Lydia Languish

“ It has the honour to be one of the books which Miss Lydia Languish lays out ostentatiously on her table—in company with Fordyce's sermons—when she anticipates a visit from Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony. Some halting verses of the period exalt it as the beacon light of youth; and Mrs. Delany, writing to her six-year-old niece, counsels the little girl to read the "Letters" once a year until she is grown up. "They speak to the heart as well as to the head," she assures the poor infant ”

“ She herself played Lady Teazle, Lydia Languish, Olivia in the ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ and Miss Hardcastle. Without ever attaining a thorough mastery of her art, she displayed in these characters much brightness and refinement. ”

“ Orger from Edinburgh,’ she made at Drury Lane, as Lydia Languish in the ‘Rivals,’ her first appearance in London. Her reception was favourable, but not enthusiastic; and, as the company was full, few opportunities were afforded her. On the destruction by fire of the theatre, 24 Feb. 1809, she went with the company to the Lyceum, where she played an original part in ‘Temper, or the Domestic Tyrant,’ an alleged alteration of Sedley's ‘Grumbler.’ On 20 Nov. 1809 she was the original Mrs. Lovell in ‘Not at Home,’ by R. C. Dallas ”

“ Thus, she says that Captain Absolute is the very "pine-apple of perfection," and that to think of her daughter's marrying a penniless man, gives her the [Pg 158] "hydrostatics." She does not wish her to be a "progeny of learning," but she should have a "supercilious knowledge" of accounts, and be acquainted with the "contagious countries." There is a satire, which will come home to most of us in Malaprop, notwithstanding her ignorance and stupidity, giving her opinion authoritatively on education. She says that Lydia Languish has been spoiled by reading novels, in which Sir Anthony agrees. ”

“ Mrs. Malaprop, with her bad grammar and ludicrous diction; Lydia Languish, in love with Beverley; Sir Anthony Absolute, choleric, but kind-hearted.
Scene: A dressing room in Mrs. Malaprop's lodgings.
Enter Mrs. Malaprop, Lydia, and Sir Anthony
Mrs. Malaprop. There, Sir Anthony, there stands the deliberate simpleton, who wants to disgrace her family and lavish herself on a fellow not worth a shilling.
[Pg 455] Lydia. Madam, I thought you once—
Mrs. M. You thought, miss! I don't know any business you have to think at all: thought does not become a young woman. ”

“ He had two sons (twins) by Caro, viz., Methos (drunkenness) and Gluttony, both fully described in canto vii. (Greek, akrates, "incontinent.")
Acra'tes (3 syl.) , Incontinence personified in The Faëry Queen, by Spenser. He is the father of Cymoch'lês and Pyroch'lês.—Bk. ii. 4 (1590) .
Acres (Bob) , a country gentleman, the rival of ensign Beverley, alias captain Absolute, for the hand and heart of Lydia Languish, the heiress. He tries to ape the man of fashion, gets himself up as a loud swell, and uses "sentimental oaths," i.e. ”

“ With her bright cheeks and her yellow hair above the fawn-colored corduroy, Lydia looked half boy, half woman.
"My soul, Lydia, they're just grand!" cried Lizzie.
"What boys are going in that crowd?" demanded Amos.
"Charlie and Kent and—Margery's mother's given in—'Gustus Bach. I told you. Daddy, don't you like the suit?"
"Like it!" exclaimed Amos. "Lydia, I'm stunned by it! It makes me realize my little girl's growing up to be a pretty woman. I wish I could have bought you your first suit myself, Lydia. ”

“ As the evening drew to a close, and Amos went out to his chickens as usual after Lizzie had gone to bed, John turned to Lydia.
"What are you reading, these days, young Lydia?"
"Browning—'The Ring and the Book,'" replied Lydia.
John shook his head. "Really grown up, aren't you, Lydia? Do you enjoy being a young lady?"
"Yes, I do, only I miss the old days when I saw so much of you."
"Do you, my dear?" asked Levine, eagerly. "In what ways do you miss me?"
"Oh, every way! No one will ever understand me as you do."
"Oh, I don't know. There are Billy and Kent." ”

“ You can give it to me, if you want to," laughed Kent.
"But don't you see how I feel?" cried Lydia. "Don't you see that all John Levine's lands up there are haunted by death—his own—and all the starving Indians? Oh, why did he do this to me!"
"I suppose you feel the same way about the cottage," said Amos, sarcastically.
"I don't either," contradicted Lydia. "I'm as happy as I can be that we've got that. But all the rest! I won't have it, I tell you! I'd rather be poverty stricken all my life." ”

