24
I think I should have made a decent spouse
If I had never proved the soft condition.
I think I should have made monastic vows
But for my own peculiar superstition.
’Gainst rhyme I never should have knocked my brows
Nor broken my own head nor that of Priscian
Nor worn the motley mantle of a poet
If someone had not told me to forego it.
25
But laissez aller; knights and dames I sing,
Such as the times may furnish. ’Tis a flight
Which seems at first to need no lofty wing,
Plumed by Longinus or the Stagyrite.
The difficulty lies in colouring
(Keeping the due proportions still in sight)
With Nature manners which are artificial,
And rendering general that which is especial.
26
The difference is that in the days of old
Men made the manners; manners now make men,
Pinned like a flock and fleeced too in their fold,
At least nine, and a ninth beside, of ten.
Now this at all events must render cold
Your writers, who must either draw again
Days better drawn before or else assume
The present with their commonplace costume.
27
We’ll do our best to make the best on’t. March,
March, my Muse! If you cannot fly, yet flutter,
And when you may not be sublime, be arch
Or starch, as are the edicts statesmen utter.
We surely shall find something worth research.
Columbus found a new world in a cutter
Or brigantine or pink of no great tonnage,
While yet America was in her nonage.
28
When Adeline, in all her growing sense
Of Juan’s merits and his situation,
Felt on the whole an interest intense,
Partly perhaps because a fresh sensation
Or that he had an air of innocence,
Which is for innocence a sad temptation
(As women hate half measures on the whole),
She ’gan to ponder how to save his soul.
29
She had a good opinion of advice,
Like all who give and eke receive it gratis,
For which small thanks are still the market price,
Even where the article at highest rate is.
She thought upon the subject twice or thrice
And morally decided the best state is
For morals marriage; and this question carried,
She seriously advised him to get married.
30
Juan replied with all becoming deference,
He had a predilection for that tie,
But that at present with immediate reference
To his own circumstances, there might lie
Some difficulties, as in his own preference
Or that of her to whom he might apply,
That still he’d wed with such or such a lady,
If that they were not married all already.
31
Next to the making matches for herself
And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith or kin,
Arranging them like books on the same shelf,
There’s nothing women love to dabble in
More (like a stockholder in growing pelf)
Than matchmaking in general. ’Tis no sin
Certes, but a preventative, and therefore
That is no doubt the only reason wherefore.
32
But never yet (except of course a miss
Unwed or mistress never to be wed
Or wed already, who object to this)
Was there chaste dame who had not in her head
Some drama of the marriage unities,
Observed as strictly both at board and bed
As those of Aristotle, though sometimes
They turn out melodrames or pantomimes.
33
They generally have some only son,
Some heir to a large property, some friend
Of an old family, some gay Sir John
Or grave Lord George, with whom perhaps might end
A line and leave posterity undone,
Unless a marriage was applied to mend
The prospect and their morals; and besides,
They have at hand a blooming glut of brides.
34
From these they will be careful to select
For this an heiress and for that a beauty,
For one a songstress who hath no defect,
For t’other one who promises much duty,
For this a lady no one can reject,
Whose sole accomplishments were quite a booty,
A second for her excellent connexions,
A third because there can be no objections.
35
When Rapp the Harmonist embargoed marriage
In his harmonious settlement (which flourishes
Strangely enough as yet without miscarriage,
Because it breeds no more mouths than it nourishes,
Without those sad expenses which disparage
What Nature naturally most encourages),
Why called he ‘Harmony’ a state sans wedlock?
Now here I have got the preacher at a deadlock,
36
Because he either meant to sneer at harmony
Or marriage by divorcing them thus oddly.
But whether reverend Rapp learned this in Germany
Or no, ’tis said his sect is rich and godly,
Pious and pure, beyond what I can term any
Of ours, although they propagate more broadly.
My objection’s to his title, not his ritual,
Although I wonder how it grew habitual.
37
But Rapp is the reverse of zealous matrons,
Who favour, malgré Malthus, generation –
Professors of that genial art and patrons
Of all the modest part of propagation,
Which after all at such a desperate rate runs
That half its produce tends to emigration,
That sad result of passions and potatoes;
Two weeds which pose our economic Catos.
38
Had Adeline read Malthus? I can’t tell.
