‘When I am your wife, I shall release you from your promise of not trying experiments with horses, carriages, boats, and so forth; but with this proviso, that if ever you do try a dangerous experiment, it shall be in my company.’
‘No, dear Alice,’ he answered; ‘you will make my life too dear to me, to risk it in any experiment. You shall be my guiding star, and the only question I shall ask respecting my conduct in life will be, Whether it pleases you?’
Some natural tears they shed, but wiped them soon, might have been applied to the sisters, when they stepped, on their bridal morning, into the carriages which were to convey them to the Grange.
It was the dissipation of a dream too much above mortal frailty, too much above the contingencies of chance and change, to be permanently realised. But the damsels had consented, and the suitors rejoiced; and if ever there was a man on earth with ‘his saul abune the moon,’ it was Harry Hedgerow, on the bright February morning that gave him the hand of his Dorothy.
There was a grand déjeuner at Gryll Grange. There were the nine brides and the nine bridegrooms; a beautiful array of bridesmaids; a few friends of Mr. Gryll, Mr. Niphet, Lord Curryfin, and Mr. Falconer; and a large party at the lower end of the hall, composed of fathers, mothers, and sisters of the bridegrooms of the seven Vestals. None of the bridegrooms had brothers, and Harry had neither mother nor sister; but his father was there in rustic portliness, looking, as Harry had anticipated, as if he were all but made young again.
Among the most conspicuous of the party were the Reverend Doctor Opimian and his lady, who had on this occasion stepped out of her domestic seclusion. In due course, the reverend doctor stood up and made a speech, which may be received as the epilogue of our comedy.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. We are here to do honour to the nuptials; first, of the niece of our excellent host, a young lady whom to name is to show her title to the love and respect of all present; with a young gentleman, of whom to say that he is in every way worthy of her, is to say all that can be said of him in the highest order of praise: secondly, of a young lord and lady, to whom those who had the pleasure of being here last Christmas are indebted for the large share of enjoyment which their rare and diversified accomplishments, and their readiness to contribute in every way to social entertainment, bestowed on the assembled party; and who, both in contrast and congeniality, — for both these elements enter into perfect fitness of companionship — may be considered to have been expressly formed for each other: thirdly, of seven other young couples, on many accounts most interesting to us all, who enter on the duties of married life with as fair expectation of happiness as can reasonably be entertained in this diurnal sphere. An old Greek poet says:— ‘Four things are good for man in this world: first, health; second, personal beauty; third, riches, not dishonourably acquired; fourth, to pass life among friends.’ But thereon says the comic poet Anaxandrides: ‘Health is rightly placed first; but riches should have been second; for what is beauty ragged and starving?’
1 (Greek passage)
SIMONIDES.
2 AthenÆus: 1. xv. .
Be this as it may, we here see them all four: health in its brightest bloom; riches in two instances; more than competence in the other seven; beauty in the brides, good looks as far as young men need them, in the bridegrooms, and as bright a prospect of passing life among friends as ever shone on any. Most earnestly do I hope that the promise of their marriage morning may be fulfilled in its noon and in its sunset: and when I add, may they all be as happy in their partners as I have been, I say what all who knew the excellent person beside me will feel to be the best good wish in my power to bestow. And now to the health of the brides and bridegrooms, in bumpers of champagne. Let all the attendants stand by, each with a fresh bottle, with only one uncut string. Let all the corks, when I give the signal, be discharged simultaneously; and we will receive it as a peal of Bacchic ordnance, in honour of the Power of Joyful Event, whom we may assume to be presiding on this auspicious occasion.
1 This was a Roman deity. Invocato hilaro atque prospéra
Eventu. APULEIUS: Metamorph. 1. iv.
THE END
Shorter Fiction and Unfinished Novels
Englefield Green, Surrey — from 1792 to 1798, Peacock was educated at a school in the village, run by Joseph Harris Wicks
Satyrane
CHAPTER I. Introduction
THE MISSIONARY ship Puff being on its voyage to save the souls of Australasian sinners with a large cargo of bibles and rum (it having been found by experience that the Indians will not swallow the first without the second of these commodities) was cast away on the shore of Terra Incognita, and the whole crew perished with the exception of one “chosen vessel,” who was miraculously kept afloat by special providence and the secondary cause of a cork jacket.
