Pensa che questo di mai non raggiorna!
Anthelia. If this be so, let me never be the object of a second choice: let me never love, or love but once.
Mr. Forester. The object of a second choice you cannot be with any one who will deserve your love; for to have loved any other woman, would show a heart too lightly captivated to be worthy of yours. The only mind that can deserve to love you is one that would never have known love if it never had known you.
Anthelia and Mr. Forester were both so unfashionably sincere, that they would probably, in a very few minutes, have confessed to each other more than they had till that morning, perhaps, confessed to themselves, but that their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hippy fuming for his breakfast, accompanied by Sir Telegraph cracking his whip, and Sir Oran blowing the réveillée on his French horn.
‘So ho!’ exclaimed Sir Telegraph; ‘Achilles and Thetis, I protest, consulting on the sea-shore.’
Anthelia. Do you mean to say, Sir Telegraph, that I am old enough to be Mr. Forester’s mother?
Sir Telegraph Paxarett. No, no; that is no part of the comparison; but we are the ambassadors of Agamemnon (videlicet, Mr. Fax, whom we left very busily arranging the urns, not of lots by the bye, but of tea and coffee); here is old Phoenix on one side of me, and Ajax on the other.
Mr. Forester. And you of course are the wise Ulysses.
Sir Telegraph Paxarett. There the simile fails again. Comparatio non urgenda, as I think Heyne used to say, before I was laughed out of reading at College.
Mr. Forester. You should have found me too, if you call me Achilles, solacing my mind with music,; but, to make amends for the deficiency, you have brought me a musical Ajax.
Sir Telegraph Paxarett. You have no reason to wish even for the golden lyre of my old friend Pindar himself: you have been listening to the music of the winds and the waters, and to what is more than music, the voice of Miss Melincourt.
Mr. Hippy. And there is a very pretty concert waiting for you at the inn — the tinkling of cups and spoons, and the divine song of the tea-urn.
CHAPTER XXI
THE CITY OF NOVOTE
ON THE EVENING of the tenth day the barouche rattled triumphantly into the large and populous city of Novote, which was situated at a short distance from the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote. The city contained fifty thousand inhabitants, and had no representative in the Honourable House, the deficiency being virtually supplied by the two members for Onevote; who, having no affairs to attend to for the borough, or rather the burgess, that did return them, were supposed to have more leisure for those of the city which did not; a system somewhat analogous to that which the learned author of Hermes calls a method of supply by negation.
Sir Oran signalised his own entrance by playing on his French horn, See the conquering hero comes! Bells were ringing, ale was flowing, mobs were huzzaing, and it seemed as if the inhabitants of the large and populous city were satisfied of the truth of the admirable doctrine, that the positive representation of one individual is a virtual representation of fifty thousand. They found afterwards that all this festivity had been set in motion by Sir Oran’s brother candidate, Simon Sarcastic, Esq., to whom we shall shortly introduce our readers.
The barouche stopped at the door of a magnificent inn, and the party was welcomed with some scores of bows from the whole corps dhôtel, with the fat landlady in the van, and Boots in the rear. They were shown into a splendid apartment, a glorious fire was kindled in a minute, and while Mr. Hippy looked over the bill of fare, and followed mine hostess to inspect the state of the larder, Sir Telegraph proceeded to peel, and emerged from his four benjamins, like a butterfly from its chrysalis.
After dinner they formed, as usual, a semicircle round the fire, with the table in front supported by Mr. Hippy and Sir Telegraph Paxarett.
‘Now this,’ said Sir Telegraph, rubbing his hands, ’is what I call devilish comfortable after a cold day’s drive — an excellent inn, a superb fire, charming company, and better wine than has fallen to our lot since we left Melincourt Castle.’
The waiter had picked up from the conversation at dinner that one of the destined members for Onevote was in the company; and communicated this intelligence to Mr. Sarcastic, who was taking his solitary bottle in another apartment. Mr. Sarcastic sent his compliments to Sir Oran Hautton, and hoped he would allow his future colleague the honour of being admitted to join his party. Mr. Hippy, Mr. Forester, and Sir Telegraph, undertook to answer for Sir Oran, who was silent on the occasion: Mr. Sarcastic was introduced, and took his seat in the semicircle.