I wish she had; his book’s the eleventh commandment,
Which says, ‘thou shalt not marry’, unless well.
This he (as far as I can understand) meant.
’Tis not my purpose on his views to dwell
Nor canvass what ‘so eminent a hand’ meant,
But certes it conducts to lives ascetic,
Or turning marriage into arithmetic.
39
But Adeline, who probably presumed
That Juan had enough of maintenance,
Or separate maintenance, in case ’twas doomed,
As on the whole it is an even chance
That bridegrooms, after they are fairly groomed,
May retrograde a little in the dance
Of marriage (which might form a painter’s fame,
Like Holbein’s Dance of Death, but ’tis the same) –
40
But Adeline determined Juan’s wedding
In her own mind, and that’s enough for woman.
But then with whom? There was the sage Miss Reading,
Miss Raw, Miss Flaw, Miss Showman, and Miss Knowman,
And the two fair coheiresses Giltbedding.
She deemed his merits something more than common.
All these were unobjectionable matches
And might go on, if well wound up, like watches.
41
There was Miss Millpond, smooth as summer’s sea,
That usual paragon, an only daughter,
Who seemed the c
ream of equanimity,
Till skimmed, and then there was some milk and water
With a slight shade of blue too it might be
Beneath the surface, but what did it matter?
Love’s riotous, but marriage should have quiet,
And being consumptive, live on a milk diet.
42
And then there was the Miss Audacia Shoestring,
A dashing demoiselle of good estate,
Whose heart was fixed upon a star or bluestring,
But whether English dukes grew rare of late
Or that she had not harped upon the true string,
By which such sirens can attract our great,
She took up with some foreign younger brother,
A Russ or Turk – the one’s as good as t’other.
43
And then there was – but why should I go on,
Unless the ladies should go off – there was
Indeed a certain fair and fairy one
Of the best class and better than her class,
Aurora Raby, a young star who shone
O’er life, too sweet an image for such glass,
A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded,
44
Rich, noble, but an orphan, left an only
Child to the care of guardians good and kind,
But still her aspect had an air so lonely!
Blood is not water; and where shall we find
Feelings of youth like those which overthrown lie
By death, when we are left, alas, behind
To feel in friendless palaces a home
Is wanting and our best ties in the tomb?
45
Early in years and yet more infantine
In figure, she had something of sublime
In eyes which sadly shone, as seraphs’ shine.
All youth but with an aspect beyond time,
Radiant and grave, as pitying man’s decline,
Mournful, but mournful of another’s crime,
She looked as if she sat by Eden’s door
And grieved for those who could return no more.
46
She was a Catholic too, sincere, austere,
As far as her own gentle heart allowed,
And deemed that fallen worship far more dear
Perhaps because ’twas fallen. Her sires were proud
Of deeds and days when they had filled the ear
Of nations and had never bent or bowed
To novel power; and as she was the last,
She held their old faith and old feelings fast.
47
She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew,
As seeking not to know it. Silent, lone,
As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew
And kept her heart serene within its zone.
There was awe in the homage which she drew;
Her spirit seemed as seated on a throne
Apart from the surrounding world and strong
In its own strength, most strange in one so young.
48
Now it so happened in the catalogue
Of Adeline, Aurora was omitted,
Although her birth and wealth had given her vogue
Beyond the charmers we have already cited.
Her beauty also seemed to form no clog
Against her being mentioned as well fitted
By many virtues to be worth the trouble
Of single gentlemen who would be double.
49
And this omission, like that of the bust
Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius,
Made Juan wonder, as no doubt he must.
This he expressed half smiling and half serious;
When Adeline replied with some disgust
And with an air, to say the least, imperious,
She marvelled what he saw in such a baby
As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby?
50
Juan rejoined, ‘She was a Catholic
And therefore fittest as of his persuasion,
Since he was sure his mother would fall sick,
And the Pope thunder excommunication
If –’ But here Adeline, who seemed to pique
Herself extremely on the inoculation
Of others with her own opinions, stated
As usual the same reason which she late did.
51
And wherefore not? A reasonable reason
If good is none the worse for repetition;
If bad, the best way’s certainly to tease on
And amplify. You lose much by concision,
Whereas insisting in or out of season
Convinces all men, even a politician,
Or – what is just the same – it wearies out.
So the end’s gained, what signifies the route?
