Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock

by Thomas Love Peacock

  Mr. Forester was anxious to follow them to their aerial seat, that he might ascertain who they were, which Sir Oran’s precipitation had put it out of his power to do; but Anthelia begged him to return with her immediately to the Castle, assuring him that she thought them already sufficiently punished, and had no apprehension that they would feel tempted again to molest her.

  Sir Oran now opened the chaise-door, and drew out the post-boys by the leg, who, at the beginning of the fray, had concealed themselves from his fury under the seat. Mr. Forester succeeded in rescuing them from Sir Oran, and endeavoured to extract from them information as to their employers: but the boys declared that they knew nothing of them, the chaise having been ordered by a strange man to be in waiting at that place, and the hire paid in advance.

  Anthelia, as she walked homeward, leaning on Mr. Forester’s arm, inquired to what happy accident she was indebted for the timely intervention of himself and Sir Oran Haut-ton. Mr. Forester informed her, that having a great wish to visit the scene which had been the means of introducing him to her acquaintance, he had made Sir Oran understand his desire, and they had accordingly set out together, leaving Mr. Fax at Redrose Abbey, deeply engaged in the solution of a problem in political arithmetic.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE EXCURSION

  ANTHELIA FOUND, FROM what Mr. Forester had said, that she had excited a much greater interest in his mind than she had previously supposed; and she did not dissemble to herself that the interest was reciprocal. The occurrence of the morning, by taking the feeling of safety from her solitary walks, and unhinging her long associations with the freedom and security of her native mountains, gave her an inclination to depart for a time at least from Melincourt Castle; and this inclination, combining with the wish to see more of one who appeared to possess so much intellectual superiority to the generality of mankind, rendered her very flexible to Mrs. Pinmoney’s wishes, when that honourable lady renewed her solicitations to her to join the expedition to Onevote. Anthelia, however, desired that Mr. Hippy might be of the party, and that her going in Sir Telegraph’s carriage should not be construed in any degree into a reception of his addresses. The Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, delighted to carry her point, readily complied with the condition, trusting to the influence of time and intimacy to promote her own wishes and the happiness of her dear nephew.

  Mr. Hippy was so overjoyed at the project, that, in the first ebullitions of his transport, meeting Harry Fell on the landing-place, with a packet of medicine from Dr. Killquick, he seized him by the arm, and made him dance a pas de deux: the packet fell to the earth, and Mr. Hippy, as he whirled old Harry round to the tune of La Belle Laitûre, danced over that which, but for this timely demolition, might have given his heir an opportunity of dancing over him.

  It was accordingly arranged that Sir Telegraph Paxarett, with the ladies and Mr. Hippy, should call on the appointed day at Redrose Abbey for Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran Haut-ton.

  Mr. Derrydown and Mr. O’Scarum were inconsolable on the occasion, notwithstanding Mr. Hippy’s assurance that they should very soon return, and that the hospitality of Melincourt Castle should then be resumed under his supreme jurisdiction. Mr. Derrydown determined to consume the interval at Keswick, in the composition of dismal ballads; and Mr. O’Scarum to proceed to Low-wood Inn, and drown his cares in claret with Major O’Dogskin.