Sir Telegraph Paxarett. Your future colleague, Mr. Sarcastic, is a man of few words but he will join in a bumper to your better acquaintance. (The collision of glasses ensued between Sir Oran and Mr. Sarcastic.)
Mr. Sarcastic. I am proud of the opportunity of this introduction. The day after to-morrow is fixed for the election. I have made some preparations to give a little éclat to the affair, and have begun by intoxicating half the city of Novote, so that we shall have a great crowd at the scene of election, whom I intend to harangue from the hustings, on the great benefits and blessings of virtual representation.
Mr. Forester. I shall, perhaps, take the opportunity of addressing them also, but with a different view of the subject.
Mr. Sarcastic. Perhaps our views of the subject are not radically different, and the variety is in the mode of treatment. In my ordinary intercourse with the world I reduce practice to theory; it is a habit, I believe, peculiar to myself, and a source of inexhaustible amusement.
Sir Telegraph Paxarett. Fill and explain.
Mr. Sarcastic. Nothing, you well know, is so rare as the coincidence of theory and practice. A man who ‘will go through fire and water to serve a friend’ in words, will not give five guineas to save him from famine. A poet will write Odes to Independence, and become the obsequious parasite of any great man who will hire him. A burgess will hold up one hand for purity of election, while the price of his own vote is slily dropped into the other. I need not accumulate instances.
Mr. Forester. You would find it difficult, I fear, to adduce many to the contrary.
Mr. Sarcastic. This then is my system. I ascertain the practice of those I talk to, and present it to them as from myself, in the shape of theory; the consequence of which is, that I am universally stigmatised as a promulgator of rascally doctrines. Thus I said to Sir Oliver Oilcake, ‘When I get into Parliament I intend to make the sale of my vote as notorious as the sun at noonday. I will have no rule of right, but my own pocket. I will support every measure of every administration, even if they ruin half the nation for the purpose of restoring the Great Lama, or of subjecting twenty millions of people to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at the pleasure of the man-milliner of Mahomet’s mother. I will have shiploads of turtle and rivers of Madeira for myself, if I send the whole swinish multitude to draff and husks.’ Sir Oliver flew into a rage, and swore he would hold no further intercourse with a man who maintained such infamous principles.
Mr. Hippy. Pleasant enough, to show a man his own picture, and make him damn the ugly rascal.
Mr. Sarcastic. I said to Miss Pennylove, whom I knew to be laying herself out for a good match, ‘When my daughter becomes of marriageable age, I shall commission Christie to put her up to auction, “the highest bidder to be the buyer; and if any dispute arise between two or more bidders, the lot to be put up again and resold.” Miss Pennylove professed herself utterly amazed and indignant that any man, and a father especially, should imagine a scheme so outrageous to the dignity and delicacy of the female mind.
The Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney and Miss Danaretta. A most horrid idea certainly.
Mr. Sarcastic. The fact, my dear ladies, the fact; how stands the fact? Miss Pennylove afterwards married a man old enough to be her grandfather, for no other reason but because he was rich; and broke the heart of a very worthy friend of mine, to whom she had been previously engaged, who
had no fault but the folly of loving her, and was quite rich enough for all purposes of matrimonial happiness. How the dignity and delicacy of such a person could have been affected, if the preliminary negotiation with her hobbling Strephon had been conducted through the instrumentality of honest Christie’s hammer, I cannot possibly imagine.
Mr. Hippy. Nor I, I must say. All the difference is in the form, and not in the fact. It is a pity that form does not come into fashion; it would save a world of trouble.
Mr. Sarcastic. I irreparably offended the Reverend Doctor Vorax by telling him, that having a nephew, whom I wished to shine in the church, I was on the look-out for a luminous butler, and a cook of solid capacity, under whose joint tuition he might graduate. ‘Who knows,’ said I, ‘but he may immortalise himself at the University, by giving his name to a pudding?’ — I lost the acquaintance of Mrs. Cullender, by saying to her, when she had told me a piece of gossip as a very particular secret, that there was nothing so agreeable to me as to be in possession of a secret, for I made a point of telling it to all my acquaintance;
Intrusted under solemn vows,
Of Mum, and Silence, and the Rose,
To be retailed again in whispers,
For the easy credulous to disperse.
