons, + que les evenements sont maigres tesmoings de nostre prix et + capacité.’—MONTAIGNE, liv. iii. chap. 8. + +Footnote 33: + + Ecclesiastes, chap. iv. + +Footnote 34: + + _Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4. + +Footnote 35: + + ‘I have endeavoured to support the ancient definition of man, and to + show that it belongs to the oran outang, though he have not the use of + speech. And indeed it appears surprising to me that any man, + pretending to be a philosopher, should not be satisfied with the + expression of intelligence in the most useful way for the purposes of + life; I mean by actions; but should require likewise the expression of + them, by those signs of arbitrary institution we call _words_, before + they will allow an animal to deserve the name of _man_. Suppose that, + upon inquiry, it should be found that the oran outangs have not only + invented the art of building huts, and of attacking and defending with + sticks, _but also have contrived a way of communicating to the absent, + and recording their ideas by the method of painting or drawing_, as is + practised by many barbarous nations (and the supposition is not at all + impossible, or even improbable); and suppose they should have + contrived some form of government, and should elect kings or rulers, + which is possible, and, according to the information of the Bristol + merchant above mentioned, is reported to be actually the case, what + would Mr. Buffon then say? Must they still be accounted brutes, + because they have not yet fallen upon the method of communication by + articulate sounds?’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. + 4. + +Footnote 36: + + Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey.’ + +Footnote 37: + + The _Iliad_. + +Footnote 38: + + The _Odyssey_. + +Footnote 39: + + The _Prometheus_ of Aeschylus. + +Footnote 40: + + The _Philoctetes_ of Sophocles. + +Footnote 41: + + The _Hippolytus_ of Euripides. + +Footnote 42: + + ‘Je l’ai vu présenter sa main pour reconduire les gens qui venoient le + visiter; se promener gravement avec eux et comme de compagnie, + etc.’—BUFFON. _H. N. de l’Oran Outang._ + +Footnote 43: + + Fletcher’s ‘Sea Voyage.’ + +Footnote 44: + + Anima certe, quia spiritus est, in sicco habitare non potest. + +Footnote 45: + + _Edinburgh Review_, No. liii. p. 10. + +Footnote 46: + + See the preface to the third volume of the _Ancient Metaphysics_. See + also Rousseau’s _Discourse on Inequality_ and that on the _Arts and + Sciences_. + +Footnote 47: + + nam si Pieria quadrans tibi nullus in umbra + ostendatur, ames nomen victumque Machaerae, + et vendas potius commissa quod auctio vendit, etc.—JUV. + +Footnote 48: + + ‘They use an artificial weapon for attack and defence, viz. a stick, + which no animal merely brute is known to do.’—_Origin and Progress of + Language_, book ii. chap. 4. + +Footnote 49: + + ‘There is a story of one of them, which seems to show they have a + sense of justice as well as honour. For a negro having shot a female + of this kind, that was feeding among his Indian corn, the male, whom + our author calls the husband of this female, pursued the negro into + his house, of which having forced open the door, he seized the negro + and dragged him out of the house to the place where his wife lay dead + or wounded, and the people of the neighbourhood could not rescue the + negro, nor force the oran to quit his hold of him, till they shot him + likewise.’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4. + +Footnote 50: + + See Chap. IV. + +Footnote 51: + + ‘Homer has said nothing, positively, of the size of any of his heroes, + but only comparatively, as I shall presently observe: nor is this to + be wondered at; for I know no historian, ancient or modern, that says + anything of the size of the men of his own nation, except + comparatively with that of other nations. But in that fine episode of + his, called by the ancient critics the Τειχοσκοπια or _Prospect from + the Walls_, he has given us a very accurate description of the persons + of several of the Greek heroes; which I am persuaded he had from very + good information. In this description he tells us that Ulysses was + shorter than Agamemnon by the head, shorter than Menelaus by the head + and shoulders, and that Ajax was taller than any of the Greeks by the + head and shoulders; consequently, Ulysses was shorter than Ajax by two + heads and shoulders, which we cannot reckon less than four feet. Now, + if we suppose heroes to have been no bigger than we, then Ajax must + have been a man about six feet and a half, or at most seven feet; and + if so Ulysses must have been most contemptibly short, not more than + three feet, which is certainly not the truth, but a most absurd and + ridiculous fiction, such as we cannot suppose in Homer: whereas, if we + allow Ajax to have been twelve or thirteen feet high, and, much more, + if we suppose him to have been eleven cubits, as Philostratus makes + him, Ulysses, though four feet short of him, would have been of a good + size, and, with the extraordinary breadth which Homer observes he had, + may have been as strong a man as Ajax.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. + iii. p. 146. + +Footnote 52: + + ‘It was only in after-ages, when the size of men was greatly + decreased, that the bodies of those heroes, if they happened to be + discovered, were, as was natural, admired and exactly measured. Such a + thing happened in Laconia, where the body of Orestes was discovered, + and found to be of length seven cubits, that is, ten feet and a half. + The story is most pleasantly told by Herodotus, and is to this effect: + The Lacedemonians were engaged in a war with the Tegeatae, a people of + Arcadia, in which they were unsuccessful. They consulted the oracle at + Delphi, what they should do in order to be more successful. The oracle + answered ‘That they must bring to Sparta the bones of Orestes, the son + of Agamemnon.’ But these bones they could not find, and therefore they + sent again to the oracle to inquire where Orestes lay buried. The god + answered in hexameter verse, but so obscurely and enigmatically that + they could not understand what he meant. They went about inquiring + everywhere for the bones of Orestes, till at last a wise man among + them, called by Herodotus _Liches_, found them out, partly by good + fortune, and partly by good understanding; for, happening to come one + day to a smith’s shop in the country of the Tegeatae, with whom at + that time there was a truce and intercourse betwixt the two nations, + he looked at the operations of the smith, and seemed to admire them + very much; which the smith observing, stopped his work, and, + “Stranger,” says he, “you that seem to admire so much the working of + iron would have wondered much more if you had seen what I saw lately; + for, as I was digging for a well in this court here, I fell upon a + coffin that was seven cubits long; but _believing that there never + were at any time bigger men than the present_, I opened the coffin, + and found there a dead body as long as the coffin, which having + measured I again buried.” Hearing this, the Spartan conjectured that + the words of the oracle would apply to a smith’s shop, and to the + operations there performed; but taking care not to make this discovery + to the smith, he prevailed on him, with much difficulty, to give him a + lease of the court; which having obtained, he opened the coffin, and + carried the bones to Sparta. After which, says our author, the + Spartans were upon every occasion superior in fight to the + Tegeatae.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 146. + + ‘The most of our philosophers at present are, I believe, of the + opinion of the smith in Herodotus, who might be excused for having + that opinion at a time when perhaps no other heroic body had been + discovered. But in later times, I believe there was not the most + vulgar man in Greece, who did not believe that those heroes were very + much superior, both in mind and body, to the men of after-times. + Indeed, they were not considered as mere men, but as something betwixt + gods and men, and had _heroic_ honours paid them, which were next to + the _divine_. On the stage they were represented as of extraordinary + size, both as to length and breadth; for the actor was not only raised + upon very high shoes, which they called _cothurns_, but he was put + into a case that swelled his size prodigiously (and I have somewhere + read a very ridiculous story of one of them, who, coming upon the + stage, fell and broke his case, so that all the trash with which it + was stuffed, came out and was scattered upon the stage in the view of + the whole people). This accounts for the high style of ancient + tragedy, in which the heroes speak a language so uncommon, that, if I + considered them as men nowise superior to us, I should think it little + better than fustian, and should be apt to apply to it what Falstaff + says to Pistol: “Pr’ythee, Pistol, speak like a man of this world.” + And I apply the same observation to Homer’s poems. If I considered his + heroes as no more than men of this world, I should consider the things + he relates of them as quite ridiculous; but believing them to be men + very much superior to us, I read Homer with the highest admiration, + not only as a poet, but as the historian of the noblest race of men + that ever existed. Thus, by having right notions of the superiority of + men in former times, we both improve our philosophy of man and our + taste in poetry.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 150. + +Footnote 53: + + ‘But though we should give no credit to those ancient authors, there + are monuments still extant, one particularly to be seen in our own + island, which I think ought to convince every man that the men of + ancient times were much superior to us, at least in the powers of the + body. The monument I mean is well known by the name of Stonehenge, and + there are several of the same kind to be seen in Denmark and Germany. + I desire to know where are the arms now, that, with so little help of + machinery as they must have had, could have raised and set up on end + such a number of prodigious stones, and put others on the top of them, + likewise of very great size? Such works are said by the peasants in + Germany to be the works of giants, and I think they must have been + giants compared with us. And, indeed, the men who erected Stonehenge + could not, I imagine, be of size inferior to that man whose body was + found in a quarry near to Salisbury, within a mile of which Stonehenge + stands. The body of that man was fourteen feet ten inches. The fact is + attested by an eye-witness, one Elyote, who writes, I believe, the + first English-Latin Dictionary that ever was published. It is printed + in London in 1542, in folio, and has, under the word _Gigas_, the + following passage: “About thirty years past and somewhat more, I + myself beynge with my father Syr Rycharde Elyote at a monastery of + regular canons, called Juy Churche, two myles from the citie of + Sarisburye, beholde the bones of a deade man founde deep in the + grounde, where they dygged stone, which being joined togyther, was in + length xiiii feet and ten ynches, there beynge mette; whereof one of + the teethe my father hadde, whych was of the quantytie of a great + walnutte. This have I wrytten, because some menne wylle believe + nothynge that is out of the compasse of theyre owne knowledge, and yet + some of them presume to have knowledge, above any other, contempnynge + all men but themselfes or suche as they favour.” It is for the reason + mentioned by this author that I have given so many examples of the + greater size of men than is to be seen in our day, to which I could + add several others concerning bodies that have been found in this our + island, particularly one mentioned by Hector Boece in his _Description + of Scotland_, prefixed to his Scotch History, where he tells us that + in a certain church which he names in the shire of Murray, the bones + of a man of much the same size as those of the man mentioned by + Elyote, viz. fourteen feet, were preserved. One of these bones Boece + himself saw, and has particularly described.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, + vol. iii. p. 156. + + ‘But without having recourse to bones or monuments of any kind, if a + man has looked upon the world as long as I have done with any + observation he must be convinced that the size of man is diminishing. + I have seen such bodies of men as are not now to be seen: I have + observed in families, of which I have known three generations, a + gradual decline in that, and I am afraid in other respects. Others may + think otherwise; but for my part I have so great a veneration for our + ancestors, that I have much indulgence for that ancient superstition + among the Etrurians, and from them derived to the Romans, of + worshipping the _manes_ of their ancestors under the names of _Lares_ + or domestic gods, which undoubtedly proceeded upon the supposition + that they were men superior to themselves, and their departed souls + such genii as Hesiod has described, + + ἐσθλοι, ἀλεξικακοι, φυλακες θνητων ἀνθρωπων. + + And if antiquity and the universal consent of nations can give a + sanction to any opinion, it is to this, that our forefathers were + better men than we. Even as far back as the Trojan war, the best age + of men of which we have any particular account, Homer has said that + few men were better than their fathers, and the greater part worse: + + οἱ πλεονες κακιους, παυροι δε τε πατρος ἀρειους. + + And this he puts into the mouth of the Goddess of Wisdom.... But when + I speak of the universal consent of nations, I ought to except the + men, and particularly the young men, of this age, who generally + believe themselves to be better men than their fathers, or than any of + their predecessors.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 161. + +Footnote 54: + + ἡμεις μεν προπαν ἡμαρ, ἐς ἡελιον καταδυντα, + ἡμεθα, δαινυμενοι κρεα τ’ ἀσπετα και μεθυ ἡδυ κτλ. + +Footnote 55: + + The nightingale is gay, + For she can vanquish night, + Dreaming, she sings of day, + Notes that make darkness bright. + + But when the refluent gloom + Saddens the gaps of song, + We charge on her the dolefulness, + And call her crazed with wrong.—PATMORE. + +Footnote 56: + + Hudibras, Part III. ii. 1493. + +Footnote 57: + + See Forsyth’s _Principles of Moral Science_. + +Footnote 58: + + ‘Il buvoit du vin, mais le laissoit volontiers pour du lait, du thé, + ou d’autres liqueurs douces.’—BUFFON _of the Oran Outang, whom he saw + himself in Paris_. + +Footnote 59: + + See Mr. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads. + +Footnote 60: + + The figures of speech marked in italics are familiar to the admirers + of parliamentary rhetoric. + +Footnote 61: + + _Supplices_, 807, ed. Schutz. + +Footnote 62: + + Matthew xi. 19. + +Footnote 63: + + ‘He that will mould a modern bishop into a primitive, must yield him + to be elected by the popular voice, undiocesed, unrevenued, unlorded, + and leave him nothing but brotherly equality, matchless temperance, + frequent fasting, incessant prayer and preaching, continual watchings + and labours in his ministry, which, what a rich booty it would be, + what a plump endowment to the many-benefice-gaping mouth of a prelate, + what a relish it would give to his canary-sucking and swan-eating + palate, let old bishop Mountain judge for me.—They beseech us, that we + would think them fit to be our justices of peace, our lords, our + highest officers of state, though they come furnished with no more + knowledge than they learnt between the cook and the manciple, or more + profoundly at the college audit, or the regent house, or to come to + their deepest insight, at their patron’s table.’—MILTON: _Of + Reformation in England_. + +Footnote 64: + + ‘Much have those travellers to answer for, whose casual intercourse + with this innocent and simple people tends to corrupt them: + disseminating among them ideas of extravagance and dissipation—giving + them a taste for pleasures and gratifications of which they had no + ideas—inspiring them with discontent at home—and tainting their rough + industrious manners with idleness and a thirst after dishonest means. + + ‘If travellers would frequent this country with a view to examine its + grandeur and beauty, or to explore its varied and curious regions with + the eye of philosophy—if, in their passage through it, they could be + content with such fare as the country produces, or at least reconcile + themselves to it by manly exercise and fatigue (for there is a time + when the stomach and the plainest food will be found in perfect + harmony)—if they could thus, instead of corrupting the manners of an + innocent people, learn to amend their own, by seeing in how narrow a + compass the wants of human life may be compressed—a journey through + these wild scenes might be attended, perhaps, with more improvement + than a journey to Rome or Paris. Where manners are polished into + vicious refinement, simplifying is the best mode of improving; and the + example of innocence is a more instructive lesson than any that can be + taught by artists and literati. + + ‘But these parts are too often the resort of gay company, who are + under no impressions of this kind—who have no ideas but of extending + the sphere of their amusements, or of varying a life of dissipation. + The grandeur of the country is not taken into the question, or at + least it is not otherwise considered than as affording some new mode + of pleasurable enjoyment. Thus, even the diversions of Newmarket are + introduced—diversions, one would imagine, more foreign to the nature + of this country than any other. A number of horses are carried into + the middle of the lake in a flat boat: a plug is drawn from the + bottom: the boat sinks, and the horses are left floating on the + surface. In different directions they make to land, and the horse + which arrives soonest secures the prize.’—GILPIN’S _Picturesque + Observations on Cumberland and Westmoreland_, vol. ii. p. 67. + +Footnote 65: + + ‘The necessary consequence of men living in so unnatural a way with + respect to houses, clothes, and diet, and continuing to live so for + many generations, each generation adding to the vices, diseases, and + weaknesses produced by the unnatural life of the preceding, is, that + they must gradually decline in strength, health, and longevity, till + at length the race dies out. To deny this would be to deny that the + life allotted by nature to man is the best life for the preservation + of his health and strength; for, if it be so, I think it is + demonstration that the constant deviation from it, going on for many + centuries, must end in the extinction of the race.’—_Ancient + Metaphysics_, vol. v. p. 237. + +Footnote 66: + + ‘Rome, le siège de la gloire et de la vertu, si jamais elles en eurent + un sur la terre.’—ROUSSEAU. + +Footnote 67: + + ——extrema per illos + Justitia, excedens terris, vestigia fecit.—VIRG. + +Footnote 68: + + _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8. + +Footnote 69: + + _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8. + +Footnote 70: + + See _Xenophon’s Memorabilia_. + +Footnote 71: + + _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8. + +Footnote 72: + + si tantum culti solus possederis agri, + quantum sub Tatio populus Romanus arabat.—JUV. + +Footnote 73: + + _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8. + +Footnote 74: + + ‘Pochi compagni avrai per l’altra via: + Tanto ti prego più, gentile spirto, + Non lasciar la magnanima tua impresa.’—PETRARCA. + +Footnote 75: + + ‘If it were seriously asked (and it would be no untimely question), + who of all teachers and masters that have ever taught hath drawn the + most disciples after him, both in religion and in manners, it might be + not untruly answered, Custom. Though Virtue be commended for the most + persuasive in her theory, and Conscience in the plain demonstration of + the spirit finds most evincing; yet, whether it be the secret of + divine will, or the original blindness we are born in, so it happens + for the most part that Custom still is silently received for the best + instructor. Except it be because her method is so glib and easy, in + some manner like to that vision of Ezekiel, rolling up her sudden book + of implicit knowledge, for him that will to take and swallow down at + pleasure; which proving but of bad nourishment in the concoction, as + it was heedless in the devouring, puffs up unhealthily a certain big + face of pretended learning, mistaken among credulous men for the + wholesome habit of soundness and good constitution, but is, indeed, no + other than that swoln visage of counterfeit knowledge and literature + which not only in private mars our education, but also in public is + the common climber into every chair where either religion is preached + or law reported, filling each estate of life and profession with + abject and servile principles, depressing the high and heaven-born + spirit of man, far beneath the condition wherein either God created + him, or sin hath sunk him. To pursue the allegory, Custom being but a + mere face, as Echo is a mere voice, rests not in her unaccomplishment, + until by secret inclination she accorporate herself with Error, who + being a blind and serpentine body, without a head, willingly accepts + what he wants, and supplies what her incompleteness went seeking: + hence it is that Error supports Custom, Custom countenances Error, and + these two, between them, would persecute and chase away all truth and + solid wisdom out of human life, were it not that God, rather than man, + once in many ages calls together the prudent and religious counsels of + men deputed to repress the encroachments, and to work off the + inveterate blots and obscurities wrought upon our minds by the subtle + insinuating of Error and Custom, who, with the numerous and vulgar + train of their followers, make it their chief design to envy and cry + down the industry of free reasoning, under the terms of humour and + innovation, as if the womb of teeming Truth were to be closed up, if + she presume to bring forth aught that sorts not with their unchewed + notions and suppositions; against which notorious injury and abuse of + man’s free soul, to testify and oppose the utmost that study and true + labour can attain, heretofore the incitement of men reputed grave hath + led me among others, and now the duty and the right of an instructed + Christian calls me through the chance of good or evil report TO BE THE + SOLE ADVOCATE OF A DISCOUNTENANCED TRUTH.’—MILTON: _The Doctrine and + Discipline of Divorce_. + +Footnote 76: + + Ιλ. Ζ. 261. + +Footnote 77: + + The words in italics are Lord Monboddo’s: _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. + iii. preface, p. 79. + +Footnote 78: + + ῥιζῃ μεν μελαν ἐστι, γαλακτι δε εἰκελον ἀνθος, + ΜΩΛΥ δε μιν καλεουσι θεοι, χαλεπον δε τ’ ὀρυσσειν + θνητοις ἀνθρωποισι. + +Footnote 79: + + The reader who is desirous of elucidating the mysteries of the words + and phrases marked in italics in this chapter may consult the German + works of Professor Kant, or Professor Born’s Latin translation of + them, or M. Villar’s _Philosophie de Kant, ou Principes fondamentaux + de la Philosophie Transcendentale_; or the first article of the second + number of the _Edinburgh Review_, or the article ‘Kant,’ in the + _Encyclopaedia Londinensis_, or Sir William Drummond’s _Academical + Questions_, book ii. chap. 9. + +Footnote 80: + + Πρωτευς Ὀλβοδοτης, _Proteus the giver of riches_, certainly deserves a + place among the _Lares_ of every poetical and political turncoat. + +Footnote 81: + + See the Βατραχοι of Aristophanes. + +Footnote 82: + + informi limo glaucaque exponit in ulva. + +Footnote 83: + + _Coleridge’s Lay Sermon_, p. 10. + +Footnote 84: + + _Ibid._ + +Footnote 85: + + _Ibid._ p. 21. + +Footnote 86: + + _Ibid._ p. 25. + +Footnote 87: + + _Ibid._ p. 27. + +Footnote 88: + + _Ibid._ pp. 45, 46 (where the reader may find in a note the two worst + jokes that ever were cracked). + +Footnote 89: + + _Ibid._ p. 17. + +Footnote 90: + + ‘Some travellers speak of his strength as wonderful; greater they say, + than that of ten men such as we.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. + 105. + +Footnote 91: + + _Esquisse d’un Tableau historique des Progrès de l’Esprit humain._ + +Footnote 92: + + _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 139. + +Footnote 93: + + _Ibid._ p. 193. + +Footnote 94: + + _Ibid._ p. 191. + +Footnote 95: + + _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 181. + +Footnote 96: + + _Ibid._ p. 182. + +Footnote 97: + + Cottle’s Edda, or, as the author calls it, _Translation_ of the Edda, + which is a misnomer. + +Footnote 98: + + _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 237. + +Footnote 99: + + _Ibid._ + +Footnote 100: + + _Ibid._ p. 252. + +Footnote 101: + + _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 252. + +Footnote 102: + + _Ibid._ + +Footnote 103: + + _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 226. + +Footnote 104: + + _Ibid._ + +Footnote 105: + + _Ibid._ p. 236. + +Footnote 106: + + _Ibid._ p. 226. + +Footnote 107: + + _Ibid._ p. 228. + +Footnote 108: + + _Ibid._ + +Footnote 109: + + _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 273, _et passim_. + +Footnote 110: + + _Ibid._ p. 258. + +Footnote 111: + + _Ibid._ + +Footnote 112: + + _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 249. It is curious, that in the + fourth article of the same number from which I have borrowed so many + exquisite passages, the reviewers are very angry that certain + ‘scandalous and immoral practices’ in the island of Wahoo are not + reformed: but certainly, according to the logic of these reviewers, + the Government of Wahoo is entitled to look upon _them_ in the light + of ‘ruffians, scoundrels, incendiaries, firebrands, madmen, and + villains’; since all these hard names belong of primary right to those + who propose the reformation of ‘scandalous and immoral practices’! The + people of Wahoo, it appears, are very much addicted to drunkenness and + debauchery; and the reviewers, in the plenitude of their wisdom, + recommend that a few clergymen should be sent out to them, by way of + mending their morals. It does not appear, whether King Tamaahmaah is a + king by _divine right_; but we must take it for granted that he is + not; as, otherwise, the _Quarterly Reviewers_ would either not admit + that there were any ‘scandalous and immoral practices’ under his + government, or, if they did admit them, they would not be such + ‘incendiaries, madmen, and villains,’ as to advocate their + reformation. There are some circumstances, however, which are + conclusive against the _legitimacy_ of King Tamaahmaah, which are + these: that he is a man of great ‘feeling, energy, and steadiness of + conduct’; that he ‘goes about among his people to learn their wants’; + and that he has ‘prevented the recurrence of those horrid murders’ + which disgraced the reigns of his predecessors: from which it is + obvious that he has neither put to death brave and generous men, who + surrendered themselves under the faith of treaties, nor re-established + a fallen Inquisition, nor sent those to whom he owed his crown to the + dungeon and the galleys. + + In the tenth article of the same number the reviewers pour forth the + bitterness of their gall against Mr. Warden of the Northumberland, who + has detected them in promulgating much gross and foolish falsehood + concerning the captive Napoleon. They labour most assiduously to + _impeach his veracity_ and to _discredit his judgment_. On the first + point, it is sufficient evidence of the truth of his statements, that + the _Quarterly Reviewers_ contradict them: but on the second, they + accuse him, among other misdemeanours, of having called their _Review_ + ‘_a respectable work_‘! which certainly _discredits his judgment_ + completely. + +Footnote 113: + + _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 249. The reader will be reminded of + _Croaker_ in the fourth act of the _Good-natured Man_: ‘Blood and + gunpowder in every line of it. Blown up! murderous dogs! all blown up! + (_Reads._) “Our pockets are low, and money we must have.” Ay, there’s + the reason: they’ll blow us up _because they have got low pockets_.... + Perhaps this moment I’m treading on lighted matches, blazing + brimstone, and barrels of gunpowder. They are preparing to blow me up + into the clouds. Murder!... Here, John, Nicodemus, search the house. + Look into the cellars, to see if there be any combustibles below, and + above in the apartments, that no matches be thrown in at the windows. + _Let all the fires be put out_, and let the _engine_ be drawn out in + the yard, to _play upon the house_ in case of necessity.’—_Croaker_ + was a deep politician. The _engine_ to _play_ upon the _house_: mark + that! + +Footnote 114: + + This illustration of the old fable of the mouse and the mountain falls + short of an exhibition in the Honourable House, on the 29th of January + 1817; when Mr. Canning, amidst a tremendous denunciation of the + parliamentary reformers, and a rhetorical chaos of storms, whirlwinds, + rising suns, and twilight assassins, produced in proof of his + charges—_Spence’s Plan!_ which was received with an _éclat_ of + laughter on one side, and shrugs of surprise, disappointment, and + disapprobation on the other. I can find but one parallel for the Right + Honourable Gentleman’s dismay: + + So having said, awhile he stood, expecting + Their universal shout and high applause + To fill his ear; when contrary he hears + On all sides, from innumerable tongues, + A dismal universal hiss, the sound + Of public scorn.—_Paradise Lost_, x. 504. + + This Spencean chimaera, which is the very foolishness of folly, and + which was till lately invisible to the naked eye of the political + entomologist, has since been subjected to a _lens_ of _extraordinary + power_, under which, like an insect in a microscope, it has appeared a + formidable and complicated monster, all bristles, scales, and claws, + with a ‘husk about it like a chestnut’: _horridus, in jaculis et pelle + Libystidis ursae!_ + +Footnote 115: + + _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 271. + +Footnote 116: + + _Ibid._ + +Footnote 117: + + _Ibid._ p. 258. + +Footnote 118: + + _Ibid._ + +Footnote 119: + + _Ibid._ p. 273. + +Footnote 120: + + _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 276. + +Footnote 121: + + _Ibid._ p. 260. + +Footnote 122: + + _Ibid._ p. 192. + +Footnote 123: + + ‘To scatter praise or blame without regard to justice is to destroy + the distinction of good and evil. Many have no other test of actions + than general opinion; and all are so far influenced by a sense of + reputation, that they are often restrained by fear of reproach, and + excited by hope of honour, when other principles have lost their + power; nor can any species of prostitution promote general depravity + more, than that which destroys the force of praise by showing that it + may be acquired without deserving it, and which, by setting free the + active and ambitious from the dread of infamy, lets loose the rapacity + of power, and weakens the only authority by which greatness is + controlled. What credit can he expect who professes himself the + hireling of vanity however profligate, and without shame or scruple + celebrates the worthless, dignifies the mean, and gives to the + corrupt, licentious, and oppressive, the ornaments which ought only to + add grace to truth, and loveliness to innocence? EVERY OTHER KIND OF + ADULTERATION, HOWEVER SHAMEFUL, HOWEVER MISCHIEVOUS, IS LESS + DETESTABLE THAN THE CRIME OF COUNTERFEITING CHARACTERS, AND FIXING THE + STAMP OF LITERARY SANCTION UPON THE DROSS AND REFUSE OF THE + WORLD.’—_Rambler_, No. 136. + +Footnote 124: + + Deorum injurias diis curae.—_Tiberius apud Tacit. Ann. I._ 73. + +Footnote 125: + + ‘Besides all these evils of modern times which I have mentioned, there + is in some countries of Europe, and particularly in England, another + evil peculiar to civilised countries, but quite unknown in barbarous + nations. The evil I mean is _indigence_, and the reader will be + surprised when I tell him that it is _greatest in the richest + countries_; and, therefore, in England, which I believe is the richest + country in Europe, there is more indigence than in any other; for the + number of people that are there maintained on public or private + charity, and who may therefore be called _beggars_, is prodigious. + What proportion they may bear to the whole people, I have never heard + computed: but I am sure it must be very great. And I am afraid in + those countries they call rich, indigence is not confined to the lower + sort of people, but extends even to the better sort: for such is the + effect of wealth in a nation, that (however paradoxical it may appear) + it does at last make all men poor and indigent; the lower sort through + idleness and debauchery, the better sort through luxury, vanity, and + extravagant expense. Now, I would desire to know from the greatest + admirers of modern times, who maintain that the human race is not + degenerated, but rather improved, whether they know any other source + of human misery, besides vice, disease, and indigence, and whether + these three are not in the greatest abundance in the rich and + flourishing country of England? I would further ask these gentlemen, + whether, in the cities of the ancient world, there were poor’s houses, + hospitals, infirmaries, and those other receptacles of indigence and + disease which we see in the modern cities? And whether, in the streets + of ancient Athens and Rome, there were so many objects of disease, + deformity, and misery to be seen as in our streets, besides those + which are concealed from public view in the houses above mentioned? In + later times, indeed, in those cities, when the corruption of manners + was almost as great as among us, some such things might have been seen + as we are sure they were to be seen in Constantinople, under the later + Greek Emperors.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 194. + +Footnote 126: + + ‘Omnia, quae nunc vetustissima creduntur, nova fuere. Inveterascet hoc + quoque: et, quod hodie exemplis tuemur, inter exempla erit.’—TACITUS, + _Ann. XI._ 24. + +Footnote 127: + + _Drummond’s Academical Questions._—Preface, p. 4. + +Footnote 128: + + _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 280. + +Footnote 129: + + _Malthus on Population_, book i. chap. vii. + +Footnote 130: + + Sophocles, Antigone, 850. (Ed. Erfurdt.) + +Footnote 131: + + ‘It is notorious, that towards one another the Indians are liberal in + the extreme, and for ever ready to supply the deficiencies of their + neighbours with any superfluities of their own. They have no idea of + amassing wealth for themselves individually; and they wonder that + persons can be found in any society so destitute of every generous + sentiment as to enrich themselves at the expense of others, and to + live in ease and affluence regardless of the misery and wretchedness + of members of the same community to which they themselves + belong.’—WELD’S _Travels in Canada; Letter XXXV._ + +Footnote 132: + + See the Edda and the Northern Antiquities. + +Footnote 133: + + ‘The civilised man will submit to the greatest pain and labour, in + order to excel in any exercise which is honourable; and this induces + me to believe that such a man as Achilles might have beat in running + even an oran outang, or the savage of the Pyrenees, whom nobody could + lay hold of, though that be the exercise in which savages excel the + most, and though I am persuaded that the oran outang of Angola is + naturally stronger and swifter of foot than Achilles was, or than even + the heroes of the preceding age, such as Hercules, and such as + Theseus, Pirithous, and others mentioned by Nestor.’—_Ancient + Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 76. + +Footnote 134: + + See Fletcher’s _Faithful Shepherdess_. The following extracts from the + Satyr’s speeches to Corin will explain the allusion in the text. + + But behold a fairer sight! + By that heavenly form of thine, + Brightest fair! thou art divine! + Sprung from great immortal race + Of the gods; for in thy face + Shines more awful majesty + Than dull weak mortality + Dare with misty eyes behold, + And live! Therefore on this mould + Lowly do I bend my knee, + In worship of thy deity. + _Act I. Scene I._ + + Brightest! if there be remaining + Any service, without feigning + I will do it: were I set + To catch the nimble wind, or get + Shadows gliding on the green, + Or to steal from the great queen + Of the fairies all her beauty, + I would do it, so much duty + Do I owe those precious eyes. + _Act IV. Scene II._ + + Thou divinest, fairest, brightest, + Thou most powerful maid, and whitest, + Thou most virtuous and most blessed, + Eyes of stars, and golden tressed + Like Apollo. Tell me, sweetest, + What new service now is meetest + For the Satyr? Shall I stray + In the middle air, and stay + The sailing rack? or nimbly take + Hold by the moon, and gently make + Suit to the pale queen of night + For a beam to give thee light? + Shall I dive into the sea, + And bring thee coral, making way + Through the rising waves that fall + In snowy fleeces? Dearest, shall + I catch thee wanton fauns, or flies + Whose woven wings the summer dyes + Of many colours? Get thee fruit? + Or steal from heaven old Orpheus’ lute? + All these I’ll venture for, and more, + To do her service all these woods adore. + _Act V. Scene V._ + +Footnote 135: + + ‘There are very few women who might not have married in some way or + other. The old maid, who has either never formed an attachment, or who + has been disappointed in the object of it, has, under the + circumstances in which she has been placed, conducted herself with the + most perfect propriety; and has acted a much more virtuous and + honourable part in society than those women who marry without a proper + degree of love, or at least of esteem, for their husbands; a species + of immorality which is not reprobated as it deserves.’—_Malthus on + Population_, book iv. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + MACMILLAN & CO.’S NEW NOVELS + + + Crown 8vo. 6s. each. + + _Second Edition now ready._ + + =THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER.= By A. E. W. MASON. + + + _PUNCH._—“Readers will, unless gratitude be extinct, thank me for my + strong recommendation as to the excellent entertainment provided + for them in _The Courtship of Morrice Buckler_.” + + _GRAPHIC._—“A fine stirring narrative it is. Mr. Mason is a new + recruit to the growing school of historical romancers in which Mr. + Stanley Weyman and Mr. Conan Doyle are conspicuous figures, and he + promises to make himself well worthy of his company. The ‘Record + of the Growth of an English Gentleman during the years 1685–1687 + under strange and difficult circumstances’ is a gallant and + chivalrous story, cast in a period and among scenes of which I, at + least, am never tired of reading.” + + + =HIS HONOR AND A LADY.= By Mrs. EVERARD COTES (SARA JEANNETTE DUNCAN). + Illustrated by A. D. MCCORMICK. + + + _DAILY CHRONICLE._—“We are inclined to place it as the best book + that Mrs. Everard Cotes has yet written. The story is exceedingly + well told, is everywhere witty. It has that charm of atmosphere + which India yields so readily for the canvas of a consummate + artist.” + + _PALL MALL GAZETTE._—“This is a fascinating story of Anglo-Indian + life, accurate in detail and true to nature. The authoress has not + only maintained the high standard of her _Simple Adventures of a + Mem-Sahib_, but surpassed it. This is praise, but true.” + + + =ADAM JOHNSTONE’S SON.= By F. MARION CRAWFORD. + + + _DAILY NEWS._—“Mr. Crawford has written stories richer in incident + and more powerful in intention, but we do not think that he has + handled more deftly or shown a more delicate insight into + tendencies that go towards making some of the more spiritual + tragedies of life.” + + _SPEAKER._—“A book to be enjoyed by everybody.” + + + =THE RELEASE, OR CAROLINE’S FRENCH KINDRED.= By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. + + =DENIS. A Study in Black and White.= By Mrs. E. M. FIELD. + + =TOM GROGAN.= By F. HOPKINSON SMITH. With Illustrations by CHARLES S. + REINHART. + + + _GLASGOW HERALD._—“A clever bit of character study.” + + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. + + + + + MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.’S PUBLICATIONS. + + + _BY RUDYARD KIPLING._ + + =THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK.= With Illustrations by J. LOCKWOOD KIPLING. + Twenty-first Thousand. + + + _DAILY TELEGRAPH._—“The appearance of _The Second Jungle Book_ is a + literary event of which no one will mistake the importance. Unlike + most sequels, the various stories comprised in the new volume are + at least equal to their predecessors.” + + + =THE JUNGLE BOOK.= With Illustrations by J. L. KIPLING, W. H. DRAKE, + and P. FRENZENY. Twenty-eighth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s. + + + _ATHENÆUM._—“We tender our sincere thanks to Mr. Kipling for the + hour of pure and unadulterated enjoyment which he has given us, + and many another reader, by this inimitable _Jungle Book_.” + + _PUNCH._—“‘Æsop’s Fables and dear old Brer Fox and Co.,’ observes + the Baron sagely, ‘may have suggested to the fanciful genius of + Rudyard Kipling the delightful idea, carried out in the most + fascinating style, of _The Jungle Book_.’” + + + =WEE WILLIE WINKIE= and other Stories. Crown 8vo. 6s. + + =SOLDIERS THREE= and other Stories. Crown 8vo. 6s. + + + _ST. JAMES’S GAZETTE._—“In these, as the faithful are aware, are + contained some of Mr. Kipling’s very finest work.” + + _GLOBE._—“Containing some of the best of his highly vivid work.” + + + =PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS.= Thirty-first Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s. + + + _Saturday Review._—“Mr. Kipling knows and appreciates the English in + India, and is a born story-teller and a man of humour into the + bargain.... It would be hard to find better reading.” + + _GLASGOW HERALD._—“Character, situation, incident, humour, pathos, + tragic force, are all in abundance; words alone are at a minimum. + Of course these are ‘plain’ tales—lightning-flash tales. A gleam, + and there the whole tragedy or comedy is before you—elaborate it + for yourself afterwards.” + + + =THE LIGHT THAT FAILED.= Re-written and considerably enlarged. + Nineteenth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s. + + + _ACADEMY._—“Whatever else be true of Mr. Kipling, it is the first + truth about him that he has power, real intrinsic power.... Mr. + Kipling’s work has innumerable good qualities.” + + _MANCHESTER COURIER._—“The story is a brilliant one and full of + vivid interest.” + + + =LIFE’S HANDICAP.= Being Stories of Mine Own People. Twenty-third + Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s. + + + _BLACK AND WHITE._—“_Life’s Handicap_ contains much of the best work + hitherto accomplished by the author, and, taken as a whole, is a + complete advance upon its predecessors.” + + _OBSERVER._—“The stories are as good as ever, and are quite as well + told.... _Life’s Handicap_ is a volume that can be read with + pleasure and interest under almost any circumstances.” + + + =MANY INVENTIONS.= Twentieth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s. + + + _PALL MALL GAZETTE._—“The completest book that Mr. Kipling has yet + given us in workmanship, the weightiest and most humane in breadth + of view.... It can only be regarded as a fresh landmark in the + progression of his genius.” + + _NATIONAL OBSERVER._—“The book is one for all Mr. Kipling’s admirers + to rejoice in—some for this, and some for that, and not a few for + well-nigh everything it contains.” + + + _BY J. LOCKWOOD KIPLING._ + + =BEAST AND MAN IN INDIA.= A Popular Sketch of Indian Animals in their + Relations with the People. By JOHN LOCKWOOD KIPLING, C.I.E. With + Illustrations by the Author. Extra crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. + + + + + MACMILLAN’S THREE-AND-SIXPENNY LIBRARY + + OF + + WORKS BY POPULAR AUTHORS. + + + In Crown 8vo. Cloth extra. Price 3s. 6d. each. + + + _By ROLF BOLDREWOOD._ + +_SATURDAY REVIEW._—“Mr. Boldrewood can tell what he knows with great +point and vigour, and there is no better reading than the adventurous +parts of his books.” + +_PALL MALL GAZETTE._—“The volumes are brimful of adventure, in which +gold, gold-diggers, prospectors, claim-holders, take an active part.” + + =Robbery under Arms.= + =The Squatter’s Dream.= + =A Colonial Reformer.= + =The Miner’s Right.= + =A Sydney-Side Saxon.= + =Nevermore.= + =A Modern Buccaneer.= + + + _By HUGH CONWAY._ + +_MORNING POST._—“Life-like, and full of individuality.” + +_DAILY NEWS._—“Throughout written with spirit, good feeling, and +ability, and a certain dash of humour.” + + =Living or Dead?= + =A Family Affair.= + + + _By MRS. CRAIK._ + + (The Author of ‘JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.’) + + =Olive.= With Illustrations by G. BOWERS. + =The Ogilvies.= With Illustrations. + =Agatha’s Husband.= With Illustrations. + =Head of the Family.= With Illustrations. + =Two Marriages.= + =The Laurel Bush.= + =About Money, and other Things.= + =My Mother and I.= With Illustrations. + =Miss Tommy: A Mediæval Romance.= Illustrated. + =King Arthur: Not a Love Story.= + =Sermons out of Church.= + =Concerning Men, and other Papers.= + + + _By F. MARION CRAWFORD._ + +_SPECTATOR._—“With the solitary exception of Mrs. Oliphant we have no +living novelist more distinguished for variety of theme and range of +imaginative outlook than Mr. Marion Crawford.” + + =Mr. Isaacs: A Tale of Modern India.= Portrait of Author. + =Dr. Claudius=: a True Story. + =A Roman Singer.= + =Zoroaster.= + =Marzio’s Crucifix.= + =A Tale of a Lonely Parish.= + =Paul Patoff.= + =With the Immortals.= + =Greifenstein.= + =Sant’ Ilario.= + =A Cigarette-Maker’s Romance.= + =Khaled.= + =The Three Fates.= + =The Witch of Prague.= + =Children of the King.= + =Marion Darche.= + =Pietro Ghisleri.= + =Katharine Lauderdale.= + =Don Orsino.= + + + _By SIR HENRY CUNNINGHAM, K.C.I.E._ + +_ST. JAMES’S GAZETTE._—“Interesting as specimens of romance, the style +of writing is so excellent—scholarly and at the same time easy and +natural—that the volumes are worth reading on that account alone. But +there is also masterly description of persons, places, and things; +skilful analysis of character; a constant play of wit and humour; and a +happy gift of instantaneous portraiture.” + + =The Cœruleans.= + =The Heriots.= + =Wheat and Tares.= + + Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each volume. + + + _By CHARLES DICKENS._ + + =The Pickwick Papers.= + =Oliver Twist.= + =Nicholas Nickleby.= + =Martin Chuzzlewit.= + =The Old Curiosity Shop.= + =Barnaby Rudge.= + =Dombey and Son.= + =Christmas Books.= + =Sketches by Boz.= + =David Copperfield.= + =American Notes and Pictures from Italy.= + =The Letters of Charles Dickens.= + + + _By MARY ANGELA DICKENS._ + + =A Mere Cypher.= + =A Valiant Ignorance.= + + + _By BRET HARTE._ + +_SPEAKER._—“The best work of Mr. Bret Harte stands entirely alone ... +marked on every page by distinction and quality.... Strength and +delicacy, spirit and tenderness, go together in his best work.” + + =Cressy.= + =The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh.= + =A First Family of Tasajara.= + + + _By THOMAS HUGHES._ + + =Tom Brown’s Schooldays.= With Illustrations by A. HUGHES and S. P. + HALL. + =Tom Brown at Oxford.= With Illustrations by S. P. HALL. + =The Scouring of the White Horse, and The Ashen Faggot.= With + Illustrations by RICHARD DOYLE. + + + _By HENRY JAMES._ + +_SATURDAY REVIEW._—“He has the power of seeing with the artistic +perception of the few, and of writing about what he has seen, so that +the many can understand and feel with him.” + +_WORLD._—“His touch is so light, and his humour, while shrewd and keen, +so free from bitterness.” + + =A London Life.= + =The Aspern Papers.= + =The Tragic Muse.= + + + _By ANNIE KEARY._ + +_SPECTATOR._—“In our opinion there have not been many novels published +better worth reading. The literary workmanship is excellent, and all the +windings of the stories are worked with patient fulness and a skill not +often found.” + + =Castle Daly.= + =A York and a Lancaster Rose.= + =Oldbury.= + =A Doubting Heart.= + =Janet’s Home.= + =Nations around Israel.= + + + _By W. CLARK RUSSELL._ + +_TIMES._—“Mr. Clark Russell is one of those writers who have set +themselves to revive the British sea story in all its glorious +excitement. Mr. Russell has made a considerable reputation in this line. +His plots are well conceived, and that of ‘Marooned’ is no exception to +this rule.” + + =Marooned.= + =A Strange Elopement.= + + + _By ARCHDEACON FARRAR._ + + =Seekers after God.= + =Eternal Hope.= + =The Fall of Man.= + =The Witness of History to Christ.= + =The Silence and Voices of God.= + =In the Days of thy Youth.= + =Saintly Workers.= + =Ephphatha.= + =Mercy and Judgment.= + =Sermons and Addresses in America.= + + + + + MACMILLAN’S THREE-AND-SIXPENNY SERIES. + + + Crown 8v. 3s. 6d. each volume. + + + _By CHARLES KINGSLEY._ + + =Westward Ho!= + =Hypatia.= + =Yeast.= + =Alton Locke.= + =Two Years Ago.= + =Hereward the Wake.= + =Poems.= + =The Heroes.= + =The Water Babies.= + =Madam How and Lady Why.= + =At Last.= + =Prose Idylls.= + =Plays and Puritans=, etc. + =The Roman and the Teuton.= + =Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays.= + =Historical Lectures and Essays.= + =Scientific Lectures and Essays.= + =Literary and General Lectures.= + =The Hermits.= + =Glaucus: or the Wonders of The Seashore.= With Coloured Illustrations. + =Village and Town and Country Sermons.= + =The Water of Life, and other Sermons.= + =Sermons on National Subjects, and the King of the Earth.= + =Sermons for the Times.= + =Good News of God.= + =The Gospel of the Pentateuch, and David.= + =Discipline, and other Sermons.= + =Westminster Sermons.= + =All Saints’ Day, and other Sermons.= + + + _By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY._ + +_SPECTATOR._—“Mr. Christie Murray has more power and genius for the +delineation of English rustic life than any half-dozen of our surviving +novelists put together.” + +_SATURDAY REVIEW._—“Few modern novelists can tell a story of English +country life better than Mr. D. Christie Murray.” + + =Aunt Rachel.= + =John Vale’s Guardian.= + =Schwartz.= + =The Weaker Vessel.= + =He Fell among Thieves.= D. C. MURRAY and H. HERMAN. + + + _By Mrs. OLIPHANT._ + +_ACADEMY._—“At her best she is, with one or two exceptions, the best of +living English novelists.” + +_SATURDAY REVIEW._—“Has the charm of style, the literary quality and +flavour that never fails to please.” + + =A Beleaguered City.= + =Joyce.= + =Neighbours on the Green.= + =Kirsteen.= + =Hester.= + =Sir Tom.= + =A Country Gentleman and his Family.= + =The Curate in Charge.= + =The Second Son.= + =He that Will Not when He May.= + =The Railway Man and his Children.= + =The Marriage of Elinor.= + =The Heir Presumptive and the Heir-Apparent.= + =A Son of the Soil.= + =The Wizard’s Son.= + =Young Musgrave.= + =Lady William.= + + + _By J. H. SHORTHOUSE._ + + _ANTI-JACOBIN._—“Powerful, striking, and fascinating romances.” + + =John Inglesant.= + =Sir Percival.= + =The Little Schoolmaster Mark.= + =The Countess Eve.= + =A Teacher of the Violin.= + =Blanche, Lady Falaise.= + + + _By FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE._ + + =Sermons Preached in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel.= In 6 vols. + =Christmas Day, and Other Sermons.= + =Theological Essays.= + =Prophets and Kings.= + =Patriarchs and Lawgivers.= + =The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven.= + =Gospel of St. John.= + =Epistles of St. John.= + =Lectures on the Apocalypse.= + =Friendship of Books.= + =Social Morality.= + =Prayer Book and Lord’s Prayer.= + =The Doctrine of Sacrifice.= + =Acts of the Apostles.= + + Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each volume. + + + _By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE._ + + =The Heir of Redclyffe.= + =Heartsease.= + =Hopes and Fears.= + =Dynevor Terrace.= + =The Daisy Chain.= + =The Trial: More Links of the Daisy Chain.= + =Pillars of the House. Vol. I.= + =Pillars of the House. Vol. II.= + =The Young Stepmother.= + =The Clever Woman of the Family.= + =The Three Brides.= + =My Young Alcides.= + =The Caged Lion.= + =The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest.= + =The Chaplet of Pearls.= + =Lady Hester, and the Davers Papers.= + =Magnum Bonum.= + =Love and Life.= + =Unknown to History.= + =Stray Pearls.= + =The Armourer’s ‘Prentices.= + =The Two Sides of the Shield.= + =Nuttie’s Father.= + =Scenes and Characters.= + =Chantry House.= + =A Modern Telemachus.= + =Bye-Words.= + =Beechcroft at Rockstone.= + =More Bywords.= + =A Reputed Changeling.= + =The Little Duke.= + =The Lances of Lynwood.= + =The Prince and the Page.= + =P’s and Q’s, and Little Lucy’s Wonderful Globe.= + =Two Penniless Princesses.= + =That Stick.= + =An Old Woman’s Outlook.= + =Grisly Grisell.= + + + _By VARIOUS WRITERS._ + + SIR S. W. BAKER.—=True Tales for My Grandsons.= + R. BLENNERHASSETT AND L. SLEEMAN.—=Adventures in Mashonaland.= + FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.—=Louisiana and That Lass O’ Lowrie’s.= + Sir MORTIMER DURAND, K.C.I.E.—=Helen Treveryan.= + =‘English Men of Letters’ Series.= In 13 Monthly Volumes, each Volume + containing three books. + LANOE FALCONER.—=Cecilia de Noël.= + ARCHIBALD FORBES.—=Barracks, Bivouacs, and Battles.—Souvenirs of Some + Continents.= + W. FORBES-MITCHELL.—=Reminiscences of the Great Mutiny, 1857–59.= + W. W. FOWLER.—=Tales of the Birds.= Illustrated by BRYAN HOOK. =A Year + with the Birds.= Illustrated by BRYAN HOOK. + Rev. J. GILMORE.—=Storm Warriors.= + P. KENNEDY.—=Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts.= + HENRY KINGSLEY.—=Tales of Old Travel.= + MARGARET LEE.—=Faithful and Unfaithful.= + AMY LEVY.—=Reuben Sachs.= + S. R. LYSAGHT.—=The Marplot.= + LORD LYTTON.—=The Ring of Amasis.= + M. M’LENNAN.—=Muckle Jock, and other Stories of Peasant Life.= + LUCAS MALET.—=Mrs. Lorimer.= + GUSTAVE MASSON.—=A French Dictionary.= + A. B. MITFORD.—=Tales of Old Japan.= + MAJOR G. PARRY.—=The Story of Dick.= + E. C. PRICE.—=In the Lion’s Mouth.= + W. C. RHOADES.—=John Trevennick.= + THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE. Vol. I. =Comedies.= Vol. II. =Histories.= Vol. + III. =Tragedies.= 3 vols. + FLORA A. STEEL.—=Miss Stuart’s Legacy.=—=The Flower of Forgiveness.= + MARCHESA THEODOLI.—=Under Pressure.= + “TIMES” Summaries.—=Biographies of Eminent Persons.= In 4 vols.—=Annual + Summaries.= In 2 vols. + Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD.—=Miss Bretherton.= + MONTAGU WILLIAMS, Q.C.—=Leaves of a Life.=—=Later Leaves.=—=Round + London: Down East, and Up West.= + =Hogan, M.P.=—=Tim.=—=The New Antigone.= + + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last + chapter. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + ● Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75943 *** diff --git a/75943-h/75943-h.htm b/75943-h/75943-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cdf752 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/75943-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,13207 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + <head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title>Melincourt | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + body { margin-left: 8%; margin-right: 10%; } + h1 { text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: xx-large; } + h2 { text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: x-large; } + .pageno { right: 1%; font-size: x-small; background-color: inherit; color: silver; + text-indent: 0em; text-align: right; position: absolute; + border: thin solid silver; padding: .1em .2em; font-style: normal; + font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; } + p { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: justify; } + sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + .fss { font-size: 75%; } + .sc { font-variant: small-caps; } + .large { font-size: large; } + .xlarge { font-size: x-large; } + .small { font-size: small; } + .lg-container-b { text-align: center; } + .x-ebookmaker .lg-container-b { clear: both; } + .lg-container-r { text-align: right; } + .x-ebookmaker .lg-container-r { clear: both; } + .linegroup { display: inline-block; text-align: justify; } + .x-ebookmaker .linegroup { display: block; margin-left: 1.5em; } + .linegroup .group { margin: 1em auto; } + .linegroup .line { text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em; } + div.linegroup > :first-child { margin-top: 0; } + .linegroup .in12 { padding-left: 9.0em; } + .linegroup .in14 { padding-left: 10.0em; } + .linegroup .in16 { padding-left: 11.0em; } + .linegroup .in2 { padding-left: 4.0em; } + .linegroup .in20 { padding-left: 13.0em; } + .linegroup .in24 { padding-left: 15.0em; } + .linegroup .in3 { padding-left: 4.5em; } + .linegroup .in4 { padding-left: 5.0em; } + .linegroup .in6 { padding-left: 6.0em; } + .linegroup .in8 { padding-left: 7.0em; } + .ul_1 li {padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em; } + ul.ul_1 {padding-left: 0; margin-left: 2.78%; margin-top: .5em; + margin-bottom: .5em; list-style-type: disc; } + div.footnote > :first-child { margin-top: 1em; } + div.footnote p { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + div.pbb { page-break-before: always; } + hr.pb { border: none; border-bottom: thin solid; margin-bottom: 1em; } + .x-ebookmaker hr.pb { display: none; } + .chapter { clear: both; page-break-before: always; } + .figcenter { clear: both; max-width: 100%; margin: 2em auto; text-align: center; } + div.figcenter p { text-align: center; text-indent: 0; } + .figcenter img { max-width: 100%; height: auto; } + .id001 { width:10%; } + .id002 { width:50%; } + .id003 { width:80%; } + .x-ebookmaker .id001 { margin-left:45%; width:10%; } + .x-ebookmaker .id002 { margin-left:25%; width:50%; } + .x-ebookmaker .id003 { margin-left:10%; width:80%; } + .ic002 { width:100%; } + .ig001 { width:100%; } + .table0 { margin: auto; margin-top: 2em; } + .table1 { margin: auto; } + .nf-center { text-align: center; } + .nf-center-c0 { text-align: justify; margin: 0.5em 0; } + .nf-center-c1 { text-align: justify; margin: 1em 0; } + .c000 { margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + .c001 { margin-top: 4em; } + .c002 { page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em; } + .c003 { margin-top: 2em; } + .c004 { margin-top: 1em; } + .c005 { page-break-before:auto; margin-top: 4em; } + .c006 { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c007 { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c008 { margin-top: 1em; font-size: .9em; } + .c009 { vertical-align: top; text-align: justify; text-indent: -1em; + padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; } + .c010 { vertical-align: bottom; text-align: right; } + .c011 { text-align: center; } + .c012 { text-decoration: none; } + .c013 { font-size: 80%; } + .c014 { margin-top: 2em; font-size: .9em; text-indent: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; + } + .c015 { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c016 { margin-top: 2em; text-indent: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c017 { vertical-align: top; text-align: right; } + .c018 { border: none; border-bottom: thin solid; width: 10%; margin-left: 0; + margin-top: 1em; text-align: justify; } + .c019 { margin-left: 5.56%; text-indent: -2.78%; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + .c020 { margin-left: 5.56%; text-indent: -2.78%; margin-top: 2em; font-size: .9em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + .c021 { margin-left: 5.56%; text-indent: -2.78%; font-size: .9em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + .c022 { margin-left: 5.56%; text-indent: -2.78%; margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + .c023 { margin-left: 5.56%; margin-top: 2em; } + .c024 { margin-left: 5.56%; margin-top: 4em; } + div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA; + border:thin solid silver; margin:2em 10% 0 10%; font-family: Georgia, serif; + clear: both; } + .covernote { visibility: hidden; display: none; } + div.tnotes p { text-align: justify; } + .x-ebookmaker .covernote { visibility: visible; display: block; } + .figcenter {font-size: .9em; page-break-inside: avoid; max-width: 100%; + max-height: 100%; } + h1 {line-height: 150%; } + .footnote {font-size: .9em; } + div.footnote p {text-indent: 2em; margin-bottom: .5em; } + .chapter { clear: both; page-break-before: always; } + body {font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify; } + table {font-size: .9em; padding: 1.5em .5em 1em; page-break-inside: avoid; + clear: both; } + div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; + page-break-after: always; } + div.titlepage p {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 3em; } + .ph1 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; font-size: xx-large; + margin: .67em auto; page-break-before: always; } + .ph2 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; + page-break-before: always; } + .blackletter {font-family: 'Old English Text MT', serif; font-weight:bold; + font-style: normal; } + .x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { float: left; } + .strong {font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; } + </style> + </head> + <body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75943 ***</div> + +<div class='tnotes covernote'> + +<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p> + +<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='chapter ph1'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>MELINCOURT</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_ii.jpg' alt='[Logo]' class='ig001'> +</div> + +<div id='Frontispiece' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_frontispiece.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Sir Oran Haut-ton.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='titlepage'> + +<div> + <h1 class='c002'>MELINCOURT<br> <span class='small'>OR</span><br> <span class='xlarge'>SIR ORAN HAUT-TON</span></h1> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div>BY</div> + <div class='c004'><span class='large'>THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK</span></div> + <div class='c003'>ILLUSTRATED BY F. H. TOWNSEND</div> + <div class='c004'>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY</div> + <div class='c003'><span class='blackletter'>London</span></div> + <div class='c004'>MACMILLAN AND CO., <span class='sc'>Ltd.</span></div> + <div class='c004'>NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO.</div> + <div class='c004'>1896</div> + <div class='c004'><span class='small'><em>All rights reserved</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span> + <h2 class='c005'>INTRODUCTION</h2> +</div> +<p class='c006'><cite>Melincourt</cite> is usually considered the least interesting of +Peacock’s novels; and in the strictly comparative sense—that +is to say that it is the least interesting of a group, every +one of which has peculiar and exceptional interest—the +statement is no doubt true. The defects of the book are +very obvious, and exceedingly easy to account for. <cite>Headlong +Hall</cite> had been very popular; and it was only in the +course of nature that the author should repeat his successful +experiment. But <cite>Headlong Hall</cite> had been by no means +free from faults; and it certainly was not out of the course +of nature that they should reappear in the new venture. +In the very noteworthy introduction which the author wrote +nearly forty years later, and which contains the promise of +<cite>Gryll Grange</cite> as supplement to complete the satire, it is not +unimportant to observe that he pays no attention to anything +but the satirical purport. A man of seventy, satiated +with business and not specially hungering after popularity, +was not perhaps very likely to discuss his own novels in +detail, even to the extent to which Scott and other persons +of irreproachable taste have discussed theirs in separate or +collected editions. But it is not extravagant to take his +silence as a kind of indication of his point of view.</p> + +<p class='c007'>His practice, however, if not his expressed theory, testifies +to a consciousness that he had made a mistake in the scale +<span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>of this novel. <cite>Nightmare Abbey</cite>, the next, is only just a +third of its length: no two of the next three, even if added +together, come up to it; and though <cite>Gryll Grange</cite> is not so +very much shorter, <cite>Gryll Grange</cite> contains the accumulated +irony of a lifetime, and is not open to any of the objections +to which <cite>Melincourt</cite> is exposed.</p> + +<p class='c007'>These objections, put briefly, come to this, that the +author has not yet acquired the knack of telling a story, and +that he has not discarded the habit of inapposite dissertation. +There is truth in this summary, sharp and blunt at once as +it is, and there is probably no reader who will not sometimes +put up a prayer for the excision, extinction, expulsion, and +general extermination of Mr. Fax. But political economy +had always been a favourite subject of Peacock’s French +masters; it had acquired, through Malthus (of whom Mr. +Fax has sometimes been thought to be a Peacockian +portrait), considerable vogue in England; and we have seen +it reappear in our own time as a loading or padding to +novels. Mr. Forester’s anti-saccharine fervour was a real +thing for many years after <cite>Melincourt</cite> was published—though +I have never heard whether the amiable anti-saccharists or +their descendants have founded any association to weep for +the ruin of the West India planters first, and the West +India Islands afterwards.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Two other kinds of purpose appear in the novel, both +of them distinctly political. In <cite>Headlong Hall</cite> the attack +on the <cite>Quarterly Review</cite> had been tolerably obvious, but it +had kept, if not entirely, yet mainly free of personalities. +The scenes at Cimmerian Lodge and Mainchance Villa, +with Mr. Feathernest’s sojourn at Melincourt, substitute +for this impersonality a directness of personal lampoon as +to the taste of which there cannot be very much question, +while as to the justice and accuracy of it there cannot be, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>and among rational people of both sides never has been, +any but one opinion. Mr. Vamp (Gifford), Mr. Anyside +Antijack (Canning), and Mr. Killthedead (believed to be +Barrow, Secretary to the Admiralty, and a well-known writer +on naval subjects), were perhaps fair game, for the two last +were public men—in other words, public targets—and Gifford +had only himself to blame if, after playing all his life at the +roughest and most vicious of bowls, he got some rubbers. +But the animus, the injustice, and, above all, the ludicrous +inaccuracy of the attacks on Coleridge (Mr. Mystic), Southey +(Mr. Feathernest), and Wordsworth (Mr. Paperstamp), are +still almost inconceivable. That there was a certain superficial +justification for accusing them all, especially Coleridge +and Southey, of rather remarkable changes of opinion, that +Coleridge was apt to be a little transcendental, and so forth, +may be granted. But the attempt to carry the satire on to +their moral and personal conduct is not only unjustifiable in +itself, but displays a quite ludicrous ignorance and recklessness. +Coleridge, heaven knows, was open enough to satire; +and if Peacock had known anything whatever about him, +he might have made a rather terrible exposure. But ‘Mr. +Mystic,’ with his elaborate establishment at Cimmerian +Lodge, is so unlike the fugitive philosopher who seldom +had where to lay his head except in other men’s houses, +that even amusement is difficult. And when we remember +the style of living in which Wordsworth, even at his +wealthiest, indulged, and his tastes in all matters of art, +coarse and fine, the extensive dinner-party at Mainchance +Villa and its ‘mighty claret-shed’ become a very poor +jest. The ‘sooth bourd’ may be ‘nae bourd,’ but the bourd +which is altogether and glaringly opposite to the truth is a +good deal worse. Most inexcusable of the three attacks, +however, is that on Southey, which, I am sorry to say, is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span>renewed (as it were, <em>sotto voce</em>) by the allusions to ‘Mr. +Sackbut’ in <cite>Nightmare Abbey</cite>. That Southey gave some +provocation to the irregulars of the Whig party by his +slightly pharisaic airs of virtue, and some handle not merely +by his curious political history, but by his more voluminous +than impeccable poetical work, is undeniable. But to +represent him as a rascal, though it might be worthy of +Byron, was not worthy of Peacock; and to represent him +as selling his soul for the pittance of the laureateship was +unpardonable. Southey, as Shelley himself and many +others of Peacock’s friends could have told the author of +<cite>Melincourt</cite>, ‘feathered his nest’ with nothing but books, +worked like a navvy (only that the navvy works in bursts +and Southey worked unceasingly), at the least paying kinds +of literature, in order to procure that lining, and lived, +though not sordidly, with the utmost simplicity. It would +perhaps be less difficult to forgive this unfairness if the +result were more amusing, but as it is Peacock is condemned +by the laws of art no less than by those of ethics.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He was quite infinitely more fortunate in his other +political foray—the satire on rotten boroughs in the history +of the Onevote election. The rotten-borough system may +have had its advantages, but nobody ever denied that it +lent itself admirably to satire; and I am rather inclined to +fix on this as the first complete example of Peacock’s method +of sarcastic exposure. Indeed, ‘Mr. Sarcastic’ himself, +unless my imagination deceives me, comes nearer to Peacock’s +own character than almost any other of his personages. +And the whole thing, in a bravura style, is capital. +It is indeed sad to notice that the constant legislative +curtailments of the picturesque and pleasing in politics have +quite recently done away with the last shred of actuality in +the Onevote episode. For it was recorded, during the first +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span>Parish Council elections recently, that an actual Mr. +Christopher Corporate was practically disfranchised, because, +though he proposed his candidate, and might have voted +for him, he was not allowed as a seconder, and no other +existed.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The not sarcastic or not purely sarcastic scenes and +personages of the novel have considerable merit, which +would be more easily perceptible if they were not kept apart +from each other by so much of the Fax-and-Forester business. +Anthelia has excited interest and admiration as a +reminiscence of Peacock’s first love, and a first draft of the +more perfectly conceived Susannah Touchandgo in <cite>Crotchet +Castle</cite>. They both exhibit—with some modern touches, +chiefly in the latter of the pair—the sentimental but intelligent +heroine of the last century. Mrs. Pinmoney and her +daughter are slight, but good, and the former’s list of tastes +is a capital passage, while Sir Telegraph Paxarett is an +excellent personage, showing something of Thackeray’s +partiality for making a young man of fashion not quite a +coxcomb, such as the older novelists had been prone to +draw him. Mr. Derrydown, who is a sort of first sketch of +Mr. Chainmail in <cite>Crotchet Castle</cite>, is a very intelligent +mediaevalist; and the ‘supers,’ Mr. O’Scarum and the rest, +play their parts very well.</p> + +<p class='c007'>These compliments, however, will hardly extend to the +hero or the villains, though they apply with redoubled force +to Sir Oran Haut-ton. The quadrumanous baronet, indeed, +is such an excellent fellow, that one almost wishes he could +have been discovered to be no Orang at all, but a baby lost +early in the woods, could have recovered his speech, improved +his good looks, and married Anthelia. For his patron, +friend, rival, and almost namesake, Sylvan Forester, is a +terrible prig and bore. It is difficult to believe that Peacock +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span>can have sympathised with him, and impossible not to +think that he simply followed the old theory of the good +young hero, as he did other old theories in the elopement +and recovery. But Mr. Forester is not much worse than +the villains. Grovelgrub indeed, though he is much worse +than Portpipe (who is not detestable), and is the sequel to +Gaster in Peacock’s curious warfare against the clergy, has +a touch of wit now and then. But Lord Anophel Achthar +(how with that title he came to be heir-apparent to a marquis +Peacock does not explain) is an exceeding poor creature, +not much more valorous than Bob Acres, without any of +Bob’s redeeming fun, and as dull a dog as need or need +not be.</p> + +<p class='c007'>One very curious feature in the book is the chess dance, +which has been sometimes carried out since in reality. It is +one of not the least interesting points in Peacock’s rather +enigmatic character that he seems to have had a liking for +pageants and shows, whether in themselves, or (in this +particular instance) because of the example in his beloved +Rabelais, or as fashions of old time—for there never was +such a lover of old time as this Liberal free-lance. His +grand-daughter tells us that he used to hold Lady-of-the-May +revels in his old age for the children at Halliford, and the +Aristophanic play in <cite>Gryll Grange</cite> partakes at least as much +of this fancy as of the direct liking for theatrical performance +proper which Peacock had, and which made him for some +years a regular theatrical and operatic critic.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The songs of <cite>Melincourt</cite> are, considering its length, not +numerous, and only one of them is, for Peacock, of the first +class. Anthelia’s first ballad, “The Tomb of Love,” is not +very much above the strains of the unhappy Della Crusca and +his mates, whose bodies in her time still, to speak figuratively, +lay scattered on the critic mountains cold, where +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiii'>xiii</span>they had been left by Gifford’s tomahawk. Nor is her +second, “The Flower of Love,” much better. The terzetto, +which immediately follows this, is not very strong, though +“Hark o’er the Silent Waters Stealing” is tolerable, and +“The Morning of Love” is very fair imitation-Moore, and +the Antijacobin quintet very fair Hook. Of the two +remaining serious pieces “The Sun-Dial” is much better +than “The Magic Bark.” But the credit of the verse of +this novel must rest upon “The Ghosts.” It faces a page +in which Southey is represented as saying of himself, +“I knocked myself down to the highest bidder,” and interrupts +a discussion which, putting aside this childish +injustice, Mr. Hippy most properly describes as “dry,” so +that it must have been a considerable relief at the time. +The disputants, it is true, relapse; but probably few attended +to them originally, and now, through most of the rest +of the novel, the reader catches himself humming at intervals,</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Let the Ocean be Port, and we’ll think it good sport</div> + <div class='line in16'>To be laid in that Red Sea!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>George Saintsbury.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_xv'>xv</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <th class='c009'></th> + <th class='c010'>PAGE</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Preface to the Edition published in 1856</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER I</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Anthelia</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_5'>5</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER II</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Fashionable Arrivals</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_14'>14</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER III</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Hypocon House</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_22'>22</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IV</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Redrose Abbey</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_29'>29</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER V</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Sugar</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_38'>38</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VI</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Sir Oran Haut-ton</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_44'>44</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xvi'>xvi</span> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Principle of Population</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_56'>56</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VIII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Spirit of Chivalry</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_62'>62</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IX</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Philosophy of Ballads</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_67'>67</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER X</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Torrent</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_75'>75</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XI</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Love and Marriage</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_85'>85</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Love and Poverty</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_91'>91</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XIII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Desmond</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XIV</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Cottage</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_107'>107</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XV</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Library</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_115'>115</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xvii'>xvii</span> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XVI</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Symposium</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_121'>121</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XVII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Music and Discord</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_132'>132</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XVIII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Stratagem</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_139'>139</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XIX</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Excursion</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_147'>147</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XX</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Sea-shore</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_155'>155</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXI</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The City of Novote</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_161'>161</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Borough of Onevote</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_168'>168</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXIII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Council of War</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_182'>182</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXIV</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Barouche</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_188'>188</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xviii'>xviii</span> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXV</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Walk</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_195'>195</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXVI</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Cottagers</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_200'>200</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXVII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Anti-Saccharine Fête</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_206'>206</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXVIII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Chess Dance</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_212'>212</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXIX</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Disappearance</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_220'>220</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXX</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Paper-Mill</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_226'>226</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXXI</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Cimmerian Lodge</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_232'>232</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXXII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Deserted Mansion</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_243'>243</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXXIII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Phantasm</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_250'>250</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xix'>xix</span> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXXIV</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Churchyard</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_256'>256</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXXV</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Rustic Wedding</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_261'>261</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXXVI</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Vicarage</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_268'>268</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXXVII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Mountains</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_273'>273</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXXVIII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Fracas</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_276'>276</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XXXIX</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Mainchance Villa</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_281'>281</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XL</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Hopes of the World</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_295'>295</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XLI</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Alga Castle</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_305'>305</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c010'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XLII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Conclusion</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_316'>316</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxi'>xxi</span> + <h2 class='c005'>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <th class='c009'></th> + <th class='c010'>PAGE</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Sir Oran Haut-ton</td> + <td class='c010'><em><a href='#Frontispiece'>Frontispiece</a></em></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Both Irishmen and clergymen</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_004'>4</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>He was always found in the morning comfortably asleep</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_008'>8</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>A journey to London</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_011'>11</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Fashionable arrivals</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_015'>15</a></td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>Old Harry had become, by long habit, a curious species of</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>animated mirror</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_024'>24</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Sprang up, flung his night-gown one way, his night-cap another</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_027'>27</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>‘Possibly,’ thought Sir Telegraph, ‘possibly I may have seen an uglier fellow’</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_032'>32</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Sir Oran took a flying leap through the window</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_036'>36</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Mr. Fax</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_057'>57</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Anthelia</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_072'>72</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Proceeded very deliberately to pull up a pine</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_078'>78</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Alighted on the doctor’s head as he was crossing the court</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_082'>82</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>‘My dear sir, only take the trouble of sitting a few hours in my shop’</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_098'>98</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Sir Oran sat down in the artist’s seat</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_110'>110</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Mr. Feathernest</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_123'>123</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>He managed so skilfully that his Lordship became himself the proposer of the scheme</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_138'>138</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>She thought there was something peculiar in his look</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_141'>141</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>He caught them both up, one under each arm</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_145'>145</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xxii'>xxii</span>Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hippy</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_158'>158</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>‘We shall always be deeply attentive to your interests’</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_172'>172</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>‘Hail, plural unit!’</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_176'>176</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Began to lay about him with great vigour and effect</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_179'>179</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Perched on the summit of the rock</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_183'>183</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>‘My father,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘began what I merely perpetuate’</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_203'>203</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The company was sipping, not without many wry faces, their anti-saccharine tea</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_213'>213</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Mr. Fax was of opinion that he was smitten</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_221'>221</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Mr. Mystic observed that they must go farther</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_236'>236</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Sir Oran Haut-ton ascending the stairs with the great rain-water tub</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_240'>240</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Mr. Forester made inquiries of him</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_246'>246</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Sir Oran, throwing himself into a chair, began to shed tears in great abundance</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_253'>253</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>A great press of business to dispose of</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_257'>257</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>‘Do you know, that in all likelihood, in the course of six years, you will have as many children?’</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_263'>263</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Sir Bonus Mac Scrip retreated through the breach, and concealed himself under the dining-table</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_279'>279</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>She immediately ran through the shrubbery</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_304'>304</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>He flattered himself that Anthelia would at length come to a determination</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_308'>308</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Gazing on the changeful aspects of the wintry sea</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_311'>311</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Preparing to administer natural justice by throwing him out at the window</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_318'>318</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>We shall leave them to run <em>ad libitum</em></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_320'>320</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>‘He would confess all’</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_322'>322</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='chapter ph1'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>MELINCOURT</div> + <div class='c004'><span class='small'>OR</span></div> + <div class='c004'><span class='xlarge'>SIR ORAN HAUT-TON</span></div> + <div class='c004'><span class='large'><i><span lang="la">VOCEM COMOEDIA TOLLIT</span></i></span><a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c012'><sup>[1]</sup></a></div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> + <h2 class='c005'>PREFACE<br> <span class='c013'>TO THE EDITION PUBLISHED IN 1856</span><a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c012'><sup>[2]</sup></a></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>‘Melincourt’ was first published thirty-nine years ago. +Many changes have since occurred, social, mechanical, and +political. The boroughs of Onevote and Threevotes have +been extinguished: but there remain boroughs of Fewvotes, +in which Sir Oran Haut-ton might still find a free and +enlightened constituency. Beards disfigure the face, and +tobacco poisons the air, in a degree not then imagined. A +boy, with a cigar in his mouth, was a phenomenon yet unborn. +Multitudinous bubbles have been blown and have burst: +sometimes prostrating dupes and impostors together; sometimes +leaving a colossal jobber upright in his triumphal chariot, +which has crushed as many victims as the car of Juggernaut. +Political mountebanks have founded profitable investments on +public gullibility. British colonists have been compelled to +emancipate their slaves; and foreign slave labour, under the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>pretext of free trade, has been brought to bear against them +by the friends of liberty. The Court is more moral: therefore, +the public is more moral; more decorous, at least in external +semblance, wherever the homage, which Hypocrisy pays to +Virtue, can yield any profit to the professor: but always ready +for the same reaction, with which the profligacy of the Restoration +rolled, like a spring-tide, over the Puritanism of the +Commonwealth. The progress of intellect, with all deference +to those who believe in it, is not quite so obvious as the progress +of mechanics. The ‘reading public’ has increased its +capacity of swallow, in a proportion far exceeding that of its +digestion. Thirty-nine years ago, steamboats were just coming +into action, and the railway locomotive was not even +thought of. Now everybody goes everywhere: going for the +sake of going, and rejoicing in the rapidity with which they +accomplish nothing. <i><span lang="fr">On va, mais on ne voyage pas.</span></i> +Strenuous idleness drives us on the wings of steam in boats +and trains, seeking the art of enjoying life, which, after all, is +in the regulation of the mind, and not in the whisking about of +the body.<a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c012'><sup>[3]</sup></a> Of the disputants whose opinions and public +characters (for I never trespassed on private life) were +shadowed in some of the persons of the story, almost all have +passed from the diurnal scene. Many of the questions, discussed +in the dialogues, have more of general than of temporary +application, and have still their advocates on both sides: and +new questions have arisen, which furnish abundant argument +for similar conversations, and of which I may yet, perhaps, +avail myself on some future occasion.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>The Author of ‘Headlong Hall.’</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'><em>March 1856.</em></p> + +<div id='i_004' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span> +<img src='images/i_004.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Both Irishmen and clergymen.