Part 13
The old park has been reduced to the same state. A scrupulous homage has been paid to every new mode of cultivation; a thousand emendations, and additions, and improvements have been successively introduced. But it is easier to plant new customs than to eradicate the old. Lycaon was turned into a beast, but he retained his old habits of atrocity. Arachne was transformed into a spider, but she did not forget her spinning. The park of the Weathercocks has, in like manner, assumed various novel shapes, without losing the traces of its old ones. At one time it was dressed out in all the stiff regularity of alleys and arcades; at another, it was dubbed a “wilderness,” and was immediately laid waste by a terrible inroad of shrubs and weeds without number. In one part your eye rests upon the muddy vestiges of an artificial cascade; in another, your foot stumbles over a heap of rubbish, which has been produced by the demolition of an artificial ruin. Some people object to these things; for my part, I own I am delighted with them. They show a proper distrust of one’s own opinion, a decorous compliance with the unstable will of the world, an eager spirit of enterprise; in short, they prove that the Weathercocks have not an ounce of obstinacy in their composition.
Sir Wilfrid Weathercock, the present head of the family, is a cheerful and hale man, between forty and fifty years of age. He is about the middle stature, although, upon some occasions, by the affectation of a fashionable stoop, he appears somewhat dwarfish; while, upon others, by the assumption of a military gait and a pair of high heels, he bids fair to be accounted a giant. With a self-denial worthy of a Cincinnatus, he has avoided all offers of place or pension, all invitations to embark in public life; he has confined his manifold talents and his extraordinary versatility to the limits of his own estate. Perhaps, indeed, his determination, in this respect, may have been a prudent one; for, although any ministry would have been benefited by the unusual facility with which Sir Wilfrid would have flown from patriotic speeches to taxation and gagging bills, from prayers for peace to declarations of war, from professions of economy to measures of profusion; yet it must be confessed that his reluctance to remain a minute stationary would have driven him from one side of the House to the other oftener than is seemly in a public man. Let it be understood that we speak with all due deference and respect for the numerous precedents which are to be found in our English history. Leaving great statesmen to settle this point, we can only express our opinion that our friend has certainly acted best for his own comfort, by choosing a quiet privacy, where he may “change every hour,” undisturbed by the malevolence of envy or the violence of faction.
His education was, in his youth, sadly neglected. Indeed, his father fluctuated so long, first between Eton and Westminster, and afterwards between Cambridge and Oxford, that it is marvellous to me how little Wilfrid picked up any education at all. He has, however, obtained just so much learning as enables him to cry up the Greeks and the Latins alternately, and to flirt with all the nine Muses in succession. He escaped the fatigue of deliberation in the choice of a profession, by the death of his father; who left him, in very early life, the heir to all his fortune, all his friendships, and all his follies. He spent his first two years upon the estate, occupied in reflections of no very serious import: such as, whether his coat should be red or green, whether his hunter should be bay or brown, whether his equipage should be a barouche or a curricle. So far all was sunshine; but some tempestuous days were approaching. It was suggested to him that the ancient family of the Weathercocks ought to have an heir to its honours and possessions. No evasion would serve; Sir Wilfrid must take a wife. He was now in a novel and a disagreeable dilemma. In any trifling part of his domestic economy, in the livery of his servants, in the arrangement of his dinner-table, in the fashion of his plate, he would have bowed without a murmur to the decision of his friends; but to inflict upon himself a wife was a thing so utterly unlooked for and unprepared for, that Sir Wilfrid paused. He hesitated and decided, and hesitated again, through three years; at the termination of which he broke his leg in a fox-chase, grew quiet in consequence, sold his hounds, and looked out for a wife. Then another perplexity occurred. Who was to be the happy woman? He could never resolve to make so invidious a distinction.
