CHAPTER XXV

HARRY AND DOROTHY

(Greek passage) Humerus in Odyssea.

The youthful suitors, playing each his part, Stirred pleasing tumult in each fair one's heart. —Adapted—not translated.

Harry Hedgerow had found means on several occasions of delivering farm and forest produce at the Tower, to introduce his six friends to the sisters, giving all the young men in turn to understand that they must not think of Miss Dorothy; an injunction which, in the ordinary perverse course of events, might have led them all to think of no one else, and produced a complication very disagreeable for their introducer. It was not so, however. 'The beauty of it,' as Harry said to the reverend doctor, was that each had found a distinct favourite among the seven vestals. They had not, however, gone beyond giving pretty intelligible hints. They had not decidedly ventured to declare or propose. They left it to Harry to prosecute his suit to Miss Dorothy, purposing to step in on the rear of his success. They had severally the satisfaction of being assured by various handsome young gipsies, whose hands they had crossed with lucky shillings, that each of them was in love with a fair young woman, who was quite as much in love with him, and whom he would certainly marry before twelve months were over. And they went on their way rejoicing.

Now Harry was indefatigable in his suit, which he had unbounded liberty to plead; for Dorothy always listened to him complacently, though without departing from the answer she had originally given, that she and her sisters would not part with each other and their young master.

The sisters had not attached much importance to Mr. Falconer's absences; for on every occasion of his return the predominant feeling he had seemed to express was that of extreme delight at being once more at home.

One day, while Mr. Falconer was at the Grange, receiving admonition from Orlando Innamorato, Harry, having the pleasure to find Dorothy alone, pressed his suit as usual, was listened to as usual, and seemed likely to terminate without being more advanced than usual, except in so far as they both found a progressive pleasure, she in listening, and he in being listened to. There was to both a growing charm in thus 'dallying with the innocence of love,' and though she always said No with her lips, he began to read Yes in her eyes.

Harry. Well, but, Miss Dorothy, though you and your sisters will not leave your young master, suppose somebody should take him away from you, what would you say then?

Dorothy. What do you mean, Master Harry?

Harry. Why, suppose he should get married, Miss Dorothy?

Dorothy. Married!

Harry. How should you like to see a fine lady in the Tower, looking at you as much as to say, This is mine?

Dorothy. I will tell you very candidly, I should not like it at all. But what makes you think of such a thing?

Harry. You know where he is now?

Dorothy. At Squire Gryll's, rehearsing a play for Christmas.

Harry. And Squire Gryll's niece is a great beauty, and a great fortune.

Dorothy. Squire Gryll's niece was here, and my sisters and myself saw a great deal of her. She is a very nice young lady; but he has seen great beauties and great fortunes before; he has always been indifferent to the beauties, and he does not care about fortune. I am sure he would not like to change his mode of life.

Harry. Ah, Miss Dorothy! you don't know what it is to fall in love. It tears a man up by the roots, like a gale of wind.

Dorothy. Is that your case, Master Harry?

Harry. Indeed it is, Miss Dorothy. If you didn't speak kindly to me, I do not know what would become of me. But you always speak kindly to me, though you won't have me.

Dorothy. I never said won't, Master Harry.

Harry. No, but you always say can't, and that's the same as won't, so long as you don't.

Dorothy. You are a very good young man, Master Harry. Everybody speaks well of you. And I am really pleased to think you are so partial to me. And if my young master and my sisters were married, and I were disposed to follow their example, I will tell you very truly, you are the only person I should think of, Master Harry.

Master Harry attempted to speak, but he felt choked in the attempt at utterance; and in default of words, he threw himself on his knees before his beloved, and clasped his hands together with a look of passionate imploring, which was rewarded by a benevolent smile. And they did not change their attitude till the entrance of one of the sisters startled them from their sympathetic reverie.



Harry having thus made a successful impression on one of the Theban gates, encouraged his six allies to carry on the siege of the others; for which they had ample opportunity, as the absences of the young gentleman became longer, and the rumours of an attachment between him and Miss Gryll obtained more ready belief.



CHAPTER XXVI.

DOUBTS AND QUESTIONS

(Greek passage) AlCAEUS.

Bacchis! ''Tis vain to brood on care, Since grief no remedy supplies; Be ours the sparkling bowl to share, And drown our sorrows as they rise.

Mr. Falconer saw no more of Miss Gryll till the party assembled in the drawing-rooms. She necessarily took the arm of Lord Curryfin for dinner, and it fell to the lot of Mr. Falconer to offer his to Miss Niphet, so that they sat at remote ends of the table, each wishing himself in the other's place; but Lord Curryfin paid all possible attention to his fair neighbour. Mr. Falconer could see that Miss Gryll's conversation with Lord Curryfin was very animated and joyous: too merry, perhaps, for love: but cordial to a degree that alarmed him. It was, however, clear by the general mirth at the head of the table, that nothing very confidential or sentimental was passing. Still, a young lady who had placed the destiny of her life on a point of brief suspense ought not to be so merry as Miss Gryll evidently was. He said little to Miss Niphet; and she, with her habit of originating nothing, sat in her normal state of statue-like placidity, listening to the conversation near her. She was on the left hand of Mr. Gryll. Miss Ilex was on his right, and on her right was the Reverend Doctor Opimian. These three kept up an animated dialogue. Mr. MacBorrowdale was in the middle of the table, and amused his two immediate fair neighbours with remarks appertaining to the matter immediately before them, the preparation and arrangement of a good dinner: remarks that would have done honour to Francatelli.

After a while, Mr. Falconer bethought him that he would try to draw out Miss Niphet.'s opinion on the subject nearest his heart. He said to her: 'They are very merry at the head of the table.'

Miss Niphet.. I suppose Lord Curryfin is in the vein for amusing his company, and he generally succeeds in his social purposes.

Mr. Falconer. You lay stress on social, as if you thought him not successful in all his purposes.

Miss Niphet. Not in all his inventions, for example. But in the promotion of social enjoyment he has few equals. Of course, it must be in congenial society. There is a power of being pleased, as well as a power of pleasing. With Miss Gryll and Lord Curryfin, both meet in both. No wonder that they amuse those around them.

Mr. Falconer. In whom there must also be a power of being pleased.

Miss Niphet.. Most of the guests here have it. If they had not they would scarcely be here. I have seen some dismal persons, any one of whom would be a kill-joy to a whole company. There are none such in this party. I have also seen a whole company all willing to be pleased, but all mute from not knowing what to say to each other: not knowing how to begin. Lord Curryfin would be a blessing to such a party. He would be the steel to their flint.

Mr. Falconer. Have you known him long?

Miss Niphet.. Only since I met him here.

Mr. Falconer. Have you heard that he is a suitor to Miss Gryll?

Miss Niphet.. I have heard so.

Mr. Falconer. Should you include the probability of his being accepted in your estimate of his social successes?

Miss Niphet.. Love affairs are under influences too capricious for the calculation of probabilities.

Mr. Falconer. Yet I should be very glad to hear your opinion. You know them both so well.

Miss Niphet. I am disposed to indulge you, because I think it is not mere curiosity that makes you ask the question, Otherwise I should not be inclined to answer it, I do not think he will ever be the affianced lover of Morgana. Perhaps he might have been if he had persevered as he began. But he has been used to smiling audiences. He did not find the exact reciprocity he looked for. He fancied that it was, or would be, for another, I believe he was right.

Mr. Falconer. Yet you think he might have succeeded if he had persevered.

Miss Niphet. I can scarcely think otherwise, seeing how much he has to recommend him.

Mr. Falconer. But he has not withdrawn.

Miss Nipket. No, and will not. But she is too high-minded to hold him to a proposal not followed up as it commenced even if she had not turned her thoughts elsewhere.

Mr. Falconer. Do you not think she could recall him to his first ardour if she exerted all her fascinations for the purpose?

Miss Nipket. It may be so. I do not think she will try. (She added, to herself:) I do not think she would succeed.

Mr. Falconer did not feel sure she would not try: he thought he saw symptoms of her already doing so. In his opinion Morgana was, and must be, irresistible. But as he had thought his fair neighbour somewhat interested in the subject, he wondered at the apparent impassiveness with which she replied to his questions.

In the meantime he found, as he had often done before, that the more his mind was troubled, the more Madeira he could drink without disordering his head.



CHAPTER XXVII

LOVE IN MEMORY

Il faut avoir aime une fois en sa vie, non pour le moment ou l'on aime, car on n'eprouve alors que des tourmens, des regrets, de la jalousie: mais peu a peu ces tourmens-la deviennent des souvenirs, qui charment notre arriere saison:... et quand vous verrez la vieillesse douce, facile et tolerante, vous pourrez dire comme Fontenelle: L'amour a passe par-la. —Scribe: La Vieille.

Miss Gryll carefully avoided being alone with Mr. Falconer, in order not to give him an opportunity of speaking on the forbidden subject. She was confident that she had taken the only course which promised to relieve her from a life of intolerable suspense; but she wished to subject her conduct to dispassionate opinion, and she thought she could not submit it to a more calmly-judging person than her old spinster friend, Miss Ilex, who had, moreover, the great advantage of being a woman of the world. She therefore took an early opportunity of telling her what had passed between herself and Mr. Falconer, and asking her judgment on the point.

Miss Ilex. Why, my dear, if I thought there had been the slightest chance of his ever knowing his own mind sufficiently to come to the desired conclusion himself, I should have advised your giving him a little longer time; but as it is clear to me that he never would have done so, and as you are decidedly partial to him, I think you have taken the best course which was open to you. He had all but declared to you more than once before; but this 'all but' would have continued, and you would have sacrificed your life to him for nothing.

Miss Gryll. But do you think you would in my case have done as I did?

Miss Ilex. No, my dear, I certainly should not; for, in a case very similar, I did not. It does not follow that I was right. On the contrary, I think you are right, and I was wrong. You have shown true moral courage where it was most needed.

Miss Gryll. 1 hope I have not revived any displeasing recollections.

Miss Ilex. No, my dear, no; the recollections are not displeasing. The day-dreams of youth, however fallacious, are a composite of pain and pleasure: for the sake of the latter the former is endured, nay, even cherished in memory.

Miss Gryll. Hearing what I hear you were, seeing what I see you are, observing your invariable cheerfulness, I should not have thought it possible that you could have been crossed in love, as your words seem to imply.

Miss Ilex. I was, my dear, and have been foolish enough to be constant all my life to a single idea; and yet I would not part with this shadow for any attainable reality.