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER I<br> <span class='c013'>ANTHELIA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Anthelia Melincourt, at the age of twenty-one, was +mistress of herself and of ten thousand a year, and of a very +ancient and venerable castle in one of the wildest valleys in +Westmoreland. It follows of course, without reference to her +personal qualifications, that she had a very numerous list of +admirers, and equally of course that there were both Irishmen +and clergymen among them. The young lady nevertheless +possessed sufficient attractions to kindle the flames of disinterested +passion; and accordingly we shall venture to suppose +that there was at least one in the number of her sighing swains +with whom her rent-roll and her old castle were secondary +considerations; and if the candid reader should esteem this +supposition too violent for the probabilities of daily experience +in this calculating age, he will at least concede it to that degree +of poetical licence which is invariably accorded to a tale +founded on facts.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Melincourt Castle had been a place of considerable strength +in those golden days of feudal and royal prerogative, when no +man was safe in his own house unless he adopted every +possible precaution for shutting out all his neighbours. It is, +therefore, not surprising, that a rock, of which three sides were +perpendicular, and which was only accessible on the fourth by +a narrow ledge, forming a natural bridge over a tremendous +chasm, was considered a very enviable situation for a gentleman +to build on. An impetuous torrent boiled through the +depth of the chasm, and after eddying round the base of the +castle-rock, which it almost insulated, disappeared in the +obscurity of a woody glen, whose mysterious recesses, by +popular superstition formerly consecrated to the devil, are now +<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>fearlessly explored by the solitary angler, or laid open to view +by the more profane hand of the picturesque tourist, who contrives, +by the magic of his pencil, to transport their romantic +terrors from the depths of mountain solitude to the gay and +crowded, though not very wholesome, atmosphere of a metropolitan +exhibition.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The narrow ledge, which formed the only natural access to +the castle-rock, had been guarded by every impediment which +the genius of fortification could oppose to the progress of the +hungry Scot, who might be disposed, in his neighbourly way, +to drop in without invitation and carouse at the expense of the +owner, rewarding him, as usual, for his extorted hospitality, by +cutting his throat and setting fire to his house. A drawbridge +over the chasm, backed by a double portcullis, presented the +only mode of admission. In this secure retreat thus strongly +guarded both by nature and art, and always plentifully victualled +for a siege, lived the lords of Melincourt in all the luxury +of rural seclusion, throwing open their gates on occasional +halcyon days to regale all the peasants and mountaineers of +the vicinity with roasted oxen and vats of October.</p> + +<p class='c007'>When these times of danger and turbulence had passed, +Melincourt Castle was not, as most of its brother edifices +were, utterly deserted. The drawbridge, indeed, became +gradually divorced from its chains; the double portcullis +disappeared; the turrets and battlements were abandoned to +the owl and the ivy; and a very spacious wing was left free +to the settlement of a colony of ghosts, which, according to the +report of the peasantry and the domestics, very soon took +possession, and retained it most pertinaciously, notwithstanding +the pious incantations of the neighbouring vicar, the Reverend +Mr. Portpipe, who often passed the night in one of the dreaded +apartments over a blazing fire with the same invariable exorcising +apparatus of a large venison pasty, a little Prayer-book, +and three bottles of Madeira: for the reverend gentleman +sagaciously observed, that as he had always found the latter +an infallible charm against blue devils, he had no doubt of its +proving equally efficacious against black, white, and gray. +In this opinion experience seemed to confirm him; for though +he always maintained a becoming silence as to the mysteries +of which he was a witness during his spectral vigils, yet a very +correct inference might be drawn from the fact that he was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>always found in the morning comfortably asleep in his large +arm-chair, with the dish scraped clean, the three bottles empty, +and the Prayer-book clasped and folded precisely in the same +state and place in which it had lain the preceding night.</p> + +<div id='i_008' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_008.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>He was always found in the morning comfortably asleep.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>But the larger and more commodious part of the castle +continued still to be inhabited; and while one half of the +edifice was fast improving into a picturesque ruin, the other +was as rapidly degenerating, in its interior at least, into a +comfortable modern dwelling.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In this romantic seclusion Anthelia was born. Her mother +died in giving her birth. Her father, Sir Henry Melincourt, +a man of great acquirements, and of a retired disposition, +devoted himself in solitude to the cultivation of his daughter’s +understanding; for he was one of those who maintained the +heretical notion that women are, or at least may be, rational +beings; though, from the great pains usually taken in what is +called education to make them otherwise, there are unfortunately +very few examples to warrant the truth of the theory.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The majestic forms and wild energies of Nature that +surrounded her from her infancy impressed their character on +her mind, communicating to it all their own wildness, and +more than their own beauty. Far removed from the pageantry +of courts and cities, her infant attention was awakened to +spectacles more interesting and more impressive: the misty +mountain-top, the ash-fringed precipice, the gleaming cataract, +the deep and shadowy glen, and the fantastic magnificence of +the mountain clouds. The murmur of the woods, the rush of +the winds, and the tumultuous dashing of the torrents, were +the first music of her childhood. A fearless wanderer among +these romantic solitudes, the spirit of mountain liberty diffused +itself through the whole tenor of her feelings, modelled the +symmetry of her form, and illumined the expressive but +feminine brilliancy of her features: and when she had attained +the age at which the mind expands itself to the fascinations of +poetry, the muses of Italy became the chosen companions of +her wanderings, and nourished a naturally susceptible imagination +by conjuring up the splendid visions of chivalry and +enchantment in scenes so congenial to their development.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was seldom that the presence of a visitor dispelled the +solitude of Melincourt; and the few specimens of the living +world with whom its inmates held occasional intercourse were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>of the usual character of country acquaintance, not calculated +to leave behind them any very lively regret, except for the loss +of time during the period of their stay. One of these was the +Reverend Mr. Portpipe, whom we have already celebrated for +his proficiency in the art of exorcising goblins by dint of +venison and Madeira. His business in the ghost line had, +indeed, declined with the progress of the human understanding, +and no part of his vocation was in very high favour with Sir +Henry, who, though an unexceptionable moral character, was +unhappily not one of the children of grace, in the theological +sense of the word: but the vicar, adopting St. Paul’s precept +of being all things to all men, found it on this occasion his +interest to be liberal; and observing that no man could coerce +his opinions, repeated with great complacency the line of +Virgil:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine agetur;</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>though he took especial care that his heterodox concession +should not reach the ears of his bishop, who would infallibly +have unfrocked him for promulgating a doctrine so subversive +of the main pillar of all orthodox establishments.</p> + +<p class='c007'>When Anthelia had attained her sixteenth year, her father +deemed it necessary to introduce her to that human world of +which she had hitherto seen so little, and for this purpose took +a journey to London, where he was received by the surviving +portion of his old acquaintance as a ghost returned from +Acheron. The impression which the gay scenes of the +metropolis made on the mind of Anthelia—to what illustrious +characters she was introduced—‘and all she thought of all +she saw,’—it would be foreign to our present purpose to detail; +suffice it to say, that from this period Sir Henry regularly +passed the winter in London and the summer in Westmoreland, +till his daughter attained the age of twenty, about which period +he died.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia passed twelve months from this time in total +seclusion at Melincourt, notwithstanding many pressing invitations +from various match-making dowagers in London, who +were solicitous to dispose of her according to their views of her +advantage; in which how far their own was lost sight of it +may not be difficult to determine.</p> + +<div id='i_011' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_011.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>A journey to London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Among the numerous lovers who had hitherto sighed at her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>shrine, not one had succeeded in making the slightest impression +on her heart; and during the twelve months of seclusion +which elapsed from the death of her father to the commencement +of this authentic history, they had all completely vanished +from the tablet of her memory. Her knowledge of love was +altogether theoretical; and her theory, being formed by the +study of Italian poetry in the bosom of mountain solitude, +naturally and necessarily pointed to a visionary model of +excellence which it was very little likely the modern world +could realise.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The dowagers, at length despairing of drawing her from her +retirement, respectively came to various resolutions for the +accomplishment of their ends; some resolving to go in person +to Melincourt, and exert all their powers of oratory to mould +her to their wishes, and others instigating their several <em>protégés</em> +to set boldly forward in search of fortune, and lay siege to the +castle and its mistress together.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER II<br> <span class='c013'>FASHIONABLE ARRIVALS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>It was late in the afternoon of an autumnal day, when the +elegant post-chariot of the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, a lady +of high renown in the annals of match-making, turned the +corner of a stupendous precipice in the narrow pass which +formed the only access to the valley of Melincourt. This +honourable lady was accompanied by her only daughter Miss +Danaretta Contantina; which names, by the bye, appear to be +female diminutives of the Italian words <i><span lang="it">danaro contante</span></i>, +signifying <em>ready money</em>, and genteelly hinting to all fashionable +Strephons, the only terms on which the <em>commodity</em> so +denominated would be disposed of, according to the universal +practice of this liberal and enlightened generation, in that most +commercial of all bargains, marriage.</p> + +<div id='i_015' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_015.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Fashionable arrivals.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The ivied battlements and frowning towers of Melincourt +Castle, as they burst at once upon the sight, very much +astonished the elder and delighted the younger lady; for the +latter had cultivated a great deal of theoretical romance—in +taste, not in feeling—an important distinction—which enabled +her to be most liberally sentimental in words, without at all +influencing her actions; to talk of heroic affection and selfsacrificing +enthusiasm, without incurring the least danger of +forming a disinterested attachment, or of erring in any way +whatever on the score of practical generosity. Indeed, in all +respects of practice the young lady was the true counterpart of +her mother, though they sometimes differed a little in the forms +of sentiment: thus, for instance, when any of their dear +friends happened to go, as it is called, down hill in the world, +the old lady was generally very severe on their <em>imprudence</em>, +and the young lady very pathetic on their <em>misfortune</em>: but as +<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>to holding any further intercourse with, or rendering any +species of assistance to, any dear friend so circumstanced, +neither the one nor the other was ever suspected of conduct so +very unfashionable. In the main point, therefore, of both their +lives, that of making a <em>good match</em> for Miss Danaretta, their +views perfectly coincided; and though Miss Danaretta, in her +speculative conversations on this subject, among her female +acquaintance, talked as young ladies always talk, and laid down +very precisely <em>the only kind of man she would ever think of +marrying</em>, endowing him, of course, with all the virtues in our +good friend Hookman’s Library; yet it was very well understood, +as it usually is on similar occasions, that no other proof +of the possession of the aforesaid virtues would be required +from any individual who might present himself in the character +of <i><span lang="la">Corydon sospiroso</span></i> than a satisfactory certificate from the +old lady in Threadneedle Street, that the bearer was a <em>good +man</em>, and could be proved so in the <em>Alley</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Such were the amiable specimens of worldly wisdom, and +affected romance, that prepared to invade the retirement of the +mountain-enthusiast, the really romantic unworldly Anthelia.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘What a strange-looking old place!’ said Mrs. Pinmoney; +‘it seems like anything but the dwelling of a young heiress. +I am afraid the rascally postboys have joined in a plot against +us, and intend to deliver us to a gang of thieves!’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Banditti, you should say, mamma,’ said Miss Danaretta; +‘thieves is an odious word.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Pooh, child!’ said Mrs. Pinmoney. ‘The reality is +odious enough, let the word be what it will. Is not a rogue +a rogue, call him by what name you may?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Oh, certainly not,’ said Miss Danaretta; ‘for in that case +a poor rogue without a title, would not be more a rogue than a +rich rogue with one; but that he is so in a most infinite +proportion, the whole experience of the world demonstrates.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘True,’ said the old lady; ‘and as our reverend friend Dr. +Bosky observes, to maintain the contrary would be to sanction +a principle utterly subversive of all social order and aristocratical +privilege.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The carriage now rolled over the narrow ledge which +connected the site of the castle with the neighbouring rocks. +A furious peal at the outer bell brought forth a venerable +porter, who opened the gates with becoming gravity, and the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>carriage entered a spacious court, of much more recent +architecture than the exterior of the castle, and built in a style +of modern Gothic, that seemed to form a happy medium +between the days of feudality, commonly called the dark ages, +and the nineteenth century, commonly called the enlightened +age: <em>why</em> I could never discover.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The inner gates were opened by another grave and +venerable domestic, who, with all the imperturbable decorum +and formality of the old school, assisted the ladies to alight, and +ushered them along an elegant colonnade into the library, which +we shall describe no further than by saying that the apartment +was Gothic, and the furniture Grecian: whether this be an +unpardonable incongruity calculated to disarrange all legitimate +associations, or a judicious combination of solemnity and +elegance, most happily adapted to the purposes of study, we +must leave to the decision, or rather discussion, of picturesque +and antiquarian disputants.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The windows, which were of stained glass, were partly open +to a shrubbery, which admitting the meditative mind into the +recesses of nature, and excluding all view of distant scenes, +heightened the deep seclusion and repose of the apartment. It +consisted principally of evergreens; but the parting beauty of +the last flowers of autumn, and the lighter and now fading tints +of a few deciduous shrubs, mingled with the imperishable +verdure of the cedar and the laurel.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The old domestic went in search of his young mistress, and +the ladies threw themselves on a sofa in graceful attitudes. +They were shortly joined by Anthelia, who welcomed them to +Melincourt with all the politeness which the necessity of the +case imposed.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The change of dress, the dinner, the dessert, seasoned +with the <em>newest news</em> of the fashionable world, which the +visitors thought must be of all things the most delightful to the +mountain recluse, filled up a portion of the evening. When +they returned from the dining-room to the library, the windows +were closed, the curtains drawn, and the tea and coffee urns +bubbling on the table, and sending up their steamy columns: +an old fashion to be sure, and sufficiently rustic, for which we +apologise in due form to the reader, who prefers his tea and +coffee brought in cool by the butler in little cups on a silver +salver, and handed round to the simpering company till it is as +<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>cold as an Iceland spring. There is no disputing about taste, +and the taste of Melincourt Castle on this subject had been +always very poetically unfashionable; for the tea would have +satisfied Johnson, and the coffee enchanted Voltaire.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I must confess, my dear,’ said the Honourable Mrs. +Pinmoney, ‘there is a great deal of comfort in your way of +living, that is, there would be, in good company; but you are +so solitary——’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Here is the best of company,’ said Anthelia, smiling, and +pointing to the shelves of the library.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> Very true: books are very +good things in their way; but an hour or two at most is quite +enough of them for me; more can serve no purpose but to +muddle one’s head. If I were to live such a life for a week as +you have done for the last twelve months, I should have more +company than I like, in the shape of a whole legion of blue +devils.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Miss Danaretta.</em> Nay, I think there is something delightfully +romantic in Anthelia’s mode of life; but I confess I should +like now and then, peeping through the ivy of the battlements, +to observe a <i><span lang="fr">preux chevalier</span></i> exerting all his eloquence to +persuade the inflexible porter to open the castle gates, and +allow him one opportunity of throwing himself at the feet of +the divine lady of the castle, for whom he had been seven +years dying a lingering death.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> And growing fatter all the +while. Heaven defend me from such hypocritical fops! +Seven years indeed! It did not take as many weeks to bring +me and poor dear dead Mr. Pinmoney together.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> I should have been afraid that so short an +acquaintance would scarcely have been sufficient to acquire +that mutual knowledge of each other’s tastes, feelings, and +character, which I should think the only sure basis of matrimonial +happiness.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> Tastes, feelings, and character! +Why, my love, you really do seem to believe yourself in the +age of chivalry, when those words certainly signified very +essential differences. But now the matter is, very happily, +simplified. Tastes,—they depend on the fashion. There is +always a fashionable taste: a taste for driving the mail—a +taste for acting Hamlet—a taste for philosophical lectures—a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>taste for the marvellous—a taste for the simple—a taste for +the brilliant—a taste for the sombre—a taste for the tender—a +taste for the grim—a taste for banditti—a taste for ghosts—a +taste for the devil—a taste for French dancers and Italian +singers, and German whiskers and tragedies—a taste for enjoying +the country in November, and wintering in London till the +end of the dog-days—a taste for making shoes—a taste for +picturesque tours—a taste for taste itself, or for essays on +taste;—but no gentleman would be so rash as have a taste of +his own, or his last winter’s taste, or any taste, my love, but +the fashionable taste. Poor dear Mr. Pinmoney was reckoned +a man of exquisite taste among all his acquaintance; for the +new taste, let it be what it would, always fitted him as well as +his new coat, and he was the very pink and mirror of fashion, +as much in the one as the other.—So much for tastes, my dear.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> I am afraid I shall always be a very unfashionable +creature; for I do not think I should have sympathised +with any one of the tastes you have just enumerated.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> You are so contumacious, such +a romantic heretic from the orthodox supremacy of fashion. +Now, as for feelings, my dear, you know there are no such +things in the fashionable world; therefore that difficulty vanishes +even more easily than the first.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> I am sorry for it.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> Sorry! Feelings are very +troublesome things, and always stand in the way of a person’s +own interests. Then, as to character, a gentleman’s character +is usually in the keeping of his banker, or his agent, or his +steward, or his solicitor; and if they can certify and demonstrate +that he has the means of keeping a handsome equipage, +and a town and country house, and of giving routs and dinners, +and of making a good settlement on the happy object of his +choice—what more of any gentleman’s character would you +desire to know?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> A great deal more. I would require him to be +free in all his thoughts, true in all his words, generous in all +his actions—ardent in friendship, enthusiastic in love, disinterested +in both—prompt in the conception, and constant in +the execution, of benevolent enterprise—the friend of the +friendless, the champion of the feeble, the firm opponent of the +powerful oppressor—not to be enervated by luxury, nor corrupted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>by avarice, nor intimidated by tyranny, nor enthralled by +superstition—more desirous to distribute wealth than to possess +it, to disseminate liberty than to appropriate power, to cheer +the heart of sorrow than to dazzle the eyes of folly.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> And do you really expect to +find such a knight-errant? The age of chivalry is gone.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> It is, but its spirit survives. Disinterested benevolence, +the mainspring of all that is really admirable in the +days of chivalry, will never perish for want of some minds +calculated to feel its influence, still less for want of a proper +field of exertion. To protect the feeble, to raise the fallen—to +liberate the captive—to be the persevering foe of tyrants +(whether the great tyrant of an overwhelming empire, the petty +tyrant of the fields, or the ‘little tyrant of a little corporation,’)<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c012'><sup>[4]</sup></a> +it is not necessary to wind the bugle before enchanted castles, +or to seek adventures in the depths of mountain caverns and +forests of pine; there is no scene of human life but presents +sufficient scope to energetic generosity; the field of action, +though less splendid in its accompaniments, is not less useful +in its results, nor less attractive to a liberal spirit: and I +believe it is possible to find as true a knight-errant in a brown +coat in the nineteenth century, as in a suit of golden armour +in the days of Charlemagne.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> Well! well! my dear, when +you have seen a little more of the world, you will get rid of +some of your chivalrous whimsies; and I think you will then +agree with me that there is not, in the whole sphere of fashion, +a more elegant, fine-spirited, dashing, generous fellow than my +nephew Sir Telegraph Paxarett, who, by the bye, will be driving +his barouche this way shortly, and if you do not absolutely +forbid it, will call on me in his route.</p> + +<p class='c007'>These words seemed to portend that the Honourable Mrs. +Pinmoney’s visit would be a visitation, and at the same time +threw a clear light on its motive; but they gave birth in the +mind of Anthelia to a train of ideas which concluded in a +somewhat singular determination.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER III<br> <span class='c013'>HYPOCON HOUSE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Anthelia had received intimations from various quarters of +similar intentions on the part of various individuals, not less +valuable than Sir Telegraph Paxarett in the scale of moral +utility; and though there was not one among them for whom +she felt the slightest interest, she thought it would be too +uncourteous in a pupil of chivalry, and too inhospitable in the +mistress of an old English castle, to bar her gates against +them. At the same time she felt the want of a lord seneschal +to receive and entertain visitors so little congenial to her habits +and inclinations: and it immediately occurred to her that no +one would be more fit for this honourable office, if he could be +prevailed on to undertake it, than an old relation—a medium, +as it were, between cousin and great-uncle; who had occasionally +passed a week or a month with her father at Melincourt. +The name of this old gentleman was Hippy—Humphrey +Hippy, Esquire, of Hypocon House, in the county of Durham. +He was a bachelor, and his character exhibited a singular +compound of kind-heartedness, spleen, and melancholy, which +governed him by turns, and sometimes in such rapid succession +that they seemed almost co-existent. To him Anthelia determined +on sending an express, with a letter entreating him to +take on himself, for a short time, the superintendence of +Melincourt Castle, and giving as briefly as possible her reasons +for the request. In pursuance of this determination, old Peter +Gray, a favourite domestic of Sir Henry, and, I believe, a +distant relation of little Lucy,<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c012'><sup>[5]</sup></a> was despatched the following +morning to Hypocon House, where the gate was opened to +him by old Harry Fell, a distant relation of little Alice, who, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>as the reader well knows, ‘belonged to Durham.’ Old Harry +had become, by long habit, a curious species of animated +mirror, and reflected all the humours of his master with +wonderful nicety. When Mr. Hippy was in a rage, old Harry +looked fierce; when Mr. Hippy was in a good humour, old +Harry was the picture of human kindness; when Mr. Hippy +was blue-devilled, old Harry was vapourish; when Mr. Hippy +was as melancholy as a gib-cat, old Harry was as dismal as a +screech-owl. The latter happened to be the case when old +Peter presented himself at the gate, and old Harry accordingly +opened it with a most rueful elongation of visage. Peter Gray +was ready with a warm salutation for his old acquaintance +Harry Fell; but the lamentable cast of expression in the +physiognomy of the latter froze it on his lips, and he contented +himself with asking in a hesitating tone, ‘Is Mr. Hippy at +home?’</p> + +<div id='i_024' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_024.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Old Harry had become, by long habit, a curious species of animated mirror.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>‘He is,’ slowly and sadly articulated Harry Fell, shaking +his head.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I have a letter for him,’ said Peter Gray.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Ah!’ said Harry Fell, taking the letter, and stalking off +with it as solemnly as if he had been following a funeral.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘A pleasant reception,’ thought Peter Gray, ‘instead of the +old ale and cold sirloin I dreamed of.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Old Harry tapped three times at the door of his master’s +chamber, observing the same interval between each tap as is +usual between the sounds of a muffled drum: then, after a due +pause, he entered the apartment. Mr. Hippy was in his +night-gown and slippers, with one leg on a cushion, suffering +under an imaginary attack of the gout, and in the last stage of +despondency. Old Harry walked forward in the same slow +pace till he found himself at the proper distance from his +master’s chair. Then putting forth his hand as deliberately as +if it had been the hour-hand of the kitchen clock, he presented +the letter. Mr. Hippy took it in the same manner, sank back +in his chair as if exhausted with the effort, and cast his eyes +languidly on the seal. Immediately his eyes brightened, he +tore open the letter, read it in an instant, sprang up, flung his +night-gown one way, his night-cap another, kicked off his +slippers, kicked away his cushion, kicked over his chair, and +bounced downstairs, roaring for his coat and boots, and his +travelling chariot, with old Harry capering at his heels, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>re-echoing all his requisitions. Harry Fell was now a new man. +Peter Gray was seized by the hand and dragged into the +buttery, where a cold goose and a flagon of ale were placed +before him, to which he immediately proceeded to do ample +justice; while old Harry rushed off with a cold fowl and ham +for the refection of Mr. Hippy, who had been too seriously indisposed +in the morning to touch a morsel of breakfast. +Having placed these and a bottle of Madeira in due form and +order before his master, he flew back to the buttery, to assist +old Peter in the demolition of the goose and ale, his own +appetite in the morning having sympathised with his master’s, +and being now equally disposed to make up for lost time.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Hippy’s travelling chariot was rattled up to the door by +four high-mettled posters from the nearest inn. Mr. Hippy +sprang into the carriage, old Harry vaulted into the dicky, the +postilions cracked their whips, and away they went,</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Over the hills and the plains,</div> + <div class='line'>Over the rivers and rocks,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>leaving old Peter gaping after them at the gate, in profound +astonishment at their sudden metamorphosis, and in utter +despair of being able, by any exertions of his own, to be their +forerunner and announcer at Melincourt. Considering, therefore, +that when the necessity of being too late is inevitable, +hurry is manifestly superfluous, he mounted his galloway with +great gravity and deliberation, and trotted slowly off towards +the mountains, philosophising all the way in the usual poetical +style of a Cumberland peasant. Our readers will of course +feel much obliged to us for not presenting them with his +meditations. But instead of jogging back with old Peter Gray, +or travelling post with Humphrey Hippy, Esquire, we shall +avail ourselves of the four-in-hand barouche which is just coming +in view, to take a seat on the box by the side of Sir Telegraph +Paxarett, and proceed in his company to Melincourt.</p> + +<div id='i_027' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span> +<img src='images/i_027.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Sprang up, flung his night-gown one way, his night-cap another.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IV<br> <span class='c013'>REDROSE ABBEY</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Sir Telegraph Paxarett had entered the precincts of the +mountains of Westmoreland, and was bowling his barouche +along a romantic valley, looking out very anxiously for an inn, +as he had now driven his regular diurnal allowance of miles, +and was becoming very impatient for his equally regular +diurnal allowance of fish, fowl, and Madeira. A wreath of +smoke ascending from a thick tuft of trees at a distance, and +in a straight direction before him, cheered up his spirits, and +induced him to cheer up those of his horses with two or three +of those technical terms of the road, which we presume to +have formed part of the genuine language of the ancient +Houyhnhnms, since they seem not only much better adapted +to equine than human organs of sound, but are certainly much +more generally intelligible to four-footed than to two-footed +animals. Sir Telegraph was doomed to a temporary disappointment; +for when he had attained the desired point, the +smoke proved to issue from the chimneys of an ancient abbey +which appeared to have been recently converted from a pile of +ruins into the habitation of some variety of the human species, +with very singular veneration for the relics of antiquity, which, +in their exterior aspect, had suffered little from the alteration. +There was something so analogous between the state of this +building and what he had heard of Melincourt, that if it had +not been impossible to mistake an abbey for a castle, he might +almost have fancied himself arrived at the dwelling of the +divine Anthelia. Under a detached piece of ruins near the +road, which appeared to have been part of a chapel, several +workmen were busily breaking the ground with spade and +pickaxe: a gentleman was superintending their operations, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>seemed very eager to arrive at the object of his search. Sir +Telegraph stopped his barouche to inquire the distance to the +nearest inn: the gentleman replied, ‘Six miles.’ ‘That is +just five miles and a half too far,’ said Sir Telegraph, and was +proceeding to drive on, when, on turning round to make his +parting bow to the stranger, he suddenly recognised him for +an old acquaintance and fellow-collegian.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Sylvan Forester!’ exclaimed Sir Telegraph; ‘who should +have dreamed of meeting you in this uncivilised part of the +world?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I am afraid,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘this part of the world +does not deserve the compliment implied in the epithet you +have bestowed on it. Within no very great distance from this +spot are divers towns, villages, and hamlets, in any one of +which, if you have money, you may make pretty sure of being +cheated, and if you have none, quite sure of being starved—strong +evidences of a state of civilisation.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Aha!’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘your old way, now I recollect—always +fond of railing at civilised life, and holding forth in +praise of savages and what you called original men. But +what, in truth, make you in Westmoreland?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I have purchased this old abbey,’ said Mr. Forester +‘(anciently called the abbey of Rednose, which I have altered +to Redrose, as being more analogous to my notions of beauty, +whatever the reverend Fellows of our old college might have +thought of it), and have fitted it up for my habitation, with the +view of carrying on in peace and seclusion some peculiar +experiments on the nature and progress of man. Will you +dine with me, and pass the night here? and I will introduce +you to an original character.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘With all my heart,’ said Sir Telegraph; ‘I can assure +you, independently of the pleasure of meeting an old acquaintance, +it is a great comfort to dine in a gentleman’s house, after +living from inn to inn and being poisoned with bad wine for +a month.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Telegraph descended from his box, and directed one of +his grooms to open the carriage-door and emancipate the +coachman, who was fast asleep inside. Sir Telegraph gave him +the reins, and Mr. Forester sent one of his workmen to show +him the way to the stables.</p> + +<div id='i_032' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_032.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>‘<em>Possibly</em>,’ <em>thought Sir Telegraph</em>, ‘<em>possibly I may have seen an uglier fellow</em>.’</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>‘And pray,’ said Sir Telegraph, as the barouche +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>disappeared among the trees, ‘what may be the object of your +researches in this spot?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘You know,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘it is a part of my tenets +that the human species is gradually decreasing in size and +strength, and I am digging in the old cemetery for bones and +skulls to establish the truth of my theory.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Have you found any?’ said Sir Telegraph.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Many,’ said Mr. Forester. ‘About three weeks ago we +dug up a very fine skeleton, no doubt of some venerable father, +who must have been, in more senses than one, a pillar of the +Church. I have had the skull polished and set in silver. +You shall drink your wine out of it, if you please, to-day.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I thank you,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘but I am not particular; +a glass will suit me as well as the best skull in Europe. +Besides, I am a moderate man: one bottle of Madeira and +another of claret are enough for me at any time; so that the +quantity of wine a reverend sconce can carry would be just +treble my usual allowance.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>They walked together towards the abbey. Sir Telegraph +earnestly requested, that, before they entered, he might be +favoured with a peep at the stable. Mr. Forester of course +complied. Sir Telegraph found this important part of the +buildings capacious and well adapted to its purpose, but did +not altogether approve its being totally masked by an old ivied +wall, which had served in former times to prevent the braw +and bonny Scot from making too free with the beeves of the +pious fraternity.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The new dwelling-house was so well planned, and fitted in +so well between the ancient walls, that very few vestiges of the +modern architect were discernible; and it was obvious that +the growth of the ivy, and of numerous trailing and twining +plants, would soon overrun all vestiges of the innovation, and +blend the whole exterior into one venerable character of +antiquity.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I do not think,’ said Mr. Forester, as they proceeded +through part of the grounds, ‘that the most determined zealot +of the picturesque would quarrel with me here. I found the +woods around the abbey matured by time and neglect into a +fine state of wildness and intricacy, and I think I have left +enough of them to gratify their most ardent admirer.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Quite enough, in all conscience,’ said Sir Telegraph, who +<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>was in white jean trousers, with very thin silk stockings and +pumps. ‘I do not generally calculate on being, as an old +song I have somewhere heard expresses it,</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Forced to scramble,</div> + <div class='line'>When I ramble,</div> + <div class='line'>Through a copse of furze and bramble;</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>which would be all very pleasant perhaps, if the fine effect of +picturesque roughness were not unfortunately, as Macbeth says +of his dagger, “sensible to feeling as to sight.” But who is +that gentleman, sitting under the great oak yonder in the +green coat and nankins? He seems very thoughtful.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘He is of a contemplative disposition,’ said Mr. Forester: +‘you must not be surprised if he should not speak a word +during the whole time you are here. The politeness of his +manner makes amends for his habitual taciturnity. I will +introduce you.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The gentleman under the oak had by this time discovered +them, and came forward with great alacrity to meet Mr. +Forester, who cordially shook hands with him, and introduced +him to Sir Telegraph as Sir Oran Haut-ton, Baronet.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Telegraph looked earnestly at the stranger, but was too +polite to laugh, though he could not help thinking there was +something very ludicrous in Sir Oran’s physiognomy, notwithstanding +the air of high fashion which characterised his whole +deportment, and which was heightened by a pair of enormous +whiskers, and the folds of a vast cravat. He therefore bowed +to Sir Oran with becoming gravity, and Sir Oran returned the +bow with very striking politeness.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Possibly,’ thought Sir Telegraph, ‘possibly I may have +seen an uglier fellow.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The trio entered the abbey, and shortly after sat down to +dinner.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester and Sir Oran Haut-ton took the head and +foot of the table. Sir Telegraph sat between them. ‘Some +soup, Sir Telegraph?’ said Mr. Forester. ‘I rather think,’ +said Sir Telegraph, ‘I shall trouble Sir Oran for a slice of +fish.’ Sir Oran helped him with great dexterity, and then +performed the same office for himself. ‘I think you will like +this Madeira?’ said Mr. Forester. ‘Capital!’ said Sir +Telegraph: ‘Sir Oran, shall I have the pleasure of taking +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>wine with you?’ Sir Oran Haut-ton bowed gracefully to Sir +Telegraph Paxarett, and the glasses were tossed off with the +usual ceremonies. Sir Oran preserved an inflexible silence +during the whole duration of dinner, but showed great proficiency +in the dissection of game.</p> + +<div id='i_036' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_036.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Sir Oran took a flying leap through the window.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>When the cloth was removed, the wine circulated freely, +and Sir Telegraph, as usual, filled a numerous succession of +glasses. Mr. Forester, not as usual, did the same; for he was +generally very abstemious in this respect; but, on the present +occasion, he relaxed from his severity, quoting the <i><span lang="la">Placari +genius festis impune diebus</span></i>, and the <i><span lang="la">Dulce est desipere in loco</span></i>, +of Horace. Sir Oran likewise approved, by his practice, that +he thought the wine particularly excellent, and <i><span lang="it">Beviamo tutti +tre</span></i> appeared to be the motto of the party. Mr. Forester +inquired into the motives which had brought Sir Telegraph to +Westmoreland; and Sir Telegraph entered into a rapturous +encomium of the heiress of Melincourt which was suddenly cut +short by Sir Oran, who, having taken a glass too much, rose +suddenly from table, took a flying leap through the window, +and went dancing along the woods like a harlequin.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Upon my word,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘a devilish lively, +pleasant fellow! Curse me if I know what to make of him.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I will tell you his history,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘by and by. +In the meantime I must look after him, that he may neither +do nor receive mischief. Pray take care of yourself till I +return.’ Saying this, he sprang through the window after Sir +Oran, and disappeared by the same track among the trees.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Curious enough!’ soliloquised Sir Telegraph; ‘however, +not much to complain of, as the best part of the company is +left behind: videlicet, the bottle.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER V<br> <span class='c013'>SUGAR</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Sir Telegraph was tossing off the last heeltap of his regular +diurnal allowance of wine, when Mr. Forester and Sir Oran +Haut-ton reappeared, walking past the window arm in arm; +Sir Oran’s mode of progression being very vacillating, indirect, +and titubant; enough so, at least, to show that he had not completely +danced off the effects of the Madeira. Mr. Forester +shortly after entered; and Sir Telegraph inquiring concerning +Sir Oran, ‘I have persuaded him to go to bed,’ said Mr. +Forester, ‘and I doubt not he is already fast asleep.’ A +servant now entered with tea. Sir Telegraph proceeded to +help himself, when he perceived there was no sugar, and +reminded his host of the omission.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> If I had anticipated the honour of your +company, Sir Telegraph, I would have provided myself with a +small quantity of that nefarious ingredient: but in this solitary +situation, these things are not to be had at a moment’s notice. +As it is, seeing little company, and regulating my domestic +arrangements on philosophical principles, I never suffer an +atom of West Indian produce to pass my threshold. I have +no wish to resemble those pseudo-philanthropists, those miserable +declaimers against slavery, who are very liberal of words +which cost them nothing, but are not capable of advancing the +object they profess to have at heart, by submitting to the +smallest personal privation. If I wish seriously to exterminate +an evil, I begin by examining how far I am myself, in any way +whatever, an accomplice in the extension of its baleful influence. +My reform commences at home. How can I unblushingly +declaim against thieves, while I am a receiver of stolen goods? +How can I seriously call myself an enemy to slavery, while I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>indulge in the luxuries that slavery acquires? How can the +consumer of sugar pretend to throw on the grower of it the +exclusive burden of their participated criminality? How can +he wash his hands, and say with Pilate, “<em>I am innocent of +this blood, see ye to it</em>”?</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Telegraph poured some cream into his unsweetened tea, +drank it, and said nothing. Mr. Forester proceeded:</p> + +<p class='c007'>If every individual in this kingdom, who is truly and +conscientiously an enemy to the slave-trade, would subject +himself to so very trivial a privation as abstinence from colonial +produce, I consider that a mortal blow would be immediately +struck at the roots of that iniquitous system.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> If every individual enemy to the +slave-trade would follow your example, the object would no +doubt be much advanced; but the practice of one individual +more or less has little or no influence on general society: +most of us go on with the tide, and the dread of the single +word <em>quiz</em> has more influence in keeping the greater part of +us within the pale of custom, fashion, and precedent, than all +the moral reasonings and declamations in the world will ever +have in persuading us to break through it. As to the diffusion +of liberty, and the general happiness of mankind, which used +to be your favourite topics when we were at college together, I +should have thought your subsequent experience would have +shown you that there is not one person in ten thousand who +knows what liberty means, or cares a single straw for any +happiness but his own——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Which his own miserable selfishness must +estrange from him for ever. He whose heart has never glowed +with a generous resolution, who has never felt the conscious +triumph of a disinterested sacrifice, who has never sympathised +with human joys or sorrows, but when they have had a direct +and palpable reference to himself, can never be acquainted +with even the semblance of happiness. His utmost enjoyment +must be many degrees inferior to that of a pig, inasmuch as +the sordid mire of selfish and brutal stupidity is more defiling +to the soul, than any coacervation of mere material mud can +possibly be to the body. The latter may be cleared away +with two or three ablutions, but the former cleaves and +accumulates into a mass of impenetrable corruption, that bids +defiance to the united powers of Hercules and Alpheus.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Be that as it may, every man +will continue to follow his own fancy. The world is bad +enough, I daresay; but it is not for you or me to mend it.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> There is the keystone of the evil—mistrust +of the influence of individual example. ‘We are bad ourselves, +because we despair of the goodness of others.’<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c012'><sup>[6]</sup></a> +Yet the history of the world abounds with sudden and extraordinary +revolutions in the opinions of mankind, which have +been effected by single enthusiasts.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Speculative opinions have been +sometimes changed by the efforts of roaring fanatics. Men +have been found very easily permutable into <em>ites</em> and <em>onians</em>, +<em>avians</em>, and <em>arians</em>, Wesleyites or Whitfieldites, Huntingdonians +or Muggletonians, Moravians, Trinitarians, Unitarians, Anythingarians: +but the metamorphosis only affects a few obscure +notions concerning types, symbols, and mysteries, which have +scarcely any effect on moral theory, and of course, <em>a fortiori</em>, +none whatever on moral practice: the latter is for the most +part governed by the general habits and manners of the society +we live in. One man may twang responses in concert with +the parish clerk; another may sit silent in a Quakers’ meeting, +waiting for the inspiration of the Spirit; a third may groan +and howl in a tabernacle; a fourth may breakfast, dine, and +sup in a Sandemanian chapel: but meet any of the four in the +common intercourse of society, you will scarcely know one +from another. The single adage, <em>Charity begins at home</em>, will +furnish a complete key to the souls of all four; for I have +found, as far as my observation has extended, that men carry +their religion<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c012'><sup>[7]</sup></a> in other men’s heads, and their morality in their +own pockets.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I think it will be found that individual +example has in many instances produced great moral effects +on the practice of society. Even if it were otherwise, is it not +better to be Abdiel among the fiends, than to be lost and confounded +in the legion of imps grovelling in the train of the +evil power?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> There is something in that.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> To borrow an allegory from Homer: I +would say society is composed of two urns, one of good, and +one of evil. I will suppose that every individual of the human +species receives from his natal genius a little phial, containing +one drop of a fluid, which shall be evil, if poured into the urn +of evil, and good if into that of good. If you were proceeding +to the station of the urns with ten thousand persons, every one +of them predetermined to empty his phial into the urn of evil, +which I fear is too true a picture of the practice of society, +should you consider their example, if you were hemmed in in the +centre of them, a sufficient excuse for not breaking from them, +and approaching the neglected urn? Would you say, “The +urn of good will derive little increase from my solitary drop, +and one more or less will make very little difference in the urn of +ill; I will spare myself trouble, do as the world does, and let +the urn of good take its chance, from those who can approach +it with less difficulty”? No: you would rather say, “That +neglected urn contains the hopes of the human species: little, +indeed, is the addition I can make to it, but it will be good as +far as it goes”; and if, on approaching the urn, you should +find it not so empty as you had anticipated, if the genius +appointed to guard it should say to you, “There is enough in +this urn already to allow a reasonable expectation that it will +one day be full, and yet it has only accumulated drop by drop +<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>through the efforts of individuals, who broke through the pale +and pressure of the multitude, and did not despair of human +virtue”; would you not feel ten thousand times repaid for the +difficulties you had overcome, and the scoffs of the fools and +slaves you had abandoned, by the single reflection that would +then rush upon your mind, <em>I am one of these</em>?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Gad, very likely: I never considered +the subject in that light. You have made no allowance +for the mixture of good and evil, which I think the fairest state +of the case. It seems to me, that the world always goes on +pretty much in one way. People eat, drink, and sleep, make +merry with their friends, get as much money as they can, marry +when they can afford it, take care of their children because +they are their own, are thought well of while they live in proportion +to the depth of their purse, and when they die, are +sure of as good a character on their tombstones as the bellman +and stonemason can afford for their money.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Such is the multitude; but there are noble +exceptions to this general littleness.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Now and then an original genius +strikes out of the common track; but there are two ways of +doing that—into a worse as well as a better.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> There are some assuredly who strike into +a better, and these are the ornaments of their age, and the +lights of the world. You must admit too, that there are many, +who, though without energy or capacity to lead, have yet virtue +enough to follow an illustrious example.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> One or two.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> In every mode of human action there are +two ways to be pursued—a good and a bad one. It is the +duty of every man to ascertain the former, as clearly as his +capacity will admit, by an accurate examination of general +relations; and to act upon it rigidly, without regard to his own +previous habits, or the common practice of the world.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> And you infer from all this that +it is my duty to drink my tea without sugar.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I infer that it is the duty of every one, +thoroughly penetrated with the iniquity of the slave-trade, to +abstain entirely from the use of colonial produce.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> I may do that, without any great +effort of virtue. I find the difference, in this instance, more +<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>trivial than I could have supposed. In fact, I never thought +of it before.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I hope I shall before long have the pleasure +of enrolling you a member of the Anti-saccharine Society, which +I have had the happiness to organise, and which is daily +extending its numbers. Some of its principal members will +shortly pay a visit to Redrose Abbey; and I purpose giving a +festival, to which I shall invite all that is respectable and +intelligent in this part of the country, and in which I intend to +demonstrate practically, that a very elegant and luxurious +entertainment may be prepared without employing a single +particle of that abominable ingredient, and theoretically, that +the use of sugar is economically superfluous, physically +pernicious, morally atrocious, and politically abominable.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> I shall be happy to join the party, +and I may possibly bring with me one or two inside passengers, +who will prove both ornamental and attractive to your festival. +But you promised me an account of Sir Oran.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VI<br> <span class='c013'>SIR ORAN HAUT-TON</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Sir Oran Haut-ton was caught very young +in the woods of Angola.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Caught!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Very young. He is a specimen of the +natural and original man—the wild man of the woods; called +in the language of the more civilised and sophisticated natives +of Angola, <em>Pongo</em>, and in that of the Indians of South America, +<em>Oran Outang</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> The devil he is!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Positively. Some presumptuous naturalists +have refused his species the honours of humanity; but the +most enlightened and illustrious philosophers agree in considering +him in his true light as the natural and original man.<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c012'><sup>[8]</sup></a> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>One French philosopher, indeed, has been guilty of an inaccuracy, +in considering him as a degenerated man;<a id='r9'></a><a href='#f9' class='c012'><sup>[9]</sup></a> degenerated +he cannot be; as his prodigious physical strength, his +uninterrupted health, and his amiable simplicity of manners +demonstrate. He is, as I have said, a specimen of the natural +and original man—a genuine facsimile of the philosophical +Adam.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He was caught by an intelligent negro very young, in the +woods of Angola; and his gentleness and sweet temper<a id='r10'></a><a href='#f10' class='c012'><sup>[10]</sup></a> winning +the hearts of the negro and negress, they brought him up +in their cottage as the playfellow of their little boys and girls, +where, with the exception of speech, he acquired the practice +of such of the simpler arts of life as the degree of civilisation +in that part of Africa admits. In this way he lived till he was +about seventeen years of age——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> By his own reckoning?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> By analogical computation. At this period, +my old friend Captain Hawltaught of the Tornado frigate, +being driven by stress of weather to the coast of Angola, was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>so much struck with the contemplative cast of Sir Oran’s +countenance,<a id='r11'></a><a href='#f11' class='c012'><sup>[11]</sup></a> that he offered the negro an irresistible bribe +to surrender him to his possession. The negro brought him +on board, and took an opportunity to leave him slily, but with +infinite reluctance and sympathetic grief. When the ship +weighed anchor, and Sir Oran found himself separated from +the friends of his youth, and surrounded with strange faces, he +wept bitterly,<a id='r12'></a><a href='#f12' class='c012'><sup>[12]</sup></a> and fell into such deep grief that his life was +despaired of.<a id='r13'></a><a href='#f13' class='c012'><sup>[13]</sup></a> The surgeon of the ship did what he could for +him; and a much better doctor, Time, completed his cure. +By degrees a very warm friendship for my friend Captain +Hawltaught extinguished his recollection of his negro friends. +Three years they cruised together in the Tornado, when a +dangerous wound compelled the old captain to renounce his +darling element, and lay himself up in ordinary for the rest of +his days. He retired on his half-pay and the produce of his +prize-money to a little village in the West of England, where +he employed himself very assiduously in planting cabbages and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>watching the changes of the wind. Mr. Oran, as he was then +called, was his inseparable companion, and became a very +expert practical gardener. The old captain used to observe, +he could always say he had an honest man in his house, which +was more than could be said of many honourable houses where +there was much vapouring about honour.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Oran had long before shown a taste for music, and with +some little instruction from a marine officer in the Tornado, +had become a proficient on the flute and French horn.<a id='r14'></a><a href='#f14' class='c012'><sup>[14]</sup></a> He +could never be brought to understand the notes; but, from +hearing any simple tune played or sung two or three times, he +never failed to perform it with great exactness and brilliancy +of execution. I shall merely observe, <em>en passant</em>, that music +appears, from this and several similar circumstances, to be +more natural to man than speech. The old captain was fond +of his bottle of wine after dinner, and his glass of grog at night. +Mr. Oran was easily brought to sympathise in this taste;<a id='r15'></a><a href='#f15' class='c012'><sup>[15]</sup></a> and +they have many times sat up together half the night over a +flowing bowl, the old captain singing Rule Britannia, True +Courage, or Tom Tough, and Sir Oran accompanying him on +the French horn.</p> + +<p class='c007'>During a summer tour in Devonshire, I called on my old +<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>friend Captain Hawltaught, and was introduced to Mr. Oran. +You, who have not forgotten my old speculations on the origin +and progress of man, may judge of my delight at this happy +<em>rencontre</em>. I exerted all the eloquence I was master of to +persuade Captain Hawltaught to resign him to me, that I might +give him a philosophical education.<a id='r16'></a><a href='#f16' class='c012'><sup>[16]</sup></a> Finding this point +unattainable, I took a house in the neighbourhood, and the +intercourse which ensued was equally beneficial and agreeable +to all three.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> And what part did you take in +their nocturnal concerts, with Tom Tough and the French +horn?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I was seldom present at them, and often +remonstrated, but ineffectually, with the captain, on his corrupting +the amiable simplicity of the natural man by this pernicious +celebration of vinous and spirituous orgies; but the only +answer I could ever get from him was a hearty damn against +all water-drinkers, accompanied with a reflection that he was +sure every enemy to wine and grog must have clapped down +the hatches of his conscience on some secret villainy, which he +feared good liquor would pipe ahoy; and he usually concluded +by striking up <cite>Nothing like Grog</cite>, <cite>Saturday Night</cite>, or <cite>Swing +the flowing Bowl</cite>, his friend Oran’s horn ringing in sympathetic +symphony.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The old captain used to say that grog was the elixir of life: +but it did not prove so to him; for one night he tossed off his +last bumper, sang his last stave, and heard the last flourish of +his Oran’s horn. I thought poor Oran would have broken his +heart; and, had he not been familiarised to me, and conceived +a very lively friendship for me before the death of his old friend, +I fear the consequences would have been fatal.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Considering that change of scene would divert his melancholy, +I took him with me to London. The theatres delighted +him, particularly the opera, which not only accorded admirably +with his taste for music, but where, as he looked round on the +ornaments of the fashionable world, he seemed to be particularly +comfortable, and to feel himself completely at home.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>There is, to a stranger, something ludicrous in a first view +of his countenance, which led me to introduce him only into +the best society, where politeness would act as a preventive to +the propensity to laugh; for he has so nice a sense of honour +(which I shall observe, by the way, is peculiar to man), that +if he were to be treated with any kind of contumely, he would +infallibly die of a broken heart, as has been seen in some of +his species.<a id='r17'></a><a href='#f17' class='c012'><sup>[17]</sup></a> With a view of ensuring him the respect of +society which always attends on rank and fortune, I have +purchased him a baronetcy, and made over to him an estate. +I have also purchased of the Duke of Rottenburgh one half of +the elective franchise vested in the body of Mr. Christopher +Corporate, the free, fat, and dependent burgess of the ancient +and honourable borough of Onevote, who returns two members +to Parliament, one of whom will shortly be Sir Oran. (<em>Sir +Telegraph gave a long whistle.</em>) But before taking this +important step, I am desirous that he should <em>finish his education</em>. +(<em>Sir Telegraph whistled again.</em>) I mean to say that I wish, +if possible, to put a few words into his mouth, which I have +hitherto found impracticable, though I do not entirely despair +of ultimate success. But this circumstance, for reasons which +I will give you by and by, does not at all militate against the +proofs of his being a man.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> If he be but half a man, he will +be the fitter representative of half an elector; for as that ‘large +body corporate of one,’ the free, fat, and dependent burgess +of Onevote, returns two members to the honourable house, Sir +Oran can only be considered as the representative of half of +him. But, seriously, is not your principal object an irresistible +exposure of the universality and omnipotence of corruption by +purchasing for an oran outang one of those seats, the sale of +which is unblushingly acknowledged to be <em>as notorious as the +sun at noonday</em>? or do you really think him <em>one of us</em>?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I really think him a variety of the human +species; and this is a point which I have it much at heart to +establish in the acknowledgment of the civilised world.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Buffon, whom I dip into now and +then in the winter, ranks him, with Linnaeus, in the class of +<em>Simiae</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Linnaeus has given him the curious +<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>denominations of <em>Troglodytes</em>, <i><span lang="la">Homo nocturnus</span></i>, and <i><span lang="la">Homo +silvestris</span></i>: but he evidently thought him a man; he describes +him as having a hissing speech, thinking, reasoning, believing +that the earth was made for him, and that he will one day be +its sovereign.<a id='r18'></a><a href='#f18' class='c012'><sup>[18]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> God save King Oran! By the +bye, you put me very much in mind of Valentine and Orson. +This wild man of yours will turn out some day to be the son +of a king, lost in the woods, and suckled by a lioness:—‘No +waiter, but a knight templar’:—no Oran, but a true prince.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> As to Buffon, it is astonishing how that +great naturalist could have placed him among the <em>singes</em>, when +the very words of his description give him all the characteristics +of human nature.<a id='r19'></a><a href='#f19' class='c012'><sup>[19]</sup></a> It is still more curious to think that modern +travellers should have made beasts, under the names of Pongos, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>Mandrills, and Oran Outangs, of the very same beings whom +the ancients worshipped as divinities under the names of Fauns +and Satyrs, Silenus and Pan.<a id='r20'></a><a href='#f20' class='c012'><sup>[20]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Your Oran rises rapidly in the +scale of being:—from a baronet and M.P. to a king of the +world, and now to a god of the woods.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> When I was in London last winter, I became +acquainted with a learned mythologist, who has long laboured +to rebuild the fallen temple of Jupiter. I introduced him to +Sir Oran, for whom he immediately conceived a high veneration, +and would never call him by any name but Pan. His usual +salutation to him was in the following words:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>ἐλθε, μακαρ, σκιρτητα, φιλενθεος, ἀντροδιαιτε,</div> + <div class='line'>ἁρμονιην κοσμοιο κρεκων φιλοπαιγμονι μολπῃ,</div> + <div class='line'>κοσμοκρατωρ, βακχευτα!<a id='r21'></a><a href='#f21' class='c012'><sup>[21]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>Which he thus translated:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>King of the world! enthusiast free,</div> + <div class='line'>Who dwell’st in caves of liberty!</div> + <div class='line'>And on thy wild pipe’s notes of glee</div> + <div class='line'>Respondent Nature’s harmony!</div> + <div class='line'>Leading beneath the spreading tree</div> + <div class='line'>The Bacchanalian revelry!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>‘This,’ said he, ‘is part of the Orphic invocation of Pan. It +alludes to the happy existence of the dancing Pans, Fauns, +Orans, <i><span lang="la">et id genus omne</span></i>, whose dwellings are the caves of rocks +and the hollows of trees, such as undoubtedly was, or would +have been, the natural mode of life of our friend Pan among +the woods of Angola. It alludes, too, to their musical powers, +which in our friend Pan it gives me indescribable pleasure to +find so happily exemplified. The epithet <em>Bacchic</em>, our friend +Pan’s attachment to the bottle demonstrates to be very +appropriate; and the epithet κοσμοκρατωρ, king of the world, +points out a striking similarity between the Orphic Pan and +the Troglodyte of Linnaeus, <em>who believes that the earth was +made for him, and that he will again be its sovereign</em>.’ He laid +great stress on the word <span class='fss'>AGAIN</span>, and observed, if he were to +develop all the ideas to which this word gave rise in his mind, +he should find ample matter for a volume. Then repeating +several times, Παν κοσμοκρατωρ, and <i><span lang="la">iterum fore telluris +imperantem</span></i>, he concluded by saying he had known many +profound philosophical and mythological systems founded on +much slighter analogies.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Your learned mythologist appears +to be non compos.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> By no means. He has a system of his own, +which only appears in the present day more absurd than other +systems, because it has fewer followers. The manner in which +the spirit of system twists everything to its own views is truly +wonderful. I believe that in every nation of the earth the +system which has most followers will be found the most absurd +in the eye of an enlightened philosophy.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> But if your Oran be a man, how +is it that his long intercourse with other varieties of the human +species has not taught him to speak?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Speech is a highly artificial faculty. +Civilised man is a highly artificial animal. The change from +the wild to the civilised state affects not only his moral, but +his physical nature, and this not rapidly and instantly, but in +a long process of generations. The same change is obvious +in domestic animals, and in cultivated plants. You know not +where to look for the origin of the common dog, or the +common fowl. The wild and tame hog, and the wild and +tame cat, are marked by more essential differences than the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>oran and the civilised man. The origin of corn is as much a +mystery to us as the source of the Nile was to the ancients. +Innumerable flowers have been so changed from their original +simplicity, that the art of horticulture may almost lay claim to +the magic of a new creation. Is it then wonderful that the +civilised man should have acquired some physical faculties +which the natural man has not? It is demonstrable that +speech is one. I do not, however, despair of seeing him make +some progress in this art. Comparative anatomy shows that +he has all the organs of articulation. Indeed he has, in every +essential particular, the human form, and the human anatomy. +<em>Now I will only observe that if an animal who walks upright—is +of the human form, both outside and inside—uses a weapon +for defence and attack—associates with his kind—makes huts +to defend himself from the weather, better I believe than those of +the New Hollanders—is tame and gentle—and instead of +killing men and women, as he could easily do, takes them +prisoners and makes servants of them—who has, what I think +essential to the human kind, a sense of honour</em>; which is shown +by breaking his heart, if laughed at, or made a show, or treated +with any kind of contumely—<em>who, when he is brought into the +company of civilised men, behaves</em> (as you have seen) <em>with +dignity and composure, altogether unlike a monkey; from whom +he differs likewise in this material respect, that he is capable of +great attachment to particular persons, of which the monkey is +altogether incapable; and also in this respect, that a monkey +never can be so tamed that we may depend on his not doing +mischief when left alone, by breaking glasses or china within his +reach; whereas the oran outang is altogether harmless;—who +has so much of the docility of a man that he learns not only to +do the common offices of life, but also to play on the flute</em> and +French horn; <em>which shows that he must have an idea of melody +and concord of sounds, which no brute animal has;—and lastly, +if joined to all these qualities he has the organ of pronunciation, +and consequently the capacity of speech, though not the actual use +of it; if, I say, such an animal be not a man, I should desire to +know in what the essence of a man consists, and what it is that +distinguishes a natural man from the man of art</em>.<a id='r22'></a><a href='#f22' class='c012'><sup>[22]</sup></a> That he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>understands many words, though he does not yet speak any, +I think you may have observed, when you asked him to take +wine, and applied to him for fish and partridge.<a id='r23'></a><a href='#f23' class='c012'><sup>[23]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> The gestures, however slight, +that accompany the expression of the ordinary forms of intercourse, +may possibly explain that.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You will find that he understands many +things addressed to him on occasions of very unfrequent +occurrence. <em>With regard to his moral character, he is undoubtedly +a man, and a much better man than many that are to be +found in civilised countries</em>,<a id='r24'></a><a href='#f24' class='c012'><sup>[24]</sup></a> as, when you are better acquainted +with him, I feel very confident you will readily acknowledge.<a id='r25'></a><a href='#f25' class='c012'><sup>[25]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> I shall be very happy, when his +election comes on for Onevote, to drive him down in my +barouche to the honourable and ancient borough.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester promised to avail himself of this proposal; +when the iron tongue of midnight tolling twelve induced them +to separate for the night.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VII<br> <span class='c013'>THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The next morning, while Sir Telegraph, Sir Oran, and Mr. +Forester were sitting down to their breakfast, a post-chaise +rattled up to the door; the glass was let down, and a tall, +thin, pale, grave-looking personage peeped from the aperture. +‘This is Mr. Fax,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘the champion of calm +reason, the indefatigable explorer of the cold clear springs of +knowledge, the bearer of the torch of dispassionate truth, that +gives more light than warmth. He looks on the human world, +the world of mind, the conflict of interests, the collision of +feelings, the infinitely diversified developments of energy and +intelligence, as a mathematician looks on his diagrams, or a +mechanist on his wheels and pulleys, as if they were foreign to +his own nature, and were nothing more than subjects of curious +speculation.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester had not time to say more; for Mr. Fax +entered, and shook hands with him, was introduced in due +form to Sir Telegraph, and sat down to assist in the demolition +of the <em>matériel</em> of breakfast.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Your Redrose Abbey is a beautiful metamorphosis.—I +can scarcely believe that these are the mouldering +walls of the pious fraternity of Rednose, which I contemplated +two years ago.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> The picturesque tourists will owe me no +goodwill for the metamorphosis, though I have endeavoured +to leave them as much mould, mildew, and weather-stain as +possible.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> The exterior has suffered little; it still retains a +truly venerable monastic character.</p> + +<div id='i_057' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_057.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Mr. Fax.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Something monastic in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>interior too.—Very orthodox old wine in the cellar, I can tell +you. And the Reverend Father Abbot there, as determined a +bachelor as the Pope.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> If I am so, it is because, like the Squire of +Dames, I seek and cannot find. I see in my mind’s eye the +woman I would choose, but I very much fear that is the only +mode of optics in which she will ever be visible.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> No matter. Bachelors and spinsters I decidedly +venerate. The world is overstocked with featherless bipeds. +More men than corn is a fearful pre-eminence, the sole and +fruitful cause of penury, disease, and war, plague, pestilence, +and famine.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> I hope you will not long have +cause to venerate me. What is life without love? A rosebush +in winter, all thorns, and no flowers.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> And what is it with love? A double-blossomed +cherry, flowers without fruit; if the blossoms last a +month, it is as much as can be expected: they fall, and what +comes in their place? Vanity, and vexation of spirit.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Better vexation than stagnation: +marriage may often be a stormy lake, but celibacy is almost +always a muddy horsepond.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Rather a calm clear river——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Flowing through a desert, where it moves +in loneliness, and reflects no forms of beauty.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> That is not the way to consider the case. +Feelings and poetical images are equally out of place in a calm +philosophical view of human society. Some must marry, that +the world may be peopled: many must abstain, that it may +not be overstocked. <em>Little and good</em> is very applicable in this +case. It is better that the world should have a smaller +number of peaceable and rational inhabitants, living in universal +harmony and social intercourse, than the disproportionate +mass of fools, slaves, coxcombs, thieves, rascals, liars, and cutthroats, +with which its surface is at present encumbered. It +is in vain to declaim about the preponderance of physical and +moral evil, and attribute it, with the Manicheans, to a mythological +principle, or, with some modern philosophers, to the +physical constitution of the globe. The cause of all the evils +of human society is single, obvious, reducible to the most exact +mathematical calculation; and of course susceptible not only +<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>of remedy but even of utter annihilation. The cause is the +tendency of population to increase beyond the means of subsistence. +The remedy is an universal social compact, binding +both sexes to equally rigid celibacy, till the prospect of maintaining +the average number of six children be as clear as the +arithmetic of futurity can make it.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> The arithmetic of futurity has been found +in a more than equal number of instances to baffle human +skill. The rapid and sudden mutations of fortune are the +inexhaustible theme of history, poetry, and romance; and they +are found in forms as various and surprising, in the scenes of +daily life, as on the stage of Drury Lane.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> That the best prospects are often overshadowed, +is most certainly true; but there are degrees and modes of +well-grounded reliance on futurity, sufficient to justify the +enterprises of prudence, and equally well-grounded prospiciences +of hopelessness and helplessness, that should check +the steps of rashness and passion, in their headlong progress +to perdition.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You have little cause to complain of the +present age. It is calculating enough to gratify the most +determined votary of moral and political arithmetic. This +certainly is not the time</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>When unrevenged stalks Cocker’s injured ghost.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>What is friendship—except in some most rare and miraculous +instances—but the fictitious bond of interest, or the heartless +intercourse of idleness and vanity? What is love, but the +most venal of all venal commodities? What is marriage, but +the most sordid of bargains, the most cold and slavish of all +the forms of commerce? We want no philosophical ice-rock, +towed into the Dead Sea of modern society, to freeze that +which is too cold already. We want rather the torch of +Prometheus to revivify our frozen spirits. We are a degenerate +race, half-reasoning developments of the principle of infinite +littleness, ‘with hearts in our bodies no bigger than pins’ +heads.’ We are in no danger of forgetting that two and two +make four. There is no fear that the warm impulses of feeling +will ever overpower, with us, the tangible eloquence of the +pocket.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> With relation to the middle and higher classes, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>you are right in a great measure as to fact, but wrong, as I +think, in the asperity of your censure. But among the lower +orders the case is quite different. The baleful influence of the +poor laws has utterly destroyed the principle of calculation in +them. They marry by wholesale, without scruple or compunction, +and commit the future care of their family to Providence +and the overseer. They marry even in the workhouse, +and convert the intended asylum of age and infirmity into a +flourishing manufactory of young beggars and vagabonds.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Telegraph’s barouche rolled up gracefully to the door. +Mr. Forester pressed him to stay another day, but Sir +Telegraph’s plea of urgency was not to be overcome. He +promised very shortly to revisit Redrose Abbey, shook hands +with Mr. Forester and Sir Oran, bowed politely to Mr. Fax, +mounted his box, and disappeared among the trees.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Those four horses,’ said Mr. Fax, as the carriage rolled +away, ‘consume the subsistence of eight human beings, for the +foolish amusement of one. As Solomon observes: “This is +vanity, and a great evil.”’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Sir Telegraph is thoughtless,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘but he +has a good heart and a good natural capacity. I have great +hopes of him. He had some learning, when he went to +college; but he was cured of it before he came away. Great, +indeed, must be the zeal for improvement which an academical +education cannot extinguish.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VIII<br> <span class='c013'>THE SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Sir Telegraph was welcomed to Melincourt in due form by +Mr. Hippy, and in a private interview with the Honourable +Mrs. Pinmoney, was exhorted to persevere in his suit to +Anthelia, though she could not flatter him with very strong +hopes of immediate success, the young lady’s notions being, +as she observed, extremely outré and fantastical, but such as +she had no doubt time and experience would cure. She informed +him at the same time, that he would shortly meet a +formidable rival, no less a personage than Lord Anophel +Achthar,<a id='r26'></a><a href='#f26' class='c012'><sup>[26]</sup></a> son and heir of the Marquis of Agaric<a id='r27'></a><a href='#f27' class='c012'><sup>[27]</sup></a> who was +somewhat in favour with Mr. Hippy, and seemed determined +at all hazards to carry his point; ‘and with any other girl +than Anthelia,’ said Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘considering his title and +fortune, I should pronounce his success infallible, unless a +duke were to make his appearance.’ She added, ‘The young +lord would be accompanied by his tutor, the Reverend Mr. +Grovelgrub, and by a celebrated poet, Mr. Feathernest, to +whom the Marquis had recently given a place in exchange for +his conscience. It was thought by Mr. Feathernest’s friends +that he had made a very good bargain. The poet had, in +consequence, burned his old <cite>Odes to Truth and Liberty</cite>, and +had published a volume of Panegyrical Addresses “to all the +crowned heads in Europe,” with the motto, “Whatever is at +court, is right.”’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The dinner-party that day at Melincourt Castle consisted of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>Mr. Hippy, in the character of lord of the mansion; Anthelia, +in that of his inmate; Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney, as her +visitors; and Sir Telegraph, as the visitor of Mrs. Pinmoney, +seconded by Mr. Hippy’s invitation to stay. Nothing very +luminous passed on this occasion.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The fame of Mr. Hippy, and his hospitable office, was +rapidly diffused by Dr. Killquick, the physician of the district; +who thought a draught or pill could not possibly be efficacious, +unless administered with an anecdote, and who was called in, +in a very few hours after Mr. Hippy’s arrival, to cure the +hypochondriacal old gentleman of an imaginary swelling in his +elbow. The learned doctor, who had studied with peculiar care +the symptoms, diagnostics, prognostics, sedatives, lenitives, +and sanatives of hypochondriasis, had arrived at the sagacious +conclusion that the most effectual method of curing an imaginary +disease was to give the patient a real one; and he accordingly +sent Mr. Hippy a pint bottle of mixture, to be taken by +a tablespoonful every two hours, which would have infallibly +accomplished the purpose, but that the bottle was cracked +over the head of Harry Fell, for treading on his master’s toe, +as he presented the composing potion, which would perhaps +have composed him in the Roman sense.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The fashionable attractions of Low-Wood and Keswick +afforded facilities to some of Anthelia’s lovers to effect a +<em>logement</em> in her neighbourhood, from whence occasionally +riding over to Melincourt Castle, they were hospitably received +by the lord seneschal, Humphrey Hippy, Esquire, who often +made them fixed stars in the circumference of that jovial +system, of which the bottle and glasses are the sun and +planets, till it was too late to dislodge for the night; by which +means they sometimes contrived to pass several days together +at the Castle.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The gentlemen in question were Lord Anophel Achthar, +with his two parasites, Mr. Feathernest and the Reverend Mr. +Grovelgrub; Harum O’Scarum, Esquire, the sole proprietor of +a vast tract of undrained bog in the county of Kerry; and Mr. +Derrydown, the only son of an old lady in London, who having +in vain solicited a visit from Anthelia, had sent off her hopeful +progeny to try his fortune in Westmoreland. Mr. Derrydown +had received a laborious education, and had consumed a great +quantity of midnight oil over ponderous tomes of ancient and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>modern learning, particularly of moral, political, and metaphysical +philosophy, ancient and modern. His lucubrations +in the latter branch of science having conducted him, as he +conceived, into the central opacity of utter darkness, he formed +a hasty conclusion ‘that all human learning is vanity’; and +one day, in a listless mood, taking down a volume of the +<cite>Reliques of Ancient Poetry</cite>, he found, or fancied he found, +in the plain language of the old English ballad, glimpses of +the truth of things, which he had vainly sought in the vast +volumes of philosophical disquisition. In consequence of this +luminous discovery, he locked up his library, purchased a +travelling chariot, with a shelf in the back, which he filled with +collections of ballads and popular songs; and passed the +greater part of every year in posting about the country, for +the purpose, as he expressed it, of studying together poetry and +the peasantry, unsophisticated nature and the truth of things.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Hippy introduced Lord Anophel, and his two learned +friends, to Sir Telegraph and Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney. Mr. +Feathernest whispered to the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, ‘This +Sir Telegraph Paxarett has some good livings in his gift’; +which bent the plump figure of the reverend gentleman into a +very orthodox right angle.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia, who felt no inclination to show particular favour +to any one of her Strephons, was not sorry to escape the evil +of a solitary persecutor, more especially as they so far resembled +the suitors of Penelope, as to eat and drink together with great +cordiality. She could have wished, when she left them to the +congenial society of Bacchus, to have retired to company more +congenial to her than that of Mrs. Pinmoney and Miss +Danaretta; but she submitted to the course of necessity with +the best possible grace.</p> + +<p class='c007'>She explicitly made known to all her suitors her ideas on +the subject of marriage. She had never perverted the simplicity +of her mind by indulging in the usual cant of young +ladies, that she should prefer a single life: but she assured +them that the spirit of the age of chivalry, manifested in the +forms of modern life, would constitute the only character on +which she could fix her affections.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lord Anophel was puzzled, and applied for information to +his tutor. ‘Grovelgrub,’ said he, ‘what is the spirit of the +age of chivalry?’</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>‘Really, my lord,’ said the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, ‘my +studies never lay that way.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘True,’ said Lord Anophel; ‘it was not necessary to your +degree.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>His lordship’s next recourse was to Mr. Feathernest. +‘Feathernest, what is the spirit of the age of chivalry?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Feathernest was taken by surprise. Since his profitable +metamorphosis into an <em>ami du prince</em>, he had never dreamed +of such a question. It burst upon him like the spectre of his +youthful integrity, and he mumbled a half-intelligible reply +about truth and liberty—disinterested benevolence—self-oblivion—heroic +devotion to love and honour—protection of +the feeble, and subversion of tyranny.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘All the ingredients of a rank Jacobin, Feathernest, ‘pon +honour!’ exclaimed his lordship.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There was something in the word Jacobin very grating to +the ears of Mr. Feathernest, and he feared he had thrown +himself between the horns of a dilemma; but from all such +predicament he was happily provided with an infallible means +of extrication. His friend Mr. Mystic, of Cimmerian Lodge, +had initiated him in some of the mysteries of the transcendental +philosophy, which on this, as all similar occasions, he called in +to his assistance; and overwhelmed his lordship with a volley +of ponderous jargon, which left him in profound astonishment +at the depth of Mr. Feathernest’s knowledge.