Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock

by Thomas Love Peacock

  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 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 già 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, 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 représentantes. Calderon.

  Tous les comédiens ne sont pas au théâtre.

  — 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, 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?

&
nbsp; 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

  Clouds ever-flowing, conspicuously soaring,

  From loud-rolling Ocean, whose stream 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 Æther, 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 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