Mirabell

“ So Mirabell played with her Lamb until it was time for the little girl to go to bed. Uncle Tim came up to see Mirabell and Arnold to say good-bye, for he was going on a sea voyage.
"And bring me a parrot when you come back!" begged Arnold.
"Would you like a monkey, Mirabell?" asked the jolly sailor.
"No, thank you," she answered. "A monkey is nice, but he might pull the wool off my Lamb."
"That's so—he might!" laughed the jolly sailor. "Well, good-bye,
Mirabell, Arnold, and the Lamb on Wheels." ”

“ Madam Travis! It's about the lace for her damask petticoat, and there's no telling how long she may keep me! My dear Deborah, when you have finished your wine, Peggy shall show you your room. You must make yourself quite at home. For says I to Mirabell this morning, 'Far be it from me to forget past kindnesses, and in those old Bath days Deborah was a good friend to me,—which was no wonder, to be sure, seeing that when we were little girls we went to the same dame school, and always learned our book and worked our samplers together.' And says Mirabell—Yes, yes, ma'am, I'm coming! ”

“ She is good-natured and generous, with all her temptations to the contrary; and her behaviour to Mirabell reconciles us to her treatment of Witwoud and Petulant, and of her country admirer, Sir Wilful.
Congreve has described all this in his character of Millamant, but he has done no more; and if he had, he would have done wrong. He has given us the finest idea of an artificial character of this kind; but it is still the reflection of an artificial character. The springs of nature, passion, or imagination are but feebly touched. ”

“ The two children went down to the kitchen. There was no one in it just then, as the cook was out, and Mother was in the parlor talking to Uncle Tim, the sailor.
"First we've got to get the long ironing board," said Arnold.
"What are we going to do with that?" Mirabell asked.
"Make a sliding downhill thing for your Lamb," answered her brother.
"Why, how can you do that?" asked Mirabell. "There isn't any snow now, though there was some for Christmas. How can you make a sliding downhill thing without snow?"
"Ill show you," Arnold said. "Wait till I get the ironing board." ”

“ Fainall of your ladyship then?
MRS. FAIN. Ay, all’s out: my affair with Mirabell, everything discovered. This is the last day of our living together; that’s my comfort.
FOIB. Indeed, madam, and so ’tis a comfort, if you knew all. He has been even with your ladyship; which I could have told you long enough since, but I love to keep peace and quietness by my good will. I had rather bring friends together than set ’em at distance. But Mrs. Marwood and he are nearer related than ever their parents thought for.
MRS. FAIN. Say’st thou so, Foible? Canst thou prove this? ”

“ They are represented here as men of fashion; they are theatrical lovers, heroes, and as such they manage to get hold of an heiress. We must go to Mirabell for an example of this medley of corruption and elegance. Mrs. Fainall, his former mistress, married by him to a common friend, a miserable wretch, complains to him of this hateful marriage. He appeases her, gives her advice, shows her the precise mode, the true expedient for setting things on a comfortable footing. "You should have just so much disgust for your husband, as may be sufficient to make you relish your lover." ”

“ Fainall into a low intrigue which shall obtain for Mirabell a pretty wife and a good dowry. Certainly this gentleman knows the world; no one could better employ a former mistress. Such are the cultivated characters of this theatre, as dishonest as the uncultivated ones: having transformed their evil instincts into systematic vices, lust into debauchery, brutality into cynicism, perversity into depravity, deliberate egotists, calculating sensualists, with rules for their immorality, reducing feeling to self-interest, honor to decorum, happiness to pleasure. ”

“ Mirabelle made herself too conspicuous. But even if Mirabelle 273 stuck to her colours, Mr. Mix needn’t hesitate to drift away––that is, after he had received his settlement. Late in August, he would make a trip to New York on business––reform business––and in the glare of the flaming-arcs, he would compensate himself for his years of penance. Mirabelle was sharp, but (he smiled reminiscently) in Chicago he had once managed to hoodwink her; and what man has done, man can do. ”