Miss Gryll. If it were not opening the fountain of an ancient sorrow, I could wish to know the story, not from idle curiosity, but from my interest in you.

Miss Ilex. Indeed, my dear Morgana, it is very little of a story: but such as it is, I am willing to tell it you. I had the credit of being handsome and accomplished. I had several lovers; but my inner thoughts distinguished only one; and he, I think, had a decided preference for me, but it was a preference of present impression. If some Genius had commanded him to choose a wife from any company of which I was one, he would, I feel sure, have chosen me; but he was very much of an universal lover, and was always overcome by the smiles of present beauty. He was of a romantic turn of mind: he disliked and avoided the ordinary pursuits of young men: he delighted in the society of accomplished young women, and in that alone. It was the single link between him and the world. He would disappear for weeks at a time, wandering in forests, climbing mountains, and descending into the dingles of mountain-streams, with no other companion than a Newfoundland dog; a large black dog, with a white breast, four white paws, and a white tip to his tail: a beautiful affectionate dog: I often patted him on the head, and fed him with my hand. He knew me as well as Bajardo{1} knew Angelica.

1 Rinaldo's horse: he had escaped from his master, and had revelled Sacripante with his heels:—

Tears started into her eyes at the recollection of the dog. She paused for a moment.

Miss Gryll. I see the remembrance is painful Do not proceed.

Miss Ilex. No, my dear. I would not, if I could, forget that dog. Well, my young gentleman, as I have said, was a sort of universal lover, and made a sort of half-declaration to half the young women he knew: sincerely for the moment to all: but with more permanent earnestness, more constant return, to me than to any other. If I had met him with equal earnestness, if I could have said or implied to him in any way, 'Take me while you may, or think of me no more,' I am persuaded I should not now write myself spinster. But I wrapped myself up in reserve. I thought it fitting that all advances should come from him: that I should at most show nothing more than willingness to hear, not even the semblance of anxiety to receive them. So nothing came of our love but remembrance and regret. Another girl, whom I am sure he loved less, but who understood him better, acted towards him as I ought to have done, and became his wife. Therefore, my dear, I applaud your moral courage, and regret that I had it not when the occasion required it.

Miss Gryll. My lover, if I may so call him, differs from yours in this: that he is not wandering in his habits, nor versatile in his affections.

Miss Ilex. The peculiar system of domestic affection in which he was brought up, and which his maturer years have confirmed, presents a greater obstacle to you than any which my lover's versatility presented to me, if I had known how to deal with it.

Miss Gryll. But how was it, that, having so many admirers as you must have had, you still remained single?

Miss Ilex. Because I had fixed my heart on one who was not like any one else. If he had been one of a class, such as most persons in this world are, I might have replaced the first idea by another; but his soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.

....Indi va mansueto alia donzella, Con umile sembiante e gesto umano: Come intorno al padrone il can saltella, Che sia due giorni o tre stato lontano. Bajardo ancora avea memoria d' ella, Che in Albracca il servia gia di sua mano. —Orlando Furioso, c. i. s. 75.

Miss Gryll. A very erratic star, apparently. A comet, rather.

Miss Ilex. No, For the qualities which he loved and admired in the object of his temporary affection existed more in his imagination than in her. She was only the framework of the picture of his fancy. He was true to his idea, though not to the exterior semblance on which he appended it, and to or from which he so readily transferred it. Unhappily for myself, he was more of a reality to me than I was to him.

Miss Gryll. His marriage could scarcely have been a happy one. Did you ever meet him again?

Miss Ilex. Not of late years, but for a time occasionally in general society, which he very sparingly entered. Our intercourse was friendly; but he never knew, never imagined, how well I loved him, nor even, perhaps, that I had loved him at all. I had kept my secret only too well He retained his wandering habits, disappearing from time to time, but always returning home, I believe he had no cause to complain of his wife. Yet I cannot help thinking that I could have fixed him and kept him at home. Your case is in many respects similar to mine; but the rivalry to me was in a wandering fancy: to you it is in fixed domestic affections. Still, you were in as much danger as I was of being the victim of an idea and a punctilio: and you have taken the only course to save you from it. I regret that I gave in to the punctilio: but I would not part with the idea. I find a charm in the recollection far preferable to

The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead which weighs on the minds of those who have never loved, or never earnestly.



CHAPTER XXVIII

ARISTOPHANES IN LONDON

Non duco contentionis funern, dum constet inter nos, quod fere totus mundus exerceat histrioniam.—Petronius Arbiter.

I do not draw the rope of contention,{1} while it is agreed amongst us, that almost the whole world practises acting.

1 A metaphor apparently taken from persons pulling in opposite directions at each end of a rope. I cannot see, as some have done, that it has anything in common with Horace's Tortum digna sequi potius quant ducere funern: 'More worthy to follow than to lead the tightened cord': which is a metaphor taken from a towing line, or any line acting in a similar manner, where one draws and another is drawn. Horace applies it to money, which he says should be the slave, and not the master of its possessor.

All the world's a stage.—Shakespeare.

En el teatro del mundo Todos son representantes.—Calderon.

Tous les comediens ne sont pas au theatre. —French Proverb.

Rain came, and thaw, followed by drying wind. The roads were in good order for the visitors to the Aristophanic comedy. The fifth day of Christmas was fixed for the performance. The theatre was brilliantly lighted, with spermaceti candles in glass chandeliers for the audience, and argand lamps for the stage. In addition to Mr. Gryll's own houseful of company, the beauty and fashion of the surrounding country, which comprised an extensive circle, adorned the semicircular seats; which, however, were not mere stone benches, but were backed, armed, and padded into comfortable stalls. Lord Curryfin was in his glory, in the capacity of stage-manager.

The curtain rising, as there was no necessity for its being made to fall,{1} discovered the scene, which was on the London bank of the Thames, on the terrace of a mansion occupied by the Spirit-rapping Society, with an archway in the centre of the building, showing a street in the background. Gryllus was lying asleep. Circe, standing over him, began the dialogue.

1 The Athenian theatre was open to the sky, and if the curtain had been made to fall it would have been folded up in mid air, destroying the effect of the scene. Being raised from below, it was invisible when not in use.

CIRCE Wake, Gryllus, and arise in human form.

GRYLLUS I have slept soundly, and had pleasant dreams.

CIRCE I, too, have soundly slept—Divine how long.

GRYLLUS Why, judging by the sun, some fourteen hours.

CIRCE Three thousand years"

GRYLLUS That is a nap indeed. But this is not your garden, nor your palace. Where are we now?

CIRCE Three thousand years ago, This land was forest, and a bright pure river Ran through it to and from the Ocean stream. Now, through a wilderness of human forms, And human dwellings, a polluted flood Rolls up and down, charged with all earthly poisons, Poisoning the air in turn.

GRYLLUS I see vast masses Of strange unnatural things.

CIRCE Houses, and ships, And boats, and chimneys vomiting black smoke, Horses, and carriages of every form, And restless bipeds, rushing here and there For profit or for pleasure, as they phrase it.

GRYLLUS Oh, Jupiter and Bacchus! what a crowd, Flitting, like shadows without mind or purpose, Such as Ulysses saw in Erebus. But wherefore are we here?

CIRCE There have arisen Some mighty masters of the invisible world, And these have summoned us.

GRYLLUS With what design?

CIRCE That they themselves must tell. Behold they come, Carrying a mystic table, around which They work their magic spells. Stand by, and mark.

[Three spirit-rappers appeared, carrying a table, which they placed on one side of the stage:]

1. Carefully the table place, Let our gifted brother trace A ring around the enchanted space

2. Let him tow'rd the table point With his first fore-finger joint, And with mesmerised beginning Set the sentient oak-slab spinning.

3. Now it spins around, around, Sending forth a murmuring sound, By the initiate understood

As of spirits in the wood.

ALL. Once more Circe we invoke.

CIRCE Here: not bound in ribs of oak, Nor, from wooden disk revolving, In strange sounds strange riddles solving, But in native form appearing, Plain to sight, as clear to heating.

THE THREE Thee with wonder we behold. By thy hair of burning gold, By thy face with radiance bright, By thine eyes of beaming light, We confess thee, mighty one, For the daughter of the Sun. On thy form we gaze appalled.

CIRCE Cryllus, loo, your summons called.

THE THREE Hira of yore thy powerful spell Doomed in swinish shape to dwell; Vet such life he reckoned then Happier than the life of men, Now, when carefully he ponders All our scientific wonders, Steam-driven myriads, all in motion, On the land and on the ocean, Going, for the sake of going, Wheresoever waves are flowing, Wheresoever winds are blowing; Converse through the sea transmitted, Swift as ever thought has flitted; All the glories of our time, Past the praise of loftiest rhyme; Will he, seeing these, indeed, Still retain his ancient creed, Ranking, in his mental plan, Life of beast o'er life of man?

CIRCE Speak, Gryllus.

GRYLLUS It is early yet to judge: But all the novelties I yet have seen Seem changes for the worse.

THE THREE If we could show him Our triumphs in succession, one by one, 'Twould surely change his judgment: and herein How might'st thou aid us, Circe!

CIRCE I will do so: And calling down, like Socrates, of yore, The clouds to aid us, they shall shadow forth, In bright succession, all that they behold, From air, on earth and sea. I wave my wand: And lo! they come, even as they came in Athens, Shining like virgins of ethereal life.

The Chorus of Clouds descended, and a dazzling array of female beauty was revealed by degrees through folds of misty gauze. They sang their first choral song:

CHORUS OF CLOUDS{1}

Clouds ever-flowing, conspicuously soaring, From loud-rolling Ocean, whose stream{2} gave us birth To heights, whence we look over torrents down-pouring To the deep quiet vales of the fruit-giving earth,— As the broad eye of AEther, unwearied in brightness, Dissolves our mist-veil in glittering rays, Our forms we reveal from its vapoury lightness, In semblance immortal, with far-seeing gaze.

1 The first stanza is pretty closely adapted from the strophe of Aristophanes. The second is only a distant imitation of the antistrophe.

2 In Homer, and all the older poets, the ocean is a river surrounding the earth, and the seas are inlets from it.

Shower-bearing Virgins, we seek not the regions Whence Pallas, the Muses, and Bacchus have fled,

But the city, where Commerce embodies her legions, And Mammon exalts his omnipotent head.

All joys of thought, feeling, and taste are before us, Wherever the beams of his favour are warm:

Though transient full oft as the veil of our chorus, Now golden with glory, now passing in storm.

