Part 6
The treatise on the Practical Bathos which appeared in our first number, and which we have the vanity to hope is not entirely blotted out from the recollection of our readers, was intended as the first of a series of dissertations, in which we design to apply the beauties of the figures of the grammarians to the purposes of real life. We are very strongly tempted to pursue this design, when we reflect upon the advantages which have already been the result of the above-mentioned treatise. We are assured, from the most indisputable authority, that the number of the specimens of that most admirable figure exhibited by our schoolfellows in the exercises of the ensuing week was without precedent in the annals of Etonian literature. We have no doubt but those apt scholars who have so readily profited by our recommendation of the Bathos, as far as regards _com_position, will, at no very distant period, make the same use of this inestimable figure in the regulation of their _dis_position. But it is time to quit this topic, and to enter upon the second of our proposed series: “A Treatise on the Practical Asyndeton.”
First, then, as in duty and in gallantry bound, we must construe this hard word. The figure Asyndeton, in grammar, is that by which conjunctions are omitted, and an unconnected appearance given to the sentence, which is frequently inexpressibly beautiful. Who is there of our rising orators who has not glowed with all the inspiration of a Roman, when fancy echoes in his ears the brief, the unconnected, and energetic thunders of the Consul, “Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit?” What reader of tragedy does not sympathize with the Orosmane of Voltaire, when, upon the receipt of the billet from Zayre, his anxiety bursts out in those beautifully unconnected expressions--
Donne!--qui la porte?--donne!
The use of connecting particles in either of these cases would have ruined everything. They would have destroyed the majesty of Cicero, and reduced to the level of an every-day novelist the simple tenderness of Orosmane.
The use of this figure, however, is not confined to particular sentences or expressions. It sometimes pervades the five acts of what is miscalled a regular drama, or spreads an uncertain transparent gleam over the otherwise insupportable sameness of some inexplicable epic. Numberless are the writers who have been indebted to its assistance; but our own, our immortal countryman, Shakespeare, preserves an undisputed station at the head of the list. Fettered by no imitation, but the imitation of Nature; bound down to no rules but the vivid conceptions of an untutored, self-working genius, he hurries us from place to place with the velocity of a torrent; we appear to be carried on by a rushing stream, which conveys our boat so rapidly in its eddies, that we pass through a thousand scenes, and are unable to observe for a moment the abruptness with which the changes are effected.
Our modern farce-writers have, with laudable emulation, followed the example of this great master of the stage; but as in their use of this figure they possess the audacity without the genius of the bard they imitate, they cannot prevent us from perceiving the frequent Asyndeton in place, in plot, or in character. The beauty of the countries to which they introduce us is not such as to withdraw us from the contemplation of the outrageously miraculous manner in which we were transported to them.
We have delayed the reader quite long enough with this preliminary discussion, and will now enter at once upon our main subject: the Asyndeton in life.
We should imagine that few of our readers are ignorant of the charms of novelty; few have lived through their boyhood and their youth without experiencing the disgust which a too frequent repetition of the same pleasure infallibly produces. There is in novelty a charm, the want of which no other qualification can in any degree compensate. The most studied viands for the gratification of the appetite please us when first we enjoy them, but the enjoyment becomes tasteless by repetition, and the _crambe repetita_ of satiety provokes nausea instead of exciting desire. Thus it is in other and weightier matters. The pleasures which we first devoured with avidity lose much of their relish when they recur a second time, and are mere gall and wormwood to us when their sweets have become familiar to our taste. A common every-day character, although its possessor may enjoy abundance of worth and good sense, makes no impression on our minds; but the novelty of capricious beauty or uncultivated genius finds a sure road to our hearts.
This is something too long for a digression; but novelty is a very pretty theme, and must be our excuse. We will return forthwith to our subject.
Since novelty then has so much weight in influencing the judgment, or at least the prejudices of mankind, it is right that this most desirable qualification should not be neglected by young persons on their _début_ upon the stage of life; we must be masters of this excellence before we can expect to shine in any other; we must be new before we can hope to be amusing.
Now the figure which we have been discussing, or rather the figure which we ought to have been discussing, is the very essence and quintessence of novelty. It is perpetually bringing before our eyes old scenes in a new form, old friends in a new dress, old recollections in a new imagery: it is the cayenne of life; and from it the dishes, which would without it cloy and disgust, derive a perpetual variety of taste and pungency. It takes from the scenes we so often witness their unpleasing uniformity, and gives to our mortal career an air of romance which is inexpressibly amusing. All ranks of persons may alike derive benefit from it. By its use the charms of the beauty become more irresistible, the exploits of the general more astonishing, the character of the rake more excusable. It gives in an equal degree pleasure to those who behold, and advantage to those who practise it.