“ And indeed it had been from the time he fell out of the tree into the Man's coat pocket until Jim stumbled with him and he fell into the hole.
"Sidney will be glad to get his Clown back," went on Arnold, when the toy had been set on the table where Daddy took his place to tell the evening story.
"I wish we could take it to him now," said Mirabell.
"Mayn't we?" asked her brother.
"It is getting late," said their mother. "You may take the toy over the first thing in the morning."
"But all the while Sidney will be wondering where his Clown is," objected the little girl. ”

“ I like it better in this playroom, as I can move about more. But still I was lonesome until you came. Let us be friends, and tell each other our adventures."
So the Lamb told of the fun she had had in the toy store with the Bold Tin Soldier, the Calico Clown, and the others. She told of having been taken away by the jolly sailor, and how afraid she was that she would be seasick.
"But it was all right when I found he was bringing me to a home on shore with Mirabell," said the Lamb. Then she told of her slide down the ironing board. ”

“ WHEN Mirabelle Leicester went to Chester Square, her emotions were a curious discord of wonder, curiosity and embarrassment. The latter was founded on the extraordinary effusiveness of her companion, who had suddenly, and with no justification, assumed the position of dearest friend and lifelong acquaintance. Mirabelle thought the girl was an actress: a profession in which sudden and violent friendships are not of rare occurrence. She wondered why Aunt Alma had not made an effort to come to town, and wondered more that she had known of Alma’s friendship with the Newtons. ”

“ As a matter of fact, I've always had Mirabelle sized up as a near-vamp who had worked up the act to boost sales and cinch her job. Anyway, I never knew of her lurin' her victims into anything more desperate than a red-ink table d'hôte dinner or a six-dollar orgie at a cabaret. And somehow they all seem to wriggle out of the net within a week or so with no worse casualties than a feverish yearnin' for next pay day and a wise look in the eyes. I've watched some of them young sports from the bond room have their little fling with Mirabelle and not one of 'em has come out a human wreck. ”

“ This is straight heart-to-heart stuff. You know you've been stringin' Vincent along."
"Suppose I have?" demands Mirabelle. "Where do you get a license to crash in?"301
"Just what I was working up to," says I. "For one thing, he's the only perfect office boy in captivity. The Corrugated can't spare him. Then again, there's Mother. Honest, Mirabelle, you ought to see Mother—reg'lar stage widow, with the sad sweet smile, the soft gray hair, 'n'everything. If you could, you'd lay off this Theda Bara act the next minute."
It was a poor hunch, pullin' out that sympathy stop for Mirabelle. ”

“ The poet could only wail and beat his breast. Eclogues I. and VI. are all sighs and tears. Perhaps in the course of time a copy of the Faerie Queene might reach the region where Menalcas and Rosalind were growing old together; and she, with a certain ruth perhaps mixed with her anger, might recognise in Mirabella an image of her fair young disdainful self{4}. The poet's attachment was no transient flame that flashed and was gone. ”

“ Mirabelle looked at him coolly, with a slightly contemptuous droop of her eyelids.
“I believe that it’s a characteristic of both the visits I make and those I receive,” she said lazily, “that they’re seldom without an object. As for the hour, I’m not to be judged by the conventionality for which you manifest so commendable — and so abrupt — a concern. We Parisians are like our allies, the Russians: we go by standards of time which differ from those of the rest of the world. ”

“ The village boys who, as boys will, had cheered on the Paris mob which sacked Mirabel in the summer of 1792 lay, many of them, as quiet as the bodies round which they had unthinkingly danced—corpses themselves in the blood-stained soil of Flanders or Switzerland or Italy or Syria. Those who lived were far away. In Mirabel-le-Château now only the old and the women remained. ”

“ The most striking lesson ever read to levity and licentiousness, is in the last act of the Inconstant, where young Mirabel is preserved by the fidelity of his mistress, Orinda, in the disguise of a page, from the hands of assassins, into whose power he has been allured by the temptations of vice and beauty. There never was a rake who did not become in imagination a reformed man, during the representation of the last trying scenes of this admirable comedy. ”