Reformers, scientific, moral, educational, political, passed in succession, each answering a question of Gryllus. Gryllus observed, that so far from everything being better than it had been, it seemed that everything was wrong and wanted mending. The chorus sang its second song.

Seven competitive examiners entered with another table, and sat down on the opposite side of the stage to the spirit-rappers. They brought forward Hermogenes{1} as a crammed fowl to argue with Gryllus. Gryllus had the best of the argument; but the examiners adjudged the victory to Hermogenes. The chorus sang its third song.

1 See chapter xv.

Circe, at the request of the spirit-rappers, whose power was limited to the production of sound, called up several visible spirits, all illustrious in their day, but all appearing as in the days of their early youth, 'before their renown was around them.' They were all subjected to competitive examination, and were severally pronounced disqualified for the pursuit in which they had shone. At last came one whom Circe recommended to the examiners as a particularly promising youth. He was a candidate for military life. Every question relative to his profession he answered to the purpose. To every question not so relevant he replied that he did not know and did not care. This drew on him a reprimand. He was pronounced disqualified, and ordered to join the rejected, who were ranged in a line along the back of the scene. A touch of Circe's wand changed them into their semblance of maturer years. Among them were Hannibal and Oliver Cromwell; and in the foreground was the last candidate, Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Richard flourished his battle-axe over the heads of the examiners, who jumped up in great trepidation, overturned their table, tumbled over one another, and escaped as best they might in haste and terror. The heroes vanished. The chorus sang its fourth song.

CHORUS As before the pike will fly Dace and roach and such small fry; As the leaf before the gale, As the chaff beneath the flail; As before the wolf the flocks, As before the hounds the fox; As before the cat the mouse, As the rat from falling house; As the fiend before the spell Of holy water, book, and bell; As the ghost from dawning day,— So has fled, in gaunt dismay, This septemvirate of quacks From the shadowy attacks Of Coeur-de-Lion's battle-axe.



Could he in corporeal might, Plain to feeling as to sight, Rise again to solar light, How his arm would put to flight All the forms of Stygian night That round us rise in grim array, Darkening the meridian day: Bigotry, whose chief employ Is embittering earthly joy; Chaos, throned in pedant state, Teaching echo how to prate; And 'Ignorance, with looks profound,' Not 'with eye that loves the ground,' But stalking wide, with lofty crest, In science's pretentious vest.

And now, great masters of the realms of shade, To end the task which called us down from air, We shall present, in pictured show arrayed, Of this your modern world the triumphs rare,

That Gryllus's benighted spirit May wake to your transcendent merit, And, with profoundest admiration thrilled, He may with willing mind assume his place In your steam-nursed, steam-borne, steam-killed, And gas-enlightened race.

CIRCE Speak, Gryllus, what you see,

I see the ocean, And o'er its face ships passing wide and far; Some with expanded sails before the breeze, And some with neither sails nor oars, impelled By some invisible power against the wind, Scattering the spray before them, But of many One is on fire, and one has struck on rocks And melted in the waves like fallen snow. Two crash together in the middle sea, And go to pieces on the instant, leaving No soul to tell the tale, and one is hurled In fragments to the sky, strewing the deep With death and wreck. I had rather live with Circe Even as I was, than flit about the world In those enchanted ships which some Alastor Must have devised as traps for mortal ruin.

Look yet again.

Now the whole scene is changed. I see long chains of strange machines on wheels, With one in front of each, purring white smoke From a black hollow column. Fast and far They speed, like yellow leaves before the gale, When autumn winds are strongest. Through their windows I judge them thronged with people; but distinctly Their speed forbids my seeing.

SPIRIT-RAPPER This is one Of the great glories of our modern time, * Men are become as birds,' and skim like swallows The surface of the world.

GRYLLUS For what good end?

SPIRIT-RAPPER The end is in itself—the end of skimming The surface of the world.

GRYLLUS If that be all, I had rather sit in peace in my old home: But while I look, two of them meet and clash, And pile their way with ruin. One is rolled Down a steep bank; one through a broken bridge Is dashed into a flood. Dead, dying, wounded, Are there as in a battle-field. Are these Your modern triumphs? Jove preserve me from them.

SPIRIT-RAPPER These ills are rare. Millions are borne in safety Where ore incurs mischance. Look yet again.

GRYLLUS I see a mass of light brighter than that Which burned in Circe's palace, and beneath it A motley crew, dancing to joyous music. But from that light explosion comes, and flame; And forth the dancers rush in haste and fear From their wide-blazing hall.

SPIRIT-RAPPER Oh, Circe! Circe! Thou show'st him all the evil of our arts In more than just proportion to the good. Good without evil is not given to man. Jove, from his urns dispensing good and ill, Gives all unmixed to some, and good and ill Mingled to many—good unmixed to none.{1} Our arts are good. The inevitable ill That mixes with them, as with all things human, Is as a drop of water in a goblet Full of old wine.

1 This is the true sense of the Homeric passage:—

(Greek passage) Homer: ii. xxiv.

There are only two distributions: good and ill mixed, and unmixed ill. None, as Heyne has observed, receive unmixed good. Ex dolio bonorum....

GRYLLUS More than one drop, I fear, And those of bitter water.

CIRCE There is yet An ample field of scientific triumph: What shall we show him next?

SFIRIT-RAPPER Pause we awhile, He is not in the mood to feel conviction Of our superior greatness. He is all For rural comfort and domestic ease, But our impulsive days are all for moving: Sometimes with some ulterior end, but still For moving, moving, always. There is nothing Common between us in our points of judgment. He takes his stand upon tranquillity, We ours upon excitement. There we place The being, end, and aim of mortal life, The many are with us: some few, perhaps, With him. We put the question to the vote By universal suffrage. Aid us, Circe I On tajismanic wings youi spells can waft The question and reply* Are we not wiser, Happier, and better, than the men of old, Of Homer's days, of Athens, and of Rome?

VOICES WITHOUT Ay. No. Ay, ay. No. Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, We are the wisest race the earth has known, The most advanced in all the arts of life, In science and in morals.

...nemo meracius accipit: hoc memorare omisit. This sense is implied, not expressed. Pope missed it in his otherwise beautiful translation.

Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, The source of evil one, and one of good; From thence the cup of mortal man he fills, Blessings to these, to those distributes ills, To most he mingles both: the wretch decreed To taste the bad, unmixed, is curst indeed; Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven, He wanders, outcast both of earth and heaven. —Pope.

SPIRIT-RAPPER The ays have it. What is that wondrous sound, that seems like thunder Mixed with gigantic laughter?

CIRCE It is Jupiter, Who laughs at your presumption; half in anger, And half in mockery. Now, my worthy masters, You must in turn experience in yourselves The mighty magic thus far tried on others.

The table turned slowly, and by degrees went on spinning with accelerated speed. The legs assumed motion, and it danced off the stage. The arms of the chairs put forth hands, and pinched the spirit-rappers, who sprang up and ran off, pursued by their chairs. This piece of mechanical pantomime was a triumph of Lord Curryfin's art, and afforded him ample satisfaction for the failure of his resonant vases.

CIRCE Now, Gryllus, we may seek our ancient home In my enchanted isle.

GRYLLUS Not yet, not yet. Good signs are toward of a joyous supper. Therein the modern world may have its glory, And I, like an impartial judge, am ready To do it ample justice. But, perhaps, As all we hitherto have seen are shadows, So too may be the supper.

CIRCE Fear not, Gryllus. That you will find a sound reality, To which the land and air, seas, lakes, and rivers, Have sent their several tributes. Now, kind friends, Who with your smiles have graciously rewarded Our humble, but most earnest aims to please, And with your presence at our festal board Will charm the winter midnight, Music gives The signal: Welcome and old wine await you.

THE CHORUS Shadows to-night have offered portraits true Of many follies which the world enthrall. 'Shadows we are, and shadows we pursue': But, in the banquet's well-illumined hall, Realides, delectable to all, Invite you now our festal joy to share. Could we our Attic prototype recall, One compound word should give our bill of fare: {1} But where our language fails, our hearts true welcome bear.

1 As at the end of the Ecclesusae



Miss Gryll was resplendent as Circe; and Miss Niphet., as leader of the chorus, looked like Melpomene herself, slightly unbending her tragic severity into that solemn smile which characterised the chorus of the old comedy. The charm of the first acted irresistibly on Mr. Falconer. The second would have completed, if anything had been wanted to complete it, the conquest of Lord Curryfin.

The supper passed off joyously, and it was a late hour of the morning before the company dispersed.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE BALD VENUS—INEZ DE CASTRO—THE UNITY OF LOVE

Within the temple of my purer mind One imaged form shall ever live enshrined, And hear the vows, to first affection due, Still breathed: for love that ceases ne'er was true. —Leyden's Scenes of Infancy.

An interval of a week was interposed between the comedy and the intended ball. Mr. Falconer having no fancy for balls, and disturbed beyond endurance by the interdict which Miss Gryll had laid on him against speaking, for four times seven days, on the subject nearest his heart, having discharged with becoming self-command his share in the Aristophanic comedy, determined to pass his remaining days of probation in the Tower, where he found, in the attentions of the seven sisters, not a perfect Nepenthe, but the only possible antidote to intense vexation of spirit. It is true, his two Hebes, pouring out his Madeira, approximated as nearly as anything could do to Helen's administration of the true Nepenthe. He might have sung of Madeira, as Redi's Bacchus sang of one of his favourite wines:—

Egli e il vero oro potabile, Che mandar suole in esilio Ogni male inrimediabile: Egli e d* Elena il Nepente, Che fa stare il mondo allegro, Dai pensieri Foschi e neri Sempre sciolto, e sempre esente.{1}

1 Redi: Bacco in Toscana.

Matters went on quietly at the Grange. One evening, Mr. Gryll said quietly to the Reverend Doctor Opimian—

'I have heard you, doctor, more than once, very eulogistic of hair as indispensable to beauty. What say you to the bald Venus of the Romans—Venus Calva?'

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Why, sir, if it were a question whether the Romans had any such deity, I would unhesitatingly maintain the negatur. Where do you find her?

Mr. Gryll. In the first place, I find her in several dictionaries.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. A dictionary is nothing without an authority. You have no authority but that of one or two very late writers, and two or three old grammarians, who had found the word and guessed at its meaning. You do not find her in any genuine classic. A bald Venus! It is as manifest a contradiction in terms as hot ice, or black snow.