“It is very true,” said poor Sir Wilfrid, “that Miss Dormer has a very fine face, but then I never much admired her nose. I certainly have always preferred her cousin, although that unfortunate cast of the eye--well, well, I am a young man, and, as my aunt says, ‘there is no hurry!’ Miss Rayner is very beautiful, and has such charming dark hair--I always liked dark hair; yet I don’t know if light is not as pretty--prettier sometimes, as for instance Miss Chevier’s--only she is so insipid; I think Lady Mary is more fascinating, but then she is so terribly satirical. Perhaps her sister would make a better wife--if she was not such a fool!”
He consulted in this manner with himself for a long time: half the belles of the county were ready to pull caps for him, but he “prattled with fifty fair maids, and changed them as oft.” At last, in a fit of courage, he flung himself at the feet of his chosen one, talked some rhapsodies, sighed some sighs, and awaited his sentence. The lady was sorry, very sorry--and she was flattered, highly flattered--and she was sure, quite sure--it would only be attributed to her own want of discernment, that she declined the favour, the honour, the distinction, the---- He heard no more; he hesitated! Should he leave the room? Yes!--no!--yes! And he escaped as well as he could.
He has continued to this day a bachelor. In spite of all intrigue, all solicitation, all persecution, he has remained, in this one instance, obstinate. In all others he is a real Weathercock. He builds cottages, apparently with no object but pulling them down; and pulls them down, apparently with no object but that of building them up: he is a Tory one hour and a Whig the next, and takes in the _Chronicle_ and _Courier_ alternately; he seldom reads more than half a number of a periodical work, and never wears the same coat above a month. In his conversation he pursues the same plan--or rather want of plan--
Modo reges atque tetrarchas, Omnia magna, loquens; modo “sit mihi mensa tripes, et Concha salis puri, et toga, quæ defendere frigus, Quamvis crassa, queat ----.”
In short--in manner, in language, in business, and in pleasure, he sets an admirable example of mutability, which we shall always make it our study to imitate--especially when we take up our pens.
Of Sir Wilfrid’s nephew and heir we shall here say nothing, as his character has been elsewhere noticed by another hand, under the name of Arthur Clavering. We pass on, therefore, to the Baronet’s maiden sister, Lady Rachel Weathercock, who is nowise deficient in the peculiarities for which her family is remarkable. Lady Rachel has now attained her fiftieth year; the caprices and follies of her youth have gradually subsided; and, in many points, she has become more stationary than a Weathercock ought to be. Her character, however, is just saved by one little ingredient, by which a person who is unacquainted with her habits may be not a little puzzled. Lady Rachel is an inveterate reader, an inveterate talker, and an inveterate arguer. You might therefore suppose that few subjects could be started upon which the lady would not ground a dispute; but it is no such thing. Her ladyship possesses such a delightful pliability of opinion, that it is hardly possible to differ from her upon any topic. We have heard her advocate and abuse every school of painting or poetry in almost immediate succession. She combats to-day the very opinions she maintained yesterday; yet, upon the first semblance of a contradiction, she veers round forthwith, and proves herself a more accommodating antagonist, if possible, than the Neapolitans. Mr. Oakley was three hours in conversation with her; and though the burden of his song was No, No, No, he was unable to pick a quarrel. Like Sir Robert Bramble and Job, “they couldn’t disagree--and so they parted.”
The only remaining member of the family is Sir Wilfrid’s niece. How delightful is your mutability, charming Leonora! You are like a chess-board which is checquered with black and white squares alternately; or a melodrama, in which the tears of Tragedy are relieved by the follies of Farce; or a day in April which blends rain with sunshine, summer with winter; or the _Etonian_, in which the serious is united with the absurd, and pathos is intermingled with puns. What a wardrobe must be yours! To-day you assume the costume of the victim Mary--to-morrow that of the executioner Elizabeth; you put off the diamonds of the queen for the garland of the peasant, the curls of the coquette for the veil of the nun. Your voice has a thousand tones; your lips have a thousand smiles--all of them distinct, yet all of them engaging! You are always the same, yet always varying; consistent only in your inconsistency! Be always so! We will build a fane in the most beautiful region of Fancy, where no two flowers shall wear the same hue, no two days be of the same length or temperature: light gales shall breathe from all points of the compass by turns, and clear streams shall vary their course every hour; stability shall be sacrilege--and Leonora shall be the Goddess of the Temple.
