Thomas Love Peacock

“ Miss Gryll had listened to Lord Curryfin. She had neither encouraged nor discouraged him. She thought him the most amusing person she had ever known. She liked his temper, his acquirements, and his manners. She could not divest herself of that feeling of the ludicrous which everybody seemed to associate with him; but she thought the chances of life presented little hope of a happier marriage than a woman who would fall in with his tastes and pursuits—which, notwithstanding their tincture of absurdity, were entertaining and even amiable—might hope for with him. ”

“ GRYLLUS I see a mass of light brighter than that Which burned in Circe's palace, and beneath it A motley crew, dancing to joyous music. But from that light explosion comes, and flame; And forth the dancers rush in haste and fear From their wide-blazing hall. SPIRIT-RAPPER Oh, Circe! Circe! Thou show'st him all the evil of our arts In more than just proportion to the good. Good without evil is not given to man. Jove, from his urns dispensing good and ill, Gives all unmixed to some, and good and ill Mingled to many—good unmixed to none.{1} Our arts are good. ”

“ At Squire Gryll's, rehearsing a play for Christmas.
Harry. And Squire Gryll's niece is a great beauty, and a great fortune.
Dorothy. Squire Gryll's niece was here, and my sisters and myself saw a great deal of her. She is a very nice young lady; but he has seen great beauties and great fortunes before; he has always been indifferent to the beauties, and he does not care about fortune. I am sure he would not like to change his mode of life.
Harry. Ah, Miss Dorothy! you don't know what it is to fall in love. It tears a man up by the roots, like a gale of wind. ”

“ Indeed, uncle, the most of them were nothing; or at best, mere suits of good clothes; men made, as it were, to pattern by the dozen; selfish, frivolous, without any earnest pursuit, or desire to have one; ornamental drawing-room furniture, no more distinguishable in memory than a set of chairs.
Mr. Gryll. Well, my dear Morgana, for mere negations there is no remedy; but for positive errors, even for gambling, it strikes me they are curable.
Miss Gryll. No, uncle. Even my limited observation has shown me that men are easily cured of unfashionable virtues, but never of fashionable vices. ”

“ GRYLLUS More than one drop, I fear, And those of bitter water. CIRCE There is yet An ample field of scientific triumph: What shall we show him next? SFIRIT-RAPPER Pause we awhile, He is not in the mood to feel conviction Of our superior greatness. He is all For rural comfort and domestic ease, But our impulsive days are all for moving: Sometimes with some ulterior end, but still For moving, moving, always. There is nothing Common between us in our points of judgment. He takes his stand upon tranquillity, We ours upon excitement. ”

“ Miss Ilex. I have seen much graceful motion in dancing, in private society and on the Italian stage; and some in skating before to-day; but anything so graceful as that double-gliding over the ice by those two remarkably handsome young persons, I certainly never saw before.
Miss Gryll. Lord Curryfin is unquestionably handsome, and Miss Niphet, especially with that glow on her cheeks, is as beautiful a young woman as imagination can paint. They move as if impelled by a single will. It is impossible not to admire them both. ”

“ Miss Niphet.. You have admirers in abundance, Morgana: more than have often fallen to the lot of the most attractive young women. And love is such a capricious thing, that to be the subject of it is no proof of superior merit. There are inexplicable affinities of sympathy, that make up an irresistible attraction, heaven knows how.
Miss Gryll. And these inexplicable affinities Lord Curryfin has found in you, and you in him. ”

“ He dined alone, drank a bottle of Madeira, as if it had been so much water, summoned the seven sisters to the drawing-room earlier and detained them later than usual, till their music and its old associations had restored him to something like tranquillity. He had always placed the summum bonum of life in tranquillity, and not in excitement. He felt that his path was now crossed by a disturbing force, and determined to use his utmost exertions to avoid exposing himself again to its influence.
In this mood the Reverend Doctor Opimian found him one morning in the library reading. ”

“ The arms of the chairs put forth hands, and pinched the spirit-rappers, who sprang up and ran off, pursued by their chairs. This piece of mechanical pantomime was a triumph of Lord Curryfin's art, and afforded him ample satisfaction for the failure of his resonant vases. CIRCE Now, Gryllus, we may seek our ancient home In my enchanted isle. GRYLLUS Not yet, not yet. Good signs are toward of a joyous supper. Therein the modern world may have its glory, And I, like an impartial judge, am ready To do it ample justice. ”

“ 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 One is on fire, and one has struck on rocks And melted in the waves like fallen snow. Two crash together in the middle sea, And go to pieces on the instant, leaving No soul to tell the tale, and one is hurled In fragments to the sky, strewing the deep With death and wreck. ”

“ While we are on the subject of misnomers, what say you to the wisdom of Parliament?
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Why, sir, I do not call that a misnomer. The term wisdom is used in a parliamentary sense. The wisdom of Parliament is a wisdom sui generis. It is not like any other wisdom. It is not the wisdom of Socrates, nor the wisdom of Solomon. It is the wisdom of Parliament. It is not easily analysed or defined; but it is very easily understood. It has achieved wonderful things by itself, and still more when Science has come to its aid. ”

“ Lord Curryfin. Who could be insensible to charms like yours, if hope could have mingled with the contemplation? But there were several causes by which hope seemed forbidden, and therefore——
Miss Gryll. And therefore when beauty, and hope, and sympathy shone under a more propitious star, you followed its guidance. You could not help yourself:
What heart were his that could resist That melancholy smile?
I shall flatter myself that I might have kept you if I had tried hard for it at first; but
Il pentirsi da sesto nulla giova. ”

