Pandering

“ Parnell—“I think that some of you answer, ‘Shoot him!’ Now, I will point out to you another method, which is much more certain, and which has the advantage of being more Christian and more charitable, for it gives the sinner time to repent. When a man has taken a farm from which another has been unjustly driven out, you must, by your conduct, wherever you meet him, by the isolation in which you will force him to live, by treating him as formerly lepers were treated—you must, I repeat, by all these measures, show him the hatred and contempt you feel for his crime.” ”

“ Pantagruel goes through something like a second edition (really a first) of the educational experiences of his father. Like him, he goes to Paris, and there meets with Panurge, the principal triumph of Rabelaisian character drawing, and the most original as well as puzzling figure of the book. Panurge has almost all intellectual accomplishments, but is totally devoid of morality: he is a coward, a drunkard, a lecher, a spiteful trickster, a spendthrift, but all the while infinitely amusing. ”

“ How often have the asperities incident to conversation been instantly softened down by the means of a well-timed pun? How many a rising storm of colloquial debate and controversial wrath has been dispelled by the same salutary agency, when wisdom would have failed to convince, or mediation to conciliate? The able punster has perhaps more frequent opportunities than any other character, of securing the blessing pronounced upon the peace-maker. ”

“ Their torpid faculties and amiable apathy are never roused but by the calculations of self-interest, or the thirst of revenge. The glossy sleekness of the panther's skin does not blunt the sharpness of his fangs, and his fawning eye dooms his victim while it glitters. ”

“ Saturday afternoon, October 10, 1891.
DEAR MRS. PARNELL,—I am very glad you have written me, if the doing so, or if the reply I may be able to send you, can in any way help to mitigate any one of the numerous and infinitely painful circumstances, or their influence, rather, on your mind just now.
Such inquiries as those which suggest themselves to you are so natural that it is impossible to repress them.
One never knows exactly what might have happened in any incident of life had some other course been taken. ”

“ Should he choose the Panther? No, for although the Panther was strong and brave, and a great fighter, it knew nothing about law and politics—and a King must learn to be a just judge and wise statesman, as well as a good soldier. ”

“ This so incensed Panurge that he forthwith lifted his hand to have stricken him the dumb roister and given him a sound whirret on the ear, but that the respect and reverence which he carried to the presence of Pantagruel restrained his choler and kept his fury within bounds and limits. Then said Pantagruel, If the bare signs now vex and trouble you, how much more grievously will you be perplexed and disquieted with the real things which by them are represented and signified! All truths agree and are consonant with one another. ”

“ Fly from these men, abhor and hate them as much as I do, and upon my faith you will find yourselves the better for it. And if you desire to be good Pantagruelists, that is to say, to live in peace, joy, health, making yourselves always merry, never trust those men that always peep out at one hole. ”

“ He was fond of speaking ill, diligent to sow dissension, and from the constant bent of his thought, had obtained that sort of readiness for slander or reproach, which is esteemed wit by the light opinion of some, who take the remarks of ill-nature, for an understanding of mankind, and the abrupt lashes of rudeness for the spirit of expression. ”

“ The cold blooded fury and mercenary malice of these panders to mischief, can only be appeased by the prospect of lasting desolation. They rave, foam at the mouth, and make frantic gestures at the name of peace. ”

“ The “Panjandrum,”—which I had already learned to love as a mother loves her first-born,—the dear old “Panjandrum” must perish before its birth. I felt the pity of it! The thing itself,—the idea and theory of it, had been very good. But how shall a man put forth a magazine when he finds himself unable to write a page of it within the compass of a week? The meditations of that Sunday were very bitter, but perhaps they were useful. I had long since perceived that mankind are divided into two classes,—those who shall speak, and those who shall listen to the speech of others. ”

“ Thus he who hates fables answers one with another, and can rejoice in them when they flatter his envy. He appears at the head of his squadron of critics, in the full spirit of one utterly devoted to a party; with whom truth is a lie, or as bad as a lie, when it makes against him ”