Mrs. Cullender left me in great wrath, protesting she would never again throw away her confidence on so leaky a vessel.
Sir Telegraph Paxarett. Ha! ha! ha! Bravo! Come, a bumper to Mrs. Cullender.
Mr. Sarcastic. With all my heart; and another if you please to Mr. Christopher Corporate, the free, fat, and dependent burgess of Onevote, of which ‘plural unit’ the Honourable Baronet and myself are to be the joint representatives. (Sir Oran Haut-ton bowed.)
Mr. Hippy. And a third, by all means, to his Grace the Duke of Rottenburgh.
Mr. Sarcastic. And a fourth, to crown all, to the blessings of virtual representation, which I shall endeavour to impress on as many of the worthy citizens of Novote as shall think fit to be present, the day after to-morrow, at the proceedings of the borough of Onevote.
Sir Telegraph Paxarett. And now for tea and coffee. Touch the bell for the waiter.
The bottles and glasses vanished, and the beautiful array of urns and cups succeeded. Sir Telegraph and Mr. Hippy seceded from the table, and resigned their stations to Mrs and Miss Pinmoney.
Mr. Forester. Your system is sufficiently amusing, but I much question its utility. The object of moral censure is reformation, and its proper vehicle is plain and fearless sincerity: VERBA ANIMI PROFERRE, ET VITAM IMPENDERE VERO.
Mr. Sarcastic. I tried that in my youth, when I was troubled with the passion for reforming the world; of which I have been long cured by the conviction of the inefficacy of moral theory with respect to producing a practical change in the mass of mankind. Custom is the pillar round which opinion twines, and interest is the tie that binds it. It is not by reason that practical change can be effected, but by making a puncture to the quick in the feelings of personal hope and personal fear. The Reformation in England is one of the supposed triumphs of reason. But if the passions of Henry the Eighth had not been interested in that measure, he would as soon have built mosques as pulled down abbeys; and you will observe that, in all cases, reformation never goes as far as reason requires, but just as far as suits the personal interest of those who conduct it. Place Temperance and Bacchus side by side, in an assembly of jolly fellows, and endow the first with the most powerful eloquence that mere reason can give, with the absolute moral force of mathematical demonstration, Bacchus need not take the trouble of refuting one of her arguments; he will only have to say, ‘Come, my boys, here’s Damn Temperance in a bumper,’ and you may rely on the toast being drunk with an unanimous three times three.
(At the sound of the word bumper, with which Captain Hawltaught had made him very familiar, Sir Oran Haut-ton looked round for his glass, but, finding it vanished, comforted himself with a dish of tea from the fair hand of Miss Danaretta, which, as his friend Mr. Forester had interdicted him from the use of sugar, he sweetened as well as he could with a copious infusion of cream)
Sir Telegraph Paxarett. As an Opposition orator in the Honourable House will bring forward a long detail of unanswerable arguments, without even expecting that they will have the slightest influence on the vote of the majority.