  We shall pass over the interval till the arrival of the eventful day on which Mr. Forester, from the windows of Redrose Abbey, watched the approach of Sir Telegraph’s barouche. The party from Melincourt arrived, as had been concerted, to breakfast; after which, they surveyed the Abbey, and perambulated the grounds. Mr. Forester produced the Abbot’s skull, and took occasion to expatiate very largely on the diminution of the size of mankind; illustrating his theory by quotations and anecdotes from Homer, Herodotus, Arrian, Plutarch, Philostratus, Pausanias, and Solinus Polyhistor. He asked if it were possible that men of such a stature as they have dwindled to in the present age could have erected that that the bodies of those heroes, if they happened to be discovered, were, as was natural, admired and exactly measured. Such a thing happened in Laconia, where the body of Orestes was discovered, and found to be of length seven cubits, that is, ten feet and a half. The story is most pleasantly told by Herodotus, and is to this effect: The Lacedemonians were engaged in a war with the Tegeatae, a people of Arcadia, in which they were unsuccessful. They consulted the oracle at Delphi, what they should do in order to be more successful. The oracle answered ‘That they must bring to Sparta the bones of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon.’ But these bones they could not find, and therefore they sent again to the oracle to inquire where Orestes lay buried. The god answered in hexameter verse, but so obscurely and enigmatically that they could not understand what he meant. They went about inquiring everywhere for the bones of Orestes, till at last a wise man among them, called by Herodotus Liches, found them out, partly by good fortune, and partly by good understanding; for, happening to come one day to a smith’s shop in the country of the Tegeatae, with whom at that time there was a truce and intercourse betwixt the two nations, he looked at the operations of the smith, and seemed to admire them very much; which the smith observing, stopped his work, and, “Stranger,” says he, “you that seem to admire so much the working of iron would have wondered much more if you had seen what I saw lately; for, as I was digging for a well in this court here, I fell upon a coffin that was seven cubits long; but believing that there never were at any time bigger men than the present, I opened the coffin, and found there a dead body as long as the coffin, which having measured I again buried.” Hearing this, the Spartan conjectured that the words of the oracle would apply to a smith’s shop, and to the operations there performed; but taking care not to make this discovery to the smith, he prevailed on him, with much difficulty, to give him a lease of the court; which having obtained, he opened the coffin, and carried the bones to Sparta. After which, says our author, the Spartans were upon every occasion superior in fight to the Tegeatae.’ — Ancient Metaphysics, vol iii p. 146.

  ‘The most of our philosophers at present are, I believe, of the opinion of the smith in Herodotus, who might be excused for having that opinion at a time when perhaps no other heroic body had been discovered. But in later times, I believe there was not the most vulgar man in Greece, who did not believe that those heroes were very much superior, both in mind and body, to the men of after-times. Indeed, they were not considered as mere men, but as something betwixt gods and men, and had heroic honours paid them, which were next to the divine. On the stage they were represented as of extraordinary size, both as to length and breadth; for the actor was not only raised upon very high shoes, which they called cothurns, but he was put into a case that swelled his size prodigiously (and I have somewhere read a very ridiculous story of one of them, who, coming upon the stage, fell and broke his case, so that all the trash with which it stupendous monument of human strength, Stonehenge? in the vicinity of which, he said, a body had been dug up, measuring fourteen feet ten inches in length.

  The barouche bowled off from the Abbey gates, carrying four inside, and eight out; videlicet, the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, Miss Danaretta, Mr. Hippy, and Anthelia, inside; Sir Telegraph Paxarett and Sir Oran Haut-ton on the box, the former with his whip, and the latter with his French horn, in the characters of coachman and guard; Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax in the front of the roof; and Sir Telegraph’s two grooms, with Peter Gray and Harry Fell, behind. Sir Telegraph’s coachman, as the inside of the carriage was occupied, had been left at Melincourt.

  In addition to Sir Telegraph’s travelling library — (which consisted of a single quarto volume, magnificently bound: videlicet, a Greek Pindar, which Sir Telegraph always carried with him; not that he ever read a page of it, but that he thought such a classical inside passenger would be a perpetual vindication of his tethrippharmatelasipedioploctypophilous pursuits), Anthelia and Mr. Forester had taken with them a few of their favourite
authors; for, as the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote was situated almost at the extremity of the kingdom, and as Sir Telegraph’s diurnal stages were necessarily limited, they had both conjectured that the poet’s page, by one

  Made vocal for the amusement of the rest, might furnish an agreeable evening employment in the dearth of conversation. Anthelia also, in compliance with the general desire, had taken her lyre, by which the reader may understand, if he pleases, the harp-lute-guitarj which, whatever be its merit as an instrument, has so unfortunate an appellation, that we cannot think of dislocating our pages with such a cacophonous compound.