“ When he has none, we'll kick him out, like the dead dog he is."
Lydia, her eyes round, her lips parted, did not reply. For a moment she saw the Levine that the world saw, cold, logical, merciless. John interpreted her expression instantly and smiled. "Don't look at me so, young Lydia. I'm just being honest. The rest talk about 'freeing the Indian.' I say damn the Indian, enrich the whites."
"It—it makes me feel sort of sick at my stomach," replied Lydia, slowly. "I suppose you're right, but I can't help feeling sorry for Charlie Jackson and my old squaw." ”

“ Lydia's father looked at her, long and meditatively. He was pretty well discouraged about the probability of ever getting a clear title to the land through Kent or Marshall. And the longer he looked at Lydia, the more his mind reverted to New England, to old tales of the farm on which he and his ancestors had been bred.
"A man with three hundred and twenty acres of land is a power in the community," he said, suddenly.
"Oh, yes, Dad!" cried Lydia.
"You never know what a feeling of independence is," said Lizzie, "till you own land and raise wheat."
Amos stared out the door into the darkness. ”

“ Lydia laughed. "It was nip and tuck between you and Adam, Lizzie. Let's get in away from the mosquitoes—I'm so glad I had this talk with you, Mr. Levine."
"Lydia should have been a boy," said Amos; "she likes politics."
"I'd rather be a girl than anything in the world," protested Lydia, and the two men laughed. If there was still a doubt in the back of Lydia's mind regarding the reservation, for a time, at least, she succeeded in quieting it. She dreaded meeting Charlie and was relieved to hear that Dr. Fulton had taken him East with him for a couple of weeks to attend a health convention. ”

“ Don't you expect Lydia to find her young man and settle down?"
"No, I don't!" snapped Amos. "There isn't a man on earth good enough for Lydia. I don't want her to marry. I'll take care of her."
"Humph! Nothing selfish about a man, is there?" muttered Lizzie.
Kent and Lydia strolled along the leafy road, with the tang of the autumn in their nostrils, and the blue gleam of the lake in their eyes. It was only a half mile to the Willows and as they turned in, Kent took Lydia's hand and drew it through his arm. ”

“ Isn't Levine a wizard! Why don't you say something, Lydia?"
"I don't know what to say," said Lydia. "I'm sick at heart for the Indians. But I'm glad that the awful temptation of the pines is going to be taken away from Lake City. Though how good can come out of a wrong, I'm not sure. I don't understand Mr. Levine. Oh, dear! It's all wrong. When do the Indians go?"
"The last of June. It's funny, Lydia, that you don't have more sympathy with my work," replied Kent, gloomily.
"Oh, Kent!" cried Lydia, "I want to believe that everything you do is right but something's the matter with my mind. ”

“ Lydia shook her head, though Billy's face in the moonlight after the graduation party, returned unexpectedly to her memory as she did so.
"There'll never be any one like you." Then moved by a sudden impulse she leaned toward him and said, "No matter what happens, you will always know that I love you, won't you, Mr. Levine?"
John looked at the wistful face, keenly. "Why, what could happen, young Lydia?" "Oh, lots of things! I'm grown up now and—and I have to make decisions about the rightness and the wrongness of things. But no matter what I decide, nothing can change my love for you." ”

“ Kent crossed over to the couch and took Lydia's hand, while Margery went for her wraps. "Good-by, dear," he whispered, "get well fast for me."
Lydia smiled at him over the bunch of violets.
Billy was the next caller. "I left Dad and Amos saving the Nation through Free Trade," he said. "Gee, Lydia, but you do look better! You don't suppose you could possibly go to the Prom., just for one or two dances, do you?"
Lydia shook her head. "No clothes," she said, briefly. "Ask some other girl."
"There isn't any other girl," replied Billy. "If I can't go with you, I'll be hanged if I go at all! ”

“ A sudden realization of the loneliness of Lydia's unmothered girlhood, of her innocent faith in him, touched the best that was in him. His voice was a little husky but he answered coolly.
"A hussy, Lyd, is a flirt who's gone to the bad. Those around Lake City chase after the students and the Indians who've got Government allowances, and get their money away from them."
"Oh," said Lydia. "Oh!" Then thoughtfully, "Aren't men silly!"
"Yes, they are," agreed Kent. "And, Lyd, whenever you want to know about such things, you ask me. It's a man's place to tell a girl the things she ought to know." ”