How then is it to be practised? The manner and the method are sufficiently obvious. Never wear to-morrow the same character, or the same dress, that you wore to-day. Be, if you can, _puncto mobilis horæ_. Be red one hour, and pale the next; vary your temper, your appearance, your language, your manners, unceasingly. Let not your studies or your amusements continue the same for a week together. Skim over the surface of everything, and be deep in nothing; you may think a little, read a little, gamble a little: but you must not think deep, read deep, or play deep. In short, be everything and nothing; the butterfly in life, tasting every flower, and tasting only to leave it.
Do you think too much is required? Far from it. Antiquity has handed down to us a character possessed, in a most transcendent degree, of all the qualifications we have exacted. We always like to get an example or two from antiquity, because it looks learned. Alcibiades then we can safely propose as a model for all juvenile practitioners in the Asyndeton. Was he grave one day? He laughed the next. Was he an orator one day? He was a buffoon the next. Was he a Greek one day? He was a Persian the next. To sum up his character: he was skilled in every profession; an amateur in every fashion; adorned by every virtue; made infamous by every vice. He moralized like a philosopher, jested like a mountebank, fought like a hero, lied like a scoundrel, lived like a knowing one, and died like a fool.
We assert, and we defy the soundest sophist in the world to contradict us, that these mixed characters obtain and preserve a greater portion of the admiration of the world, than more consistent and less interesting personages. We wonder not at the uniformity of the fixed star, but our imagination is actively employed upon the unusual appearance of the comet. Thus the man of firm and unchangeable steadiness of principle receives our esteem, and is forgotten; while the meteoric appearance of inconsistent eccentricity takes instant hold of our admiration, and is decorated with ten thousand indescribable attractions by the proper exercise of the Asyndeton.
But why do we dilate so much upon the authority of Alcibiades? It has been the almost invariable practice of all great men, in all ages, to pay particular attention to the cultivation of this figure. What a prodigy of the Asyndeton was Alexander! His father Philip may have had more science, perhaps more bottom; but the eccentricities of Alexander, the extraordinary rapidity with which he changed the ring for the gin-shop, and laid down the thunder-bolt of Ammon to assume the quart-pot of Hercules, have given, and will preserve to him, the first leaf in the good books of the young and the hasty.
Are we not more delighted by the capricious mutability of Queen Bess than by the moral uniformity of Queen Anne? Is it not a pleasing marvel, and a marvellous pleasure, to look at the last days of Oliver Cromwell, when the usurper, perpetually stretched upon the tenterhooks of conscience, dared not travel the same road twice, nor sleep two nights following in the same bed? Spirit of mutability, what pranks must thou have played with the Protector!
Since these are the charms of the Asyndeton, it is not surprising that the poets should have so frequently thrown a spice of it into the characters of their heroes. Putting Fingal and Æneas out of the way, we have no hero of any importance who can make pretensions to a consistency in perfection; and even the latter of these trips occasionally into the Asyndeton; especially when he puts off his usual denominations of _pius_ or _pater_, in order to be simply _Dux Trojanus_ at the court of Queen Dido. As for Achilles, his whole life, _magno si quicquam credis Homero_, is an Asyndeton. He is equally a warrior and a ballad-singer, a prince and a cook. To-day he cuts up oxen, and to-morrow he cuts up Trojans. In battle he is as stout a glutton as ever peeled at Moulsey Hurst. At supper he is as hungry a glutton as ever sat down to a turtle. Homer has been blamed for the faults of his hero. For our part we think, with his defenders, that the character which aims with success at perfection, aims in vain at interest; and the feats of Achilles appear to us to derive much of their lustre from the Asyndeton which pervades them. Aware of the charm which a character receives from the use of this figure, modern writers have followed, in this point, the example of their great forerunner, and have thrown into the characters of most of their heroes a particle of this fascinating inconsistency. Hence we have the soldier of Flodden Field, something between a freebooter and a knight--
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight.
Hence we trace the unconnected wanderings of a noble but ruined spirit in Manfred; and hence we wonder at the mysterious union of virtue and vice in the gloomy Corsair, who
Leaves a name to other times, Linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes.