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The spirit of the age of chivalry!’ soliloquised Mr. +O’Scarum; ‘I think I know what that is: I’ll shoot all my +rivals, one after another, as fast as I can find a decent pretext +for picking a quarrel. I’ll write to my friend Major O’Dogskin +to come to Low-Wood Inn, and hold himself in readiness. He +is the neatest hand in Ireland at delivering a challenge.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The spirit of the age of chivalry!’ soliloquised Mr. Derrydown; +‘I think I am at home there. I will be a knight of +the round table. I will be Sir Lancelot, or Sir Gawaine, or +Sir Tristram. No: I will be a troubadour—a love-lorn minstrel. +I will write the most irresistible ballads in praise of the +beautiful Anthelia. She shall be my lady of the lake. We +will sail about Ulleswater in our pinnace, and sing duets about +Merlin, and King Arthur, and Fairyland. I will develop the +idea to her in a ballad; it cannot fail to fascinate her romantic +spirit.’ And he sat down to put his scheme in execution.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>Sir Telegraph’s head ran on tilts and tournaments, and +trials of skill and courage. How could they be resolved into +the forms of modern life? A four-in-hand race he thought +would be a pretty substitute; Anthelia to be arbitress of the +contest, and place the Olympic wreath on the head of the victor, +which he had no doubt would be himself, though Harum +O’Scarum, Esquire, would dash through neck or nothing, and +Lord Anophel Achthar was reckoned one of the best coachmen +in England.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IX<br> <span class='c013'>THE PHILOSOPHY OF BALLADS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The very indifferent success of Lord Anophel did not escape +the eye of his abject slave, the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, whose +vanity led him to misinterpret Anthelia’s general sweetness of +manner into the manifestation of something like a predilection +for himself. Having made this notable discovery, he sat +down to calculate the probability of his chance of Miss Melincourt’s +fortune on the one hand, and the certainty of church-preferment, +through the patronage of the Marquis of Agaric, +on the other. The sagacious reflection, that a bird in the +hand was worth two in the bush, determined him not to risk +the loss of the Marquis’s favour for the open pursuit of a +doubtful success; but he resolved to carry on a secret attack +on the affections of Anthelia, and not to throw off the mask to +Lord Anophel till he could make sure of his prize.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It would have totally disconcerted the schemes of the +Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, if Lord Anophel had made any +progress in the favour of Anthelia—not only because she had +made up her mind that her young friend should be her niece +and Lady Paxarett, but because, from the moment of Lord +Anophel’s appearance, she determined on drawing lines of +circumvallation round him, to compel him to surrender at +discretion to her dear Danaretta, who was very willing to second +her views. That Lord Anophel was both a fool and a coxcomb, +did not strike her at all as an objection; on the contrary, she +considered them as very favourable circumstances for the facilitation +of her design.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As Anthelia usually passed the morning in the seclusion of +her library Lord Anophel and the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub +killed the time in shooting; Sir Telegraph, in driving Mrs. and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>Miss Pinmoney in his barouche, to astonish the natives of the +mountain-villages; Harum O’Scarum, Esquire, in riding full +gallop along the best roads, looking every now and then at his +watch, to see how time went; Mr. Derrydown, in composing +his troubadour ballad; Mr. Feathernest, in writing odes to all +the crowned heads in Europe; and Mr. Hippy, in getting very +ill after breakfast every day of a new disease, which came to +its climax at the intermediate point of time between breakfast +and dinner, showed symptoms of great amendment at the ringing +of the first dinner-bell, was very much alleviated at the +butler’s summons, vanished entirely at the sight of Anthelia, +and was consigned to utter oblivion after the ladies retired +from table, when the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub lent his clerical +assistance to lay its ghost in the Red Sea of a copious libation +of claret.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Music and conversation consumed the evenings. Mr. +Feathernest and Mr. Derrydown were both zealous admirers +of old English literature; but the former was chiefly enraptured +with the ecclesiastical writers and the translation of the Bible; +the latter admired nothing but ballads, which he maintained +to be, whether ancient or modern, the only manifestations +of feeling and thought containing any vestige of truth and +nature.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Surely,’ said Mr. Feathernest one evening, ‘you will not +maintain that Chevy Chase is a finer poem than Paradise +Lost?’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Derrydown.</em> I do not know what you mean by a fine +poem; but I will maintain that it gives a much deeper insight +into the truth of things.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> I do not know what you mean by the +truth of things.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> Define, gentlemen, define; let +the one explain what he means by a fine poem, and the other +what he means by the truth of things.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> A fine poem is a luminous development +of the complicated machinery of action and passion, exalted by +sublimity, softened by pathos, irradiated with scenes of magnificence, +figures of loveliness, and characters of energy, and +harmonised with infinite variety of melodious combination.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> Admirable!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Miss Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney.</em> Admirable, indeed, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>my lord! (<em>With a sweet smile at his Lordship, which unluckily +missed fire.</em>)</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> Now, sir, for the truth of +things.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> Troth, sir, that is the last point about +which I should expect a gentleman of your cloth to be very +solicitous.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> I must say, sir, that is a very +uncalled-for and very illiberal observation.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> Your coat is your protection, sir.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> I will appeal to his lordship +if——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> I shall be glad to know his lordship’s +opinion.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> Really, sir, I have no opinion on +the subject.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> I am sorry for it, my lord.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Derrydown.</em> The truth of things is nothing more than +an exact view of the necessary relations between object and +subject, in all the modes of reflection and sentiment which +constitute the reciprocities of human association.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> I must confess I do not exactly +comprehend——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Derrydown.</em> I will illustrate. You all know the ballad +of Old Robin Gray.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Young Jamie loved me well, and ask’d me for his bride;</div> + <div class='line'>But saving a crown, he had nothing else beside.</div> + <div class='line'>To make the crown a pound my Jamie went to sea,</div> + <div class='line'>And the crown and the pound they were both for me.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>He had not been gone a twelvemonth and a day,</div> + <div class='line'>When my father broke his arm, and our cow was stolen away;</div> + <div class='line'>My mother she fell sick, and Jamie at the sea,</div> + <div class='line'>And old Robin Gray came a-courting to me.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>In consequence whereof, as you all very well know, old Robin +being rich, the damsel married the aforesaid old Robin.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> In the heterodox kirk of the +north?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Derrydown.</em> Precisely. Now, in this short space, +you have a more profound view than the deepest metaphysical +treatise or the most elaborate history can give you of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>counteracting power of opposite affections, the conflict of duties +and inclinations, the omnipotence of interest, tried by the test +of extremity, and the supreme and irresistible dominion of +universal moral necessity.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Young Jamie loved me well, and ask’d me for his bride;</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>and would have had her, it is clear, though she does not explicitly +say so, if there had not been a necessary moral motive +counteracting what would have been otherwise the plain free +will of both. ‘Young Jamie loved me well.’ She does not +say that she loved young Jamie; and here is a striking illustration +of that female decorum which forbids young ladies to +speak as they think on any subject whatever: an admirable +political institution, which has been found by experience to be +most happily conducive to that ingenuousness of mind and +simplicity of manner which constitute so striking a charm in +the generality of the fair sex.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>But saving a crown, he had nothing else beside.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>Here is the quintessence of all that has been said and written +on the subject of love and prudence, a decisive refutation of +the stoical doctrine that poverty is no evil, a very clear and +deep insight into the nature of the preventive or prudential +check to population, and a particularly luminous view of the +respective conduct of the two sexes on similar occasions. The +poor love-stricken swain, it seems, is ready to sacrifice all for +love. He comes with a crown in his pocket, and asks for his +bride. The damsel is a better arithmetician. She is fully +impressed with the truth of the old proverb about poverty +coming in at the door, and immediately stops him short with +‘What can you settle on me, Master Jamie?’ or, as Captain +Bobadil would express it, ‘How much money ha’ you about +you, Master Matthew?’ Poor Jamie looks very foolish—fumbles +in his pocket—produces his crown-piece—and answers +like Master Matthew with a remarkable elongation of visage, +‘’Faith, I ha’n’t past a five shillings or so.’ ‘Then,’ says the +young lady, in the words of another very admirable ballad—where +you will observe it is also the damsel who asks the +question:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Will the love that you’re so rich in,</div> + <div class='line'>Make a fire in the kitchen?</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div id='i_072' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span> +<img src='images/i_072.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Anthelia.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>On which the poor lover shakes his head, and the lady gives +him leave of absence. Hereupon Jamie falls into a train of +reflections.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> Never mind his reflections.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Derrydown.</em> The result of which is, that he goes to +seek his fortune at sea; intending, with the most perfect and +disinterested affection, to give all he can get to his mistress, +who seems much pleased with the idea of having it. But +when he comes back, as you will see in the sequel, he finds +his mistress married to a rich old man. The detail of the +circumstances abounds with vast and luminous views of human +nature and society, and striking illustrations of the truth of +things.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> I do not yet see that the illustration +throws any light on the definition, or that we are at all +advanced in the answer to the question concerning Chevy +Chase and Paradise Lost.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Derrydown.</em> We will examine Chevy Chase, then, +with a view to the truth of things, instead of Old Robin Gray:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>God prosper long our noble king,</div> + <div class='line'>Our lives and safeties all.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> God prosper us all, indeed! if you are +going through Chevy Chase at the same rate as you were +through Old Robin Gray, there is an end of us all for a month. +The truth of things, now!—is it that you’re looking for? +Ask Miss Melincourt to touch the harp. The harp is the +great key to the truth of things: and in the hand of Miss +Melincourt it will teach you the music of the spheres, the concord +of creation, and the harmony of the universe.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> You are a libeller of our sex, Mr. Derrydown, +if you think the truth of things consists in showing it to be +more governed by the meanest species of self-interest than +yours. Few, indeed, are the individuals of either in whom the +spirit of the age of chivalry survives.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Derrydown.</em> And yet, a man distinguished by that +spirit would not be in society what Miss Melincourt is—a +phoenix. Many knights can wield the sword of Orlando, but +only one nymph can wear the girdle of Florimel.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> That would be a very pretty +compliment, Mr. Derrydown, if there were no other ladies in +the room.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>Poor Mr. Derrydown looked a little disconcerted: he felt +conscious that he had on this occasion lost sight of his usual +politeness by too close an adherence to the truth of things.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> Both sexes, I am afraid, are too much influenced +by the spirit of mercenary calculation. The desire of competence +is prudence; but the desire of more than competence +is avarice: it is against the latter only that moral censure +should be directed: but I fear that in ninety-nine cases out of +a hundred in which the course of true love is thwarted by considerations +of fortune, it will be found that avarice rather than +prudence is to be considered as the cause. Love in the age +of chivalry, and love in the age of commerce, are certainly two +very different deities; so much so, that the former may almost +be regarded as a departed power; and, perhaps, the little +ballad I am about to sing does not contain too severe an +allegory in placing the tomb of chivalric love among the ruins +of the castles of romance.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in8'>THE TOMB OF LOVE</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>By the mossy weed-flower’d column,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Where the setting moonbeam’s glance</div> + <div class='line'>Streams a radiance cold and solemn</div> + <div class='line in2'>On the haunts of old romance:</div> + <div class='line'>Know’st thou what those shafts betoken,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Scatter’d on that tablet lone,</div> + <div class='line'>Where the ivory bow lies broken</div> + <div class='line in2'>By the monumental stone!</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>When true knighthood’s shield, neglected,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Moulder’d in the empty hall;</div> + <div class='line'>When the charms that shield protected</div> + <div class='line in2'>Slept in death’s eternal thrall;</div> + <div class='line'>When chivalric glory perish’d</div> + <div class='line in2'>Like the pageant of a dream,</div> + <div class='line'>Love in vain its memory cherish’d,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Fired in vain the minstrel’s theme.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Falsehood to an elfish minion</div> + <div class='line in2'>Did the form of Love impart;</div> + <div class='line'>Cunning plumed its vampire pinion;</div> + <div class='line in2'>Avarice tipp’d its golden dart.</div> + <div class='line'>Love, the hideous phantom flying,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Hither came, no more to rove:</div> + <div class='line'>There his broken bow is lying</div> + <div class='line in2'>On that stone—the tomb of Love!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER X<br> <span class='c013'>THE TORRENT</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Anthelia did not wish to condemn herself to celibacy, but in +none of her present suitors could she discover any trace of the +character she had drawn in her mind for the companion of her +life: yet she was aware of the rashness of precipitate judgments, +and willing to avail herself of this opportunity of studying +the kind of beings that constitute modern society. She +was happy in the long interval between breakfast and dinner, +to retire to the seclusion of her favourite apartment; whence +she sometimes wandered into the shades of her shrubbery: +sometimes passing onward through a little postern door, she +descended a flight of rugged steps, which had been cut in the +solid stone, into the gloomy glen of the torrent that dashed +round the base of the castle-rock; and following a lonely path +through the woods that fringed its sides, wandered into the +deepest recesses of mountain solitude. The sunshine of a +fine autumnal day, the solemn beauty of the fading woods, the +thin gray mist, that spread waveless over the mountains, the +silence of the air, the deep stillness of nature, broken only by +the sound of the eternal streams, tempted her on one occasion +beyond her usual limits.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Passing over the steep and wood-fringed hills of rock that +formed the boundary of the valley of Melincourt, she descended +through a grove of pines into a romantic chasm, where a foaming +stream was crossed by a rude and ancient bridge, consisting +of two distinct parts, each of which rested against a +columnar rock, that formed an island in the roaring waters. +An ash had fixed its roots in the fissures of the rock, and the +knotted base of its aged trunk offered to the passenger a +natural seat, over-canopied with its beautiful branches and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>leaves, now tinged with their autumnal yellow. Anthelia +rested awhile in this delightful solitude. There was no breath +of wind, no song of birds, no humming of insects, only the +dashing of the waters beneath. She felt the presence of the +genius of the scene. She sat absorbed in a train of contemplations, +dimly defined, but infinitely delightful: emotions +rather than thoughts, which attention would have utterly +dissipated, if it had paused to seize their images.</p> + +<p class='c007'>She was roused from her reverie by sounds of music, issuing +from the grove of pines through which she had just passed, +and which skirted the hollow. The notes were wild and +irregular, but their effect was singular and pleasing. They +ceased. Anthelia looked to the spot from whence they had +proceeded, and saw, or thought she saw, a face peeping at her +through the trees; but the glimpse was momentary. There +was in the expression of the countenance something so extraordinary, +that she almost felt convinced her imagination had +created it; yet her imagination was not in the habit of creating +such physiognomies. She could not, however, apprehend that +this remarkable vision portended any evil to her; for, if so, +alone and defenceless as she was, why should it be deferred? +She rose, therefore, to pursue her walk, and ascended, by a +narrow winding path, the brow of a lofty hill, which sank +precipitously on the other side, to the margin of a lake, that +seemed to slumber in the same eternal stillness as the rocks +that bordered it. The murmur of the torrent was inaudible at +that elevation. There was an almost oppressive silence in the +air. The motion and life of nature seemed suspended. The +gray mist that hung on the mountains, spreading its thin +transparent uniform veil over the whole surrounding scene, +gave a deeper impression to the mystery of loneliness, the +predominant feeling that pressed on the mind of Anthelia, to +seem the only thing that lived and moved in all that wide and +awful scene of beauty.</p> + +<div id='i_078' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_078.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Proceeded very deliberately to pull up a pine.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Suddenly the gray mist fled before the rising wind, and a +deep black line of clouds appeared in the west, that, rising +rapidly, volume on volume, obscured in a few minutes the +whole face of the heavens. There was no interval of preparation, +no notice for retreat. The rain burst down in a sheeted +cataract, comparable only to the bursting of a waterspout. +The sides of the mountains gleamed at once with a thousand +<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>torrents. Every little hollow and rain-worn channel, which +but a few minutes before was dry, became instantaneously the +bed of a foaming stream. Every half-visible rivulet swelled to +a powerful and turbid river. Anthelia glided down the hill +like an Oread, but the wet and slippery footing of the steep +descent necessarily retarded her progress. When she regained +the bridge, the swollen torrent had filled the chasm beneath, +and was still rising like a rapid and impetuous tide, rushing +and roaring along with boiling tumult and inconceivable swiftness. +She had passed one half of the bridge—she had gained +the insular rock—a few steps would have placed her on the +other side of the chasm—when a large trunk of an oak, which +months, perhaps years, before had baffled the woodman’s skill, +and fallen into the dingle above, now disengaged by the flood, +and hurled onward with irresistible strength, with large and +projecting boughs towering high above the surface, struck the +arch she had yet to pass, which, shattered into instant ruin, +seemed to melt like snow into the torrent, leaving scarcely a +vestige of its place.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia followed the trunk with her eyes till it disappeared +among the rocks, and stood gazing on the torrent with feelings +of awful delight. The contemplation of the mighty energies +of nature, energies of liberty and power which nothing could +resist or impede, absorbed, for a time, all considerations of +the difficulty of regaining her home. The water continued to +rise, but still she stood riveted to the spot, watching with +breathless interest its tumultuous revolutions. She dreamed +not that its increasing pressure was mining the foundation of +the arch she had passed. She was roused from her reverie +only by the sound of its dissolution. She looked back, and +found herself on the solitary rock insulated by the swelling +flood.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Would the flood rise above the level of the rock? The ash +must in that case be her refuge. Could the force of the +torrent rend its massy roots from the rocky fissures which +grasped them with giant strength? Nothing could seem less +likely: yet it was not impossible. But she had always looked +with calmness on the course of necessity: she felt that she +was always in the order of nature. Though her life had been +a series of uniform prosperity, she had considered deeply the +changes of things, and <em>the nearness of the paths of night and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>day</em><a id='r28'></a><a href='#f28' class='c012'><sup>[28]</sup></a> in every pursuit and circumstance of human life. She +sat on the stem of the ash. The torrent rolled almost at her +feet. Could this be the calm sweet scene of the morning, the +ivied bridges, the romantic chasm, the stream far below, bright +in its bed of rocks, chequered by the pale sunbeams through +the leaves of the ash?</p> + +<p class='c007'>She looked towards the pine-grove, through which she had +descended in the morning; she thought of the wild music she +had heard, and of the strange face that had appeared among +the trees. Suddenly it appeared again: and shortly after a +stranger issuing from the wood ran with surprising speed to +the edge of the chasm.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia had never seen so singular a physiognomy; but +there was nothing in it to cause alarm. The stranger seemed +interested for her situation, and made gestures expressive of a +design to assist her. He paused a moment, as if measuring +with his eyes the breadth of the chasm, and then, returning to +the grove, proceeded very deliberately to pull up a pine.<a id='r29'></a><a href='#f29' class='c012'><sup>[29]</sup></a> +Anthelia thought him mad; but infinite was her astonishment +to see the tree sway and bend beneath the efforts of his incredible +strength, till at length he tore it from the soil, and +bore it on his shoulders to the chasm: where placing one end +on a high point of the bank, and lowering the other on the +insulated rock, he ran like a flash of lightning along the stem, +caught Anthelia in his arms, and carried her safely over in an +instant: not that we should wish the reader to suppose our +heroine, a mountaineer from her infancy, could not have +crossed a pine-bridge without such assistance; but the stranger +gave her no time to try the experiment.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The remarkable physiognomy and unparalleled strength of +the stranger caused much of surprise, and something of +apprehension to mingle with Anthelia’s gratitude: but the air +of high fashion which characterised his whole deportment +<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>diminished her apprehension, while it increased her surprise at +the exploit he had performed.</p> + +<div id='i_082' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_082.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Alighted on the doctor’s head as he was crossing the court.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Shouts were now heard in the wood, from which shortly +emerged Mr. Hippy, Lord Anophel Achthar, and the Reverend +Mr. Grovelgrub. Anthelia had been missed at Melincourt at +the commencement of the storm, and Mr. Hippy had been +half distracted on the occasion. The whole party had in consequence +dispersed in various directions in search of her, and +accident had directed these three gentlemen to the spot where +Anthelia was just set down by her polite deliverer, Sir Oran +Haut-ton, Baronet.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Hippy ran up with great alacrity to Anthelia, assuring +her that at the time when Miss Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney +informed him his dear niece was missing, he was suffering +under a complete paralysis of his right leg, and was on the +point of swallowing a potion sent to him by Dr. Killquick, +which, on receiving the alarming intelligence, he had thrown +out of the window, and he believed it had alighted on the +doctor’s head as he was crossing the court. Anthelia communicated +to him the particulars of the signal service she had +received from the stranger, whom Mr. Hippy stared at heartily, +and shook hands with cordially.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lord Anophel now came up, and surveyed Sir Oran +through his quizzing-glass, who, making him a polite bow, took +his quizzing-glass from him, and examined him through it in the +same manner. Lord Anophel flew into a furious passion; but +receiving a gentle hint from Mr. Hippy, that the gentleman to +whom he was talking had just pulled up a pine, he deemed it +prudent to restrain his anger within due bounds.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub now rolled up to the party, +muffled in a ponderous greatcoat, and surmounted with an +enormous umbrella, humbly soliciting Miss Melincourt to +take shelter. Anthelia assured him that she was so completely +wet through, as to render all shelter superfluous, till she could +change her clothes. On this, Mr. Hippy, who was wet through +himself, but had not till that moment been aware that he was +so, voted for returning to Melincourt with all possible expedition; +adding that he feared it would be necessary, immediately +on their arrival, to send off an express for Dr. Killquick, for +his dear Anthelia’s sake, as well as his own. Anthelia +disclaimed any intention or necessity on her part of calling in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>the services of the learned doctor, and, turning to Sir Oran, +requested the favour of his company to dinner at Melincourt. +This invitation was warmly seconded by Mr. Hippy, with +gestures as well as words. Sir Oran bowed acknowledgment, +but pointing in a direction different from that of Melincourt, +shook his head, and took a respectful farewell.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I wonder who he is,’ said Mr. Hippy, as they walked +rapidly homewards: ‘manifestly dumb, poor fellow! a man of +consequence, no doubt: no great beauty, by the bye; but as +strong as Hercules—quite an Orlando Furioso. He pulled up +a pine, my lord, as you would do a mushroom.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Sir,’ said Lord Anophel, ‘I have nothing to do with +mushrooms; and as to this gentleman, whoever he is, I must +say, notwithstanding his fashionable air, his taking my quizzing-glass +was a piece of impertinence, for which I shall feel +necessitated to require gentlemanly satisfaction.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>A long, toilsome, and slippery walk brought the party to the +castle gate.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XI<br> <span class='c013'>LOVE AND MARRIAGE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Sir Oran Haut-ton, as we conjecture, had taken a very long +ramble beyond the limits of Redrose Abbey, and had sat down +in the pine-grove to solace himself with his flute, when Anthelia, +bursting upon him like a beautiful vision, riveted him in silent +admiration to the spot whence she departed, about which he +lingered in hopes of her reappearance, till the accident which +occurred on her return enabled him to exert his extraordinary +physical strength in a manner so remarkably advantageous to +her. On parting from her and her companions, he ran back +all the way to the Abbey, a formidable distance, and relieved +the anxious apprehensions which his friend Mr. Forester entertained +respecting him.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A few mornings after this occurrence, as Mr. Forester, Mr. +Fax, and Sir Oran were sitting at breakfast, a letter was +brought in, addressed to <em>Sir Oran Haut-ton, Baronet, Redrose +Abbey</em>; a circumstance which very much surprised Mr. +Forester, as he could not imagine how Sir Oran had obtained +a correspondent, seeing that he could neither write nor read. +He accordingly took the liberty of opening the letter himself.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It proved to be from a limb of the law, signing himself +Richard Ratstail, and purporting to be a notice to Sir Oran to +defend himself in an action brought against him by the said +Richard Ratstail, solicitor, in behalf of his client, Lawrence +Litigate, Esquire, lord of the manor of Muckwormsby, for that +he, the said Oran Haut-ton, did, with force and arms, videlicet, +sword, pistols, daggers, bludgeons, and staves, break into the +manor of the said Lawrence Litigate, Esquire, and did then +and there, with malice aforethought, and against the peace of +our sovereign lord the King, his crown and dignity, cut down, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>root up, hew, hack, and cut in pieces, sundry and several pine-trees, +of various sizes and dimensions, to the utter ruin, havoc, +waste, and devastation of a large tract of pine-land; and that +he had wilfully, maliciously, and with intent to injure the +said Lawrence Litigate, Esquire, carried off with force and +arms, namely, swords, pistols, bludgeons, daggers, and staves, +fifty cartloads of trunks, fifty cartloads of bark, fifty cartloads +of loppings, and fifty cartloads of toppings.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This was a complete enigma to Mr. Forester; and his +surprise was increased when, on reading further, he found that +Miss Melincourt, of Melincourt Castle, was implicated in the +affair, as having aided and abetted Sir Oran in devastating the +pine-grove, and carrying it off by cartloads with force and arms.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It immediately occurred to him that the best mode he could +adopt of elucidating the mystery would be to call on Miss +Melincourt, whom, besides, Sir Telegraph’s enthusiastic description +had given him some curiosity to see; and the present +appeared a favourable opportunity to indulge it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He therefore asked Mr. Fax if he were disposed for a very +long walk. Mr. Fax expressed a cordial assent to the proposal, +and no time was lost in preparation.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester, though he had built stables for the accommodation +of his occasional visitors, kept no horses himself, for +reasons which will appear hereafter.</p> + +<p class='c007'>They set forth accordingly, accompanied by Sir Oran, who +joined them without waiting for an invitation.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘We shall see Sir Telegraph Paxarett,’ said Mr. Forester, +‘and, perhaps, his phoenix, Miss Melincourt.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> If a woman be the object, and a lover’s eyes +the medium, I should say there is nothing in nature so easily +found as a phoenix.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> My eyes have no such magical property. +I am not a lover, it is true, but it is because I have never +found a phoenix.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> But you have one in your mind, a <em>beau ideal</em>, I +doubt not.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Not too ideal to exclude the possible existence +of its material archetype, though I have never found it yet.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> You will, however, find a female who has some +one at least of the qualities of your imaginary damsel, and that +one quality will serve as a peg on which your imagination will +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>suspend all the others. This is the usual process of mental +hallucination. A little truth forms the basis, and the whole +superstructure is falsehood.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I shall guard carefully against such self-deception; +though, perhaps, a beautiful chimera is better than +either a hideous reality or a vast and formless void.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> As an instrument of transitory pleasure, +probably; but very far from it as a means of permanent happiness, +which is only consistent with perfect mental tranquillity, +which again is only consistent with the calm and dispassionate +contemplation of truth.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> What say you, then, to the sentiment of +Voltaire?—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Le raisonneur tristement s’accrédite:</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="fr">On court, dit-on, après la vérité,</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Ah! croyez-moi, l’erreur a son mérite.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> You will scarcely coincide with such a sentiment, +when you consider how much this doctrine of happy errors, +and pleasing illusions, and salutary prejudices, has tended to +rivet the chains of superstition on the necks of the grovelling +multitude.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> And yet, if you take the colouring of +imagination from the objects of our mental perception, and +pour the full blaze of daylight into all the dark recesses of +selfishness and cunning, I am afraid a refined and enthusiastic +benevolence will find little to interest or delight in the contemplation +of the human world.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> That should rather be considered the consequence +of morbid feelings, and exaggerated expectations of +society and human nature. It is the false colouring in which +youthful enthusiasm depicts the scenes of futurity that throws +the gloom of disappointment so deeply on their actual presence. +You have formed to yourself, as you acknowledge, a visionary +model of female perfection, which has rendered you utterly +insensible to the real attractions of every woman you have +seen. This exaggerated imagination loses more than it gains. +It has not made a fair calculation of the mixture of good and +evil in every constituent portion of the world of reality. It +has utterly excluded the latter from the objects of its hope, +and has magnified the former into such gigantic proportions, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>that the real goodness and beauty, which would be visible and +delightful to simpler optics, vanish into imperceptibility in the +infinity of their diminution.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I desire no phantasm of abstract perfection—no +visionary creation of a romantic philosophy: I seek no +more than I know to have existed—than, I doubt not, does +exist, though in such lamentable rarity that the calculations of +probability make the search little better than desperate. I +would have a woman that can love and feel poetry, not only in +its harmony and decorations, which limit the admiration of +ordinary mortals, but in the deep sources of love, and liberty, +and truth, which are its only legitimate springs, and without +which, well-turned periods and glittering images are nothing +more nor less than the vilest and most mischievous tinsel. She +should be musical, but she should have music in her soul as +well as her fingers: her voice and her touch should have no one +point in common with that mechanical squalling and jingling +which are commonly dignified with the insulted name of +music: they should be modes of the harmony of her mind.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> I do not very well understand that; but I think +I have a glimpse of your meaning. Pray proceed.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> She should have charity—not penny +charity——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> I hope not.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> But a liberal discriminating practical +philanthropy, that can select with justice the objects of its +kindness, and give that kindness a form of permanence equally +delightful and useful to its object and to society, by increasing +the aggregate mass of intelligence and happiness.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Go on.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> She should have no taste for what are called +public pleasures. Her pleasures should be bounded in the +circle of her family, and a few, a very few congenial friends, her +books, her music, her flowers—she should delight in flowers—the +uninterrupted cheerfulness of domestic concord, the +delightful effusions of unlimited confidence. The rocks, and +woods, and mountains, boundaries of the valley of her dwelling, +she should be content to look on as the boundaries of the +world.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Anything more?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> She should have a clear perception of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>beauty of truth. Every species of falsehood, even in +sportiveness, should be abhorrent to her. The simplicity of +her thoughts should shine through the ingenuousness of her +words. Her testimony should convey as irresistible conviction +as the voice of the personified nature of things. And this +ingenuousness should comprise, in its fullest extent, that perfect +conformity of feelings and opinions which ought to be the most +common, but is unfortunately the most rare, of the qualities +of the female mind.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> You say nothing of beauty.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> As to what is usually called beauty, mere +symmetry of form and features, it would be an object with me +in purchasing a statue, but none whatever in choosing a wife. +Let her countenance be the mirror of such qualities as I have +described, and she cannot be otherwise than beautiful. I think +with the Athenians, that beauty and goodness are inseparable. +I need not remind you of the perpetual καλος κἀγαθος.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> You have said nothing of the principal, and, +indeed, almost the only usual consideration in marriage—fortune.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I am rich enough myself to dispense with +such considerations. Even were I not so, I doubt if worldly +wisdom would ever influence me to bend my knee with the +multitude at the shrine of the omnipotence of money. Nothing +is more uncertain, more transient, more perishable, than +riches. How many prudent marriages of interest and +convenience were broken to atoms by the French revolution! +Do you think there was one couple, among all those calculating +characters, that acted in those trying times like Louvet and his +Lodoiska?<a id='r30'></a><a href='#f30' class='c012'><sup>[30]</sup></a> But without looking to periods of public +convulsion, in no state of society is any individual secure +against the changes of fortune. What becomes of those +ill-assorted unions, which have no basis but money, when, as +is very often the case, the money departs, and the persons +remain? The qualities of the heart and of the mind are alone +out of the power of accident; and by these, and these only, +shall I be guided in the choice of the companion of my life.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Are there no other indispensable qualities that +you have omitted in your enumeration?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> None, I think, but such as are implied in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>those I have mentioned, and must necessarily be co-existent +with them; an endearing sensibility, an agreeable cheerfulness, +and that serenity of temper which is truly the balm of being, +and the absence of which, in the intercourse of domestic life, +obliterates all the radiance of beauty, all the splendour of talent, +and all the dignity of virtue.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> I presume, then, you seriously purpose to marry, +when you can find such a woman as this you have described?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Seriously I do.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> And not till then?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Certainly not.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Then your present heir presumptive has nothing +to fear for his reversion.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XII<br> <span class='c013'>LOVE AND POVERTY</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>‘We shall presently,’ said Mr. Fax, as they pursued their walk, +‘come in sight of a cottage, which I remarked two years ago: +a deplorable habitation! A picture of its exterior and interior +suspended in some public place, in every town in the kingdom, +with a brief commentary subjoined, would operate <i><span lang="la">in terrorem</span></i> in +favour of the best interests of political economy, by placing +before the eyes of the rising generation the lamentable +consequences of imprudent marriage, and the necessary result +of attachment, of which romance is the foundation and +marriage the superstructure, without the only cement which +will make it wind and water tight—money.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Nothing but money! The resemblance +Fluellen found between Macedon and Monmouth, because both +began with an M, holds equally true of money and marriage: +but there seems to be a much stronger connection in the latter +case; for marriage is but a body, of which money is the soul.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> It is so. It must be so. The constitution of +society imperiously commands it to be so. The world of +reality is not the world of romance. When a lover talks of +lips of coral, teeth of pearl, tresses of gold, and eyes of +diamonds, he knows all the while that he is lying by wholesale; +and that no baker in England would give him credit for a +penny roll on all this display of his Utopian treasury. All the +aerial castles that are founded in the contempt of worldly +prudence have not half the solidity of the cloud-built towers +that surround the setting of the autumnal sun.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I maintain, on the contrary, that, <em>let all +possible calamities be accumulated on two affectionate and +congenial spirits, they will find more true happiness in weeping +<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>together than they would have found in all the riches of the +world, poisoned by the disunion of hearts</em>.<a id='r31'></a><a href='#f31' class='c012'><sup>[31]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> The disunion of hearts is an evil of another kind. +It is not a comparison of evils I wish to institute. That two +rich people fettered by the indissoluble bond of marriage, and +hating each other cordially, are two as miserable animals as +any on the face of the earth, is certain; but that two poor +ones, let them love each other ever so fondly, starving together +in a garret, are therefore in a less positively wretched condition, +is an inference which no logic, I think, can deduce. For the +picture you must draw in your mind’s eye is not that of a +neatly-dressed, young, healthy-looking couple, weeping in each +other’s arms in a clean, however homely cottage, in a fit of +tender sympathy; but you must surround them with all the +squalid accompaniments of poverty, rags, and famine, the +contempt of the world, the dereliction of friends, half a dozen +hungry squalling children, all clothed perhaps in the cutting +up of an old blanket, duns in presence, bailiffs in prospect, and +the long perspective of hopelessness closed by the workhouse or +the gaol.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You imagine an extreme case, which something +more than the original want of fortune seems requisite to +produce.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> I have heard you declaim very bitterly against +those who maintain the necessary connection between misfortune +and imprudence.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Certainly. To assert that the unfortunate +must necessarily have been imprudent, is to furnish an excuse +to the cold-hearted and illiberal selfishness of a state of society, +which needs no motive superadded to its own miserable +narrow-mindedness, to produce the almost total extinction of +benevolence and sympathy. Good and evil fortune depend so +much on the combination of external circumstances, that the +utmost skill and industry cannot command success; neither is +the result of the most imprudent actions always fatal:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Our indiscretions sometimes serve us well,</div> + <div class='line'>When our deep plots do pall.<a id='r32'></a><a href='#f32' class='c012'><sup>[32]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Sometimes, no doubt; but not so often as to +equalise the probable results of indiscretion and prudence. +‘Where there is prudence,’ says Juvenal, ‘fortune is powerless’; +and this doctrine, though liable to exceptions, is replete with +general truth. We have a nice balance to adjust. To check +the benevolence of the rich, by persuading them that all misfortune +is the result of imprudence, is a great evil; but it would +be a much greater evil to persuade the poor that indiscretion +may have a happier result than prudence; for where this +appears to be true in one instance, it is manifestly false in a +thousand. It is certainly not enough to possess industry and +talent; there must be means for exerting them; and in a +redundant population these means are often wanting, even to +the most skilful and the most industrious: but though calamity +sometimes seizes those who use their best efforts to avoid her, +yet she seldom disappoints the intentions of those who leap +headlong into her arms.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> It seems, nevertheless, peculiarly hard that +all the blessings of life should be confined to the rich. If you +banish the smiles of love from the cottage of poverty, what +remains to cheer its dreariness? The poor man has no friends, +no amusements, no means of exercising benevolence, nothing +to fill up the gloomy and desolate vacancy of his heart, if you +banish love from his dwelling. ‘There is one alone, and there +is not a second,’ says one of the greatest poets and philosophers +of antiquity: ‘there is one alone, and there is not a second: +yea, he hath neither child nor brother; yet is there no end of +all his labour: ... neither saith he, For whom do I labour +and bereave my soul of good?... Two are better than +one ... for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but +woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not +another to help him up.’<a id='r33'></a><a href='#f33' class='c012'><sup>[33]</sup></a> Society in poverty is better than +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>solitude in wealth: but solitude and poverty together it is +scarcely in human nature to tolerate.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> This, if I remember rightly, is the cottage of +which I was speaking.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The cottage was ruined and uninhabited. The roof had +fallen in. The garden was choked with weeds. ‘What,’ said +Mr. Fax, ‘can have become of its unfortunate inhabitants?’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> What were they?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> A couple for whom nature had done much, and +fortune nothing. I took shelter in their cottage from a passing +storm. The picture which you called the imagination of an +extreme case falls short of the reality of what I witnessed here. +It was the utmost degree of misery and destitution compatible +with the preservation of life. A casual observer might have +passed them by, as the most abject of the human race. But +their physiognomy showed better things. It was with the +utmost difficulty I could extract a word from either of them: +but when I at last succeeded I was astonished, in garments so +mean and a dwelling so deplorable, to discover feelings so +generous and minds so enlightened. The semblance of human +sympathy seemed strange to them; little of it as you may +suppose could be discovered through my saturnine complexion, +and the habitual language of what you call my frosty philosophy. +By degrees I engaged their confidence, and he related to me +his history, which I will tell you, as nearly as I can remember, +in his own words.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIII<br> <span class='c013'>DESMOND</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>My name is Desmond. My father was a naval officer, who in +the prime of life was compelled by wounds to retire from the +service on his half-pay and a small additional pension. I was +his only son, and he submitted to the greatest personal privations +to procure me a liberal education, in the hope that by +these means he should live to see me making my way in the +world: but he always accompanied his wishes for this consummation +with a hope that I should consider money as a +means, and not as an end, and that I should remember the +only real treasures of human existence were truth, health, and +liberty. You will not wonder that, with such principles, the +father had been twenty years a lieutenant, and that the son +was looked on at College as a fellow that would come to +nothing.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I profited little at the University, as you will easily suppose. +The system of education pursued there appeared to me the +result of a deep-laid conspiracy against the human understanding, +a mighty effort of political and ecclesiastical machiavelism, +to turn the energies of inquiring minds into channels, where +they will either stagnate in disgust, or waste themselves in +nugatory labour. To discover or even to illustrate a single +moral truth, to shake the empire of a single prejudice, to apply +a single blow of the axe of philosophy to the wide-spreading +roots of superstition and political imposture, is to render a real +service to the best hopes of mankind; but all this is diametrically +opposed to the selfish interests of the hired misleaders of +society, the chosen few, as they are called, before whom the +wretched multitude grovel in the dust as before</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in16'><span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>The children of a race,</div> + <div class='line'>Mightier than they, and wiser, and by heaven</div> + <div class='line'>Beloved and favoured more.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Moral science, therefore, moral improvement, the doctrines +of benevolence, the amelioration of the general condition of +mankind, will not only never form a part of any public institution +for the performance of that ridiculous and mischievous farce +called the <em>Finishing of Education</em>; but every art of clerical +chicanery and fraudulent misrepresentation will be practised, to +render odious the very names of philosophy and philanthropy, +and to extinguish, by ridicule and persecution, that enthusiastic +love of truth, which never fails to conduct its votaries to +conclusions very little compatible with the views of those who +have built, or intend to build, their own worldly prosperity on +the foundation of hypocrisy and servility in themselves, and +ignorance and credulity in others.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The study of morals and of mind occupied my exclusive +attention. I had little taste for the science of lines and numbers, +and still less for verbal criticism, the pinnacle of academical +glory.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I delighted in the poets of Greece and Rome, but I thought +that the <i><span lang="la">igneus vigor et coelestis origo</span></i> of their conceptions and +expressions was often utterly lost sight of in the microscopic +inspection of philological minutiae. I studied Greek, as the +means of understanding Homer and Aeschylus: I did not look +on them as mere secondary instruments to the attainment of +a knowledge of their language. I had no conception of the +taste that could prefer Lycophron to Sophocles because he had +the singular advantage of being obscure; and should have been +utterly at a loss to account for such a phenomenon, if I had not +seen that the whole system of public education was purposely +calculated to make inferior minds recoil in disgust and terror +from the vestibule of knowledge, and superior minds consume +their dangerous energies in the <i><span lang="la">difficiles nugae</span></i> and <em>labor +ineptiarum</em> of its adytum.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I did not <em>finish</em>, as it is called, my college <em>education</em>. My +father’s death compelled me to leave it before the expiration of +the usual period, at the end of which the same distinction is +conferred on all capacities, by the academical noometry, not of +merit but of time. I found myself almost destitute; but I felt +the consciousness of talents, that I doubted not would amply +<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>provide for me in that great centre of intellect and energy, +London. To London I accordingly went, and became a +boarder in the humble dwelling of a widow, who maintained +herself and an only daughter by the perilous and precarious +income derived from lodgers.</p> + +<div id='i_098' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_098.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>‘<em>My dear sir, only take the trouble of sitting a few hours in my shop.</em>’</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>My first application was to a bookseller in Bond Street, to +whom I offered the copyright of a treatise on the Elements of +Morals. ‘My dear sir,’ said he, with an air of supercilious +politeness, ‘only take the trouble of sitting a few hours in my +shop, and if you detect any one of my customers in the act of +pronouncing the word <em>morals</em>, I will give any price you please +to name for your copyright.’ But, glancing over the manuscript, +‘I perceive,’ said he, ‘there are some smart things here; +and though they are good for nothing where they are, they +would cut a pretty figure in a Review. My friend Mr. Vamp, +the editor, is in want of a hand for the moral department of +his Review: I will give you a note to him.’ I thanked him +for his kindness, and, furnished with the note, proceeded to +the lodgings of Mr. Vamp, whom I found in an elegant first +floor, lounging over a large quarto, which he was marking +with a pencil. A number of books and pamphlets, and fragments +of both curiously cut up, were scattered on the table +before him, together with a large pot of paste and an enormous +pair of scissors.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He received me with great hauteur, read the note, and said, +‘Mr. Foolscap has told you we are in want of a hand, and he +thinks you have a turn in the moral line: I shall not be sorry +if it prove so, for we have been very ill provided in that way a +long while; and though morals are not much in demand +among our patrons and customers, and will not do, by any +means, for a standing dish, they make, nevertheless, a very +pretty seasoning for our politics, in cases where they might +otherwise be rather unpalatable and hard of digestion. You +see this pile of pamphlets, these volumes of poetry, and this +rascally quarto: all these, though under very different titles, +and the productions of very different orders of mind, have, +either openly or covertly, only one object; and a most impertinent +one it is. This object is twofold: first, to prove +the existence, to an immense extent, of what these writers +think proper to denominate political corruption; secondly, to +convince the public that this corruption ought to be +<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>extinguished. Now, we are anxious to do away the effect of all +these incendiary clamours. As to the existence of corruption +(it is a villainous word, by the bye—we call it <em>persuasion in a +tangible shape</em>): as to the existence, then, of <em>persuasion in a +tangible shape</em>, we do not wish to deny it; on the contrary, we +have no hesitation in affirming that it is <em>as notorious as the +sun at noonday</em>: but as to the inference that it ought to be +extinguished—that is the point against which we direct the full +fire of our critical artillery; we maintain that it ought to exist; +and here is the leading article of our next number, in which +we confound in one mass all these obnoxious publications, +putting the weakest at the head of the list, that if any of our +readers should feel inclined to judge for themselves (I must do +them the credit to say I do not suspect many of them of such +a democratical propensity), they may be stopped <em>in limine</em>, by +finding very little temptation to proceed. The political composition +of this article is beautiful; it is the production of a +gentleman high in office, who is indebted to <em>persuasion in a +tangible shape</em> for his present income of several thousands per +annum; but it wants, as I have hinted, a little moral seasoning; +and there, as ill-luck will have it, we are all thrown out. +We have several reverend gentlemen in our corps, but morals +are unluckily quite out of their way. We have, on some +occasions, with their assistance, substituted theology for morals; +they manage this very cleverly, but I am sorry to say it only +takes among the old women; and though the latter are our +best and most numerous customers, yet we have some very +obstinate and hard-headed readers who will not, as I have +observed, swallow our politics without a little moral seasoning; +and, as I told Mr. Foolscap, if we did not contrive to pick up +a spice of morals somewhere or other, all the eloquence of +<em>persuasion in a tangible shape</em> would soon become of little +avail. Now, if you will undertake the seasoning of this article +in such a manner as to satisfy my employers, I will satisfy you: +you understand me.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>I observed that I hoped he would allow me the free +exercise of my own opinion; and that I should wish to season +his article in such a manner as to satisfy myself, which I +candidly told him would not be in such a manner as seemed +likely to satisfy him.</p> + +<p class='c007'>On this he flew into a rage, and vowed vengeance against +<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>Mr. Foolscap for having sent him a Jacobin. I strenuously +disclaimed this appellation; and being then quite a novice in +the world, I actually endeavoured to reason with him, as if the +conviction of general right and wrong could have any influence +upon him; but he stopped me short, by saying that till I +could reason him out of his pension I might spare myself the +trouble of interfering with his opinions; as the logic from +which they were deduced had presented itself to him in a +much more <em>tangible shape</em> than any abstract notions of truth +and liberty. He had thought, from Mr. Foolscap’s letter, that +I had a talent for moral theory, and that I was inclined to +turn it to account; as for moral practice, he had nothing to do +with it, desired to know nothing about it, and wished me a +good-morning.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I was not yet discouraged, and made similar applications +to the editors and proprietors of several daily, weekly, monthly, +and quarterly publications, but I found everywhere the same +indifference or aversion to general principles, the same partial +and perverted views: every one was the organ of some division +or subdivision of a faction; and had entrenched himself in a +narrow circle, within the pale of which all was honour, consistency, +integrity, generosity, and justice; while all without it +was villainy, hypocrisy, selfishness, corruption, and lies. Not +being inclined to imprison myself in any one of these magical +rings, I found all my interviews terminate like that with Mr. +Vamp.</p> + +<p class='c007'>By the advice and introduction of a college acquaintance, I +accepted the situation of tutor in the family of Mr. Dross, a +wealthy citizen, who had acquired a large fortune by contracts +with Government, in the execution of which he had not +forgotten to charge for his vote and interest. His conscience, +indeed, of all the commodities he dealt in, was that which he +had brought to the best market; though, among his more fair-dealing, +and consequently poorer neighbours, it was thought +he had made the ministry pay too dearly for so very rotten an +article. They seemed not to be aware that a corrupt administration +estimates conscience and Stilton cheese by the same +criterion, and that its rottenness was its recommendation.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Dross was a tun of man, with the soul of a hazel-nut: +his wife was a tun of woman, without any soul whatever. The +principle that animated her bulk was composed of three +<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>ingredients—arrogance, ignorance, and the pride of money. +They were, in every sense of the word, what the world calls +respectable people.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mrs. Dross aspired to be <em>somebody</em>, aped the nobility, and +gave magnificent routs, which were attended by many noble +personages, and by all that portion of the fashionable world +that will go anywhere for a crowd and a supper.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Their idea of virtue consisted in having no debts, going +regularly to church, and feeding the parson; their idea of +charity, in paying the poor-rates, and putting down their +names to public subscriptions: and they had a profound contempt +for every species of learning, which they associated +indissolubly with rags and famine, and with that neglect of the +main chance, which they regarded as the most deadly of all +deadly sins. But as they had several hopeful children, and as +Mrs. Dross found it was fashionable to have a governess and +a <em>tutorer</em>, they had looked out for two pieces of human furniture +under these denominations, and my capricious destiny led me +to their splendid dwelling in the latter capacity.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I found the governess, Miss Pliant, very admirably adapted +to her situation. She did not presume to have a will of her +own. Suspended like Mahomet’s coffin between the mistress +and the housekeeper, despising the one, and despised by the +other, her mind seemed unconscious of its vacancy, and her +heart of its loneliness. She had neither feelings nor principles, +either of good or ill: perfectly selfish, perfectly cold-hearted, +and perfectly obsequious, she was contented with her situation, +because it seemed likely to lead to an advantageous establishment; +for if ever she thought of marriage, it was only in the +light of a system of bargain, in which youth and beauty were +very well disposed of when bartered for age and money. She +was highly accomplished: a very scientific musician, without +any soul in her performance; a most skilful copier of landscapes, +without the least taste for the beauties of nature; and a +proficient in French grammar, though she had read no book +in that language but <cite>Telemaque</cite>, and hated the names of +Rousseau and Voltaire, because she had heard them called +rascals by her father, who had taken his opinion on trust from +the Reverend Mr. Simony, who had never read a page of +either of them.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I very soon found that I was regarded as an upper +<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>servant—as a person of more pretension, but less utility, than the +footman. I was expected to be really more servile, in mind +especially. If I presumed to differ in opinion from Mr. or +Mrs. Dross, they looked at each other and at me with the +most profound astonishment, wondering at so much audacity +in one of their movables. I really envied the footman, living +as he did among his equals, where he might have his own +opinion, as far as he was capable of forming one, and express +it without reserve or fear; while all my thoughts were to be +those of a mirror, and my motions those of an automaton. I +soon saw that I had but the choice of alternatives: either to +mould myself into a slave, liar, and hypocrite, or to take my +leave of Mr. Dross. I therefore embraced the latter, and +determined from that moment never again to live under the +roof of a superior, if my own dwelling were to be the most +humble and abject of human habitations.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I returned to my old lodgings, and, after a short time, +procured some employment in the way of copying for a lawyer. +My labour was assiduous, and my remuneration scanty; but +my habits were simple, my evenings were free, and in the +daughter of the widow with whom I lodged I found a congenial +mind: a desire for knowledge, an ardent love of truth, and a +capacity that made my voluntary office of instruction at once +easy and delightful.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The widow died embarrassed: her creditors seized her +effects, and her daughter was left destitute. I was her only +friend: to every other human being, not only her welfare, but +even her existence, were matters of total indifference. The +course of necessity seemed to have thrown her on my protection, +and if I before loved her, I now regarded her as a +precious trust, confided to me by her evil fate. Call it what +you may—imprudence, madness, frenzy—we were married.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The lawyer who employed me had chosen his profession +very injudiciously, for he was an honest and benevolent man. +He interested himself for me, acquainted himself with my +circumstances, and without informing me of his motives, +increased my remuneration; though, as I afterwards found, he +could very ill afford to do so. By this means we lived twelve +months in comfort, I may say, considering the simplicity of +our habits, in prosperity. The birth of our first child was an +accession to our domestic happiness. We had no pleasures +<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>beyond the limits of our humble dwelling. Our circumstances +and situation were much below the ordinary level of those of +well-educated people: we had, therefore, no society, but we +were happy in each other: our evenings were consecrated to +our favourite authors; and the din of the streets, the tumult of +crowds and carriages thronging to parties of pleasure and +scenes of public amusement, came to us like the roar of a +stormy ocean on which we had neither wish nor power to +embark.</p> + +<p class='c007'>One evening we were surprised by an unexpected visitor; +it was the lawyer, my employer. ‘Desmond!’ said he, ‘I am +a ruined man. For having been too scrupulous to make +beggars of others, I have a fair prospect of becoming one +myself. You are shocked and astonished. Do not grieve on +my account. I have neither wife nor children. Very trivial +and very remediable is the evil that can happen to me. +“The valiant by himself, what can he suffer?” You will +think a lawyer has as little business with poetry as he has with +justice. Perhaps so. I have been too partial to both.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>I was glad to see him so cheerful, and expressed a hope +that his affairs would take a better turn than he seemed to +expect. ‘You shall know more,’ said he, ‘in a few days; in +the meantime, here are the arrears I owe you.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>When he came again, he said: ‘My creditors are neither +numerous nor cruel. I have made over to them all my +property, but they allow me to retain possession of a small +house in Westmoreland, with an annuity for my life, sufficient +to maintain me in competence. I could propose a wild +scheme to you if I thought you would not be offended.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘That,’ said I, ‘I certainly will not, propose what you may.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Tell me,’ said he, ‘which do you think the most useful +and uncontaminating implement, the quill or the spade?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The spade,’ said I, ‘generally speaking, unquestionably: +the quill in some most rare and solitary instances.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘In the hand of Homer and Plutarch, of Seneca and +Tacitus, of Shakespeare and Rousseau? I am not speaking +of them, or of those who, however humbly, reflect their excellencies. +But in the hands of the slaves of commerce, the +minions of law, the venal advocates of superstition, the +sycophants of corruption, the turnspits of literature, the +paragraph-mongers of prostituted journals, the hireling compounders +<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>of party-praise and censure, under the name of +periodical criticism, what say you to it?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘What can I say,’ said I, ‘but that it is the curse of society, +and the bane of the human mind?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘And yet,’ said he, ‘in some of these ways must you employ +it, if you wish to live by it. Literature is not the soil in which +truth and liberty can flourish, unless their cultivators be independent +of the world. Those who are not so, whatever be the +promise of their beginning, will end either in sycophants or +beggars. As mere mechanical instruments, in pursuits unconnected +with literature, what say you to the comparison?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘What Cincinnatus would have said,’ I answered.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I am glad,’ said he, ‘to hear it. You are not one of the +multitude, neither, I believe, am I. I embraced my profession, +I assure you, from very disinterested motives. I considered +that, the greater the powers of mischief with which that profession +is armed, and, I am sorry to add, the practice of +mischief in the generality of its professors, the greater might +be the scope of philanthropy, in protecting weakness and +counteracting oppression. Thus I have passed my life in an +attempt to reconcile philanthropy and law. I had property +sufficient to enable me to try the experiment. The natural +consequence is, my property has vanished. I do not regret it, +for I have done some good. But I can do no more. My +power is annulled. I must retire from the stage of life. If I +retire alone, I must have servants; I had much rather have +friends. If you will accompany me to Westmoreland, we will +organise a little republic of our own. Your wife shall be our +housekeeper. We will cultivate our garden. We shall want +little more, and that my annuity will amply supply. We will +select a few books, and we will pronounce eternal banishment +on pen and ink.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>I could not help smiling at the earnestness with which he +pronounced the last clause. The change of a lawyer into a +Roman republican appeared to me as miraculous as any +metamorphosis in Ovid. Not to weary you with details, we +carried this scheme into effect, and passed three years of +natural and healthy occupation, with perfect simplicity and +perfect content. They were the happiest of our lives. But +at the end of this period our old friend died. His annuity +died with him. He left me his heir, but his habitation and its +<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>furniture were all he had to leave. I procured a tenant for +the house, and we removed to this even yet more humble +dwelling. The difference of the rent, a very trifling sum indeed, +constituted our only income. The increase of our family, and +the consequent pressure of necessity, compelled us to sell the +house. From the same necessity we have become strict +Pythagoreans. I do not complain that we live hardly: it is +almost wonderful that we live at all. The produce of our little +garden preserves us from famine: but this is all it does. I +consider myself a mere rustic, and very willingly engage in +agricultural labour, when the neighbouring farmers think proper +to employ me: but they feel no deficiency of abler hands. +There are more labourers than means of labour. In the cities +it is the same. If all the modes of human occupation in this +kingdom, from the highest to the lowest, were to require at once +a double number of persons, there would not remain one of +them twelve hours unfilled.</p> + +<p class='c007'>With what views could I return to London? Of the throng +continually pressing onward, to spring into the vacancies of +employment, the foremost ranks are unfortunately composed +of the selfish, the servile, the intriguing; of those to whose +ideas general justice is a chimaera, liberty an empty name, and +truth at best a verbal veil for the sycophantic falsehood of a +mercenary spirit. To what end could a pupil of the ancient +Romans mingle with such a multitude? To cringe, to lie, to +flatter? To bow to the insolence of wealth, the superciliousness +of rank, the contumely of patronage, that, while it exacts the +most abject mental prostration, in return for promises never +meant to be performed, despises the servility it fosters, and +laughs at the credulity it betrays?</p> + +<p class='c007'>The wheel of fortune is like a water-wheel, and human +beings are like the waters it disturbs. Many are thrown into +the channels of action, many are thrown back to be lost for +ever in the stream. I am one of the latter: but I shall not +consider it disgraceful to me that I am so, till I see that +candour, simplicity, integrity, and intellectual power, directed +by benevolence and liberty, have a better claim to worldly +estimation, than either venal talent prostituted to the wages of +corruption, or ignorance, meanness, and imbecility, exalted by +influence and interest.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIV<br> <span class='c013'>THE COTTAGE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'><em>Mr. Fax (in continuation).</em> ‘I cannot help thinking,’ said I, +when Desmond had done speaking, ‘that you have formed too +hasty an estimate of the world. Mr. Vamp and Mr. Dross +are bad specimens of human nature: but there are many good +specimens of it in both those classes of men. The world is, +indeed, full of prejudices and superstitions, which produce +ample profit to their venal advocates, who consequently want +neither the will nor the power to calumniate and persecute +the enlightened and the virtuous. The rich, too, are usually +arrogant and exacting, and those feelings will never perish for +want of sycophants to nourish them. An ardent love of truth +and liberty will, therefore, always prove an almost insuperable +barrier to any great degree of worldly advancement. A +celebrated divine, who turned his theological morality to very +excellent account, and died <i><span lang="fr">en bonne odeur</span></i>, used to say, <em>he +could not afford to have a conscience, for it was the most +expensive luxury a man could indulge in</em>. So it certainly is: +but, though a conscientious man who has his own way to make +in the world, will very seldom flourish in the sunshine of +prosperity, it is not, therefore, necessary that he should sit +quietly down and starve.’ He said he would think of it, and +if he could find any loophole in the great feudal fortress of +society, at which poverty and honesty could creep in together, +he would try to effect an entrance. I made more particular +inquiry into their circumstances, and they at length communicated +to me, but with manifest reluctance, that they were +in imminent danger of being deprived of their miserable furniture, +and turned out of their wretched habitation, by Lawrence +<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>Litigate, Esquire, their landlord, for arrears of rent amounting +to five pounds.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Which, of course, you paid?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> I did so; but I do not see that it is of course.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran were still leaning over +the gate of the cottage, when a peasant came whistling along +the road. ‘Pray, my honest friend,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘can you +inform me what has become of the family which inhabited this +cottage two years ago?’—‘Ye’ll voind them,’ said the peasant, +‘about a mile vurther an, just by the lake’s edge like, wi’ two +large elms by the door, and a vir tree.’ He resumed his tune +and his way.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The philosophical trio proceeded on their walk.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You have said little of his wife.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> She was an interesting creature. With her the +feelings of misfortune had subsided into melancholy silence, +while with him they broke forth in misanthropical satire.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> And their children?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> They would have been fine children, if they had +been better clothed and fed.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Did they seem to repent their marriage?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Not for themselves. They appeared to have +no wish but to live and die together. For their children, +indeed, I could easily perceive they felt more grief than they +expressed.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You have scarcely made out your case. +Poverty had certainly come in at the door, but Love does not +seem to have flown out at the window. You would not have +prevailed on them to separate at the price of living in palaces. +The energy of intellect was not deadened; the independence +of spirit was not broken. The participation of love communicates +a luxury to sorrow, that all the splendour of selfishness +can never bestow. If, as has been said, a friend is more +valuable than the elements of fire and water, how much more +valuable must be the one only associate, the more than friend, +to him whom in affliction and in poverty all other friends have +abandoned! If the sun shines equally on the palace and the +cottage, why should not love, the sun of the intellectual world, +shine equally on both? More needful, indeed, is its genial +light to the latter, where there is no worldly splendour to +diminish or divide its radiance.</p> + +<div id='i_110' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span> +<img src='images/i_110.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Sir Oran sat down in the artist’s seat.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>With a sudden turn of the road, a scene of magnificent +beauty burst upon their view: the still expanse of a lake, +bordered with dark precipices and fading woods, and mountains +rising above them, height on height, till the clouds rested on +their summits. A picturesque tourist had planted his travelling-chair +under the corner of a rock, and was intently occupied +in sketching the scene. The process attracted Sir Oran’s +curiosity; he walked up to the tourist, who was too deeply +engaged to notice his approach, and peeped over his shoulder. +Sir Oran, after looking at the picture, then at the landscape, +then at the picture, then at the landscape again, at length +suddenly expressed his delight in a very loud and very singular +shout, close in the painter’s ear, that re-echoed from rock to +rock. The tourist sprang up in violent alarm, and seeing the +extraordinary physiognomy of the personage at his elbow, drew +a sudden conclusion of evil intentions, and ran off with great +rapidity, leaving all his apparatus behind him. Sir Oran sat +down in the artist’s seat, took up the drawing utensils, placed +the unfinished drawing on his knee, and sat in an attitude of +deep contemplation, as if meditating on the means to be pursued +for doing the same thing himself.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The flying tourist encountered Messieurs Fax and Forester, +who had observed the transaction, and were laughing at it as +heartily as Democritus himself could have done. They tranquillised +his apprehensions, and led him back to the spot. Sir +Oran, on a hint from his friend Mr. Forester, rose, made the +tourist a polite bow, and restored to him his beloved portfolio. +They then wished him a good-morning, and left him in a state +of nervous trepidation, which made it very obvious that he +would draw no more that day.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Can Sir Oran draw?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> No; but I think he would easily acquire the +art. It is very probable that in the nation of the Orans, which +I take to be <em>a barbarous nation that has not yet learned the use +of speech</em>,<a id='r34'></a><a href='#f34' class='c012'><sup>[34]</sup></a> drawing, as a means of communicating ideas, may +be in no contemptible state of forwardness.<a id='r35'></a><a href='#f35' class='c012'><sup>[35]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span><em>Mr. Fax.</em> He has, of course, seen many drawings since he +has been among civilised men; what so peculiarly delighted +and surprised him in this?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I suspect this is the first opportunity he has +had of comparing the natural original with the artificial copy; +and his delight was excited by seeing the vast scene before +him transferred so accurately into so small a compass, and +growing, as it were, into a distinct identity under the hand of +the artist.</p> + +<p class='c007'>They now arrived at the elms and the fir-tree, which the +peasant had pointed out as the landmarks of the dwelling of +Desmond. They were surprised to see a very pretty cottage, +standing in the midst of a luxuriant garden, one part of which +sloped down to the edge of the lake. Everything bore the air +of comfort and competence. They almost doubted if the +peasant had been correct in his information. Three rosy +children, plainly but neatly dressed, were sitting on the edge of +the shallow water, watching with intense delight and interest the +manœuvres of a paper flotilla, which they had committed to +the mercy of the waves.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> What is the difference between these children +and Xerxes on the shores of Salamis?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> None, but that where they have pure and +unmingled pleasure, his feelings began in selfish pride, and +ended in slavish fear; their amusement is natural and innocent; +his was unnatural, cruel, and destructive, and therefore +more unworthy of a rational being. <em>Better is a poor and wise +child than a foolish king that will not be admonished.</em></p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>A female came from the cottage. Mr. Fax recognised Mrs. +Desmond. He was surprised at the change in her appearance. +Health and content animated her countenance. The simple +neatness of her dress derived an appearance of elegance from +its interesting wearer; contrary to the fashionable process, in +which dress neither neat nor simple, but a heterogeneous mixture +of all the fripperies of Europe, gives what the world calls +elegance, where less partial nature has denied it. There are, +in this respect, two classes of human beings: Nature makes +the first herself, for the beauty of her own creation; her +journeymen cut out the second for tailors and mantua-makers +to finish. The first, when apparelled, may be called dressed +people—the second, peopled dresses; the first bear the same +relation to their clothes as an oak bears to its foliage—the +second, the same as a wig-block bears to a wig; the first may +be compared to cocoa-nuts, in which the kernel is more valuable +than the shell—the second, to some varieties of the <em>Testaceous +Mollusca</em>, where a shell of infinite value covers a stupid +fish that is good for nothing.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mrs. Desmond recognised Mr. Fax. ‘O sir!’ said she, +‘I rejoice to see you.’—‘And I rejoice,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘to see +you as you now are; Fortune has befriended you.’—‘You +rendered us great service, sir, in our wretched condition; but +the benefit, of course, was transient. With the next quarter-day +Mr. Litigate, our landlord, resumed his persecutions; and +we should have been turned out of our wretched dwelling to +perish in the roads, had not some happy incident made Miss +Melincourt acquainted with our situation. To know what it +was, and to make it what it is, were the same thing to her. So +suddenly, when the extremity of evil was impending over us, +to be placed in this little Paradise in competence—nay, to our +simple habits, in affluence, and in such a manner, as if we were +bestowing, not receiving favours——O sir, there cannot be +two Miss Melincourts! But will you not walk in and take some +refreshment?—we can offer you refreshment now. My husband +is absent at present, but he will very soon return.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>While she was speaking he arrived. Mr. Fax congratulated +him. At his earnest solicitation they entered the cottage, and +were delighted with the beautiful neatness that predominated +in every part of it. The three children ran in to see the +strangers. Mr. Forester took up the little girl, Mr. Fax a boy, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>and Sir Oran Haut-ton another. The latter took alarm at the +physiognomy of his new friend, and cried and kicked, and +struggled for release; but Sir Oran, producing a flute from his +pocket, struck up a lively air, which reconciled the child, who +then sat very quietly on his knee.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Some refreshment was placed before them, and Sir Oran +testified, by a copious draught, that he found much virtue in +home-brewed ale.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘There is a farm attached to this cottage,’ said Mr. Desmond; +‘and Miss Melincourt, by having placed me in it, +enabled me to maintain my family in comfort and independence, +and to educate them in a free, healthy, and natural +occupation. I have ever thought agriculture the noblest of +human pursuits; to the theory and practice of it I now devote +my whole attention, and I am not without hopes that the +improvement of this part of my benefactress’s estate will justify +her generous confidence in a friendless stranger; but what can +repay her benevolence?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I will answer for her,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘though she is +as yet personally unknown to me, that she loves benevolence +for its own sake, and is satisfied with its consummation.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>After a short conversation, and a promise soon to revisit the +now happy family, Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran Haut-ton +resumed their walk. Mr. Forester, at parting, put, unobserved, +into the hand of the little boy, a folded paper, telling +him to give it to his father. It was a leaf which he had torn +from his pocket-book; he had enclosed in it a bank-note, and +had written on it with a pencil, ‘Do not refuse to a stranger +the happiness of reflecting that he has, however tardily and +slightly, co-operated with Miss Melincourt in a work of justice.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XV<br> <span class='c013'>THE LIBRARY</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran Haut-ton arrived at +Melincourt Castle. They were shown into a parlour, where +they were left alone a few minutes; when Mr. Hippy made +his appearance, and recognising Sir Oran, shook hands with +him very cordially. Mr. Forester produced the letter he had +received from Mr. Ratstail, which Mr. Hippy having read, +vented a string of invectives against the impudent rascal, and +explained the mystery of the adventure, though he seemed to +think it strange that Sir Oran could not have explained it +himself. Mr. Forester shook his head significantly; and Mr. +Hippy, affecting to understand the gesture, exclaimed, ‘Ah! +poor gentleman!’ He then invited them to stay to dinner. +‘I won’t be refused,’ said he; ‘I am lord and master of this +castle at present, and here you shall stay till to-morrow. +Anthy will be delighted to see her friend here’ (bowing to Sir +Oran, who returned it with great politeness), ‘and we will hold +a council of war, how to deal with this pair of puppies, +Lawrence Litigate, Esquire, and Richard Ratstail, Solicitor. +I have several visitors here already: lords, baronets, and +squires, all Corydons, sighing for Anthy; but it seems <em>Love’s +Labour Lost</em> with all of them. However, love and wine, you +know! Anthy won’t give them the first, so I drench them +with the second: there will be more bottles than hearts cracked +in the business, for all Anthy’s beauty. <em>Men die and worms +eat them</em>, as usual, <em>but not for love</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester inquired for Sir Telegraph Paxarett. ‘An +excellent fellow after dinner!’ exclaimed Mr. Hippy. ‘I +never see him in the morning; nor any one else, but my +rascal, Harry Fell, and now and then Harry Killquick. The +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>moment breakfast is over, one goes one way, and another +another. Anthy locks herself up in the library.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Locks herself up in the library!’ said Mr. Fax: ‘a young +lady, a beauty, and an heiress, in the nineteenth century, think +of cultivating her understanding!’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Strange, but true,’ said Mr. Hippy; ‘and here am I, a +poor invalid, left alone all the morning to prowl about the +castle like a ghost; that is, when I am well enough to move, +which is not always the case. But the library is opened at +four, and the party assembles there before dinner; and as it +is now about the time, come with me, and I will introduce +you.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>They followed Mr. Hippy to the library, where they found +Anthelia alone.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Anthy,’ said Mr. Hippy, after the forms of introduction, +‘do you know you are accused of laying waste a pine-grove, +and carrying it off by cartloads, with force and arms?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia read Mr. Ratstail’s letter. ‘This is a very strange +piece of folly,’ she said; ‘I hope it will not be a mischievous +one.’ She then renewed the expressions of her gratitude to +Sir Oran, and bade him welcome to Melincourt. Sir Oran +bowed in silence.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Folly and mischief,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘are very nearly allied; +and nowhere more conspicuously than in the forms of the law.