Pelham — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  CHAPTER LVIII.

  Mangez-vous bien, Monsieur? Oui, et bois encore mieux.--Mons. dePorceaugnac.

  My pamphlet took prodigiously. The authorship was attributed to the mosttalented member of the Opposition; and though there were many errors instyle, and (I now think) many sophisms in the reasoning, yet it carriedthe end proposed by all ambition of whatever species--and imposed uponthe taste of the public.

  Sometime afterwards, I was going down the stairs at Almack's, when Iheard an altercation, high and grave, at the door of reception. To mysurprise, I found Lord Guloseton and a very young man in great wrath;the latter had never been to Almack's before, and had forgotten histicket. Guloseton, who belonged to a very different set to that ofthe Almackians, insisted that his word was enough to bear his juvenilecompanion through. The ticket inspector was irate and obdurate, andhaving seldom or ever seen Lord Guloseton himself, paid very littlerespect to his authority.

  As I was wrapping myself in my cloak, Guloseton turned to me, forpassion makes men open their hearts: too eager for an opportunityof acquiring the epicure's acquaintance, I offered to get his friendadmittance in an instant; the offer was delightedly accepted, and I soonprocured a small piece of pencilled paper from Lady--, which effectuallysilenced the Charon, and opened the Stygian via to the Elysium beyond.

  Guloseton overwhelmed me with his thanks. I remounted the stairswith him--took every opportunity of ingratiating myself--received aninvitation to dinner on the following day, and left Willis's transportedat the goodness of my fortune.

  At the hour of eight on the ensuing evening, I had just made my entranceinto Lord Guloseton's drawing-room. It was a small apartment furnishedwith great luxury and some taste. A Venus of Titian's was placed overthe chimney-piece, in all the gorgeous voluptuousness of her unveiledbeauty--the pouting lip, not silent though shut--the eloquent liddrooping over the eye, whose reveille you could so easily imagine--thearms--the limbs--the attitude, so composed, yet so redolent of life--allseemed to indicate that sleep was not forgetfulness, and that the dreamsof the goddess were not wholly inharmonious with the waking realitiesin which it was her gentle prerogative to indulge. On either side, wasa picture of the delicate and golden hues of Claude; these were the onlylandscapes in the room; the remaining pictures were more suitable tothe Venus of the luxurious Italian. Here was one of the beauties of SirPeter Lely; there was an admirable copy of the Hero and Leander. Onthe table lay the Basia of Johannes Secundus, and a few French works onGastronomy.

  As for the genius loci--you must imagine a middle-sized, middle-agedman, with an air rather of delicate than florid health. But little ofthe effects of his good cheer were apparent in the external man. Hischeeks were neither swollen nor inflated--his person, though not thin,was of no unwieldy obesity--the tip of his nasal organ was, it is true,of a more ruby tinge than the rest, and one carbuncle, of tender ageand gentle dyes, diffused its mellow and moonlight influence over thephysiognomical scenery--his forehead was high and bald, and the fewlocks which still rose above it, were carefully and gracefully curled al'antique: Beneath a pair of grey shaggy brows, (which their noble ownerhad a strange habit of raising and depressing, according to the natureof his remarks,) rolled two very small, piercing, arch, restless orbs,of a tender green; and the mouth, which was wide and thick-lipped, wasexpressive of great sensuality, and curved upwards in a perpetual smile.

  Such was Lord Guloseton. To my surprise no other guest but myselfappeared.

  "A new friend," said he, as we descended into the dining-room, "is likea new dish--one must have him all to oneself, thoroughly to enjoy andrightly to understand him."

  "A noble precept," said I, with enthusiasm. "Of all vices,indiscriminate hospitality is the most pernicious. It allows us neitherconversation nor dinner, and realizing the mythological fable ofTantalus, gives us starvation in the midst of plenty."

  "You are right," said Guloseton, solemnly; "I never ask above sixpersons to dinner, and I never dine out; for a bad dinner, Mr. Pelham, abad dinner is a most serious--I may add, the most serious calamity."

  "Yes," I replied, "for it carries with it no consolation: a buriedfriend may be replaced--a lost mistress renewed--a slandered characterbe recovered--even a broken constitution restored; but a dinner, oncelost, is irremediable; that day is for ever departed; an appetite oncethrown away can never, till the cruel prolixity of the gastric agentsis over, be regained. 'Il y a tant de maitresses, (says the admirableCorneille), 'il n'y a qu'un diner.'"