52
Why Adeline had this slight prejudice,
For prejudice it was, against a creature
As pure as sanctity itself from vice,
With all the added charm of form and feature,
For me appears a question far too nice,
Since Adeline was liberal by nature;
But nature’s nature and has more caprices
Than I have time, or will, to take to pieces.
53
Perhaps she did not like the quiet way
With which Aurora on those baubles looked,
Which charm most people in their earlier day
For there are few things by mankind less brooked,
And womankind too if we so may say,
Than finding thus their genius stand rebuked,
Like ‘Anthony’s by Caesar’, by the few
Who look upon them as they ought to do.
54
It was not envy; Adeline had none.
Her place was far beyond it, and her mind.
It was not scorn, which could not light on one
Whose greatest fault was leaving few to find.
It was not jealousy, I think, but shun
Following the ignes fatui of mankind.
It was not – but ’tis easier far, alas,
To say what it was not than what it was.
55
Little Aurora deemed she was the theme
Of such discussion. She was there a guest,
A beauteous ripple of the brilliant stream
Of rank and youth, though purer than the rest,
Which flowed on for a moment in the beam
Time sheds a moment o’er each sparkling crest.
Had she known this, she would have calmly smiled,
She had so much, or little, of the child.
56
The dashing and proud air of Adeline
Imposed not upon her. She saw her blaze
Much as she would have seen a glow-worm shine,
Then turned unto the stars for loftier rays.
Juan was something she could not divine,
Being no sibyl in the new world’s ways,
Yet she was nothing dazzled by the meteor,
Because she did not pin her faith on feature.
57
His fame too, for he had that kind of fame
Which sometimes plays the deuce with womankind,
A heterogeneous mass of glorious blame,
Half virtues and whole vices being combined:
Faults which attract because they are not tame,
Follies tricked out so brightly that they blind.
These seals upon her wax made no impression;
Such was her coldness or her self-possession.
58
Juan knew nought of such a character,
High, yet resembling not his lost Haidée;
Yet each was radiant in her proper sphere.
The island girl, bred up by the lone sea,
More warm, as lovely, and not less sincere,
Wa
s Nature’s all. Aurora could not be
Nor would be thus. The difference in them
Was such as lies between a flower and gem.
59
Having wound up with this sublime comparison,
Methinks we may proceed upon our narrative,
And as my friend Scott says, ‘I sound my warison.’
Scott, the superlative of my comparative,
Scott, who can paint your Christian knight or Saracen,
Serf, lord, man with such skill as none would share it if
There had not been one Shakespeare and Voltaire,
Of one or both of whom he seems the heir.
60
I say, in my slight way I may proceed
To play upon the surface of humanity.
I write the world nor care if the world read;
At least for this I cannot spare its vanity.
My Muse hath bred and still perhaps may breed
More foes by this same scroll. When I began it, I
Thought that it might turn out so; now I know it,
But still I am, or was, a pretty poet.
61
The conference or congress (for it ended
As congresses of late do) of the Lady
Adeline and Don Juan rather blended
Some acids with the sweets, for she was heady;
But ere the matter could be marred or mended,
The silvery bell rung, not for ‘dinner ready’,
But for that hour, called ‘half-hour’, given to dress,
Though ladies’ robes seem scant enough for less.
62
Great things were now to be achieved at table
With massy plate for armour, knives and forks
For weapons; but what Muse since Homer’s able
(His feasts are not the worst part of his works)
To draw up in array a single day-bill
Of modern dinners, where more mystery lurks
In soups or sauces or a sole ragout
Than witches, bitches, or physicians brew?
63
There was a goodly soupe à la bonne femme,
Though God knows whence it came from; there was too
A turbot for relief of those who cram,
Relieved with dindon à la Périgueux;
There also was (The sinner that I am!
How shall I get this gourmand stanza through?)
Soupe à la Beauveau, whose relief was dory,
Relieved itself by pork for greater glory.
64
But I must crowd all into one grand mess
Or mass, for should I stretch into detail,
My Muse would run much more into excess
Than when some squeamish people deem her frail.
But though a bonne-vivante, I must confess
Her stomach’s not her peccant part. This tale
However doth require some slight refection
Just to relieve her spirits from dejection.
65
Fowls à la Condé, slices eke of salmon
Don Juan Page 51