This long-faced gentleman, having been safely floated upon a shelving part of the shore, looked about him with some misgivings of heart. Himself and his dear brethren who were now at the bottom of the sea had been favoured with a call to convert the idolaters of the Southern Islands: but he knew not how to reconcile the genuineness of this call with the stubborn fact of their having been all drowned before a single idolater was converted. But he comforted himself with the reflection that he was himself reserved for some great work, and in the meantime he refreshed his inward man and diluted the salt water which he had unwillingly swallowed with a portion of the contents of a small leathern bottle, of rum which he had not forgotten to attach to his jacket. He now looked about for some solid to his fluid, and suddenly the dread of cannibals occurred to him. How, thought he, if in seeking to kill and eat I should myself be killed and eaten? And in dismal doubt and perplexity he turned his steps from the shore.
He had not proceeded far before his ears were saluted with unholy sounds of music and merriment, which seemed to shew that the persons from whom they proceeded were a set of ungodly heathens who were so lost to all sense of piety as to think of making themselves happy. He felt strengthened in the conviction of his call to shew these deluded reprobates the saving grace and virtue of long faces and dismal sounds, and after another application to his bottle he concealed it in a copious pocket, from which he extracted a bible, and his courage being thus braced up by the trebly powerful compound of hunger, pot-valour, and fanaticism, he marched boldly onward towards’ the spot from which the sounds proceeded.
His way led through a beautiful valley which the palm, the pomegranate, and the citron, the fruits and flowers of all climates, had united to adorn. The clouds of the storm were dispersed: the sun was shining in full splendour: and the whole aspect nature displayed a luxuriant brilliancy that carried with it a clear conviction of the vileness of world. His path wound round a point of hills. The valley opened into a natural amphitheatre: and he beheld a scene that made him groan in spirit, and shewed that he was in the dominions of Satan…
Calidore
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER I
NOTWITHSTANDING THE GREAT improvements of machinery in this rapidly improving age, which is so much wiser, better, and happier than all that went before it, every gentleman is not yet accommodated with the convenience of a pocket boat. We may therefore readily imagine that Miss Ap-Nanny and her sister Ellen, the daughters of the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd, were not a little astonished in a Sunday evening walk on the sea shore, when a little skiff, which, by the rapidity of its motion had attracted their attention while but a speck upon the waves, ran upon the beach, from which emerged a very handsome young gentleman, dressed not exactly in the newest fashion, who, after taking down the sail and hauling up the boat upon the beach, carefully folded it up in the size of a prayer-book and transferred it to his pocket: after which he turned himself to the sea, and, scooping up some water in the hollow of his hand, poured it down again in the manner of a libation, calling on the nam
es of Neptune and Bromian Jupiter and Proteus and Triton and the Nereids. Then turning towards the rocks he spread open his arms and invoked the Nymphs, the mountains, the rivers, the lakes, the fields, the springs, the woods, and the sea-shore, by the several appellations of Oreads, and Naiads, and Limniads, and Limoniads, and Ephydriads, and Dryads and Hamadryads. He did not notice the young ladies till he had completed this operation, and when he looked round and discovered them he seemed a little confused, but made them a very courteous bow in a fine but rather singular style of ancient politeness. From the moment of his first landing, and the commencement of the curious process of folding up his boat, Miss Ap-Nanny had been dying with curiosity, and had consulted her sister Ellen as to the propriety of addressing the stranger, having, however, fully made up her mind beforehand as usual with young ladies when they ask advice.