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You have an admirable library, Miss Melincourt: +and I judge from the great number of Italian books, +you are justly partial to the poets of that exquisite language. +The apartment itself seems singularly adapted to the genius +of their poetry, which combines the magnificent simplicity of +ancient Greece with the mysterious grandeur of the feudal +ages. Those windows of stained glass would recall to an +enthusiastic mind the attendant spirit of Tasso; and the waving +of the cedars beyond, when the wind makes music in their +boughs, with the birds singing in their shades and the softened +dash of the torrent from the dingle below, might with little aid +from fancy be modulated into that exquisite combination of +melody which flowed from the enchanted wood at the entrance +of Rinaldo, and which Tasso has painted with a degree of +harmony not less magical than the music he describes. Italian +poetry is all fairyland: I know not any description of literature +so congenial to the tenderness and delicacy of the female mind, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>which, however opposite may be the tendency of modern +education, Nature has most pre-eminently adapted to be ‘a +mansion for all lovely forms: a dwelling-place for all sweet +sounds and harmonies.’<a id='r36'></a><a href='#f36' class='c012'><sup>[36]</sup></a> Of these, Italian poetry is a most +inexhaustible fountain; and for that reason I could wish it to +be generally acknowledged a point of the very first importance +in female education.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> You have a better opinion of the understandings +of women, sir, than the generality of your lordly sex seems +disposed to entertain.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> The conduct of men, in this respect, is +much like that of a gardener who should plant a plot of ground +with merely ornamental flowers, and then pass sentence on the +soil for not bearing substantial fruit. If women are treated +only as pretty dolls, and dressed in all the fripperies of +irrational education; if the vanity of personal adornment and +superficial accomplishments be made from their very earliest +years to suppress all mental aspirations, and to supersede all +thoughts of intellectual beauty, is it to be inferred that they +are incapable of better things? But such is the usual logic of +tyranny, which first places its extinguisher on the flame, and +then argues that it cannot burn.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Your remark is not totally just: for though +custom, how justly I will not say, banishes women from the +fields of classical literature, yet the study of Italian poetry, of +which you think so highly, is very much encouraged among +them.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You should rather say it is not discouraged. +They are permitted to know it: but in very few instances is +the permission accompanied by any practical aid. The only +points practically enforced in female education are sound, +colour, and form,—music, dress, drawing, and dancing. The +mind is left to take care of itself.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> And has as much chance of doing so as a horse +in a pound, circumscribed in the narrowest limits, and studiously +deprived of nourishment.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> The simile is, I fear, too just. To think is one +of the most unpardonable errors a woman can commit in the +eyes of society. In our sex a taste for intellectual pleasures +is almost equivalent to taking the veil; and though not +<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>absolutely a vow of perpetual celibacy, it has almost always +the same practical tendency. In that universal system of +superficial education which so studiously depresses the mind +of women, a female who aspires to mental improvement will +scarcely find in her own sex a congenial associate; and the +other will regard her as an intruder on its prescriptive authority, +its legitimate and divine right over the dominion of thought +and reason: and the general consequence is, that she remains +insulated between both, in more than cloistered loneliness. +Even in its effect on herself, the ideal beauty which she studies +will make her fastidious, too fastidious, perhaps, to the world +of realities, and deprive her of the happiness that might be +her portion, by fixing her imagination on chimaeras of unattainable +excellence.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I can answer for men, Miss Melincourt, +that there are some, many I hope, who can appreciate justly +that most heavenly of earthly things, an enlightened female +mind; whatever may be thought by the pedantry that envies, +the foppery that fears, the folly that ridicules, or the wilful +blindness that will not see its loveliness. I am afraid your +last observation approaches most nearly to the truth, and that +it is owing more to their own fastidiousness than to the want +of friends and admirers, that intelligent women are so often +alone in the world. But were it otherwise, the objection will +not apply to Italian poetry, a field of luxuriant beauty, from +which women are not interdicted even by the most intolerant +prejudice of masculine usurpation.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> They are not interdicted, certainly; but they +are seldom encouraged to enter it. Perhaps it is feared, that, +having gone thus far, they might be tempted to go farther: +that the friend of Tasso might aspire to the acquaintance of +Virgil, or even to an introduction to Homer and Sophocles.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> And why should she not? Far from +desiring to suppress such a noble ambition, how delightful +should I think the task of conducting the lovely aspirant +through the treasures of Grecian genius!—to wander hand in hand +with such a companion among the valleys and fountains +of Ida, and by the banks of the eddying Scamander;<a id='r37'></a><a href='#f37' class='c012'><sup>[37]</sup></a> through +the island of Calypso, and the gardens of Alcinous;<a id='r38'></a><a href='#f38' class='c012'><sup>[38]</sup></a> to the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>rocks of the Scythian desert;<a id='r39'></a><a href='#f39' class='c012'><sup>[39]</sup></a> to the caverned shores of the +solitary Lemnos;<a id='r40'></a><a href='#f40' class='c012'><sup>[40]</sup></a> and to the fatal sands of Troezene<a id='r41'></a><a href='#f41' class='c012'><sup>[41]</sup></a> to +kindle in such scenes the enthusiasm of such a mind, and to +see the eyes of love and beauty beaming with their reflected +inspiration! Miserably perverted, indeed, must be the selfishness +of him who, having such happiness in his power, would,</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Like the base Indian, throw a pearl away,</div> + <div class='line'>Richer than all his tribe.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> My friend’s enthusiasm, Miss Melincourt, +usually runs away with him when any allusion is made to +ancient Greece.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester had spoken with ardour and animation; for +the scenes of which he spoke rose upon his mind and depicted +in the incomparable poetry to which he had alluded; the +figurative idea of wandering among them with a young and +beautiful female aspirant assumed for a moment a visionary +reality; and when he subsequently reflected on it it appeared +to him very singular that the female figure in the mental +picture had assumed the form and features of Anthelia Melincourt.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia, too, saw in the animated countenance of Sylvan +Forester traces of more than common feeling, generosity, and +intelligence: his imaginary wanderings through the classic +scenes of antiquity assumed in her congenial mind the +brightest colours of intellectual beauty; and she could not +help thinking that if he were what he appeared, such wanderings, +with such a guide, would not be the most unenviable of +earthly destinies.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The other guests dropped in by ones and twos. Sir +Telegraph was agreeably surprised to see Mr. Forester. ‘By +the bye,’ said he, ‘have you heard that a general election is to +take place immediately?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I have,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘and was thinking of putting +you and your barouche in requisition very shortly.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘As soon as you please,’ said Sir Telegraph.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney took Sir Telegraph aside, +to make inquiry concerning the new-comers.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> Who is that very bright-eyed, +wild-looking young man?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> That is my old acquaintance and +fellow-collegian, Sylvan Forester, now of Redrose Abbey, in +this county.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> Is he respectable?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> He has a good estate, if you +mean that.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> To be sure I mean that. And +who is that tall thin saturnine personage?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> I know nothing of him but that +his name is Fax, and that he is now on a visit to Mr. Forester +at Redrose Abbey.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> And who is that <em>very</em> tall and +remarkably ugly gentleman?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> That is Sir Oran Haut-ton, +Baronet; to which designation you may shortly add M.P. for +the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney.</em> A Baronet! and M.P.! Well, +now I look at him again, I certainly do not think him so very +plain: he has a very fashionable air. Haut-ton! French +extraction, no doubt. And now I think of it, there is something +very French in his physiognomy.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Dinner was announced, and the party adjourned to the +dining-room. Mr. Forester offered his hand to Anthelia; and +Sir Oran Haut-ton, following the example, presented his to the +Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney.<a id='r42'></a><a href='#f42' class='c012'><sup>[42]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVI<br> <span class='c013'>THE SYMPOSIUM</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The dinner passed off with great harmony. The ladies withdrew. +The bottle revolved with celerity, under the presidency +of Mr. Hippy, and the vice-presidency of Sir Telegraph +Paxarett. The Reverend Mr. Portpipe, who was that day of +the party, pronounced an eulogium on the wine, which was +echoed by the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, Mr. O’Scarum, +Lord Anophel Achthar, Mr. Feathernest, and Mr. Derrydown. +Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax showed no disposition to destroy +the unanimity of opinion on this interesting subject. Sir Oran +Haut-ton maintained a grave and dignified silence, but demonstrated +by his practice that his taste was orthodox. Mr. +O’Scarum sat between Sir Oran and the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, +and kept a sharp look-out on both sides of him; but did +not, during the whole course of the sitting, detect either of his +supporters in the heinous fact of a heeltap.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Hippy.</em> Dr. Killquick may say what he pleases</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Of mithridate, cordials, and elixirs;</div> + <div class='line'>But from my youth this was my only physic.—</div> + <div class='line'>Here’s a colour! what lady’s cheek comes near it?</div> + <div class='line'>It sparkles, hangs out diamonds! O my sweet heart!</div> + <div class='line'>Mistress of merry hearts! they are not worth thy favours</div> + <div class='line'>Who number thy moist kisses in these crystals!<a id='r43'></a><a href='#f43' class='c012'><sup>[43]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Portpipe.</em> An excellent text!—sound doctrine, +plain and practical. When I open the bottle, I shut the book +of Numbers. There are two reasons for drinking: one is, +when you are thirsty, to cure it; the other, when you are not +thirsty, to prevent it. The first is obvious, mechanical, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>plebeian; the second is most refined, abstract, prospicient, and +canonical. I drink by anticipation of thirst that may be. +Prevention is better than cure. Wine is the elixir of life. +‘The soul,’ says St. Augustine, ‘cannot live in drought.’<a id='r44'></a><a href='#f44' class='c012'><sup>[44]</sup></a> +What is death? Dust and ashes. There is nothing so dry. +What is life? Spirit. What is Spirit? Wine.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> And whisky.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Portpipe.</em> Whisky is hepatic, phlogistic, and +exanthematous. Wine is the hierarchical and archiepiscopal +fluid. Bacchus is said to have conquered the East, and to +have returned loaded with its spoils. ‘Marry how? tropically.’ +The conquests of Bacchus are the victories of imagination, +which, sublimated by wine, puts to rout care, fear, and poverty, +and revels in the treasures of Utopia.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> The juice of the grape is the liquid +quintessence of concentrated sunbeams. Man is an exotic, in +this northern climate, and must be nourished like a hot-house +plant, by the perpetual adhibition of artificial heat.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> You were not always so fond of +wine, Feathernest?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> Oh, my lord! no allusion, I beseech +you, to my youthful errors. Demosthenes, being asked what +wine he liked best, answered, that which he drank at the +expense of others.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Portpipe.</em> Demosthenes was right. His +circumstance, or qualification, is an accompaniment of better +relish than a devilled biscuit or an anchovy toast.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> In former days, my lord, I had no experience +that way; therefore I drank water against my will.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> And wrote Odes upon it, to Truth +and Liberty.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> ‘Ah, no more of that, an’ thou lovest +me.’ Now that I can get it for a song, I take my pipe of +wine a year: and what is the effect? Not cold phlegmatic +lamentations over the sufferings of the poor, but high-flown, +jovial, reeling dithyrambics ‘to all the crowned heads in +Europe.’ I had then a vague notion that all was wrong. +Persuasion has since appeared to me in a tangible shape, and +convinced me that all is right, especially at court. Then I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>saw darkly through a glass—of water. Now I see clearly +through a glass of wine.</p> + +<div id='i_123' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_123.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Portpipe</em> (<em>looking through his glass at the +light</em>). An infallible telescope!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I am unfortunately one of those, sir, who +very much admired your Odes to Truth and Liberty, and read +your royal lyrics with very different sensations.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> I presume, sir, every man has a right to +change his opinions.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> From disinterested conviction undoubtedly: +but when it is obviously from mercenary motives, the apostasy +of a public man is a public calamity. It is not his single loss +to the cause he supported, that is alone to be lamented: the +deep shade of mistrust which his conduct throws on that of all +others who embark in the same career tends to destroy all +sympathy with the enthusiasm of genius, all admiration for the +intrepidity of truth, all belief in the sincerity of zeal for public +liberty: if their advocates drop one by one into the vortex of +courtly patronage, every new one that arises will be more and +more regarded as a hollow-hearted hypocrite, a false and venal +angler for pension and place; for there is in these cases no +criterion by which the world can distinguish the baying of a +noble dog that will defend his trust till death, from the yelping +of a political cur, that only infests the heels of power to be +silenced with the offals of corruption.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> Cursed severe, Feathernest, ‘pon +honour.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> <em>The gradual falling off of prudent men from +unprofitable virtues is perhaps too common an occurrence to +deserve much notice, or justify much reprobation.</em><a id='r45'></a><a href='#f45' class='c012'><sup>[45]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> If it were not common, it would not need +reprobation. Vices of unfrequent occurrence stand sufficiently +self-exposed in the insulation of their own deformity. The +vices that call for the scourge of satire are those which +pervade the whole frame of society, and which, under some +specious pretence of private duty, or the sanction of custom +and precedent, are almost permitted to assume the semblance +of virtue, or at least to pass unstigmatised in the crowd of +congenial transgressions.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> You may say what you please, sir. I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>am accustomed to this language, and am quite callous to it, I +assure you. I am in good odour at court, sir; and you know, +<i><span lang="la">Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum</span></i>. While I was +out, sir, I made a great noise till I was let in. There was a +pack of us, sir, to keep up your canine metaphor: two or three +others got in at the same time: we knew very well that those +who were shut out would raise a hue and cry after us: it was +perfectly natural: we should have done the same in their +place: mere envy and malice, nothing more. Let them bark +on: when they are either wanted or troublesome, they will be +let in, in their turn. If there be any man who prefers a crust +and water to venison and sack, I am not of his mind. It is +pretty and politic to make a virtue of necessity: but when +there is an end of the necessity I am very willing that there +should be an end of the virtue. <em>If you could live on roots</em>, said +Diogenes to Aristippus, <em>you would have nothing to do with +kings</em>.—<em>If you could live on kings</em>, replied Aristippus, <em>you +would have nothing to do with roots</em>.—Every man for himself, +sir, and God for us all.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Derrydown.</em> The truth of things on this subject is +contained in the following stave:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>This world is a well-furnish’d table,</div> + <div class='line'>Where guests are promiscuously set:</div> + <div class='line'>We all fare as well as we’re able,</div> + <div class='line'>And scramble for what we can get.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Buz the bottle.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> Over, by Jupiter!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> No.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> Yes.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Portpipe.</em> No. The baronet has a most +mathematical eye. Buzzed to a drop!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Fortunately, sir, for the hopes of mankind, +every man does not bring his honour and conscience to market, +though I admit the majority do: there are some who dare be +honest in the worst of times.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> Perhaps, sir, you are one of those who +can <em>afford to have a conscience</em>, and are therefore under no +necessity of bringing it to market. If so, you should ‘give God +thanks, and make no boast of it.’ It is a great luxury certainly, +and well worth keeping, <i><span lang="la">caeteris paribus</span></i>. But it is neither +<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>meat, clothes, nor fire. It becomes a good coat well; but it +will never make one. Poets are verbal musicians, and, like +other musicians, they have a right to sing and play, where they +can be best paid for their music.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> There could be no objection to that, if they +would be content to announce themselves as dealers and +chapmen: but the poetical character is too frequently a combination +of the most arrogant and exclusive assumption of +freedom and independence in theory, with the most abject and +unqualified venality, servility, and sycophancy in practice.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> It is <em>as notorious</em>, sir, <em>as the sun at noonday</em>, +that theory and practice are never expected to coincide. +If a West Indian planter declaims against the Algerines, do +you expect him to lose any favourable opportunity of increasing +the number of his own slaves? If an invaded country cries +out against spoliation, do you suppose, if the tables were turned, +it would show its weaker neighbours the forbearance it required? +If an Opposition orator clamours for a reform in Parliament, +does any one dream that, if he gets into office, he will ever say +another word about it? If one of your reverend friends should +display his touching eloquence on the subject of temperance, +would you therefore have the barbarity to curtail him of one +drop of his three bottles? Truth and liberty, sir, are pretty +words, very pretty words—a few years ago they were the gods +of the day—they superseded in poetry the agency of mythology +and magic: they were the only passports into the poetical +market: I acted accordingly the part of a prudent man: I took +my station, became my own crier, and vociferated Truth and +Liberty, till the noise I made brought people about me, to bid +for me: and to the highest bidder I knocked myself down, at +less than I am worth certainly; but when an article is not +likely to keep, it is by no means prudent to postpone the sale.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>What makes all doctrines plain and clear?</div> + <div class='line'>About two hundred pounds a year.—</div> + <div class='line'>And that which was proved true before,</div> + <div class='line'>Prove false again?—Two hundred more.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Hippy.</em> A dry discussion! Pass the bottle, and +moisten it.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> Here’s half of us fast asleep. Let us +make a little noise to wake us. A glee now: I’ll be one: +who’ll join?</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> I.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Portpipe.</em> And I.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Hippy.</em> Strike up then. Silence!</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>Glee</span>—THE GHOSTS</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>In life three ghostly friars were we,</div> + <div class='line'>And now three friarly ghosts we be.</div> + <div class='line'>Around our shadowy table placed,</div> + <div class='line'>The spectral bowl before us floats:</div> + <div class='line'>With wine that none but ghosts can taste</div> + <div class='line'>We wash our unsubstantial throats.</div> + <div class='line'>Three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts are we:</div> + <div class='line'>Let the ocean be Port, and we’ll think it good sport</div> + <div class='line'>To be laid in that Red Sea.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>With songs that jovial spectres chaunt,</div> + <div class='line'>Our old refectory still we haunt.</div> + <div class='line'>The traveller hears our midnight mirth:</div> + <div class='line'>‘O list!’ he cries, ‘the haunted choir!</div> + <div class='line'>The merriest ghost that walks the earth</div> + <div class='line'>Is sure the ghost of a ghostly friar.’</div> + <div class='line'>Three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts are we:</div> + <div class='line'>Let the ocean be Port, and we’ll think it good sport</div> + <div class='line'>To be laid in that Red Sea.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Hippy.</em> Bravo! I should like to have my house so +haunted. The deuce is in it, if three such ghosts would not +keep the blue devils at bay. Come, we’ll lay them in a bumper +of claret.</p> + +<p class='c007'>(<em>Sir Oran Haut-ton took his flute from his pocket, and +played over the air of the glee. The company was at first +extremely surprised, and then joined in applauding his performance. +Sir Oran bowed acknowledgment, and returned his flute +to his pocket.</em>)</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> It is, perhaps, happy for yourself, Mr. +Feathernest, that you can treat with so much levity a subject +that fills me with the deepest grief. Man under the influence +of civilisation has fearfully diminished in size and deteriorated +in strength. The intellectual are confessedly nourished at the +expense of the physical faculties. Air, the great source and +fountain of health and life, can scarcely find access to civilised +<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>man, muffled as he is in clothes, pent in houses, smoke-dried +in cities, half-roasted by artificial fire, and parboiled in the +hydrogen of crowded apartments. Diseases multiply upon him +in compound proportion. Even if the prosperous among us +enjoy some comforts unknown to the natural man, yet what is +the poverty of the savage, compared with that of the lowest +classes of civilised nations? The specious aspect of luxury and +abundance in one is counterbalanced by the abject penury and +circumscription of hundreds. Commercial prosperity is a golden +surface, but all beneath it is rags and wretchedness. It is not +in the splendid bustle of our principal streets—in the villas and +mansions that sprinkle our valleys—for those who enjoy these +things (even if they did enjoy them—even if they had health and +happiness—and the rich have seldom either) bear but a small proportion +to the whole population:—but it is in the mud hovel of +the labourer—in the cellar of the artisan—in our crowded prisons—our +swarming hospitals—our overcharged workhouses—in +those narrow districts of our overgrown cities which the affluent +never see—where thousands and thousands of families are compressed +within limits not sufficient for the pleasure-ground of a +simple squire,—that we must study the true mechanism of +political society. When the philosopher turns away in despair +from this dreadful accumulation of moral and physical evil, where +is he to look for consolation, if not in the progress of science, in +the enlargement of mind, in the diffusion of philosophical truth? +But if truth is a chimaera—if virtue is a name—if science is not +the handmaid of moral improvement, but the obsequious minister +of recondite luxury, the specious appendage of vanity and power—then +indeed, <em>that man has fallen never to rise again</em>,<a id='r46'></a><a href='#f46' class='c012'><sup>[46]</sup></a> is as +much the cry of nature as the dream of superstition.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Portpipe.</em> Man has fallen, certainly, by the +fruit of the tree of knowledge: which shows that human +learning is vanity and a great evil, and therefore very properly +discountenanced by all bishops, priests, and deacons.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> The picture which you have drawn of poverty +is not very tempting; and you must acknowledge that it is +most galling to the most refined feelings. You must not, +therefore, wonder that it is peculiarly obnoxious to the practical +notions of poets. If the radiance of gold and silver gleam not +<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>through the foliage of the Pierian laurel, there is something to +be said in their excuse if they carry their chaplet to those who +will gild its leaves; and in that case they will find their best +customers and patrons among those who are ambitious of +acquiring panegyric by a more compendious method than the +troublesome practice of the virtues that deserve it.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You have quoted Juvenal, but you should +have completed the sentence: ‘If you see no glimpse of coin +in the Pierian shade, you will prefer the name and occupation +of a barber or an auctioneer.’<a id='r47'></a><a href='#f47' class='c012'><sup>[47]</sup></a> This is most just: if the +pursuits of literature, conscientiously conducted, condemn their +votary to famine, let him live by more humble, but at least by +honest, and therefore honourable occupations: he may still +devote his leisure to his favourite pursuits. If he produce but +a single volume consecrated to moral truth, its effect must be +good as far as it goes; but if he purchase leisure and luxury +by the prostitution of talent to the cause of superstition and +tyranny, every new exertion of his powers is a new outrage to +reason and virtue, and in precise proportion to those powers is +he a curse to his country and a traitor to mankind.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> A barber, sir!—a man of genius turn +barber!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. O’Scarum.</em> Troth, sir, and I think it is better he should +be in the suds himself, than help to bring his country into that +situation.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I can perceive, sir, in your exclamation the +principle that has caused so enormous a superabundance in the +number of bad books over that of good ones. The objects of +the majority of men of talent seem to be exclusively two: the +first, to convince the world of their transcendent abilities; the +second, to convert that conviction into a source of the greatest +possible pecuniary benefit to themselves. But there is no +class of men more resolutely indifferent to the moral tendency +of the means by which their ends are accomplished. Yet this +is the most extensively pernicious of all modes of dishonesty; +for that of a private man can only injure the pockets of a few +individuals (a great evil, certainly, but light in comparison); +while that of a public writer, who has previously taught the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>multitude to respect his talents, perverts what is much more +valuable, the mental progress of thousands; misleading, on the +one hand, the shallow believers in his sincerity; and on the +other, stigmatising the whole literary character in the opinions +of all who see through the veil of his venality.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> All this is no reason, sir, why a man of +genius should condescend to be a barber.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> He condescends much more in being a +sycophant. The poorest barber in the poorest borough in +England, who will not sell his vote, is a much more honourable +character in the estimate of moral comparison than the most +self-satisfied dealer in courtly poetry, whose well-paid eulogiums +of licentiousness and corruption were ever re-echoed by the ‘most +sweet voices’ of hireling gazetteers and pensioned reviewers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The summons to tea and coffee put a stop to the conversation.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVII<br> <span class='c013'>MUSIC AND DISCORD</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The evenings were beginning to give symptoms of winter, and +a large fire was blazing in the library. Mr. Forester took the +opportunity of stigmatising the use of sugar, and had the +pleasure of observing that the practice of Anthelia in this +respect was the same as his own. He mentioned his intention +of giving an anti-saccharine festival at Redrose Abbey, and +invited all the party at Melincourt to attend it. He observed +that his aunt, Miss Evergreen, who would be there at the time, +would send an invitation in due form to the ladies, to remove +all scruples on the score of propriety; and added, that if he +could hope for the attendance of half as much moral feeling as +he was sure there would be of beauty and fashion, he should +be satisfied that a great step would be made towards accomplishing +the object of the Anti-saccharine Society.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub felt extremely indignant at +Mr. Forester’s notion ‘of every real enemy to slavery being +bound by the strictest moral duty to practical abstinence from +the luxury which slavery acquires’; but when he found that +the notion was to be developed in the shape of a festival, he +determined to suspend his judgment till he had digested the +solid arguments that were to be brought forward on the +occasion.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. O’Scarum was, as usual, very clamorous for music, and +was seconded by the unanimous wish of the company, with +which Anthelia readily complied, and sang as follows:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in8'>THE FLOWER OF LOVE</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>’Tis said the rose is Love’s own flower,</div> + <div class='line'>Its blush so bright, its thorns so many;</div> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>And winter on its bloom has power,</div> + <div class='line'>But has not on its sweetness any.</div> + <div class='line'>For though young Love’s ethereal rose</div> + <div class='line'>Will droop on Age’s wintry bosom,</div> + <div class='line'>Yet still its faded leaves disclose</div> + <div class='line'>The fragrance of their earliest blossom.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>But ah! the fragrance lingering there</div> + <div class='line'>Is like the sweets that mournful duty</div> + <div class='line'>Bestows with sadly-soothing care,</div> + <div class='line'>To deck the grave of bloom and beauty.</div> + <div class='line'>For when its leaves are shrunk and dry,</div> + <div class='line'>Its blush extinct, to kindle never,</div> + <div class='line'>That fragrance is but Memory’s sigh,</div> + <div class='line'>That breathes of pleasures past for ever.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Why did not Love the amaranth choose,</div> + <div class='line'>That bears no thorns, and cannot perish?</div> + <div class='line'>Alas! no sweets its flowers diffuse,</div> + <div class='line'>And only sweets Love’s life can cherish.</div> + <div class='line'>But be the rose and amaranth twined,</div> + <div class='line'>And Love, their mingled powers assuming,</div> + <div class='line'>Shall round his brows a chaplet bind,</div> + <div class='line'>For ever sweet, for ever blooming.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>‘I am afraid,’ said Mr. Derrydown, ‘the flower of modern +love is neither the rose nor the amaranth, but the <em>chrysanthemum</em>, +or <em>gold-flower</em>. If Miss Danaretta and Mr. O’Scarum will +accompany me, we will sing a little harmonised ballad, something +in point, and rather more conformable to the truth of +things.’ Mr. O’Scarum and Miss Danaretta consented, and +they accordingly sang the following:—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Ballad Terzetto</span>—THE LADY, THE KNIGHT, AND THE FRIAR</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in14'>THE LADY</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in2'>O cavalier! what dost thou here,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Thy tuneful vigils keeping;</div> + <div class='line in2'>While the northern star looks cold from far,</div> + <div class='line in2'>And half the world is sleeping?</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in14 c003'>THE KNIGHT</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in2'>O lady! here, for seven long year,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Have I been nightly sighing,</div> + <div class='line in2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>Without the hope of a single tear</div> + <div class='line in2'>To pity me were I dying.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in14 c003'>THE LADY</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in2'>Should I take thee to have and to hold,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Who hast nor lands nor money?</div> + <div class='line in2'>Alas! ’tis only in flowers of gold</div> + <div class='line in2'>That married bees find honey.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in14 c003'>THE KNIGHT</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in2'>O lady fair! to my constant prayer</div> + <div class='line in2'>Fate proves at last propitious:</div> + <div class='line in2'>And bags of gold in my hand I bear,</div> + <div class='line in2'>And parchment scrolls delicious.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in14 c003'>THE LADY</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in2'>My maid the door shall open throw,</div> + <div class='line in2'>For we too long have tarried:</div> + <div class='line in2'>The friar keeps watch in the cellar below,</div> + <div class='line in2'>And we will at once be married.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in14 c003'>THE FRIAR</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in2'>My children! great is Fortune’s power;</div> + <div class='line in2'>And plain this truth appears,</div> + <div class='line in2'>That gold thrives more in a single hour</div> + <div class='line in2'>Than love in seven long years.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>During this terzetto the Reverend Mr. Portpipe fell asleep, +and accompanied the performance with rather a deeper bass +than was generally deemed harmonious.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Telegraph Paxarett took Mr. Forester aside, to consult +him on the subject of the journey to Onevote.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I have asked,’ said he, ‘my aunt and cousin, Mrs. and +Miss Pinmoney, to join the party, and have requested them to +exert their influence with Miss Melincourt to induce her to +accompany them.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘That would make it a delightful expedition, indeed,’ said +Mr. Forester, ‘if Miss Melincourt could be prevailed on to +comply.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘<i><span lang="la">Nil desperandum</span></i>,’ said Sir Telegraph.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney drew Anthelia into a +corner, and developed all her eloquence in enforcing the proposition. +Miss Danaretta joined in it with great earnestness; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>and they kept up the fire of their importunity till they extorted +from Anthelia a promise that she would consider of it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester took down a splendid edition of Tasso, printed +by Bodoni at Parma, and found it ornamented with Anthelia’s +drawings. In the magic of her pencil the wild and wonderful +scenes of Tasso seemed to live under his eyes: he could not +forbear expressing to her the delight he experienced from these +new proofs of her sensibility and genius, and entered into a +conversation with her concerning her favourite poet, in which +the congeniality of their tastes and feelings became more and +more manifest to each other.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Feathernest and Mr. Derrydown got into a hot dispute +over Chapman’s <cite>Homer</cite> and Jeremy Taylor’s <cite>Holy Living</cite>: +Mr. Derrydown maintaining that the ballad metre which +Chapman had so judiciously chosen rendered his volume the +most divine poem in the world; Mr. Feathernest asserting +that Chapman’s verses were mere doggerel: which vile aspersion +Mr. Derrydown revenged by depreciating Mr. Feathernest’s +favourite Jeremy. Mr. Feathernest said he could +expect no better judgment from a man who was mad enough +to prefer <cite>Chevy Chase</cite> to <cite>Paradise Lost</cite>; and Mr. Derrydown +retorted, that it was idle to expect either taste or justice from +one who had thought fit to unite in himself two characters so +anomalous as those of a poet and a critic, in which duplex +capacity he had first deluged the world with torrents of +execrable verses, and then written anonymous criticisms to +prove them divine. ‘Do you think, sir,’ he continued, ‘that +it is possible for the same man to be both Homer and Aristotle? +No, sir; but it is very possible to be both Dennis and Colley +Cibber, as in the melancholy example before me.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>At this all the blood of the <em>genus irritabile</em> boiled in Mr. +Feathernest’s veins, and uplifting the ponderous folio, he +seemed inclined to bury his antagonist under Jeremy’s <em>weight +of words</em>, by applying them in a <em>tangible shape</em>; but wisely +recollecting that this was not the time and place</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>To prove his doctrine orthodox</div> + <div class='line'>By apostolic blows and knocks,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>he contented himself with a point-blank denial of the charge +that he wrote critiques on his own works, protesting that all +the articles on his poems were written either by his friend Mr. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>Mystic, of Cimmerian Lodge, or by Mr. Vamp, the amiable +editor of the <cite>Legitimate Review</cite>. ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Derrydown, +‘on the “<em>Tickle me, Mr. Hayley</em>” principle; by which a +miserable cabal of doggerel rhymesters and worn-out paragraph-mongers +of bankrupt gazettes ring the eternal changes of +panegyric on each other, and on everything else that is either +rich enough to buy their praise, or vile enough to deserve it: +like a gang in a country steeple, paid for being a public +nuisance, and maintaining that noise is melody.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Feathernest on this became perfectly outrageous; and +waving Jeremy Taylor in the air, exclaimed, ‘<em>Oh that mine enemy +had written a book!</em> Horrible should be the vengeance of the +<cite>Legitimate Review</cite>!’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Hippy now deemed it expedient to interpose for the +restoration of order, and entreated Anthelia to throw in a little +musical harmony as a sedative to the ebullitions of a poetical +discord. At the sound of the harp the antagonists turned +away, the one flourishing his Chapman and the other his +Jeremy with looks of lofty defiance.</p> + +<div id='i_138' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span> +<img src='images/i_138.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>He managed so skilfully that his Lordship became himself the proposer of the scheme.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVIII<br> <span class='c013'>THE STRATAGEM</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, who had acquired a great +proficiency in the art of hearing without seeming to listen, had +overheard Mrs. Pinmoney’s request to Anthelia; and, notwithstanding +the young lady’s hesitation, he very much feared she +would ultimately comply. He had seen, much against his will, +a great congeniality in feelings and opinions between her and +Mr. Forester, and had noticed some unconscious external +manifestations of the interior mind on both sides, some outward +and visible signs of the inward and spiritual sentiment, which +convinced him that a more intimate acquaintance with each +other would lead them to a conclusion, which, for the reasons +we have given in the ninth chapter, he had no wish to see +established. After long and mature deliberation, he determined +to rouse Lord Anophel to a sense of his danger, and spirit him +up to an immediate <em>coup-de-main</em>. He calculated that, as the +young Lord was a spoiled child, immoderately vain, passably +foolish, and totally unused to contradiction, he should have +little difficulty in moulding him to his views. His plan was, +that Lord Anophel, with two or three confidential fellows, +should lie in ambush for Anthelia in one of her solitary rambles, +and convey her to a lonely castle of his Lordship’s on the seacoast, +with a view of keeping her in close custody, till fair +means or foul should induce her to regain her liberty in the +character of Lady Achthar. This was to be Lord Anophel’s +view of the subject; but the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub had in +the inner cave of his perceptions a very promising image of a +different result. As he would have free access to Anthelia in +her confinement, he intended to worm himself into her favour, +under the cover of friendship and sympathy, with the most +<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>ardent professions of devotion to her cause and promises of +endeavours to effect her emancipation, involving the accomplishment +of this object in a multitude of imaginary difficulties, +which it should be his professed study to vanquish. He +deemed it very probable that, by a skilful adoperation of these +means, and by moulding Lord Anophel, at the same time, +into a system of conduct as disagreeable as possible to Anthelia, +he might himself become the lord and master of the lands and +castle of Melincourt, when he would edify the country with the +example of his truly orthodox life, faring sumptuously every +day, raising the rents of his tenants, turning out all who were +in arrear, and occasionally treating the rest with discourses on +temperance and charity.</p> + +<p class='c007'>With these ideas in his head, he went in search of Lord +Anophel, and proceeding <em>pedetentim</em>, and opening the subject +<em>peirastically</em>, he managed so skilfully that his Lordship became +himself the proposer of the scheme, with which the Reverend +Mr. Grovelgrub seemed unwillingly to acquiesce.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran Haut-ton took leave of +the party at Melincourt Castle; the former having arranged with +Sir Telegraph Paxarett that he was to call for them at Redrose +Abbey in the course of three days, and reiterated his earnest hopes +that Anthelia would be persuaded to accompany Mrs. Pinmoney +and her beautiful daughter in the expedition to Onevote.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lord Anophel Achthar and the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub +also took leave, as a matter of policy, that their disappearance +at the same time with Anthelia might not excite surprise. They +pretended a pressing temporary engagement in a distant part +of the country, and carried off with them Mr. Feathernest the +poet, whom, nevertheless, they did not deem it prudent to let +into the secret of their scheme.</p> + +<div id='i_141' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_141.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>She thought there was something peculiar in his look.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The next day Anthelia, still undecided on this subject, +wandered alone to the ruined bridge, to contemplate the scene +of her former misadventure. As she ascended the hill that +bounded the valley of Melincourt, a countryman crossed her +path, and touching his hat passed on. She thought there was +something peculiar in his look, but had quite forgotten him, +when, on looking back as she descended on the other side, +she observed him making signs, as if to some one at a distance: +she could not, however, consider that they had any relation to +her. The day was clear and sunny; and when she entered +<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>the pine-grove, the gloom of its tufted foliage, with the sunbeams +chequering the dark-red soil, formed a grateful contrast +to the naked rocks and heathy mountains that lay around it, +in the full blaze of daylight. In many parts of the grove was +a luxuriant laurel underwood, glittering like silver in the partial +sunbeams that penetrated the interstices of the pines. Few +scenes in nature have a more mysterious solemnity than such +a scene as this. Anthelia paused a moment. She thought +she heard a rustling in the laurels, but all was again still. She +proceeded; the rustling was renewed. She felt alarmed, yet +she knew not why, and reproached herself for such idle and +unaccustomed apprehensions. She paused again to listen; the +soft tones of a flute sounded from a distance: these gave her +confidence, and she again proceeded. She passed by the tuft +of laurels in which she had heard the rustling. Suddenly a +mantle was thrown over her. She was wrapped in darkness, +and felt that she was forcibly seized by several persons, who +carried her rapidly along. She screamed, but the mantle was +immediately pressed on her mouth, and she was hurried onward. +After a time the party stopped: a tumult ensued: she found +herself at liberty, and threw the mantle from her head. She +was on a road at the verge of the pine-grove: a chaise-and-four +was waiting. Two men were running away in the distance: +two others, muffled and masked, were rolling on the ground, +and roaring for mercy, while Sir Oran Haut-ton was standing +over them with a stick,<a id='r48'></a><a href='#f48' class='c012'><sup>[48]</sup></a> and treating them as if he were a +thresher and they were sheaves of corn. By her side was +Mr. Forester, who, taking her hand, assured her that she was +in safety, while at the same time he endeavoured to assuage +Sir Oran’s wrath, that he might raise and unmask the fallen +foes. Sir Oran, however, proceeded in his summary administration +of natural justice till he had dispensed what was to his +notion a <i><span lang="la">quantum sufficit</span></i> of the application: then throwing his +stick aside, he caught them both up, one under each arm, and +climbing with great dexterity a high and precipitous rock, left +them perched upon its summit, bringing away their masks in +his hand, and making them a profound bow at taking leave.<a id='r49'></a><a href='#f49' class='c012'><sup>[49]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>Mr. Forester was anxious to follow them to their aerial seat, +that he might ascertain who they were, which Sir Oran’s +precipitation had put it out of his power to do; but Anthelia +begged him to return with her immediately to the Castle, +assuring him that she thought them already sufficiently +punished, and had no apprehension that they would feel +tempted again to molest her.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Oran now opened the chaise-door, and drew out the +postboys by the leg, who, at the beginning of the fray, had +concealed themselves from his fury under the seat. Mr. +Forester succeeded in rescuing them from Sir Oran, and +endeavoured to extract from them information as to their +employers: but the boys declared that they knew nothing of +them, the chaise having been ordered by a strange man to be +in waiting at that place, and the hire paid in advance.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia, as she walked homeward, leaning on Mr. Forester’s +arm, inquired to what happy accident she was indebted for the +timely intervention of himself and Sir Oran Haut-ton. Mr. +Forester informed her, that having a great wish to visit the +scene which had been the means of introducing him to her +acquaintance, he had made Sir Oran understand his desire, +and they had accordingly set out together, leaving Mr. Fax +at Redrose Abbey, deeply engaged in the solution of a problem +in political arithmetic.</p> + +<div id='i_145' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span> +<img src='images/i_145.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>He caught them both up, one under each arm.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIX<br> <span class='c013'>THE EXCURSION</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Anthelia found, from what Mr. Forester had said, that she +had excited a much greater interest in his mind than she had +previously supposed; and she did not dissemble to herself that +the interest was reciprocal. The occurrence of the morning, +by taking the feeling of safety from her solitary walks, and +unhinging her long associations with the freedom and security +of her native mountains, gave her an inclination to depart for a +time at least from Melincourt Castle; and this inclination, +combining with the wish to see more of one who appeared to +possess so much intellectual superiority to the generality of +mankind, rendered her very flexible to Mrs. Pinmoney’s wishes, +when that honourable lady renewed her solicitations to her to +join the expedition to Onevote. Anthelia, however, desired +that Mr. Hippy might be of the party, and that her going in +Sir Telegraph’s carriage should not be construed in any +degree into a reception of his addresses. The Honourable +Mrs. Pinmoney, delighted to carry her point, readily complied +with the condition, trusting to the influence of time and +intimacy to promote her own wishes and the happiness of her +dear nephew.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Hippy was so overjoyed at the project, that, in the first +ebullitions of his transport, meeting Harry Fell on the landing-place, +with a packet of medicine from Dr. Killquick, he seized +him by the arm, and made him dance a <i><span lang="fr">pas de deux</span></i>: the packet +fell to the earth, and Mr. Hippy, as he whirled old Harry +round to the tune of <cite><span lang="fr">La Belle Laitière</span></cite>, danced over that +which, but for this timely demolition, might have given his +heir an opportunity of dancing over him.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was accordingly arranged that Sir Telegraph Paxarett, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>with the ladies and Mr. Hippy, should call on the appointed +day at Redrose Abbey for Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir +Oran Haut-ton.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Derrydown and Mr. O’Scarum were inconsolable on +the occasion, notwithstanding Mr. Hippy’s assurance that they +should very soon return, and that the hospitality of Melincourt +Castle should then be resumed under his supreme jurisdiction. +Mr. Derrydown determined to consume the interval at Keswick, +in the composition of dismal ballads; and Mr. O’Scarum to +proceed to Low-wood Inn, and drown his cares in claret with +Major O’Dogskin.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We shall pass over the interval till the arrival of the eventful +day on which Mr. Forester, from the windows of Redrose +Abbey, watched the approach of Sir Telegraph’s barouche. +The party from Melincourt arrived, as had been concerted, to +breakfast; after which, they surveyed the Abbey, and perambulated +the grounds. Mr. Forester produced the Abbot’s +skull,<a id='r50'></a><a href='#f50' class='c012'><sup>[50]</sup></a> and took occasion to expatiate very largely on the +diminution of the size of mankind; illustrating his theory by +quotations and anecdotes from Homer,<a id='r51'></a><a href='#f51' class='c012'><sup>[51]</sup></a> Herodotus<a id='r52'></a><a href='#f52' class='c012'><sup>[52]</sup></a> Arrian, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>Plutarch, Philostratus, Pausanias, and Solinus Polyhistor. He +asked if it were possible that men of such a stature as they +have dwindled to in the present age could have erected that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>stupendous monument of human strength, Stonehenge? in the +vicinity of which, he said, a body had been dug up, measuring +fourteen feet ten inches in length.<a id='r53'></a><a href='#f53' class='c012'><sup>[53]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>The barouche bowled off from the Abbey gates, carrying +four inside, and eight out; videlicet, the Honourable Mrs. +Pinmoney, Miss Danaretta, Mr. Hippy, and Anthelia, inside; +Sir Telegraph Paxarett and Sir Oran Haut-ton on the box, the +former with his whip, and the latter with his French horn, in +the characters of coachman and guard; Mr. Forester and Mr. +Fax in the front of the roof; and Sir Telegraph’s two grooms, +with Peter Gray and Harry Fell, behind. Sir Telegraph’s +coachman, as the inside of the carriage was occupied, had +been left at Melincourt.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In addition to Sir Telegraph’s travelling library—(which +consisted of a single quarto volume, magnificently bound: +videlicet, a Greek Pindar, which Sir Telegraph always carried +with him; not that he ever read a page of it, but that he +thought such a classical inside passenger would be a perpetual +vindication of his tethrippharmatelasipedioploctypophilous +<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>pursuits), Anthelia and Mr. Forester had taken with them a +few of their favourite authors; for, as the ancient and honourable +borough of Onevote was situated almost at the extremity +of the kingdom, and as Sir Telegraph’s diurnal stages were +necessarily limited, they had both conjectured that</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in14'>the poet’s page, by one</div> + <div class='line'>Made vocal for the amusement of the rest,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>might furnish an agreeable evening employment in the dearth +of conversation. Anthelia also, in compliance with the general +desire, had taken her lyre, by which the reader may understand, +if he pleases, the <em>harp-lute-guitar</em>; which, whatever be +its merit as an instrument, has so unfortunate an appellation, +that we cannot think of dislocating our pages with such a +cacophonous compound.</p> + +<p class='c007'>They made but a short stage from Redrose Abbey, and +stopped for the first evening at Low-wood Inn, to the great +joy of Mr. O’Scarum and Major O’Dogskin. Mr. O’Scarum +introduced the Major; and both offered their services to assist +Mr. Hippy and Sir Telegraph Paxarett in the council they +were holding with the landlady on the eventful subject of +dinner. This being arranged, and the hour and minute +punctually specified, it was proposed to employ the interval in +a little excursion on the lake. The party was distributed in +two boats: Sir Telegraph’s grooms rowing the one, and Peter +Gray and Harry Fell the other. They rowed to the middle of +the lake, and rested on their oars. The sun sank behind the +summits of the western mountains: the clouds that, like other +mountains, rested motionless above them, crested with the +towers and battlements of aerial castles, changed by degrees +from fleecy whiteness to the deepest hues of crimson. A +solitary cloud, resting on an eastern pinnacle, became tinged +with the reflected splendour of the west: the clouds overhead +spreading, like a uniform veil of network, through the interstices +of which the sky was visible, caught in their turn the radiance, +and reflected it on the lake, that lay in its calm expanse like a +mirror, imaging with such stillness and accuracy the forms and +colours of all around and above it, that it seemed as if the +waters were withdrawn by magic, and the boats floated in +crimson light between the mountains and the sky.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The whole party was silent, even the Honourable Mrs. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>Pinmoney, till Mr. O’Scarum entreated Anthelia to sing +‘something neat and characteristic; or a harmony now for +three voices, would be the killing thing; eh! Major?’—‘Indeed +and it would,’ said Major O’Dogskin; ‘there’s something +very soft and pathetic in a cool evening on the water, to +sit still doing nothing at all but listening to pretty words and +tender melodies.’ And lest the sincerity of his opinion should +be questioned, he accompanied it with an emphatical oath, to +show that he was in earnest; for which the Honourable Mrs. +Pinmoney called him to order.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Major O’Dogskin explained.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia, accompanied by Miss Danaretta and Mr. +O’Scarum, sang the following</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in20'>TERZETTO</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in3'>1. Hark! o’er the silent waters stealing,</div> + <div class='line in8'>The dash of oars sounds soft and clear:</div> + <div class='line in6'>Through night’s deep veil, all forms concealing,</div> + <div class='line in8'>Nearer it comes, and yet more near.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in3'>2. See! where the long reflection glistens,</div> + <div class='line in8'>In yon lone tower her watch-light burns:</div> + <div class='line in3'>3. To hear our distant oars she listens,</div> + <div class='line in8'>And, listening, strikes the harp by turns.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in3'>1. The stars are bright, the skies unclouded;</div> + <div class='line in8'>No moonbeam shines; no breezes wake.</div> + <div class='line in6'>Is it my love, in darkness shrouded,</div> + <div class='line in8'>Whose dashing oar disturbs the lake?</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in3'>2. O haste, sweet maid, the cords unrolling;</div> + <div class='line in3'>1. The holy hermit chides our stay!</div> + <div class='line'>2. 3. Hark! from his lonely islet tolling,</div> + <div class='line in8'>His midnight bell shall guide our way.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Oran Haut-ton now produced his flute, and treated the +company with a solo. Another pause succeeded. The contemplative +silence was broken by Major O’Dogskin, who began +to fidget about in the boat, and drawing his watch from his +fob held it up to Mr. Hippy, and asked him if he did not think +the partridges would be spoiled? ‘To be sure they will,’ said +Mr. Hippy, ‘unless we make the best of our way. Cold +<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>comfort this, after all: sharp air and water;—give me a roaring +fire and a six-bottle cooper of claret.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The oars were dashed into the water, and the fairy reflections +of clouds, rocks, woods, and mountains were mingled in +the confusion of chaos. The reader will naturally expect that, +having two lovers on a lake, we shall not lose the opportunity +of throwing the lady into the water, and making the gentleman +fish her out; but whether that our Thalia is too veridicous to +permit this distortion of facts, or that we think it the more +original incident to return them to the shore as dry as they +left it, the reader must submit to the disappointment, and be +content to see the whole party comfortably seated, without let, +hindrance, or molestation, at a very excellent dinner, served up +under the judicious inspection of mine hostess of Low-wood.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The heroes and heroines of Homer used to eat and drink +all day till the setting sun;<a id='r54'></a><a href='#f54' class='c012'><sup>[54]</sup></a> and by dint of industry, contrived +to finish that important business by the usual period at +which modern beaux and belles begin it—who are, therefore, +necessitated, like Penelope, to sit up all night; not, indeed, to +destroy the works of the day, for how can nothing be annihilated? +This does not apply to all our party, and we hope not +to many of our readers.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XX<br> <span class='c013'>THE SEA-SHORE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>They stopped the next evening at a village on the sea-shore. +The wind rose in the night, but without rain. Mr. Forester +was up before the sun, and descending to the beach, found +Anthelia there before him, sitting on a rock, and listening to +the dash of the waves, like a Nereid to Triton’s shell.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You are an early riser, Miss Melincourt.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> I always was so. The morning is the infancy +of the day, and, like the infancy of life, has health and bloom, +and cheerfulness and purity, in a degree unknown to the busy +noon, which is the season of care, or the languid evening, +which is the harbinger of repose. Perhaps the song of the +nightingale is not in itself less cheerful than that of the lark: +it is the season of her song that invests it with the character +of melancholy.<a id='r55'></a><a href='#f55' class='c012'><sup>[55]</sup></a> It is the same with the associations of +infancy: it is all cheerfulness, all hope: its path is on the +flowers of an untried world. The daisy has more beauty in +the eye of childhood than the rose in that of maturer life. The +spring is the infancy of the year: its flowers are the flowers of +promise and the darlings of poetry. The autumn, too, has its +flowers; but they are little loved, and little praised: for the +associations of autumn are not with ideas of cheerfulness, but +<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>with yellow leaves and hollow winds, heralds of winter and +emblems of dissolution.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> These reflections have more in them of the +autumn than of the morning. But the mornings of autumn +participate in the character of the season.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> They do so; yet even in mists and storms the +opening must be always more cheerful than the closing day.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> But this morning is fine and clear, and the +wind blows over the sea. Yet this, to me at least, is not a +cheerful scene.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> Nor to me. But our long habits of association +with the sound of the winds and the waters have given them +to us a voice of melancholy majesty: a voice not audible by +those little children who are playing yonder on the shore. +To them all scenes are cheerful. It is the morning of life: it +is infancy that makes them so.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Fresh air and liberty are all that is necessary +to the happiness of children. In that blissful age ‘when nature’s +self is new,’ the bloom of interest and beauty is found alike in +every object of perception—in the grass of the meadow, the +moss on the rock, and the seaweed on the sand. They find +gems and treasures in shells and pebbles; and the gardens +of fairyland in the simplest flowers. They have no melancholy +associations with autumn or with evening. The +falling leaves are their playthings; and the setting sun +only tells them that they must go to rest as he does, and +that he will light them to their sports in the morning. It is +this bloom of novelty, and the pure, unclouded, unvitiated +feelings with which it is contemplated, that throw such an +unearthly radiance on the scenes of our infancy, however +humble in themselves, and give a charm to their recollections +which not even Tempe can compensate. It is the force +of first impressions. The first meadow in which we gather +cowslips, the first stream on which we sail, the first home in +which we awake to the sense of human sympathy, have all a +peculiar and exclusive charm, which we shall never find again +in richer meadows, mightier rivers, and more magnificent +dwellings; nor even in themselves, when we revisit them after +the lapse of years, and the sad realities of noon have dissipated +the illusions of sunrise. It is the same, too, with first +love, whatever be the causes that render it unsuccessful: the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>second choice may have just preponderance in the balance of +moral estimation; but the object of first affection, of all the +perceptions of our being, will be most divested of the attributes +of mortality. The magical associations of infancy are revived +with double power in the feelings of first love; but when they +too have departed, then, indeed, the light of the morning is +gone.</p> + +<div id='i_158' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_158.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hippy.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span lang="it">Pensa che questo di mai non raggiorna!</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> If this be so, let me never be the object of a +second choice: let me never love, or love but once.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> The object of a second choice you cannot be +with any one who will deserve your love; for to have loved any +other woman, would show a heart too lightly captivated to be +worthy of yours. The only mind that can deserve to love you +is one that would never have known love if it never had +known you.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia and Mr. Forester were both so unfashionably +sincere, that they would probably, in a very few minutes, have +confessed to each other more than they had till that morning, +perhaps, confessed to themselves, but that their conversation +was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hippy fuming for +his breakfast, accompanied by Sir Telegraph cracking his +whip, and Sir Oran blowing the réveillée on his French horn.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘So ho!’ exclaimed Sir Telegraph; ‘Achilles and Thetis, I +protest, consulting on the sea-shore.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> Do you mean to say, Sir Telegraph, that I am +old enough to be Mr. Forester’s mother?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> No, no; that is no part of the +comparison; but we are the ambassadors of Agamemnon +(videlicet, Mr. Fax, whom we left very busily arranging the +urns, not of lots by the bye, but of tea and coffee); here is old +Phoenix on one side of me, and Ajax on the other.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> And you of course are the wise Ulysses.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> There the simile fails again. +<i><span lang="la">Comparatio non urgenda</span></i>, as I think Heyne used to say, before +I was laughed out of reading at College.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You should have found me too, if you call +me Achilles, solacing my mind with music, φρενα τερπομενον +φορμιγγι λιγειῃ; but, to make amends for the deficiency, you +have brought me a musical Ajax.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> You have no reason to wish even +for the golden lyre of my old friend Pindar himself: you have +been listening to the music of the winds and the waters, and +to what is more than music, the voice of Miss Melincourt.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Hippy.</em> And there is a very pretty concert waiting for +you at the inn—the tinkling of cups and spoons, and the divine +song of the tea-urn.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXI<br> <span class='c013'>THE CITY OF NOVOTE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>On the evening of the tenth day the barouche rattled triumphantly +into the large and populous city of Novote, which +was situated at a short distance from the ancient and honourable +borough of Onevote. The city contained fifty thousand +inhabitants, and had no representative in the Honourable House, +the deficiency being virtually supplied by the two members for +Onevote; who, having no affairs to attend to for the borough, +or rather the burgess, that did return them, were supposed to +have more leisure for those of the city which did not; a system +somewhat analogous to that which the learned author of +<em>Hermes</em> calls <em>a method of supply by negation</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Oran signalised his own entrance by playing on his +French horn, <em>See the conquering hero comes!</em> Bells were ringing, +ale was flowing, mobs were huzzaing, and it seemed as if +the inhabitants of the large and populous city were satisfied of +the truth of the admirable doctrine, that the positive representation +of one individual is a virtual representation of fifty +thousand. They found afterwards that all this festivity had +been set in motion by Sir Oran’s brother candidate, Simon +Sarcastic, Esq., to whom we shall shortly introduce our +readers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The barouche stopped at the door of a magnificent inn, and +the party was welcomed with some scores of bows from the +whole <em>corps d’hôtel</em>, with the fat landlady in the van, and Boots +in the rear. They were shown into a splendid apartment, a +glorious fire was kindled in a minute, and while Mr. Hippy +looked over the bill of fare, and followed mine hostess to +inspect the state of the larder, Sir Telegraph proceeded to <em>peel</em>, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>and emerged from his four <em>benjamins</em>, like a butterfly from its +chrysalis.</p> + +<p class='c007'>After dinner they formed, as usual, a semicircle round the +fire, with the table in front supported by Mr. Hippy and Sir +Telegraph Paxarett.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Now this,’ said Sir Telegraph, rubbing his hands, ‘is what +I call devilish comfortable after a cold day’s drive—an excellent +inn, a superb fire, charming company, and better wine +than has fallen to our lot since we left Melincourt Castle.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The waiter had picked up from the conversation at dinner +that one of the destined members for Onevote was in the +company; and communicated this intelligence to Mr. Sarcastic, +who was taking his solitary bottle in another apartment. Mr. +Sarcastic sent his compliments to Sir Oran Haut-ton, and +hoped he would allow his future colleague the honour of being +admitted to join his party. Mr. Hippy, Mr. Forester, and Sir +Telegraph, undertook to answer for Sir Oran, who was silent +on the occasion: Mr. Sarcastic was introduced, and took his +seat in the semicircle.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Your future colleague, Mr. Sarcastic, +is <em>a man of few words</em>; but he will join in a bumper to +your better acquaintance. (<em>The collision of glasses ensued +between Sir Oran and Mr. Sarcastic.</em>)</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> I am proud of the opportunity of this introduction. +The day after to-morrow is fixed for the election. +I have made some preparations to give a little <em>éclat</em> to the +affair, and have begun by intoxicating half the city of Novote, +so that we shall have a great crowd at the scene of election, +whom I intend to harangue from the hustings, on the great +benefits and blessings of virtual representation.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I shall, perhaps, take the opportunity of +addressing them also, but with a different view of the subject.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> Perhaps our views of the subject are not +radically different, and the variety is in the mode of treatment. +In my ordinary intercourse with the world I reduce practice +to theory; it is a habit, I believe, peculiar to myself, and a +source of inexhaustible amusement.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Fill and explain.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> Nothing, you well know, is so rare as the +coincidence of theory and practice. A man who ‘will go +through fire and water to serve a friend’ in words, will not +<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>give five guineas to save him from famine. A poet will write +Odes to Independence, and become the obsequious parasite +of any great man who will hire him. A burgess will hold up +one hand for purity of election, while the price of his own +vote is slily dropped into the other. I need not accumulate +instances.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You would find it difficult, I fear, to adduce +many to the contrary.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> This then is my system. I ascertain the +practice of those I talk to, and present it to them as from +myself, in the shape of theory; the consequence of which is, +that I am universally stigmatised as a promulgator of rascally +doctrines. Thus I said to Sir Oliver Oilcake, ‘When I get +into Parliament I intend to make the sale of my vote as +notorious as the sun at noonday. I will have no rule of right, +but my own pocket. I will support every measure of every +administration, even if they ruin half the nation for the purpose +of restoring the Great Lama, or of subjecting twenty millions +of people to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at the pleasure +of the man-milliner of Mahomet’s mother. I will have shiploads +of turtle and rivers of Madeira for myself, if I send the +whole swinish multitude to draff and husks.’ Sir Oliver flew +into a rage, and swore he would hold no further intercourse +with a man who maintained such infamous principles.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Hippy.</em> Pleasant enough, to show a man his own +picture, and make him damn the ugly rascal.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> I said to Miss Pennylove, whom I knew to +be <em>laying herself out for a good match</em>, ‘When my daughter +becomes of marriageable age, I shall commission Christie to +put her up to auction, “the highest bidder to be the buyer; and +if any dispute arise between two or more bidders, the lot to be +put up again and resold.”’ Miss Pennylove professed herself +utterly amazed and indignant that any man, and a father +especially, should imagine a scheme so outrageous to the +dignity and delicacy of the female mind.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney and Miss Danaretta.</em> A +most horrid idea certainly.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> The fact, my dear ladies, the fact; how +stands the fact? Miss Pennylove afterwards married a man +old enough to be her grandfather, for no other reason but +because he was rich; and broke the heart of a very worthy +<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>friend of mine, to whom she had been previously engaged, who +had no fault but the folly of loving her, and was quite rich +enough for all purposes of matrimonial happiness. How the +dignity and delicacy of such a person could have been affected, +if the preliminary negotiation with her hobbling Strephon had +been conducted through the instrumentality of honest Christie’s +hammer, I cannot possibly imagine.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Hippy.</em> Nor I, I must say. All the difference is in +the form, and not in the fact. It is a pity that form does not +come into fashion; it would save a world of trouble.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> I irreparably offended the Reverend Doctor +Vorax by telling him, that having a nephew, whom I wished +to shine in the church, I was on the look-out for a luminous +butler, and a cook of solid capacity, under whose joint tuition +he might graduate. ‘Who knows,’ said I, ‘but he may immortalise +himself at the University, by giving his name to a +pudding?’—I lost the acquaintance of Mrs. Cullender, by +saying to her, when she had told me a piece of gossip as a +very particular secret, that there was nothing so agreeable to +me as to be in possession of a secret, for I made a point of +telling it to all my acquaintance;</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Intrusted under solemn vows,</div> + <div class='line'>Of Mum, and Silence, and the Rose,</div> + <div class='line'>To be retailed again in whispers,</div> + <div class='line'>For the easy credulous to disperse.<a id='r56'></a><a href='#f56' class='c012'><sup>[56]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>Mrs. Cullender left me in great wrath, protesting she would +never again throw away <em>her</em> confidence on so leaky a vessel.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Ha! ha! ha! Bravo! Come, a +bumper to Mrs. Cullender.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> With all my heart; and another if you +please to Mr. Christopher Corporate, the free, fat, and dependent +burgess of Onevote, of which ‘plural unit’ the Honourable +Baronet and myself are to be the joint representatives. (<em>Sir +Oran Haut-ton bowed.</em>)</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Hippy.</em> And a third, by all means, to his Grace the +Duke of Rottenburgh.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> And a fourth, to crown all, to <em>the blessings +of virtual representation</em>, which I shall endeavour to impress +on as many of the worthy citizens of Novote as shall think fit +<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>to be present, the day after to-morrow, at the proceedings of +the borough of Onevote.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> And now for tea and coffee. +Touch the bell for the waiter.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The bottles and glasses vanished, and the beautiful array of +urns and cups succeeded. Sir Telegraph and Mr. Hippy +seceded from the table, and resigned their stations to Mrs. +and Miss Pinmoney.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Your system is sufficiently amusing, but I +much question its utility. The object of moral censure is +reformation, and its proper vehicle is plain and fearless +sincerity: <span class='sc'><span lang="la">Verba animi proferre, et vitam impendere +vero</span></span>.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> I tried that in my youth, when I was +troubled with the <em>passion for reforming the world</em>;<a id='r57'></a><a href='#f57' class='c012'><sup>[57]</sup></a> of which +I have been long cured by the conviction of the inefficacy of +moral theory with respect to producing a practical change in +the mass of mankind. Custom is the pillar round which +opinion twines, and interest is the tie that binds it. It is not +by reason that practical change can be effected, but by making +a puncture to the quick in the feelings of personal hope and +personal fear. The Reformation in England is one of the +supposed triumphs of reason. But if the passions of Henry +the Eighth had not been interested in that measure, he would +as soon have built mosques as pulled down abbeys; and you +will observe that, in all cases, reformation never goes as far as +reason requires, but just as far as suits the personal interest of +those who conduct it. Place Temperance and Bacchus side +by side, in an assembly of jolly fellows, and endow the first +with the most powerful eloquence that mere reason can give, +with the absolute moral force of mathematical demonstration, +Bacchus need not take the trouble of refuting one of her +arguments; he will only have to say, ‘Come, my boys, here’s +<em>Damn Temperance</em> in a bumper,’ and you may rely on the +toast being drunk with an unanimous three times three.</p> + +<p class='c007'>(<em>At the sound of the word</em> bumper, <em>with which Captain +Hawltaught had made him very familiar, Sir Oran Haut-ton +looked round for his glass, but, finding it vanished, comforted +himself with a dish of tea from the fair hand of Miss Danaretta, +which, as his friend Mr. Forester had interdicted him from the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>use of sugar, he sweetened as well as he could with a copious +infusion of cream</em>.)<a id='r58'></a><a href='#f58' class='c012'><sup>[58]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> As an Opposition orator in the +Honourable House will bring forward a long detail of unanswerable +arguments, without even expecting that they will +have the slightest influence on the vote of the majority.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> A reform of that honourable body, if ever +it should take place, will be one of the ‘<em>triumphs of reason</em>.’ +But reason will have little to do with it. All that reason can +say on the subject has been said for years, by men of all +parties—while they were <em>out</em>; but the moment they were <em>in</em>, +the moment their own interest came in contact with their own +reason, the victory of interest was never for a moment doubtful. +While the great fountain of interest, rising in the caverns of +borough patronage and ministerial influence, flowed through +the whole body of the kingdom in channels of paper-money, +and loans, and contracts, and jobs, and places either found or +made for the useful dealers in secret services, so long the predominant +interests of corruption overpowered the true and +permanent interests of the country; but as those channels +become dry, and they are becoming so with fearful rapidity, +the crew of every boat that is left aground are convinced, not +by reason—that they had long heard and despised—but by +the unexpected pressure of personal suffering, that they had +been going on in the wrong way. Thus the reaction of +interest takes place; and when the concentrated interests of +thousands, combined by the same pressure of personal suffering, +shall have created an independent power, greater than the +power of the interest of corruption, then, and not till then, the +latter will give way, and this will be called the triumph of +reason; though, in truth, like all the changes in human society +that have ever taken place from the birthday of the world, it +will be only the triumph of one mode of interest over another; +but as the triumph in this case will be of the interest of the +many over that of the few, it is certainly a consummation +devoutly to be wished.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> If I should admit that ‘the hope of personal +advantage, and the dread of personal punishment,’ are the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>only springs that set the mass of mankind in action, the +inefficacy of reason, and the inutility of moral theory, will by +no means follow from the admission. The progress of truth is +slow, but its ultimate triumph is secure; though its immediate +effects may be rendered almost imperceptible by the power of +habit and interest. If the philosopher cannot reform his own +times, he may lay the foundation of amendment in those that +follow. Give currency to reason, improve the moral code of +society, and the theory of one generation will be the practice +of the next. After a certain period of life, and that no very +advanced one, men in general become perfectly unpersuadable +to all practical purposes. Few philosophers, therefore, I +believe, expect to produce much change in the habits of their +contemporaries, as Plato proposed to banish from his republic +all above the age of ten, and give a good education to the rest.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Sarcastic.</em> Or, as Heraclitus the Ephesian proposed +to his countrymen, that all above the age of fourteen should +hang themselves, before he would consent to give laws to the +remainder.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXII<br> <span class='c013'>THE BOROUGH OF ONEVOTE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The day of election arrived. Mr. Sarcastic’s rumoured preparations, +and the excellence of the ale which he had broached +in the city of Novote, had given a degree of <em>éclat</em> to the +election for the borough of Onevote, which it had never before +possessed; the representatives usually sliding into their +nomination with the same silence and decorum with which a +solitary spinster slides into her pew at Wednesday’s or Friday’s +prayers in a country church. The resemblance holds good +also in this respect, that, as the curate addresses the solitary +maiden with the appellation of <em>dearly beloved brethren</em>, so the +representatives always pluralised their solitary elector, by conferring +on him the appellation of <em>a respectable body of constituents</em>. +Mr. Sarcastic, however, being determined to amuse +himself at the expense of this most ‘venerable <em>feature</em>’ in our +old constitution, as Lord C. calls a rotten borough, had +brought Mr. Christopher Corporate into his views by the +adhibition of <em>persuasion in a tangible shape</em>. It was generally +known in Novote that something would be going forward at +Onevote, though nobody could tell precisely what, except that +a long train of brewer’s drays had left the city for the borough, +in grand procession, on the preceding day, under the escort of +a sworn band of special constables, who were to keep guard +over the ale all night. This detachment was soon followed by +another, under a similar escort, and with similar injunctions; +and it was understood that this second expedition of <em>frothy +rhetoric</em> was sent forth under the auspices of Sir Oran Haut-ton, +Baronet, the brother candidate of Simon Sarcastic, +Esquire, for the representation of the ancient and honourable +borough.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>The borough of Onevote stood in the middle of a heath, +and consisted of a solitary farm, of which the land was so +poor and untractable, that it would not have been worth the +while of any human being to cultivate it, had not the Duke of +Rottenburgh found it very well worth his to pay his tenant for +living there, to keep the honourable borough in existence.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Sarcastic left the city of Novote some hours before his +new acquaintance, to superintend his preparations, followed by +crowds of persons of all descriptions, pedestrians and equestrians; +old ladies in chariots, and young ladies on donkeys; the +farmer on his hunter, and the tailor on his hack; the grocer +and his family six in a chaise; the dancing-master in his +tilbury; the banker in his tandem; mantua-makers and +servant-maids twenty-four in the waggon, fitted up for the +occasion with a canopy of evergreens; pastry-cooks, men-milliners, +and journeymen tailors, by the stage, running for +that day only, six inside and fourteen out; the sallow artisan +emerging from the cellar or the furnace, to freshen himself +with the pure breezes of Onevote Heath; the bumpkin in his +laced boots and Sunday coat, trudging through the dust with +his cherry-cheeked lass on his elbow; the gentleman coachman +on his box, with his painted charmer by his side; the lean +curate on his half-starved Rosinante; the plump bishop setting +an example of Christian humility in his carriage and six; the +doctor on his white horse, like Death in the Revelation; +and the lawyer on his black one, like the devil in the Wild +Huntsmen.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Almost in the rear of this motley cavalcade went the +barouche of Sir Telegraph Paxarett, and rolled up to the scene +of action amidst the shouts of the multitude.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The heath had very much the appearance of a race-ground; +with booths and stalls, the voices of pie-men and apple-women, +the grinding of barrel organs, the scraping of fiddles, the +squeaking of ballad-singers, the chirping of corkscrews, the +vociferations of ale-drinkers, the cries of the ‘last dying +speeches of desperate malefactors,’ and of ‘The History and +Antiquities of the honourable Borough of Onevote, a full and +circumstantial account, all in half a sheet, for the price of one +halfpenny!’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The hustings were erected in proper form, and immediately +opposite to them was an enormous marquee with a small +<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>opening in front, in which was seated the important person of +Mr. Christopher Corporate, with a tankard of ale and a pipe. +The ladies remained in the barouche under the care of Sir +Telegraph and Mr. Hippy. Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir +Oran Haut-ton joined Mr. Sarcastic on the hustings.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Sarcastic stepped forward amidst the shouts of the +assembled crowd, and addressed Mr. Christopher Corporate:</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Free, fat, and dependent burgess of this ancient and +honourable borough! I stand forward an unworthy candidate, +to be the representative of so important a personage, who +comprises in himself a three-hundredth part of the whole +elective capacity of this extensive empire. For if the whole +population be estimated at eleven millions, with what awe and +veneration must I look on one who is, as it were, the abstract +and quintessence of thirty-three thousand six hundred and +sixty-six people! The voice of Stentor was like the voice of +fifty, and the voice of Harry Gill<a id='r59'></a><a href='#f59' class='c012'><sup>[59]</sup></a> was like the voice of three; +but what are these to the voice of Mr. Christopher Corporate, +which gives utterance in one breath to the concentrated power +of thirty-three thousand six hundred and sixty-six voices? Of +such an one it may indeed be said, that <em>he is himself an host</em>, +and that <em>none but himself can be his parallel</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Most potent, grave, and reverend signor! it is usual on +these occasions to make a great vapouring about honour and +conscience; but as those words are now generally acknowledged +to be utterly destitute of meaning, I have too much +respect for your understanding to say anything about them. +The <em>monied interest</em>, Mr. Corporate, for which you are as +illustrious <em>as the sun at noonday</em>, is the great point of connection +and sympathy between us; and no circumstances can throw +a <em>wet blanket</em> on the ardour of our reciprocal esteem, while the +<em>fundamental feature</em> of our mutual interests presents itself to us +in so <em>tangible a shape</em>.<a id='r60'></a><a href='#f60' class='c012'><sup>[60]</sup></a> How high a value I set upon your +voice, you may judge by the price I have paid for half of it; +which, indeed, deeply lodged as my feelings are in my pocket, +I yet see no reason to regret, since you will thus confer on +mine a transmutable and marketable value which I trust by +proper management will leave me no loser by the bargain.’</p> + +<div id='i_172' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span> +<img src='images/i_172.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>‘<em>We shall always be deeply attentive to your interests.</em>’</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>‘Huzza!’ said Mr. Corporate.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘People of the city of Novote!’ proceeded Mr. Sarcastic, +‘some of you, I am informed, consider yourselves aggrieved, +that while your large and populous city has no share whatever +in the formation of the Honourable House, the <em>plural unity</em> +of Mr. Christopher Corporate should be invested with the +privilege of double representation. But, gentlemen, representation +is of two kinds, actual and virtual; an important distinction, +and of great political consequence.