Mr. Sarcastic. A reform of that honourable body, if ever it should take place, will be one of the ‘triumphs of reason.’ But reason will have little to do with it. All that reason can say on the subject has been said for years, by men of all parties — while they were out; but the moment they were in, the moment their own interest came in contact with their own reason, the victory of interest was never for a moment doubtful. While the great fountain of interest, rising in the caverns of borough patronage and ministerial influence, flowed through the whole body of the kingdom in channels of paper-money, and loans, and contracts, and jobs, and places either found or made for the useful dealers in secret services, so long the predominant interests of corruption overpowered the true and permanent interests of the country; but as those channels become dry, and they are becoming so with fearful rapidity, the crew of every boat that is left aground are convinced, not by reason — that they had long heard and despised — but by the unexpected pressure of personal suffering, that they had been going on in the wrong way. Thus the reaction of interest takes place; and when the concentrated interests of thousands, combined by the same pressure of personal suffering, shall have created an independent power, greater than the power of the interest of corruption, then, and not till then, the latter will give way, and this will be called the triumph of reason; though, in truth, like all the changes in human society that have ever taken place from the birthday of the world, it will be only the triumph of one mode of interest over another; but as the triumph in this case will be of the interest of the many over that of the few, it is certainly a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Mr. Forester. If I should admit that ‘the hope of personal advantage, and the dread of personal punishment,’ are the only springs that set the mass of mankind in action, the inefficacy of reason, and the inutility of moral theory, will by no means follow from the admission. The progress of truth is slow, but its ultimate triumph is secure; though its immediate effects may be rendered almost imperceptible by the power of habit and interest. If the philosopher cannot reform his own times, he may lay the foundation of amendment in those that follow. Give currency to reason, improve the moral code of society, and the theory of one generation will be the practice of the next. After a certain period of life, and that no very advanced one, men in general become perfectly unpersuadable to all practical purposes. Few philosophers, therefore, I believe, expect to produce much change in the habits of their contemporaries, as Plato proposed to banish from his republic all above the age of ten, and give a good education to the rest.
Mr. Sarcastic. Or, as Heraclitus the Ephesian proposed to his countrymen, that all above the age of fourteen should hang themselves, before he would consent to give laws to the remainder.
CHAPTER XXII
THE BOROUGH OF ONEVOTE
THE DAY OF election arrived. Mr. Sarcastic’s rumoured preparations, and the excellence of the ale which he had broached in the city of No vote, had given a degree of éclat to the election for the borough of Onevote, which it had never before possessed; the representatives usually sliding into their nomination with the same silence and decorum with which a solitary spinster slides into her pew at Wednesday’s or Friday’s prayers in a country church. The resemblance holds good also in this respect, that, as the curate addresses the solitary maiden with the appellation of dearly beloved brethren, so the representatives always pluralised their solitary elector, by conferring on him the appellation of a respectable body of constituents. Mr. Sarcastic, however, being determined to amuse himself at the expense of this most’venerable feature’ in our old constitution, as Lord C. calls a rotten borough, had brought Mr. Christopher Corporate into his vie
ws by the adhibition of persuasion in a tangible shape. It was generally known in Novote that something would be going forward at Onevote, though nobody could tell precisely what, except that a long train of brewer’s drays had left the city for the borough, in grand procession, on the preceding day, under the escort of a sworn band of special constables, who were to keep guard over the ale all night. This detachment was soon followed by another, under a similar escort, and with similar injunctions; and it was understood that this second expedition of frothy rhetoric was sent forth under the auspices of Sir Oran Hautton, Baronet, the brother candidate of Simon Sarcastic, Esquire, for the representation of the ancient and honourable borough.
The borough of Onevote stood in the middle of a heath, and consisted of a solitary farm, of which the land was so poor and untractable, that it would not have been worth the while of any human being to cultivate it, had not the Duke of Rottenburgh found it very well worth his to pay his tenant for living there, to keep the honourable borough in existence.
Mr. Sarcastic left the city of Novote some hours before his new acquaintance, to superintend his preparations, followed by crowds of persons of all descriptions, pedestrians and equestrians; old ladies in chariots, and young ladies on donkeys; the farmer on his hunter, and the tailor on his hack; the grocer and his family six in a chaise; the dancing-master in his tilbury; the banker in his tandem; mantua-makers and servant-maids twenty-four in the waggon, fitted up for the occasion with a canopy of evergreens; pastry-cooks, menmilliners, and journeymen tailors, by the stage, running for that day only, six inside and fourteen out; the sallow artisan emerging from the cellar or the furnace, to freshen himself with the pure breezes of Onevote Heath; the bumpkin in his laced boots and Sunday coat, trudging through the dust with his cherry-cheeked lass on his elbow; the gentleman coachman on his box, with his painted charmer by his side; the lean curate on his half-starved Rosinante; the plump bishop setting an example of Christian humility in his carriage and six; the doctor on his white horse, like Death in the Revelation; and the lawyer on his black one, like the devil in the Wild Huntsmen.
Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock Page 23