GOLIGHTLY’S ESSAY ON BLUES.
A FRAGMENT.
Lady Dabble is a True Blue. She is a meddler in literature of every sort and description. Poetry and prose, pamphlets and plays, sermons and satires, overtures and odes--all are her hobbies, all are the objects of her patronage, all are subjects of her harangues. At her house is the synod held: where criticism and tea are poured out together, where sweet sugar and sweeter sonnets melt in delicious unison. It is delightful to spend a few hours at Lady Babble’s _conversazione_. All inferior wits and witlings flit around her like twinkling stars; while her ladyship, with her full-moon face--but it strikes us that this is a very old simile.
Of all Blues we think the Light Blue is our favourite. Mark the surprising difference which exists between Emilia, the Light Blue, and her sister Sophia, the Dark Blue. Sophia is a fine vessel, properly supplied with everything requisite for a long voyage; but a villanous slow sailer. Emilia is the same vessel, but certainly it has thrown out a vast quantity of ballast. To speak in plainer language, Sophia talks learnedly, and puzzles you; Emilia talks learnedly, and amuses you; the latter sets you a laughing, and the former sends you to sleep. A good painter will select for his picture only the most agreeable parts of the landscape which lies before him; a good talker will notice the more pleasing points of his subject, while he will throw aside the tedious. But, alas! Emilia will describe a statue, while Sophia is treating of a finger; and the Light Blue will analyse the “Iliad,” while the Dark Blue is discussing the Digamma.
Fannia is a fair one, who endeavours to unite the extreme of fashionable dress with the extreme of unfashionable Blue-ism. Mr. Hodgson made a vile pun (as usual) when he denominated her a Blue _Belle_.
The only remaining Blue of whom we shall here make mention is Eva, the Sky-Blue. The habit of talking sentiment, in which the Sky-Blue commonly indulges, is in general sufficiently annoying; but in the person of Eva, far be it from us to apply to it such an epithet. Eva is always in heroics: she never speaks a sentence which is not fit to go into a German romance. All this sits very well upon youth and beauty, but in age and ugliness it is insufferable. Eva has a pretty pair of blue eyes, a finely polished neck, an enchanting white arm, and a voice withal, which is never heard but in a whisper, an aria, or a sigh. She has, in short, such a talent at turning our brains, that our Secretary has not inappositely styled her “Blue Ruin.”
OLD BOOTS.
“Whose conceit Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich To hear the wooden dialogue and sound ’Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage.”
SHAKESPEARE.
Ι have got a pair of old boots.
I bought them at Exeter last summer, and they withstood all the malice of Devonshire paviours in a most inconceivable style. The leather was of a most editorial consistency, and the sole resembled a quarto. It was in them that I revisited the desolate habitation of my infancy; it was their heavy clanging sound which echoed through those deserted apartments. It was in them, too, that I tottered upon the perilous summit of the Ness; and it was in them that I got wet to the knees in the disagreeable tempest which waited upon the Dawlish regatta. How many pleasant moments, how many dear friends, do they recall to my recollection! It was with their ponderous solidity that I astonished the weak nerves of one, and trod upon the weak toes of another. Every inch of them, old and _emeriti_ as they are, is pregnant with some delightful, some amiable sensation. It was in them that I excogitated the first number of the _Etonian_--they shall live to look upon the last! I cannot say they were ever very elegant in shape or texture. Like the genius of my friend Swinburne, they possessed more intrinsic strength than outward polish. They served me well, however, and travelled with me to town.
I happened to put them on one wet morning in April. Whatever form or fashion they formerly boasted was altogether extinct; they were as shapeless as an unlicked cub, and as dusky as a cloud on a November morning. I beheld their fallen appearance with some dismay. “I shall be stared at,” I said; “I had better take them off!” But I thought of their former services, and resolved to keep them on.