Now, for the instruction of our readers in this elegant, nay, necessary accomplishment, we must begin by observing that the Asyndeton may be practised in various manners and matters. There is the Asyndeton in actions, the Asyndeton in dress, and the Asyndeton in conversation. The first of these is adapted to the capacities of promising young men, who have some talent, some wit, and just sufficient vanity to render both of no service. The second is very proper to be used by the lady with little beauty, who wishes to be _brillante_; and the third is equally suitable to the lady with little wit, who wishes to be _piquante_. We have made our treatise so prolix, and indulged in such frequent digressions, that we fear our description will be considered a specimen of the figure we are describing; we will therefore briefly conclude this, as we concluded our former essay, by throwing together a few promiscuous specimens of the Asyndeton, in the above classes of its professors:--
William Mutable.--Jan. 31, 1820, left Cambridge a wrangler.--Feb. 12, studied “Fancy” with Jackson.--March 10, entered the “Bachelors’ Club.”--April 1, married! the day was ominous.
Charles Random.--Feb. 20, 1820, bought a commission.--26th ditto, entered himself of the Temple.--March 1, entered the Church, and sported a wig.--March 6, left off the wig and fell in love.--March 20, despaired, and turned Quaker.--March 30, caught a fever by dancing.--Feb. 1, quite recovered.--Feb. 2, died.
Sophia Mellon.--First Masquerade in the season, a Venus.--2nd, a Vesta.--3rd, a Georgian.--4th, a Gipsy.
Laura Voluble.--Seven o’clock, talking morality with the Doctor.--Eight, nonsense with the Captain.--Nine, Greek with the pedant.--Ten, love with the Poet.--Eleven,--Silent!--This was the most marvellous change of all, and Laura is without a rival in the Practical Asyndeton.
ON HAIR-DRESSING.
“Jamque à tonsore magistro Pecteris.” JUV.
We intend, with the permission of Mr. John Smith, to present our readers with a few observations upon Hair-dressing. Before we enter upon this topic, which we shall certainly treat _capitally_, we must assure the respectable individual above alluded to, that it is our intention in no respect to assume to ourselves the shears which he has so long and so successfully wielded. We should be sorry to encroach upon the privileges, or to step into the shoes, of so respectable a member of the community. We have a real veneration for his pointed scissors, and his no less pointed narratives, although our ears are occasionally outraged by both, since the first deal occasionally in the _Tmesis_, and the latter more frequently in the _hyperbole_. Long may he continue in the undisturbed possession of those rights which he so deservedly enjoys; long may he continue to restore its youthful polish to the whiskered lip, and to prune with tonsoric scythe the luxuriance of our capillary excrescences:
The last paragraph is from the pen of Allen Le Blanc. We must pull him down from his high horse, and remount our ambling hobby. As we observed, it is not our intention to provoke any competition or comparison with Mr. J. Smith in the science of hair-dressing. We shall treat of a branch of the profession totally distinct from that which is exercised by the worthy tortor, or _dis_tortor of curls. We propose to discuss hair-dressing as a test of character, and to show how you may guess at the contents of the inside of the head by an inspection of the cultivation of the outside of it.
The difficulty we experience in reading the hearts of men is a trite subject of declamation. We find some men celebrated for their discrimination of character, while others are in the same proportion blamed for their want of it. The country maiden has no means of looking into the intentions of her adorer until she has been unfeelingly deserted; and the town pigeon has no means of scrutinizing the honour of his Greek until he has been bit for a thousand. These are lamentable, and, alas! frequent cases. The prescriptions of the regular philosophers have had but little effect in the prevention of them. The idea of Horace, _torquere mero quem perspexisse laborant_, has but little influence, since the illiterate, who are most frequently in want of assistance, have seldom the cash requisite to procure the necessary _merum_. Allow us then to recommend our nostrum.
Think of the trouble we shall save if our proposal is adopted! We doubt not but it might be carried into execution to so great an extent that one might find a sharp genius in a sharp comb, and trace the intricacies of a distorted imagination through the intricacies of a distorted curl. Perfumes and manners might be studied together, and a Cavendish and a character might be scrutinized by one and the same glance.
Do not be alarmed at the importance we attach to a head of hair; Homer would never have attributed to one of his warriors the perpetual epithet of Yellow-haired, if he had not seen in the expression something more than a mere external ornament; nor would Pope have
Weighed the men’s wits against the ladies’ hair,
if he had not discerned on the heads of his belles something worthy of so exalted a comparison. The attention which is paid by certain of our companions to this part of the outward man, will with them be a sufficient excuse for the weight which we attach to the subject.