“ How could the fortunes of the nation be safe with a man whose speeches were pointed and sparkling, whose mind was so quick, so agile, that it reminded you of a fencer's play? Every one is agreed that Lord Parnaby is flippant and unsubstantial; we doubt his principles and we have grave fears about his morality. Take warning, my dear boy, take warning. Let the sprightly epigram never lighten the long periods of your speech nor the Attic salt flavour the roast beef of your conversation. Be careful that your metaphors show no imagination and conceal your brains as you would a discreditable secret. ”

“ Never in all the "lives," "articles," or "appreciations" I read had there been one that could say—or one that desired to say—that Parnell was not a man who stands out sharp and clear from other men for good or ill. ”

“ Then by means of the Myth of Pandora the poet shows how evil and the need for work first arose, and goes on to describe the Five Ages of the World, tracing the gradual increase of evil, and emphasizing the present miserable condition of the World, a condition in which struggle is inevitable. ”

“ And here's a final reason,
He was of such a kind
Every man that sings a song
Keeps Parnell in his mind.
For Parnell was a proud man,
No prouder trod the ground,
And a proud man's a lovely man,
So pass the bottle round. ”

“ Yea, quoth Panurge, the reason of that was because I had fasted too long. Flatter not yourself, quoth Pantagruel; all will go to ruin. Know for a certain truth, that every sleep that endeth with a starting, and leaves the person irksome, grieved, and fretting, doth either signify a present evil, or otherwise presageth and portendeth a future imminent mishap. ”

“ However much I soothed it, the panther became not calm. I grew angry, I brandished it, dashed it on the ground, shattered it. I remembered how I had striven with my beloved. [76] (Yet) my soul tore not itself altogether out of me. ”

“ Panurge, a young man, handsome and of good stature, but in very ragged apparel when Pantag ́ruel first met him on the road leading from Charenton Bridge. Pantagruel, pleased with his person, and moved with pity at his distress, accosted him, when Panurge replied, first in German, then in Arabic, then in Italian, then in Biscayan, then in Bas-Breton, then in Low Dutch, then in Spanish. Finding that Pantagruel knew none of these languages, Panurge tried Danish, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, with no better success. “Friend,” said the prince, “can you speak French?” ”

“ Away, hence, avant, avant, with a devil avant! And being come home, he said to Pantagruel, Master, I pray you come and see all the dogs of the country, how they are assembled about a lady, the fairest in the city, and would duffle and line her. ”

“ And probably many thousands of well-meaning men, not versed in the mysteries of politics, were secretly pleased to find themselves provided with an excuse for yielding once more to a faction, who had over us the immense advantage of having made up their minds to carry their point or fight. If his was the shame of this speech, ours was the guilt. He faithfully represented the portion of his constituents whose wine he drank, who helped him out with his notes, and who kept his atmosphere hazy with incense ”

“ What if some opposing newspaper take up the cudgels in his behalf, and assert that the victim of all Pandora's complaints, whom we send tottering to the grave, passes one half the day in knocking up a 'distinguished company' at a shooting-party, and the other half in outdoing the same 'distinguished company' after dinner? What if the afflicted individual himself write us word that he never was better in his life? ”

“ The same economical spirit which actuates the poet of the 'Works' is visible also in the 'Theogony,' where the head and front of Pandora's offending is, that the "beauteous evil," woman, is a drone in the hive, and consumes the fruits of man's labour without adding to them. ”

“ Royalist and Puritan, each had his lesson to learn, as I said before. Each marked the pendulum swing to a wrong extreme, and the pendulum was beating time for your younger generations to march by. And so I say to you who are wiser by the follies of your fathers, look not back too scornfully; for he who is ever watching to mock at the tripping of other men's feet is like to fall over a very small stumbling-block himself. ”

“ But when pride towers to such a height as to become a law to itself, disregarding the judgment of others, it may not only lead its possessor into an attitude of defiance which the world resents, but may make him stoop to acts of turpitude which discredit his character. Mr. Parnell was certainly not a scrupulous man. ”