Lord Curryfin. Yet I have certainly read, though I cannot at this moment say where, that there was in Rome a temple to Venus Calva, and that it was so dedicated in consequence of one of two circumstances: the first being that through some divine anger the hair of the Roman women fell off, and that Ancus Martius set up a bald statue of his wife, which served as an expiation, for all the women recovered their hair, and the worship of the Bald Venus was instituted; the other being, that when Rome was taken by the Gauls, and when they had occupied the city, and were besieging the Capitol, the besieged having no materials to make bowstrings, the women cut off their hair for the purpose, and after the war a statue of the Bald Venus was raised in honour of the women.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I have seen the last story transferred to the time of the younger Maximin.{1} But when two or three explanations, of which only one can possibly be true, are given of any real or supposed fact, we may safely conclude that all are false. These are ridiculous myths, founded on the misunderstanding of an obsolete word. Some hold that Calva, as applied to Venus, signifies pure; but I hold with others that it signifies alluring, with a sense of deceit. You will find the cognate verbs, calvo and calvor, active,{2}

1 Julius Capitolinus: Max. Jun. c. 7.

2 Est et Venus Calva ob hanc causam, quod cum Galli Capitolium obsiderent, et deessent funes Romanis ad tormenta facienda, prima. Domitia crinem suum, post caeterae matron", imitatae earn, exsecuerun^, unde facta tormenta; et post bellum statua Veneri hoc nomine collocata est: licet alii Calvam Venerem quasi puram tradant: alii Calvam, quod corda calviat, id est, fallat atque eludat. Quidam dicunt, porrigine olim capillos cecidisse fominis, et Ancum regem suae uxori statuam Calvam posuisse, quod constitit piaculo; nam mox omnibus fominis capilli renati sunt: unde institutum ut Calva Venus coleretur. —Servius ad Aen. i.

passive,{1} and deponent,{2} in Servius, Plautus, and Sallust Nobody pretends that the Greeks had a bald Venus. The Venus Calva of the Romans was the Aphrodite Dolie of the Greeks.{3} Beauty cannot co-exist with baldness; but it may and does co-exist with deceit. Homer makes deceitful allurement an essential element in the girdle of Venus.{4} Sappho addresses her as craft-weaving Venus.{5} Why should I multiply examples, when poetry so abounds with complaints of deceitful love that I will be bound every one of this company could, without a moment's hesitation, find a quotation in point?—Miss Gryll, to begin with.

1 Contra ille calvi ratus.—Sallust: Hist. iii. Thinking himself to be deceitfully allured.

2 Nam ubi domi sola sum, sopor manus calvitur. —Plautus in Casina. For when I am at home alone, sleep alluringly deceives my hands.

3 (Greek passage)

4 (Greek passage)

5 (Greek passage)

Miss Gryll. Oh, doctor, with every one who has a memory for poetry, it must be l'embarras de richesses. We could occupy the time till midnight in going round and round on the subject. We should soon come to an end with instances of truth and constancy.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Not so soon, perhaps. If we were to go on accumulating examples, I think I could find you a Penelope for a Helen, a Fiordiligi for an Angelica, an Imogene for a Calista, a Sacripant for a Rinaldo, a Romeo for an Angelo, to nearly the end of the chapter. I will not say quite, for I am afraid at the end of the catalogue the numbers of the unfaithful would predominate.

Miss Ilex. Do you think, doctor, you would find many examples of love that is one, and once for all; love never transferred from its first object to a second?

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Plato holds that such is the essence of love, and poetry and romance present it in many instances.

Miss Ilex. And the contrary in many more.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. If we look, indeed, into the realities of life, as they offer themselves to us in our own experience, in history, in biography, we shall find few instances of constancy to first love; but it would be possible to compile a volume of illustrious examples of love which, though it may have previously ranged, is at last fixed in single, unchanging constancy. Even Inez de Castro was only the second love of Don Pedro of Portugal; yet what an instance is there of love enduring in the innermost heart, as if it had been engraved on marble.

Miss Gryll. What is that story, doctor? I know it but imperfectly.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Inez de Castro was the daughter, singularly beautiful and accomplished, of a Castilian nobleman, attached to the court of Alphonso the Fourth of Portugal. When very young, she became the favourite and devoted friend of Constance, the wife of the young Prince Don Pedro. The princess died early, and the grief of Inez touched the heart of Pedro, who found no consolation but in her society. Thence grew love, which resulted in secret marriage. Pedro and Inez lived in seclusion at Coimbra, perfectly happy in each other, and in two children who were born to them, till three of Alphonso's courtiers, moved by I know not what demon of mischief—for I never could discover an adequate motive—induced the king to attempt the dissolution of the marriage, and failing in this, to authorise them to murder Inez during a brief absence of her husband. Pedro raised a rebellion, and desolated the estates of the assassins, who escaped, one into France, and two into Castile. Pedro laid down his arms on the entreaty of his mother, but would never again see his father, and lived with his two children in the strictest retirement in the scene of his ruined happiness. When Alphonso died, Pedro determined not to assume the crown till he had punished the assassins of his wife. The one who had taken refuge in France was dead; the others were given up by the King of Castile. They were put to death, their bodies were burned, and their ashes were scattered to the winds. He then proceeded to the ceremony of his coronation. The mortal form of Inez, veiled and in royal robes, was enthroned by his side: he placed the queenly crown on her head, and commanded all present to do her homage. He raised in a monastery, side by side, two tombs of white marble, one for her, one for himself. He visited the spot daily, and remained inconsolable till he rejoined her in death. This is the true history, which has been sadly perverted by fiction.

Miss Ilex. There is, indeed, something grand in that long-enduring constancy: something terribly impressive in that veiled spectral image of robed and crowned majesty. You have given this, doctor, as an instance that the first love is not necessarily the strongest, and this, no doubt, is frequently true. Even Romeo had loved Rosalind before he saw Juliet. But love which can be so superseded is scarcely love. It is acquiescence in a semblance: acquiescence, which may pass for love through the entire space of life, if the latent sympathy should never meet its perfect counterpart.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Which it very seldom does; but acquiescence in the semblance is rarely enduring, and hence there are few examples of lifelong constancy. But I hold with Plato that true love is single, indivisible, unalterable.

Miss Ilex. In this sense, then, true love is first love; for the love which endures to the end of life, though it may be the second in semblance, is the first in reality.

The next morning Lord Curryfin said to Miss Niphet. 'You took no part in the conversation of last evening. You gave no opinion on the singleness and permanence of love.'

Miss Niphet. I mistrust the experience of others, and I have none of my own.

Lord Curryfin. Your experience, when it comes, cannot but confirm the theory. The love which once dwells on you can never turn to another.

Miss Niphet.. I do not know that I ought to wish to inspire such an attachment.

Lord Curryfin. Because you could not respond to it?

Miss Niphet.. On the contrary; because I think it possible I might respond to it too well.

She paused a moment, and then, afraid of trusting herself to carry on the dialogue, she said: 'Come into the hall, and play at battledore and shuttlecock.'

He obeyed the order: but in the exercise her every movement developed some new grace, that maintained at its highest degree the intensity of his passionate admiration.



CHAPTER XXX

A CAPTIVE KNIGHT—RICHARD AND ALICE

—dum fata, sinunt. jungamus am ores: mox veniet tenebris Mors adoperta caput: jam subrepet incrs otas, nee amare deeebii, dicere nee ucuio blanditias capite.

Let us, while Fate allows, in love combine, Ere our last night its shade around us throw, Or Ages slow-creeping quench the fire divine, And tender words befit not locks of snow.

The shuttlecock had been some time on the wing, struck to and fro with unerring aim, and to all appearances would never have touched the ground, if Lord Curryfin had not seen, or fancied he saw, symptoms of fatigue on the part of his fair antagonist. He therefore, instead of returning the shuttlecock, struck it upward, caught it in his hand, and presented it to her, saying, 'I give in. The victory is yours.' She answered, 'The victory is yours, as it always is, in courtesy.'

She said this with a melancholy smile, more fascinating to him than the most radiant expression from another. She withdrew to the drawing-room, motioning to him not to follow.

In the drawing-room she found Miss Gryll, who appeared to be reading; at any rate, a book was open before her.

Miss Gryll. You did not see me just now, as I passed through the hall. You saw only two things: the shuttlecock, and your partner in the game.

Miss Niphet.. It is not possible to play, and see anything but the shuttlecock.

Miss Gryll. And the hand that strikes it.

Miss Niphet.. That comes unavoidably into sight.

Miss Gryll. My dear Alice, you are in love, and do not choose to confess it.



Miss Niphet.. I have no right to be in love with your suitor.

Miss Gryll. He was my suitor, and has not renounced his pursuit; but he is your lover. I ought to have seen long ago, that from the moment his eyes rested on you all else was nothing to him. With all that habit of the world which enables men to conceal their feelings in society, with all his exertion to diffuse his attentions as much as possible among all the young ladies in his company, it must have been manifest to a careful observer, that when it came, as it seemed in ordinary course, to be your turn to be attended to, the expression of his features was changed from complacency and courtesy to delight and admiration. I could not have failed to see it, if I had not been occupied with other thoughts. Tell me candidly, do you not think it is so?

Miss Niphet. Indeed, my dear Morgana, I did not designedly enter into rivalry with you; but I do think you conjecture rightly.

Miss Gryll. And if he were free to offer himself to you, and if he did so offer himself, you would accept him?

Miss Niphet.. Assuredly I would.

Miss Gryll. Then, when you next see him, he shall be free. I have set my happiness on another cast, and I will stand the hazard of the die.

Miss Niphet.. You are very generous, Morgana: for I do not think you give up what you do not value.

Miss Gryll. No, indeed. I value him highly. So much so, that I have hesitated, and might have finally inclined to him, if I had not perceived his invincible preference of you. I am sorry, for your sake and his, that I did not clearly perceive it sooner; but you see what it is to be spoiled by admirers. I did not think it possible that any one could be preferred to me. I ought to have thought it possible, but I had no experience in that direction. So now you see a striking specimen of mortified vanity.

Miss Niphet.. You have admirers in abundance, Morgana: more than have often fallen to the lot of the most attractive young women. And love is such a capricious thing, that to be the subject of it is no proof of superior merit. There are inexplicable affinities of sympathy, that make up an irresistible attraction, heaven knows how.

Miss Gryll. And these inexplicable affinities Lord Curryfin has found in you, and you in him.

Miss Niphet.. He has never told me so.