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The Honourable Baronet and myself, being the actual +representatives of the fat burgess of Onevote, shall be the +virtual representatives of the worthy citizens of Novote; and +you may rely on it, gentlemen (<em>with his hand on his heart</em>), we +shall always be deeply attentive to your interests, when they +happen, as no doubt they sometimes will, to be perfectly compatible +with our own.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘A member of Parliament, gentlemen, to speak to you in +your own phrase, is a sort of staple commodity, manufactured +for home consumption. Much has been said of the improvement +of machinery in the present age, by which one man may +do the work of a dozen. If this be admirable, and admirable +it is acknowledged to be by all the civilised world, how much +more admirable is the improvement of political machinery, by +which one man does the work of thirty thousand! I am sure +I need not say another word to a great manufacturing population +like the inhabitants of the city of Novote, to convince +them of the beauty and utility of this most luminous arrangement.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The duty of a representative of the people, whether actual +or virtual, is simply <em>to tax</em>. Now this important branch of +public business is much more easily and expeditiously transacted +by the means of virtual, than it possibly could be by that +of actual representation. For when the minister draws up his +scheme of ways and means, he will do it with much more celerity +and confidence, when he knows that the propitious countenance +of virtual representation will never cease to smile upon him as +long as he continues in place, than if he had to encounter the +doubtful aspect of actual representation, which might, perhaps, +look black on some of his favourite projects, thereby greatly +impeding the distribution of secret service money at home, +and placing foreign legitimacy in a very awkward predicament. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>The carriage of the state would then be like a chariot in a +forest, turning to the left for a troublesome thorn, and to the +right for a sturdy oak; whereas it now rolls forward like the +car of Juggernaut over the plain crushing whatever offers to +impede its way.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The constitution says that no man shall be taxed but by +his own consent; a very plausible theory, gentlemen, but not +reducible to practice. Who will apply a lancet to his own +arm, and bleed himself? Very few, you acknowledge. Who +then, <em>a fortiori</em>, would apply a lancet to his own pocket, and +draw off what is dearer to him than his blood—his money? +Fewer still, of course; I humbly opine, none.—What then +remains but to appoint a royal college of state surgeons, who +may operate on the patient according to their views of his +case? Taxation is political phlebotomy: the Honourable +House is, figuratively speaking, a royal college of state +surgeons. A good surgeon must have firm nerves and a +steady hand; and, perhaps, the less feeling the better. Now, +it is manifest that, as all feeling is founded on sympathy, the +fewer constituents a representative has, the less must be his +sympathy with the public, and the less, of course as is desirable, +his feeling for his patient—the people:—who, therefore, +with so much <em>sang froid</em>, can phlebotomise the nation, as the +representative of half an elector?</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Gentlemen, as long as a <em>full Gazette</em> is pleasant to the +<em>quidnunc</em>; as long as an empty purse is delightful to the +spendthrift; as long as the cry of <em>Question</em> is a satisfactory +<em>answer</em> to an argument, and to outvote reason is to refute it; +as long as the way to pay old debts is to incur new ones of +five times the amount; as long as the grand recipes of political +health and longevity are <em>bleeding</em> and <em>hot water</em>—so long must +you rejoice in the privileges of Mr. Christopher Corporate, so +long must you acknowledge from the very bottom of your +pockets the benefits and blessings of <em>virtual representation</em>.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>This harangue was received with great applause, acclamations +rent the air, and ale flowed in torrents. Mr. Forester +declined speaking, and the party on the hustings proceeded to +business. Sir Oran Haut-ton, Baronet, and Simon Sarcastic, +Esquire, were nominated in form. Mr. Christopher Corporate +held up both his hands, with his tankard in one, and his pipe +in the other; and neither poll nor scrutiny being demanded, the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>two candidates were pronounced duly elected as representatives +of the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote.</p> + +<div id='i_176' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_176.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>‘<em>Hail, plural unit!</em>’</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The shouts were renewed; the ale flowed rapidly; the +pipe and tankard of Mr. Corporate were replenished. Sir +Oran Haut-ton, Baronet, M.P., bowed gracefully to the people +with his hand on his heart.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A cry was now raised of ‘Chair ’em! chair ’em!’ when +Mr. Sarcastic again stepped forward.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Gentlemen,’ said he, ‘a slight difficulty opposes itself to +the honour you would confer on us. The members should, +according to form, be chaired by their electors; and how can +one elector, great man as he is, chair two representatives? +But to obviate this dilemma as well as circumstances admit, +I move that the “large body corporate of one” whom the +Honourable Baronet and myself have the honour to represent, +do resolve himself into a committee.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>He had no sooner spoken, than the marquee opened, and +a number of bulky personages, all in dress, aspect, size, and +figure, very exact resemblances of Mr. Christopher Corporate, +each with his pipe and his tankard, emerged into daylight, +who, encircling their venerable prototype, lifted their tankards +high in air, and pronounced with Stentorian symphony, ‘<span class='sc'>Hail, +plural unit!</span>’ Then, after a simultaneous draught, throwing +away their pipes and tankards, for which the mob immediately +scrambled, they raised on high two magnificent chairs, and +prepared to carry into effect the last ceremony of the election. +The party on the hustings descended. Mr. Sarcastic stepped +into his chair; and his part of the procession, headed by Mr. +Christopher Corporate, and surrounded by a multiform and +many-coloured crowd, moved slowly off towards the city of +Novote, amidst the undistinguishable clamour of multitudinous +voices.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Oran Haut-ton watched the progress of his precursor, +as his chair rolled and swayed over the sea of heads, like a +boat with one mast on a stormy ocean; and the more he +watched the agitation of its movements, the more his countenance +gave indications of strong dislike to the process; so that +when his seat in the second chair was offered to him, he with +a very polite bow declined the honour. The party that was +to carry him, thinking that his repugnance arose entirely from +diffidence, proceeded with gentle force to overcome his scruples, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>when not precisely penetrating their motives, and indignant +at this attempt to violate the freedom of the natural man, he +seized a stick from a sturdy farmer at his elbow, and began to +lay about him with great vigour and effect. Those who +escaped being knocked down by the first sweep of his weapon +ran away with all their might, but were soon checked by the +pressure of the crowd, who, hearing the noise of conflict, and +impatient to ascertain the cause, bore down from all points +upon a common centre, and formed a circumferential pressure +that effectually prohibited the egress of those within; and +they, in their turn, in their eagerness to escape from Sir Oran +(who like Artegall’s Iron Man, or like Ajax among the Trojans, +or like Rodomonte in Paris, or like Orlando among the soldiers +of Agramant, kept clearing for himself an ample space in the +midst of the encircling crowd), waged desperate conflict with +those without; so that from the equal and opposite action of +the centripetal and centrifugal forces, resulted a stationary +combat, raging between the circumferences of two concentric +circles, with barbaric dissonance of deadly feud, and infinite +variety of oath and execration, till Sir Oran, charging desperately +along one of the radii, fought a free passage through all +opposition; and rushing to the barouche of Sir Telegraph +Paxarett, sprang to his old station on the box, from whence +he shook his sapling at the foe with looks of mortal defiance. +Mr. Forester, who had been forcibly parted from him at the +commencement of the strife, had been all anxiety on his +account, mounted with great alacrity to his station on the +roof; the rest of the party was already seated; the Honourable +Mrs. Pinmoney, half-fainting with terror, earnestly entreated +Sir Telegraph to fly: Sir Telegraph cracked his whip, the +horses sprang forward like racers, the wheels went round like +the wheels of a firework. The tumult of battle, lessening as +they receded, came wafted to them on the wings of the wind; +for the flame of discord having been once kindled, was not +extinguished by the departure of its first flambeau—Sir Oran; +but war raged wide and far, here in the thickest mass of +central fight, there in the light skirmishing of flying detachments. +The hustings were demolished, and the beams and +planks turned into offensive weapons: the booths were torn +to pieces, and the canvas converted into flags floating over +the heads of magnanimous heroes that rushed to revenge they +<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>knew not what, in deadly battle with they knew not whom. +The stalls and barrows were upset; and the pears, apples, +oranges, mutton-pies, and masses of gingerbread, flew like +missiles of fate in all directions. The <i><span lang="la">sanctum sanctorum</span></i> of +the ale was broken into, and the guardians of the Hesperian +liquor were put to ignominious rout. Hats and wigs were +hurled into the air, never to return to the heads from which +they had suffered violent divorce. The collision of sticks, the +ringing of empty ale-casks, the shrieks of women, and the +vociferations of combatants, mingled in one deepening and +indescribable tumult; till at length, everything else being +levelled with the heath, they turned the mingled torrent of +their wrath on the cottage of Mr. Corporate, to which they +triumphantly set fire, and danced round the blaze like a rabble +of village boys round the effigy of the immortal Guy. In a +few minutes the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote +was reduced to ashes; but we have the satisfaction to state +that it was rebuilt a few days afterwards, at the joint expense +of its two representatives, and His Grace the Duke of Rottenburgh.</p> + +<div id='i_179' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_179.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Began to lay about him with great vigour and effect.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXIII<br> <span class='c013'>THE COUNCIL OF WAR</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The compassionate reader will perhaps sympathise in our +anxiety to take one peep at Lord Anophel Achthar and the +Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, whom we left perched on the +summit of the rock where Sir Oran had placed them, looking +at each other as ruefully as Hudibras and Ralpho in their +‘wooden bastile,’ and falling by degrees into as knotty an +argument, the <em>quaeritur</em> of which was, how to descend from +their elevation—an exploit which to them seemed replete with +danger and difficulty. Lord Anophel, having, for the first time +in his life, been made acquainted with the salutary effects of +manual discipline, sate boiling with wrath and revenge; while +the Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub, who in his youthful days had been +beaten black and blue in the capacity of <em>fag</em> (a practice which +reflects so much honour on our public seminaries), bore the +infliction with more humility.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar</em> (<em>rubbing his shoulder</em>). This is all +your doing, Grovelgrub—all your fault, curse me!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> Oh, my Lord! my intention +was good, though the catastrophe is ill. The race is not +always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> But the battle was to the strong +in this instance, Grovelgrub, curse me! though from the speed +with which you began to run off on the first alarm, it was no +fault of yours that the race was not to the swift.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> I must do your Lordship the +justice to say, that you too started with a degree of celerity +highly creditable to your capacity of natural locomotion; and +if that ugly monster, the dumb Baronet, had not knocked us +both down in the incipiency of our progression——</p> + +<div id='i_183' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span> +<img src='images/i_183.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Perched on the summit of the rock.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> We should have escaped as our two +rascals did, who shall bitterly rue their dereliction. But as to +the dumb Baronet, who has treated me with gross impertinence +on various occasions, I shall certainly call him out, to give me +the satisfaction of a gentleman.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> Oh, my Lord.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Though with pistols ’tis the fashion</div> + <div class='line'>To satisfy your passion;</div> + <div class='line'>Yet where’s the satisfaction,</div> + <div class='line'>If you perish in the action?</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> One of us must perish, Grovelgrub, +‘pon honour. Death or revenge! We’re blown, Grovelgrub. +He took off our masks; and though he can’t speak, he can +write, no doubt, and read too, as I shall try with a challenge.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> Can’t speak, my Lord, is by +no means clear. Won’t speak, perhaps; none are so dumb +as those who won’t speak. Don’t you think, my Lord, there +was a sort of melancholy about him—a kind of sullenness? +Crossed in love, I suspect. People crossed in love, Saint +Chrysostom says, lose their voice.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> Then I wish you were crossed in +love, Grovelgrub, with all my heart.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> Nay, my Lord, what so sweet +in calamity as the voice of the spiritual comforter? All shall +be well yet, my Lord. I have an infallible project hatching +here; Miss Melincourt shall be ensconced in Alga Castle, and +then the day is our own.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> Grovelgrub, you know the old +receipt for stewing a carp: ‘First, catch your carp.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> Your Lordship is pleased to +be facetious; but if the carp be not caught, let me be devilled +like a biscuit after the second bottle, or a turkey’s leg at a +twelfth night supper. The carp shall be caught.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> Well, Grovelgrub, only take notice +that I’ll not come again within ten miles of dummy.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> You may rely upon it, my Lord, +I shall always know my distance from the Honourable Baronet. +But my plot is a good plot, and cannot fail of success.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> You are a very skilful contriver, +to be sure; this is your contrivance, our perch on the top of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>this rock. Now contrive, if you can, some way of getting to +the bottom of it.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> My Lord, there is a passage +in Aeschylus very applicable to our situation, where the chorus +wishes to be in precisely such a place.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> Then I wish the chorus were here +instead of us, Grovelgrub, with all my soul.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> It is a very fine passage, my +Lord, and worth your attention: the rock is described as</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>λισσας αἰγιλιψ ἀπροσδεικτος</div> + <div class='line'>οἰοφρων ἐρημας γυπιας πετρα,</div> + <div class='line'>βαθυ πτωμα μαρτυρουσα μοι.<a id='r61'></a><a href='#f61' class='c012'><sup>[61]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>That is, my Lord, a precipitous rock, inaccessible to the goat—not +to be pointed at (from having, as I take it, its head in +the clouds), where there is the loneliness of mind, and the +solitude of desolation, where the vulture has its nest, and the +precipice testifies a deep and headlong fall.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> I’ll tell you what, Grovelgrub; if +ever I catch you quoting Aeschylus again, I’ll cashier you from +your tutorship—that’s positive.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> I am dumb, my Lord.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> Think, I tell you, of some way of +getting down.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> Nothing more easy, my Lord.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> Plummet fashion, I suppose?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> Why, as your Lordship seems +to hint, that certainly is the most expeditious method; but not, +I think, in all points of view, the most advisable. On this +side of the rock is a <em>dumetum</em>: we can descend, I think, by +the help of the roots and shoots. O dear! I shall be like +Virgil’s goat: I shall be seen from far to hang from the bushy +rock <i><span lang="la">dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbor</span></i>!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em>—Confound your Greek and Latin! +you know there is nothing I hate so much; and I thought you +did so too, or you have <em>finished</em> your <em>education</em> to no purpose +at college.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub.</em> I do, my Lord; I hate them +mortally, more than anything except philosophy and the dumb +Baronet.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>Lord Anophel Achthar proceeded to examine the side of the +rock to which the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub had called his +attention; and as it seemed the most practicable mode of +descent, it was resolved to submit to necessity, and make a +valorous effort to regain the valley; Lord Anophel, however, +insisting on the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub leading the way. +The reverend gentleman seized with one hand the stem of a +hazel, with the other the branch of an ash; set one foot on the +root of an oak, and deliberately lowered the other in search of +a resting-place; which having found on a projecting point of +stone, he cautiously disengaged one hand and the upper foot, +for which in turn he sought and found a firm <em>appui</em>; and thus +by little and little he vanished among the boughs from the +sight of Lord Anophel, who proceeded with great circumspection +to follow his example.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lord Anophel had descended about one third of the elevation, +comforting his ear with the rustling of the boughs below, +that announced the safe progress of his reverend precursor; +when suddenly, as he was shifting his right hand, a treacherous +twig in his left gave way, and he fell with fearful lapse from +bush to bush, till, striking violently on a bough to which the +unfortunate divine was appended, it broke beneath the shock, +and down they went, crashing through the bushes together. +Lord Anophel was soon wedged into the middle of a large +holly, from which he heard the intermitted sound of the boughs +as they broke and were broken by the fall of his companion; +till at length they ceased, and fearful silence succeeded. He +then extricated himself from the holly as well as he could, at +the expense of a scratched face, and lowered himself down +without further accident. On reaching the bottom, he had +the pleasure to find the reverend gentleman in safety, sitting +on a fragment of stone, and rubbing his shin. ‘Come, +Grovelgrub,’ said Lord Anophel, ‘let us make the best of our +way to the nearest inn.’—‘And pour oil and wine into our +wounds,’ pursued the reverend gentleman, ‘and over our +Madeira and walnuts lay a more hopeful scheme for our next +campaign.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXIV<br> <span class='c013'>THE BAROUCHE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The morning after the election Sir Oran Haut-ton and his +party took leave of Mr. Sarcastic, Mr. Forester having +previously obtained from him a promise to be present at the +anti-saccharine fête. The barouche left the city of Novote, +decorated with ribands; Sir Oran Haut-ton was loudly cheered +by the populace, and not least by those whom he had most +severely beaten; the secret of which was, that a double allowance +of ale had been distributed over-night, to wash away the +effects of his indiscretion; it having been ascertained by +political economists, that a practical appeal either to the palm +or the palate will induce the friends of <em>things as they are</em> +to submit to anything.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Autumn was now touching on the confines of winter, but +the day was mild and sunny. Sir Telegraph asked Mr. +Forester if he did not think the mode of locomotion very +agreeable.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> That I never denied; all I question is, the +right of any individual to indulge himself in it.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Surely a man has a right to do +what he pleases with his own money.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> A legal right, certainly, not a moral one. +The possession of power does not justify its abuse. The +quantity of money in a nation, the quantity of food, and the +number of animals that consume that food, maintain a triangular +harmony, of which, in all the fluctuations of time and circumstance, +the proportions are always the same. You must +consider, therefore, that for every horse you keep for pleasure, +you pass sentence of non-existence on two human beings.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Really, Forester, you are a very +<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>singular fellow. I should not much mind what you say, if you +had not such a strange habit of practising what you preach; a +thing quite unprecedented, and, egad, preposterous. I cannot +think where you got it: I am sure you did not learn it at +college.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> In a political light, every object of perception +may be resolved into one of these three heads: the food consumed—the +consumers—and money. In this point of view all +convertible property that does not eat and drink is money. +Diamonds are money. When a man changes a bank-note for +a diamond, he merely changes one sort of money for another, +differing only in the facility of circulation and the stability of +value. None of the produce of the earth is wasted by the +permutation.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> The most pernicious species of luxury, +therefore, is that which applies the fruits of the earth to any +other purposes than those of human subsistence. All luxury is +indeed pernicious, because its infallible tendency is to enervate +the few and enslave the many; but luxury, which, in addition +to this evil tendency, destroys the fruits of the earth in the +wantonness of idle ostentation, and thereby prevents the +existence of so many human beings as the quantity of food so +destroyed would maintain, is marked by criminality of a much +deeper dye.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> At the same time you must consider that, in +respect of population, the great desideratum is not number, but +quality. If the whole surface of this country were divided into +gardens, and in every garden were a cottage, and in every +cottage a family living entirely on potatoes, the number of its +human inhabitants would be much greater than at present; +but where would be the spirit of commercial enterprise, the researches +of science, the exalted pursuits of philosophical leisure, +the communication with distant lands, and all that variety of +human life and intercourse, which is now so beautiful and +interesting? Above all, where would be the refuge of such a +population in times of the slightest defalcation? Now, the +waste of plenty is the resource of scarcity. The canal that +does not overflow in the season of rain will not be navigable in +the season of drought. The rich have been often ready, in +days of emergency, to lay their superfluities aside; but when +the fruits of the earth are applied in plentiful or even ordinary +<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>seasons, to the utmost possibility of human subsistence, the +days of deficiency in their produce must be days of inevitable +famine.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> What then will you say of those who in +times of actual famine persevere in their old course, in the +wanton waste of luxury?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Truly I have nothing to say for them but that +they know not what they do.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> If, in any form of human society, any one +human being dies of hunger, while another wastes or consumes +in the wantonness of vanity as much as would have preserved +his existence, I hold that second man guilty of the death of +the first.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Surely, Forester, you are not +serious.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Indeed I am. What would you think of a +family of four persons, two of whom should not be contented +with consuming their own share of diurnal provision but, having +adventitiously the pre-eminence of physical power, should +either throw the share of the two others into the fire, or stew it +down into a condiment for their own?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> I should think it very abominable, +certainly.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Yet what is human society but one great +family? What is moral duty, but that precise line of conduct +which tends to promote the greatest degree of general happiness? +And is not this duty most flagrantly violated, when one +man appropriates to himself the subsistence of twelve; while, +perhaps in his immediate neighbourhood, eleven of his fellow-beings +are dying with hunger? I have seen such a man walk +with a demure face into church, as regularly as if the Sunday +bell had been a portion of his corporeal mechanism, to hear a +bloated and beneficed sensualist hold forth on the text of <em>Do +as ye would be done by</em>, or <em>Inasmuch as ye have done it unto +the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me</em>: +whereas, if he had wished his theory to coincide with his +practice he would have chosen for his text, <em>Behold a man +gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners</em>:<a id='r62'></a><a href='#f62' class='c012'><sup>[62]</sup></a> +and when the duty of words was over, the auditor and his +ghostly adviser, issuing forth together, have committed poor +<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>Lazarus to the care of Providence, and proceeded to feast in +the lordly mansion, like Dives that lived in purple.<a id='r63'></a><a href='#f63' class='c012'><sup>[63]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Well, Forester, there I escape +your shaft; for I have ‘forgotten what the inside of a church +is made of,’ since they made me go to chapel twice a day at +college. But go on, and don’t spare <em>me</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Let us suppose that ten thousand quarters of +wheat will maintain ten thousand persons during any given portion +of time: if the ten thousand quarters be reduced to five, or +if the ten thousand persons be increased to twenty, the consequence +will be immediate and general distress: yet if the +proportions be equally distributed, as in a ship on short allowance, +the general perception of necessity and justice will +preserve general patience and mutual goodwill; but let the +first supposition remain unaltered, let there be ten thousand +quarters of wheat, which shall be full allowance for ten thousand +people; then, if four thousand persons take to themselves the +portion of eight thousand, and leave to the remaining six +thousand the portion of two (and this I fear is even an inadequate +picture of the common practice of the world), these +latter will be in a much worse condition on the last than on +the first supposition; while the habit of selfish prodigality +deadening all good feelings and extinguishing all sympathy on +the one hand, and the habit of debasement and suffering +combining with the inevitable sense of oppression and injustice +on the other, will produce an action and reaction of open, +unblushing, cold-hearted pride, and servile, inefficient, ill-disguised +resentment, which no philanthropist can contemplate +without dismay.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> What then will be the case if the same +<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>disproportionate division continues by regular gradations through +the remaining six thousand, till the lowest thousand receive +such a fractional pittance as will scarcely keep life together? +If any of these perish with hunger, what are they but the victims +of the first four thousand, who appropriated more to themselves +than either nature required or justice allowed? This, whatever +the temporisers with the world may say of it, I have no hesitation +in pronouncing to be wickedness of the most atrocious +kind; and this I make no doubt was the sense of the founder +of the Christian religion when he said, <em>It is easier for a camel +to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter +the kingdom of heaven</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> You must beware of the chimaera of an agrarian +law, the revolutionary doctrine of an equality of possession; +which can never be possible in practice, till the whole constitution +of human nature be changed.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I am no revolutionist. I am no advocate +for violent and arbitrary changes in the state of society. I +care not in what proportions property is divided (though I +think there are certain limits which it ought never to pass, and +approve the wisdom of the American laws in restricting the +fortune of a private citizen to twenty thousand a year), provided +the rich can be made to know that they are but the stewards +of the poor, that they are not to be the monopolisers of solitary +spoil, but the distributors of general possession; that they are +responsible for that distribution to every principle of general +justice, to every tie of moral obligation, to every feeling of +human sympathy; that they are bound to cultivate simple +habits in themselves, and to encourage most such arts of +industry and peace as are most compatible with the health and +liberty of others.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> On this principle, then, any species of luxury +in the artificial adornment of persons and dwellings, which +condemns the artificer to a life of pain and sickness in the +alternations of the furnace and the cellar, is more baleful and +more criminal than even that which, consuming in idle prodigality +the fruits of the earth, destroys altogether, in the +proportion of its waste, so much of the possibility of human +existence: since it is better not to be than to be in misery.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> That is some consolation for me, +as it shows me that there are others worse than myself; for I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>really thought you were going between you to prove me one +of the greatest rogues in England. But seriously, Forester, +you think the keeping of pleasure-horses, for the reasons you +have given, a selfish and criminal species of luxury?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I am so far persuaded of it, that I keep +none myself.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> But are not these four very +beautiful creatures? Would you wish not to see them in +existence, living as they do a very happy and easy kind of +life?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> That I am disposed to question, when I +compare the wild horse, in his native deserts, in the full enjoyment +of health and liberty, and all the energies of his nature, +with those docked, cropped, curtailed, mutilated animals, pent +more than half their lives in the close confinement of a stable, +never let out but to run in trammels, subject, like their tyrant +man, to an infinite variety of diseases, the produce of civilisation +and unnatural life, and tortured every now and then by +some villain of a farrier, who has no more feeling for them +than a West Indian planter has for his slaves; and when +you consider, too, the fate of the most cherished of the species, +racers and hunters, instruments and often victims of sports +equally foolish and cruel, you will acknowledge that the life of +the civilised horse is not an enviable destiny.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Horses are noble and useful animals; but as +they must necessarily exist in great numbers for almost every +purpose of human intercourse and business, it is desirable that +none should be kept for purposes of mere idleness and ostentation. +A pleasure-horse is a sort of four-footed sinecurist.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Not quite so mischievous as a +two-footed one.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Perhaps not: but the latter has always a +large retinue of the former, and therefore the evil is doubled.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Upon my word, Forester, you +will almost talk me out of my barouche, and then what will +become of me? What shall I do to kill time?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Read ancient books, the only source of +permanent happiness left in this degenerate world.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Read ancient books! That may +be very good advice to some people: but you forget that I +have been at college, and <em>finished</em> my <em>education</em>. By the bye I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>have one inside, a portable advocate for my proceedings, no +less a personage than old Pindar.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Pindar has written very fine odes on driving, +as Anacreon has done on drinking; but the first can no more +be adduced to prove the morality of the whip, than the second +to demonstrate the virtue of intemperance. Besides, as to the +mental tendency and emulative associations of the pursuit itself, +no comparison can be instituted between the charioteers of the +Olympic games and those of our turnpike roads; for the +former were the emulators of heroes and demigods, and the +latter of grooms and mail coachmen.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</em> Well, Forester, as I recall to +mind the various subjects against which I have heard you +declaim, I will make you a promise. When ecclesiastical +dignitaries imitate the temperance and humility of the founder +of that religion by which they feed and flourish: when the +man in place acts on the principles which he professed while +he was out: when borough electors will not sell their suffrage, +nor their representatives their votes: when poets are not to be +hired for the maintenance of any opinion: when learned divines +can afford to have a conscience: when universities are not a +hundred years in knowledge behind all the rest of the world: +when young ladies speak as they think, and when those who +shudder at a tale of the horrors of slavery will deprive their +own palates of a sweet taste, for the purpose of contributing +all in their power to its extinction:—why then, Forester, I will +lay down my barouche.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXV<br> <span class='c013'>THE WALK</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>They were to pass, in their return, through an estate belonging +to Mr. Forester, for the purpose of taking up his aunt +Miss Evergreen, who was to accompany them to Redrose +Abbey. On arriving at an inn on the nearest point of the +great road, Mr. Forester told Sir Telegraph that, from the +arrangements he had made, it was impossible for any carriage +to enter his estate, as he had taken every precaution for preserving +the simplicity of his tenants from the contagious +exhibitions and examples of luxury. ‘This road,’ said he, ‘is +only accessible to pedestrians and equestrians: I have no wish +to exclude the visits of laudable curiosity, but there is nothing +I so much dread and deprecate as the intrusion of those +heartless fops, who take their fashionable autumnal tour, to +gape at rocks and waterfalls, for which they have neither eyes +nor ears, and to pervert the feelings and habits of the once +simple dwellers of the mountains.<a id='r64'></a><a href='#f64' class='c012'><sup>[64]</sup></a> Nature seems to have +<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>raised her mountain-barriers for the purpose of rescuing a few +favoured mortals from the vortex of that torrent of physical and +moral degeneracy which seems to threaten nothing less than +the extermination of the human species:<a id='r65'></a><a href='#f65' class='c012'><sup>[65]</sup></a> but in vain, while +the annual opening of its sluices lets out a side stream of the +worst specimens of what is called refined society, to inundate +the mountain valleys with the corruptions of metropolitan folly. +Thus innocence, and health, and simplicity of life and manners, +are banished from their last retirement, and nowhere more +lamentably so than in the romantic scenery of the northern +lakes, where every wonder of nature is made an article of trade, +where the cataracts are locked up, and the echoes are sold: +so that even the rustic character of that ill-fated region is +condemned to participate in the moral stigma which must dwell +indelibly on its poetical name.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The party alighted, and a consultation being held, it was +resolved to walk to the village in a body, the Honourable Mrs. +Pinmoney lifting her hands and eyes in profound astonishment +at Mr. Forester’s old-fashioned notions.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>They followed a narrow winding path through rocky and +sylvan hills. They walked in straggling parties of ones, twos, +and threes. Mr. Forester and Anthelia went first. Sir Oran +Haut-ton followed alone, playing a pensive tune on his flute. +Sir Telegraph Paxarett walked between his aunt and cousin, +the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney and Miss Danaretta. Mr. +Hippy, in a melancholy vein, brought up the rear with Mr. +Fax. A very beautiful child which had sat on the old gentleman’s +knee, at the inn where they breakfasted, had thrown him, +not for the first time on a similar occasion, into a fit of dismal +repentance that he had not one of his own: he stalked along +accordingly, with a most ruefully lengthened aspect, uttering +every now and then a deep-drawn sigh. Mr. Fax in philosophic +sympathy determined to console him, by pointing out to him +the true nature and tendency of the principle of population, and +the enormous evils resulting from the multiplication of the +human species: observing that the only true criterion of the +happiness of a nation was to be found in the number of its old +maids and bachelors, whom he venerated as the sources and +symbols of prosperity and peace. Poor Mr. Hippy walked on +sighing and groaning, deaf as the adder to the voice of the +charmer: for, in spite of all the eloquence of the antipopulationist, +the image of the beautiful child which he had danced +on his knee continued to haunt his imagination, and threatened +him with the blue devils for the rest of the day.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I see,’ said Sir Telegraph to Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘my hopes +are at an end. Forester is the happy man, though I am by no +means sure that he knows it himself.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Impossible,’ said Mrs. Pinmoney; ‘Anthelia may be +amused a little while with his rhapsodies, but nothing more, +believe me. The man is out of his mind. Do you know, I +heard him say the other day, “that not a shilling of his +property was his own, that it was a portion of the general +possession of human society, of which the distribution had +devolved upon him: and that for the mode of that distribution +he was most rigidly responsible to the principles of immutable +justice.” If such a mode of talking——’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘And acting too,’ said Sir Telegraph; ‘for I assure you +he quadrates his practice as nearly as he can to his theory.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Monstrous!’ said Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘what would our +reverend friend, poor dear Doctor Bosky, say to him? But if +<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>such a way of talking and acting be the way to win a young +heiress, I shall think the whole world is turned topsy-turvy.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Your remark would be just,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘were that +young heiress any other than Anthelia Melincourt.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Well,’ said Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘there are maidens in Scotland +more lovely by far——’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘That I deny,’ said Sir Telegraph.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Who will gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar,’ proceeded +Mrs. Pinmoney.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘That will not do,’ said Sir Telegraph: ‘I shall resign with +the best grace I can muster to a more favoured candidate, but +I shall never think of another choice.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Twelve months hence,’ said Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘you will tell +another tale. In the meantime you will not die of despair as +long as there is a good turnpike road and a pipe of Madeira in +England.’</p> + +<p class='c016'>‘You will find,’ said Mr. Forester to Anthelia, ‘in the little +valley we are about to enter, a few specimens of that simple +and natural life which approaches as nearly as the present state +of things will admit to my ideas of the habits and manners +of the primaeval agriculturists, or the fathers of the Roman +republic. You will think perhaps of Fabricius under his oak, +of Curius in his cottage, of Regulus, when he solicited recall +from the command of an army, because the man whom he had +intrusted, in his absence, with the cultivation of his field and +garden had run away with his spade and rake, by which his +wife and children were left without support; and when the +senate decreed that the implements should be replaced, and a +man provided at the public expense to maintain the consul’s +family, by cultivating his fields in his absence. Then poverty +was as honourable as it is now disgraceful: then the same +public respect was given to him who could most simplify his +habits and manners that is now paid to those who can make +the most shameless parade of wanton and selfish prodigality. +Those days are past for ever: but it is something in the present +time to resuscitate their memory, to call up even the shadow +of the reflection of republican Rome—<em>Rome the seat of glory +and of virtue, if ever they had one on earth</em>.<a id='r66'></a><a href='#f66' class='c012'><sup>[66]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>‘You excite my curiosity very highly,’ said Anthelia, ‘for, +from the time when I read</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in4'>——in those dear books that first</div> + <div class='line'>Woke in my heart the love of poesy,</div> + <div class='line'>How with the villagers Erminia dwelt,</div> + <div class='line'>And Calidore, for a fair shepherdess,</div> + <div class='line'>Forgot his guest to learn the shepherd’s lore;</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>how much have I regretted never to discover in the actual +inhabitants of the country the realisation of the pictures of +Spenser and Tasso!’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The palaces,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘that everywhere rise +around them to shame the meanness of their humble dwellings, +the great roads that everywhere intersect their valleys, and +bring them continually in contact with the overflowing corruption +of cities, the devastating monopoly of large farms, that +has almost swept the race of cottagers from the face of the +earth, sending the parents to the workhouse or the army, and +the children to perish like untimely blossoms in the blighting +imprisonment of manufactories, have combined to diminish the +numbers and deteriorate the character of the inhabitants of the +country; but whatever be the increasing ravages of the Triad +of Mammon, avarice, luxury, and disease, they will always be +the last involved in the vortex of progressive degeneracy, +realising the beautiful fiction of ancient poetry, that, when +primaeval Justice departed from the earth, her last steps were +among the cultivators of the fields.’<a id='r67'></a><a href='#f67' class='c012'><sup>[67]</sup></a></p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXVI<br> <span class='c013'>THE COTTAGERS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The valley expanded into a spacious amphitheatre, with a +beautiful stream winding among pastoral meadows, which, as +well as the surrounding hills, were studded with cottages, each +with its own trees, its little garden, and its farm. Sir Telegraph +was astonished to find so many human dwellings in a space +that, on the modern tactics of rural economy, appeared only +sufficient for three or four <em>moderate</em> farms; and Mr. Fax looked +perfectly aghast to perceive the principle of population in such +a fearful state of activity. Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney expressed +their surprise at not seeing a single lordly mansion asserting +its regal pre-eminence over the dwellings of its miserable vassals; +while the voices of the children at play served only to condense +the vapours that obfuscated the imagination of poor Mr. Hippy. +Anthelia, as their path wound among the cottages, was more +and more delighted with the neatness and comfort of the +dwellings, the exquisite order of the gardens, the ingenuous air +of happiness and liberty that characterised the simple inhabitants, +and the health and beauty of the little rosy children +that were sporting in the fields. Mr. Forester had been +recognised from a distance. The cottagers ran out in all directions +to welcome him: the valley and the hills seemed starting +into life, as men, women, and children poured down, as with one +impulse, on the path of his approach, while some hastened to the +residence of Miss Evergreen, ambitious of being the first to +announce to her the arrival of her nephew. Miss Evergreen +came forward to meet the party, surrounded by a rustic crowd +of both sexes, and of every age, from the old man leaning on +his stick, to the little child that could just run alone, but had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>already learnt to attach something magical to the sound of the +name of Forester.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The first idea they entertained at the sight of his party was +that he was married, and had brought his bride to visit his +little colony; and Anthelia was somewhat disconcerted by the +benedictions that were poured upon her under this impression +of the warm-hearted rustics.</p> + +<p class='c007'>They entered Miss Evergreen’s cottage, which was small, +but in a style of beautiful simplicity. Anthelia was much +pleased with her countenance and manners; for Miss Evergreen +was an amiable and intelligent woman, and was single, +not from having wanted lovers, but from being of that order of +minds which can love but once.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Fax took occasion, during a temporary absence of +Miss Evergreen from the apartment in which they were taking +refreshment, to say he was happy to have seen so amiable a +specimen of that injured and calumniated class of human +beings commonly called old maids, who were often so from +possessing in too high a degree the qualities most conducive +to domestic happiness; for it might naturally be imagined +that the least refined and delicate minds would be the soonest +satisfied in the choice of a partner, and the most ready to +repair the loss of a first love by the substitution of a second. +This might have led to a discussion, but Miss Evergreen’s +re-entrance prevented it. They now strolled out among the +cottages in detached parties and in different directions. Mr. +Fax attached himself to Mr. Hippy and Miss Evergreen. +Anthelia and Mr. Forester went their own way. She was +above the little affectation of feeling her <em>dignity</em> offended, as +our female novel-writers express it, by the notions which the +peasants had formed respecting her. ‘You see,’ said Mr. +Forester, ‘I have endeavoured as much as possible to recall +the images of better times, when the country was well peopled, +from the farms being small, and cultivated chiefly by cottagers +who lived in what was in Scotland called a <em>cottar town</em>.<a id='r68'></a><a href='#f68' class='c012'><sup>[68]</sup></a> Now +you may go over vast tracts of country without seeing anything +like an <em>old English Cottage</em>, to say nothing of the fearful +difference which has been caused in the interior of the few that +remain by the pressure of exorbitant taxation, of which the +real, though not the nominal burden, always falls most heavily +<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>on the labouring classes, backed by that <em>canker at the heart of +national prosperity</em>, the imaginary riches of paper-credit, of +which the means are delusion, the progress monopoly, and the +ultimate effect the extinction of the best portion of national +population, a healthy and industrious peasantry. Large farms +bring more rent to the landlord, and therefore landlords in +general make no scruple to increase their rents by depopulating +their estates,<a id='r69'></a><a href='#f69' class='c012'><sup>[69]</sup></a> though Anthelia Melincourt will not comprehend +the mental principle in which such feelings originate.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Is it possible,’ said Anthelia, ‘that you, so young as you +are, can have created such a scene as this?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘My father,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘began what I merely perpetuate. +He estimated his riches, not by the amount of rent +his estate produced, but the number of simple and happy beings +it maintained. He divided it into little farms of such a size as +were sufficient, even in indifferent seasons, to produce rather +more than the necessities of their cultivators required. So that all +these cottagers are rich, according to the definition of Socrates;<a id='r70'></a><a href='#f70' class='c012'><sup>[70]</sup></a> +for they have at all times a little more than they actually need, +a subsidium for age or sickness, or any accidental necessity.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>They entered several of the cottages, and found in them all +the same traces of comfort and content, and the same images +of the better days of England: the clean-tiled floor, the +polished beechen table, the tea-cups on the chimney, the +dresser with its glittering dishes, the old woman with her +spinning-wheel by the fire, and the old man with his little +grandson in the garden, giving him his first lessons in the use +of the spade, the good wife busy in her domestic arrangements, +and the pot boiling on the fire for the return of her husband +from his labour in the field.</p> + +<div id='i_203' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_203.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>‘My father,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘began what I merely perpetuate.’</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>‘Is it not astonishing,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘that there should +be any who think, as I know many do, the number of cottagers +on their land a grievance, and desire to be quit of them,<a id='r71'></a><a href='#f71' class='c012'><sup>[71]</sup></a> and +have no feeling of remorse in allotting to one solitary family as +much extent of cultivated land as was ploughed by the whole +Roman people in the days of Cincinnatus?<a id='r72'></a><a href='#f72' class='c012'><sup>[72]</sup></a> The three great +<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>points of every political system are the health, the morals, and +the number of the people. Without health and morals the +people cannot be happy; but without numbers they cannot +be a great and powerful nation, nor even exist for any considerable +time.<a id='r73'></a><a href='#f73' class='c012'><sup>[73]</sup></a> And by numbers I do not mean the inhabitants +of the cities, the sordid and sickly victims of commerce, and +the effeminate and enervated slaves of luxury; but in estimating +the power and the riches of a country, I take my only +criterion from its agricultural population.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXVII<br> <span class='c013'>THE ANTI-SACCHARINE FÊTE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Miss Evergreen accompanied them in their return, to preside +at the anti-saccharine fête. Mr. Hippy was turned out to +make room for her in the barouche, and took his seat on the +roof with Messieurs Forester and Fax. Anthelia no longer +deemed it necessary to keep a guard over her heart: the +bud of mutual affection between herself and Mr. Forester, +both being, as they were, perfectly free and perfectly ingenuous, +was rapidly expanding into the full bloom of happiness: they +dreamed not that evil was near to check, if not to wither it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The whole party was prevailed on by Miss Evergreen to be +her guests at Redrose Abbey till after the anti-saccharine fête, +which very shortly took place, and was attended by the +principal members of the Anti-saccharine Society, and by an +illustrious assemblage from near and from far: amongst the +rest by our old acquaintance, Mr. Derrydown, Mr. O’Scarum, +Major O’Dogskin, Mr. Sarcastic, the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, +and Mr. Feathernest the poet, who brought with him his friend +Mr. Vamp the reviewer. Lord Anophel Achthar and the +Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub deemed it not expedient to join the +party, but ensconced themselves in Alga Castle, studying +<em>michin malicho</em>, which means mischief.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The anti-saccharine fête commenced with a splendid dinner, +as Mr. Forester thought to make luxury on this occasion +subservient to morality, by showing what culinary art could +effect without the intervention of West Indian produce; and +the preparers of the feast, under the superintendence of Miss +Evergreen, had succeeded so well, that the company testified +very general satisfaction, except that a worthy Alderman and +Baronet from London (who had been studying the picturesque +at Low-wood Inn, and had given several manifestations of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>exquisite taste that had completely won the hearts of Mr. +O’Scarum and Major O’Dogskin) having just helped himself +to a slice of venison, fell back aghast against the back of his +chair, and dropped the knife and fork from his nerveless +hands, on finding that currant-jelly was prohibited: but being +recovered by an application of the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney’s +vinaigrette, he proceeded to revenge himself on a +very fine pheasant, which he washed down with floods of +Madeira, being never at a loss for some one to take wine with +him, as he had the good fortune to sit opposite to the +Reverend Mr. Portpipe, who was <i><span lang="fr">toujours prêt</span></i> on the occasion, +and a <em>coup-d’œil</em> between them arranged the whole preliminary +of the compotatory ceremonial.</p> + +<p class='c007'>After dinner Mr. Forester addressed the company. They +had seen, he said, that culinary luxury could be carried to a +great degree of refinement without the intervention of West +Indian produce: and though he himself deprecated luxury +altogether, yet he would waive that point for the present, and +concede a certain degree of it to those who fancied they +could not do without it, if they would only in return make so +very slight a concession to philanthropy, to justice, to liberty, +to every feeling of human sympathy, as to abstain from an +indulgence which was obtained by the most atrocious violation +of them all, an indulgence of which the foundations were tyranny, +robbery, and murder, and every form of evil, anguish, and oppression, +at which humanity shudders; all which were comprehended +in the single name of <span class='sc'>Slavery</span>. ‘Sugar,’ said he, ‘is +economically superfluous, nay, worse than superfluous: in the +middling classes of life it is a formidable addition to the +expenses of a large family, and for no benefit, for no addition to +the stock of domestic comfort, which is often sacrificed in more +essential points to this frivolous and wanton indulgence. It is +physically pernicious, as its destruction of the teeth, and its +effects on the health of children much pampered with sweetmeats, +sufficiently demonstrate. It is morally atrocious, from +being the primary cause of the most complicated corporeal +suffering and the most abject mental degradation that ever +outraged the form and polluted the spirit of man. It is +politically abominable, for covering with every variety of +wretchedness some of the fairest portions of the earth, which, +if the inhabitants of free countries could be persuaded <em>to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>abstain from sugar till it were sent to them by free men</em>, might +soon become the abodes of happiness and liberty. Slaves +cannot breathe in the air of England: ‘They touch our +country and their fetters fall.’ Who is there among you that is +not proud of this distinction?—Yet this is not enough: the +produce of the labour of slavery should be banished from our +shores. Not anything, not an atom of anything, should enter +an Englishman’s dwelling, on which the Genius of Liberty had +not set his seal. What would become of slavery if there were +no consumers of its produce? Yet I have seen a party of +pretended philanthropists sitting round a tea-table, and while +they dropped the sugar into their cups repeat some tale of the +sufferings of a slave, and execrate the colonial planters, who +are but their caterers and stewards—the obsequious ministers +of their unfeeling sensuality! O my fair countrywomen! you +who have such tender hearts, such affectionate spirits, such +amiable and delicate feelings, do you consider the mass of +mischief and cruelty to which you contribute, nay, of which +you are among the primary causes, when you indulge yourselves +in so paltry, so contemptible a gratification as results +from the use of sugar? while to abstain from it entirely is a +privation so trivial, that it is most wonderful to think that +Justice and Charity should have such a boon to beg from Beauty +in the name of the blood and the tears of human beings. Be not +deterred by the idea that you will have few companions by the +better way: so much the rather should it be strictly followed by +amiable and benevolent minds.<a id='r74'></a><a href='#f74' class='c012'><sup>[74]</sup></a> Secure to yourselves at least +the delightful consciousness of reflecting that you are in no +way whatever accomplices in the cruelty and crime of slavery, +and accomplices in it you certainly are, nay, its very original +springs, as long as you are receivers and consumers of its +iniquitous acquisitions.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I will answer you, Mr. Forester,’ said Mr. Sarcastic, ‘for +myself and the rest of the company. You shock our feelings +excessively by calling us the primary causes of slavery; and +there are very few among us who have not shuddered at +the tales of West Indian cruelty. I assure you we are very +liberal of theoretical sympathy; but as to practical abstinence +<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>from the use of sugar, do you consider what it is you require? +Do you consider how very agreeable to us is the sensation of +sweetness in our palates? Do you suppose we would give up +that sensation because human creatures of the same flesh and +blood as ourselves are oppressed and enslaved, and flogged +and tortured, to procure it for us? Do you consider that +Custom<a id='r75'></a><a href='#f75' class='c012'><sup>[75]</sup></a> is the great lord and master of our conduct? And +<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>do you suppose that any feeling of pity, and sympathy, and +charity, and benevolence, and justice, will overcome the power +of Custom, more especially where any pleasure of sense is +attached to his dominion? In appealing to our pockets, +indeed, you touched us to the quick: you aimed your eloquence +at our weak side—you hit us in the vulnerable point; but if it +should appear that in this particular we really might save our +money, yet being expended in a matter of personal and +sensual gratification, it is not to be supposed so completely +lost and wasted as it would be if it were given either to a +friend or a stranger in distress. I will admit, however, that you +have touched our feelings a little, but this disagreeable +impression will soon wear off: with some of us it will last as +long as pity for a starving beggar, and with others as long as +grief for the death of a friend; and I find, on a very accurate +average calculation, that the duration of the former may be +considered to be at least three minutes, and that of the latter +at most ten days.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Mr. Sarcastic,’ said Anthelia, ‘you do not render justice +to the feelings of the company; nor is human nature so selfish +and perverted as you seem to consider it. Though there are +undoubtedly many who sacrifice the general happiness of humankind +to their own selfish gratification, yet even these, I am +willing to believe, err not in cruelty but in ignorance, from +not seeing the consequences of their own actions; but it is not +by persuading them that all the world is as bad as themselves, +that you will give them clearer views and better feelings. +Many are the modes of evil—many the scenes of human +suffering; but if the general condition of man is ever to be +ameliorated, it can only be through the medium of <span class='fss'>BELIEF IN +HUMAN VIRTUE</span>.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Well, Forester,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘if you wish to +increase the numbers of the Anti-saccharine Society, set me +down for one.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Remember,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘by enrolling your name +among us you pledge yourself to perpetual abstinence from +West Indian produce.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I am aware of it,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘and you shall find +me zealous in the cause.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The fat Alderman cried out about the ruin of commerce, +and Mr. Vamp was very hot on the subject of the revenue. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>The question was warmly canvassed, and many of the party +who had not been quite persuaded by what Mr. Forester had +said in behalf of the anti-saccharine system, were perfectly +convinced in its favour when they had heard what Mr. Vamp +and the fat Alderman had to say against it; and the consequence +was, that, in spite of Mr. Sarcastic’s opinion of +the general selfishness of mankind, the numbers of the Anti-saccharine +Society were very considerably augmented.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘You see,’ said Mr. Fax to Mr. Sarcastic, ‘the efficacy of +associated sympathies. It is but to give an impulse of cooperation +to any good and generous feeling, and its progressive +accumulation, like that of an Alpine avalanche, though but a +snowball at the summit, becomes a mountain in the valley.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXVIII<br> <span class='c013'>THE CHESS DANCE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The dinner was followed by a ball, for the opening of which +Sir Telegraph Paxarett, who officiated as master of the ceremonies, +had devised a fanciful scheme, and had procured for +the purpose a number of appropriate masquerade dresses. An +extensive area in the middle of the ballroom was chalked out +into sixty-four squares of alternate white and red, in lines of +eight squares each. Sir Telegraph, while the rest of the +company was sipping, not without many wry faces, their anti-saccharine +tea, called out into another apartment the gentlemen +whom he had fixed on to perform in his little ballet; and Miss +Evergreen at the same time withdrew with the intended female +performers. Sir Telegraph now invested Mr. Hippy with the +dignity of White King, Major O’Dogskin with that of Black +King, and the Reverend Mr. Portpipe with that of White +Bishop, which the latter hailed as a favourable omen, not +precisely comprehending what was going forward. As the +reverend gentleman was the only one of his cloth in the +company, Sir Telegraph was under the necessity of appointing +three lay Bishops, whom he fixed on in the persons of two +country squires, Mr. Hermitage and Mr. Heeltap, and of the +fat Alderman already mentioned, Sir Gregory Greenmould. +Sir Telegraph himself, Mr. O’Scarum, Mr. Derrydown, and +Mr. Sarcastic, were the Knights: and the Rooks were Mr. +Feathernest the poet; Mr. Paperstamp, another variety of the +same genus, chiefly remarkable for an affected infantine lisp in +his speech, and for always wearing waistcoats of a duffel gray; +Mr. Vamp the reviewer; and Mr. Killthedead, from Frogmarsh +Hall, a great compounder of narcotics, under the denomination +of <span class='sc'>Battles</span>, for he never heard of a deadly field, especially if +<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>dotage and superstition, to which he was very partial, gained +the advantage over generosity and talent, both of which he +abhorred, but immediately seizing his goosequill and foolscap,</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>He fought the <span class='sc'>Battle</span> o’er again,</div> + <div class='line'>And twice he slew the slain.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div id='i_213' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_213.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>The company was sipping, not without many wry faces, their anti-saccharine tea.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Feathernest was a little nettled on being told that he +was to be the <em>King’s Rook</em>, but smoothed his wrinkled brow +on being assured that no <i><span lang="la">mauvaise plaisanterie</span></i> was intended.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Kings were accordingly crowned, and attired in regal +robes. The Reverend Mr. Portpipe and his three brother +Bishops were arrayed in full canonicals. The Knights were +equipped in their white and black armour, with sword, and +dazzling helm, and nodding crest. The Rooks were enveloped +in a sort of mural robe, with a headpiece formed on the model +of that which occurs in the ancient figures of Cybele; and +thus attired they bore a very striking resemblance to the +walking wall in Pyramus and Thisbe.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Kings now led the way to the ballroom, and the two +beautiful Queens, Miss Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney and +Miss Celandina Paperstamp, each with eight beautiful nymphs, +arrayed for the mimic field in light Amazonian dresses, white +and black, did such instant execution among the hearts of the +young gentlemen present, that they might be said to have +‘fought and conquered ere a sword was drawn.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>They now proceeded to their stations on their respective +squares: but before we describe their manœuvres we will +recapitulate the</p> + +<table class='table1'> + <tr><th class='c011' colspan='2'>TRIPUDII PERSONAE</th></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c017'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>WHITE</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c017'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>King</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Mr. Hippy.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>Queen</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Miss Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>King’s Bishop</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>The Reverend Mr. Portpipe.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>Queen’s Bishop</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Sir Gregory Greenmould.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>King’s Knight</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Mr. O’Scarum.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>Queen’s Knight</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Sir Telegraph Paxarett.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>King’s Rook</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Mr. Feathernest.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>Queen’s Rook</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Mr. Paperstamp.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>Eight Nymphs.</em></td> + <td class='c017'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span> </td> + <td class='c017'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c011' colspan='2'>BLACK</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'> </td> + <td class='c017'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>King</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Major O’Dogskin.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>Queen</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Miss Celandina Paperstamp.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>King’s Bishop</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Squire Hermitage.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>Queen’s Bishop</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Squire Heeltap.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>King’s Knight</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Mr. Sarcastic.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>Queen’s Knight</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Mr. Derrydown.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>King’s Rook</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Mr. Killthedead.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>Queen’s Rook</em></td> + <td class='c017'><span class='sc'>Mr. Vamp.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><em>Eight Nymphs.</em></td> + <td class='c017'> </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Hippy took his station on a black square, near the +centre of one of the extreme lines, and Major O’Dogskin on +an opposite white square of the parallel extreme. The +Queens, who were to command in chief, stood on the left of +the Kings: the Bishops were posted to the right and left of +their respective sovereigns; the Knights next to the Bishops; +the corners were occupied by the Rooks. The two lines in +front of these principal personages were occupied by the +Nymphs;—a space of four lines of eight squares each being +left between the opposite parties for the field of action.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The array was now complete, with the exception of the +Reverend Mr. Portpipe, who being called by Miss Danaretta +to take his place at the right hand of Mr. Hippy, and perceiving +that he should be necessitated, in his character of Bishop, +to take a very active part in the diversion, began to exclaim +with great vehemence, <span class='sc'><span lang="la">Nolo episcopari!</span></span> which is probably +the only occasion on which these words were ever used with +sincerity. But Mr. O’Scarum, in his capacity of White +Knight, pounced on the reluctant divine, and placing him +between himself and Mr. Hippy, stood by him with his sword +drawn, as if to prevent his escape; then clapping a sword into +the hand of the reverend gentleman, exhorted him to conduct +himself in a manner becoming an efficient member of the true +church militant.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lots were then cast for the privilege of attack; and the +chance falling on Miss Danaretta, the music struck up the +tune of <em>The Triumph</em>, and the whole of the white party began +dancing, with their faces towards the King, performing at the +same time various manœuvres of the sword exercise, with +appropriate pantomimic gestures, expressive of their entire +<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>devotion to His Majesty’s service, and their desire to be immediately +sent forward on active duty. In vain did the +Reverend Mr. Portpipe remonstrate with Mr. O’Scarum that +his dancing days were over: the inexorable Knight compelled +him to caper and flourish his sword, ‘till the toil-drops fell +from his brows like rain.’ Sir Gregory Greenmould did his +best on the occasion, and danced like an elephant in black +drapery; but Miss Danaretta and her eight lovely Nymphs +rescued the exertions of the male performers from too critical +observation. King Hippy received the proffered service of his +army with truly royal condescension. Miss Danaretta waved +her sword with inimitable grace, and made a sign to the +damsel in front of the King to advance two squares. The +same manœuvres now took place on the black side; and Miss +Celandina sent forward the Nymph in front of Major O’Dogskin +to obstruct the further progress of the white damsel. The +dancing now recommenced on the white side, and Miss Danaretta +ordered out the Reverend Mr. Portpipe to occupy the +fourth square in front of Squire Heeltap. The reverend +gentleman rolled forward with great alacrity, in the secret +hope that he should very soon be taken prisoner, and put <i><span lang="fr">hors +de combat</span></i> for the rest of the evening. Squire Hermitage was +detached by Miss Celandina on a similar service; and these +two episcopal heroes being thus brought together in the centre +of the field, entered, like Glaucus and Diomede, into a friendly +parle, in the course of which the words Claret and Burgundy +were repeatedly overheard. The music frequently varied as +in a pantomime, according to circumstances: the manœuvres +were always directed by the waving of the sword of the Queen, +and were always preceded by the dancing of the whole party, +in the manner we have mentioned, which continued <em>ad libitum</em>, +till she had decided on her movement. The Nymph in front +of Sir Gregory Greenmould advanced one square. Mr. +Sarcastic stepped forward to the third square of Squire +Hermitage. Miss Danaretta’s Nymph advanced two squares, +and being immediately taken prisoner by the Nymph of Major +O’Dogskin, conceded her place with a graceful bow, and retired +from the field. The Nymph in front of Sir Gregory Greenmould +avenged the fate of her companion; and Mr. Hippy’s +Nymph withdrew in a similar manner. Squire Hermitage +was compelled to cut short his conversation with Mr. Portpipe, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>and retire to the third square in front of Mr. Derrydown. Sir +Telegraph skipped into the place which Sir Gregory Greenmould’s +Nymph had last forsaken. Mr. Killthedead danced +into the deserted quarters of Squire Hermitage, and Major +O’Dogskin swept round him with a minuet step into those of +Mr. Sarcastic. To carry on the detail would require more +time than we can spare, and, perhaps, more patience than our +readers possess. The Reverend Mr. Portpipe saw his party +fall around him, one by one, and survived against his will to +the close of the contest. Miss Danaretta and Miss Celandina +moved like light over the squares, and Fortune alternately +smiled and frowned on their respective banners, till the heavy +mural artillery of Mr. Vamp being brought to bear on Mr. +Paperstamp, who fancied himself a tower of strength, the latter +was overthrown and carried off the field. Mr. Feathernest +avenged his fate on the embattled front of Mr. Killthedead, +and fell himself beneath the sword of Mr. Sarcastic. Squire +Heeltap was taken off by the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, who +begged his courteous prisoner to walk to the sideboard and +bring him a glass of Madeira; for Homer, he said, was very +orthodox in his opinion that wine was a great refresher in the +toils of war.<a id='r76'></a><a href='#f76' class='c012'><sup>[76]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'>The changeful scene concluded by Miss Danaretta, with +the aid of Sir Telegraph and the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, +hemming Major O’Dogskin into a corner, where he was +reduced to an incapacity of locomotion; on which the Major +bowed and made the best of his way to the sideboard, followed +by the reverend gentleman, who, after joining the Major in a +pacific libation, threw himself into an arm-chair, and slept very +comfortably till the annunciation of supper.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Waltzes, quadrilles, and country dances followed in succession, +and, with the exception of the interval of supper, in which +Miss Evergreen developed all the treasures of anti-saccharine +taste, were kept up with great spirit till the rising of the sun.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia, who of course did not join in the former, expressed +to Mr. Forester her astonishment to see waltzing in Redrose +Abbey. ‘I did not dream of such a thing,’ said Mr. Forester; +‘but I left the whole arrangement of the ball to Sir Telegraph, +and I suppose he deemed it incumbent on him to consult <em>the +general taste of the young ladies</em>. Even I, young as I am, can +<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>remember the time when there was no point of resemblance +between an English girl in a private ballroom and a French +<em>figurante</em> in a theatrical <em>ballet</em>; but waltzing and Parisian +drapery have levelled the distinction, and the only criterion of +the difference is the place of the exhibition. Thus every +succeeding year witnesses some new inroad on the simple +manners of our ancestors; some importation of continental +vice and folly; some unnatural fretwork of tinsel and frippery +on the old Doric column of the domestic virtues of England. +An Englishman in stays, and an Englishwoman waltzing in +treble-flounced short petticoats, are anomalies so monstrous, +that till they actually existed, they never entered the most +ominous visions of the speculators on progressive degeneracy. +What would our Alfred, what would our third Edward, what +would our Milton, and Hampden, and Sidney, what would the +barons of Runnymead have thought, if the voice of prophecy +had denounced to them a period, when the perfection of +accomplishment in the daughters of England would be found +in the dress, manner, and action of the dancing girls of Paris?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The supper, of course, did not pass off without songs; and +among them Anthelia sang the following, which recalled to +Mr. Forester their conversation on the sea-shore.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12'>THE MORNING OF LOVE</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>O the spring-time of life is the season of blooming,</div> + <div class='line'>And the morning of love is the season of joy;</div> + <div class='line'>Ere noontide and summer, with radiance consuming,</div> + <div class='line'>Look down on their beauty, to parch and destroy.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>O faint are the blossoms life’s pathway adorning,</div> + <div class='line'>When the first magic glory of hope is withdrawn;</div> + <div class='line'>For the flowers of the spring, and the light of the morning,</div> + <div class='line'>Have no summer budding, and no second dawn.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Through meadows all sunshine, and verdure, and flowers,</div> + <div class='line'>The stream of the valley in purity flies;</div> + <div class='line'>But mix’d with the tides, where some proud city lowers,</div> + <div class='line'>O where is the sweetness that dwelt on its rise?</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>The rose withers fast on the breast it first graces;</div> + <div class='line'>Its beauty is fled ere the day be half done:—</div> + <div class='line'>And life is that stream which its progress defaces,</div> + <div class='line'>And love is that flower which can bloom but for one.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXIX<br> <span class='c013'>THE DISAPPEARANCE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The morning after the fête Anthelia and her party returned +to Melincourt. Before they departed she conversed a few +minutes alone with Mr. Forester in his library. What was +said on this occasion we cannot precisely report; but it seemed +to be generally suspected that Mr. Hippy’s authority would +soon be at an end, and that the services of the Reverend Mr. +Portpipe would be required in the old chapel of Melincourt +Castle, which, we are sorry to say, had fallen for some years +past very much into disuse, being never opened but on occasions +of birth, marriage, and death in the family; and these +occasions, as our readers are aware, had not of late been very +numerous.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The course of mutual love between Anthelia and Mr. +Forester was as smooth as the gliding of a skiff down a stream, +through the flowery meadows of June: and if matters were not +quite definitely settled between them, yet, as Mr. Forester was +shortly to be a visitor at the Castle, there was a very apparent +probability that their intercourse would terminate in that grand +climax and finale of all romantic adventure—marriage.</p> + +<p class='c007'>After the departure of the ladies, Mr. Forester observed +with concern that his friend Sir Oran’s natural melancholy +was visibly increased, and Mr. Fax was of opinion that he +was smitten with the tender passion: but whether for Miss +Melincourt, Mrs. Pinmoney, or Miss Danaretta, it was not so +easy to determine. But Sir Oran grew more and more fond +of solitude, and passed the greater part of the day in the +woods, though it was now the reign of the gloomy November, +which, however, accorded with the moody temper of his spirit; +and he often went without his breakfast, though he always +<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>came home to dinner. His perpetual companion was his flute, +with which he made sad response to the wintry wind.</p> + +<div id='i_221' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_221.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Mr. Fax was of opinion that he was smitten.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax were one morning consulting +on the means to be adopted for diverting Sir Oran’s melancholy, +when Sir Telegraph Paxarett drove up furiously to the +door—sprang from the box—and rushed into the apartment +with the intelligence that Anthelia had disappeared. No one +had seen her since the hour of breakfast on the preceding +day. Mr. Hippy, Mr. Derrydown, Mr. O’Scarum, and Major +O’Dogskin were scouring the country in all directions in search +of her.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester determined not to rest night or day till he had +discovered Anthelia. Sir Telegraph drove him, with Mr. Fax +and Sir Oran, to the nearest inn, where leaving Sir Telegraph +to pursue another track, they took a chaise-and-four, and posted +over the country in all directions, day after day, without finding +any clue to her retreat. Mr. Forester had no doubt that this +adventure was connected with that which we have detailed in +the eighteenth chapter; but his ignorance of the actors on +that occasion prevented his deriving any light from the coincidence. +At length, having investigated in vain all the main +and cross roads for fifty miles round Melincourt, Mr. Fax was +of opinion that she could not have passed so far along any of +them, being conveyed, as no doubt she was, against her will, +without leaving some trace of her course, which their indefatigable +inquiries must have discovered. He therefore advised +that they should discontinue their system of posting, and take +a thorough pedestrian perlustration of all the most bye and +unfrequented paths of the whole mountain-district, in some +secluded part of which he had a strong presentiment she would +be found. This plan was adopted; but the season was unfavourable +to its expeditious accomplishment; and they could +sometimes make but little progress in a day, being often compelled +to turn aside from the wilder tracks, in search of a town +or village, for the purposes of refreshment or rest:—there +being this remarkable difference between the lovers of the +days of chivalry and those of modern times, that the former +could pass a week or two in a desert or a forest, without +meat, drink, or shelter—a very useful art for all travellers, +whether lovers or not, which these degenerate days have +unfortunately lost.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>They arrived in the evening of the first day of their +pedestrianism at a little inn among the mountains. They +were informed they could have no beds; and that the only +parlour was occupied by two gentlemen, who meant to sit up +all night, and would, perhaps, have no objection to their +joining the party. A message being sent in, an affirmative +answer was very politely returned; and on entering the apartment +they discovered Mr. O’Scarum and Major O’Dogskin +engaged in a deep discussion over a large jug of wine.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Troth, now,’ said Mr. O’Scarum, ‘and this is a merry +meeting, sure enough, though it’s on a dismal occasion, for +it’s Miss Melincourt you’re looking for, as we are too, though +you have most cause, Mr. Forester; for I understand you are +to be the happy man. Troth, and I did not know so much +when I came to your fête, or, perhaps, I should have been for +arguing the point of a prior claim (as far as my own consent +was concerned) over a bit of neat turf, twelve yards long; but +Major O’Dogskin tells me, that by getting muzzy, and so I +did, sure enough, on your old Madeira, and rare stuff it is, by +my conscience, when Miss Melincourt was in your house, I +have sanctioned the matter, and there’s an end of it: but, by +my soul, I did not mean to have been cut out quietly: and +the Major says, too, you’re too good a fellow to be kilt, and +that’s true enough: so I’ll keep my ammunition for other +friends; and here’s to you and Miss Melincourt, and a happy +meeting to you both, and the devil take him that parts you, says +Harum O’Scarum.’—‘And so says Dermot O’Dogskin,’ said +the Major. ‘And my friend O’Scarum and myself will ride +about till we get news of her, for we don’t mind a little hardship.—You +shall be wanting some dinner, joys, and there’s +nothing but fat bacon and potatoes; but we have made a shift +with it, and then here is the very creature itself, old sherry, +my jewels! troth, and how did we come home by it, think +you? I know what it is to pass a night in a little inn in the +hills, and you don’t find Major O’Dogskin turning out of the +main road, without giving his man a couple of kegs of wine +just to balance the back of his saddle. Sherry’s a good +traveller, and will stand a little shaking; and what would one +do without it in such a place as this, where it is water in the +desert, and manna in the wilderness?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester thanked them very warmly for their good +<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>wishes and active exertions. The humble dinner of himself +and his party was soon despatched; after which, the Major +placed the two little kegs on the table and said, ‘They were +both filled to-day; so, you see, there is no lack of the good +creature to keep us all alive till morning, and then we shall +part again in search of Miss Melincourt, the jewel! for there +is not such another on the face of the earth. Och!’ continued +the Major, as he poured the wine from one of the kegs into a +brown jug; for the house could not afford them a decanter, +and some little ale tumblers supplied the place of wine-glasses,—‘Och! +the ould jug that never held anything better than sour +ale: how proud he must feel of being filled to the brim with +sparkling sherry, for the first and last time in the course of +his life!’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXX<br> <span class='c013'>THE PAPER-MILL</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Taking leave of Mr. O’Scarum and Major O’Dogskin, they continued +their wandering as choice or chance directed: sometimes +penetrating into the most sequestered valleys; sometimes +returning into the principal roads, and investigating the most +populous districts. Passing through the town of Gullgudgeon, +they found an immense crowd assembled in a state of extreme +confusion, exhibiting every symptom of hurry, anxiety, astonishment, +and dismay. They stopped to inquire the cause of the +tumult, and found it to proceed from the sudden explosion of a +paper-mill, in other words, the stoppage of the country bank +of Messieurs Smokeshadow, Airbubble, Hopthetwig, and Company. +Farmers, bumpkins, artisans, mechanics, tradesmen of +all descriptions, the innkeeper, the lawyer, the doctor, and the +parson; soldiers from the adjoining barracks, and fishermen +from the neighbouring coast, with their shrill-voiced and +masculine wives, rolled in one mass, like a stormy wave, +around a little shop, of which the shutters were closed, with +the word BANK in golden letters over the door, and a large +board on the central shutter, notifying that ‘Messieurs Smokeshadow, +Airbubble, Hopthetwig, and Company had found +themselves under the disagreeable necessity of suspending +their payments’; in plain English, had found it expedient to +fly by night, leaving all the machinery of their mill, and all +the treasures of their mine, that is to say, several reams of +paper, half a dozen account-books, a desk, a joint-stool, and +inkstand, a bunch of quills, and a copper-plate, to satisfy the +claims of the distracted multitude, who were shoaling in from +all quarters, with <em>promises to pay</em>, of the said Smokeshadow, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>Airbubble, Hopthetwig, and Company, to the amount of a +hundred thousand pounds.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Fax addressed himself for an explanation of particulars +to a plump and portly divine, who was standing at a little +distance from the rest of the crowd, and whose countenance +exhibited no symptoms of the rage, grief, and despair which +were depicted on the physiognomies of his dearly beloved +brethren of the town of Gullgudgeon.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘You seem, sir,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘to bear the general calamity +with Christian resignation.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I do, sir,’ said the reverend gentleman, ‘and for a very +orthodox reason—I have none of their notes—not I. I was +obliged to take them now and then against my will, but I +always sent them off to town, and got cash for them directly.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘You mean to say,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘you got a Threadneedle +Street note for them.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘To be sure, sir,’ said the divine, ‘and that is the same +thing as cash. There is a Jacobin rascal in this town, who +says it is a bad sign when the children die before the parent, +and that a day of reckoning must come sooner or later for the +old lady as well as for her daughters; but myself and my +brother magistrates have taken measures for him, and shall +soon make the town of Gullgudgeon too hot to hold him, as +sure as my name is Peppertoast.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘You seriously think, sir,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘that his opinion +is false?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Sir,’ said the reverend gentleman, somewhat nettled, ‘I +do not know what right any one can have to ask a man of my +cloth what he seriously thinks, when all that the world has to +do with is what he seriously says.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Then you seriously say it, sir?’ said Mr. Fax.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I do, sir,’ said the divine; ‘and for this very orthodox +reason, that the system of paper-money is inseparably interwoven +with the present order of things, and the present order +of things I have made up my mind to stick by, precisely as +long as it lasts.