  "You speak like an oracle--like the Cook's Oracle, Mr. Pelham: may Isend you some soup, it is a la Carmelite? But what are you about to dowith that case?"

  "It contains" (said I) "my spoon, my knife, and my fork. Natureafflicted me with a propensity, which through these machines I haveendeavoured to remedy by art. I eat with too great a rapidity. It isa most unhappy failing, for one often hurries over in one minute, whatought to have afforded the fullest delight for the period of five. Itis, indeed, a vice which deadens enjoyment, as well as abbreviates it;it is a shameful waste of the gifts, and a melancholy perversion of thebounty of Providence: my conscience tormented me; but the habit,fatally indulged in early childhood, was not easy to overcome. At lastI resolved to construct a spoon of peculiarly shallow dimensions, a forkso small, that it could only raise a certain portion to my mouth, and aknife rendered blunt and jagged, so that it required a proper and justtime to carve the goods 'the gods provide me.' My lord, 'the lovelyThais sits beside me' in the form of a bottle of Madeira. Suffer me totake wine with you?"

  "With pleasure, my good friend; let us drink to the memory of theCarmelites, to whom we are indebted for this inimitable soup."

  "Yes!" I cried. "Let us for once shake off the prejudices of sectarianfaith, and do justice to one order of those incomparable men, who,retiring from the cares of an idle and sinful world, gave themselveswith undivided zeal and attention to the theory and practice of theprofound science of gastronomy. It is reserved for us, my lord, to paya grateful tribute of memory to those exalted recluses, who, througha long period of barbarism and darkness, preserved, in the solitude oftheir cloisters, whatever of Roman luxury and classic dainties have comedown to this later age. We will drink to the Carmelites at a sect, butwe will drink also to the monks as a body. Had we lived in those days,we had been monks ourselves."

  "It is singular," answered Lord Guloseton--"(by the by, what think youof this turbot?)--to trace the history of the kitchen; it affords thegreatest scope to the philosopher and the moralist. The ancients seemedto have been more mental, more imaginative, than we are in theirdishes; they fed their bodies as well as their minds upon delusion: forinstance, they esteemed beyond all price the tongues of nightingales,because they tasted the very music of the birds in the organs of theirutterance. That is what I call the poetry of gastronomy!"

  "Yes," said I, with a sigh, "they certainly had, in some respects, theadvantage over us. Who can pore over the suppers of Apicius withoutthe fondest regret? The venerable Ude [Note: Q.--The venerableBede--Printer's Devil.] implies, that the study has not progressed.'Cookery (he says, in the first part of his work) possesses but fewinnovators.'"

  "It is with the greatest diffidence," said Guloseton, (his mouth fullof truth and turbot,) "that we may dare to differ from so great anauthority. Indeed, so high is my veneration for that wise man, that ifall the evidence of my sense and reason were on one side, and the dictumof the great Ude upon the other, I should be inclined--I think, I shouldbe determined--to relinquish the former, and adopt the latter." [Note:See the speech of Mr. Brougham in honour of Mr. Fox.]

  "Bravo, my lord," cried I, warmly. "'Qu'un Cuisinier est un morteldivin!' Why should we not be proud of our knowledge in cookery? It isthe soul of festivity at all times, and to all ages. How many marriageshave been the consequence of meeting at dinner? How much good fortunehas been the result of a good supper? At what moment of our existenceare we happier than at table? There hatred and animosity are lulledto sleep, and pleasure alone reigns. Her
e the cook, by his skill andattention, anticipates our wishes in the happiest selection of the bestdishes and decorations. Here our wants are satisfied, our minds andbodies invigorated, and ourselves qualified for the high delights oflove, music, poetry, dancing, and other pleasures; and is he, whosetalents have produced these happy effects, to rank no higher in thescale of man than a common servant? [Note: Ude, verbatim.]

  "'Yes,' cries the venerable professor himself, in a virtuous andprophetic paroxysm of indignant merit--'yes, my disciples, if you adopt,and attend to the rules I have laid down, the self-love of mankind willconsent at last, that cookery shall rank in the class of the sciences,and its professors deserve the name of artists!'" [Note: Ibid.]