We might go back to the ages of antiquity, and traverse distant countries, in order to prove how constantly the manners of nations are designated by their hair-dressing. We will omit, however, this superfluous voyage, concluding that our schoolfellows need not to be informed of the varieties of the ornaments for the poll, in which the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman character evinced itself. We shall find sufficient illustration of our position in the annals of English manners. In the days of our ancestors the flowered wig was the decoration of the gentlemen; and the hair, raised by cushions, stiffened with powder, and fastened with wires, formed the most becoming insignia of the lady. The behaviour of both sexes was the counterpart of their occipital distinctions; among the gentlemen the formal gallantry of those days was denoted by a no less formal peruke, and among the ladies the lover was prepared to expect a stiffness of decorum by the warning he received from so rigid a stiffness of _tête_. In our days the case is altered--altered, we think, for the better; unshackled politeness and innocent gaiety have by degrees succeeded to haughty repulsiveness and affected condescension; and, in the same proportion, the wig of one sex, and the tower of the other, have been gradually superseded by fashions less appalling and more becoming. The harmless freedom, which is the prevailing characteristic of the manners of the present age, is shown in no particular more strikingly than in the cultivation of the head; and the various shades by which the habits and dispositions of men are diversified, are not more distinct from each other than the various modes and tastes in which their heads are made up.
This, we believe, is the substance of a series of observations which we heard from a stranger the last time we were at Covent Garden Theatre. We were seated in the pit (in the fifth row from the orchestra--a situation which we recommend to our readers); our companion was a middle-aged man, of a tolerable person, but marked by no peculiarity except that ease of deportment, and that ready conversational power, which are invariably the characteristics of a man of the world. We were imperceptibly engaged in a conversation with him, which finally turned upon the subject of this paper. We are aware we have not done justice to his ideas. He expressed them with all the ease and perspicuity, mingled with playful humour, which denote a powerful mind employing its energies upon trivial pursuits. Then, pointing as he spoke with a curiously knotted cane which he held in his hand, he proceeded in the following manner to exemplify his doctrines:--
“Cast your eye for a moment upon the pair of figures who are leaning towards each other in the stage-box. The gentleman wears his hair cut somewhat of the shortest, thrown up negligently in front, so as to discover a full high forehead; I fancy he must be a naval officer--open, bold, thoughtless. The character of the lady is equally legible. Her long auburn hair, erected by the most assiduous attention into an artificial cone, has a bold and imposing appearance, and denotes that the lady is a beauty, and--knows it.
“There are three old gentlemen in the next box, who are worth a moment’s notice. I mean the three in the second row, who are discussing some question with no little vehemence of action and attitude. The first of them, who has his hair so sprucely trimmed, and fitted to the sides of his head with such scrupulous exactness, appears to be a sinecure holder, who receives yearly a large salary, and finds his only occupation in his brush; the second, whose hair seems to have been too much neglected by the scissors, although it is powdered for the occasion, and tied behind _en queue_, is, I should conceive, a disappointed and disaffected military officer; the third, whose locks seem to have a natural tendency to what was the newest fashion ten years ago, must be a country gentleman come up to town to benefit his constituents and ruin his heirs. By the earnest manner in which they are speaking, their topic is probably some political change; and the fat old gentleman, in the close wig, who is listening to them in the third row, is reflecting upon the influence which such an event would have on the five per cents.
“In the centre box there are a large body of fashionables, with some of whom I have a trifling acquaintance. Let us see how far they comply with my wishes in making the head an index of the heart. Look at the young man on the right. His locks are composed into a studied negligence by the labour of two hours; they are glossy with all the invention of Delcroix, fragrant with a _mélange_ of rose, jasmin, and jonquil. You need not proceed to the inspection of his neckcloth or his waist, in order to be convinced that such a being is an exquisite.
“The lady next to him is a _languissante_. You might, with no great effort of ingenuity, divine it from the state of her head. Its curls hang over the ivory surface of her neck in a sort of artful listlessness, which is admirably adapted to her torpid style of beauty, and her yet more torpid style of mind. The other lady, in the front row, is her sister. She has more fashion than beauty, more vivacity than fashion, and more malice than either. With such qualifications, the course of conquest she was to pursue was obvious. She studies singularity, dresses her hair _à la grecque_, and sets up for a Spirituelle. The success of these light troops is frequently more brilliant than that of the Regulars. The fop with whom she is coquetting is a young author striving to be known. His character is written legibly on his forehead. The spruceness with which every hair is bound down in its proper station, and the stiff pertness with which the topknot is forced up, as if disdainful of the compression of the hat, plainly show that he is, at least in his own estimation, a favourite of Apollo.
“There is a gentleman in the next box, of whom it was once remarked that his countenance bore some resemblance to that of Lord Byron. Since this luckless expression the poor man has studied much to make himself ridiculous by imitating his lordship in his eccentricity, since to copy his genius is out of the question. Without looking at the eye, which takes great pains to be ‘fixed in vacancy,’ or the lip, which endeavours to quiver with an expression of moroseness, you may tell, from the wild and foreign costume of his tresses, that Lord Fanny is a would-be Furioso.