  They made but a short stage from Redrose Abbey, and stopped for the first evening at Low-wood Inn, to the great joy of Mr. O’Scarum and Major O’Dogskin. Mr. O’Scarum introduced the Major; and both offered their services to assist Mr. Hippy and Sir Telegraph Paxarett in the council they were holding with the landlady on the eventful subject of dinner. This being arranged, and the hour and minute punctually specified, it was proposed to employ the interval in a little excursion on the lake. The party was distributed in two boats: Sir Telegraph’s grooms rowing the one, and Peter Gray and Harry Fell the other. They rowed to the middle of the lake, and rested on their oars. The sun sank behind the summits of the western mountains: the clouds that, like other mountains, rested motionless above them, crested with the towers and battlements of aerial castles, changed by degrees from fleecy whiteness to the deepest hues of crimson. A solitary cloud, resting on an eastern pinnacle, became tinged with the reflected splendour of the west: the clouds overhead spreading, like a uniform veil of network, through the interstices of which the sky was visible, caught in their turn the radiance, and reflected it on the lake, that lay in its calm expanse like a mirror, imaging with such stillness and accuracy the forms and colours of all around and above it, that it seemed as if the waters were withdrawn by magic, and the boats floated in crimson light between the mountains and the sky.

  The whole party was silent, even the Honourable Mrs.

  Pinmoney, till Mr. O’Scarum entreated Anthelia to sing ‘something neat and characteristic; or a harmony now for three voices, would be the killing thing; eh! Major?’—’ Indeed and it would,’ said Major O’Dogskin; ‘there’s something very soft and pathetic in a cool evening on the water, to sit still doing nothing at all but listening to pretty words and tender melodies.’ And lest the sincerity of his opinion should be questioned, he accompanied it with an emphatical oath, to show that he was in earnest; for which the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney called him to order.

  Major O’Dogskin explained.

  Anthelia, accompanied by Miss Danaretta and Mr. O’Scarum, sang the following

  TERZETTO

  1. Hark! o’er the silent waters stealing, The dash of oars sounds soft and clear:

  Through night’s deep veil, all forms concealing, Nearer it comes, and yet more near.

  2. See! where the long reflection glistens, In you lone tower her watch-light burns:

  3. To hear our distant oars she listens, And, listening, strikes the harp by turns.

  1. The stars are bright, the skies unclouded; No moonbeam shines; no breezes wake.

  Is it my love, in darkness shrouded, Whose dashing oar disturbs the lake?

  2. O haste, sweet maid, the cords unrolling; 1. The holy hermit chides our stay!

  2. 3. Hark! from his lonely islet tolling, His midnight bell shall guide our way.

  Sir Oran Haut-ton now produced his flute, and treated the company with a solo. Another pause succeeded. The contemplative silence was broken by Major O’Dogskin, who began to fidget about in the boat, and drawing his watch from his fob held it up to Mr. Hippy, and asked him if he did not think the partridges would be spoiled? ‘To be sure they will,’ said Mr. Hippy, ‘unless we make the best of our way. Cold comfort this, after all: sharp air and water; — give me a roaring fire and a six-bottle cooper of claret.’

  The oars were dashed into the water, and the fairy reflections of clouds, rocks, woods, and mountains were mingled in the confusion of chaos. The reader will naturally expect that, having two lovers on a lake, we shall not lose the opportunity of throwing the lady into the water, and making the gentleman fish her out; but whether that our Thalia is too veridicous to permit this distortion of facts, or that we think it the more original incident to return them to the shore as dry as they left it, the reader must submit to the disappointment, and be content to see the whole party comfortably seated, without let, hindrance, or molestation, at a very excellent dinner, served up under the judicious inspection of mine hostess of Low-wood.

