Nightmare Abbey
Page 6
CHAPTER VI
Mr Toobad had found his daughter Celinda in London, and after thefirst joy of meeting was over, told her he had a husband ready forher. The young lady replied, very gravely, that she should take theliberty to choose for herself. Mr Toobad said he saw the devil wasdetermined to interfere with all his projects, but he was resolvedon his own part, not to have on his conscience the crime of passiveobedience and non-resistance to Lucifer, and therefore she shouldmarry the person he had chosen for her. Miss Toobad replied, _tresposement_, she assuredly would not. 'Celinda, Celinda,' said MrToobad, 'you most assuredly shall.'--'Have I not a fortune in my ownright, sir?' said Celinda. 'The more is the pity,' said Mr Toobad:'but I can find means, miss; I can find means. There are more waysthan one of breaking in obstinate girls.' They parted for the nightwith the expression of opposite resolutions, and in the morning theyoung lady's chamber was found empty, and what was become of her MrToobad had no clue to conjecture. He continued to investigate town andcountry in search of her; visiting and revisiting Nightmare Abbey atintervals, to consult with his friend, Mr Glowry. Mr Glowry agreedwith Mr Toobad that this was a very flagrant instance of filialdisobedience and rebellion; and Mr Toobad declared, that when hediscovered the fugitive, she should find that 'the devil was come untoher, having great wrath.'
In the evening, the whole party met, as usual, in the library.Marionetta sat at the harp; the Honourable Mr Listless sat by her andturned over her music, though the exertion was almost too muchfor him. The Reverend Mr Larynx relieved him occasionally in thisdelightful labour. Scythrop, tormented by the demon Jealousy, sat inthe corner biting his lips and fingers. Marionetta looked at him everynow and then with a smile of most provoking good humour, which hepretended not to see, and which only the more exasperated his troubledspirit. He took down a volume of Dante, and pretended to be deeplyinterested in the Purgatorio, though he knew not a word he wasreading, as Marionetta was well aware; who, tripping across the room,peeped into his book, and said to him, 'I see you are in the middle ofPurgatory.'--'I am in the middle of hell,' said Scythrop furiously.'Are you?' said she; 'then come across the room, and I will sing youthe finale of Don Giovanni.'
'Let me alone,' said Scythrop. Marionetta looked at him with adeprecating smile, and said, 'You unjust, cross creature, you.'--'Letme alone,' said Scythrop, but much less emphatically than at first,and by no means wishing to be taken at his word. Marionetta left himimmediately, and returning to the harp, said, just loud enough forScythrop to hear--'Did you ever read Dante, Mr Listless? Scythropis reading Dante, and is just now in Purgatory.'--'And I' said theHonourable Mr Listless, 'am not reading Dante, and am just now inParadise,' bowing to Marionetta.
MARIONETTA
You are very gallant, Mr Listless; and I dare say you are very fond ofreading Dante.
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
I don't know how it is, but Dante never came in my way till lately. Inever had him in my collection, and if I had had him I should not haveread him. But I find he is growing fashionable, and I am afraid I mustread him some wet morning.
MARIONETTA
No, read him some evening, by all means. Were you ever in love, MrListless?
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
I assure you, Miss O'Carroll, never--till I came to Nightmare Abbey.I dare say it is very pleasant; but it seems to give so much troublethat I fear the exertion would be too much for me.
MARIONETTA
Shall I teach you a compendious method of courtship, that will giveyou no trouble whatever?
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
You will confer on me an inexpressible obligation. I am all impatienceto learn it.
MARIONETTA
Sit with your back to the lady and read Dante; only be sure to beginin the middle, and turn over three or four pages at once--backwardsas well as forwards, and she will immediately perceive that you aredesperately in love with her--desperately.
_(The Honourable Mr Listless sitting between Scythrop and Marionetta,and fixing all his attention on the beautiful speaker, did not observeScythrop, who was doing as she described.)_
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
You are pleased to be facetious, Miss O'Carroll. The lady wouldinfallibly conclude that I was the greatest brute in town.
MARIONETTA
Far from it. She would say, perhaps, some people have odd methods ofshowing their affection.
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
But I should think, with submission--
MR FLOSKY (_joining them from another part of the room_)
Did I not hear Mr Listless observe that Dante is becoming fashionable?
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
I did hazard a remark to that effect, Mr Flosky, though I speak onsuch subjects with a consciousness of my own nothingness, in thepresence of so great a man as Mr Flosky. I know not what is the colourof Dante's devils, but as he is certainly becoming fashionable Iconclude they are blue; for the blue devils, as it seems to me, MrFlosky, constitute the fundamental feature of fashionable literature.
MR FLOSKY
The blue are, indeed, the staple commodity; but as they will notalways be commanded, the black, red, and grey may be admitted assubstitutes. Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution, have playedthe devil, Mr Listless, and brought the devil into play.
MR TOOBAD (_starting up_)
Having great wrath.
MR FLOSKY
This is no play upon words, but the sober sadness of veritable fact.
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution. I cannot exactly see theconnection of ideas.