“ No reason why a real estate man shouldn't go into politics as well as some of the shyster lawyers you and I know, huh, Amos?"
Upstairs, Lydia stood in a path of moonlight pulling off her clothes slowly and stifling her sobs for the sake of the little figure in the bed. Having jerked herself into her nightdress, she knelt by the bedside.
"O God," she prayed in a whisper, "don't let there be any more deaths in our family and help me to bring little Patience up right." This was her regular formula. To-night she added a plea and a threat. "And O God, don't let us move again. ”

“ He was eating his waffles absentmindedly and suddenly burst forth,
"Lydia, tell John about Dave Marshall."
Lydia, flushing uncomfortably, did so. Levine did not cease his onslaught on the waffles during the recital. When she had finished, he passed his coffee cup.
"Another cup, young Lydia. Your coffee is something to dream of."
Lydia was too surprised to take the cup. "But—but six hundred dollars. Mr. Levine!" she gasped.
"Good news, eh, Amos?" said Levine. "Getting anxious, isn't he!" Then catching Lydia's look of consternation, "Why, bless your soul, Lydia, what are you upset about? ”

“ For a moment, Lydia sat looking at her friend, uncertain how much or how little to say. She had idealized him so long, had clung so long to her faith in his perfection, that a deep feeling of indignation toward him for not living up to her belief in him drove her to saying what she never had dreamed she could have said to John Levine.
"The Indians are people, just like us," she cried, "and you're treating them as if they were beasts. You're robbing them and letting them starve! Oh, I saw them! Charlie showed the poor things to me—all sore eyes, and coughing and eating dirt. ”

“ Trees, fells, grass were steeped in a wan, gold light, a mingling of sunset and moonrise. The sky was clear; the gradations of colour on the hills ethereally distinct. From a clump of trees came a soft hooting of owls; and close behind them a tall hedge of roses red and white made a bower for Lydia's light form, and filled the night with perfume.
"What do great men matter?" said Tatham incoherently as they paused; "what does anything matter—but—Lydia!" ”

“ She looked with a clear affectionate gaze on his thin smooth-shaven face, and into his tired black eyes.
"Why do you always say 'young' Lydia?" asked the child.
"That's what I want to know, too," agreed Amos.
"Because, by heck! she's so young to be such an old lady." He smoothed the short curly hair with a gesture that was indescribably gentle. "I tell you what, young Lydia, if you were ten years older and I were ten years younger—"
Lydia leaned against his knee and took a large bite of cake. "You'd take me traveling, wouldn't you, Mr. Levine?" she said, comfortably. ”

“ On the back of the card he had drawn a picture, a picture that made Lydia, and the friendly postman, and Mother, and every one who saw it laugh. For there was Lydia, after her fall, being helped up the stairs again by Lucy Locket, while round the top of the stairs peeped the head of the faithful slave. And Lydia’s own head and ankle were wrapped round and round in yards and yards of bandage.
“Just like the soldiers at the war,” said the delighted Lydia. ”

“ Lydia looked at the faces before her, searching for Angus. How would he receive the news? How would he take it? It would be a shock, a blow, and how would he bear it? He would bear it manfully, as a man should bear it—that was her proud thought. A strange thought to come at such a moment....
Angus, standing by Myrtle Cuyler’s side, heard Lydia’s announcement; his face became a mask, an impenetrable mask of dullness, unemotional, such a face as he had not worn for years. His eyes darkened and deepened, his hands shut once and opened. ”

“ Lydia blushed. "Oh, not for a long time. Now, let's go and tell my people, Billy."
Out in the night again! Curious how long the short walk to the cottage could be made! Curious how near the stars were—heaven just over the road where the lovers strolled. Not strange that such ecstasy cannot last forever. The human mind could not bear that heaven-born rapture too long.
Lizzie was mending. Amos was sitting in his arm chair, with a bit of paper on which he was figuring. Lydia flew across the room and dropped on her knees beside him. ”

“ To tell the truth, Lydia was not giving a great deal of thought to weighty problems, this winter. No girl who finds herself with two young men in love with her, can give much thought to the world outside her own. Nor did the fact that Professor Willis made a point of appearing at the cottage at least once a month detract any from her general joy in life.
She was doing well in her studies, though outside of the occasional hop she attended with Billy or Kent, she had no part in the college social life. She was not altogether contented with the thought of preparing herself to teach. ”