  "My dear, dear Sir," exclaimed Guloseton, with a kindred glow, "Idiscover in you a spirit similar to my own. Let us drink long life tothe venerable Ude!"

  "I pledge you, with all my soul," said I, filling my glass to the brim.

  "What a pity," rejoined Guloseton, "that Ude, whose practical sciencewas so perfect, should ever have written, or suffered others to write,the work published under his name; true it is that the opening partwhich you have so feelingly recited, is composed with a grace, a charmbeyond the reach of art; but the instructions are vapid, and frequentlyso erroneous, as to make me suspect their authenticity; but, afterall, cooking is not capable of becoming a written science--it is thephilosophy of practice!"

  "Ah! by Lucullus," exclaimed I, interrupting my host, "what a visionarybechamelle! Oh, the inimitable sauce; these chickens are indeed worthyof the honour of being dressed. Never, my lord, as long as you live, eata chicken in the country; excuse a pun, you will have foul fare."

  "'J'ai toujours redoute la volaille perfide, Qui brave les effortsd'une dent intrepide; Souvent par un ami, dans ses champs entraine.J'ai reconnu le soir le coq infortune Qui m'avait le matin a l'aurorenaissante Reveille brusquement de sa voix glapissante; Je l'avais admiredans le sein de la cour, Avec des yeux jaloux, j'avais vu son amour.Helas! la malheureux, abjurant sa tendresse, Exercait a souper sa fureurvengeresse.'

  "Pardon the prolixity of my quotation for the sake of its value."

  "I do, I do," answered Guloseton, laughing at the humour of the lines:till, suddenly checking himself, he said, "we must be grave, Mr. Pelham,it will never do to laugh. What would become of our digestions?"

  "True," said I, relapsing into seriousness; "and if you will allow meone more quotation, you will see what my author adds with regard to anyabrupt interruption.

  "'Defendez que personne au milieu d'un banquet, Ne vous vienne donnerun avis indiscret, Ecartez ce facheux qui vers vous s'achemine, Rien nedoit deranger l'honnete homme qui dine."

  "Admirable advice," said Guloseton, toying with a filet mignon depoulet. "Do you remember an example in the Bailly of Suffren, who, beingin India, was waited upon by a deputation of natives while he was atdinner. 'Tell them,' said he, 'that the Christian religion peremptorilyforbids every Christian, while at table, to occupy himself with anyearthly subject, except the function of eating.' The deputation retiredin the profoundest respect at the exceeding devotion of the Frenchgeneral."

  "Well," said I, after we had chuckled gravely and quietly, with the careof our digestion before us, for a few minutes--"well, however good theinvention was, the idea is not entirely new, for the Greeks esteemedeating and drinking plentifully, a sort of offering to the gods; andAristotle explains the very word, THoinai, or feasts, by an etymologicalexposition, 'that it was thought a duty to the gods to be drunk;' nobad idea of our classical patterns of antiquity. Polypheme, too, inthe Cyclops of Euripides, no doubt a very sound theologian, says, hisstomach is his only deity; and Xenophon tells us, that as the Atheniansexceeded all other people in the number of their gods, so they exceededthem also in the number of their feasts. May I send your lordship anortolan?"

  "Pelham, my boy," said Guloseton, whose eyes began to roll and twinklewith a brilliancy suited to the various liquids which ministered totheir rejoicing orbs; "I love you for your classics. Polypheme was awise fellow, a very wise fellow, and it was a terrible shame in Ulyssesto put out his eye. No wonder that the ingenious savage made a deityof his stomach; to what known and visible source, on this earth, was heindebted for a keener enjoyment--a more rapturous and a more constantdelight? No wonder he honoured it with his gratitude, and supplied itwith his peace-offerings;--let us imitate so great an example:--let usmake our digestive receptacles a temple, to which we will consecrate thechoicest goods we possess;--let us conceive no pecuniary sacrifice toogreat, which procures for our altar an acceptable gift;--let us deem itan impiety to hesitate, if a sauce seems extravagant, or an ortolantoo dear; and let our last act in this sublunary existence, be a solemnfestival in honour of our unceasing benefactor."