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘<em>And no longer?</em>’ said Mr. Fax.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I am no fool, sir,’ said the divine.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘But, sir,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘as you seem to have perceived +the instability of what is called (like <i><span lang="la">lucus a non lucendo</span></i>) +the <em>firm</em> of Smokeshadow, Airbubble, Hopthetwig, and Company, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>why did not you warn your flock of the impending +danger?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Sir,’ said the reverend gentleman, ‘I dined every week +with one of the partners.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester took notice of an elderly woman who was +sitting with a small handful of dirty paper, weeping bitterly on +the step of a door. ‘Forgive my intrusion,’ said he; ‘I need +not ask you why you weep; the cause is in your hand.’—‘Ah, +sir!’ said the poor woman, who could hardly speak for sobbing, +‘all the savings of twenty years taken from me in a moment; +and my poor boy, when he comes home from sea——’ She +could say no more: grief choked her utterance.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Good God!’ said Mr. Fax, ‘did you lay by your savings +in country paper?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘O sir!’ said the poor woman, ‘how was I to know that +one piece of paper was not as good as another? And everybody +said that the firm of Smokeshadow, Airbubble, Hopthetwig, +and Company was as good as the Bank of England.’ She +then unfolded one of the <em>promises to pay</em>, and fell to weeping +more bitterly than ever. Mr. Forester comforted her as well +as he could; but he found the purchasing of one or two of +her notes much more efficacious than all the lessons of his +philosophy.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘This is all your fault,’ said a fisherman to his wife; ‘you +would be hoarding and hoarding, and stinting me of my drop +of comfort when I came in after a hard day’s work, tossed and +beaten, and wet through with salt water, and there’s what we’ve +got by it.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘It was all your fault,’ retorted the wife; ‘when we had +scraped together twenty as pretty golden guineas as ever laid +in a chest, you would sell ’em, so you would, for twenty-seven +pounds of Mr. Smokeshadow’s paper; <em>and now you see the +difference</em>.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Here is an illustration,’ said Mr. Fax to Mr. Forester, ‘of +the old maxim of <em>experience teaching wisdom</em>, or, as Homer +expresses it, ῥεχθεν δε τε νηπιος ἐγνω.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘<em>We ought now to be convinced, if not before</em>,’ said Mr. +Forester, ‘<em>that what Plato has said is strictly true, that there +will be no end of human misery till governors become philosophers +or philosophers governors</em>; and that all the evils which +this country suffers, and, I fear, will suffer to a much greater +<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>extent, from the bursting of this fatal bubble of paper-money—this +chimerical symbol of imaginary riches—<em>are owing to the +want of philosophy and true political wisdom in our rulers, by +which they might have seen things in their causes, not felt them +only in their effects, as even the most vulgar man does: and by +which foresight, all the mischiefs that are befalling us might have +been prevented</em>.’<a id='r77'></a><a href='#f77' class='c012'><sup>[77]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Very hard,’ said an old soldier, ‘very, very hard:—a poor +five pounds, laid up for a rainy day,—hardly got, and closely +kept—very, very hard.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Poor man!’ said Mr. Forester, who was interested in the +soldier’s physiognomy, ‘let me repair your loss. Here is +better paper for you; but get gold and silver for it as soon as +you can.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘God bless your honour,’ said the soldier, ‘and send as much +power as goodwill to all such generous souls. Many is the +worthy heart that this day’s work will break, and here is more +damage than one man can mend. God bless your honour.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>A respectable-looking female approached the crowd, and +addressing herself to Mr. Fax, who seemed most at leisure to +her, asked him what chance there seemed to be for the creditors +of Messieurs Smokeshadow, Airbubble, Hopthetwig, and +Company. ‘By what I can gather from the people around +me,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘none whatever.’ The lady was in great +distress at this intelligence, and said they were her bankers, +and it was the second misfortune of the kind that had happened +to her. Mr. Fax expressed his astonishment that she should +have been twice the victim of the system of paper-coinage, +which seemed to contradict the old adage about a burnt child; +and said it was for his part astonishing to him how any human +being could be so deluded after the perils of the system had +been so clearly pointed out, and amongst other things, in a +pamphlet of his own on the Insubstantiality of Smoke. ‘Indeed,’ +she said, ‘she had something better to do than to trouble +herself about politics, and wondered he should insult her in her +distress by talking of such stuff to her.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Was ever such infatuation?’ said Mr. Fax, as the lady +turned away. ‘This is one of those persons who choose to +walk blindfold on the edge of a precipice, because it is too +<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>much trouble to see, and quarrel with their best friends for +requesting them to make use of their eyes. There are many +such, who think they have no business with politics; but they +find to their cost that politics will have business with them.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘A curse light on all kite-flyers!’ vociferated a sturdy farmer. +‘Od rabbit me, here be a bundle o’ trash, measters! not worth +a voive-and-zixpenny dollar all together. This comes o’ peaper-mills. +“I promise to pay,” ecod! O the good old days o’ +goulden guineas, when I used to ride whoame vrom market wi’ +a great heavy bag in my pocket; and when I whopped it down +on the old oak teable, it used to make zuch a zound as did +one’s heart good to hear it. No <em>promise to pay</em> then. Now a +man may eat his whole vortin in a zandwich, or zet vire to it in +a vardin rushlight. Promise to pay!—the lying rascals, they +never meant to pay: they knew all the while they had no +effects to pay; but zuch a pretty, zmooth-spoken, palavering +zet o’ fellers! why, Lord bless you! they’d ha’ made you +believe black was white! and though you could never get +anything of ’em but one o’ their own dirty bits o’ peaper in +change vor another, they made it out as clear as daylight that +they were as rich as zo many Jews. Ecod! and we were all +vools enough to believe ’em, and now mark the end o’t.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Yes, father,’ said a young fop at his elbow, ‘all blown, +curse me!’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Ees,’ said the farmer, ‘and thee beest blown, and thee mun +zell thy hunter, and turn to the plough-tail; and thy zisters +mun churn butter, and milk the cows, instead of jingling +penny-vorties, and dancing at race-balls wi’ squires. We mun +be old English varmers again, and none o’ your voine high-flying +promise-to-pay gentlevolks. There they be—spell ’em: +<em>I promise to pay to Mr. Gregory Gas, or bearer, on demand, +the zum o’ voive pounds. Gullgudgeon Bank, April the virst. +Vor Zmokeshadow, Airbubble, Zelf, and Company, Henry +Hopthetwig. Entered, William Walkoff.</em> And there be their +coat o’ arms: two blacksmiths blowing a vorge, wi’ the +chimney vor a crest, and a wreath o’ smoke coming out o’t; +and the motto, ‘<span class='sc'>You can’t catch a bowlful</span>.’ Od rabbit +me! here be a whole handvul of ’em, and I’ll zell ’em all vor a +voive-and-zixpenny dollar.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The ‘Jacobin rascal,’ of whom the reverend gentleman had +spoken, happened to be at the farmer’s elbow. ‘I told you +<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>how it would be,’ said he, ‘Master Sheepshead, many years +ago; and I remember you wanted to put me in the stocks for +my trouble.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Why, I believe I did, Mr. Lookout,’ said the farmer, with +a very penitent face; ‘but if you’ll call on me zome day we’ll +drown old grudges in a jug o’ ale, and light our poipes wi’ the +promises o’ Measter Hopthetwig and his gang.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Not with all of them I entreat you,’ said Mr. Lookout. +‘I hope you will have one of them framed and glazed, and +suspended over your chimney, as a warning to your children, +and your children’s children for ever, against “<em>the blessed +comforts of paper-money</em>.”’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Why, Lord love you, Measter Lookout,’ said the farmer, +‘we shall ha’ nothing but peaper-money still, you zee, only vrom +another mill like.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘As to that, Master Sheepshead,’ replied Mr. Lookout, ‘I +will only say to you in your own phrase, <span class='sc'>Mark the end o’t</span>.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Do you hear him?’ said the Rev. Mr. Peppertoast; ‘do +you hear the Jacobin rascal? Do you hear the libellous, +seditious, factious, levelling, revolutionary, republican, democratical, +atheistical villain?’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXXI<br> <span class='c013'>CIMMERIAN LODGE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>After a walk of some miles from the town of Gullgudgeon, +where no information was to be obtained of Anthelia, their +path wound along the shores of a lonely lake, embosomed in +dark pine-groves and precipitous rocks. As they passed near +a small creek, they observed a gentleman just stepping into a +boat, who paused and looked up at the sound of their approximation; +and Mr. Fax immediately recognised the poeticopolitical, +rhapsodicoprosaical, deisidaemoniacoparadoxographical, +pseudolatreiological, transcendental meteorosophist, Moley +Mystic, Esquire, of Cimmerian Lodge. This gentleman’s +Christian name, according to his own account, was improperly +spelt with an <em>e</em>, and was in truth nothing more nor less than</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12'>That Moly,</div> + <div class='line'>Which Hermes erst to wise Ulysses gave;</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>and which was, in the mind of Homer, <em>a pure anticipated +cognition</em> of the system of Kantian metaphysics, or grand +transcendental science of the <i><span lang="la">luminous obscure</span></i>; for it had a +<em>dark root</em>,<a id='r78'></a><a href='#f78' class='c012'><sup>[78]</sup></a> which was mystery; and <em>a white flower</em>, which was +abstract truth: <em>it was called Moly by the gods</em>, who then +kept it to themselves; and was <em>difficult to be dug up by mortal +men</em>, having, in fact, lain <em>perdu</em> in subterranean darkness till +the immortal Kant dug for it <em>under the stone of doubt</em>, and produced +it to the astonished world as the <em>root of human science</em>. +Other persons, however, derived his first name differently; +and maintained that the <em>e</em> in it showed it very clearly to be a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>corruption of <em>Mole-eye</em>, it being the opinion of some naturalists +that the <em>mole</em> has <em>eyes</em>, which it can withdraw or project at +pleasure, implying a faculty of wilful blindness, most happily +characteristic of a transcendental metaphysician; since, according +to the old proverb, <em>None are so blind as those who won’t +see</em>. But be that as it may, Moley Mystic was his name, and +Cimmerian Lodge was his dwelling.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Mystic invited Mr. Fax and his friends to step with +him into the boat, and cross over his lake, which he called the +<em>Ocean of Deceitful Form</em>, to the <cite>Island of Pure Intelligence</cite>, +on which Cimmerian Lodge was situated: promising to give +them a great treat in looking over his grounds, which he had +laid out according to the <em>topography of the human mind</em>; and to +enlighten them, through the medium of ‘darkness visible,’ with +an opticothaumaturgical process of transcendentalising a <em>cylindrical +mirror</em>, which should teach them the difference between +<em>objective</em> and <em>subjective reality</em>.<a id='r79'></a><a href='#f79' class='c012'><sup>[79]</sup></a> Mr. Forester was unwilling to +remit his search, even for a few hours; but Mr. Fax observing +that great part of the day was gone, and that Cimmerian +Lodge was very remote from the human world; so that if they +did not avail themselves of Mr. Mystic’s hospitality, they should +probably be reduced to the necessity of passing the night +among the rocks, <i><span lang="la">sub Jove frigido</span></i>, which he did not think very +inviting, Mr. Forester complied; and with Mr. Fax and Sir +Oran Haut-ton stepped into the boat. The reader who is +deficient in <em>taste for the bombast</em>, and is no <em>admirer of the +obscure</em>, may as well wait on the shore till they return. But +we must not enter the regions of mystery without an Orphic +invocation.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>ὙΠΝΕ ἀναξ, καλεω δε μολειν κεχαρηοτα ΜΥΣΤΑΙΣ·</div> + <div class='line'>και δε, μακαρ, λιτομαι, Tανυδιπτερε, οὐλε ὈΝΕΙΡΕ·</div> + <div class='line'>και ΝΕΦΕΛΑΣ καλεω, δροσοειμονας, ἠεροπλαγκτους·</div> + <div class='line'>ΝΥΚΤΑ τε πρεσβιστην, πολυηρατον ὈΡΓΙΟΦΑΝΤΑΙΣ,</div> + <div class='line'>ΝΥΚΤΕΡΙΟΥΣ τε ΘΕΟΥΣ, ὑπο κευθεδιν οἰκι έχοντας,</div> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>ἀντρῳ ἐν ἠεροεντι, παρα ΣΤΥΓΟΣ ἱερον ὑδωρ·</div> + <div class='line'>ΠΡΩΤΕΙ συν πολυβουλῳ, ὁν ὈΛΒΟΔΟΤΗΝ<a id='r80'></a><a href='#f80' class='c012'><sup>[80]</sup></a> καλεουσιν.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Ο sovereign Sleep! in whose papaverous glen</div> + <div class='line'>Dwell the dark Muses of Cimmerian men!</div> + <div class='line'>O Power of Dreams! whose dusky pinions shed</div> + <div class='line'>Primaeval chaos on the slumberer’s head!</div> + <div class='line'>Ye misty Clouds! amid whose folds sublime</div> + <div class='line'>Blind Faith invokes the Ghost of Feudal Time!</div> + <div class='line'>And thou, thick night! beneath whose mantle rove</div> + <div class='line'>The Phantom Powers of Subterranean Jove!</div> + <div class='line'>Arise, propitious to the mystic strain,</div> + <div class='line'>From Lethe’s flood, and Zeal’s Tartarian fane;</div> + <div class='line'>Where Freedom’s Shade, ‘mid Stygian vapours damp,</div> + <div class='line'>Sits, cold and pale, by Truth’s extinguished lamp;</div> + <div class='line'>While Cowls and Crowns portentous orgies hold,</div> + <div class='line'>And tuneful Proteus seals his eyes with gold!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>They had scarcely left the shore when they were involved +in a fog of unprecedented density, so that they could not see +one another; but they heard the dash of Mr. Mystic’s oars, +and were consoled by his assurances that he could not miss +his way in a state of the atmosphere so consentaneous to his +peculiar mode of vision; for that, though, in navigating his +little skiff on the <em>Ocean of Deceitful Form</em>, he had very often +wandered wide and far from the <cite>Island of Pure Intelligence</cite>, +yet this had always happened when he went with his eyes +open, in broad daylight; but that he had soon found the +means of obviating this little inconvenience, by always keeping +his eyes close shut whenever the sun had the impertinence to +shine upon him.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He immediately added that he would take the opportunity +of making a remark perfectly in point: ‘that Experience was +a Cyclops, with his eye in the back of his head’; and when +Mr. Fax remarked that he did not see the connection, Mr. +Mystic said he was very glad to hear it; for he should be +sorry if any one but himself could see the connection of his +ideas, as he arranged his thoughts <em>on a new principle</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>They went steadily on through the dense and heavy air, +over waters that slumbered like the Stygian pool; a chorus of +frogs, that seemed as much delighted with their own melody +as if they had been an oligarchy of poetical critics, regaling +<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>them all the way with the Aristophanic symphony of <span class='sc'>Brek-ek-ek-ex! +ko-ax! ko-ax!</span><a id='r81'></a><a href='#f81' class='c012'><sup>[81]</sup></a> till the boat fixed its keel in the +<cite>Island of Pure Intelligence</cite>; and Mr. Mystic landed his party, +as Charon did Aeneas and the Sibyl, in a bed of weeds and +mud:<a id='r82'></a><a href='#f82' class='c012'><sup>[82]</sup></a> after floundering in which for some time, from losing +their guide in the fog, they were cheered by the sound of his +voice from above, and scrambling up the bank, found themselves +on a hard and barren rock; and, still following the sound of +Mr. Mystic’s voice, arrived at Cimmerian Lodge.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The fog had penetrated into all the apartments: there was +fog in the hall, fog in the parlour, fog on the staircases, fog in +the bedrooms;</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>The fog was here, the fog was there,</div> + <div class='line'>The fog was all around.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>It was a little rarefied in the kitchen, by virtue of the enormous +fire; so far, at least, that the red face of the cook shone +through it, as they passed the kitchen door, like the disk of the +rising moon through the vapours of an autumnal river: but to +make amends for this, it was condensed almost into solidity in +the library, where the voice of their invisible guide bade them +welcome to the <em>adytum</em> of the <span class='fss'>LUMINOUS OBSCURE</span>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Mystic now produced what he called his <em>synthetical +torch</em>, and requested them to follow him, and look over his +grounds. Mr. Fax said it was perfectly useless to attempt it +in such a state of the atmosphere; but Mr. Mystic protested +that it was the only state of the atmosphere in which they +could be seen to advantage; as daylight and sunshine utterly +destroyed their beauty.</p> + +<p class='c007'>They followed the ‘darkness visible’ of the <em>synthetical torch</em>, +which, according to Mr. Mystic, <em>shed around it the rays of +transcendental illumination</em>; and he continued to march before +them, walking, and talking, and pointing out innumerable +images of singularly nubilous beauty, though Mr. Forester and +Mr. Fax both declared they could see nothing but the fog and +‘<i><span lang="fr">la pale lueur du magique flambeau</span></i>‘: till Mr. Mystic observing +that they were now in a <em>Spontaneity free from Time or Space</em>, +and at the point of <em>Absolute Limitation</em>, Mr. Fax said he was +very glad to hear it; for in that case they could go no farther. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>Mr. Mystic observed that they must go farther; for they were +entangled in a maze, from which they would never be able to +extricate themselves without his assistance; and he must take +the liberty to tell them that <em>the categories of modality were +connected into the idea of absolute necessity</em>. As this was +spoken in a high tone, they took it to be meant for a reprimand; +which carried the more weight as it was the less +understood. At length, after floundering on another half-hour, +the fog still thicker and thicker, and the torch still dimmer and +dimmer, they found themselves once more in Cimmerian Lodge.</p> + +<div id='i_236' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_236.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Mr. Mystic observed that they must go farther.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Mystic asked them how they liked his grounds, and +they both repeated they had seen nothing of them: on which +he flew into a rage and called them <em>empirical psychologists</em>, +and <em>slaves of definition, induction, and analysis</em>, which he intended +for terms of abuse, but which were not taken for such +by the persons to whom he addressed them.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Recovering his temper, he observed that it was nearly +the hour of dinner: and as they did not think it worth while +to be angry with him, they contented themselves with requesting +that they might dine in the kitchen, which seemed to be +the only spot on the <cite>Island of Pure Intelligence</cite> in which there +was a glimmer of light.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Mystic remarked that he thought this very bad taste, +but that he should have no objection if the cook would consent; +who, he observed, had paramount dominion over that important +division of the <cite>Island of Pure Intelligence</cite>. The cook, with +a little murmuring, consented for once to evacuate her citadel +<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>as soon as the dinner was on table; entering, however, a +protest, that this infringement on her privileges should not be +pleaded as a precedent.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Fax was afraid that Mr. Mystic would treat them as +Lord Peter treated his brothers; that he would put nothing +on the table, and regale them with a dissertation on the <em>pure +idea of absolute substance</em>; but in this he was agreeably disappointed; +for the <em>anticipated cognition</em> of a good dinner very +soon smoked before them, in the <em>relation of determinate coexistence</em>; +and the <em>objective phenomenon</em> of some superexcellent +Madeira quickly put the whole party in perfect good humour. +It appeared, indeed, to have a diffusive quality of occult and +mysterious virtue; for, with every glass they drank, the fog +grew thin, till by the time they had taken off four bottles +among them, it had totally disappeared.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Mystic now prevailed on them to follow him to the +library, where they found a blazing fire and a four-branched +gas-lamp, shedding a much brighter radiance than that of the +<em>synthetical torch</em>. He said he had been obliged to light this +lamp, as it seemed they could not see by the usual illumination +of Cimmerian Lodge. The brilliancy of the gas-lights he much +disapproved; but he thought it would be very unbecoming in a +transcendental philosopher to employ any other material for a +purpose to which <em>smoke</em> was applicable. Mr. Fax said he +should have thought, on the contrary, that <i><span lang="la">ex fumo dare lucem</span></i> +would have been, of all things, the most repugnant to his +principles; and Mr. Mystic replied that it had not struck him +so before, but that Mr. Fax’s view of the subject ‘was exquisitely +dusky and fuliginous’: this being his usual mode of expressing +approbation, instead of the common phraseology of <em>bright +thoughts</em> and <em>luminous ideas</em>, which were equally abhorrent to +him both in theory and practice. However, he said, there the +light was, for their benefit, and not for his: and as other +men’s light was his darkness, he should put on a pair of +spectacles of smoked glass, which no one could see through +but himself. Having put on his spectacles, he undrew a black +curtain, discovered a <em>cylindrical mirror</em>, and placed a sphere +before it with great solemnity. ‘This sphere,’ said he, ‘is an +oblong spheroid in the perception of the cylindrical mirror: as +long as the mirror thought that the object of his perception +was the real external oblong spheroid, he was a mere <em>empirical +<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>philosopher</em>; but he has grown wiser since he has been in my +library; and by reflecting very deeply on the degree in which +the manner of his construction might influence the forms of his +perception, has taken a very opaque and tenebricose view of +how much of the spheroidical perception belongs to the <em>object</em>, +which is the sphere, and how much to the <em>subject</em>, which is +himself, in his quality of <em>cylindrical mirror</em>. He has thus +discovered the difference between <em>objective</em> and <em>subjective +reality</em>: and this point of view is <em>transcendentalism</em>.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘A very dusky and fuliginous speculation, indeed,’ said Mr. +Fax, complimenting Mr. Mystic in his own phrase.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Tea and coffee were brought in. ‘I divide my day,’ said +Mr. Mystic, ‘<em>on a new principle</em>: I am always poetical at +breakfast, moral at luncheon, metaphysical at dinner, and +political at tea. Now you shall know my opinion of the hopes +of the world.—General discontent shall be the basis of public +resignation!<a id='r83'></a><a href='#f83' class='c012'><sup>[83]</sup></a> The materials of political gloom will build the +steadfast frame of hope.<a id='r84'></a><a href='#f84' class='c012'><sup>[84]</sup></a> The main point is to get rid of +analytical reason, which is experimental and practical, and live +only by faith,<a id='r85'></a><a href='#f85' class='c012'><sup>[85]</sup></a> which is synthetical and oracular. The contradictory +interests of ten millions may neutralise each other.<a id='r86'></a><a href='#f86' class='c012'><sup>[86]</sup></a> +But the spirit of Antichrist is abroad:<a id='r87'></a><a href='#f87' class='c012'><sup>[87]</sup></a>—the people read!—nay, +they think!! The people read and think!!! The public, +the public in general, the swinish multitude, the many-headed +monster, actually reads and thinks!!!!<a id='r88'></a><a href='#f88' class='c012'><sup>[88]</sup></a> Horrible in thought, +but in fact most horrible! Science classifies flowers. Can it +make them bloom where it has placed them in its classification!<a id='r89'></a><a href='#f89' class='c012'><sup>[89]</sup></a> +No. Therefore flowers ought not to be classified. This is +transcendental logic. Ha! in that cylindrical mirror I see +three shadowy forms:—dimly I see them through the smoked +glass of my spectacles. Who art thou?—<span class='sc'>Mystery!</span>—I hail +thee! Who art thou?—<span class='sc'>Jargon</span>—I love thee! Who art +thou?—<span class='sc'>Superstition!</span>—I worship thee! Hail, transcendental +<span class='fss'>TRIAD</span>!’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Fax cut short the thread of his eloquence by saying he +would trouble him for the cream-jug.</p> + +<div id='i_240' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span> +<img src='images/i_240.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Sir Oran Haut-ton ascending the stairs with the great rain-water tub.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>Mr. Mystic began again, and talked for three hours without +intermission, except that he paused a moment on the entrance +of sandwiches and Madeira. His visitors sipped his wine in +silence till he had fairly talked himself hoarse. Neither Mr. +Fax nor Mr. Forester replied to his paradoxes; for to what +end, they thought, should they attempt to answer what few +would hear and none would understand?</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was now time to retire, and Mr. Mystic showed his guests +to the doors of their respective apartments, in each of which +a gas-light was burning, and ascended another flight of stairs +to his own dormitory, with a little twinkling taper in his hand. +Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax stayed a few minutes on the landing-place, +to have a word of consultation before they parted for +the night. Mr. Mystic gained the door of his apartment—turned +the handle of the lock—and had just advanced one +step—when the whole interior of the chamber became suddenly +sheeted with fire: a tremendous explosion followed; and he +was precipitated to the foot of the stairs in <em>the smallest conceivable +fraction of the infinite divisibility of time</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester picked him up, and found him not much hurt, +only a little singed, and very much frightened. But the whole +interior of the apartment continued to blaze. Mr. Forester +and Sir Oran Haut-ton ran for water: Mr. Fax rang the +nearest bell: Mr. Mystic vociferated ‘Fire!’ with singular +energy: the servants ran about half-undressed: pails, buckets, +and pitchers, were in active requisition; till Sir Oran Haut-ton +ascending the stairs with the great rain-water tub, containing +one hundred and eight gallons of water,<a id='r90'></a><a href='#f90' class='c012'><sup>[90]</sup></a> threw the whole +contents on the flames with one sweep of his powerful arm.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The fire being extinguished, it remained to ascertain its +cause. It appeared that the gas-tube in Mr. Mystic’s chamber +had been left unstopped, and the gas evolving without combustion +(the apartment being perfectly air-tight), had condensed +into a mass, which, on the approach of Mr. Mystic’s taper, +instantly ignited, blowing the transcendentalist downstairs, +and setting fire to his curtains and furniture.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Mystic, as soon as he recovered from his panic, began +to bewail the catastrophe: not so much, he said, for itself, as +<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>because such an event in Cimmerian Lodge was an infallible +omen of evil—a type and symbol of an approaching period of +public light—when the smoke of metaphysical mystery, and +the vapours of ancient superstition, which he had done all that +in him lay to consolidate in the spirit of man, would explode +at the touch of analytical reason, leaving nothing but the plain +common sense matter-of-fact of moral and political truth—a +day that he earnestly hoped he might never live to see.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘it is a very bad omen for +all who make it their study to darken the human understanding, +when one of the pillars of their party <em>is blown up by his own +smoke</em>; but the symbol, as you call it, may operate as a warning +to the apostles of superstitious chimaera and political fraud, +that it is very possible <em>for smoke to be too thick</em>; and that, in +condensing in the human mind the vapours of ignorance and +delusion, they are only compressing a body of inflammable gas, +of which the explosion will be fatal in precise proportion to +its density.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXXII<br> <span class='c013'>THE DESERTED MANSION</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>They rose, as usual, before daylight, that they might pursue +their perlustration; and, on descending, found Mr. Mystic +awaiting them at a table covered with a sumptuous apparatus +of tea and coffee, a pyramid of hot rolls, and a variety of cold +provision. Cimmerian Lodge, he said, was famous for its +breed of tame geese, and he could recommend the cold one on +the table as one of his own training. The breakfast being +despatched, he rowed them over the <em>Ocean of Deceitful Form</em> +before the sun rose to disturb his navigation.</p> + +<p class='c007'>After walking some miles, a ruined mansion at the end of +an ancient avenue of elms attracted their attention. As they +made a point of leaving no place unexamined, they walked up +to it. There was an air of melancholy grandeur in its loneliness +and desolation which interested them to know its history. +The briers that choked the court, the weeds that grew from +the fissures of the walls and on the ledges of the windows, the +fractured glass, the half-fallen door, the silent and motionless +clock, the steps worn by the tread of other years, the total +silence of the scene of ancient hospitality, broken only by the +voices of the rooks whose nests were in the elms, all carried +back the mind to the years that were gone. There was a sun-dial +in the centre of the court: the sun shone on the brazen +plate, and the shadow of the index fell on the line of noon. +‘Nothing impresses me more,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘in a ruin of +this kind, than the contrast between the sun-dial and the clock, +which I have frequently observed. This contrast I once made +the basis of a little poem, which the similarity of circumstances +induces me to repeat to you though you are no votary of the +spirit of rhyme.’</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12'><span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>THE SUN-DIAL</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in2'>The ivy o’er the mouldering wall</div> + <div class='line'>Spreads like a tree, the growth of years:</div> + <div class='line'>The wild wind through the doorless hall</div> + <div class='line'>A melancholy music rears,</div> + <div class='line'>A solitary voice, that sighs,</div> + <div class='line'>O’er man’s forgotten pageantries.</div> + <div class='line in2'>Above the central gate, the clock,</div> + <div class='line'>Through clustering ivy dimly seen,</div> + <div class='line'>Seems, like the ghost of Time, to mock</div> + <div class='line'>The wrecks of power that once has been.</div> + <div class='line'>The hands are rusted on its face;</div> + <div class='line'>Even where they ceased, in years gone by,</div> + <div class='line'>To keep the flying moments’ pace:</div> + <div class='line'>Fixing, in Fancy’s thoughtful eye,</div> + <div class='line'>A point of ages passed away,</div> + <div class='line'>A speck of time, that owns no tie</div> + <div class='line'>With aught that lives and breathes to-day.</div> + <div class='line in2'>But ‘mid the rank and towering grass,</div> + <div class='line'>Where breezes wave, in mournful sport,</div> + <div class='line'>The weeds that choke the ruined court,</div> + <div class='line'>The careless hours, that circling pass,</div> + <div class='line'>Still trace upon the dialled brass</div> + <div class='line'>The shade of their unvarying way:</div> + <div class='line'>And evermore, with every ray</div> + <div class='line'>That breaks the clouds and gilds the air,</div> + <div class='line'>Time’s stealthy steps are imaged there:</div> + <div class='line'>Even as the long-revolving years</div> + <div class='line'>In self-reflecting circles flow,</div> + <div class='line'>From the first bud the hedgerow bears,</div> + <div class='line'>To wintry nature’s robe of snow.</div> + <div class='line'>The changeful forms of mortal things</div> + <div class='line'>Decay and pass; and art and power</div> + <div class='line'>Oppose in vain the doom that flings</div> + <div class='line'>Oblivion on their closing hour;</div> + <div class='line'>While still, to every woodland vale,</div> + <div class='line'>New blooms, new fruits, the seasons bring,</div> + <div class='line'>For other eyes and lips to hail</div> + <div class='line'>With looks and sounds of welcoming:</div> + <div class='line'>As where some stream light-eddying roves</div> + <div class='line'>By sunny meads and shadowy groves,</div> + <div class='line'>Wave following wave departs for ever,</div> + <div class='line'>But still flows on the eternal river.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div id='i_246' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_246.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Mr. Forester made inquiries of him.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>An old man approached them, in whom they observed that +look of healthy and cheerful antiquity which showed that time +<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>only, and neither pain nor sickness, had traced wrinkles on his +cheek. Mr. Forester made inquiries of him on the object he +had most at heart: but the old man could give no gleam of +light to guide his steps. Mr. Fax then asked some questions +concerning the mansion before them.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Ah, zur!’ said the old man, ‘this be the zeat o’ Squire +Openhand: but he doan’t live here now; the house be growed +too large vor’n, as one may zay. I remember un playing +about here on the grass-plot, when he was half as high as the +sun-dial poast, as if it was but yesterday. The days that I +ha’ zeed here! Rare doings there used to be wi’ the house +vull o’ gentlevolks zometimes to be zure: but what he loiked +best was, to zee a merry-making of all his tenants, round the +great oak that stands there in the large vield by himzelf. He +used to zay if there was anything he could not abide it was the +zight of a zorrowful feace; and he was always prying about to +voind one: and if he did voind one, Lord bless you! it was +not a zorrowful feace long, if it was anything that he could +mend. Zo he lived to the length of his line, as the zaying is; +and when times grew worse, it was a hard matter to draw in; +howsomdever he did; and when the tax-gatherers came every +year vor more and more, and the peaper-money flew about, +buying up everything in the neighbourhood; and every vifty +pounds he got in peaper wasn’t worth, as he toald me, vorty +pounds o’ real money, why there was every year fewer horses +in his steable, and less wine on his board: and every now and +then came a queer zort o’ chap dropped out o’ the sky like—a +vundholder he called un—and bought a bit of ground vor a +handvul o’ peaper, and built a cottage horny, as they call it—there +be one there on the hill-zide—and had nothing to do wi’ +the country people, nor the country people wi’ he: nothing in +the world to do, as we could zee, but to eat and drink, and +make little bits o’ shrubberies, o’ quashies, and brutuses, and +zelies, and cubies, and filigrees, and ruddydunderums, instead +o’ the oak plantations the old landlords used to plant; and the +Squire could never abide the zight o’ one o’ they gimcrack +boxes; and all the while he was nailing up a window or two +every year, and his horses were going one way, and his dogs +another, and his old zervants were zent away, one by one, wi’ +heavy hearts, poor souls, and at last it came that he could not +get half his rents, and zome o’ his tenants went to the workhouse, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>and others ran away, because o’ the poor-rates, and +everything went to zixes and zevens, and I used to meet the +Squire in his walks, and think to myzelf it was very hard that +he who could not bear to zee a zorrowful feace should have +zuch a zorrowful one of his own; and he used to zay to me +whenever I met un: “All this comes o’ peaper-money, Measter +Hawthorn.” Zo the upshot was, he could not afford any +longer to live in his own great house, where his vorevathers +had lived out o’ memory of man, and went to zome outlandish +place wi’ his vamily to live, as he said, in much zuch a box as +that gimcrack thing on the hill.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘You have told us a very melancholy story,’ said Mr. +Forester; ‘but at present, I fear, a very common one, and one +of which, if the present system continue, every succeeding year +will multiply examples.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Ah, zur!’ said the old man, ‘there was them as vorezeed +it long ago, and voretold it too, up in the great house in +Lunnon, where they zettles the affairs o’ the nation: a pretty +of zettling it be, to my thinking, to vill the country wi’ tax-gatherers +and vundholders, and peaper-money men, that turns +all the old families out o’ the country, and zends their tenants +to the workhouse: but there was them as vorezeed and voretold +it too, but nobody minded ’em then: they begins to mind +’em now.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘But how do you manage in these times?’ said Mr. +Forester.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I lives, measter,’ said the old man, ‘and pretty well too, +vor myself. I had a little vreehold varm o’ my own, that has +been in my vamily zeven hundred year, and we woan’t part wi’ +it, I promise you, vor all the tax-collectors and vundholders in +England. But my zon was never none o’ your gentleman +varmers, none a’ your reacing and hunting bucks, that it’s a +shame vor a honest varmer to be: he always zet his shoulder +to the wheel—alway a-vield by peep o’ day: zo now I be old, +I’ve given up the varm to him; and that I wouldn’t ha’ done +to the best man in all the county bezide: but he’s my son, and +I loves un. Zo I walks about the vields all day, and sits all +the evening in the chimney-corner wi’ an old neighbour or zo, +and a jug o’ ale, and talks over old times, when the Openhands, +and zuch as they, could afford to live in the homes o’ their +vorevathers. It be a bad state o’ things, my measters, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>must come to a bad end, zooner or later; but it’ll last my +time.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘You are not in the last stage of a consumption, are you, +honest friend?’ said Mr. Fax.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Lord love you, no, measter,’ said the old farmer, rather +frightened; ‘do I look zo?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘No,’ said Mr. Fax; ‘but you talked so.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Ah! thee beest a wag, I zee,’ said the farmer. ‘Things +be in a conzumption zure enough, but they’ll last my time vor +all that; and if they doan’t it’s no fault o’ mine; and I’se no +money in the vunds, nor no sinecure pleace, zo I eats my beefsteak +and drinks my ale, and lets the world slide.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXXIII<br> <span class='c013'>THE PHANTASM</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The course of their perambulations brought them into the +vicinity of Melincourt, and they stopped at the Castle to +inquire if any intelligence had been obtained of Anthelia. +The gate was opened to them by old Peter Gray, who informed +them that himself and the female domestics were at that time +the only inmates of the Castle, as the other male domestics +had gone off at the same time with Mr. Hippy in search of +their young mistress; and the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney +and Miss Danaretta were gone to London, because of the +opera being open.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester inquired of the manner of Anthelia’s disappearance. +Old Peter informed him that she had gone into +her library as usual after breakfast, and when the hour of +dinner arrived she was missing. The central window was +open, as well as the little postern door of the shrubbery that +led into the dingle, the whole vicinity of which they had +examined, and had found the recent print of horses’ feet on a +narrow green road that skirted the other side of the glen; +these traces they had followed till they had totally lost them +in a place where the road became hard and rocky, and divided +into several branches: the pursuers had then separated into +parties of two and three, and each party had followed a different +branch of the road, but they had found no clue to guide +them, and had hitherto been unsuccessful. He should not +himself, he said, have remained inactive, but Mr. Hippy had +insisted on his staying to take care of the Castle. He then +observed that, as it was growing late, he should humbly advise +their continuing where they were till morning. To this they +assented, and he led the way to the library.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>Everything in the library remained precisely in the place in +which Anthelia left it. Her chair was near the table, and the +materials of drawing were before it. The gloom of the winter +evening, which was now closing in, was deepened through the +stained glass of the windows. The moment the door was +thrown open, Mr. Forester started, and threw himself forward +into the apartment towards Anthelia’s chair; but before he +reached it, he stopped, placed his hand before his eyes, and, +turning round, leaned for support on the arm of Mr. Fax. He +recovered himself in a few minutes, and sate down by the +table. Peter Gray, after kindling the fire, and lighting the +Argand lamp that hung from the centre of the apartment, +went to give directions on the subject of dinner.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester observed, from the appearance of the drawing +materials, that they had been hastily left, and he saw that the +last subject on which Anthelia had been employed was a +sketch of Redrose Abbey. He sate with his head leaning on +his hand, and his eyes fixed on the drawing in perfect silence. +Mr. Fax thought it best not to disturb his meditations, and +took up a volume that was lying open on the table, the last +that Anthelia had been reading. It was a posthumous work +of the virtuous and unfortunate Condorcet, in which that most +amiable and sublime enthusiast, contemplating human nature +in the light of his own exalted spirit, had delineated a beautiful +vision of the future destinies of mankind.<a id='r91'></a><a href='#f91' class='c012'><sup>[91]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Oran Haut-ton kept his eyes fixed on the door with +looks of anxious impatience, and showed manifest and increasing +disappointment at every re-entrance of Old Peter, who at +length summoned them to dinner.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Fax was not surprised that Mr. Forester had no appetite, +but that Sir Oran had lost his appeared to him extremely +curious. The latter grew more and more uneasy, rose from +table, took a candle in his hand, and wandered from room to +room, searching every closet and corner in the Castle, to the +infinite amazement of Old Peter Gray, who followed him everywhere, +and became convinced that the poor gentleman was +crazed for love of his young mistress, who, he made no doubt, +was the object of his search; and the conviction was strengthened +by the perfect inattention of Sir Oran to all his assurances +that his dear young lady was not in any of those places which +<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>he searched so scrupulously. Sir Oran at length, having left +no corner of the habitable part of the Castle unexamined, +returned to the dining-room, and throwing himself into a chair +began to shed tears in great abundance.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Fax made his two disconsolate friends drink several +glasses of Madeira, by way of raising their spirits, and then +asked Mr. Forester what it was that had so affected him on +their first entering the library.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> It was the form of Anthelia, in the place +where I first saw her, in that chair by the table. The vision +was momentary, but, while it lasted, had all the distinctness +of reality.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> This is no uncommon effect of the association +of ideas when external objects present themselves to us after +an interval of absence, in their remembered arrangement, with +only one form wanting, and that the dearest among them, to +perfect the resemblance between the present sensation and the +recollected idea. A vivid imagination, more especially when +the nerves are weakened by anxiety and fatigue, will, under +such circumstances, complete the imperfect scene, by replacing +for a moment the one deficient form among those accustomed +objects which had long formed its accompaniments in the +contemplation of memory. This single mental principle will +explain the greater number of <em>credible</em> tales of apparitions, +and at the same time give a very satisfactory reason why +a particular spirit is usually found haunting a particular place.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Thus Petrarch’s beautiful pictures of the +Spirit of Laura on the banks of the Sorga are assuredly +something more than the mere fancies of the closet, and must +have originated in that system of mental connection, which, +under peculiar circumstances, gives ideas the force of sensations. +Anxiety and fatigue are certainly great promoters of +the state of mind most favourable to such impressions.</p> + +<div id='i_253' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_253.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Sir Oran, throwing himself into a chair, began to shed tears in great abundance.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> It was under the influence of such excitements +that Brutus saw the spirit of Caesar; and in similar states of +feeling the phantoms of poetry are usually supposed to be +visible: the ghost of Banquo, for example, and that of Patroclus. +But this only holds true of the poets who paint from nature; +for their artificial imitators, when they wish to call a spirit +from the vasty deep, are not always so attentive to the mental +circumstances of the persons to whom they present it. In the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>early periods of society, when apparitions form a portion of +the general creed; when the life of man is wandering, precarious, +and turbulent; when the uncultured wildness of the +heath and the forest harmonises with the chimaeras of superstition; +and when there is not, as in later times, a rooted +principle of reason and knowledge, to weaken such perceptions +in their origin, and destroy the seeming reality of their subsequent +recollection, impressions of this nature will be more +frequent, and will be as much invested with the character of +external existence, as the scenes to which they are attached +by the connecting power of the mind. They will always be +found with their own appropriate character of time, and place, +and circumstance. The ghost of the warrior will be seen on +the eve of battle by him who keeps his lonely watch near the +blaze of the nightly fire, and the spirit of the huntress maid +will appear to her lover when he pauses on the sunny heath, +or rests in the moonlit cave.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXXIV<br> <span class='c013'>THE CHURCHYARD</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The next morning Mr. Forester determined on following the +mountain road on the other side of the dingle, of which Peter +Gray had spoken: but wishing first to make some inquiries of +the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, they walked to his vicarage, which +was in a village at some distance. Just as they reached it, the +reverend gentleman emerged in haste, and seeing Mr. Forester +and his friends, said he was very sorry that he could not +attend to them just then, as he had a great press of business +to dispose of; namely, a christening, a marriage, and a +funeral; but he would knock them off as fast as he could, after +which he should be perfectly at their service, hoped they would +wait in the vicarage till his return, and observed he had good +ale and a few bottles of London Particular. He then left them +to despatch his affairs in the church.</p> + +<p class='c007'>They preferred waiting in the churchyard. ‘A christening, +a marriage, and a funeral!’ said Mr. Forester. ‘With what +indifference he runs through the whole drama of human life, +raises the curtain on its commencement, superintends the most +important and eventful action of its progress, and drops the +curtain on its close!’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Custom has rendered them all alike indifferent +to him. In every human pursuit and profession the routine of +ordinary business renders the mind indifferent to all the forms +and objects of which that routine is composed. The sexton +‘sings at grave-making’; the undertaker walks with a solemn +face before the coffin, because a solemn face is part of his +trade; but his heart is as light as if there were no funeral at +his heels: he is quietly conning over the items of his bill, or +thinking of the party in which he is to pass his evening; and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>the reverend gentleman who concludes the process, and +consigns to its last receptacle the shell of extinguished intelligence, +has his thoughts on the wing of the sports of the field +or the jovial board of the Squire.</p> + +<div id='i_257' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_257.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>A great press of business to dispose of.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Your observation is just. It is this hardening +power of custom that gives steadiness to the hand of the +surgeon, firmness to the voice of the criminal judge, coolness +to the soldier ‘in the imminent deadly breach,’ self-possession +to the sailor in the rage of the equinoctial storm. It is under +this influence that the lawyer deals out writs and executions +as carelessly as he deals out cards at his evening whist; that +the gaoler turns the key with the same stern indifference on +unfortunate innocence as on hardened villainy; that the venal +senator votes away by piecemeal the liberties of his country; +and that the statesman sketches over the bottle his series of +deliberate schemes for the extinction of human freedom, the +enchaining of human reason, and the waste of human life.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Contemplate any of these men only in the sphere +of their routine, and you will think them utterly destitute of all +human sympathy. Make them change places with each other, +and you will see symptoms of natural feelings. Custom cannot +kill the better feelings of human nature: it merely lays them +asleep.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You must acknowledge, then, at least, that +their sleep is very sound.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> In most cases certainly as sound as that of +Epimenides, or of the seven sleepers of Ephesus. But these +did wake at last, and, therefore, according to Aristotle, they +had always the capacity of waking.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You must allow me to wait for a similar +proof before I admit such a capacity in respect to the feelings +of some of the characters we have mentioned. Yet I am no +sceptic in human virtue.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> You have no reason to be, with so much +evidence before your eyes of the excellence of the past generation, +and I do not suppose the present is much worse than its +predecessors. Read the epitaphs around you, and see what +models and mirrors of all the social virtues have left the +examples of their shining light to guide the steps of their +posterity.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I observe the usual profusion of dutiful +<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>sons, affectionate husbands, faithful friends, kind neighbours, +and honest men. These are the luxuriant harvest of every +churchyard. But is it not strange that even the fertility of +fiction should be so circumscribed in the variety of monumental +panegyric? Yet a few words comprehend the summary of all +the moral duties of ordinary life. Their degrees and diversities +are like the shades of colour, that shun for the most part the +power of language: at all events, the nice distinctions and +combinations that give individuality to historical character +scarcely come within the limits of sepulchral inscription, which +merely serves to testify the regret of the survivors for one +whose society was dear, and whose faults are forgotten. For +there is a feeling in the human mind, that, in looking back on +former scenes of intercourse with those who are passed for ever +beyond the limits of injury and resentment, gradually destroys +all the bitterness and heightens all the pleasures of the remembrance; +as, when we revert in fancy to the days of our childhood, +we scarcely find a vestige of their tears, pains, and +disappointments, and perceive only their fields, their flowers, +and their sunshine, and the smiles of our little associates.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> The history of common life seems as circumscribed +as its moral attributes: for the most extensive information +I can collect from these gravestones is, that the parties +married, lived in trouble, and died of a conflict between a +disease and a physician. I observe a last request, which I +suppose was very speedily complied with—that of a tender +husband to his loving wife not to weep for him long. If it be +as you say, that the faults of the dead are soon forgotten, yet +the memory of their virtues is not much longer lived; and I +have often thought that these words of Rabelais would furnish +an appropriate inscription for ninety-nine gravestones out of +every hundred:—<i><span lang="fr">Sa mémoire expira avecque le son des cloches +qui carillonèrent à son enterrement.</span></i></p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXXV<br> <span class='c013'>THE RUSTIC WEDDING</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The bride and bridegroom, with half a dozen of their friends, +now entered the churchyard. The bride, a strong, healthy-looking +country girl, was clinging to the arm of her lover, not +with the light and scarcely perceptible touch with which Miss +Simper complies with the request of Mr. Giggle, ‘that she will +do him the honour to take his arm,’ but with a cordial and +unsophisticated pressure that would have made such an arm as +Mr. Giggle’s black and blue. The bridegroom, with a pair of +chubby cheeks, which in colour precisely rivalled his new +scarlet waistcoat, and his mouth expanded into a broad grin +that exhibited the total range of his teeth, advanced in a sort +of step that was half a walk and half a dance, as if the preconceived +notion of the requisite solemnity of demeanour were +struggling with the natural impulses of the overflowing joy of +his heart.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Fax looked with great commiseration on this bridal +pair, and determined to ascertain if they had a clear notion of +the evils that awaited them in consequence of the rash step +they were about to take. He therefore accosted them with an +observation that the Reverend Mr. Portpipe was not at leisure, +but would be in a few minutes. ‘In the meantime,’ said he, +‘I stand here as the representative of general reason, to ask +if you have duly weighed the consequences of your present +proceeding.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> General Reason! I be’s no soger man, +and bean’t countable to no General whatzomecomedever. We +bean’t under martial law, be we? Voine times indeed if +General Reason be to interpose between a poor man and his +sweetheart.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span><em>Mr. Fax.</em> That is precisely the case which calls most +loudly for such an interposition.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> If General Reason waits till I or Zukey +calls loudly vor’n, he’ll wait long enough. Woan’t he, Zukey?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bride.</em> Ees, zure, Robin.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> General reason, my friend, I assure you, has +nothing to do with martial law, nor with any other mode of +arbitrary power, but with authority that has truth for its +foundation, benevolence for its end, and the whole universe for +its sphere of action.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom</em> (<em>scratching his head</em>). There be a mort +o’ voine words, but I zuppose you means to zay as how this +General Reason be a Methody preacher; but I be’s true +earthy-ducks church, and zo be Zukey: bean’t you, Zukey?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bride.</em> Ees, zure, Robin.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> And we has nothing to do wi’ General +Reason neither on us. Has we, Zukey?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bride.</em> No, zure, Robin.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Well, my friend, be that as it may, you are +going to be married?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> Why, I think zo, zur, wi’ General +Reason’s leave. Bean’t we, Zukey?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bride.</em> Ees, zure, Robin.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> And are you fully aware, my honest friend, +what marriage is?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> Vor zartin I be: Zukey and I ha’ got it +by heart out o’ t’ Book o’ Common Prayer. Ha’n’t we, +Zukey? (<em>This time Susan did not think proper to answer.</em>) +It be ordained that zuch persons as hav’n’t the gift of——(<em>Susan +gave him such a sudden and violent pinch on the arm, +that his speech ended in a roar</em>). Od rabbit me! that wur a +twinger! I’ll have my revenge, howzomecomedever. (<em>And he +imprinted a very emphatical kiss on the lips of his blushing +bride that greatly scandalised Mr. Fax.</em>)</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Do you know, that in all likelihood, in the +course of six years, you will have as many children?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> The more the merrier, zur. Bean’t it, +Zukey? (<em>Susan was mute again.</em>)</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> I hope it may prove so, my friend; but I fear +you will find the more the sadder. What are your occupations?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> Anan, zur?</p> + +<div id='i_263' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span> +<img src='images/i_263.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>‘<em>Do you know, that in all likelihood, in the course of six years, you will have as many children?</em>’</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span><em>Mr. Fax.</em> What do you do to get your living?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> Works vor Varmer Brownstout: zows +and reaps, threshes, and goes to market wi’ corn and cattle, +turns to plough-tail when hap chances, cleans and feeds horses, +hedges and ditches, fells timber, gathers in t’ orchard, brews +ale, and drinks it, and gets vourteen shill’n’s a week for my +trouble. And Zukey here ha’ laid up a mint o’ money: she +wur dairymaid at Varmer Cheesecurd’s, and ha’ gotten vour +pounds zeventeen shill’n’s and ninepence in t’ old chest wi’ +three vlat locks and a padlock. Ha’n’t you, Zukey?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bride.</em> Ees, zure, Robin.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> It does not appear to me, my worthy friend, +that your fourteen shillings a week, even with Mrs. Susan’s +consolidated fund of four pounds seventeen shillings and ninepence, +will be altogether adequate to the maintenance of such a +family as you seem likely to have.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> Why, sir, in t’ virst pleace I doan’t +know what be Zukey’s intentions in that respect——Od rabbit +it, Zukey! doan’t pinch zo——and in t’ next pleace, wi’ all due +submission to you and General Reason the Methody preacher, +I takes it to be our look-out, and none o’ nobody’s else.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> But it is somebody’s else, for this reason; that +if you cannot maintain your own children, the parish must do +it for you.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> Vor zartin—in a zort o’ way; and bad +enough at best. But I wants no more to do wi’ t’ parish than +parish wi’ me.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> I dare say you do not, at present. But, my +good friend, when the cares of a family come upon you, your +independence of spirit will give way to necessity; and if, by +any accident, you are thrown out of work, as in the present +times many honest fellows are, what will you do then?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> Do the best I can, measter, az I always +does, and nobody can’t do no better.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Do you suppose, then, you are doing the best +you can now, in marrying, with such a doubtful prospect +before you? How will you bring up your children?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> Why, in the vear o’ the Lord, to be zure.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Of course: but how will you bring them up to +get their living?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> That’s as thereafter may happen. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>They woan’t starve, I’se warrant ’em, if they teakes after +their veyther. But I zees now who General Reason be. He +be one o’ your sinecure vundholder peaper-money taxing men, +as isn’t satisfied wi’ takin’ t’ bread out o’ t’ poor man’s mouth, +and zending his chilern to army and navy, and vactories, and +suchlike, but wants to take away his wife into t’ bargain.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> There, my honest friend, you have fallen into a +radical mistake, which I shall try to elucidate for your benefit. +It is owing to poor people having more children than they can +maintain, that those children are obliged to go to the army +and navy, and consequently that statesmen and conquerors +find so many ready instruments for the oppression and +destruction of the human species: it follows, therefore, that if +people would not marry till they could be certain of maintaining +all their children comfortably at home——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> Lord love you, that be all mighty voine +rigmarole; but the short and the long be this: I can’t live +without Zukey, nor Zukey without I, can you, Zukey?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bride.</em> No, zure, Robin.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Bridegroom.</em> Now there be a plain downright honest-hearted +old English girl; none o’ your quality madams, as +zays one thing and means another; and zo you may tell +General Reason he may teake away chair and teable, salt-box +and trencher, bed and bedding, pig and pig-stye, but neither +he nor all his peaper-men together shall take away his own +Zukey vrom Robin Ruddyfeace; if they shall I’m doomed.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘What profane wretch,’ said the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, +emerging from the church, ‘what profane wretch is swearing +in the very gate of the temple?’ and seeing by the bridegroom’s +confusion that he was the culprit, he reprimanded +him severely, and declared he would not marry him that day. +The very thought of such a disappointment was too much for +poor Robin to bear, and, after one or two ineffectual efforts to +speak, he distorted his face into a most rueful expression, and +struck up such a roar of crying as completely electrified the +Rev. Mr. Portpipe, whose wrath, nevertheless, was not to be +mollified by Robin’s grief and contrition, but yielded at length +to the intercessions of Mr. Forester. Robin’s face cleared up +in an instant, and the natural broad grin of his ruddy countenance +shone forth through his tears like the sun through a shower. +‘You are such an honest and warm-hearted fellow,’ said Mr. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>Forester, putting a bank-note into Robin’s hand, ‘that you must +not refuse me the pleasure of making this little addition to +Mistress Susan’s consolidated fund.’—‘Od rabbit me!’ said the +bridegroom, overcome with joy and surprise, ‘I doan’t know who +thee beest, but thee beesn’t General Reason, that’s vor zartin.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The rustic party then followed the Reverend Mr. Portpipe +into the church. Robin, when he reached the porch, looked +round over his shoulder to Mr. Fax, and said with a very arch +look, ‘My dutiful sarvice to General Reason.’ And looking +round a second time before he entered the door, added: ‘and +Zukey’s too.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXXVI<br> <span class='c013'>THE VICARAGE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>When the Rev. Mr. Portpipe had despatched his ‘press of +business,’ he set before his guests in the old oak parlour of the +vicarage a cold turkey and ham, a capacious jug of ‘incomparable +ale,’ and a bottle of his London Particular; all which, +on trial, were approved to be excellent, and a second bottle of +the latter was very soon required, and produced with great +alacrity. The reverend gentleman expressed much anxiety in +relation to the mysterious circumstance of the disappearance +of Anthelia, on whom he pronounced a very warm eulogium, +saying she was the flower of the mountains, the type of ideal +beauty, the daughter of music, the rosebud of sweetness, and +the handmaid of charity. He professed himself unable to +throw the least light on the transaction, but supposed she had +been spirited away for some nefarious purpose. He said that +the mountain road had been explored without success in all its +ramifications, not only by Mr. Hippy and the visitors and +domestics of Melincourt, but by all the peasants and mountaineers +of the vicinity—that it led through a most desolate and +inhospitable tract of country, and he would advise them, if +they persisted in their intention of following it themselves, to +partake of his poor hospitality till morning, and set forward +with the first dawn of daylight. Mr. Fax seconded this +proposal, and Mr. Forester complied.</p> + +<p class='c007'>They spent the evening in the old oak parlour, and conversed +on various subjects, during which a knotty point opposing +itself to the solution of an historical question, Mr. Forester +expressed a wish to be allowed access to the reverend gentleman’s +library. The reverend gentleman hummed awhile with +great gravity and deliberation: then slowly rising from his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>large arm-chair, he walked across the room to the farther +corner, where throwing open the door of a little closet, he said +with extreme complacency, ‘There is my library: Homer, +Virgil, and Horace, for old acquaintance sake, and the credit +of my cloth: Tillotson, Atterbury, and Jeremy Taylor, for +materials of exhortation and ingredients of sound doctrine: +and for my own private amusement in an occasional half-hour +between my dinner and my nap, a translation of Rabelais and +<cite>The Tale of a Tub</cite>.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> A well-chosen collection.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Portpipe.</em>—<i><span lang="la">Multum in parvo.</span></i> But there is +something that may amuse you: a little drawer of mineral +specimens that have been picked up in this vicinity, and a +fossil or two. Among the latter is a curious bone that was +found in a hill just by, invested with stalactite.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> The bone of a human thumb, unquestionably.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Portpipe.</em> Very probably.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Which, by its comparative proportion, +must have belonged to an individual about eleven feet six or +seven inches in height: there are no such men now.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Except, perhaps, among the Patagonians, +whose existence is, however, disputed.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> It is disputed on no tenable ground, but +that of the narrow and bigoted vanity of civilised men, who, +pent in the unhealthy limits of towns and cities, where they +dwindle from generation to generation in a fearful rapidity of +declension towards the abyss of the infinitely little, in which +they will finally vanish from the system of nature, will not +admit that there ever were, or are, or can be, better, stronger, +and healthier men than themselves. The Patagonians are a +vagrant nation, without house or home, and are, therefore, only +occasionally seen on the coast: but because some voyagers +have not seen them, I know not why we should impeach the +evidence of those who have. The testimony of a man of +honour, like Mr. Byron, would alone have been sufficient: but +all his officers and men gave the same account. And there +are other testimonies: that, for instance, of M. de Guyot, who +brought from the coast of Patagonia a skeleton of one of these +great men, which measured between twelve and thirteen feet. +This skeleton he was bringing to Europe, but happening to be +<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>caught in a great storm, and having on board a Spanish +Bishop (the Archbishop of Lima), who was of opinion that the +storm was caused by the bones of this Pagan which they had +on board; and having persuaded the crew that this was the +case, the captain was obliged to throw the skeleton overboard. +The Bishop died soon after, and was thrown overboard in his +turn. I could have wished that he had been thrown overboard +sooner, and then the bones of the Patagonian would +have arrived in Europe.<a id='r92'></a><a href='#f92' class='c012'><sup>[92]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>The Rev. Mr. Portpipe.</em> Your wish is orthodox, inasmuch +as the Bishop was himself a Pagan, and moreover an Inquisitor. +And your doctrine of large men is also orthodox, for the sons +of Anak and the family of Goliath did once exist, though now +their race is extinct.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> The multiplication of diseases, the diminution +of strength, and the contraction of the term of existence, +keep pace with the diminution of the stature of men. The +mortality of a manufacturing town, compared with that of a +mountain village, is more than three to one, which clearly +shows the evil effects of the departure from natural life, and of +the coacervation of multitudes within the narrow precincts of +cities, where the breath of so many animals, and the exhalations +from the dead, the dying, and corrupted things of all +kinds, make the air little better than a slow poison, and so +offensive as to be perceptible to the sense of those who are not +accustomed to it; for the wandering Arabs will smell a town +at the distance of several leagues. And in this country the +cottagers who are driven by the avarice of landlords and great +tenants to seek a subsistence in towns, are very soon destroyed +by the change.<a id='r93'></a><a href='#f93' class='c012'><sup>[93]</sup></a> And this hiving of human beings is not the +only evil effect of commerce, which tends also to keep up a +constant circulation of the elements of destruction, and to +make the vices and diseases of one country the vices and +diseases of all.<a id='r94'></a><a href='#f94' class='c012'><sup>[94]</sup></a> Thus, with every extension of our intercourse +with distant lands, we bring home some new seed of death; +and how many we leave as vestiges of our visitation, let the +South Sea Islanders testify. Consider, too, the frightful consequences +of the consumption of spirituous liquors: a practice +so destructive, that if all the devils were again to be assembled +<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>in Pandemonium to contrive the ruin of the human species, +nothing so mischievous could be devised by them;<a id='r95'></a><a href='#f95' class='c012'><sup>[95]</sup></a> but which +it is considered politic to encourage, according to our method +of raising money on the vices of the people.<a id='r96'></a><a href='#f96' class='c012'><sup>[96]</sup></a> When these +and many other causes of destruction are considered, it would +be wonderful indeed if every new generation were not, as all +experience proves that it is, smaller, weaker, more diseased, +and more miserable than the preceding.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Do you find, in the progress of science and the +rapid diffusion of intellectual light, no counterpoise to this +mass of physical calamity, even admitting it to exist in the +extent you suppose?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Without such a counterpoise the condition +of human nature would be desperate indeed. The intellectual, +as I have often observed to you, are nourished at the expense +of the animal faculties.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> You cannot, then, conceive the existence of +<i><span lang="la">mens sana in corpore sano</span></i>?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Scarcely in the present state of human +degeneracy: at best in a very limited sense.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Nevertheless you do, nay, you must acknowledge +that the intellectual, which is the better part of human +nature, is in a progress of rapid improvement, continually +enlarging its views and multiplying its acquisitions.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> The collective stock of knowledge which is +the common property of scientific men necessarily increases, +and will increase from the circumstance of admitting the cooperation +of numbers: but collective knowledge is as distinct +from individual mental power as it is confessedly unconnected +with wisdom and moral virtue, and independent of political +liberty. A man of modern times, with machines of complicated +powers, will lift a heavier mass than that which Hector hurled +from his unassisted arm against the Grecian gates; but take +away his mechanism, and what comparison is there between +him and Hector? In the same way a modern man of science +<em>knows</em> more than Pythagoras knew: but consider them with +relation only to <em>mental power</em>, and what comparison remains +between them? No more than between a modern poet and +Homer—a comparison which the most strenuous partisan of +modern improvement will scarcely venture to institute.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span><em>Mr. Fax.</em> I will venture to oppose Shakespeare to him +nevertheless.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> That is, however, going back two centuries, +to a state of society very peculiar, and very fertile in genius. +Shakespeare is the great phenomenon of the modern world, but +his men and women are beings like ourselves; whereas those +of Homer are of a nobler and mightier race; and his poetry is +worthy of his characters: it is the language of the gods.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester rose, and approached the little closet, with +the avowed intention of taking down Homer. ‘Take care +how you touch him,’ said the Reverend Mr. Portpipe: ‘he is +in a very dusty condition, for he has not been disturbed these +thirty years.’</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXXVI<br> <span class='c013'>THE MOUNTAINS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>They followed the mountain road till they arrived at the spot +where it divided into several branches, one of which they +selected on some principle of preference, which we are not +sagacious enough to penetrate. They now proceeded by a +gradual ascent of several miles along a rugged passage of the +hills, where the now flowerless heath was the only vestige of +vegetation; and the sound of the little streams that everywhere +gleamed beside their way, the only manifestation of the life and +motion of nature.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘It is a subject worthy of consideration,’ said Mr. Fax, +‘how far scenes like these are connected with the genius of +liberty: how far the dweller of the mountains, who is certainly +surrounded by more sublime excitements, has more loftiness +of thought, and more freedom of spirit, than the cultivator of +the plains.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> A modern poet has observed, that the +voices of the sea and the mountains are the two voices of +liberty: the words mountain liberty have, indeed, become so +intimately associated, that I never yet found any one who even +thought of questioning their necessary and natural connection.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> And yet I question it much; and in the present +state of human society I hold the universal inculcation of such +a sentiment, in poetry and romance, to be not only a most +gross delusion, but an error replete with the most pernicious +practical consequences. For I have often seen a young man +of high and aspiring genius, full of noble enthusiasm for the +diffusion of truth and the general happiness of mankind, withdrawn +from all intercourse with polished and intellectual +society, by the distempered idea that he would nowhere find +<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>fit aliment for his high cogitations, but among heaths, and +rocks, and torrents.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> In a state of society so corrupted as that +in which we live, the best instructors and companions are +ancient books; and these are best studied in those congenial +solitudes, where the energies of nature are most pure and uncontrolled, +and the aspect of external things recalls in some +measure the departed glory of the world.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Holding, as I do, that no branch of knowledge +is valuable, but such as in its ultimate results has a plain and +practical tendency to the general diffusion of moral and +political truth, you must allow me to doubt the efficacy of +solitary intercourse with stocks and stones, however rugged +and fantastic in their shapes, towards the production of this +effect.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> It is matter of historical testimony that +occasional retirement into the recesses of nature has produced +the most salutary effects of the very kind you require, in the +instance of some of the most illustrious minds that have +adorned the name of man.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> That the health and purity of the country, its +verdure and its sunshine, have the most beneficial influence +on the mental and corporeal faculties, I am very far from being +inclined to deny: but this is a different consideration from that +of the connection between the scenery of the mountains and +the genius of liberty. Look into the records of the world. +What have the mountains done for freedom and mankind? +When have the mountains, to speak in the cant of the new +school of poetry, ‘sent forth a voice of power’ to awe the +oppressors of the world? Mountaineers are for the most part +a stupid and ignorant race: and where there are stupidity and +ignorance, there will be superstition; and where there is superstition, +there will be slavery.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> To a certain extent I cannot but agree with +you. The names of Hampden and Milton are associated with +the level plains and flat pastures of Buckinghamshire; but I +cannot now remember what names of true greatness and unshaken +devotion to general liberty are associated with these +heathy rocks and cloud-capped mountains of Cumberland. +We have seen a little horde of poets, who brought hither from +the vales of the south the harps which they had consecrated +<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>to Truth and Liberty, to acquire new energy in the mountain +winds: and now those harps are attuned to the praise of +luxurious power, to the strains of courtly sycophancy, and to +the hymns of exploded superstition. But let not the innocent +mountains bear the burden of their transgressions.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> All I mean to say is, that there is nothing in +the nature of mountain scenery either to make men free or to +keep them so. The only source of freedom is intellectual +light. The ignorant are always slaves, though they dwell +among the Andes. The wise are always free, though they +cultivate a savannah. Who is so stupid and so servile as a +Swiss, whom you find, like a piece of living furniture, the +human latch of every great man’s door?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Let us look back to former days, to the +mountains of the North:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in14'>Wild the Runic faith,</div> + <div class='line'>And wild the realms where Scandinavian chiefs</div> + <div class='line'>And Scalds arose, and hence the Scald’s strong verse</div> + <div class='line'>Partook the savage wildness. And methinks,</div> + <div class='line'>Amid such scenes as these the poet’s soul</div> + <div class='line'>Might best attain full growth.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> As to the ‘Scald’s strong verse,’ I must say I +have never seen any specimens of it that I did not think mere +trash. It is little more than a rhapsody of rejoicing in carnage, +a ringing of changes on the biting sword and the flowing of +blood and the feast of the raven and the vulture, and fulsome +flattery of the chieftain, of whom the said Scald was the abject +slave, vassal, parasite, and laureate, interspersed with continual +hints that he ought to be well paid for his lying panegyrics.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> There is some justice in your observations: +nevertheless, I must still contend that those who seek the +mountains in a proper frame of feeling will find in them +images of energy and liberty, harmonising most aptly with the +loftiness of an unprejudiced mind, and nerving the arm of +resistance to every variety of oppression and imposture that +winds the chains of power round the free-born spirit of man.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXXVIII<br> <span class='c013'>THE FRACAS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>After a long ramble among heath and rock, and over moss +and moor, they began to fear the probability of being benighted +among those desolate wilds, when fortunately they found that +their track crossed one of the principal roads, which they +followed for a short time, and entered a small town, where +they stopped for the night at an inn. They were shown upstairs +into an apartment separated from another only by a +movable partition, which allowed the two rooms to be occasionally +laid into one. They were just sitting down to dinner +when they heard the voices of some newly-arrived company +in the adjoining apartment, and distinguished the tones of a +female voice indicative of alarm and anxiety, and the masculine +accents of one who seemed to be alternately comforting the +afflicted fair one, and swearing at the obsequious waiter, with +reiterated orders, as it appeared, for another chaise immediately. +Mr. Fax was not long in divining that the new-comers were +two runaway lovers in momentary apprehension of being overtaken; +and this conjecture was confirmed, when, after a furious +rattle of wheels in the yard, the door of the next apartment +was burst open, and a violent scream from the lady was +followed by a gruff shout of—‘So ho, miss, here you are. +Gretna, eh? Your journey’s marred for this time; and if you +get off again, say you have my consent—that’s all.’ Low soft +tones of supplication ensued, but in undistinguishable words, +and continued to be repeated in the intervals of the following +harangue: ‘Love indeed! don’t tell me. Aren’t you my +daughter? Answer me that. And haven’t I a right over +you till you are twenty-one? You may marry then; but not +a rap of the ready: my money’s my own all my life. Haven’t +<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>I chosen you a proper husband—a nice rich young fellow not +above forty-five?—Sixty, you minx! no such thing. Rolling +in riches: member for Threevotes: two places, three pensions, +and a sinecure: famous borough interest to make all your +children generals and archbishops. And here a miserable +vagabond with only five hundred a year in landed property.—Pish! +love indeed!—own age—congenial minds—pshaw! all +a farce. Money—money—money—that’s the matter: money +is the first thing—money is the second thing—money is the +third thing—money is the only thing—money is everything +and all things.’—‘Vagabond, sir,’ said a third voice: ‘I am +a gentleman, and have money sufficient to maintain your +daughter in comfort.’—‘Comfort!’ said the gruff voice again; +‘comfort with five hundred a year, ha! ha! ha! eh, Sir +Bonus?’—‘Hooh! hooh! hooh! very droll indeed,’ said a +fourth voice, in a sound that seemed a mixture of a cough +and a laugh.—‘Very well, sir,’ said the third voice; ‘I shall +not part with my treasure quietly, I assure you.’—‘Rebellion! +flat rebellion against parental authority,’ exclaimed the second. +‘But I’m too much for you, youngster. Where are all my +varlets and rascals?’</p> + +<p class='c007'>A violent trampling of feet, and various sounds of tumult +ensued, as if the old gentleman and his party were tearing the +lovers asunder by main force; and at length an agonising +scream from the young lady seemed to announce that their +purpose was accomplished. Mr. Forester started up with a +view of doing all in his power to assist the injured damsel; +and Sir Oran Haut-ton, who, as the reader has seen, had very +strong feelings of natural justice, and a most chivalrous +sympathy with females in distress, rushed with a desperate +impulse against the partition, and hurled a great portion of it, +with a violent crash, into the adjoining apartment. This unexpected +event had the effect of fixing the whole group within +for a few moments in motionless surprise in their respective +places.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The fat and portly father, who was no other than our old +acquaintance Sir Gregory Greenmould, and the old valetudinarian +he had chosen for his daughter, Sir Bonus Mac Scrip, +were directing the efforts of their myrmidons to separate the +youthful pair. The young lady was clinging to her lover with +the tenacity of the tendrils of a vine: the young gentleman’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>right arm was at liberty, and he was keeping the assailants at +bay with the poker, which he had seized on the first irruption +of the foe, and which had left vestiges of its impression, to +speak in ancient phraseology, in various green wounds and +bloody coxcombs.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As Sir Oran was not habituated to allow any very long +process of syllogistic reasoning to interfere between his conception +and execution of the dictates of natural justice, he +commenced operations by throwing the assailants one by one +downstairs, who, as fast as they could rise from the ground, +ran or limped away into sundry holes and coverts. Sir Bonus +Mac Scrip retreated through the breach, and concealed himself +under the dining-table in Mr. Forester’s apartment. Mr. +Forester succeeded in preventing Sir Gregory from being +thrown after his myrmidons: but Sir Oran kept the fat baronet +a close prisoner in the corner of the room, while the lovers +slipped away into the inn-yard, where the chaise they had +ordered was in readiness; and the cracking of whips, the +trampling of horses, and the rattling of wheels announced the +final discomfiture of the schemes of Sir Gregory Greenmould +and the hopes of Sir Bonus Mac Scrip.</p> + +<div id='i_279' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span> +<img src='images/i_279.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Sir Bonus Mac Scrip retreated through the breach, and concealed himself under the dining-table.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXXIX<br> <span class='c013'>MAINCHANCE VILLA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The next day they resumed their perquisitions, still without +any clue to guide them in their search. They had hitherto +had the advantage of those halcyon days which often make +the middle of winter a season of serenity and sunshine; but, +on this day, towards the evening, the sky grew black with +clouds, the snow fell rapidly in massy flakes, and the mountains +and valleys were covered with one uniform veil of whiteness. +All vestiges of roads and paths were obliterated. They +were winding round the side of a mountain, and their situation +began to wear a very unpromising aspect, when, on a sudden +turn of the road, the trees and chimneys of a villa burst upon +their view in the valley below. To this they bent their way, +and on ringing at the gate-bell, and making the requisite +inquiries, they found it to be Mainchance Villa, the new +residence of Peter Paypaul Paperstamp, Esquire, whom we +introduced to our readers in the twenty-eighth chapter. They +sent in their names, and received a polite invitation to walk in. +They were shown into a parlour, where they found their old +acquaintance Mr. Derrydown tête-à-tête at the piano with Miss +Celandina, with whom he was singing a duet. Miss Celandina +said, ‘her papa was just then engaged, but would soon have +the pleasure of waiting on them: in the meantime Mr. Derrydown +would do the honours of the house.’ Miss Celandina +left the room; and they learned in conversation with Mr. +Derrydown, that the latter, finding his case hopeless with +Anthelia, had discovered some good reasons in an old ballad +for placing his affections where they would be more welcome; +he had therefore thrown himself at the feet of Miss Celandina +Paperstamp; the young lady’s father, having inquired into +<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>Mr. Derrydown’s fortune, had concluded, from the answer he +received, that it would be a very <em>good match</em> for his daughter; +and the day was already definitely arranged on which Miss +Celandina Paperstamp was to be metamorphosed into Mrs. +Derrydown.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Derrydown informed them that they would not see +Mr. Paperstamp till dinner, as he was closeted in close conference +with Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Vamp, Mr. Killthedead, +and Mr. Anyside Antijack, a very important personage just +arrived from abroad on the occasion of a letter from Mr. +Mystic of Cimmerian Lodge, denouncing an approaching period +of public light, which had filled Messieurs Paperstamp, Feathernest, +Vamp, Killthedead, and Antijack with the deepest dismay; +and they were now holding a consultation on the best means +to be adopted for totally and finally extinguishing the light of +the human understanding. ‘I am excluded from the council,’ +proceeded Mr. Derrydown, ‘and it is their intention to keep +me altogether in the dark on the subject; but I shall wait +very patiently for the operation of the second bottle, when the +wit will be out of the brain, and the cat will be out of the bag.