Miss Gryll. Not in words: but looks and actions have spoken for him. You have both struggled to conceal your feelings from others, perhaps even from yourselves. But you are both too ingenuous to dissemble successfully. You suit each other thoroughly: and I have no doubt you will find in each other the happiness I most cordially wish you.

Miss Gryll soon found an opportunity of conversing with Lord Curryfin, and began with him somewhat sportively: 'I have been thinking,' she said, 'of an old song which contains a morsel of good advice—

Be sure to be off with the old love, Before you are on with the new.

You begin by making passionate love to me, and all at once you turn round to one of my young friends, and say, "Zephyrs whisper how I love you."'

Lord Curryfin. Oh no! no, indeed. I have not said that, nor anything to the same effect.

Miss Gryll. Well, if you have not exactly said it, you have implied it. You have looked it. You have felt it. You cannot conceal it. You cannot deny it. I give you notice that, if I die for love of you, I shall haunt you.

Lord Curryfin. Ah! Miss Gryll, if you do not die till you die for love of me, you will be as immortal as Circe, whom you so divinely represented.

Miss Gryll. You offered yourself to me, to have and to hold, for ever and aye. Suppose I claim you. Do not look so frightened. You deserve some punishment, but that would be too severe. But, to a certain extent, you belong to me, and I claim the right to transfer you. I shall make a present of you to Miss Niphet.. So, according to the old rules of chivalry, I order you, as my captive by right, to present yourself before her, and tell her that you have come to receive her commands, and obey them to the letter. I expect she will keep you in chains for life. You do not look much alarmed at the prospect. Yet you must be aware that you are a great criminal; and you have not a word to say in your own justification.

Lord Curryfin. Who could be insensible to charms like yours, if hope could have mingled with the contemplation? But there were several causes by which hope seemed forbidden, and therefore——

Miss Gryll. And therefore when beauty, and hope, and sympathy shone under a more propitious star, you followed its guidance. You could not help yourself:

What heart were his that could resist That melancholy smile?

I shall flatter myself that I might have kept you if I had tried hard for it at first; but

Il pentirsi da sesto nulla giova.

No doubt you might have said with the old song,

I ne'er could any lustre see In eyes that would not look on me.

But you scarcely gave me time to look on you before you were gone. You see, however, like our own Mirror of Knighthood, I make the best of my evil fate, and

Cheer myself up with ends of verse, And sayings of philosophers.

Lord Curryfin. I am glad to see you so merry; for even if your heart were more deeply touched by another than it ever could have been by me, I think I may say of you, in your own manner,

So light a heel Will never wear the everlasting flint.

I hope and I believe you will always trip joyously over the surface of the world. You are the personification of L'Allegro.

Miss Gryll. I do not know how that may be. But go now to the personification of La Penserosa. If you do not turn her into a brighter Allegro than I am, you may say I have no knowledge of woman's heart.

It was not long after this dialogue that Lord Curryfin found an opportunity of speaking to Miss Niphet alone. He said, 'I am charged with a duty, such as was sometimes imposed on knights in the old days of chivalry. A lady, who claims me as her captive by right, has ordered me to kneel at your feet, to obey your commands, and to wear your chains, if you please to impose them.'

Miss Niphet. To your kneeling I say, Rise; for your obedience, I have no commands; for chains, I have none to impose.

Lord Curryfin. You have imposed them, I wear them already, inextricably, indissolubly.

Miss Niphet. If I may say, with the witch in Thalaba,

Only she, Who knit his bonds, can set him free,

I am prepared to unbind the bonds. Rise my lord, rise.

Lord Curryfin. I will rise if you give me your hand to lift me up.

Miss Niphet.. There it is. Now that it has helped you up, let it go.

Lord Curryfin. And do not call me my lord.

Miss Niphet. What shall I call you?

Lord Curryfin. Call me Richard, and let me call you Alice.

Miss Niphet.. That is a familiarity only sanctioned by longer intimacy than ours has been.

Lord Curryfin. Or closer?

Miss Niphet. We have been very familiar friends during the brief term of our acquaintance. But let go my hand.

Lord Curryfin, I have set my heart on being allowed to call you Alice, and on your calling me Richard.

Miss Niphet. It must not be so—at least, not yet.

Lord Curryfin. There is nothing I would not do to acquire the right.

Miss Niphet. Nothing?

Lord Curryfin. Nothing.

Miss Niphet. How thrives your suit with Miss Gryll?

Lord Curryfin. That is at an end. I have her permission—her command she calls it—to throw myself at your feet, and on your mercy.

Miss Niphet. How did she take leave of you, crying or laughing?

Lord Curryfin. Why, if anything, laughing.

Miss Niphet.. Do you not feel mortified?

Lord Curryfin. I have another and deeper feeling, which predominates over any possible mortification.

Miss Niphet. And that is—

Lord Curryfin. Can you doubt what it is!

Miss Niphet.. I will not pretend to doubt. I have for some time been well aware of your partiality for me.

Lord Curryfin. Partiality! Say love, adoration, absorption of all feelings into one.

Miss Niphet.. Then you may call me Alice. But once more, let go my hand.

Lord Curryfin. My hand, is it not?

Miss Niphet.. Yours, when you claim it.

Lord Curryfin. Then thus I seal my claim.

He kissed her hand as respectfully as was consistent with 'masterless passion'; and she said to him, 'I will not dissemble. If I have had one wish stronger than another—strong enough to exclude all others—it has been for the day when you might be free to say to me what you have now said. Am I too frank with you?'

Lord Curryfin. Oh, heaven, no! I drink in your words as a stream from paradise.

He sealed his claim again, but this time it was on her lips. The rose again mantled on her cheek, but the blush was heightened to damask. She withdrew herself from his arms, saying, 'Once for all, till you have an indisputable right.'



CHAPTER XXXI

A TWELFTH-NIGHT BALL—PANTOPRAGMATIC COOKERY—MODERN VANDALISM—A BOWL OF PUNCH

sic erimus cuncti, postquam nos auferet Orcus: ergo vivamus, dura licet esse bene.

So must we be, when ends our mortal day: Then let us live, while yet live well we may.

Trimalchio, with the silver skeleton: in Petronius: c. 34.

Twelfth-night was the night of the ball. The folding-doors of the drawing-rooms, which occupied their entire breadth, were thrown wide open. The larger room was appropriated to grown dancers; the smaller to children, who came in some force, and were placed within the magnetic attraction of an enormous twelfth-cake, which stood in a decorated recess. The carpets had been taken up, and the floors were painted with forms in chalk{1} by skilful artists, under the superintendence of Mr. Pallet. The library, separated from all the apartments by ante-chambers with double doors, was assigned, with an arrangement of whist-tables, to such of the elder portion of the party as might prefer that mode of amusement to being mere spectators of the dancing. Mr. Gryll, with Miss Ilex, Mr. MacBorrowdale, and the Reverend Dr. Opimian, established his own quadrille party in a corner of the smaller drawing-room, where they could at once play and talk, and enjoy the enjoyment of the young. Lord Curryfin was Master of the Ceremonies.

1 These all wear out of me, like forms with chalk Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night: says Wordsworth, of 'chance acquaintance,' in his neighbourhood.—Miscellaneous Sonnets, No. 39.

After two or three preliminary dances, to give time for the arrival of the whole of the company, the twelfth-cake was divided. The characters were drawn exclusively among the children, and the little king and queen were duly crowned, placed on a theatrical throne, and paraded in state round both drawing-rooms, to their own great delight and that of their little associates. Then the ball was supposed to commence, and was by general desire opened with a minuet by Miss Niphet and Lord Curryfin. Then came alternations of quadrilles and country dances, interspersed with occasional waltzes and polkas. So the ball went merrily, with, as usual, abundant love-making in mute signs and in sotto voce parlance.

Lord Curryfin, having brought his own love-making to a satisfactory close, was in exuberant spirits, sometimes joining in the dance, sometimes—in his official capacity—taking the round of the rooms to see that everything was going on to everybody's satisfaction. He could not fail to observe that his proffered partnership in the dance, though always graciously, was not so ambitiously accepted as before he had disposed of himself for life. A day had sufficed to ask and obtain the consent of Miss Niphet's father, who now sate on the side of the larger drawing-room, looking with pride and delight on his daughter, and with cordial gratification on her choice; and when it was once, as it was at once known, that Miss Niphet was to be Lady Curryfin, his lordship passed into the class of married men, and was no longer the object of that solicitous attention which he had received as an undrawn prize in the lottery of marriage, while it was probable that somebody would have him, and nobody knew who.

The absence of Mr. Falconer was remarked by several young ladies, to whom it appeared that Miss Gryll had lost her two most favoured lovers at once. However, as she had still many others, it was not yet a decided case for sympathy. Of course she had no lack of partners, and whatever might have been her internal anxiety, she was not the least gay among the joyous assembly.

Lord Curryfin, in his circuit of the apartments, paused at the quadrille-table, and said, 'You have been absent two or three days, Mr. MacBorrowdale—what news have you brought from London?'

Mr. MacBorrowdale. Not much, my lord. Tables turn as usual, and the ghost-trade appears to be thriving instead of being merely audible, the ghosts are becoming tangible, and shake hands under the tables with living wiseacres, who solemnly attest the fact. Civilised men ill-use their wives; the wives revenge themselves in their own way, and the Divorce Court has business enough on its hands to employ it twenty years at its present rate of progression. Commercial bubbles burst, and high-pressure boilers blow up, and mountebanks of all descriptions flourish on public credulity. Everywhere there are wars and rumours of wars. The Peace Society has wound up its affairs in the Insolvent Court of Prophecy. A great tribulation is coming on the earth, and Apollyon in person is to be perpetual dictator all the nations. There is, to be sure, one piece of news your line, but it will be no news to you. There is a meeting of the Pantopragmatic Society, under the presidency of Lord Facing-both-ways, who has opened it with a long speech, philanthropically designed as an elaborate exercise in fallacies, for the benefit of young rhetoricians. The society has divided its work into departments, which are to meddle with everything, from the highest to the lowest—from a voice in legislation to a finger in Jack Horner's pie. I looked for a department of Fish, with your lordship's name at the head of it; but I did not find it. It would be a fine department. It would divide itself naturally into three classes—living fish, fossil fish, and fish in the frying-pan.

Lord Curryfin. I assure you, Mr. MacBorrowdale, all this seems as ridiculous now to me as it does to you. The third class of fish is all that I shall trouble myself with in future, and that only at the tables of myself and my friends.