MR FLOSKY
I should be sorry if you could; I pity the man who can see theconnection of his own ideas. Still more do I pity him, the connectionof whose ideas any other person can see. Sir, the great evil is,that there is too much common-place light in our moral and politicalliterature; and light is a great enemy to mystery, and mystery is agreat friend to enthusiasm. Now the enthusiasm for abstract truth isan exceedingly fine thing, as long as the truth, which is the objectof the enthusiasm, is so completely abstract as to be altogether outof the reach of the human faculties; and, in that sense, I havemyself an enthusiasm for truth, but in no other, for the pleasure ofmetaphysical investigation lies in the means, not in the end; and ifthe end could be found, the pleasure of the means would cease. Themind, to be kept in health, must be kept in exercise. The properexercise of the mind is elaborate reasoning. Analytical reasoning is abase and mechanical process, which takes to pieces and examines, bitby bit, the rude material of knowledge, and extracts therefrom a fewhard and obstinate things called facts, every thing in the shape ofwhich I cordially hate. But synthetical reasoning, setting up as itsgoal some unattainable abstraction, like an imaginary quantity inalgebra, and commencing its course with taking for granted some twoassertions which cannot be proved, from the union of these two assumedtruths produces a third assumption, and so on in infinite series, tothe unspeakable benefit of the human intellect. The beauty of thisprocess is, that at every step it strikes out into two branches, ina compound ratio of ramification; so that you are perfectly sure oflosing your way, and keeping your mind in perfect health, by theperpetual exercise of an interminable quest; and for these reasons Ihave christened my eldest son Emanuel Kant Flosky.
THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
Nothing can be more luminous.
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
And what has all that to do with Dante, and the blue devils?
MR HILARY
Not much, I should think, with Dante, but a great deal with the bluedevils.
MR FLOSKY
It is very certain, and much to be rejoiced at, that our literature ishag-ridden. Tea has shattered our nerves; late dinners make us slavesof indigestion; the French Revolution has made us shrink from the nameof philosophy, and has destroyed, in the more refined part of thecommunity (of which number I am one), all enthusiasm for politicalliberty. That pa
rt of the _reading public_ which shuns the solidfood of reason for the light diet of fiction, requires a perpetualadhibition of _sauce piquante_ to the palate of its depravedimagination. It lived upon ghosts, goblins, and skeletons (I and myfriend Mr Sackbut served up a few of the best), till even the devilhimself, though magnified to the size of Mount Athos, became too base,common, and popular, for its surfeited appetite. The ghosts havetherefore been laid, and the devil has been cast into outer darkness,and now the delight of our spirits is to dwell on all the vices andblackest passions of our nature, tricked out in a masquerade dress ofheroism and disappointed benevolence; the whole secret of which liesin forming combinations that contradict all our experience, andaffixing the purple shred of some particular virtue to that precisecharacter, in which we should be most certain not to find it in theliving world; and making this single virtue not only redeem all thereal and manifest vices of the character, but make them actuallypass for necessary adjuncts, and indispensable accompaniments andcharacteristics of the said virtue.
MR TOOBAD
That is, because the devil is come among us, and finds it for hisinterest to destroy all our perceptions of the distinctions of rightand wrong.
MARIONETTA
I do not precisely enter into your meaning, Mr Flosky, and should beglad if you would make it a little more plain to me.
MR FLOSKY
One or two examples will do it, Miss O'Carroll. If I were to take allthe mean and sordid qualities of a money-dealing Jew, and tack on tothem, as with a nail, the quality of extreme benevolence, I shouldhave a very decent hero for a modern novel; and should contribute myquota to the fashionable method of administering a mass of vice, undera thin and unnatural covering of virtue, like a spider wrapt in abit of gold leaf, and administered as a wholesome pill. On the sameprinciple, if a man knocks me down, and takes my purse and watch bymain force, I turn him to account, and set him forth in a tragedy asa dashing young fellow, disinherited for his romantic generosity, andfull of a most amiable hatred of the world in general, and his owncountry in particular, and of a most enlightened and chivalrousaffection for himself: then, with the addition of a wild girl to fallin love with him, and a series of adventures in which they break allthe Ten Commandments in succession (always, you will observe, for somesublime motive, which must be carefully analysed in its progress), Ihave as amiable a pair of tragic characters as ever issued from thatnew region of the belles lettres, which I have called the MorbidAnatomy of Black Bile, and which is greatly to be admired and rejoicedat, as affording a fine scope for the exhibition of mental power.
MR HILARY
Which is about as well employed as the power of a hothouse would be inforcing up a nettle to the size of an elm. If we go on in this way, weshall have a new art of poetry, of which one of the first rules willbe: To remember to forget that there are any such things as sunshineand music in the world.
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
It seems to be the case with us at present, or we should not haveinterrupted Miss O'Carroll's music with this exceedingly dryconversation.
MR FLOSKY
I should be most happy if Miss O'Carroll would remind us that thereare yet both music and sunshine--
THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
In the voice and the smile of beauty. May I entreat the favourof--(_turning over the pages of music._)
All were silent, and Marionetta sung:
Why are thy looks so blank, grey friar? Why are thy looks so blue? Thou seem'st more pale and lank, grey friar, Than thou wast used to do:-- Say, what has made thee rue?
Thy form was plump, and a light did shine In thy round and ruby face, Which showed an outward visible sign Of an inward spiritual grace:-- Say, what has changed thy case?
Yet will I tell thee true, grey friar, I very well can see, That, if thy looks are blue, grey friar, 'Tis all for love of me,-- 'Tis all for love of me.
But breathe not thy vows to me, grey friar, Oh, breathe them not, I pray; For ill beseems in a reverend friar, The love of a mortal may; And I needs must say thee nay.
But, could'st thou think my heart to move With that pale and silent scowl? Know, he who would win a maiden's love, Whether clad in cap or cowl, Must be more of a lark than an owl.
Scythrop immediately replaced Dante on the shelf, and joined thecircle round the beautiful singer. Marionetta gave him a smile ofapprobation that fully restored his complacency, and they continuedon the best possible terms during the remainder of the evening. TheHonourable Mr Listless turned over the leaves with double alacrity,saying, 'You are severe upon invalids, Miss O'Carroll: to escape yoursatire, I must try to be sprightly, though the exertion is too muchfor me.'
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