The stranger spared Ellen the trouble of giving her opinion by advancing and politely enquiring if there were any such thing as a town or inn in the neighbourhood? those being things, he said, for which he was instructed to enquire. Miss Ap-Nanny informed him, in fifty times as many words as were necessary, that there was no town within many miles, but a very good inn for the accommodation of picturesque tourists, kept by a very polite well-behaved accommodating old woman, named Gwyneth Owen, whose poor dear husband was gone to Abraham’s bosom. “I hope he will not stay there long,” said the stranger, touched apparently with sympathy by the rueful aspect with which Miss Ap-Nanny deemed it expedient to pronounce these latter words. The hawk’s-eyes of Miss Ap-Nanny distended with amazement: but she proceeded to point out the way to the inn, observing at the same time: “You seem to be a stranger here, sir”— “Perfectly, sweet lady,” was the reply, which left Miss Ap-Nanny’s curiosity as unsatisfied as before, though her wide mouth was pursed up into a smile by the courteous appellative, for she was not esteemed a beauty in this sinful generation, though she had eyes like the fish-pools by the gate of Bath-rabbim, and a nose like the tower of Lebanon which looks towards Damascus. These prepossessing features, with the subaddition of two thin colourless lips, like faded threads of pink silk, set altogether in a complexion of smoky yellow like the wood of the Barberry-tree, over-shaded with inflexible masses of coarse copper-coloured hair, and mounted on a neck not perhaps very unlike the tower which David built for an armoury, formed altogether a combination of feminine charms that might have warmed the heart of a Jew, though it was doomed to “waste its sweetness on the desert air” among the tasteless squires of Cambria.
“Your way to the inn,” she pursued, “lies to the left of that rocky peak; where you will see a narrow path that will bring you into the public road, where you will first pass by the house of my papa, the vicar.”
This was said to give the stranger a notion of her consequence, but he astonished her again by asking: “Pray, what is a vicar?”
“A vicar, sir,” said Miss Ap-Nanny, “Lord bless me! don’t you know what a vicar is?”
The stranger had too much politeness to press any further enquiry into a subject which the lady seemed either unable or unwilling to explain, as to what a vicar might be, and directed his attention to her companion. All the mild and modest simplicity of Cambrian beauty concentred its gentle graces in the beautiful Ellen. The soft light of her dark-brown eyes indicated a rare and happy union of sprightliness and gentleness: her complexion, delicately fair, was tinged with the natural roses of serenity and health: her black hair curled gracefully round her ivory temples, under the becoming Welsh costume of a black hat and feather: and her symmetrical figure sustained no disadvantage from the pressure of the sea-breeze upon her drapery.
Nature had gifted our youth with a very susceptible spirit, and the contemplation of this beautiful creature fanned the dormant sparks of his natural combustibility into an instantaneous conflagration. When we add to this that these were the first unmarried girls he had ever seen, it will not appear surprising that he with difficulty restrained himself from falling at the feet of the lovely Ellen, and proffering himself to her acceptance as her true and devoted knight: but calling to mind some prudent counsels that had been carefully engraven on the tablets of his memory, touching the importance of time and place, he tore himself away with a very polite bow and an inarticulate valediction; and following the directions of Miss Ap-Nanny, arrived at the hospitable doors of mine hostess Gwyneth Owen.
The inn was filled with picturesque tourists who had arrived in various vehicles by the help of those noble quadrupeds who confer so much dignity on the insignificant biped, that if he venture to travel without them and rest his reception on his own merits the difference of his welcome may serve to shew him how much more of his imaginary importance belongs to his horse than to himself. Our traveller arriving alone and on foot was received with half a courtesy by the landlady, and shewn into the common parlour where the incipient cold of the autumnal evening was dispelled by an immense turf fire, by which were sitting two elderly gentlemen of the clerical profession, recumbent in arm chairs, with their eyes half shut, and their legs stretched out so that the points of their shoes came in contact at the centre of the fender. Each was smoking his pipe with contemplative gravity. Neither spoke: nor moved, except now and then as if by mechanism, to fill his glass from the jug of ale that stood between them on the table, and the moment this good example was set by one the other followed it instantaneously and automatically as the two figures at St Dunstan’s strike upon the bell to the great delight of cockneys, amazement of rustics, and consolation of pickpockets. The stranger made several attempts to draw them into conversation, but could not succeed in extracting more than a “Hum!” from either of them. At length one of the reverend gentlemen, having buzzed the jug, articulated, with slow and minute emphasis: “Will you join in another jug?”
“Hum!” said the other.
A violent rattling of copper ensued in their respective coat pockets; two equal quantities of half-pence were deliberately counted down upon the table; the bell was rung, and the little, round, Welsh waiting-maid carried out the money, and replenished the jug in silence. They went on as before till the liquor was exhausted, when it became the other’s turn to ask the question, and the same eventful words, “Will you join in another jug?” were repeated, with the same ceremonies and the same results.