Mr. Gryll. I wonder the Pantopragmatics have not a department of cookery; a female department, to teach young wives how to keep their husbands at home, by giving them as good dinners as they can get abroad, especially at club. Those anti-domestic institutions receive their chief encouragment from the total ignorance of cookery on the part of young wives: for in this, as in all other arts of life, it is not sufficient to order what shall be done: it is necessary to know how it ought to be done. This is a matter of more importance to social well-being than nine-tenths of the subjects the Pantopragmatics meddle with.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. And therefore I rejoice that they do not meddle with it. A dinner, prepared from a New Art of Cookery, concocted under their auspices, would be more comical and more uneatable than the Roman dinner in Peregrine Pickle. Let young ladies learn cookery by all means: but let them learn under any other tuition than that of the Pantopragmatic Society.

Mr. Gryll. As for the tribulation coming on the earth, I am afraid there is some ground to expect it, without looking for its foreshadowing exclusively to the Apocalypse. Niebuhr, who did not draw his opinions from prophecy, rejoiced that his career was coming to a close, for he thought we were on the eve of a darker middle age.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. He had not before his eyes the astounding march of intellect, drumming and trumpeting science from city to city. But I am afraid that sort of obstreperous science only gives people the novel 'use of their eyes to see the way of blindness.'{1}

Truths which, from action's paths retired, My silent search in vain required,{2}

1 Gaoler. For look you, sir: you know not which way you shall go. Posthumus. Yes, indeed do I, fellow.

Gaoler. Your death has eyes in's head, then: I have not seen him so pictured... .

Posthumus. I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to direct them the way I am going, but such as wink, and will not use them.

Gaoler. What an infinite mock is this, that a man should have the best use of eyes to see the way of blindness!

—Cymbeline: Act v. Scene 4.

2 Collins: Ode on the Manners.

I am not likely to find in the successive gabblings of a dozen lecturers of Babel.

Mr. Gryll. If you could so find them, they would be of little avail against the new irruption of Goths and Vandals, which must have been in the apprehension of Niebuhr. There are Vandals on northern thrones, anxious for nothing so much as to extinguish truth and liberty wherever they show themselves—Vandals in the bosom of society everywhere even amongst ourselves, in multitudes, with precisely the same aim, only more disguised by knaves, and less understood by dupes.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. And, you may add, Vandals dominating over society throughout half America, who deal with free speech and even the suspicion of free thought just as the Inquisition dealt with them, only substituting Lynch law and the gallows for a different mockery of justice, ending in fire and faggot.

Mr. Gryll. I confine my view to Europe. I dread northern monarchy, and southern anarchy; and rabble brutality amongst ourselves, smothered and repressed for the present, but always ready to break out into inextinguishable flame, like hidden fire under treacherous ashes.{1}

1 ——incedis per ignes suppositos cineri doloso. —Hor. Carm, 11. i.

Mr. MacBorrowdale. In the meantime, we are all pretty comfortable; and sufficient for the day is the evil thereof; which in our case, so far as I can see, happens to be precisely none.

Miss Ilex. Lord Curryfin seems to be of that opinion, for he has flitted away from the discussion, and is going down a country dance with Miss Niphet..

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. He has chosen his time well. He takes care to be her last partner before supper, that he may hand her to the table. But do you observe how her tragic severity has passed away? She was always pleasant to look on, but it was often like contemplating ideal beauty in an animated statue—Now she is the image of perfect happiness, and irradiates all around her.

Miss Ilex. How can it be otherwise? The present and the future are all brightness to her. She cannot but reflect their radiance.

Now came the supper, which, as all present had dined early, was unaffectedly welcomed and enjoyed. Lord Curryfin looked carefully to the comfort of his idol, but was unremitting in his attentions to her fair neighbours. After supper, dancing was resumed, with an apparent resolution in the greater portion of the company not to go home till morning. Mr. Gryll, Mr. MacBorrowdale, the Reverend Doctor Opimian, and two or three elders of the party, not having had their usual allowance of wine after their early dinner, remained at the supper table over a bowl of punch, which had been provided in ample quantity, and, in the intervals of dancing, circulated, amongst other refreshments, round the sides of the ballroom, where it was gratefully accepted by the gentlemen, and not absolutely disregarded even by the young ladies. This may be conceded on occasion, without admitting Goldoni's facetious position, that a woman, masked and silent, may be known to be English by her acceptance of punch.{1}

1 Lord Runebif, in Venice, meets Rosaura, who is masked, before a bottega di caffe. She makes him a curtsey in the English fashion.

Milord. Madama, molto compita, volete caffe?

Rosaura. (Fa cenno di no. )

Milord. Cioccolata?

Rosaura. (Fa cenno di no. )

Milord. Volete ponce?

Rosaura. (Fa cenno di si. )

Milord. Oh! e Inglese.

La Vedova Scaltra, A. iii. S. 10.

He does not offer her tea, which, as a more English drink than either coffee or chocolate, might have entered into rivalry with punch: especially if, as Goldoni represented in another comedy, the English were in the habit of drinking it, not with milk, but with arrack. Lord Arthur calls on his friend Lord Bonfil in the middle of the day, and Lord Bonfil offers him tea, which is placed on the table with sugar and arrack. While they are drinking it, Lord Coubrech enters.

Bonfil. Favorite, bevete con noi.

Coubrech. Il te non si rifiuta.

Artur. E bevanda salutifera.

Bonfil. Volete rak?

Coubrech. SI, rak.

Bonfil. Ecco, vi servo.

—Pamela Fanciulla, A. i. S. 15.



CHAPTER XXXII

HOPES AND FEARS—COMPENSATIONS IN LIFE—ATHENIAN COMEDY—MADEIRA AND MUSIC—CONFIDENCES

(Greek Passage)

The Ghost of Darius to the Chorus, in the Perso of AEschylus.

Farewell, old friends: and even if ills surround you, Seize every joy the passing day can bring, For wealth affords no pleasure to the dead.

Dorothy had begun to hope that Harry's news might be true, but even Harry's sanguineness began to give way: the pertinacity with which the young master remained at home threw a damp on their expectations. But having once fairly started, in the way of making love on the one side and responding to it on the other, they could not but continue as they had begun, and she permitted him to go on building castles in the air, in which the Christmas of the ensuing year was arrayed in the brightest apparel of fire and festival.

Harry, walking home one afternoon, met the Reverend Doctor Opimian, who was on his way to the Tower, where he purposed to dine and pass the night. Mr. Falconer's absence from the ball had surprised him, especially as Lord Curryfin's rivalry had ceased, and he could imagine no good cause for his not returning to the Grange. The doctor held out his hand to Harry, who returned the grasp most cordially. The doctor asked him, 'how he and his six young friends were prospering in their siege of the hearts of the seven sisters.'

Harry Hedgerow. Why, sir, so far as the young ladies are concerned, we have no cause to complain. But we can't make out the young gentleman. He used to sit and read all the morning, at the top of the Tower. Now he goes up the stairs, and after a little while he comes down again, and walks into the forest. Then he goes upstairs again, and down again, and out again. Something must be come to him, and the only thing we can think of is, that he is crossed in love. And he never gives me a letter or a message to the Grange. So, putting all that together, we haven't a merry Christmas, you see, sir.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I see, still harping on a merry Christmas. Let us hope that the next may make amends.

Harry Hedgerow. Have they a merry Christmas at the Grange, sir?

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Very merry.

Harry Hedgerow. Then there's nobody crossed in love there, sir.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. That is more than I can say. I cannot answer for others. I am not, and never was, if that is any comfort to you.

Harry Hedgerow. It is a comfort to me to see you, and hear the sound of your voice, sir. It always does me good.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Why then, my young friend, you are most heartily welcome to see and hear me whenever you please, if you will come over to the Vicarage. And you will always find a piece of cold roast beef and a tankard of good ale; and just now a shield of brawn. There is some comfort in them.

Harry Hedgerow. Ah! thank ye, sir. They are comfortable things in their way. But it isn't for them I should come.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I believe you, my young friend. But a man fights best when he has a good basis of old English fare to stand on, against all opposing forces, whether of body or mind. Come and see me. And whatever happens in this world, never let it spoil your dinner.

Harry Hedgerow. That's father's advice, sir. But it won't always do. When he lost mother, that spoiled his dinner for many a day. He has never been the same man since, though he bears up as well as he can. But if I could take Miss Dorothy home to him, I'm sure that would all but make him young again. And if he had a little Harry dandle next Christmas, wouldn't he give him the first spoonful out of the marrow-bone!

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I doubt if that would be good food for little Harry, notwithstanding it was Hector's way of feeding Astyanax.{1} But we may postpone the discussion his diet till he makes his appearance. In the meantime, live in hope; but live on beef and ale.

The doctor again shook him heartily by the hand, an Harry took his leave.



The doctor walked on, soliloquising as usual. 'This young man's father has lost a good wife, and has never been the same man since. If he had had a bad wife, he would have felt it as a happy release. This life has strange compensations. It helps to show the truth of Juvenal's remark, that the gods alone know what is good for us.{2}

1 Il. xxii. vv. 500, 501.

2 Juvenal: Sut. x. v. 346.

Now, here again is my friend at the Tower. If he had not, as I am sure he has, the love of Morgana, he would console himself with his Vestals. If he had not their sisterly affection, he would rejoice in the love of Morgana, but having both the love and the affection, he is between two counter-attractions, either of which would make him happy, and both together make him miserable. Who can say which is best for him? or for them? or for Morgana herself? I almost wish the light of her favour had shone on Lord Curryfin. That chance has pass from her; and she will not easily find such another. Perhaps she might have held him in her bonds, if she had been so disposed. But Miss Niphet. is a glorious girl, and there is a great charm in such perfect reciprocity. Jupiter himself, as I have before had occasion to remark, must have prearranged their consentaneity. The young lord went on some time, adhering, as he supposed, to his first pursuit, and falling unconsciously and inextricably into the second; and the young lady went on, devoting her whole heart and soul to him, not clearly perhaps knowing it herself, but certainly not suspecting that any one else could dive into the heart of her mystery. And now they both seem surprised that nobody seems surprised at their sudden appearance in the character affianced lovers. His is another example of strange compensation; for if Morgana had accepted him on his first offer, Miss Niphet would not have thought of him; but she found him a waif and stray, a flotsam on the waters of love, and landed him at her feet without art or stratagem. Artlessness and simplicity triumphed, where the deepest design would have /ailed. I do not know if she had any compensation to look for; but if she had, she has found it; for never was a man with more qualities for domestic happiness, and not Pedro of Portugal himself was more overwhelmingly in love. When I first knew him, I saw only the comic side of his character: he has a serious one too, and not the least agreeable part of it: but the comic still shows itself. I cannot well define whether his exuberant good-humour is contagious, and makes me laugh by anticipation as soon as I fall into his company, or whether it is impossible to think of him, gravely lecturing on Fish, as a member of the Pantopragmatic Society, without perceiving a ludicrous contrast between his pleasant social face and the unpleasant social impertinence of those would-be meddlers with everything. It is true, he has renounced that folly; but it is not so easy to dissociate him from the recollection. No matter: if I laugh, he laughs with me: if he laughs, I laugh with him. "Laugh when you can," is a good maxim: between well-disposed sympathies a very little cause strikes out the fire of merriment—

As long liveth the merry man, they say, As doth the sorry man, and longer by a day. And a day so acquired is a day worth having. But then— Another sayd sawe doth men advise, That they be together both merry and wise.{1}

1 These two quotations are from the oldest comedy in the English language: Ralph Roister Doister, 1566. Republished by the Shakespeare Society, 1847.