“ Not only I, but every one of us, would have been as ashamed to be caught indulging in sentiment, or "bleating," as the National Observer. The chances are we were talking as much nonsense as could be talked to the minute, for there was nothing we liked to talk better, nothing that served us so well to disguise the emotion we thought out of place in the world in which so obviously the self-respecting man's business was to fight. ”

“ Extends incumbent on the watery plain.
Then arm your host, the doubtful battle try;
Lead forth those frogs that have the soul to die.
The chief retires, the crowd the challenge hear,
And proudly-swelling yet perplex'd appear:
Much they resent, yet much their monarch blame,
Who rising, spoke to clear his tainted fame.
O friends, I never forc'd the mouse to death,
Nor saw the gasping of his latest breath. ”

“ To make obeisance to a phantom public, not because she cared one iota for the phantom or its opinions, but because husband and parents and relations were terrified at the prospect of a few critical and disapproving remarks, that they would not even hear! ”

“ This box of Pandora, containing all the evils that have issued from it, seems to have all the charm of the most striking and delicate allusions. Nothing is more enchanting than this origin of our sufferings. ”

“ Pennant, I don’t want to flatter you, but you must know in your own mind that you are not like the clods around you. You have a quick brain and vivid feelings. But even you—pray excuse the liberty I am taking—show signs of the rusting effect of these narrow-hearted provincial towns. Fancy a fine young fellow like you remaining content with such a horizon! You, who might aspire to be anything you pleased—a king among men—wasting your energies on lawn tennis! ”

“ Those ministers, therefore, that give thee any counsel fraught with evil unto the Pandavas, do not really look to thy interests. If there is any partiality in thy heart, O king, for thy own children, they who by their counsel seek to bring it out, certainly do thee no good. Therefore, O king, these illustrious persons endued with great splendour, have not I think, said anything that leadeth to evil. Thou, however, dost not understand it. What these bulls among men have said regarding the invincibility of the Pandavas is perfectly true. Think not otherwise of it, O tiger among men. ”

“ And of these some wore red crosses on their garments, which meaneth “Salvation;” and others wore white crosses, with a little black button of crape, to signify “Purity;” and others bits of blue to mean “Abstinence.” While some of these pursued Panurge others did beset Pantagruel; asking him very long questions, whereunto he gave but short answers. Thus they asked:—
Have ye Local Option here?—Pan.: What?
May one man drink if his neighbour be not athirst?—Pan.: Yea!
Have ye Free Education?—Pan.: What?
Must they that have, pay to school them that have not?—Pan.: Nay! ”

“ How Panurge consulteth with an old French poet, named Raminagrobis I never thought, said Pantagruel, to have encountered with any man so headstrong in his apprehensions, or in his opinions so wilful, as I have found you to be and see you are. ”

“ By these means, the poets, for many years past, were all overrun with pedantry. For, as I take it, the word is not properly used; because pedantry is the too frequent or unseasonable obtruding our own knowledge in common discourse, and placing too great a value upon it; by which definition, men of the court, or the army, may be as guilty of pedantry, as a philosopher or a divine; and it is the same vice in women, when they are overcopious upon the subject of their petticoats, or their fans, or their china. ”

“ But I have omitted to speak of a very prominent character, the Pardoner, the Age’s Knave, who always commands and domineers over the high and low vulgar. This man is sent in every age for a rod and scourge, and for a blight, for a trial of men, to divide the classes of men; he is in the most holy sanctuary, and he is suffered by Providence for wise ends, and has also his great use, and his grand leading destiny. ”

“ And after all, what does any of us want but the world to look at, enough to eat and drink, and a little diversion when we feel like it?”
“A man with imagination and insight,” said Padna, “need never want for entertainment, because he can always appreciate and enjoy the folly of others, without having to pay for it. ”

“ Then the more 'tis to be feared, said Pantagruel; for subtlety suspected, subtlety foreseen, subtlety found out, loses the essence and very name of subtlety, and only gains that of blockishness. They are not such fools as you take them to be; they have more tricks than are good, I doubt.
After the procession they went sluggingly into the fratery-room, by the way of walk and healthful exercise, and there kneeled under the tables, leaning their breasts on lanterns. ”