They had brought their plated heels from the country, and they made a confounded noise upon the pavement as I walked along. Ding, dong, they went at every step, as if I carried a belfry swung at my toes. “This is a disagreeable sort of accompaniment,” I said. “I had better dismiss the musicians.” Just at that moment a young baronet passed me, attended by a fine dog. The dog was in high spirits, and made rather too much noise for the contemplative mood of his master. “Silence, Cæsar! Be quiet, Cæsar!” No, it was all in vain, and Cæsar was kicked into the gutter. “That was cruel!” I said, “to dismiss an old servant, because he was a note too loud! I think I will keep my boots!”
I walked in the Park with Golightly. By the side of my stable footcase his neat and dapper instep cut a peculiarly smart figure; it was a Molossus _tête-à-tête_ with a Pyrrhic; an Etonian’s skiff moored alongside of a coal-barge. Golightly’s meditations seemed to be of the same cast; he once or twice turned his eyes to the ground, as I thought with no very complacent aspect. “My friends grow ashamed of me,” I said to myself; “I must part with my boots!” As I made up my mind to the sacrifice, Lady Eglantine met us, with her husband. She was constantly looking another way, nodding familiarly to the young men she met, and endeavouring to convince the world how thoroughly she despised the lump of earth which she was obliged to drag after her. “There is a woman,” said Frederick, “who married Sir John for his money, and has not the sense to appear contented with the bargain she has made. What can be more silly than to look down thus upon a man of sterling worth, because he happened to be born a hundred miles from the metropolis?” “What can be more silly?” I repeated inwardly; “I will never look down on my boots again!”
We continued our walk, and Golightly began his usual course of strictures upon the place and the company. Hurried away by the constant flow of jest and wildness with which he embellishes his sketches, I soon forgot both the boots, which had been the theme of my reflections, and the moral lessons which the subject had produced. There was an awkward stone in the way! Oh my unfortunate heels! I broke down terribly, and was very near bringing my companion after me. I rose, and went on in great dudgeon. “This will never do,” I muttered; “this will never do! I must positively cashier my boots!” I looked up: an interesting girl was passing, leaning on the arm of a young man, whose face I thought I recognized. She looked pale and feeble; and, when my friend bowed to her with unusual attention, she seemed embarrassed by the civility. “That is Anna Leith,” said Golightly; “she made an imprudent match with that young man about a year ago, and her father has refused to see her ever since. Poor girl! She is in a rapid decline, and the remedies of her physicians have no effect upon a broken spirit. I would never cast off a beloved object for a single false step!”
“I will keep my boots,” I exclaimed: “though they make a thousand!”
ON THE DIVINITIES OF THE ANCIENTS.
To a person inquiring into the manners and customs of ancient nations, the religion which they professed and the gods which they worshipped will always appear objects of the greatest curiosity. And this will not be wondered at when we remember how intimately the religion of a State must necessarily be connected with its civil policy. In former times, when ignorance and superstition flourished side by side, the aid of a divinity was required for the carrying into effect of the most frivolous designs. No poem could succeed until the Muses were called upon in a well-rounded hexameter, no war could prosper until Mars was propitiated by a sufficiency of roast beef. The ancients appear to have had some faint idea of the ubiquity of the Deity; but, not comprehending how such a faculty had been vested in a single divinity, they formed to themselves a set of superior powers, calculated to attend upon every emergency, from Jupiter, the god of thunder, to Tussis, the god of coughing. It is therefore evident that the consideration of the religious ideas of the ancients must be inseparably united with the study of the other parts of their history.
In the remarks which I am about to make upon this subject, I must request that one or two preliminaries may be kept in mind. First, that the characters of the constant supporters of the _Etonian_ may not be implicated in the blunders of an occasional correspondent; and, secondly, that I may not be understood as endeavouring to compose a regular essay or treatise upon the topic which is before me. I have no more the inclination than I have the ability to attempt such a task. The observations which I shall have occasion to make will be merely the unripe fruit of an hour of leisure; merely a few unconnected hints, thrown out at random for your amusement, Mr. Editor, and that of my fellow-citizens. If they are pleased with them, they will thank me, and I am sufficiently repaid: if not--_n’importe_--they will at least give me credit for good intentions.