Very good doctrine, and fit to be kept in mind: but there is much good laughter without much wisdom, and yet with no harm in it.'

The doctor was approaching the Tower when he met Mr. Falconer, who had made one of his feverish exits from it, and was walking at double his usual speed. He turned back with the doctor, who having declined taking anything before dinner but a glass of wine and a biscuit, they went up together to the library.

They conversed only on literary subjects. The doctor, though Miss Cryll was uppermost in his mind, determined not to originate a word respecting her, and Mr. Falconer, though she was also his predominant idea, felt that it was only over a bottle of Madeira he could unbosom himself freely to the doctor.

The doctor asked, 'What he had been reading of late? He said, 'I have tried many things, but I have alway returned to Orlando Innamorato. There it is on the table an old edition of the original poem.{1} The doctor said, have seen an old edition, something like this, on the drawing-room table at the Grange.' He was about to say something touching sympathy in taste, but he checked himself in time. The two younger sisters brought in lights. 'I observe,' said the doctor, 'that your handmaids always move in pairs. My hot water for dressing is always brought by two inseparables, whom it seems profanation to call housemaids.'



Mr. Falconer. It is always so on my side of the house that not a breath of scandal may touch their reputation. If you were to live here from January to December, with a houseful of company, neither you nor I, nor any of my friends, would see one of them alone for a single minute.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I approve the rule. I would stake my life on the conviction that these sisters are

Pure as the new-fall'n snow, When never yet the sullying sun Has seen its purity, Nor the warm zephyr touched and tainted it.{1}

1 Southey: Thalaba.

But as the world is constituted, the most perfect virtue needs to be guarded from suspicion. I cannot, however, associate your habits with a houseful of company.

Mr. Falconer. There must be sympathies enough in the world to make up society for all tastes: more difficult to find in some cases than in others; but still always within the possibility of being found. I contemplated, when I arranged this house, the frequent presence of a select party. The Aristophanic comedy and its adjuncts brought me into pleasant company elsewhere. I have postponed the purpose, not abandoned it.

Several thoughts passed through the doctor's mind. He was almost tempted to speak them. 'How beautiful was Miss Gryll in Circe; how charmingly she acted. What was a select party without women? And how could a bachelor invite them?' But this would be touching a string which he had determined not to be the first to strike. So, apropos of the Aristophanic comedy, he took down Aristophanes, and said, 'What a high idea of Athenian comedy is given by this single line, in which the poet opines "the bringing out of comedy to be the most difficult of all arts."'{1} It would not seem to be a difficult art nowadays, seeing how much new comedy is nightly produced in London, and still more in Paris, which, whatever may be its literary value, amuses its audiences as much as Aristophanes amused the Athenians.

Mr. Falconer. There is this difference, that though both audiences may be equally amused, the Athenians felt they had something to be proud of in the poet, which our audiences can scarcely feel, as far as novelties are concerned. And as to the atrocious outrages on taste and feeling perpetrated under the name of burlesques, I should be astonished if even those who laugh at them could look back on their amusement with any other feeling than that of being most heartily ashamed of the author, the theatre, and themselves.

When the dinner was over, and a bottle of claret had been placed by the side of the doctor, and a bottle of Madeira by the side of his host, who had not been sparing during dinner of his favourite beverage, which had been to him for some days like ale to the Captain and his friends in Beaumont and Fletcher,{2} almost 'his eating and his drinking solely,' the doctor said, 'I am glad to perceive that you keep up your practice of having a good dinner; though I am at the same time sorry to see that you have not done your old justice to it.'

1 (Greek passage)—Equites.

2 Ale is their eating and their drinking solely. —Scornful Lady, Act iv. Scene 2.

Mr. Falconer. A great philosopher had seven friends, one of whom dined with him in succession on each day of the week. He directed, amongst his last dispositions, that during six months after his death the establishment of his house should be kept on the same footing, and that a dinner should be daily provided for himself and his single guest of the day, who was to be entreated to dine there in memory of him, with one of his executors (both philosophers) to represent him in doing the honours of the table alternately.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I am happy to see that the honours of your table are done by yourself, and not by an executor, administrator, or assign. The honours are done admirably, but the old justice on your side is wanting. I do not, however, clearly see what the feralis caena of guest and executor has to do with the dinner of two living men.

Mr. Falconer. Ah, doctor, you should say one living man and a ghost. I am only the ghost of myself. I do the honours of my departed conviviality.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I thought something was wrong; but whatever it may be, take Horace's advice—'Alleviate every ill with wine and song, the sweet consolations of deforming anxiety.'{1}

Mr. Falconer. I do, doctor. Madeira, and the music of the Seven Sisters, are my consolations, and great ones; but they do not go down to the hidden care that gnaws at the deepest fibres of the heart, like Ratatosk at the roots of the Ash of Ygdrasil.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. In the Scandinavian mythology: one of the most poetical of all mythologies. I have a great respect for Odin and Thor. Their adventures have always delighted me; and the system was admirably adapted to foster the high spirit of a military people. Lucan has a fine passage on the subject.{2}

1 illia omne malum vino cantuque levato, deformis aggrimonio dulcibus alloquiis.

Epod. xiii. 2 Pharsalia, 458-462.

The doctor repeated the passage of Lucan with great emphasis. This was not what Mr. Falconer wanted. He had wished that the doctor should inquire into the cause of his trouble; but independently of the doctor's determination to ask no questions, and to let his young friend originate his own disclosures, the unlucky metaphor had carried the doctor into one of his old fields, and if it had not been that he awaited the confidence, which he felt sure his host would spontaneously repose in him, the Scandinavian mythology would have formed his subject for the evening. He paused, therefore, and went on quietly sipping his claret.

Mr. Falconer could restrain himself no longer, and without preface or note of preparation, he communicated to the doctor all that had passed between Miss Gryll and himself, not omitting a single word of the passages of Bojardo, which were indelibly impressed on his memory.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I cannot see what there is to afflict you in all this. You are in love with Miss Gryll. She is disposed to receive you favourably. What more would you wish in that quarter?

Mr. Falconer. No more in that quarter, but the Seven Sisters are as sisters to me. If I had seven real sisters, the relationship would subsist, and marriage would not interfere with it; but, be a woman as amiable, as liberal, as indulgent, as confiding as she may, she could not treat the unreal as she would the real tie.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I admit, it is not to be expected. Still there is one way out of the difficulty. And that is by seeing all the seven happily married.

Mr. Falconer. All the seven married? Surely that is impossible.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Not so impossible as you apprehend.

The doctor thought it a favourable opportunity to tell the story of the seven suitors, and was especially panegyrical on Harry Hedgerow, observing, that if the maxim Noscitur a sociis might be reversed, and a man's companions judged by himself, it would be a sufficient recommendation of the other six; whom, moreover, the result of his inquiries had given him ample reason to think well of. Mr. Falconer received with pleasure at Christmas a communication which at the Midsummer preceding would have given him infinite pain. It struck him all at once that, as he had dined so ill, he would have some partridges for supper, his larder being always well stocked with game. They were presented accordingly, after the usual music in the drawing-room, and the doctor, though he had dined well, considered himself bound in courtesy to assist in their disposal; when, recollecting how he had wound, up the night of the ball, he volunteered to brew a bowl of punch, over which they sate till a late hour, discoursing of many things, but chiefly of Morgana.



CHAPTER XXXIII

THE CONQUEST OF THEBES

(Greek passage)

AESCHYLUS: Prometheus.

Oh! wise was he, the first who taught This lesson of observant thought, That equal fates alone may dress The bowers of nuptial happiness; That never, where ancestral pride Inflames, or affluence rolls its tide, Should love's ill-omened bonds entwine The offspring of an humbler line.

Mr. Falconer, the next morning, after the doctor had set out on his return walk, departed from his usual practice of not seeing one of the sisters alone, and requested that Dorothy would come to him in the drawing-room. She appeared before him, blushing and trembling.



'Sit down,' he said, 'dear Dorothy; I have something to say to you and your sisters; but I have reasons for saying it first to you. It is probable, at any rate possible, that I shall very soon marry, and perhaps, in that case, you may be disposed to do the same. And I am told, that one of the best young men I have ever known is dying for love of you.'

'He is a good young man, that is certain,' said Dorothy; then becoming suddenly conscious of how much she had undesignedly admitted, she blushed deeper than before. And by way of mending the matter, she said, 'But I am not dying for love of him.'

'I daresay you are not,' said Mr. Falconer; 'you have no cause to be so, as you are sure of him, and only your consent is wanting.'

'And yours,' said Dorothy, 'and that of my sisters; especially my elder sisters; indeed, they ought to set the example.'

'I am sure of that,' said Mr. Falconer. 'So far, if I understand rightly, they have followed yours. It was your lover's indefatigable devotion that brought together suitors to them all. As to my consent, that you shall certainly have. So the next time you see Master Harry, send him to me.'

'He is here now,' said Dorothy.

'Then ask him to come in,' said Mr. Falconer.

And Dorothy retired in some confusion. But her lips could not contradict her heart. Harry appeared.

Mr. Falconer. So, Harry, you have been making love in my house, without asking my leave.

Harry Hedgerow. I couldn't help making love, sir; and I didn't ask your leave, because I thought I shouldn't get it.

Mr. Falconer. Candid, as usual, Harry. But do you think Dorothy would make a good farmer's wife?