Our traveller, in the meanwhile, looked over his tablets of instruction. These two reverend gentlemen were the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd and the Rector of Bwlchpenbach. The rector performed afternoon service at a chapel twenty miles from his rectory, and Llanglasrhyd lying half-way between them, he slept every Sunday night under the roof of Gwyneth Owen, where his dearest friend, the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd, met him to smoke away the evening. They had thus passed together every Sunday evening for forty years, and during the whole period had scarcely said ten words to each other beyond the usual forms of meeting and parting, and “Will you join in another jug?” Yet were their meetings so interwoven with their habitual comforts that either would have regarded the loss of the other as the greatest earthly misfortune that could have befallen him, and would never, perhaps, have mustered sufficient firmness of voice to address the same question, “Will you join in another jug?” to any other human being. It may seem singular to those who have heard the extensive form of Welsh hospitality that the vicar did not invite the rector to pass these evenings at his vicarage; but it must be remembered that the Rector of Bwlchpenbach was every week at Llanglasrhyd in the way of his business, and that the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd had no business whatever to take him on any single occasion to Bwlchpenbach; therefore the balance of the consumption of ale would have been entirely against the vicar, and as they regularly drank three quarts each at a sitting, or one hundred and fifty-six quarts in a year, the Rector of Bwlchpenbach would have consumed in forty years six thousand two hundred and forty quarts of ale, without equivalent or compensation, at the expense of the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd, a circumstance not to be thought of without vexation of spirit.
Our tra
veller folded up his tablets, rung the bell, and inquired what he could have for supper, and what wine was to be had? The landlady entered with a tempting list of articles, and enumerated several names of wine. The stranger seemed perplexed, and at length said he would have them all, for he liked to see a well-covered table, having always been used to one. The landlady dropped a double courtesy, and the reverend gentlemen dropped their pipes; the pipes broke, and the odorous embers were scattered on the hearth.
When the supper smoked, and the wine sparkled on the table, the stranger pressed the reverend gentlemen to join him. They did not indeed require much pressing, and assisted with great industry in the demolition of his abundant banquet: but sill not a syllable could he extract from either of them except that the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd, when his heart was warmed with Madeira, invited the rector and the young stranger to breakfast with him the next morning at the vicarage, which the latter joyfully accepted, as he very well by this time understood that his lively and jovial companion was the father of the beautiful creature who had charmed him on the sea-shore. He sate from this time in contented silence, contemplating the happy meeting of the following morning while the reverend gentlemen sipped the liquid so far and only till with their usual felicitous sympathy they vanished at the same instant under the table. The landlady and her household were summoned to their assistance. The Vicar of Llanglasrhyd was carried home by the postillions, and the Rector of Bwlchpenbach was put to bed by the ostler.
CHAPTER II
OUR YOUTH WAS not unmindful of his engagement, and rising betimes, sent up his compliments to the rector of Bwlchpenbach to know if he was ready to accompany him to the vicarage. The ostler, by dint of knocking at the door and shouting “Ho! ho! ho! your reverence!” succeeded in waking the reluctant rector, and in extracting a response very oracular in its brevity, the purport of which was that he was too queasy to rise. The stranger therefore proceeded to the vicarage without him, where he found the lovely Ellen in the parlour alone, to whom he found himself under the awkward necessity of explaining that he came to breakfast by the vicar’s invitation; for the vicar had been carried home in a state of profound sleep, and had continued in the same state sans intermission, so that his family necessarily remained in profound ignorance of his appointment. Ellen ran upstairs and knocked at her father’s door to announce the stranger’s arrival, but he vicar sympathised in queasiness with his friend the rector, and murmured an injuction to his wife and daughters to do the honours of the house. Miss Ap-Nanny, hearing her sister’s communication, skipped down stairs by three steps at a time, determined not to let the stranger escape again without gratifying her curiosity about himself and his boat. Mrs Ap-Nanny, a grave and solemn matron, as silent as her husband, next made her appearance, and the beautiful hands of Ellen prepared the tea.
Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock Page 99