The first point which I shall notice is the opinion which the ancients entertained of the power and authority of their heavenly rulers. And as the study of fallen religions is principally useful as it shows to us the superiority of that religion which can never fall, let us first see upon what footing Christianity stands in this respect. In my eyes, and in the eyes of every one upon whom the light of revelation has dawned, the mention of a God presupposes an idea of infinite, irresistible, indisputable power. One cannot form the most remote conception of a deity whose powers or existence should be in any way limited. One of the distinguishing attributes of Christianity is that with its God nothing is impossible. He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. Can we say the same of the gods of the heathen--“the gods of wood and stone, the work of men’s hands?”
Alas! alas! They raised ghosts, and they raised tempests; they scolded, and they thundered; they drank nectar, and drove doves: but when anything serious was to be done--when a battle was to be decided, or an empire overthrown, they were frequently as powerless to slay or to save as the sceptre which they wielded or the cloud which they bestrode. Let us call before us some of the most formidable, and examine into their pretensions to Olympus.
Come down, then, Jupiter, from the little pedestal on which I have placed your plaster effigy! Come down, father of men and gods, counsel-giving, wide-thundering, cloud-compelling! Come down, thou who overthrowest the Titans and abusest thy wife; thou who art so fond of the voice of prayer and the smoke of hecatombs; thou who hast so many epithets and so many sons; thou who governest Olympus and meritest Bridewell! Where are thy frowns and thy nods? thy muscles and thy sinews? thy darts and thy decrees? Where are the looks which appal--the blows which destroy? Where is the unbroken chain--the insatiable vulture? Where are the Cyclopes who forge the lightning, and the poets who forge the Cyclopes? Alas! Jupiter, amidst all thy terrors, in heaven or on Ida, in feasting or in wrath, in poetry or in prose, thou wert a quack, Jupiter, a most contemptible quack; so utterly destitute of everything that could ensure respect; so miserably deficient in everything that could inspire fear; such a pitiful compound of ignorance and knowledge, of strength and imbecility, of vanity and vice--that if the days of thy sovereignty could return again--if thou couldst again be fed upon sacrifice and flattery, I swear by thine own beard I would as soon be an Irus as a Jupiter.
The truth is that the religion of the ancients, as far as it can be collected from their writings, partook in no small degree of predestination. Yet it is enveloped in so much obscurity, that it is very difficult for us--nay, it might have been very difficult for them--to define where the supremacy of fate should stop and the authority of the gods commence. We find some unfortunate divinity perpetually endeavouring to overthrow some State which is destined to stand, or to destroy some hero who is destined to live; although the said divinity has an innate perception that his struggles in either instance must eventually be fruitless. I know that these ideas may be said to be founded solely on the marvellous fictions of the poets; but, let me ask, would Diomedes have ever inflicted a wound upon Mars, if Homer had seen in Mars a formidable being? or would Juno have ever strutted and stormed through the Æneid, if Virgil had cared a sixpence for her displeasure? When I see these liberties taken with the gods in writing, I feel convinced that equal liberties will be taken with them in life; when I find an immortal and an invincible being knocked on the head or run through the belly at the mercy of a terrestrial wit, I naturally conclude that in the country where such a phenomenon takes place few persons will boggle at a perjury from the apprehension of a thunder-bolt. But this is not all. There seems to have existed an idea that a time was approaching when the great offspring of Saturn would be hurled down from the seat he occupied, and subjected to an ignominious destiny, if not to utter annihilation. This is one of the most singular and unaccountable points in their system of faith. Without going into discussions, to which I am unequal, upon the origin and import of this notion, I must express my surprise at the blindness of those who dressed up a figure loaded with all these debilities as their supreme power, and installed him in the seat of universal dominion.