  "Amen to your creed," said I: "edibilatory Epicurism holds the key toall morality: for do we not see now how sinful it is to yield to anobscene and exaggerated intemperance?--would it not be to the lastdegree ungrateful to the great source of our enjoyment, to overload itwith a weight which would oppress it with languor, or harass it withpain; and finally to drench away the effects of our impiety with somenauseous potation which revolts it, tortures it, convulses, irritates,enfeebles it, through every particle of its system? How wrong in us togive way to anger, jealousy, revenge, or any evil passion; for does notall that affects the mind operate also upon the stomach; and how can webe so vicious, so obdurate, as to forget, for a momentary indulgence,our debt to what you have so justly designated our perpetualbenefactor?"

  "Right," said Lord Guloseton, "a bumper to the morality of the stomach."

  The desert was now on the table. "I have dined well," said Guloseton,stretching his legs with an air of supreme satisfaction; "but--" andhere my philosopher sighed deeply--"we cannot dine again till to-morrow!Happy, happy, happy common people, who can eat supper! Would to Heaven,that I might have one boon--perpetual appetite--a digestive Houri,which renewed its virginity every time it was touched. Alas! for theinstability of human enjoyment. But now that we have no immediate hopeto anticipate, let us cultivate the pleasures of memory. What thoughtyou of the veau a la Dauphine?"

  "Pardon me if I hesitate at giving my opinion, till I have corrected myjudgment by yours."

  "Why, then, I own I was somewhat displeased--disappointed as itwere--with that dish; the fact is, veal ought to be killed in its veryfirst infancy; they suffer it to grow to too great an age. It becomes asort of hobbydehoy, and possesses nothing of veal, but its insipidity,or of beef, but its toughness."

  "Yes," said I, "it is only in their veal, that the French surpass us;their other meats want the ruby juices and elastic freshness of ours.Monsieur L--allowed this truth, with a candour worthy of his vast mind.Mon Dieu! what claret!--what a body! and, let me add, what a soul,beneath it! Who would drink wine like this? it is only made to taste. Itis like first love--too pure for the eagerness of enjoyment; the raptureit inspires is in a touch, a kiss. It is a pity, my lord, that we donot serve perfumes at dessert: it is their appropriate place. Inconfectionary (delicate invention of the Sylphs,) we imitate the formsof the rose and the jessamine; why not their odours too? What is naturewithout its scents?--and as long as they are absent from our desserts,it is in vain that the Bard exclaims, that--

  "'L'observateur de la belle Nature, S'extasie en voyant des fleurs enconfiture.'"

  "It is an exquisite idea of yours," said Guloseton--"and the next timeyou dine here, we will have perfumes. Dinner ought to be a reunion ofall the senses--

  "'Gladness to the ear, nerve, heart, and sense.'"

  There was a momentary pause. "My lord," said I, "what a lustylusciousness in this pear! it is like the style of the old Englishpoets. What think you of the seeming good understanding between Mr.Gaskell and the Whigs?"

  "I trouble myself little about it," replied Guloseton, helping himselfto some preserves--"politics disturb the digestion."

  "Well," thought I, "I must ascertain some point in this man's charactereasier to handle than
his epicurism: all men are vain: let us find outthe peculiar vanity of mine host."

  "The Tories," said I, "seem to think themselves exceedingly secure; theyattach no importance to the neutral members; it was but the other day,Lord--told me that he did not care a straw for Mr.--, notwithstanding hepossessed four votes. Heard you ever such arrogance?"

  "No, indeed," said Golouston, with a lazy air of indifference--"are youa favourer of the olive?"

  "No," said I, "I love it not; it hath an under taste of sourness, andan upper of oil, which do not make harmony to my palate. But, as I wassaying, the Whigs, on the contrary, pay the utmost deference to theirpartizans; and a man of fortune, rank, and parliamentary influence,might have all the power without the trouble of a leader."

  "Very likely," said Guloseton, drowsily.

  "I must change my battery," thought I; but while I was meditating a newattack, the following note was brought me:--

  "For God's sake, Pelham, come out to me: I am waiting in the street tosee you; come directly, or it will be too late to render me the serviceI would ask of you.

  "R. Glanville."

  I rose instantly. "You must excuse me, Lord Guloseton, I am calledsuddenly away."

  "Ha! ha!" laughed the gourmand; "some tempting viand--post prandiaCallirhoe."

  "My good lord," said I, not heeding his insinuation--"I leave you withthe greatest regret."

  "And I part from you with the same; it is a real pleasure to see such aperson at dinner."

  "Adieu! my host--'Je vais vivre et manger en sage.'"