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Is that picture a family piece?’ said Mr. Fax.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I hardly know,’ said Mr. Derrydown, ‘whether there is +any relationship between Mr. Paperstamp and the persons +there represented; but there is at least a very intimate connection. +The old woman in the scarlet cloak is the illustrious +Mother Goose;—the two children playing at see-saw are +Margery Daw and Tommy with his Banbury cake;—the little +boy and girl, the one with a broken pitcher, and the other +with a broken head, are little Jack and Jill: the house, at the +door of which the whole party is grouped, is the famous house +that Jack built; you see the clock through the window and +the mouse running up it, as in that sublime strain of immortal +genius, entitled Dickery Dock: and the boy in the corner is +little Jack Horner eating his Christmas pie. The latter is one +of the most splendid examples on record of the admirable +practical doctrine of “taking care of number one,” and he is +therefore in double favour with Mr. Paperstamp, for his excellence +as a pattern of moral and political wisdom, and for the +beauty of the poetry in which his great achievement of extracting +a plum from the Christmas pie is celebrated. Mr. Paperstamp, +Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Vamp, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>Anyside Antijack are unanimously agreed that the Christmas +pie in question is a type and symbol of the public purse; and +as that is a pie in which every one of them has a finger, they +look with great envy and admiration on little Jack Horner, +who extracted a <em>plum</em> from it, and who, I believe, haunts their +dreams with his pie and his plum, saying, “Go, and do thou +likewise!”’</p> + +<p class='c007'>The secret council broke up, and Mr. Paperstamp entering +with his four compeers, bade the new-comers welcome to +Mainchance Villa, and introduced to them Mr. Anyside Antijack. +Mr. Paperstamp did not much like Mr. Forester’s +modes of thinking; indeed he disliked them the more, from +their having once been his own; but a man of large landed +property was well worth a little civility, as there was no knowing +what turn affairs might take, what party might come into +place, and who might have the cutting up of the Christmas pie.</p> + +<p class='c007'>They now adjourned to dinner, during which, as usual, +little was said, and much was done. When the wine began to +circulate, Mr. Feathernest held forth for some time in praise +of himself; and by the assistance of a little smattering in Mr. +Mystic’s synthetical logic, proved himself to be a model of +taste, genius, consistency, and public virtue. This was too +good an example to be thrown away; and Mr. Paperstamp +followed it up with a very lofty encomium on his own virtues +and talents, declaring he did not believe so great a genius, or +so amiable a man as himself, Peter Paypaul Paperstamp, +Esquire, of Mainchance Villa, had appeared in the world since +the days of Jack the Giantkiller, whose <em>coat of darkness</em> he +hoped would become the costume of all the rising generation, +whenever adequate provision should be made for the whole +people to be taught and trained.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Vamp, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. Anyside Antijack +were all very loud in their encomiums of the wine, which Mr. +Paperstamp observed had been tasted for him by his friend +Mr. Feathernest, who was a great connoisseur in ‘Sherris sack.’</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Derrydown was very intent on keeping the bottle in +motion, in the hope of bringing the members of the critico-poetical +council into that state of blind self-love, when the +great vacuum of the head, in which brain was, like Mr. Harris’s +indefinite article, <em>supplied by negation</em>, would be inflated with +oenogen gas, or, in other words, with the fumes of wine, the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>effect of which, according to psychological chemistry, is, after +filling up every chink and crevice of the cranial void, to evolve +through the labial valve, bringing with it all the secrets both +of memory and anticipation which had been carefully laid up +in the said chinks and crevices. This state at length arrived; +and Mr. Derrydown, to quicken its operation, contrived to pick +a quarrel with Mr. Vamp, who being naturally very testy and +waspish, poured out upon him a torrent of invectives, to the +infinite amusement of Mr. Derrydown, who, however, affecting +to be angry, said to him in a tragical tone,</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Thus in dregs of folly sunk,</div> + <div class='line'>Art thou, miscreant, mad or drunk?</div> + <div class='line'>Cups intemperate always teach</div> + <div class='line'>Virulent abusive speech.<a id='r97'></a><a href='#f97' class='c012'><sup>[97]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>This produced a general cry of ‘Chair! chair!’ Mr. Paperstamp +called Mr. Derrydown to order. The latter apologised +with as much gravity as he could assume, and said, to make +amends for his warmth, he would give them a toast, and pronounced +accordingly: ‘Your scheme for extinguishing the +light of the human understanding: may it meet the success it +merits.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> Nothing can be in a more hopeful +train. We must set the alarmists at work, as in the Antijacobin +war: when, to be sure, we had one or two honest men among +our opposers<a id='r98'></a><a href='#f98' class='c012'><sup>[98]</sup></a>—(<em>Mr. Feathernest and Mr. Paperstamp smiled +and bowed</em>)—though they were for the most part ill-read in +history, and ignorant of human nature.<a id='r99'></a><a href='#f99' class='c012'><sup>[99]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest and Mr. Paperstamp.</em> How, sir?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> For the most part, observe me. +Of course I do not include my quondam antagonists, and now +very dear friends, Mr. Paperstamp and Mr. Feathernest, who +have altered their minds, as the sublime Burke altered his +mind,<a id='r100'></a><a href='#f100' class='c012'><sup>[100]</sup></a> from the most disinterested motives.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Yet there are some persons, and those not +the lowest in the scale of moral philosophy, who have called +the sublime Burke a pensioned apostate.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp.</em> Moral philosophy! Every man who talks of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>moral philosophy is a thief and a rascal, and will never make +any scruple of seducing his neighbour’s wife, or stealing his +neighbour’s property.<a id='r101'></a><a href='#f101' class='c012'><sup>[101]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> You can prove that assertion of course.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp.</em> Prove it! The editor of the Legitimate +Review required to prove an assertion!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> The church is in danger!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I confess I do not see how the church is +endangered by a simple request to prove the asserted necessary +connection between the profession of moral philosophy and the +practice of robbery.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> For your satisfaction, sir, and from +my disposition to oblige you, as you are a gentleman of family +and fortune, I will prove it. Every moral philosopher discards +the creed and commandments:<a id='r102'></a><a href='#f102' class='c012'><sup>[102]</sup></a> the sixth commandment says, +Thou shalt not steal; therefore, every moral philosopher is a +thief.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. Paperstamp.</em> +Nothing can be more logical. The church is in danger! The +church is in danger!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp.</em> Keep up that. It is an infallible tocsin for +rallying all the old women about us when everything else fails.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Paperstamp, Mr. Killthedead, +and Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> The church is in danger! +the church is in danger!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I am very well aware that the time has +been when the voice of reason could be drowned by clamour, +and by rallying round the banners of corruption and delusion +a mass of blind and bigoted prejudices, that had no real +connection with the political question which it was the object +to cry down: but I see with pleasure that those days are gone. +The people read and think: their eyes are opened; they know +that all their grievances arise from the pressure of taxation far +beyond their means, from the fictitious circulation of paper-money, +and from the corrupt and venal state of popular +representation. These facts lie in a very small compass; and +till you can reason them out of this knowledge, you may +vociferate ‘The church is in danger’ for ever, without a single +unpaid voice to join in the outcry.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> My friend Mr. Mystic holds that it is a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>very bad thing for the people to read: so it certainly is. Oh +for the happy ignorance of former ages! when the people were +dolts, and knew themselves to be so.<a id='r103'></a><a href='#f103' class='c012'><sup>[103]</sup></a> An ignorant man, +judging from instinct, judges much better than a man who +reads, and is consequently misinformed.<a id='r104'></a><a href='#f104' class='c012'><sup>[104]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp.</em> Unless he reads the Legitimate Review.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Paperstamp.</em> Darkness! darkness! Jack the Giantkiller’s +coat of darkness! That is your only wear.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> There was a time when we could +lead the people any way, and make them join with all their +lungs in the yell of war: then they were people of sound +judgment, and of honest and honourable feelings:<a id='r105'></a><a href='#f105' class='c012'><sup>[105]</sup></a> but when +they pretend to feel the pressure of personal suffering, and to +read and think about its causes and remedies—such impudence +is intolerable.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Are they not the same people still? If they +were capable of judging then, are they not capable of judging +now?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> By no means: they are only +capable of judging when they see with our eyes; then they see +straight forward; when they pretend to use their own, they +squint.<a id='r106'></a><a href='#f106' class='c012'><sup>[106]</sup></a> They saw with our eyes in the beginning of the Antijacobin +war. They would have determined on that war, if it +had been decided by universal suffrage.<a id='r107'></a><a href='#f107' class='c012'><sup>[107]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Why was not the experiment tried?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> It was not convenient. But they +were in a most amiable ferment of intolerant loyalty.<a id='r108'></a><a href='#f108' class='c012'><sup>[108]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Of which the proof is to be found in the +immortal Gagging Bills, by which that intolerant loyalty was +coerced.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> The Gagging Bills? Hem! ha! +What shall we say to that? (<em>To Mr. Vamp.</em>)</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp.</em> Say? The church is in danger!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Paperstamp, Mr. Killthedead, and +Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> The church is in danger! the church +is in danger!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Why was a war undertaken to prevent +revolution, if all the people of this country were so well fortified +<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>in loyalty? Did they go to war for the purpose of forcibly +preventing themselves from following a bad example against +their own will? For this is what your argument seems to +imply?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> That the people were in a certain degree of +ferment is true: but it required a great deal of management +and delusion to turn that ferment into the channel of foreign +war.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> Well, sir, and there was no other +way to avoid domestic reform, which every man who desires is +a ruffian, a scoundrel, and an incendiary,<a id='r109'></a><a href='#f109' class='c012'><sup>[109]</sup></a> as much so as those +two rascals Rousseau and Voltaire, who were the trumpeters of +Hebert and Marat.<a id='r110'></a><a href='#f110' class='c012'><sup>[110]</sup></a> Reform, sir, is not to be thought of; we +have been at war twenty-five years to prevent it; and to have +it, after all, would be very hard. We have got the national +debt instead of it: in my opinion a very pretty substitute.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Derrydown</em> sings—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>And I’ll hang on thy neck, my love, my love,</div> + <div class='line'>And I’ll hang on thy neck for aye!</div> + <div class='line'>And closer and closer I’ll press thee, my love,</div> + <div class='line'>Until my <em>dying day</em>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> I am happy to reflect that the silly +question of reform will have very few supporters in the +Honourable House: but few as they are, the number would be +lessened if all who come into Parliament by means which that +question attempts to stigmatise would abstain from voting upon +it. Undoubtedly such practices are scandalous, as being +legally, and therefore morally wrong: but it is false that any +evil to the legislature arises from them.<a id='r111'></a><a href='#f111' class='c012'><sup>[111]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Perhaps not, sir; but very great evil arises +through them from the legislature to the people. Your admission, +that they are legally, and <em>therefore</em> morally wrong, +implies a very curious method of deriving morality from law; +but I suspect there is much immorality that is perfectly legal, +and much legality that is supremely immoral. But these +practices, you admit, are both legally and morally wrong; yet +you call it a silly question to propose their cessation; and you +assert that all who wish to abolish them, all who wish to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>abolish illegal and immoral practices, are ruffians, scoundrels, +and incendiaries.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Killthedead.</em> Yes, and madmen moreover, and villains.<a id='r112'></a><a href='#f112' class='c012'><sup>[112]</sup></a> +We are all upon gunpowder! The insane and the desperate +are scattering firebrands!<a id='r113'></a><a href='#f113' class='c012'><sup>[113]</sup></a> We shall all be blown up in a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>body: sinecures, rotten boroughs, secret-service-men, and the +whole <em>honourable band of gentlemen pensioners</em>, will all be +blown up in a body! <em>A stand! a stand! it is time to make +a stand against popular encroachment!</em></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, and Mr. Paperstamp.</em> The +church is in danger!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> Here is the great blunderbuss +that is to blow the whole nation to atoms! the Spencean +blunderbuss! (<em>Saying these words he produced a popgun +from his pocket</em>,<a id='r114'></a><a href='#f114' class='c012'><sup>[114]</sup></a> <em>and shot off a paper pellet in the ear of Mr. +Paperstamp</em>,</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><em>Who in a kind of study sate</em></div> + <div class='line in2'><em>Denominated brown</em>;</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'><em>which made the latter spring up in sudden fright, to the irremediable +perdition of a decanter of ‘Sherris sack,’ over which +Mr. Feathernest lamented bitterly.</em>)</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I do not see what connection the Spencean +theory, the impracticable chimaera of an obscure herd of fanatics, +has with the great national question of parliamentary reform.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> Sir, you may laugh at this popgun, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>but you will find it the mallet of Thor.<a id='r115'></a><a href='#f115' class='c012'><sup>[115]</sup></a> The Spenceans +are far more respectable than the parliamentary reformers, and +have a more distinct and intelligible system!!!<a id='r116'></a><a href='#f116' class='c012'><sup>[116]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp.</em> Bravo! bravo! bravo! There is not another +man in our corps with brass enough to make such an assertion, +but Mr. Anyside Antijack. (<em>Reiterated shouts of Bravo! from +Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Paperstamp, and Mr. Killthedead.</em>)</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Killthedead.</em> Make out that, and our job is done.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> Make it out! Nonsense! I shall +take it for granted: I shall set up the Spencean plan as a more +sensible plan than that of the parliamentary reformers: then +knock down the former, and argue against the latter, <em>a fortiori</em>. +(<em>The shouts of Bravo! here became perfectly deafening, the +critico-poetical corps being by this time much more than half-seas-over.</em>)</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Killthedead.</em>—The members for rotten boroughs are +the most independent members in the Honourable House, and +the representatives of most constituents least so.<a id='r117'></a><a href='#f117' class='c012'><sup>[117]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> How will you prove that?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Killthedead.</em> By calling the former gentlemen, and +the latter mob representatives.<a id='r118'></a><a href='#f118' class='c012'><sup>[118]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp.</em> Nothing can be more logical.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Do you call that logic?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp.</em> Excellent logic. At least it will pass for such +with our readers.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> We, and those who think with us, +are the only wise and good men.<a id='r119'></a><a href='#f119' class='c012'><sup>[119]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> May I take the liberty to inquire what you +mean by a wise and a good man?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> A wise man is he who looks after +the one thing needful; and a good man is he who has it. +The acme of wisdom and goodness in conjunction consists in +appropriating as much as possible of the public money; and +saying to those from whose pockets it is taken, ‘I am perfectly +satisfied with things as they are. Let <em>well</em> alone!’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Paperstamp.</em> We shall make out a very good case; +but you must not forget to call the present public distress an +<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>awful dispensation:<a id='r120'></a><a href='#f120' class='c012'><sup>[120]</sup></a> a little pious cant goes a great way +towards turning the thoughts of men from the dangerous and +jacobinical propensity of looking into moral and political causes +for moral and political effects.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> But the moral and political causes are now too +obvious, and too universally known, to be obscured by any +such means. All the arts and eloquence of corruption may +be overthrown by the enumeration of these simple words: +boroughs, taxes, and paper-money.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> Paper-money! What, is the ghost +of bullion abroad?<a id='r121'></a><a href='#f121' class='c012'><sup>[121]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Yes! and till you can make the buried +substance burst the paper cerements of its sepulchre, its ghost +will continue to walk like the ghost of Caesar, saying to the +desolated nation: ‘I am thy evil spirit!’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> I must say, I am very sorry to find +a gentleman like you taking the part of the swinish multitude, +who are only fit for beasts of burden, to raise subsistence for +their betters, pay taxes for placemen, and recruit the army and +navy for the benefit of legitimacy, divine right, the Jesuits, the +Pope, the Inquisition, and the Virgin Mary’s petticoat.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Paperstamp.</em> Hear! hear! hear! Hear the voice +which the stream of Tendency is uttering for elevation of our +thought!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> It was once said by a poet, whose fallen +state none can more bitterly lament than I do:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>We shall exult if they who rule the land</div> + <div class='line'>Be men who hold its many blessings dear,</div> + <div class='line'>Wise, upright, valiant; not a venal band,</div> + <div class='line'>Who are to judge of danger which they fear,</div> + <div class='line'>And honour which they do not understand.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> Poets, sir, are not amenable to censure, +however frequently their political opinions may exhibit marks +of inconsistency.<a id='r122'></a><a href='#f122' class='c012'><sup>[122]</sup></a> The Muse, as a French author says, is a +mere <em>étourdie</em>, a <em>folâtre</em> who may play at her option on heath +or on turf, and transfer her song at pleasure from Hampden to +Ferdinand, and from Washington to Louis.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> If a poet be contented to consider himself +<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>in the light of a merry-andrew, be it so. But if he assume +the garb of moral austerity, and pour forth against corruption +and oppression the language of moral indignation, there would +at least be some decency, if, when he changes sides, he would +let the world see that conversion and promotion have not gone +hand in hand.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> What decency might be in that, I know +not: but of this I am very certain, that there would be no +wisdom in it.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> No! no! there would be no +wisdom in it.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> Sir, I am a wise and a good man: mark +that, sir; ay, and an honourable man.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp.</em> ‘So are we all, all honourable men!’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> And we will stick by one another +with heart and hand——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Killthedead.</em> To make a stand against popular +encroachment——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> To bring back the glorious ignorance of +the feudal ages——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Paperstamp.</em> To rebuild the mystic temples of venerable +superstition——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Vamp.</em> To extinguish, totally and finally, the light of +the human understanding——</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Anyside Antijack.</em> And to get all we can for our +trouble!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Feathernest.</em> So we will all say.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Paperstamp.</em> And so we will all sing.</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div>QUINTETTO</div> + <div class='c004'><span class='sc'>Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Vamp, Mr. Killthedead, Mr. Paperstamp, and Mr. Anyside Antijack</span></div> + <div class='c004'>To the tune of ‘<em>Turning, turning, turning, as the wheel goes round</em>.’</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12'>RECITATIVE—MR. PAPERSTAMP</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Jack Horner’s <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span> my learned nurse</div> + <div class='line'>Interpreted to mean the <em>public purse</em>.</div> + <div class='line'>From thence a <em>plum</em> he drew. O happy Horner!</div> + <div class='line'>Who would not be ensconced in thy snug corner?</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'><span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>THE FIVE</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>While round the public board all eagerly we linger,</div> + <div class='line'>For what we can get we will try, try, try:</div> + <div class='line'>And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,</div> + <div class='line'>We’ll all have a finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>MR. FEATHERNEST</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>By my own poetic laws, I’m a dealer in applause</div> + <div class='line'>For those who don’t deserve it, but will buy, buy, buy:</div> + <div class='line'>So round the court I linger, and thus I get a finger,</div> + <div class='line'>A finger, finger, finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>THE FIVE</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,</div> + <div class='line'>We’ll all have a finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>MR. VAMP</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>My share of pie to win, I will dash through thick and thin,</div> + <div class='line'>And philosophy and liberty shall fly, fly, fly:</div> + <div class='line'>And truth and taste shall know, that their everlasting foe</div> + <div class='line'>Has a finger, finger, finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>THE FIVE</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,</div> + <div class='line'>We’ll all have a finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>MR. KILLTHEDEAD</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>I’ll make my verses rattle with the din of war and battle,</div> + <div class='line'>For war doth increase sa-la-ry, ry, ry:</div> + <div class='line'>And I’ll shake the public ears with the triumph of Algiers,</div> + <div class='line'>And thus I’ll get a finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>THE FIVE</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,</div> + <div class='line'>We’ll all have a finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>MR. PAPERSTAMP</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>And while you thrive by ranting, I’ll try my luck at canting,</div> + <div class='line'>And scribble verse and prose all so dry, dry, dry:</div> + <div class='line'>And Mystic’s patent smoke public intellect shall choke,</div> + <div class='line'>And we’ll all have a finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>THE FIVE</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>We’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,</div> + <div class='line'>We’ll all have a finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>MR. ANYSIDE ANTIJACK</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>My tailor is so clever, that my coat will turn for ever</div> + <div class='line'>And take any colour you can dye, dye, dye:</div> + <div class='line'>For my earthly wishes are among the loaves and fishes,</div> + <div class='line'>And to have my little finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>THE FIVE</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,</div> + <div class='line'>We’ll all have a finger in the <span class='sc'>Christmas pie</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XL<br> <span class='c013'>THE HOPES OF THE WORLD</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>The mountain-roads being now buried in snow, they were +compelled, on leaving Mainchance Villa, to follow the most +broad and beaten track, and they entered on a turnpike road +which led in the direction of the sea.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I no longer wonder,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘that men in general +are so much disposed as I have found them to look with +supreme contempt on the literary character, seeing the abject +servility and venality by which it is so commonly debased.’<a id='r123'></a><a href='#f123' class='c012'><sup>[123]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> What then becomes of the hopes of the +world, which you have admitted to consist entirely in the +progress of the mind, allowing, as you must allow, the incontrovertible +fact of the physical deterioration of the human race?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> When I speak of the mind, I do not allude +either to poetry or to periodical criticism, nor, in any great +<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>degree, to physical science; but I rest my hopes on the very +same basis with Mr. Mystic’s fear—the general diffusion of +moral and political truth.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> For poetry, its best days are gone. Homer, +Shakspeare, and Milton will return no more.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Lucretius we yet may hope for.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Not till superstition and prejudice have been +shorn of a much larger portion of their power. If Lucretius +should arise among us in the present day, exile or imprisonment +would be his infallible portion. We have yet many steps +to make before we shall arrive at the liberality and toleration of +Tiberius!<a id='r124'></a><a href='#f124' class='c012'><sup>[124]</sup></a> And as to physical science, though it does in some +measure weaken the dominion of mental error, yet I fear, where +it proves itself in one instance the friend of human liberty, it +will be found in ninety-nine the slave of corruption and luxury.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> In many cases science is both morally and +politically neutral, and its speculations have no connection +whatever with the business of life.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> It is true; and such speculations are often +called sublime: though the sublimity of uselessness passes my +comprehension. But the neutrality is only apparent: for it +has in these cases the real practical effect, and a most +pernicious one it is, of withdrawing some of the highest and +most valuable minds from the only path of real utility, which I +agree with you to be that of moral and political knowledge, to +pursuits of no more real importance than that of keeping a +dozen eggs at a time dancing one after another in the air.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> If it be admitted, on the one hand, that the +progress of luxury has kept pace with that of physical science, +it must be acknowledged, on the other, that superstition has +decayed in at least an equal proportion; and I think it cannot +be denied that the world is a gainer by the exchange.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> The decay of superstition is immeasurably +beneficial; but the growth of luxury is not, therefore, the less +pernicious. It is lamentable to reflect that <em>there is most +indigence in the richest countries</em>;<a id='r125'></a><a href='#f125' class='c012'><sup>[125]</sup></a> and that the increase of +superfluous enjoyment in the few is counterbalanced by the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>proportionate diminution of comfort in the many. Splendid +equipages and sumptuous dwellings are far from being +symbols of general prosperity. The palace of luxurious +indolence is much rather the symbol of a thousand hovels, by +the labours and privations of whose wretched inhabitants that +baleful splendour is maintained. Civilisation, vice, and folly +grow old together. Corruption begins among the higher +orders, and from them descends to the people; so that in +every nation the ancient nobility is the first to exhibit +symptoms of corporeal and mental degeneracy, and to show +themselves unfit both for council and war. If you recapitulate +the few titled names that will adorn the history of the present +times, you will find that almost all of them are new creations. +The corporeal decay of mankind I hold to be undeniable: the +increase of general knowledge I allow: but reason is of slow +growth; and if men in general only become more corrupt as +they become more learned, the progress of literature will oppose +no adequate counterpoise to that of avarice, luxury, and disease.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Certainly, the progress of reason is slow, but +the ground which it has once gained it never abandons. The +interest of rulers, and the prejudices of the people, are equally +hostile to everything that comes in the shape of innovation; +but all that now wears the strongest sanction of antiquity was +once received with reluctance under the semblance of novelty: +and that reason, which in the present day can scarcely obtain +a footing from the want of precedents, will grow with the +growth of years, and become a precedent in its turn.<a id='r126'></a><a href='#f126' class='c012'><sup>[126]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Reason may be diffused in society, but it is +only in minds which <em>have courage enough to despise prejudice +and virtue enough to love truth only for itself</em>,<a id='r127'></a><a href='#f127' class='c012'><sup>[127]</sup></a> that its seeds will +germinate into wholesome and vigorous life. The love of +truth is the most noble quality of human intellect, the most +delightful in the interchange of private confidence, the most +important in the direction of those speculations which have +public happiness for their aim. Yet of all qualities this is the +most rare: it is the Phoenix of the intellectual world. In +private intercourse, how very very few are they whose assertions +carry conviction! How much petty deception, paltry +equivocation, hollow profession, smiling malevolence, and +polished hypocrisy combine to make a desert and a solitude +of what is called society! How much empty pretence and +simulated patriotism, and shameless venality, and unblushing +dereliction of principle, and clamorous recrimination, and +daring imposture, and secret cabal, and mutual undermining +of ‘Honourable Friends,’ render utterly loathsome and disgusting +the theatre of public life! How much timid deference to +vulgar prejudice, how much misrepresentation of the motives +of conscientious opponents, how many appeals to unreflecting +passion, how much assumption of groundless hypothesis, how +many attempts to darken the clearest light and entangle +the simplest clue, render not only nugatory, but pernicious, +the speculations of moral and political reason! Pernicious, +inasmuch as it is better for the benighted traveller to remain +stationary in darkness, than to follow an <i><span lang="la">ignis fatuus</span></i> through +the fen! Falsehood is the great vice of the age: falsehood +<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>of heart, falsehood of mind, falsehood of every form and +mode of intellect and intercourse: so that it is hardly +possible <em>to find a man of worth and goodness of whom to make +a friend: but he who does find such an one will have more +enjoyment of friendship than in a better age; for he will be +doubly fond of him, and will love him as Hamlet does Horatio, +and with him retiring and getting, as it were, under the +shelter of a wall, will let the storm of life blow over him</em>.<a id='r128'></a><a href='#f128' class='c012'><sup>[128]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> But that retirement must be consecrated to +philosophical labour, or, however delightful to the individuals, +it will be treason to the public cause. Be the world as bad as +it may, it would necessarily be much worse if the votaries of +truth and the children of virtue were all to withdraw from its +vortex, and leave it to itself. If reason be progressive, however +slowly, the wise and good have sufficient encouragement +to persevere; and even if the doctrine of deterioration be true, +it is no less their duty to contribute all in their power to retard +its progress, by investigating its causes and remedies.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Undoubtedly. But the progress of theoretical +knowledge has a most fearful counterpoise in the +accelerated depravation of practical morality. The frantic +love of money, which seems to govern our contemporaries to a +degree unprecedented in the history of man, paralyses the +energy of independence, darkens the light of reason, and +blights the blossoms of love.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> The <i><span lang="la">amor sceleratus habendi</span></i> is not peculiar +either to our times or to civilised life. <em>Money you must have, +no matter from whence</em>, is a sentence, if we may believe +Euripides, as old as the heroic age: and <em>the monk Rubruquis +says of the Tartars, that, as parents keep all their daughters +till they can sell them, their maids are sometimes very stale +before they are married</em>.<a id='r129'></a><a href='#f129' class='c012'><sup>[129]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> In that respect, then, I must acknowledge +the Tartars and we are much on a par. It is a collateral +question well worth considering, how far the security of +property, which contributes so much to the diffusion of knowledge +and the permanence of happiness, is favourable to the +growth of individual virtue.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Security of property tranquillises the minds of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>men, and fits them to shine rather in speculation than in +action. In turbulent and insecure states of society, when the +fluctuations of power, or the incursions of predatory neighbours, +hang like the sword of Damocles over the most flourishing +possessions, friends are more dear to each other, mutual +services and sacrifices are more useful and more necessary, the +energies of heart and hand are continually called forth, and +shining examples of the self-oblivious virtues are produced in +the same proportion as mental speculation is unknown or disregarded: +but our admiration of these virtues must be tempered +by the remark, that they arise more from impulsive feeling +than from reflective principle; and that where life and fortune +hold by such a precarious tenure, the first may be risked, and +the second abandoned, with much less effort than would be +required for inferior sacrifices in more secure and tranquil +times.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> Alas, my friend! I would willingly see +such virtues as do honour to human nature, without being very +solicitous as to the comparative quantities of impulse and +reflection in which they originate. If the security of property +and the diffusion of general knowledge were attended with a +corresponding increase of benevolence and <em>individual mental +power</em>, no philanthropist could look with despondency on the +prospects of the world: but I can discover no symptoms of +either the one or the other. Insatiable accumulators, overgrown +capitalists, fatteners on public spoil, I cannot but consider +as excrescences on the body politic, typical of disease +and prophetic of decay: yet it is to these and such as these +that the poet tunes his harp, and the man of science consecrates +his labours: it is for them that an enormous portion of the +population is condemned to unhealthy manufactories, not less +deadly but more lingering than the pestilence: it is for them +that the world rings with lamentations, if the most trivial +accident, the most transient sickness, the most frivolous disappointment +befall them: but when the prisons swarm, when +the workhouses overflow, when whole parishes declare themselves +bankrupt, when thousands perish by famine in the wintry +streets, where then is the poet, where is the man of science, +where is the <em>elegant</em> philosopher? The poet is singing hymns +to the great ones of the world, the man of science is making +discoveries for the adornment of their dwellings or the enhancement +<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>of their culinary luxuries, and the <em>elegant</em> philosopher is +much too refined a personage to allow such vulgar subjects as +the sufferings of the poor to interfere with his sublime speculations. +<em>They are married and cannot come!</em></p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Ἐψαυσας ἀλγεινοτατας ἐμοι μεριμνας!<a id='r130'></a><a href='#f130' class='c012'><sup>[130]</sup></a> Those +<em>elegant</em> philosophers are among the most fatal enemies to the +advancement of moral and political knowledge; laborious +triflers, profound investigators of nothing, everlasting talkers +about taste and beauty, who see in the starving beggar only +the picturesqueness of his rags, and in the ruined cottage only +the harmonising tints of moss, mildew, and stonecrop.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> We talk of public feeling and national +sympathy. Our dictionaries may define those words and our +lips may echo them, but we must look for the realities among +less enlightened nations. The Canadian savages cannot +imagine the possibility of any individual in a community having +a full meal while another has but half an one:<a id='r131'></a><a href='#f131' class='c012'><sup>[131]</sup></a> still less could +they imagine that one should have too much, while another +had nothing. Theirs is that bond of brotherhood which nature +weaves and civilisation breaks, and from which the older +nations grow the farther they recede.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> It cannot be otherwise. The state you have +described is adapted only to a small community, and to the +infancy of human society. I shall make a very liberal concession +to your views, if I admit it to be possible that the +middle stage of the progress of man is worse than either the +point from which he started or that at which he will arrive. +But it is my decided opinion that we have passed that middle +stage, and that every evil incident to the present condition of +human society will be removed by the diffusion of moral and +political knowledge, and the general increase of moral and +political liberty. I contemplate with great satisfaction the +rapid decay of many hoary absurdities, which a few transcendental +<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>hierophants of the venerable and the mysterious are +labouring in vain to revive. I look with well-grounded confidence +to a period when there will be neither slaves among +the northern, nor monks among the southern Americans. The +sun of freedom has risen over that great continent, with the +certain promise of a glorious day. I form the best hopes for +my own country, in the mental improvement of the people, +whenever she shall breathe from the pressure of that preposterous +system of finance which sooner or later must fall by its +own weight.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Forester.</em> I apply to our system of finance a fiction +of the northern mythology. The ash of Yggdrasil overshadows +the world: Ratatosk, the squirrel, sports in the branches: +Nidhogger, the serpent, gnaws at the root.<a id='r132'></a><a href='#f132' class='c012'><sup>[132]</sup></a> The ash of +Yggdrasil is the tree of national prosperity: Ratatosk the +squirrel is the careless and unreflecting fundholder: Nidhogger +the serpent is <span class='fss'>POLITICAL CORRUPTION</span>, which will in time +consume the root, and spread the branches on the dust. +What will then become of the squirrel?</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Mr. Fax.</em> Ratatosk must look to himself: Nidhogger +must be killed, and the ash of Yggdrasil will rise like a vegetable +Phoenix to flourish again for ages.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Thus conversing, they arrived on the sea-shore, where we +shall leave them to pursue their way, while we investigate the +fate of Anthelia.</p> + +<div id='i_304' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span> +<img src='images/i_304.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>She immediately ran through the shrubbery.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XLI<br> <span class='c013'>ALGA CASTLE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Anthelia had not ventured to resume her solitary rambles +after her return from Onevote; more especially as she +anticipated the period when she should revisit her favourite +haunts in the society of one congenial companion whose +presence would heighten the magic of their interest, and restore +to them that feeling of security which her late adventure had +destroyed. But as she was sitting in her library on the morning +of her disappearance, she suddenly heard a faint and +mournful cry, like the voice of a child in distress. She rose, +opened the window, and listened. She heard the sounds more +distinctly. They seemed to ascend from that part of the dingle +immediately beneath the shrubbery that fringed her windows. +It was certainly the cry of a child. She immediately ran +through the shrubbery and descended the rocky steps into the +dingle, where she found a little boy tied to the stem of a tree, +crying and sobbing as if his heart would break. Anthelia +easily set him at liberty, and his grief passed away like an +April shower. She asked who had the barbarity to treat him +in such a manner. He said he could not tell—four strange +men on horseback had taken him up on the common where +his father lived, and brought him there and tied him to the +tree, he could not tell why. Anthelia took his hand and was +leading him from the dingle, intending to send him home by +Peter Gray, when the men who had made the little child their +unconscious decoy broke from their ambush, seized Anthelia, +and taking effectual precautions to stifle her cries, placed her +on one of their horses, and travelled with great rapidity along +narrow and unfrequented ways, till they arrived at a solitary +castle on the sea-shore, where they conveyed her to a splendid +<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>suite of apartments, and left her in solitude, locking, as they +retired, the door of the outer room.</p> + +<p class='c007'>She was utterly unable to comprehend the motive of so +extraordinary a proceeding, or to form any conjecture as to its +probable result. An old woman of a very unmeaning physiognomy +shortly after entered, to tender her services; but to +all Anthelia’s questions she only replied with a shake of the +head, and a smile which she meant to be very consolatory.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The old woman retired, and shortly after reappeared with +an elegant dinner, which Anthelia dismissed untouched. +‘There is no harm intended you, my sweet lady,’ said the old +woman; ‘so pray don’t starve yourself.’ Anthelia assured her +she had no such intention, but had no appetite at that time; +but she drank a glass of wine at the old woman’s earnest +entreaty.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the evening the mystery was elucidated by a visit from +Lord Anophel Achthar; who, falling on his knees before her, +entreated her to allow the violence of his passion to plead his +pardon for a proceeding which nothing but the imminent peril +of seeing her in the arms of a rival could have induced him to +adopt. Anthelia replied that, if his object were to obtain her +affections, he had taken the most effectual method to frustrate +his own views; that if he thought by constraint and cruelty to +obtain her hand without her affections, he might be assured +that he would never succeed. Her heart, however, she +candidly told him, was no longer in her power to dispose of; +and she hoped, after this frank avowal, he would see the folly, +if not the wickedness, of protracting his persecution.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He now, still on his knees, broke out into a rhapsody about +love, and hope, and death, and despair, in which he developed +the whole treasury of his exuberant and overflowing folly. He +then expatiated on his expectations, and pointed out all the +advantages of wealth and consequence attached to the title of +Marchioness of Agaric, and concluded by saying that she +must be aware so important and decisive a measure had not +been taken without the most grave and profound deliberation, +and that he never could suffer her to make her exit from Alga +Castle in any other character than that of Lady Achthar. He +then left her to meditate on his heroic resolution.</p> + +<div id='i_308' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_308.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>He flattered himself that Anthelia would at length come to a determination.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The next day he repeated his visit—resumed his supplications—reiterated +his determination to persevere—and received +<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>from Anthelia the same reply. She endeavoured to reason +with him on the injustice and absurdity of his proceedings; +but he told her the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub and Mr. Feathernest +the poet had taught him that all reasonings pretending to +point out absurdity and injustice were manifestly jacobinical, +which he, as one of the pillars of the state, was bound not to +listen to.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He renewed his visits every day for a week, becoming with +every new visit less humble and more menacing, and consequently +more disagreeable to Anthelia, as the Reverend Mr. +Grovelgrub, by whose instructions he acted, secretly foresaw +and designed. The latter now undertook to plead his Lordship’s +cause, and set in a clear point of view to Anthelia the +inflexibility of his Lordship’s resolutions, which, properly +expounded, could not fail to have due weight against the +alternatives of protracted solitude and hopeless resistance.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The reverend gentleman, however, had other views than +those he held out to Lord Anophel, and presented himself to +Anthelia with an aspect of great commiseration. He said he +was an unwilling witness of his Lordship’s unjust proceedings, +which he had done all in his power to prevent, and which had +been carried into effect against his will. It was his firm +intention to set her at liberty as soon as he could devise the +means of doing so; but all the outlets of Alga Castle were so +guarded that he had not yet been able to devise any feasible +scheme for her escape; but it should be his sole study night +and day to effect it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Anthelia thanked him for his sympathy, and asked why he +could not give notice to her friends of her situation, which +would accomplish the purpose at once. He replied that Lord +Anophel already mistrusted him, and that if anything of the +kind were done, however secretly he might proceed, the +suspicion would certainly fall upon him, and that he should +then be a ruined man, as all his worldly hopes rested on the +Marquis of Agaric. Anthelia offered to make him the utmost +compensation for the loss of the Marquis of Agaric’s favour; +but he said that was impossible, unless she could make him a +bishop, as the Marquis of Agaric would do. His plan, he said, +must be to effect her liberation, without seeming to be himself +in any way whatever concerned in it; and though he would +willingly lose everything for her sake, yet he trusted she would +<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>not think ill of him for wishing to wait a few days, that he +might try to devise the means of serving her without ruining +himself.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He continued his daily visits of sympathy, sometimes +amusing her with a hopeful scheme, at others detailing with a +rueful face the formidable nature of some unexpected obstacle, +hinting continually at his readiness to sacrifice everything for +her sake, lamenting the necessity of delay, and assuring her +that in the meanwhile no evil should happen to her. He +flattered himself that Anthelia, wearied out with the irksomeness +of confinement, and the continual alternations of hope +and disappointment, and contrasting the respectful tenderness +of his manner with the disagreeable system of behaviour to +which he had fashioned Lord Anophel, would at length come +to a determination of removing all his difficulties by offering +him her hand and fortune as a compensation for his anticipated +bishopric. It was not, however, very long before Anthelia +penetrated his design; but as she did not deem it prudent to +come to a rupture with him at that time, she continued to listen +to his daily details of plans and impediments, and allowed him +to take to himself all the merit he seemed to assume for +supplying her with music and books; though he expressed +himself very much shocked at her asking him for Gibbon and +Rousseau, whose works, he said, ought to be burned <em>in foro</em> by +the hands of <em>Carnifex</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The windows of her apartment were at an immense elevation +from the beach, as that part of the castle-wall formed a +continued line with the black and precipitous side of the rock +on which it stood. During the greater portion of the hours of +daylight she sate near the window with her harp, gazing on the +changeful aspects of the wintry sea, now slumbering like a +summer lake in the sunshine of a halcyon day—now raging +beneath the sway of the tempest, while the dancing snow-flakes +seemed to accumulate on the foam of the billows, and the +spray was hurled back like snow-dust from the rocks. The +feelings these scenes suggested she developed in the following +stanzas, to which she adapted a wild and impassioned air, and +they became the favourite song of her captivity.</p> + +<div id='i_311' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span> +<img src='images/i_311.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Gazing on the changeful aspects of the wintry sea.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in8'><span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>THE MAGIC BARK</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12'>I</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>O Freedom! power of life and light!</div> + <div class='line'>Sole nurse of truth and glory!</div> + <div class='line'>Bright dweller on the rocky cliff!</div> + <div class='line'>Lone wanderer on the sea!</div> + <div class='line'>Where’er the sunbeam slumbers bright</div> + <div class='line'>On snow-clad mountains hoary;</div> + <div class='line'>Wherever flies the veering skiff,</div> + <div class='line'>O’er waves that breathe of thee!</div> + <div class='line'>Be thou the guide of all my thought—</div> + <div class='line'>The source of all my being—</div> + <div class='line'>The genius of my waking mind—</div> + <div class='line'>The spirit of my dreams!</div> + <div class='line'>To me thy magic spell be taught,</div> + <div class='line'>The captive spirit freeing,</div> + <div class='line'>To wander with the ocean-wind</div> + <div class='line'>Where’er thy beacon beams.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>II</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>O sweet it were, in magic bark,</div> + <div class='line'>On one loved breast reclining,</div> + <div class='line'>To sail around the varied world,</div> + <div class='line'>To every blooming shore;</div> + <div class='line'>And oft the gathering storm to mark</div> + <div class='line'>Its lurid folds combining;</div> + <div class='line'>And safely ride, with sails unfurled,</div> + <div class='line'>Amid the tempest’s roar;</div> + <div class='line'>And see the mighty breakers rave</div> + <div class='line'>On cliff and sand and shingle,</div> + <div class='line'>And hear, with long re-echoing shock,</div> + <div class='line'>The caverned steeps reply;</div> + <div class='line'>And while the storm-cloud and the wave</div> + <div class='line'>In darkness seemed to mingle,</div> + <div class='line'>To skim beside the surf-swept rock,</div> + <div class='line'>And glide uninjured by.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>III</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>And when the summer seas were calm,</div> + <div class='line'>And summer skies were smiling,</div> + <div class='line'>And evening came, with clouds of gold,</div> + <div class='line'>To gild the western wave;</div> + <div class='line'>And gentle airs and dews of balm,</div> + <div class='line'>The pensive mind beguiling,</div> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>Should call the Ocean Swain to fold</div> + <div class='line'>His sea-flocks in the cave,</div> + <div class='line'>Unearthly music’s tenderest spell,</div> + <div class='line'>With gentlest breezes blending</div> + <div class='line'>And waters softly rippling near</div> + <div class='line'>The prow’s light course along,</div> + <div class='line'>Should flow from Triton’s winding shell,</div> + <div class='line'>Through ocean’s depths ascending</div> + <div class='line'>From where it charmed the Nereid’s ear,</div> + <div class='line'>Her coral bowers among.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>IV</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>How sweet, where eastern Nature smiles,</div> + <div class='line'>With swift and mazy motion</div> + <div class='line'>Before the odour-breathing breeze</div> + <div class='line'>Of dewy morn to glide;</div> + <div class='line'>Or ‘mid the thousand emerald isles</div> + <div class='line'>That gem the southern ocean,</div> + <div class='line'>Where fruits and flowers, from loveliest trees,</div> + <div class='line'>O’erhang the slumbering tide:</div> + <div class='line'>Or up some western stream to sail,</div> + <div class='line'>To where its myriad fountains</div> + <div class='line'>Roll down their everlasting rills</div> + <div class='line'>From many a cloud-capped height,</div> + <div class='line'>Till mingling in some nameless vale,</div> + <div class='line'>‘Mid forest-cinctured mountains,</div> + <div class='line'>The river-cataract shakes the hills</div> + <div class='line'>With vast and volumed might.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'>V</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>The poison-trees their leaves should shed,</div> + <div class='line'>The yellow snake should perish,</div> + <div class='line'>The beasts of blood should crouch and cower,</div> + <div class='line'>Where’er that vessel past:</div> + <div class='line'>All plagues of fens and vapours bred,</div> + <div class='line'>That tropic fervours cherish,</div> + <div class='line'>Should fly before its healing power,</div> + <div class='line'>Like mists before the blast.</div> + <div class='line'>Where’er its keel the strand imprest</div> + <div class='line'>The young fruit’s ripening cluster,</div> + <div class='line'>The bird’s free song, its touch should greet</div> + <div class='line'>The opening flower’s perfume;</div> + <div class='line'>The streams along the green earth’s breast</div> + <div class='line'>Should roll in purer lustre,</div> + <div class='line'>And love should heighten every sweet,</div> + <div class='line'>And brighten every bloom.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in12 c003'><span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>VI</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>And, Freedom! thy meridian blaze</div> + <div class='line'>Should chase the clouds that lower,</div> + <div class='line'>Wherever mental twilight dim</div> + <div class='line'>Obscures Truth’s vestal flame,</div> + <div class='line'>Wherever Fraud and Slavery raise</div> + <div class='line'>The throne of bloodstained Power,</div> + <div class='line'>Wherever Fear and Ignorance hymn</div> + <div class='line'>Some fabled daemon’s name!</div> + <div class='line'>The bard, where torrents thunder down</div> + <div class='line'>Beside thy burning altar,</div> + <div class='line'>Should kindle, as in days of old,</div> + <div class='line'>The mind’s ethereal fire;</div> + <div class='line'>Ere yet beneath a tyrant’s frown</div> + <div class='line'>The Muse’s voice could falter,</div> + <div class='line'>Or Flattery strung with chords of gold</div> + <div class='line'>The minstrel’s venal lyre.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XLII<br> <span class='c013'>CONCLUSION</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Lord Anophel one morning paid Anthelia his usual visit. +‘You must be aware, Miss Melincourt,’ said he, ‘that if your +friends could have found you out, they would have done it +before this; but they have searched the whole country far and +near, and have now gone home in despair.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> That, my Lord, I cannot believe; for there is +one, at least, who I am confident will never be weary of seeking +me, and who, I am equally confident, will not always seek +in vain.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> If you mean the young lunatic of +Redrose Abbey, or his friend the dumb Baronet, they are both +gone to London to attend the opening of the Honourable +House; and if you doubt my word, I will show you their +names in the <cite>Morning Post</cite>, among the Fashionable Arrivals +at Wildman’s Hotel.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> Your Lordship’s word is quite as good as the +authority you have quoted.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> Well, then, Miss Melincourt, I +presume you perceive that you are completely in my power, +and that I have gone too far to recede. If, indeed, I had +supposed myself an object of such very great repugnance to +you, which I must say (<em>looking at himself in a glass</em>) is quite +unaccountable, I might not, perhaps, have laid this little +scheme, which I thought would be only settling the affair in a +compendious way; for that any woman in England would +consider it a very great hardship to be Lady Achthar, and +hereafter Marchioness of Agaric, and would feel any very +mortal resentment for means that tended to make her so, was +an idea, egad, that never entered my head. However, as +<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>I have already observed, you are completely in my power: +both our characters are compromised, and there is only one +way to mend the matter, which is to call in Grovelgrub, and +make him strike up ‘Dearly beloved.’</p> + +<div id='i_318' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_318.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>Preparing to administer natural justice by throwing him out at the window.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> As to your character, Lord Anophel, that must +be your concern. Mine is in my own keeping; for, having +practised all my life a system of uniform sincerity, which gives +me a right to be believed by all who know me, and more +especially by all who love me, I am perfectly indifferent to +private malice or public misrepresentation.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> There is such a thing, Miss +Melincourt, as tiring out a man’s patience; and, ‘pon honour, +if gentle means don’t succeed with you, I must have recourse +to rough ones, ‘pon honour.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> My Lord!</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Lord Anophel Achthar.</em> I am serious, curse me. You will +be glad enough to hush all up, then, and we’ll go to court +together in due form.</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>Anthelia.</em> What you mean by hushing up, Lord Anophel, +I know not: but of this be assured, that under no circumstances +will I ever be your wife; and that whatever +happens to me in any time or place, shall be known to all who +are interested in my welfare. I know too well the difference +between the true quality of a pure and simple mind and the +false affected modesty which goes by that name in the world, +to be intimidated by threats which can only be dictated by a +supposition that your wickedness would be my disgrace, and +that false shame would induce me to conceal what both truth +and justice would command me to make known.</p> + +<div id='i_320' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_320.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p><em>We shall leave them to run</em> ad libitum.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Lord Anophel stood aghast for a few minutes, at the +declaration of such unfashionable sentiments. At length +saying, ‘Ay, preaching is one thing, and practice another, as +Grovelgrub can testify,’ he seized her hand with violence, and +threw his arm round her waist. Anthelia screamed, and at +that very moment a violent noise of ascending steps was heard +on the stairs; the door was burst open, and Sir Oran Haut-ton +appeared in the aperture, with the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub +in custody, whom he dragged into the apartment, followed by +Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax. Mr. Forester flew to Anthelia, +who threw herself into his arms, hid her face in his bosom, and +burst into tears: which when Sir Oran saw, his wrath grew +<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>boundless, and quitting his hold of the Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub +(who immediately ran downstairs, and out of the castle, as fast +as a pair of short thick legs could carry him), seized on Lord +Anophel Achthar, and was preparing to administer natural +justice by throwing him out at the window; but Mr. Fax +interposed, and calling Mr. Forester’s attention, which was +totally engaged with Anthelia, they succeeded in rescuing the +terrified sprig of nobility; who immediately, leaving the enemy +in free possession, flew downstairs after his reverend tutor; +whom, on issuing from the castle, he discovered at an immense +distance on the sands, still running with all his might. Lord +Anophel gave him chase, and after a long time came within +hail of him, and shouted to him to stop. But this only served +to quicken the reverend gentleman’s speed; who, hearing the +voice of pursuit, and too much terrified to look back, concluded +that the dumb Baronet had found his voice, and was then in +the very act of gaining on his flight. Therefore, the more +Lord Anophel shouted ‘Stop!’ the more nimbly the reverend +gentleman sped along the sands, running and roaring all the +way, like Falstaff on Gadshill; his Lordship still exerting all +his powers of speed in the rear, and gaining on his flying +<span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>Mentor by very imperceptible gradations: where we shall leave +them to run <em>ad libitum</em>, while we account for the sudden +appearance of Mr. Forester and his friends.</p> + +<div id='i_322' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/i_322.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>‘<em>He would confess all.</em>’</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>We left them walking along the shore of the sea, which they +followed till they arrived in the vicinity of Alga Castle, from +which the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub emerged in evil hour, to +take a meditative walk on the sands. The keen sight of the +natural man descried him from far. Sir Oran darted on his +prey; and though it is supposed that he could not have overtaken +the swift-footed Achilles,<a id='r133'></a><a href='#f133' class='c012'><sup>[133]</sup></a> he had very little difficulty in +overtaking the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, who had begun to run +for his life as soon as he was aware of the foe. Sir Oran +shook his stick over his head, and the reverend gentleman +dropping on his knees, put his hands together, and entreated +for mercy, saying ‘he would confess all.’ Mr. Forester and +Mr. Fax came up in time to hear the proposal: the former +restrained the rage of Sir Oran, who, however, still held his +prisoner fast by the arm; and the reluctant divine, with many +a heavy groan, conducted his unwelcome company to the door +of Anthelia’s apartments.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘O Forester!’ said Anthelia, ‘you have realised all my +wishes. I have found you the friend of the poor, the enthusiast +of truth, the disinterested cultivator of the rural virtues, the +active promoter of the cause of human liberty. It only +remained that you should emancipate a captive damsel, who, +however, will but change the mode of her durance, and become +your captive for life.’</p> + +<p class='c016'>It was not long after this event, before the Reverend Mr. +Portpipe and the old chapel of Melincourt Castle were put +in requisition, to make a mystical unit of Anthelia and Mr. +Forester. The day was celebrated with great festivity throughout +their respective estates, and the Reverend Mr. Portpipe +<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>was <i><span lang="la">voti compos</span></i>, that is to say, he had taken a resolution on +the day of Anthelia’s christening, that he would on the day of +her marriage drink one bottle more than he had ever taken at +one sitting on any other occasion; which resolution he had +now the satisfaction of carrying into effect.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Oran Haut-ton continued to reside with Mr. Forester +and Anthelia. They discovered in the progress of time that +he had formed for the latter the same kind of reverential +attachment as the Satyr in Fletcher forms for the Holy Shepherdess:<a id='r134'></a><a href='#f134' class='c012'><sup>[134]</sup></a> +and Anthelia might have said to him in the words +of Corin:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>They wrong thee that do call thee rude:</div> + <div class='line'>Though thou be’st outward rough and tawny-hued,</div> + <div class='line'>Thy manners are as gentle and as fair</div> + <div class='line'>As his who boasts himself born only heir</div> + <div class='line'>To all humanity.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>His greatest happiness was in listening to the music of her +harp and voice: in the absence of which he solaced himself, +as usual, with his flute and French horn. He became likewise +a proficient in drawing; but what progress he made in the art +of speech we have not been able to ascertain.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>Mr. Fax was a frequent visitor at Melincourt, and there +was always a cover at the table for the Reverend Mr. Portpipe.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Hippy felt half inclined to make proposals to Miss +Evergreen; but understanding from Mr. Forester that, from +the death of her lover in early youth, that lady had irrevocably +determined on a single life,<a id='r135'></a><a href='#f135' class='c012'><sup>[135]</sup></a> he comforted himself with passing +half his time at Melincourt Castle, and dancing the little +Foresters on his knee, whom he taught to call him ‘grandpapa +Hippy,’ and seemed extremely proud of the imaginary relationship.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Forester disposed of Redrose Abbey to Sir Telegraph +Paxarett, who, after wearing the willow twelve months, married, +left off driving, and became a very respectable specimen of an +English country gentleman.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We must not conclude without informing those among our +<span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>tender-hearted readers who would be much grieved if Miss +Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney should have been disappointed +in her principal object of making a <em>good match</em>, that she had +at length the satisfaction, through the skilful management of +her mother, of making the happiest of men of Lord Anophel +Achthar.</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div>THE END</div> + <div class='c003'><em>Printed by</em> <span class='sc'>R. & R. Clark, Limited</span>, <em>Edinburgh</em>.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class='c018'> +<div class='footnote' id='f1'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. The following is the motto of the title-page of the first edition:—‘<span lang="fr">Nous +nous moquons des Paladins! quand ces maximes romanesques +commencèrent à devenir ridicules, ce changement fut moins l’ouvrage de +la raison que celui des mauvaises mœurs.</span>’—<span class='sc'>Rousseau.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f2'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. Written in 1817.—Published in 1818.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f3'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. Hor. Epist. I. ii. 27–30.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f4'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. Junius.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f5'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. For Lucy Gray and Alice Fell, see Mr. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f6'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. Coleridge’s ‘Friend.’</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f7'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. ‘There is not any burden that some would gladlier post off to another +than the charge and care of their religion. There be of Protestants and +professors who live and die in as arrant and implicit faith as any lay Papist +of Loretto. A wealthy man, addicted to his pleasure and to his profits, +finds religion to be a traffic so entangled and of so many peddling accounts, +that, of all mysteries, he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. +What should he do? Fain would he have the name to be religious: fain +would he bear up with his neighbours in that. What does he, therefore, +but resolves to give over toiling, and to find himself out some factor, to +whose care and credit he may commit the whole management of his +religious affairs; some divine of note and estimation that must be. To +him he adheres, resigns the whole warehouse of his religion, with all the +locks and keys, into his custody, and, indeed, makes the very person of +that man his religion, esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence +and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say, his religion +is now no more within himself, but is become a dividual movable, and goes +and comes near him according as that good man frequents the house. He +entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him: his religion comes +home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and sumptuously laid to sleep, +rises, is saluted, and after the malmsey, or some well-spiced brewage, and +better breakfasted than he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed +on green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem, his religion walks abroad at +eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop, trading all day without +his religion.’—<span class='sc'>Milton’s</span> <cite>Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f8'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. ‘I think I have established his humanity by proof that ought to +satisfy every one who gives credit to human testimony.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, +vol. iii. p. 40.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I have brought myself to a perfect conviction that the oran outang is +a human creature as much as any of us.’—<em>Ibid.</em></p> + +<p class='c007'>‘Nihil humani ei deesse diceres praeter loquelam.’—<span class='sc'>Bontius.</span></p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The fact truly is, that the man is easily distinguishable in him; nor +are there any differences betwixt him and us, but what may be accounted +for in so satisfactory a manner that it would be extraordinary and unnatural +if they were not to be found. His body, which is of the same shape as +ours, is bigger and stronger than ours, ... according to that general law +of nature above observed (<em>that all animals thrive best in their natural +state</em>). His mind is such as that of a man must be, uncultivated by arts +and sciences, and living wild in the woods.... One thing, at least, is +certain: that if ever men were in that state which I call natural, it must +have been in such a country and climate as Africa, where they could live +without art upon the natural fruits of the earth. “Such countries,” Linnaeus +says, “are the native country of man; there he lives naturally; in other +countries, <i><span lang="la">non nisi coacte</span></i>, that is, by force of art.” If this be so, then the +short history of man is, that the race, having begun in those fine climates, +and having, as is natural, multiplied there so much that the spontaneous +productions of the earth could not support them, they migrated into other +countries, where they were obliged to invent arts for their subsistence; and +with such arts, language, in process of time, would necessarily come.... +That my facts and arguments are so convincing as to leave no doubt of the +humanity of the oran outang, I will not take upon me to say; but thus +much I will venture to affirm, that I have said enough to make the +philosopher consider it as problematical, and a subject deserving to be +inquired into. <em>For, as to the vulgar, I can never expect that they should +acknowledge any relation to those inhabitants of the woods of Angola</em>; but +that they should continue, through a false pride, to think highly derogatory +from human nature what the philosopher, on the contrary, will think the +greatest praise of man, that from the savage state in which the oran outang +is, he should, by his own sagacity and industry, have arrived at the state +in which we now see him.’—<cite>Origin and Progress of Language</cite>, book ii. +chap. 5.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f9'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. <span lang="fr">‘L’Oran Outang, ou l’homme des bois, est un être particulier à la +zone torride de notre hémisphère: le Pline de la nation qui l’a rangé dans +la classe de singes ne me paroît pas conséquent; car il résulte des principaux +traits de sa description que c’est un homme dégénère.’—<cite>Philosophie +de la Nature.</cite></span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f10'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. ‘The dispositions and affections of his mind are mild, gentle, and +humane.’—<cite>Origin and Progress of Language</cite>, book ii. chap. 4.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The oran outang whom Buffon himself saw was of a sweet temper.’—<em>Ibid.</em></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f11'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. ‘But though I hold the oran outang to be of our species, it must not +be supposed that I think the monkey or ape, with or without a tail, participates +of our nature: on the contrary, I maintain that, however much +his form may resemble man’s, yet he is, as Linnaeus says, of the Troglodyte, +<i><span lang="la">nec nostri generis nec sanguinis</span></i>. For as the mind, or internal principle, is +the chief part of every animal, it is by it principally that the ancients have +distinguished the several species. Now it is laid down by Mr. Buffon, and +I believe it to be a fact that cannot be contested, that neither monkey, ape, +nor baboon, have anything mild or gentle, tractable or docile, benevolent +or humane in their dispositions; but, on the contrary, are malicious and +untractable, to be governed only by force and fear, and without any <em>gravity +or composure in their gait or behaviour, such as the oran outang has</em>.’—<cite>Origin +and Progress of Language</cite>, book ii. chap. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f12'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. ‘He is capable of the greatest affection, not only to his brother oran +outangs, but to such among us as use him kindly. And it is a fact well +attested to me by a gentleman who was an eye-witness of it, that an oran +outang on board his ship conceived such an affection for the cook, that +when upon some occasion he left the ship to go ashore, the gentleman +saw the oran outang shed tears in great abundance.’—<em>Ibid.</em> book ii. +chap. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f13'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. ‘One of them was taken, and brought with some negro slaves to the +capital of the kingdom of Malemba. He was a young one, but six feet and +a half tall. Before he came to this city he had been kept some months in +company with the negro slaves, and during that time was tame and gentle, +and took his victuals very quietly; but when he was brought into the town, +such crowds of people came about him to gaze at him, that he could not +bear it, but grew sullen, abstained from food, and died in four or five days.’—<em>Ibid.</em> +book ii. chap. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f14'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. ‘He has the capacity of being a musician, and has actually learned +to play upon the pipe and harp: a fact attested, not by a common traveller, +but by a man of science, Mr. Peiresc, and who relates it, not as a hearsay, +but as a fact consisting with his own knowledge. And this is the more +to be attended to, as it shows that the oran outang has a perception of +numbers, measure, and melody, which has always been accounted peculiar +to our species. But the learning to speak, as well as the learning music, +must depend upon particular circumstances; and men living as the oran +outangs do, upon the natural fruits of the earth, with few or no arts, are +not in a situation that is proper for the invention of language. The oran +outangs who played upon the pipe had certainly not invented this art in +the woods, but they had learned it from the negroes or the Europeans; +and that they had not at the same time learned to speak, may be accounted +for in one or other of two ways: either the same pains had not been taken +to teach them articulation; or, secondly, music is more natural to man, +and more easily acquired than speech.’—<cite>Origin and Progress of Language</cite>, +book ii. chap. 5.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f15'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. <span lang="fr">‘Ces animaux,’ dit M. de la Brosse, ‘ont l’instinct de s’asseoir à +table comme les hommes; ils mangent de tout sans distinction; ils se +servent du couteau, de la cuillère, et de la fourchette, pour prendre et +couper ce qu’on sert sur l’assiette: <em>ils boivent du vin et d’autres liqueurs</em>: +nous les portâmes à bord; quand ils étoient à table ils se faisoient entendre +des mousses lorsqu’ils avoient besoin de quelque chose.’—<span class='sc'>Buffon.</span></span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f16'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. ‘If I can believe the newspapers, there was an oran outang of the +great kind, that was some time ago shipped aboard a French East India +ship. I hope he has had a safe voyage to Europe, and that his education +will be taken care of.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. p. 40.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f17'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. <cite>Origin and Progress of Language</cite>, book ii. chap. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f18'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. <span lang="la">‘Homo nocturnus, Troglodytes, silvestris, orang outang Bontii. +Corpus album, incessu erectum.... Loquitur sibilo, cogitat, ratiocinatur, +credit sui causa factam tellurem, se aliquando iterum fore imperantem.’—<span class='sc'>Linnaeus.</span></span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f19'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. <span lang="fr">‘Il n’a point de queue: ses bras, ses mains, ses doigts, ses ongles, +sont pareils aux nôtres: il marche toujours debout: il a des traits +approchans de ceux de l’homme, des oreilles de la même forme, des +cheveux sur la tête, de la barbe au menton, et du poil ni plus ni moins que +l’homme en a dans l’état de nature. Aussi les habitans de son pays, les +Indiens policés, n’ont pas hésité de l’associer à l’espèce humaine, par le +nom d’oran outang, <em>homme sauvage</em>. Si l’on ne faisoit attention qu’à la +figure, on pourroit regarder l’oran outang comme le premier des singes ou +le dernier des hommes, parce qu’à l’exception de l’âme, il ne lui manque +rien de tout ce que nous avons, et parce qu’il diffère moins de l’homme +pour le corps qu’il ne diffère des autres animaux auxquels on a donné le +même nom de singe.—S’il y avoit un degré par lequel on pût descendre de +la nature humaine à celle des animaux, si l’essence de cette nature consistoit +en entier dans la forme du corps et dépendoit de son organisation, l’oran +outang se trouveroit plus près de l’homme que d’aucun animal: assis au +second rang des êtres, s’il ne pouvoit commander en premier, il feroit au +moins sentir aux autres sa supériorité, et s’efforceroit à ne pas obéir: si +l’imitation qui semble copier de si près la pensée en étoit le vrai signe ou +l’un des résultats, il se trouveroit encore à une plus grande distance des +animaux et plus voisin de l’homme.’—<span class='sc'>Buffon.</span></span></p> + +<p class='c007'><span lang="fr">‘On est tout étonné, d’après tous ces aveux, que M. de Buffon ne fasse +de l’oran outang qu’une espèce de magot, essentiellement circonscrit dans +les bornes de l’animalité: il falloit, ou infirmer les rélations des voyageurs, +ou s’en tenir à leurs résultats.—Quand on lit dans ce naturaliste l’histoire +du Nègre blanc, on voit que ce bipède diffère de nous bien plus que l’oran +outang, soit par l’organisation, soit par l’intelligence, et cependant on ne +balance pas à le mettre dans la classe des hommes.’—<cite>Philosophie de la +Nature.</cite></span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f20'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. <span lang="fr">‘Les jugemens précipités, et qui ne sont point le fruit d’une raison +éclairée, sont sujets à donner dans l’excès. Nos voyageurs font sans façon +des bêtes, sous les noms de pongos, de mandrills, d’oran outangs, de ces +mêmes êtres, dont, sous le nom de satyres, de faunes, de sylvains, les +anciens faisoient des divinités. Peut-être, après des recherches plus +exactes, trouvera-t-on que ce sont des hommes.’—<span class='sc'>Rousseau</span>, <cite>Discours +sur l’Inégalité</cite>, note 8.</span></p> + +<p class='c007'><span lang="fr">‘Il est presque démontré que les faunes, les satyres, les sylvains, les +ægipans, et toute cette foule de demi-dieux, difformes et libertins, à qui les +filles des Phocion et des Paul Émile s’avisèrent de rendre hommage, ne +furent dans l’origine que des oran outangs. Dans la suite, les poëtes +chargèrent le portrait de l’homme des bois, en lui donnant des pieds de +chèvre, une queue et des cornes; mais le type primordial resta, et le +philosophe l’apperçoit dans les monumens les plus défigurés par l’imagination +d’Ovide et le ciseau de Phidias. Les anciens, très embarrassés de +trouver la filiation de leurs sylvains, et de leurs satyres, se tirèrent d’affaire +en leur donnant des dieux pour pères: les dieux étoient d’un grand secours +aux philosophes des temps reculés, pour résoudre les problèmes d’histoire +naturelle; ils leur servoient comme les cycles et les épicycles dans le système +planétaire de Ptolomée: avec des cycles et des dieux on répond à tout, +quoiqu’on ne satisfasse personne.’—<cite>Philosophie de la Nature.</cite></span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f21'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. Orphica, Hymn. XI. (X <cite>Gesn.</cite>)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f22'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. The words in italics are from the <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. pp. 41, +42. Lord Monboddo adds: ‘I hold it to be impossible to convince any +philosopher, or any man of common sense, who has bestowed any time +to consider the mechanism of speech, that such various actions and configurations +of the organs of speech as are necessary for articulation can be +natural to man. Whoever thinks this possible, should go and see, as I +have done, Mr. Braidwood of Edinburgh, or the Abbé de l’Epée in Paris, +teach the dumb to speak; and when he has observed all the different +actions of the organs, which those professors are obliged to mark distinctly +to their pupils with a great deal of pains and labour, so far from thinking +articulation natural to man, he will rather wonder how, by any teaching +or imitation, he should attain to the ready performance of such various and +complicated operations.’</p> + +<p class='c007'><span lang="fr">‘Quoique l’organe de la parole soit naturel à l’homme, la parole elle-même +ne lui est pourtant pas naturelle.’—<span class='sc'>Rousseau</span>, <cite>Discours sur +l’Inégalité</cite>, note 8.</span></p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The oran outang, so accurately dissected by Tyson, had exactly the +same organs of voice that a man has.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. p. 44.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I have been told that the oran outang who is to be seen in Sir Ashton +Lever’s collection, had learned before he died to articulate some words.’—<em>Ibid.</em> +p. 40.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f23'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. ‘I desire any philosopher to tell me the specific difference between +an oran outang sitting at table, and behaving as M. de la Brosse or M. Buffon +himself has described him, and one of our dumb persons; and in general I +believe it will be very difficult, or rather impossible, for a man who is +accustomed to divide things according to specific marks, not individual +differences, to draw the line betwixt the oran outang and the dumb persons +among us: they have both their organs of pronunciation, and both show +signs of intelligence by their actions.’—<cite>Origin and Progress of Language</cite>, +book ii. chap. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f24'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iv. p. 55.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f25'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. <span lang="fr">‘Toute la terre est couverte de nations, dont nous ne connoissons que +les noms, et nous nous mêlons de juger le genre humain! Supposons un +Montesquieu, un Buffon, un Diderot, un Duclos, un d’Alembert, un +Condillac, ou des hommes de cette trempe, voyageant pour instruire leurs +compatriotes, observant et décrivant comme ils sçavent faire, la Turquie, +l’Égypte, la Barbarie, l’Empire de Maroc, la Guinée, le pays des Caffres, +l’intérieur de l’Afrique et ses côtes orientales, les Malabares, le Mogol, les +rives du Gange, les royaumes de Siam, de Pégu et d’Ava, la Chine, la +Tartarie, et sur-tout le Japon; puis dans l’autre hémisphère le Méxique, le +Pérou, le Chili, les Terres Magellaniques, sans oublier les Patagons vrais +ou faux, le Tucuman, le Paraguai, s’il étoit possible, le Brésil, enfin les +Caraïbes, la Floride, et toutes les contrées sauvages, voyage le plus +important de tous, et celui qu’il faudroit faire avec le plus de soin; +supposons que ces nouveaux Hercules, de retour de ces courses mémorables, +fissent à loisir l’histoire naturelle, morale, et politique de ce qu’ils auroient +vus, nous verrions nous-mêmes sortir un monde nouveau de dessous leur +plume, et nous apprendrions ainsi à connoître le nôtre: je dis que quand +de pareils observateurs affirmeront d’un tel animal que c’est un homme, et +d’un autre que c’est une bête, il faudra les en croire: mais ce seroit une +grande simplicité de s’en rapporter là-dessus à des voyageurs grossiers, sur +lesquels on seroit quelquefois tenté de faire la même question qu’ils se +mêlent de résoudre sur d’autres animaux.’—<span class='sc'>Rousseau</span>, <cite>Discours sur +l’Inégalité</cite>, note 8.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f26'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. ΑΝΩΦΕΛον ΑΧΘος ΑΡουρας. <i><span lang="la">Terrae pondus inutile.</span></i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f27'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. <em>Agaricus</em>, in Botany, a genus of plants of the class Cryptogamia, +comprehending the mushroom, and a copious variety of toadstools.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f28'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. ἐγγυς γαρ νυκτος τε και ἡματος εἰσι κελευθοι.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f29'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. <span lang="fr">‘Ils sont si robustes, dit le traducteur de l’Histoire des Voyages, que +dix hommes ne suffiroient pas pour les arrêter.’—<span class='sc'>Rousseau.</span></span></p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The oran outang is prodigiously strong.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. +iv. p. 51; vol. v. p. 4.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘I have heard the natives say, he can throw down a palm-tree, by his +amazing strength, to come at the wine.’—<cite>Letter of a Bristol Merchant in +a note to the Origin and Progress of Language</cite>, book ii. chap. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f30'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. See Louvet’s <cite><span lang="fr">Récit de mes Périls</span></cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f31'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. Rousseau, <cite>Émile</cite>, liv. 5.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f32'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. <span lang="fr">‘L’issue aucthorise souvent une tres-inepte conduitte. Nostre +entremise n’est quasy qu’une routine, et plus communement consideration +d’usage et d’exemple que de raison.... L’heur et le malheur sont à +mon gré deux souveraines puissances. C’est imprudence d’estimer que +l’humaine prudence puisse remplir le roolle de la fortune. Et vaine est +l’entreprinse de celuy qui presume d’embrasser et causes et consequences, +et meiner par la main le progrez de son faict.... Qu’on reguarde qui +sont les plus puissans aux villes, et qui font mieulx leurs besongnes, on +trouvera ordinairement que ce sont les moins habiles.... Nous +attribuons les effects de leur bonne fortune à leur prudence.... +Parquoy je dy bien, en toutes façons, que les evenements sont maigres +tesmoings de nostre prix et capacité.’