  The heroes and heroines of Homer used to eat and drink all day till the setting sun; and by dint of industry, contrived to finish that important business by the usual period at which modern beaux and belles begin it — who are, therefore, necessitated, like Penelope, to sit up all night; not, indeed, to destroy the works of the day, for how can nothing be annihilated? This does not apply to all our party, and we hope not to many of our readers.

  CHAPTER XX

  THE SEA-SHORE

  THEY STOPPED THE next evening at a village on the sea-shore. The wind rose in the night, but without rain. Mr. Forester was up before the sun, and descending to the beach, found Anthelia there before him, sitting on a rock, and listening to the dash of the waves, like a Nereid to Triton’s shell.

  Mr. Forester. You are an early riser, Miss Melincourt.

  Anthelia. I always was so. The morning is the infancy of the day, and, like the infancy of life, has health and bloom, and cheerfulness and purity, in a degree unknown to the busy noon, which is the season of care, or the languid evening, which is the harbinger of repose. Perhaps the song of the nightingale is not in itself less cheerful than that of the lark: it is the season of her song that invests it with the character of melancholy. It is the same with the associations of infancy: it is all cheerfulness, all hope: its path is on the flowers of an untried world. The daisy has more beauty in the eye of childhood than the rose in that of maturer life. The spring is the infancy of the year: its flowers are the flowers of promise and the darlings of poetry. The autumn, too, has its flowers; but they are little loved, and little praised: for the associations of autumn are not with ideas of cheerfulness, but

  The nightingale is gay,

  For she can vanquish night,

  Dreaming, she sings of day,

  Notes that make darkness bright.

  But when the refluent gloom

  Saddens the gaps of song,

  We charge on her the dolefulness,

  And call her crazed with wrong. — PATMORE. with yellow leaves and hollow winds, heralds of winter and emblems of dissolution.

  Mr. Forester. These reflections have more in them of the autumn than of the morning. But the mornings of autumn participate in the character of the season.

  Anthelia. They do so; yet even in mists and storms the opening must be always more cheerful than the closing day.

  Mr. Forester. But this morning is fine and clear, and the wind blows over the sea. Yet this, to me at least, is not a cheerful scene.

  Anthelia. Nor to me. But our long habits of association with the sound of the winds and the waters have given them to us a voice of melancholy majesty: a voice not audible by those little children who are playing yonder on the shore. To them all scenes are cheerful. It is the morning of life: it is infancy that makes them so.

  Mr. Forester. Fresh air and liberty are all that is necessary to the happiness of children. In that blissful age ‘when nature’s self is new,’ the bloom of interest and beauty is found alike in every object of perception — in the grass of the meadow, the moss on the rock, and the seaweed on the sand. They find gems and treasures in shells and pebbles; and the gardens of fairyland in the simplest flowers. They have no melancholy associations with autumn or with evening. The falling leaves are their playthings; and the setting sun only tells them that they must go to rest as he does, and that he will light them to their sports in the morn
ing. It is this bloom of novelty, and the pure, unclouded, unvitiated feelings with which it is contemplated, that throw such an unearthly radiance on the scenes of our infancy, however humble in themselves, and give a charm to their recollections which not even Tempe can compensate. It is the force of first impressions. The first meadow in which we gather cowslips, the first stream on which we sail, the first home in which we awake to the sense of human sympathy, have all a peculiar and exclusive charm, which we shall never find again in richer meadows, mightier rivers, and more magnificent dwellings; nor even in themselves, when we revisit them after the lapse of years, and the sad realities of noon have dissipated the illusions of sunrise. It is the same, too, with first love, whatever be the causes that render it unsuccessful: the second choice may have just preponderance in the balance of moral estimation; but the object of first affection, of all the perceptions of our being, will be most divested of the attributes of mortality. The magical associations of infancy are revived with double power in the feelings of first love; but when they too have departed, then, indeed, the light of the morning is gone.