“ Then said Miramon:
"Yes, he is wiser that shelters his longing from any such surfeit. Yes, he is wiser that knows the shadow makes lovely the substance, wisely regarding the ways of that irresponsible shadow which, if you grasp at it, flees, and, when you avoid it, will follow, gilding all life with its glory, and keeping always one woman young and most fair and most wise, and unwon; and keeping you always never contented, but armed with a self-respect that no husband manages quite to retain in the face of being contented. ”

“ When finally the baffled Dame Marigold got up to go, the old woman cried shrilly: "Now, ma'am, remember, not a word of this to the master! He was never one that could stand being worried. He's like his father in that. My old mistress used often to say to me, 'Now, Polly, we won't tell the master. He can't stand worry.' Aye, all the Chanticleers are wonderful sensitive." And the unexpressed converse of the last statement was, "All the Vigils, on the other hand, have the hides of buffaloes."
Dame Marigold, however, had no intention of mentioning the matter as yet to Master Nathaniel. ”

“ And who would be more likely to know about a secret passage in the Guildhall than Endymion Leer!"
"By the Sun, Moon and Stars!" exclaimed Master Nathaniel excitedly, "I shouldn't be surprised if you were right, Marigold. You've got a head on your shoulders with something in it more useful than porridge!"
And Dame Marigold gave a little complacent smile.
Then he sprang from his chair, "I'm off to tell Ambrose!" he cried eagerly.
But would he be able to convince the slow and obstinate mind of Master Ambrose? Mere suspicions are hard to communicate. ”

“ Master Ranulph must spend some months on a farm, and I know the very place for him."
Master Nathaniel was more moved than he cared to show by the doctor's words. They were like the cry of the cock, without its melancholy. But he tried to make his voice dry and matter of fact, as he asked where this marvellous farm might be.
"Oh, it's to the west," the doctor answered vaguely. "It belongs to an old acquaintance of mine—the widow Gibberty. She's a fine, fresh, bustling woman and knows everything a woman ought to know, and her granddaughter, Hazel, is a nice, sensible, hard-working girl. ”

“ Master Nathaniel began to lose his head, and to buzz and bang again like a cockchafer. But Endymion Leer remained perfectly calm. And the man who remains calm inevitably takes command of a situation. Master Nathaniel found himself gently but firmly pushed out of his own parlour, and the door locked in his face. Dame Marigold had followed him, and there was nothing for them to do but to await the doctor's good pleasure in the pipe-room. ”

“ There is the same burly thick-necked strength of body as of soul;—built, in both cases, on what the old Marquis calls a fond gaillard. By nature, by course of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has much more of bluster; a noisy, forward, unresting man. ”

“ The guardian smiled indulgently—"You are just like the doctor, ma'am—Doctor Leer. We used to call him the Woodpecker, when he was studying the Guildhall for his book, for he was for ever hopping about and tapping on the walls. It was almost as if he were looking for something, we used to say. And I'd never be surprised myself to come on a sliding panel. They do say as what those old Dukes were a wild crew, and it might have suited their book very well to have a secret way out of their place!" and he gave a knowing wink.
"Yes, yes, it certainly might," said Dame Marigold, thoughtfully. ”

“ Ranulph shrank away from her, and cast an imploring look towards his father. Whereupon Master Nathaniel took her roughly by the shoulders and pushed her out of the room, saying, "If that is all you can say, you'd better leave the boy to me."
And Dame Marigold, as she went down the stairs, terrified, contemptuous, sick at heart, was feeling every inch a Vigil, and muttering angrily to herself, "Oh, these Chanticleers!"
We are not yet civilised enough for exogamy; and, when anything seriously goes wrong, married couples are apt to lay all the blame at its door. ”

“ Then there was Mironda. Poor Mironda, who later paid, as women do, be they white, black or yellow.
Mironda was rather nearer to yellow than to black. I think she had some European blood in her. One does not often see a native woman with hazel eyes nor with freckles; and besides, she was very tall and slim.
As a special mark of his good will the Chief once took me through his harem. That is how I first came to see Mironda.
The woman aroused my interest. When we entered her compound she glared at her lord and master as a caged beast does upon free men. ”