“ This, this is life, when pleasure drives out care. Short is the span of time we each may share. To-day, while love, wine, song, the hours adorn, To-day we live: none know the coming morn.
Lord Curryfin's assiduities to Miss Gryll had discomposed Mr. Falconer more than he chose to confess to himself. Lord Curryfin, on entering the drawing-rooms, went up immediately to the young lady of the house; and Mr. Falconer, to the amazement of the reverend doctor, sat down in the outer drawing-room on a sofa by the side of Miss Ilex, with whom he entered into conversation. ”

“ When patients lie in piteous case, In comes the apothecary, And to the doctor cries 'Alas! Non debes Quadrilare.' The patient dies without a pill: For why? The doctor's at quadrille. Should France and Spain again grow loud, The Muscovite grow louder, Britain, to curb her neighbours proud, Would want both ball and powder; Must want both sword and gun to kill; For why? The general's at quadrille.
People are not now the fixtures they used to be in their respective localities, finding their amusements within their own limited circle. ”

“ CHAPTER XXXIII THE CONQUEST OF THEBES (Greek passage) ÆSCHYLUS: Prometheus. Oh! wise was he, the first who taught This lesson of observant thought, That equal fates alone may dress The bowers of nuptial happiness; That never, where ancestral pride Inflames, or affluence rolls its tide, Should love's ill-omened bonds entwine The offspring of an humbler line.
Mr. Falconer, the next morning, after the doctor had set out on his return walk, departed from his usual practice of not seeing one of the sisters alone, and requested that Dorothy would come to him in the drawing-room. ”

“ Among the spectators on the bank were Miss Niphet and Mr. MacBorrowdale, standing side by side. While Lord Curryfin was cutting his sextillions, Mr. MacBorrowdale said: 'There is a young gentleman who is capable of anything, and who would shine in any pursuit, if he would keep to it. He shines as it is, in almost everything he takes in hand in private society: there is genius even in his failures, as in the case of the theatrical vases; but the world is a field of strong competition, and affords eminence to few in any sphere of exertion, and to those few rarely but in one.'
Miss Niphet. ”

“ Just look in the cart: I am sure you will find something good.' 'Something, something, something,' said the carter; 'if there is anything fit to eat or drink in the cart, I wish a bogle may fly away with it.' 'Thank you,' said the bogle, and changed himself into a shape which laid the carter on his back, with his heels in the air. The bogle made lawful prize of the contents of the cart. The refectory was soon fragrant with the odour of roast, and the old wine flowed briskly, to the great joy of the assembly, who passed the night in feasting, singing, and dancing, and toasting Old Nick. ”

“ That from earth you have sprung, and to earth you return, But stand for the faith, life immortal to earn. 'This blow of the sword on your shoulder-blades true Is the mandate of homage, where homage is due, And the sign that your swords from the scabbard shall fly When "St George and the Right" is the rallying cry. 'This belt of white silk, which no speck has defaced, Is the sign of a bosom with purity graced, And binds you to prove, whatsoever betides, Of damsels distressed the friends, champions, and guides. ”

“ That nought divine may hold abode Where death's dark shade is felt: And therefore were the Muses nine Leaving the old poetic shrine, Where they so long had dwelt. II The theatre was thronged once more, More thickly than the day before, To hear the half-heard song. The day wore on. Impatience came. They called upon Philemon's name, With murmurs loud and long. Some sought at length his studious cell, And to the stage returned, to tell What thousands strove to ask. 'The poet we have been to seek Sate with his hand upon his cheek, As pondering o'er his task. ”

“ Half the inhabitants of a country place are here to-day and gone to-morrow. Even of those who are more what they call settled, the greater portion is less, probably, at home than whisking about the world. Then, again, where cards are played at all, whist is more consentaneous to modern solemnity: there is more wiseacre-ism about it: in the same manner that this other sort of quadrille, in which people walk to and from one another with faces of exemplary gravity, has taken the place of the old-fashioned country-dance. ”

“ Falconer. Do you place Donizetti above Mozart?
Miss Ilex. Oh, surely not. But for supplying expressive music to a singer like Rubini, I think Donizetti has no equal; at any rate no superior. For music that does not require, and does not even suit, such a singer, but which requires only to be correctly interpreted to be universally recognised as the absolute perfection of melody, harmony, and expression, I think Mozart has none. ”

“ Miss Gryll did not seem likely to make any choice at all. The atmosphere of quiet enjoyment in which she had grown up seemed to have steeped her feelings in its own tranquillity; and still more, the affection which she felt for her uncle, and the conviction that, though he had always premeditated her marriage, her departure from his house would be the severest blow that fate could inflict on him, led her to postpone what she knew must be an evil day to him, and might peradventure not be a good one to her. ”

“ Opimian. You look as little like a disappointed man as any I have seen; but as you have neither daughter nor niece, you would have seven links instead of one between the top of your tower and the external world.
Mr. Falconer. We are all born to disappointment. It is as well to be prospective. Our happiness is not in what is, but in what is to be. We may be disappointed in our everyday realities, and if not, we may make an ideality of the unattainable, and quarrel with Nature for not giving what she has not to give. ”

“ Everything is too deeply tinged with sordid vulgarity. There can be no intellectual power resident in a wood, where the only inscription is not 'Genio loci,' but 'Trespassers will be prosecuted'; no Naiad in a stream that turns a cotton-mill; no Oread in a mountain dell, where a railway train deposits a cargo of vandals; no Nereids or Oceanitides along the seashore, where a coastguard is watching for smugglers. No; the intellectual life of the material world is dead. Imagination cannot replace it. ”