Harry Hedgerow. I think, sir, she is so good, and so clever, and so ready and willing to turn her hand to anything, that she would be a fit wife for anybody, from a lord downwards. But it may be most for her own happiness to keep in the class in which she was born.

Mr. Falconer. She is not very pretty, you know.

Harry Hedgerow. Not pretty, sir! If she isn't a beauty, I don't know who is.

Mr. Falconer. Well, no doubt, she is a handsome girl.

Harry Hedgerow. Handsome is not the thing, sir. She's beautiful.

Mr. Falconer. Well, Harry, she is beautiful, if that will please you.

Harry Hedgerow. It does please me, sir. I ought to have known you were joking when you said she was not pretty.

Mr. Falconer. But, you know, she has no fortune.

Harry Hedgerow. I don't want fortune. I want her, and nothing else, and nobody else.

Mr. Falconer. But I cannot consent to her marrying without a fortune of her own.

Harry Hedgerow. Why then, I'll give her one beforehand. Father has saved some money, and she shall have that. We'll settle it on her, as the lawyers say.

Mr. Falconer. You are a thoroughly good fellow, Harry, and I really wish Dorothy joy of her choice; but that is not what I meant. She must bring you a fortune, not take one from you; and you must not refuse it.

Harry repeated that he did not want fortune; and Mr. Falconer repeated that, so far as depended on him, he should not have Dorothy without one. It was not an arduous matter to bring to an amicable settlement.

The affair of Harry and Dorothy being thus satisfactorily arranged, the other six were adjusted with little difficulty; and Mr. Falconer returned with a light heart to the Grange, where he presented himself at dinner on the twenty-seventh day of his probation.

He found much the same party as before; for though some of them absented themselves for a while, they could not resist Mr. Gryll's earnest entreaties to return. He was cordially welcomed by all, and with a gracious smile from Morgana.



CHAPTER XXXIV

CHRISTMAS TALES—CLASSICAL TALES OF WONDER—THE HOST'S GHOST—A TALE OF A SHADOW—A TALE OF A BOGLE—THE LEGEND OF ST. LAURA

Jane... We'll draw round The fire, and grandmamma perhaps will tell us One of her stories.

Harry... Ay, dear grand maamma! A pretty story! something dismal now! A bloody murder.

Jane... Or about a ghost.

—Southey: The Grandmother's Fate.

In the evening Miss Gryll said to the doctor, 'We have passed Christmas without a ghost story. This is not as it should be. One evening at least of Christmas ought to be devoted to merveilleuses histoires racontees autour du foyer; which Chateaubriand enumerates among the peculiar enjoyments of those qui n'ont pas quitte leur pays natal. You must have plenty of ghosts in Greek and Latin, doctor.'



The Rev. Dr. Opimian. No doubt. All literature abounds with ghosts. But there are not many classical ghosts that would make a Christmas tale according to the received notion of a ghost story. The ghosts of Patroclus in Homer, of Darius in AEschylus, of Polydorus in Euripides, are fine poetical ghosts: but none of them would make a ghost story. I can only call to mind one such story in Greek: but even that, as it has been turned into ballads by Goethe, in the Bride of Corinth, and by Lewis, in the Gay Gold Ring,{1}

1 Lewis says, in a note on the Gay Gold Ring:—'I once read in some Grecian author, whose name I have forgotten, the story which suggested to me the outline of the foregoing ballad. It was as follows: A young man arriving at the house of a friend, to whose daughter he was betrothed, was informed that some weeks had passed since death had deprived him of his intended bride. Never having seen her, he soon reconciled himself to her loss, especially as, during his stay at his friend's house, a young lady was kind enough to visit him every night in his chamber, whence she retired at daybreak, always carrying with her some valuable present from her lover. This intercourse continued till accident showed the young man the picture of his deceased bride, and he recognised, with horror, the features of his nocturnal visitor. The young lady's tomb being opened, he found in it the various presents which his liberality had bestowed on his unknown innamorata.'—M. G. Lewis: Tales of Wonder, v. i. p. 99.

would not be new to any one here. There are some classical tales of wonder, not ghost stories, but suitable Christmas tales. There are two in Petronius, which I once amused myself by translating as closely as possible to the originals, and, if you please, I will relate them as I remember them. For I hold with Chaucer:

Whoso shall telle a tale after a man, He most reherse, as nigh as ever he can, Everich word, if it be in his charge, All speke he never so rudely and so large: Or elles he moste tellen his tale untrewe, Or feinen things, or finden wordes newe.{1}

1 Canterbury Tales, w. 733-738.

This proposal being received with an unanimous 'By all means, doctor,' the doctor went on:

'These stories are told at the feast of Trimalchio: the first by Niceros, a freedman, one of the guests:

'While I was yet serving, we lived in a narrow street, where now is the house of Gavilla. There, as it pleased the gods, I fell in love with the wife of Terentius, the tavern-keeper—Melissa Tarentiana—many of you knew her, a most beautiful kiss-thrower.'

Miss Gryll. That is an odd term, doctor.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. It relates, I imagine, to some graceful gesture of pantomimic dancing: for beautiful hostesses were often accomplished dancers. Virgil's Copa, which, by the way, is only half panegyrical, gives us, nevertheless, a pleasant picture in this kind It seems to have been one of the great attractions of a Roman tavern: and the host, in looking out for a wife, was probably much influenced by her possession of this accomplishment. The dancing, probably, was of that kind which the moderns call demi-caractere, and was performed in picturesque costume——

The doctor would have gone off in a dissertation on dancing hostesses, but Miss Gryll recalled him to the story, which he continued, in the words of Niceros:

'But, by Hercules, mine was pure love; her manners charmed me, and her friendliness. If I wanted money, if she had earned an as, she gave me a semis. If I had money, I gave it into her keeping. Never was woman more trustworthy. Her husband died at a farm which they possessed in the country. I left no means untried to visit her in her distress; for friends are shown in adversity. It so happened that my master had gone to Capua, to dispose of some cast-off finery. Seizing the opportunity, 1 persuaded a guest of ours to accompany me to the fifth milestone. He was a soldier, strong as Pluto. We set off before cockcrow; the moon shone like day; we passed through a line of tombs. My man began some ceremonies before the pillars. I sat down, singing, and counting the stars. Then, as I looked round to my comrade, he stripped himself, and laid his clothes by the wayside. My heart was in my nose: I could no more move than a dead man. But he walked three times round his clothes, and was suddenly changed into a wolf. Do not think I am jesting. No man's patrimony would tempt me to lie. But, as I had begun to say, as soon as he was changed into a wolf, he set up a long howl, and fled into the woods. I remained awhile, bewildered; then I approached to take up his clothes, but they were turned into stone. Who was dying of fear but I? But I drew my sword, and went on cutting shadows till I arrived at the farm. I entered the narrow way. The life was half boiled out of me; perspiration ran down me like a torrent: my eyes were dead. I could scarcely come to myself. My Melissa began to wonder why I walked so late; "and if you had come sooner," she said, "you might at least have helped us; for a wolf entered the farm and fell on the sheep, tearing them, and leaving them all bleeding. He escaped; but with cause to remember us; for our man drove a spear through his neck." When I heard these things I could not think of sleep; but hurried homeward with the dawn; and when I came to the place where the clothes had been turned into stone, I found nothing but blood.

'When I reached home, my soldier was in bed, lying like an ox, and a surgeon was dressing his neck. I felt that he was a turnskin, and I could never after taste bread with him, not if you would have killed me. Let those who doubt of such things look into them. If I lie, may the wrath of all your Genii fall on me.'

This story being told, Trimalchio, the lord of the feast, after giving his implicit adhesion to it, and affirming the indisputable veracity of Niceros, relates another, as a fact of his own experience.

'While yet I wore long hair, for from a boy I led a Chian life,{1} our little Iphis, the delight of the family, died; by Hercules, a pearl; quick, beautiful, one of ten thousand. While, therefore, his unhappy mother was weeping for him, and we all were plunged in sorrow, suddenly witches came in pursuit of him, as dogs, you may suppose, of a hare. We had then in the house a Cappadocian, tall, brave to audacity, capable of lifting up an angry bull. He boldly, with a drawn sword, rushed out through the gate, having his left hand carefully wrapped up, and drove his sword through a woman's bosom; here as it were; safe be what I touch! We heard a groan; but, assuredly, I will not lie, we did not see the women. But our stout fellow returning, threw himself into bed, and all his body was livid, as if he had been beaten with whips; for the evil hand had touched him. We closed the gate, and resumed our watch over the dead; but when the mother went to embrace the body of her son, she touched it, and found it was only a figure, of which all the interior was straw, no heart, nothing. The witches had stolen away the boy, and left in his place a straw-stuffed image. I ask you—it is impossible not—to believe, that there are women with more than mortal knowledge, nocturnal women, who can make that which is uppermost downmost. But our tall hero after this was never again of his own colour; indeed, after a few days, he died raving.'

1 Free boys wore long hair. A Chian life is a delicate and luxurious life. Trimalchio implies that, though he began life as a slave, he was a pet in the household, and was treated as if he had been free.

'We wondered and believed,' says a guest who heard the story, 'and kissing the table, we implored the nocturnals to keep themselves to themselves, while we were returning from supper.'

Miss Gryll. Those are pleasant stories, doctor; and the peculiar style of the narrators testifies to their faith in their own marvels. Still, as you say, they are not ghost stories.

Lord Curryfin. Shakespeare's are glorious ghosts, and would make good stories, if they were not so familiarly known. There is a ghost much to my mind in Beaumont and Fletcher's Lover's Progress. Cleander has a beautiful wife, Calista, and a friend, Lisander, Calista and Lisander love each other, en tout bien, tout honneur. Lisander, in self-defence and in fair fight, kills a court favourite, and is obliged to conceal himself in the country. Cleander and Dorilaus, Calista's father, travel in search of him. They pass the night at a country inn. The jovial host had been long known to Cleander, who had extolled him to Dorilaus; but on inquiring for him they find he has been dead three weeks. They call for more wine, dismiss their attendants, and sit up alone, chatting of various things, and, among others, of mine host, whose skill on the lute and in singing is remembered and commended by Cleander. While they are talking, a lute is struck within; followed by a song, beginning

'Tis late and cold, stir up the fire,— Sit close, and draw the table nigher: Be merry! and drink wine that's old.

And ending

Welcome, welcome, shall go round, And I shall smile, though underground.

And when the song ceases, the host's ghost enters. They ask him why he appears. He answers, to wait once more on Cleander, and to entreat a courtesy—