—<span class='sc'>Montaigne</span>, liv. iii. chap. 8.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f33'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. Ecclesiastes, chap. iv.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f34'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. <cite>Origin and Progress of Language</cite>, book ii. chap. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f35'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. ‘I have endeavoured to support the ancient definition of man, and +to show that it belongs to the oran outang, though he have not the use of +speech. And indeed it appears surprising to me that any man, pretending +to be a philosopher, should not be satisfied with the expression of intelligence +in the most useful way for the purposes of life; I mean by actions; +but should require likewise the expression of them, by those signs of +arbitrary institution we call <em>words</em>, before they will allow an animal to +deserve the name of <em>man</em>. Suppose that, upon inquiry, it should be found +that the oran outangs have not only invented the art of building huts, and +of attacking and defending with sticks, <em>but also have contrived a way of +communicating to the absent, and recording their ideas by the method of +painting or drawing</em>, as is practised by many barbarous nations (and the +supposition is not at all impossible, or even improbable); and suppose +they should have contrived some form of government, and should elect +kings or rulers, which is possible, and, according to the information of the +Bristol merchant above mentioned, is reported to be actually the case, what +would Mr. Buffon then say? Must they still be accounted brutes, because +they have not yet fallen upon the method of communication by articulate +sounds?’—<cite>Origin and Progress of Language</cite>, book ii. chap. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f36'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey.’</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f37'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. The <cite>Iliad</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f38'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. The <cite>Odyssey</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f39'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. The <cite>Prometheus</cite> of Aeschylus.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f40'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. The <cite>Philoctetes</cite> of Sophocles.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f41'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. The <cite>Hippolytus</cite> of Euripides.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f42'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. <span lang="fr">‘Je l’ai vu présenter sa main pour reconduire les gens qui venoient le +visiter; se promener gravement avec eux et comme de compagnie, etc.’—<span class='sc'>Buffon.</span> +<cite>H. N. de l’Oran Outang.</cite></span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f43'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. Fletcher’s ‘Sea Voyage.’</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f44'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. <span lang="la">Anima certe, quia spiritus est, in sicco habitare non potest.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f45'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. <cite>Edinburgh Review</cite>, No. liii. p. 10.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f46'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. See the preface to the third volume of the <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>. See +also Rousseau’s <cite>Discourse on Inequality</cite> and that on the <cite>Arts and Sciences</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f47'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. </p> +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">nam si Pieria quadrans tibi nullus in umbra</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">ostendatur, ames nomen victumque Machaerae,</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">et vendas potius commissa quod auctio vendit, etc.—<span class='sc'>Juv.</span></span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f48'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. ‘They use an artificial weapon for attack and defence, viz. a stick, +which no animal merely brute is known to do.’—<cite>Origin and Progress of +Language</cite>, book ii. chap. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f49'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. ‘There is a story of one of them, which seems to show they have a +sense of justice as well as honour. For a negro having shot a female of +this kind, that was feeding among his Indian corn, the male, whom our +author calls the husband of this female, pursued the negro into his house, +of which having forced open the door, he seized the negro and dragged +him out of the house to the place where his wife lay dead or wounded, +and the people of the neighbourhood could not rescue the negro, nor force +the oran to quit his hold of him, till they shot him likewise.’—<cite>Origin and +Progress of Language</cite>, book ii. chap. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f50'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. See Chap. IV.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f51'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. ‘Homer has said nothing, positively, of the size of any of his heroes, +but only comparatively, as I shall presently observe: nor is this to be +wondered at; for I know no historian, ancient or modern, that says +anything of the size of the men of his own nation, except comparatively +with that of other nations. But in that fine episode of his, called by the +ancient critics the Τειχοσκοπια or <cite>Prospect from the Walls</cite>, he has given us +a very accurate description of the persons of several of the Greek heroes; +which I am persuaded he had from very good information. In this +description he tells us that Ulysses was shorter than Agamemnon by the +head, shorter than Menelaus by the head and shoulders, and that Ajax +was taller than any of the Greeks by the head and shoulders; consequently, +Ulysses was shorter than Ajax by two heads and shoulders, which we +cannot reckon less than four feet. Now, if we suppose heroes to have +been no bigger than we, then Ajax must have been a man about six feet +and a half, or at most seven feet; and if so Ulysses must have been most +contemptibly short, not more than three feet, which is certainly not the +truth, but a most absurd and ridiculous fiction, such as we cannot suppose +in Homer: whereas, if we allow Ajax to have been twelve or thirteen feet +high, and, much more, if we suppose him to have been eleven cubits, as +Philostratus makes him, Ulysses, though four feet short of him, would +have been of a good size, and, with the extraordinary breadth which +Homer observes he had, may have been as strong a man as Ajax.’—<cite>Ancient +Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. p. 146.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f52'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. ‘It was only in after-ages, when the size of men was greatly decreased, +that the bodies of those heroes, if they happened to be discovered, were, as +was natural, admired and exactly measured. Such a thing happened in +Laconia, where the body of Orestes was discovered, and found to be of +length seven cubits, that is, ten feet and a half. The story is most +pleasantly told by Herodotus, and is to this effect: The Lacedemonians +were engaged in a war with the Tegeatae, a people of Arcadia, in which +they were unsuccessful. They consulted the oracle at Delphi, what they +should do in order to be more successful. The oracle answered ‘That +they must bring to Sparta the bones of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon.’ +But these bones they could not find, and therefore they sent again to the +oracle to inquire where Orestes lay buried. The god answered in hexameter +verse, but so obscurely and enigmatically that they could not +understand what he meant. They went about inquiring everywhere for +the bones of Orestes, till at last a wise man among them, called by +Herodotus <em>Liches</em>, found them out, partly by good fortune, and partly by +good understanding; for, happening to come one day to a smith’s shop in +the country of the Tegeatae, with whom at that time there was a truce and +intercourse betwixt the two nations, he looked at the operations of the +smith, and seemed to admire them very much; which the smith observing, +stopped his work, and, “Stranger,” says he, “you that seem to admire so +much the working of iron would have wondered much more if you had +seen what I saw lately; for, as I was digging for a well in this court here, +I fell upon a coffin that was seven cubits long; but <em>believing that there +never were at any time bigger men than the present</em>, I opened the coffin, +and found there a dead body as long as the coffin, which having measured +I again buried.” Hearing this, the Spartan conjectured that the words of +the oracle would apply to a smith’s shop, and to the operations there +performed; but taking care not to make this discovery to the smith, he +prevailed on him, with much difficulty, to give him a lease of the court; +which having obtained, he opened the coffin, and carried the bones to +Sparta. After which, says our author, the Spartans were upon every +occasion superior in fight to the Tegeatae.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. +p. 146.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘The most of our philosophers at present are, I believe, of the opinion +of the smith in Herodotus, who might be excused for having that opinion at +a time when perhaps no other heroic body had been discovered. But in +later times, I believe there was not the most vulgar man in Greece, who +did not believe that those heroes were very much superior, both in mind +and body, to the men of after-times. Indeed, they were not considered as +mere men, but as something betwixt gods and men, and had <em>heroic</em> +honours paid them, which were next to the <em>divine</em>. On the stage they +were represented as of extraordinary size, both as to length and breadth; +for the actor was not only raised upon very high shoes, which they called +<em>cothurns</em>, but he was put into a case that swelled his size prodigiously (and +I have somewhere read a very ridiculous story of one of them, who, coming +upon the stage, fell and broke his case, so that all the trash with which it +was stuffed, came out and was scattered upon the stage in the view of the +whole people). This accounts for the high style of ancient tragedy, in +which the heroes speak a language so uncommon, that, if I considered +them as men nowise superior to us, I should think it little better than +fustian, and should be apt to apply to it what Falstaff says to Pistol: +“Pr’ythee, Pistol, speak like a man of this world.” And I apply the same +observation to Homer’s poems. If I considered his heroes as no more +than men of this world, I should consider the things he relates of them as +quite ridiculous; but believing them to be men very much superior to us, +I read Homer with the highest admiration, not only as a poet, but as the +historian of the noblest race of men that ever existed. Thus, by having +right notions of the superiority of men in former times, we both improve +our philosophy of man and our taste in poetry.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. +iii. p. 150.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f53'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. ‘But though we should give no credit to those ancient authors, there +are monuments still extant, one particularly to be seen in our own island, +which I think ought to convince every man that the men of ancient times +were much superior to us, at least in the powers of the body. The +monument I mean is well known by the name of Stonehenge, and there +are several of the same kind to be seen in Denmark and Germany. I +desire to know where are the arms now, that, with so little help of +machinery as they must have had, could have raised and set up on end +such a number of prodigious stones, and put others on the top of them, +likewise of very great size? Such works are said by the peasants in +Germany to be the works of giants, and I think they must have been +giants compared with us. And, indeed, the men who erected Stonehenge +could not, I imagine, be of size inferior to that man whose body was found +in a quarry near to Salisbury, within a mile of which Stonehenge stands. +The body of that man was fourteen feet ten inches. The fact is attested +by an eye-witness, one Elyote, who writes, I believe, the first English-Latin +Dictionary that ever was published. It is printed in London in +1542, in folio, and has, under the word <em>Gigas</em>, the following passage: +“About thirty years past and somewhat more, I myself beynge with my +father Syr Rycharde Elyote at a monastery of regular canons, called Juy +Churche, two myles from the citie of Sarisburye, beholde the bones of a +deade man founde deep in the grounde, where they dygged stone, which +being joined togyther, was in length xiiii feet and ten ynches, there beynge +mette; whereof one of the teethe my father hadde, whych was of the +quantytie of a great walnutte. This have I wrytten, because some menne +wylle believe nothynge that is out of the compasse of theyre owne knowledge, +and yet some of them presume to have knowledge, above any other, +contempnynge all men but themselfes or suche as they favour.” It is for +the reason mentioned by this author that I have given so many examples +of the greater size of men than is to be seen in our day, to which I could +add several others concerning bodies that have been found in this our +island, particularly one mentioned by Hector Boece in his <cite>Description of +Scotland</cite>, prefixed to his Scotch History, where he tells us that in a certain +church which he names in the shire of Murray, the bones of a man of +much the same size as those of the man mentioned by Elyote, viz. fourteen +feet, were preserved. One of these bones Boece himself saw, and has +particularly described.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. p. 156.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘But without having recourse to bones or monuments of any kind, if +a man has looked upon the world as long as I have done with any +observation he must be convinced that the size of man is diminishing. I +have seen such bodies of men as are not now to be seen: I have observed +in families, of which I have known three generations, a gradual decline in +that, and I am afraid in other respects. Others may think otherwise; but +for my part I have so great a veneration for our ancestors, that I have +much indulgence for that ancient superstition among the Etrurians, and +from them derived to the Romans, of worshipping the <em>manes</em> of their +ancestors under the names of <em>Lares</em> or domestic gods, which undoubtedly +proceeded upon the supposition that they were men superior to themselves, +and their departed souls such genii as Hesiod has described,</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>ἐσθλοι, ἀλεξικακοι, φυλακες θνητων ἀνθρωπων.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>And if antiquity and the universal consent of nations can give a sanction +to any opinion, it is to this, that our forefathers were better men than we. +Even as far back as the Trojan war, the best age of men of which we +have any particular account, Homer has said that few men were better than +their fathers, and the greater part worse:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>οἱ πλεονες κακιους, παυροι δε τε πατρος ἀρειους.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>And this he puts into the mouth of the Goddess of Wisdom.... But +when I speak of the universal consent of nations, I ought to except the +men, and particularly the young men, of this age, who generally believe +themselves to be better men than their fathers, or than any of their +predecessors.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. p. 161.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f54'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. </p> +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>ἡμεις μεν προπαν ἡμαρ, ἐς ἡελιον καταδυντα,</div> + <div class='line'>ἡμεθα, δαινυμενοι κρεα τ’ ἀσπετα και μεθυ ἡδυ κτλ.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f55'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. </p> +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>The nightingale is gay,</div> + <div class='line in2'>For she can vanquish night,</div> + <div class='line'>Dreaming, she sings of day,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Notes that make darkness bright.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>But when the refluent gloom</div> + <div class='line in2'>Saddens the gaps of song,</div> + <div class='line'>We charge on her the dolefulness,</div> + <div class='line in2'>And call her crazed with wrong.—<span class='sc'>Patmore.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f56'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. Hudibras, Part III. ii. 1493.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f57'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. See Forsyth’s <cite>Principles of Moral Science</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f58'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. ‘<span lang="fr">Il buvoit du vin, mais le laissoit volontiers pour du lait, du thé, ou +d’autres liqueurs douces.</span>’—<span class='sc'>Buffon</span> <em>of the Oran Outang, whom he saw +himself in Paris</em>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f59'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. See Mr. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f60'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. The figures of speech marked in italics are familiar to the admirers of +parliamentary rhetoric.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f61'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. <cite>Supplices</cite>, 807, ed. Schutz.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f62'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. Matthew xi. 19.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f63'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. ‘He that will mould a modern bishop into a primitive, must yield +him to be elected by the popular voice, undiocesed, unrevenued, unlorded, +and leave him nothing but brotherly equality, matchless temperance, +frequent fasting, incessant prayer and preaching, continual watchings and +labours in his ministry, which, what a rich booty it would be, what a plump +endowment to the many-benefice-gaping mouth of a prelate, what a relish +it would give to his canary-sucking and swan-eating palate, let old bishop +Mountain judge for me.—They beseech us, that we would think them fit +to be our justices of peace, our lords, our highest officers of state, though +they come furnished with no more knowledge than they learnt between the +cook and the manciple, or more profoundly at the college audit, or the +regent house, or to come to their deepest insight, at their patron’s table.’—<span class='sc'>Milton</span>: +<cite>Of Reformation in England</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f64'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. ‘Much have those travellers to answer for, whose casual intercourse +with this innocent and simple people tends to corrupt them: disseminating +among them ideas of extravagance and dissipation—giving them a taste +for pleasures and gratifications of which they had no ideas—inspiring them +with discontent at home—and tainting their rough industrious manners +with idleness and a thirst after dishonest means.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘If travellers would frequent this country with a view to examine its +grandeur and beauty, or to explore its varied and curious regions with the +eye of philosophy—if, in their passage through it, they could be content +with such fare as the country produces, or at least reconcile themselves to +it by manly exercise and fatigue (for there is a time when the stomach +and the plainest food will be found in perfect harmony)—if they could +thus, instead of corrupting the manners of an innocent people, learn to +amend their own, by seeing in how narrow a compass the wants of human +life may be compressed—a journey through these wild scenes might be +attended, perhaps, with more improvement than a journey to Rome or +Paris. Where manners are polished into vicious refinement, simplifying is +the best mode of improving; and the example of innocence is a more +instructive lesson than any that can be taught by artists and literati.</p> + +<p class='c007'>‘But these parts are too often the resort of gay company, who are +under no impressions of this kind—who have no ideas but of extending +the sphere of their amusements, or of varying a life of dissipation. The +grandeur of the country is not taken into the question, or at least it is not +otherwise considered than as affording some new mode of pleasurable +enjoyment. Thus, even the diversions of Newmarket are introduced—diversions, +one would imagine, more foreign to the nature of this country +than any other. A number of horses are carried into the middle of the +lake in a flat boat: a plug is drawn from the bottom: the boat sinks, and +the horses are left floating on the surface. In different directions they +make to land, and the horse which arrives soonest secures the prize.’—<span class='sc'>Gilpin’s</span> +<cite>Picturesque Observations on Cumberland and Westmoreland</cite>, +vol. ii. p. 67.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f65'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. ‘The necessary consequence of men living in so unnatural a way +with respect to houses, clothes, and diet, and continuing to live so for +many generations, each generation adding to the vices, diseases, and +weaknesses produced by the unnatural life of the preceding, is, that they +must gradually decline in strength, health, and longevity, till at length the +race dies out. To deny this would be to deny that the life allotted by +nature to man is the best life for the preservation of his health and +strength; for, if it be so, I think it is demonstration that the constant +deviation from it, going on for many centuries, must end in the extinction +of the race.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. v. p. 237.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f66'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. <span lang="fr">‘Rome, le siège de la gloire et de la vertu, si jamais elles en eurent +un sur la terre.’—<span class='sc'>Rousseau.</span></span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f67'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. </p> +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in14'><span lang="la">——extrema per illos</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">Justitia, excedens terris, vestigia fecit.—<span class='sc'>Virg.</span></span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f68'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f69'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r69'>69</a>. <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f70'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r70'>70</a>. See <cite>Xenophon’s Memorabilia</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f71'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r71'>71</a>. <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f72'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r72'>72</a>. </p> +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">si tantum culti solus possederis agri,</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">quantum sub Tatio populus Romanus arabat.—<span class='sc'>Juv.</span></span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f73'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r73'>73</a>. <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f74'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r74'>74</a>. </p> +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span lang="it">‘Pochi compagni avrai per l’altra via:</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="it">Tanto ti prego più, gentile spirto,</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="it">Non lasciar la magnanima tua impresa.’—<span class='sc'>Petrarca.</span></span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f75'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r75'>75</a>. ‘If it were seriously asked (and it would be no untimely question), +who of all teachers and masters that have ever taught hath drawn the most +disciples after him, both in religion and in manners, it might be not untruly +answered, Custom. Though Virtue be commended for the most persuasive +in her theory, and Conscience in the plain demonstration of the spirit finds +most evincing; yet, whether it be the secret of divine will, or the original +blindness we are born in, so it happens for the most part that Custom +still is silently received for the best instructor. Except it be because her +method is so glib and easy, in some manner like to that vision of Ezekiel, +rolling up her sudden book of implicit knowledge, for him that will to take +and swallow down at pleasure; which proving but of bad nourishment in +the concoction, as it was heedless in the devouring, puffs up unhealthily a +certain big face of pretended learning, mistaken among credulous men for +the wholesome habit of soundness and good constitution, but is, indeed, +no other than that swoln visage of counterfeit knowledge and literature +which not only in private mars our education, but also in public is the +common climber into every chair where either religion is preached or law +reported, filling each estate of life and profession with abject and servile +principles, depressing the high and heaven-born spirit of man, far beneath +the condition wherein either God created him, or sin hath sunk him. To +pursue the allegory, Custom being but a mere face, as Echo is a mere +voice, rests not in her unaccomplishment, until by secret inclination she +accorporate herself with Error, who being a blind and serpentine body, +without a head, willingly accepts what he wants, and supplies what her incompleteness +went seeking: hence it is that Error supports Custom, Custom +countenances Error, and these two, between them, would persecute and chase +away all truth and solid wisdom out of human life, were it not that God, +rather than man, once in many ages calls together the prudent and religious +counsels of men deputed to repress the encroachments, and to work off +the inveterate blots and obscurities wrought upon our minds by the subtle +insinuating of Error and Custom, who, with the numerous and vulgar +train of their followers, make it their chief design to envy and cry down +the industry of free reasoning, under the terms of humour and innovation, +as if the womb of teeming Truth were to be closed up, if she presume to +bring forth aught that sorts not with their unchewed notions and suppositions; +against which notorious injury and abuse of man’s free soul, to +testify and oppose the utmost that study and true labour can attain, +heretofore the incitement of men reputed grave hath led me among others, +and now the duty and the right of an instructed Christian calls me through +the chance of good or evil report <span class='fss'>TO BE THE SOLE ADVOCATE OF A +DISCOUNTENANCED TRUTH</span>.’—<span class='sc'>Milton</span>: <cite>The Doctrine and Discipline of +Divorce</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f76'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r76'>76</a>. Ιλ. Ζ. 261.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f77'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r77'>77</a>. The words in italics are Lord Monboddo’s: <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. +iii. preface, p. 79.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f78'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r78'>78</a>. </p> +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>ῥιζῃ μεν μελαν ἐστι, γαλακτι δε εἰκελον ἀνθος,</div> + <div class='line'>ΜΩΛΥ δε μιν καλεουσι θεοι, χαλεπον δε τ’ ὀρυσσειν</div> + <div class='line'>θνητοις ἀνθρωποισι.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f79'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r79'>79</a>. The reader who is desirous of elucidating the mysteries of the words +and phrases marked in italics in this chapter may consult the German +works of Professor Kant, or Professor Born’s Latin translation of them, +or M. Villar’s <cite><span lang="fr">Philosophie de Kant, ou Principes fondamentaux de la +Philosophie Transcendentale</span></cite>; or the first article of the second number of +the <cite>Edinburgh Review</cite>, or the article ‘Kant,’ in the <cite><span lang="la">Encyclopaedia Londinensis</span></cite>, +or Sir William Drummond’s <cite>Academical Questions</cite>, book ii. chap. 9.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f80'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r80'>80</a>. Πρωτευς Ὀλβοδοτης, <em>Proteus the giver of riches</em>, certainly deserves a +place among the <cite>Lares</cite> of every poetical and political turncoat.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f81'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r81'>81</a>. See the Βατραχοι of Aristophanes.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f82'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r82'>82</a>. informi limo glaucaque exponit in ulva.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f83'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r83'>83</a>. <cite>Coleridge’s Lay Sermon</cite>, p. 10.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f84'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r84'>84</a>. <em>Ibid.</em></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f85'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r85'>85</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 21.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f86'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r86'>86</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 25.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f87'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r87'>87</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 27.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f88'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r88'>88</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> pp. 45, 46 (where the reader may find in a note the two worst +jokes that ever were cracked).</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f89'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r89'>89</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 17.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f90'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r90'>90</a>. ‘Some travellers speak of his strength as wonderful; greater they +say, than that of ten men such as we.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. +p. 105.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f91'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r91'>91</a>. <cite><span lang="fr">Esquisse d’un Tableau historique des Progrès de l’Esprit humain.</span></cite></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f92'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r92'>92</a>. <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. p. 139.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f93'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r93'>93</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 193.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f94'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r94'>94</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 191.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f95'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r95'>95</a>. <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. p. 181.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f96'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r96'>96</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 182.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f97'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r97'>97</a>. Cottle’s Edda, or, as the author calls it, <em>Translation</em> of the Edda, which +is a misnomer.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f98'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r98'>98</a>. <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, No. xxxi. p. 237.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f99'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r99'>99</a>. <em>Ibid.</em></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f100'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r100'>100</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 252.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f101'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r101'>101</a>. <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, No. xxxi. p. 252.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f102'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r102'>102</a>. <em>Ibid.</em></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f103'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r103'>103</a>. <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, No. xxxi. p. 226.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f104'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r104'>104</a>. <em>Ibid.</em></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f105'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r105'>105</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 236.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f106'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r106'>106</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 226.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f107'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r107'>107</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 228.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f108'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r108'>108</a>. <em>Ibid.</em></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f109'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r109'>109</a>. <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, No. xxxi. p. 273, <em>et passim</em>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f110'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r110'>110</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 258.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f111'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r111'>111</a>. <em>Ibid.</em></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f112'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r112'>112</a>. <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, No. xxxi. p. 249. It is curious, that in the fourth +article of the same number from which I have borrowed so many exquisite +passages, the reviewers are very angry that certain ‘scandalous and +immoral practices’ in the island of Wahoo are not reformed: but certainly, +according to the logic of these reviewers, the Government of Wahoo is +entitled to look upon <em>them</em> in the light of ‘ruffians, scoundrels, incendiaries, +firebrands, madmen, and villains’; since all these hard names belong of +primary right to those who propose the reformation of ‘scandalous and +immoral practices’! The people of Wahoo, it appears, are very much +addicted to drunkenness and debauchery; and the reviewers, in the plenitude +of their wisdom, recommend that a few clergymen should be sent out to +them, by way of mending their morals. It does not appear, whether King +Tamaahmaah is a king by <em>divine right</em>; but we must take it for granted +that he is not; as, otherwise, the <cite>Quarterly Reviewers</cite> would either not +admit that there were any ‘scandalous and immoral practices’ under his +government, or, if they did admit them, they would not be such ‘incendiaries, +madmen, and villains,’ as to advocate their reformation. There +are some circumstances, however, which are conclusive against the <em>legitimacy</em> +of King Tamaahmaah, which are these: that he is a man of great ‘feeling, +energy, and steadiness of conduct’; that he ‘goes about among his people +to learn their wants’; and that he has ‘prevented the recurrence of those +horrid murders’ which disgraced the reigns of his predecessors: from which +it is obvious that he has neither put to death brave and generous men, who +surrendered themselves under the faith of treaties, nor re-established a fallen +Inquisition, nor sent those to whom he owed his crown to the dungeon and +the galleys.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the tenth article of the same number the reviewers pour forth the +bitterness of their gall against Mr. Warden of the Northumberland, who +has detected them in promulgating much gross and foolish falsehood concerning +the captive Napoleon. They labour most assiduously to <em>impeach +his veracity</em> and to <em>discredit his judgment</em>. On the first point, it is sufficient +evidence of the truth of his statements, that the <cite>Quarterly Reviewers</cite> +contradict them: but on the second, they accuse him, among other misdemeanours, +of having called their <cite>Review</cite> ‘<em>a respectable work</em>‘! which +certainly <em>discredits his judgment</em> completely.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f113'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r113'>113</a>. <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, No. xxxi. p. 249. The reader will be reminded +of <cite>Croaker</cite> in the fourth act of the <cite>Good-natured Man</cite>: ‘Blood and gunpowder +in every line of it. Blown up! murderous dogs! all blown up! +(<em>Reads.</em>) “Our pockets are low, and money we must have.” Ay, there’s +the reason: they’ll blow us up <em>because they have got low pockets</em>.... +Perhaps this moment I’m treading on lighted matches, blazing brimstone, +and barrels of gunpowder. They are preparing to blow me up into the +clouds. Murder!... Here, John, Nicodemus, search the house. Look +into the cellars, to see if there be any combustibles below, and above in the +apartments, that no matches be thrown in at the windows. <em>Let all the fires +be put out</em>, and let the <em>engine</em> be drawn out in the yard, to <em>play upon the +house</em> in case of necessity.’—<cite>Croaker</cite> was a deep politician. The <em>engine</em> +to <em>play</em> upon the <em>house</em>: mark that!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f114'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r114'>114</a>. This illustration of the old fable of the mouse and the mountain falls +short of an exhibition in the Honourable House, on the 29th of January +1817; when Mr. Canning, amidst a tremendous denunciation of the +parliamentary reformers, and a rhetorical chaos of storms, whirlwinds, +rising suns, and twilight assassins, produced in proof of his charges—<cite>Spence’s +Plan!</cite> which was received with an <em>éclat</em> of laughter on one side, +and shrugs of surprise, disappointment, and disapprobation on the other. +I can find but one parallel for the Right Honourable Gentleman’s dismay:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>So having said, awhile he stood, expecting</div> + <div class='line'>Their universal shout and high applause</div> + <div class='line'>To fill his ear; when contrary he hears</div> + <div class='line'>On all sides, from innumerable tongues,</div> + <div class='line'>A dismal universal hiss, the sound</div> + <div class='line'>Of public scorn.—<cite>Paradise Lost</cite>, x. 504.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>This Spencean chimaera, which is the very foolishness of folly, and which +was till lately invisible to the naked eye of the political entomologist, has +since been subjected to a <em>lens</em> of <em>extraordinary power</em>, under which, like +an insect in a microscope, it has appeared a formidable and complicated +monster, all bristles, scales, and claws, with a ‘husk about it like a +chestnut’: <i><span lang="la">horridus, in jaculis et pelle Libystidis ursae!</span></i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f115'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r115'>115</a>. <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, No. xxxi. p. 271.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f116'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r116'>116</a>. <em>Ibid.</em></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f117'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r117'>117</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 258.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f118'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r118'>118</a>. <em>Ibid.</em></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f119'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r119'>119</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 273.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f120'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r120'>120</a>. <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, No. xxxi. p. 276.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f121'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r121'>121</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 260.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f122'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r122'>122</a>. <em>Ibid.</em> p. 192.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f123'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r123'>123</a>. ‘To scatter praise or blame without regard to justice is to destroy the +distinction of good and evil. Many have no other test of actions than +general opinion; and all are so far influenced by a sense of reputation, +that they are often restrained by fear of reproach, and excited by hope of +honour, when other principles have lost their power; nor can any species +of prostitution promote general depravity more, than that which destroys +the force of praise by showing that it may be acquired without deserving +it, and which, by setting free the active and ambitious from the dread of +infamy, lets loose the rapacity of power, and weakens the only authority +by which greatness is controlled. What credit can he expect who professes +himself the hireling of vanity however profligate, and without shame or +scruple celebrates the worthless, dignifies the mean, and gives to the corrupt, +licentious, and oppressive, the ornaments which ought only to add grace +to truth, and loveliness to innocence? <span class='sc'>Every other kind of adulteration, +however shameful, however mischievous, is less detestable +than the crime of counterfeiting characters, and fixing the +stamp of literary sanction upon the dross and refuse of the +world.</span>’—<cite>Rambler</cite>, No. 136.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f124'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r124'>124</a>. <span lang="la">Deorum injurias diis curae.—<cite>Tiberius apud Tacit. Ann. I.</cite> 73.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f125'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r125'>125</a>. ‘Besides all these evils of modern times which I have mentioned, +there is in some countries of Europe, and particularly in England, another +evil peculiar to civilised countries, but quite unknown in barbarous nations. +The evil I mean is <em>indigence</em>, and the reader will be surprised when I tell +him that it is <em>greatest in the richest countries</em>; and, therefore, in England, +which I believe is the richest country in Europe, there is more indigence +than in any other; for the number of people that are there maintained on +public or private charity, and who may therefore be called <em>beggars</em>, is +prodigious. What proportion they may bear to the whole people, I have +never heard computed: but I am sure it must be very great. And I am +afraid in those countries they call rich, indigence is not confined to the +lower sort of people, but extends even to the better sort: for such is the +effect of wealth in a nation, that (however paradoxical it may appear) it +does at last make all men poor and indigent; the lower sort through +idleness and debauchery, the better sort through luxury, vanity, and +extravagant expense. Now, I would desire to know from the greatest +admirers of modern times, who maintain that the human race is not +degenerated, but rather improved, whether they know any other source of +human misery, besides vice, disease, and indigence, and whether these +three are not in the greatest abundance in the rich and flourishing country +of England? I would further ask these gentlemen, whether, in the cities +of the ancient world, there were poor’s houses, hospitals, infirmaries, and +those other receptacles of indigence and disease which we see in the +modern cities? And whether, in the streets of ancient Athens and Rome, +there were so many objects of disease, deformity, and misery to be seen as +in our streets, besides those which are concealed from public view in the +houses above mentioned? In later times, indeed, in those cities, when +the corruption of manners was almost as great as among us, some such +things might have been seen as we are sure they were to be seen in Constantinople, +under the later Greek Emperors.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. +iii. p. 194.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f126'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r126'>126</a>. <span lang="la">‘Omnia, quae nunc vetustissima creduntur, nova fuere. Inveterascet +hoc quoque: et, quod hodie exemplis tuemur, inter exempla erit.’—<span class='sc'>Tacitus</span>, +<cite>Ann. XI.</cite> 24.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f127'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r127'>127</a>. <cite>Drummond’s Academical Questions.</cite>—Preface, p. 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f128'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r128'>128</a>. <cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. p. 280.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f129'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r129'>129</a>. <cite>Malthus on Population</cite>, book i. chap. vii.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f130'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r130'>130</a>. Sophocles, Antigone, 850. (Ed. Erfurdt.)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f131'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r131'>131</a>. ‘It is notorious, that towards one another the Indians are liberal in +the extreme, and for ever ready to supply the deficiencies of their neighbours +with any superfluities of their own. They have no idea of amassing wealth +for themselves individually; and they wonder that persons can be found in +any society so destitute of every generous sentiment as to enrich themselves +at the expense of others, and to live in ease and affluence regardless of the +misery and wretchedness of members of the same community to which they +themselves belong.’—<span class='sc'>Weld’s</span> <cite>Travels in Canada; Letter XXXV.</cite></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f132'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r132'>132</a>. See the Edda and the Northern Antiquities.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f133'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r133'>133</a>. ‘The civilised man will submit to the greatest pain and labour, in +order to excel in any exercise which is honourable; and this induces me to +believe that such a man as Achilles might have beat in running even an +oran outang, or the savage of the Pyrenees, whom nobody could lay hold +of, though that be the exercise in which savages excel the most, and +though I am persuaded that the oran outang of Angola is naturally stronger +and swifter of foot than Achilles was, or than even the heroes of the +preceding age, such as Hercules, and such as Theseus, Pirithous, and +others mentioned by Nestor.’—<cite>Ancient Metaphysics</cite>, vol. iii. p. 76.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f134'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r134'>134</a>. See Fletcher’s <cite>Faithful Shepherdess</cite>. The following extracts from +the Satyr’s speeches to Corin will explain the allusion in the text.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c008'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>But behold a fairer sight!</div> + <div class='line'>By that heavenly form of thine,</div> + <div class='line'>Brightest fair! thou art divine!</div> + <div class='line'>Sprung from great immortal race</div> + <div class='line'>Of the gods; for in thy face</div> + <div class='line'>Shines more awful majesty</div> + <div class='line'>Than dull weak mortality</div> + <div class='line'>Dare with misty eyes behold,</div> + <div class='line'>And live! Therefore on this mould</div> + <div class='line'>Lowly do I bend my knee,</div> + <div class='line'>In worship of thy deity.</div> + <div class='line in24'><cite>Act I. Scene I.</cite></div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Brightest! if there be remaining</div> + <div class='line'>Any service, without feigning</div> + <div class='line'>I will do it: were I set</div> + <div class='line'>To catch the nimble wind, or get</div> + <div class='line'>Shadows gliding on the green,</div> + <div class='line'>Or to steal from the great queen</div> + <div class='line'>Of the fairies all her beauty,</div> + <div class='line'>I would do it, so much duty</div> + <div class='line'>Do I owe those precious eyes.</div> + <div class='line in24'><cite>Act IV. Scene II.</cite></div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Thou divinest, fairest, brightest,</div> + <div class='line'>Thou most powerful maid, and whitest,</div> + <div class='line'>Thou most virtuous and most blessed,</div> + <div class='line'>Eyes of stars, and golden tressed</div> + <div class='line'>Like Apollo. Tell me, sweetest,</div> + <div class='line'>What new service now is meetest</div> + <div class='line'>For the Satyr? Shall I stray</div> + <div class='line'>In the middle air, and stay</div> + <div class='line'>The sailing rack? or nimbly take</div> + <div class='line'>Hold by the moon, and gently make</div> + <div class='line'>Suit to the pale queen of night</div> + <div class='line'>For a beam to give thee light?</div> + <div class='line'>Shall I dive into the sea,</div> + <div class='line'>And bring thee coral, making way</div> + <div class='line'>Through the rising waves that fall</div> + <div class='line'>In snowy fleeces? Dearest, shall</div> + <div class='line'>I catch thee wanton fauns, or flies</div> + <div class='line'>Whose woven wings the summer dyes</div> + <div class='line'>Of many colours? Get thee fruit?</div> + <div class='line'>Or steal from heaven old Orpheus’ lute?</div> + <div class='line'>All these I’ll venture for, and more,</div> + <div class='line'>To do her service all these woods adore.</div> + <div class='line in24'><cite>Act V. Scene V.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f135'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r135'>135</a>. ‘There are very few women who might not have married in some +way or other. The old maid, who has either never formed an attachment, +or who has been disappointed in the object of it, has, under the circumstances +in which she has been placed, conducted herself with the most +perfect propriety; and has acted a much more virtuous and honourable +part in society than those women who marry without a proper degree of +love, or at least of esteem, for their husbands; a species of immorality +which is not reprobated as it deserves.’—<cite>Malthus on Population</cite>, book iv.</p> +</div> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004'> +</div> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>MACMILLAN & CO.’S NEW NOVELS</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div>Crown 8vo. 6s. each.</div> + <div class='c004'><em>Second Edition now ready.</em></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c019'><cite class='strong'>THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER.</cite> By <span class='sc'>A. E. W. +Mason</span>.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>PUNCH.</cite>—“Readers will, unless gratitude be extinct, thank me for my strong +recommendation as to the excellent entertainment provided for them in <cite>The Courtship of +Morrice Buckler</cite>.”</p> + +<p class='c021'><cite>GRAPHIC.</cite>—“A fine stirring narrative it is. Mr. Mason is a new recruit to the +growing school of historical romancers in which Mr. Stanley Weyman and Mr. Conan +Doyle are conspicuous figures, and he promises to make himself well worthy of his +company. The ‘Record of the Growth of an English Gentleman during the years +1685–1687 under strange and difficult circumstances’ is a gallant and chivalrous story, cast +in a period and among scenes of which I, at least, am never tired of reading.”</p> + +<p class='c022'><cite class='strong'>HIS HONOR AND A LADY.</cite> By Mrs. <span class='sc'>Everard Cotes (Sara +Jeannette Duncan)</span>. Illustrated by <span class='sc'>A. D. McCormick</span>.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>DAILY CHRONICLE.</cite>—“We are inclined to place it as the best book that Mrs. +Everard Cotes has yet written. The story is exceedingly well told, is everywhere witty. +It has that charm of atmosphere which India yields so readily for the canvas of a consummate +artist.”</p> + +<p class='c021'><cite>PALL MALL GAZETTE.</cite>—“This is a fascinating story of Anglo-Indian life, +accurate in detail and true to nature. The authoress has not only maintained the high +standard of her <cite>Simple Adventures of a Mem-Sahib</cite>, but surpassed it. This is praise, +but true.”</p> + +<p class='c022'><cite class='strong'>ADAM JOHNSTONE’S SON.</cite> By <span class='sc'>F. Marion Crawford</span>.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>DAILY NEWS.</cite>—“Mr. Crawford has written stories richer in incident and more +powerful in intention, but we do not think that he has handled more deftly or shown a +more delicate insight into tendencies that go towards making some of the more spiritual +tragedies of life.”</p> + +<p class='c021'><cite>SPEAKER.</cite>—“A book to be enjoyed by everybody.”</p> + +<p class='c022'><cite class='strong'>THE RELEASE, OR CAROLINE’S FRENCH KINDRED.</cite> +By <span class='sc'>Charlotte M. Yonge</span>.</p> + +<p class='c019'><cite class='strong'>DENIS. A Study in Black and White.</cite> By Mrs. <span class='sc'>E. M. Field</span>.</p> + +<p class='c019'><cite class='strong'>TOM GROGAN.</cite> By <span class='sc'>F. Hopkinson Smith</span>. With Illustrations by +<span class='sc'>Charles S. Reinhart</span>.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>GLASGOW HERALD.</cite>—“A clever bit of character study.”</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c023'> + <div>MACMILLAN AND CO., <span class='sc'>Ltd.</span>, LONDON.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c024'> + <div>MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.’S PUBLICATIONS.</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c023'> + <div><em>BY RUDYARD KIPLING.</em></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c019'><cite class='strong'>THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK.</cite> With Illustrations by <span class='sc'>J. +Lockwood Kipling</span>. Twenty-first Thousand.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>DAILY TELEGRAPH.</cite>—“The appearance of <cite>The Second Jungle Book</cite> is a literary +event of which no one will mistake the importance. Unlike most sequels, the various +stories comprised in the new volume are at least equal to their predecessors.”</p> + +<p class='c022'><cite class='strong'>THE JUNGLE BOOK.</cite> With Illustrations by <span class='sc'>J. L. Kipling</span>, <span class='sc'>W. H. +Drake</span>, and <span class='sc'>P. Frenzeny</span>. Twenty-eighth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>ATHENÆUM.</cite>—“We tender our sincere thanks to Mr. Kipling for the hour of pure +and unadulterated enjoyment which he has given us, and many another reader, by this +inimitable <cite>Jungle Book</cite>.”</p> + +<p class='c021'><cite>PUNCH.</cite>—“‘Æsop’s Fables and dear old Brer Fox and Co.,’ observes the Baron +sagely, ‘may have suggested to the fanciful genius of Rudyard Kipling the delightful +idea, carried out in the most fascinating style, of <cite>The Jungle Book</cite>.’”</p> + +<p class='c022'><cite class='strong'>WEE WILLIE WINKIE</cite> and other Stories. Crown 8vo. 6s.</p> + +<p class='c019'><cite class='strong'>SOLDIERS THREE</cite> and other Stories. Crown 8vo. 6s.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>ST. JAMES’S GAZETTE.</cite>—“In these, as the faithful are aware, are contained +some of Mr. Kipling’s very finest work.”</p> + +<p class='c021'><cite>GLOBE.</cite>—“Containing some of the best of his highly vivid work.”</p> + +<p class='c022'><cite class='strong'>PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS.</cite> Thirty-first Thousand. +Crown 8vo. 6s.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>Saturday Review.</cite>—“Mr. Kipling knows and appreciates the English in +India, and is a born story-teller and a man of humour into the bargain.... It would be +hard to find better reading.”</p> + +<p class='c021'><cite>GLASGOW HERALD.</cite>—“Character, situation, incident, humour, pathos, tragic +force, are all in abundance; words alone are at a minimum. Of course these are ‘plain’ +tales—lightning-flash tales. A gleam, and there the whole tragedy or comedy is before +you—elaborate it for yourself afterwards.”</p> + +<p class='c022'><cite class='strong'>THE LIGHT THAT FAILED.</cite> Re-written and considerably enlarged. +Nineteenth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>ACADEMY.</cite>—“Whatever else be true of Mr. Kipling, it is the first truth about him +that he has power, real intrinsic power.... Mr. Kipling’s work has innumerable good +qualities.”</p> + +<p class='c021'><cite>MANCHESTER COURIER.</cite>—“The story is a brilliant one and full of vivid interest.”</p> + +<p class='c022'><cite class='strong'>LIFE’S HANDICAP.</cite> Being Stories of Mine Own People. Twenty-third +Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>BLACK AND WHITE.</cite>—“<cite>Life’s Handicap</cite> contains much of the best work hitherto +accomplished by the author, and, taken as a whole, is a complete advance upon its predecessors.”</p> + +<p class='c021'><cite>OBSERVER.</cite>—“The stories are as good as ever, and are quite as well told.... +<cite>Life’s Handicap</cite> is a volume that can be read with pleasure and interest under almost +any circumstances.”</p> + +<p class='c022'><cite class='strong'>MANY INVENTIONS.</cite> Twentieth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s.</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>PALL MALL GAZETTE.</cite>—“The completest book that Mr. Kipling has yet +given us in workmanship, the weightiest and most humane in breadth of view.... +It can only be regarded as a fresh landmark in the progression of his genius.”</p> + +<p class='c021'><cite>NATIONAL OBSERVER.</cite>—“The book is one for all Mr. Kipling’s admirers to +rejoice in—some for this, and some for that, and not a few for well-nigh everything it +contains.”</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c023'> + <div><em>BY J. LOCKWOOD KIPLING.</em></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c019'><cite class='strong'>BEAST AND MAN IN INDIA.</cite> A Popular Sketch of Indian +Animals in their Relations with the People. By <span class='sc'>John Lockwood Kipling</span>, C.I.E. +With Illustrations by the Author. Extra crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.</p> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>MACMILLAN’S THREE-AND-SIXPENNY LIBRARY</div> + <div class='c004'><span class='small'>OF</span></div> + <div class='c004'><span class='large'>WORKS BY POPULAR AUTHORS.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div>In Crown 8vo. Cloth extra. Price 3s. 6d. each.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By ROLF BOLDREWOOD.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite>SATURDAY REVIEW.</cite>—“Mr. Boldrewood can tell what he knows with great +point and vigour, and there is no better reading than the adventurous parts of his +books.”</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>PALL MALL GAZETTE.</cite>—“The volumes are brimful of adventure, in which +gold, gold-diggers, prospectors, claim-holders, take an active part.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Robbery under Arms.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Squatter’s Dream.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Colonial Reformer.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Miner’s Right.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Sydney-Side Saxon.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Nevermore.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Modern Buccaneer.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><em>By HUGH CONWAY.</em></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite>MORNING POST.</cite>—“Life-like, and full of individuality.”</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>DAILY NEWS.</cite>—“Throughout written with spirit, good feeling, and ability, +and a certain dash of humour.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Living or Dead?</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Family Affair.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By MRS. CRAIK.</em></span></div> + <div class='c004'>(The Author of ‘<span class='sc'>John Halifax, Gentleman</span>.’)</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Olive.</cite> With Illustrations by <span class='sc'>G. Bowers</span>.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Ogilvies.</cite> With Illustrations.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Agatha’s Husband.</cite> With Illustrations.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Head of the Family.</cite> With Illustrations.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Two Marriages.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Laurel Bush.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>About Money, and other Things.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>My Mother and I.</cite> With Illustrations.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Miss Tommy: A Mediæval Romance.</cite> Illustrated.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>King Arthur: Not a Love Story.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Sermons out of Church.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Concerning Men, and other Papers.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By F. MARION CRAWFORD.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite>SPECTATOR.</cite>—“With the solitary exception of Mrs. Oliphant we have no living +novelist more distinguished for variety of theme and range of imaginative outlook +than Mr. Marion Crawford.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Mr. Isaacs: A Tale of Modern India.</cite> Portrait of Author.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Dr. Claudius</cite>: a True Story.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Roman Singer.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Zoroaster.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Marzio’s Crucifix.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Tale of a Lonely Parish.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Paul Patoff.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>With the Immortals.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Greifenstein.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Sant’ Ilario.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Cigarette-Maker’s Romance.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Khaled.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Three Fates.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Witch of Prague.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Children of the King.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Marion Darche.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Pietro Ghisleri.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Katharine Lauderdale.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Don Orsino.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><i>By <span class='sc'>Sir</span> HENRY CUNNINGHAM, K.C.I.E.</i></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite>ST. JAMES’S GAZETTE.</cite>—“Interesting as specimens of romance, the style +of writing is so excellent—scholarly and at the same time easy and natural—that the +volumes are worth reading on that account alone. But there is also masterly description +of persons, places, and things; skilful analysis of character; a constant play of +wit and humour; and a happy gift of instantaneous portraiture.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Cœruleans.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Heriots.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Wheat and Tares.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each volume.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By CHARLES DICKENS.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Pickwick Papers.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Oliver Twist.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Nicholas Nickleby.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Martin Chuzzlewit.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Old Curiosity Shop.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Barnaby Rudge.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Dombey and Son.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Christmas Books.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Sketches by Boz.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>David Copperfield.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>American Notes and Pictures from Italy.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Letters of Charles Dickens.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By MARY ANGELA DICKENS.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Mere Cypher.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Valiant Ignorance.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By BRET HARTE.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite>SPEAKER.</cite>—“The best work of Mr. Bret Harte stands entirely alone ... +marked on every page by distinction and quality.... Strength and delicacy, spirit +and tenderness, go together in his best work.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Cressy.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A First Family of Tasajara.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By THOMAS HUGHES.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Tom Brown’s Schooldays.</cite> With Illustrations by <span class='sc'>A. Hughes</span> and <span class='sc'>S. P. Hall</span>.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Tom Brown at Oxford.</cite> With Illustrations by <span class='sc'>S. P. Hall</span>.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Scouring of the White Horse, and The Ashen Faggot.</cite> With Illustrations by <span class='sc'>Richard Doyle</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By HENRY JAMES.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite>SATURDAY REVIEW.</cite>—“He has the power of seeing with the artistic perception +of the few, and of writing about what he has seen, so that the many can +understand and feel with him.”</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>WORLD.</cite>—“His touch is so light, and his humour, while shrewd and keen, so +free from bitterness.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A London Life.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Aspern Papers.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Tragic Muse.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By ANNIE KEARY.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite>SPECTATOR.</cite>—“In our opinion there have not been many novels published +better worth reading. The literary workmanship is excellent, and all the windings +of the stories are worked with patient fulness and a skill not often found.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Castle Daly.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A York and a Lancaster Rose.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Oldbury.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Doubting Heart.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Janet’s Home.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Nations around Israel.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By W. CLARK RUSSELL.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite>TIMES.</cite>—“Mr. Clark Russell is one of those writers who have set themselves to +revive the British sea story in all its glorious excitement. Mr. Russell has made a +considerable reputation in this line. His plots are well conceived, and that of +‘Marooned’ is no exception to this rule.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Marooned.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Strange Elopement.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By ARCHDEACON FARRAR.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Seekers after God.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Eternal Hope.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Fall of Man.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Witness of History to Christ.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Silence and Voices of God.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>In the Days of thy Youth.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Saintly Workers.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Ephphatha.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Mercy and Judgment.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Sermons and Addresses in America.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>MACMILLAN’S THREE-AND-SIXPENNY SERIES.</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div>Crown 8v. 3s. 6d. each volume.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By CHARLES KINGSLEY.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Westward Ho!</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Hypatia.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Yeast.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Alton Locke.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Two Years Ago.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Hereward the Wake.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Poems.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Heroes.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Water Babies.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Madam How and Lady Why.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>At Last.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Prose Idylls.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Plays and Puritans</cite>, etc.</div> + <div class='line in2'><cite class='strong'>The Roman and the Teuton.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Historical Lectures and Essays.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Scientific Lectures and Essays.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Literary and General Lectures.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Hermits.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Glaucus: or the Wonders of The Seashore.</cite> With Coloured Illustrations.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Village and Town and Country Sermons.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Water of Life, and other Sermons.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Sermons on National Subjects, and the King of the Earth.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Sermons for the Times.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Good News of God.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Gospel of the Pentateuch, and David.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Discipline, and other Sermons.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Westminster Sermons.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>All Saints’ Day, and other Sermons.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite>SPECTATOR.</cite>—“Mr. Christie Murray has more power and genius for the +delineation of English rustic life than any half-dozen of our surviving novelists put +together.”</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>SATURDAY REVIEW.</cite>—“Few modern novelists can tell a story of English +country life better than Mr. D. Christie Murray.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Aunt Rachel.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>John Vale’s Guardian.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Schwartz.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Weaker Vessel.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>He Fell among Thieves.</cite> <span class='sc'>D. C. Murray</span> and <span class='sc'>H. Herman</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By Mrs. OLIPHANT.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite>ACADEMY.</cite>—“At her best she is, with one or two exceptions, the best of living +English novelists.”</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>SATURDAY REVIEW.</cite>—“Has the charm of style, the literary quality and +flavour that never fails to please.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Beleaguered City.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Joyce.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Neighbours on the Green.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Kirsteen.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Hester.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Sir Tom.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Country Gentleman and his Family.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Curate in Charge.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Second Son.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>He that Will Not when He May.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Railway Man and his Children.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Marriage of Elinor.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Heir Presumptive and the Heir-Apparent.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Son of the Soil.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Wizard’s Son.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Young Musgrave.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Lady William.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By J. H. SHORTHOUSE.</em></span></div> + <div class='c004'><cite>ANTI-JACOBIN.</cite>—“Powerful, striking, and fascinating romances.”</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>John Inglesant.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Sir Percival.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Little Schoolmaster Mark.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Countess Eve.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Teacher of the Violin.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Blanche, Lady Falaise.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Sermons Preached in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel.</cite> In 6 vols.</div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Christmas Day, and Other Sermons.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Theological Essays.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Prophets and Kings.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Patriarchs and Lawgivers.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Gospel of St. John.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Epistles of St. John.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Lectures on the Apocalypse.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Friendship of Books.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Social Morality.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Prayer Book and Lord’s Prayer.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Doctrine of Sacrifice.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Acts of the Apostles.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each volume.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Heir of Redclyffe.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Heartsease.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Hopes and Fears.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Dynevor Terrace.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Daisy Chain.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Trial: More Links of the Daisy Chain.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Pillars of the House. Vol. I.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Pillars of the House. Vol. II.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Young Stepmother.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Clever Woman of the Family.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Three Brides.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>My Young Alcides.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Caged Lion.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Chaplet of Pearls.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Lady Hester, and the Davers Papers.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Magnum Bonum.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Love and Life.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Unknown to History.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Stray Pearls.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Armourer’s ‘Prentices.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>The Two Sides of the Shield.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Nuttie’s Father.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Scenes and Characters.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Chantry House.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>A Modern Telemachus.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Bye-Words.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Beechcroft at Rockstone.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>More Bywords.</cite></div> + <div class='line in2'><cite class='strong'>A Reputed Changeling.</cite></div> + <div class='line in2'><cite class='strong'>The Little Duke.</cite></div> + <div class='line in2'><cite class='strong'>The Lances of Lynwood.</cite></div> + <div class='line in2'><cite class='strong'>The Prince and the Page.</cite></div> + <div class='line in2'><cite class='strong'>P’s and Q’s, and Little Lucy’s Wonderful Globe.</cite></div> + <div class='line in2'><cite class='strong'>Two Penniless Princesses.</cite></div> + <div class='line in2'><cite class='strong'>That Stick.</cite></div> + <div class='line in2'><cite class='strong'>An Old Woman’s Outlook.</cite></div> + <div class='line in2'><cite class='strong'>Grisly Grisell.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div><span class='large'><em>By VARIOUS WRITERS.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Sir</span> S. W. BAKER.—<cite class='strong'>True Tales for My Grandsons.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>R. BLENNERHASSETT <span class='fss'>AND</span> L. SLEEMAN.—<cite class='strong'>Adventures in Mashonaland.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.—<cite class='strong'>Louisiana and That Lass O’ Lowrie’s.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>Sir MORTIMER DURAND, K.C.I.E.—<cite class='strong'>Helen Treveryan.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>‘English Men of Letters’ Series.</cite> In 13 Monthly Volumes, each Volume containing three books.</div> + <div class='line'>LANOE FALCONER.—<cite class='strong'>Cecilia de Noël.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>ARCHIBALD FORBES.—<cite class='strong'>Barracks, Bivouacs, and Battles.—Souvenirs of Some Continents.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>W. FORBES-MITCHELL.—<cite class='strong'>Reminiscences of the Great Mutiny, 1857–59.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>W. W. FOWLER.—<cite class='strong'>Tales of the Birds.</cite> Illustrated by <span class='sc'>Bryan Hook</span>. <b>A Year with the Birds.</b> Illustrated by <span class='sc'>Bryan Hook</span>.</div> + <div class='line'>Rev. J. GILMORE.—<cite class='strong'>Storm Warriors.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>P. KENNEDY.—<cite class='strong'>Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>HENRY KINGSLEY.—<cite class='strong'>Tales of Old Travel.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>MARGARET LEE.—<cite class='strong'>Faithful and Unfaithful.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>AMY LEVY.—<cite class='strong'>Reuben Sachs.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>S. R. LYSAGHT.—<cite class='strong'>The Marplot.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>LORD LYTTON.—<cite class='strong'>The Ring of Amasis.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>M. M’LENNAN.—<cite class='strong'>Muckle Jock, and other Stories of Peasant Life.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>LUCAS MALET.—<cite class='strong'>Mrs. Lorimer.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>GUSTAVE MASSON.—<cite class='strong'>A French Dictionary.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>A. B. MITFORD.—<cite class='strong'>Tales of Old Japan.</cite></div> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Major</span> G. PARRY.—<cite class='strong'>The Story of Dick.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>E. C. PRICE.—<cite class='strong'>In the Lion’s Mouth.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>W. C. RHOADES.—<cite class='strong'>John Trevennick.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE. Vol. I. <cite class='strong'>Comedies.</cite> Vol. II. <cite class='strong'>Histories.</cite> Vol. III. <cite class='strong'>Tragedies.</cite> 3 vols.</div> + <div class='line'>FLORA A. STEEL.—<cite class='strong'>Miss Stuart’s Legacy.</cite>—<cite class='strong'>The Flower of Forgiveness.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>MARCHESA THEODOLI.—<cite class='strong'>Under Pressure.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>“TIMES” Summaries.—<cite class='strong'>Biographies of Eminent Persons.</cite> In 4 vols.—<b>Annual Summaries.</b> In 2 vols.</div> + <div class='line'>Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD.—<cite class='strong'>Miss Bretherton.</cite></div> + <div class='line'>MONTAGU WILLIAMS, Q.C.—<cite class='strong'>Leaves of a Life.</cite>—<cite class='strong'>Later Leaves.</cite>—<b>Round London: Down East, and Up West.</b></div> + <div class='line'><cite class='strong'>Hogan, M.P.</cite>—<cite class='strong'>Tim.</cite>—<cite class='strong'>The New Antigone.</cite></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c003'> + <div>MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004'> +</div> +<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + + <ul class='ul_1 c003'> + <li>Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + + </li> + <li>Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter. + </li> + </ul> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75943 ***</div> + </body> + <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57e (with regex) on 2025-04-23 13:44:43 GMT --> +</html> + diff --git a/75943-h/images/cover.jpg b/75943-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..04c994a --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_004.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_004.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..767a145 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_004.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_008.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_008.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2988d5c --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_008.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_011.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_011.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..06a3b72 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_011.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_015.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_015.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..413e556 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_015.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_024.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_024.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..611eb5f --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_024.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_027.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_027.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..61bb19d --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_027.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_032.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_032.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c84d565 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_032.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_036.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_036.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6bd874e --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_036.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_057.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_057.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..70ad536 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_057.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_072.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_072.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d262445 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_072.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_078.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_078.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8149d64 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_078.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_082.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_082.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..17108a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_082.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_098.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_098.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0850ecc --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_098.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_110.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_110.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9501510 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_110.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_123.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_123.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..666fef4 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_123.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_138.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_138.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a137ecb --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_138.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_141.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_141.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..886c60d --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_141.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_145.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_145.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..de4a084 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_145.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_158.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_158.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c007427 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_158.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_172.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_172.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..da4402a --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_172.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_176.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_176.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bffce01 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_176.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_179.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_179.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..60532f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_179.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_183.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_183.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..29694c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_183.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_203.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_203.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3503e1d --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_203.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_213.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_213.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..237ac0b --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_213.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_221.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_221.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b1326b --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_221.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_236.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_236.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f9c899 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_236.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_240.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_240.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..170e3df --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_240.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_246.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_246.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..68c178e --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_246.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_253.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_253.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7420c5f --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_253.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_257.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_257.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7de6fcf --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_257.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_263.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_263.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b4d7537 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_263.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_279.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_279.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cc0a19 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_279.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_304.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_304.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..58b2326 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_304.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_308.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_308.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3791196 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_308.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_311.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_311.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9bb82e --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_311.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_318.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_318.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8b456d --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_318.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_320.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_320.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..63d2a8f --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_320.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_322.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_322.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab8a35c --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_322.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_frontispiece.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_frontispiece.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a4649e --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_frontispiece.jpg diff --git a/75943-h/images/i_ii.jpg b/75943-h/images/i_ii.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..719e206 --- /dev/null +++ b/75943-h/images/i_ii.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5dba15 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this book outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68f64e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +book #75943 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75943) |
