Chapter XV: Part THE SEVENTH: Double Damnation (3)

'But out again I come, and show
My face nor care a stiver,
For trades are brisk and trades are slow,
But mine goes on for ever.'

Thus on he prattled like a babbling brook.
Then I, 'The sun hath slipped behind the hill,
And my aunt Vivian dines at half-past six.'
So in all love we parted; I to the Hall,
They to the village. It was noised next noon
That chickens had been miss'd at Syllabub Farm.

PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.

(TUPPER)

INTRODUCTORY.

Art thou beautiful, O my daughter, as the budding rose of April?
Are all thy motions music, and is poetry throned in thine eye?
Then hearken unto me; and I will make the bud a fair flower,
I will plant it upon the bank of Elegance, and water it with the
water of Cologne;
And in the season it shall 'come out,' yea bloom, the pride of the
parterre;
Ladies shall marvel at its beauty, and a Lord shall pluck it at
the last.

OF PROPRIETY.

Study first Propriety: for she is indeed the Polestar
Which shall guide the artless maiden through the mazes of Vanity
Fair;
Nay, she is the golden chain which holdeth together Society;
The lamp by whose light young Psyche shall approach unblamed her
Eros.
Verily Truth is as Eve, which was ashamed being naked;
Wherefore doth Propriety dress her with the fair foliage of
artifice:
And when she is drest, behold! she knoweth not herself again.--
I walked in the Forest; and above me stood the yew,
Stood like a slumbering giants shrouded in impenetrable shade;
Then I pass'd into the citizen's garden, and marked a tree clipt
into shape,
(The giant's locks had been shorn by the Dalilah-shears of Decorum;)
And I said, 'Surely nature is goodly; but how much goodlier is Art!'
I heard the wild notes of the lark floating far over the blue sky,
And my foolish heart went after him, and, lo! I blessed him as he
rose;
Foolish! for far better is the trained boudoir bullfinch,
Which pipeth the semblance of a tune, and mechanically draweth up
water:
And the reinless steed of the desert, though his neck be clothed
with thunder,
Must yield to him that danceth and 'moveth in the circles' at
Astley's.
For verily, O my daughter, the world is a masquerade,
And God made thee one thing, that thou mightest make thyself
another:
A maiden's heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and struggling
upwards,
And it needed that its motions be checked by the silvered cork of
Propriety:
He that can afford the price, his be the precious treasure,
Let him drink deeply of its sweetness, nor grumble if it tasteth of
the cork.

OF FRIENDSHIP.

Choose judiciously thy friends; for to discard them is undesirable,
Yet it is better to drop thy friends, O my daughter, than to drop
thy 'H's.'
Dost thou know a wise woman? yea, wiser than the children of light?
Hath she a position? and a title? and are her parties in the
_Morning Post_?
If thou dost, cleave unto her, and give up unto her thy body and
mind;
Think with her ideas, and distribute thy smiles at her bidding:
So shalt thou become like unto her; and thy manners shall be
'formed,'
And thy name shall be a Sesame, at which the doors of the great
shall fly open:
Thou shalt know every Peer, his arms, and the date of his creation,
His pedigree and their intermarriages, and cousins to the sixth
remove:
Thou shalt kiss the hand of Royalty, and lo! in next morning's
papers,
Side by side with rumours of wars, and stories of shipwrecks and
sieges,
Shall appear thy name, and the minutiæ of thy head-dress and
petticoat,
For an enraptured public to muse upon over their matutinal muffin.

OF READING.

Read not Milton, for he is dry; nor Shakespeare, for he wrote of
common life:
Nor Scott, for his romances, though fascinating, are yet
intelligible:
Nor Thackeray, for he is a Hogarth, a photographer who flattereth
not:
Nor Kingsley, for he shall teach thee that thou shouldest not dream,
but do.
Read incessantly thy Burke; that Burke who, nobler than he of old,
Treateth of the Peer and Peeress, the truly Sublime and Beautiful:
Likewise study the 'creations' of 'the Prince of modern Romance';
Sigh over Leonard the Martyr, and smile on Pelham the puppy:
Learn how 'love is the dram-drinking of existence';
And how we 'invoke, in the Gadara of our still closets,
The beautiful ghost of the Ideal, with the simple wand of the pen.'
Listen how Maltravers and the orphan 'forgot all but love,'
And how Devereux's family chaplain 'made and unmade kings':
How Eugene Aram, though a thief, a liar, and a murderer,
Yet, being intellectual, was amongst the noblest of mankind.
So shalt thou live in a world peopled with heroes and
master-spirits;
And if thou canst not realize the Ideal, thou shalt at least
idealize the Real.

THE COCK AND THE BULL.

(BROWNING)

You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought
Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day--
I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech,
As we curtail the already cur-tail'd cur
(You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words?),
Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days.
Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern,
And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same
By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange--
'Chop' was my snickering dandiprat's own term--
One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm.
O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four
Pence, one and fourpence--you are with me, sir?--
What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock,
One day (and what a roaring day it was
Go shop or sight-see--bar a spit o' rain!)
In February, eighteen sixty nine,
Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei
Hm--hm--how runs the jargon? being on throne.

Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put,
The basis or substratum--what you will--
Of the impending eighty thousand lines.
'Not much in 'em either,' quoth perhaps simple Hodge.
But there's a superstructure. Wait a bit.
Mark first the rationale of the thing:
Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed.
That shilling--and for matter o' that, the pence--
I had o' course upo' me--wi' me say--
(_Mecum's_ the Latin, make a note o' that)
When I popp'd pen i' stand, scratch'd ear, wip'd snout,
(Let everybody wipe his own himself)
Sniff'd--tch!--at snuffbox; tumbled up, he-heed,
Haw-haw'd (not hee-haw'd, that's another guess thing:)
Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door,
I shoved the timber ope wi' my omoplat;
And _in vestibulo_, i' the lobby to-wit,
(Iacobi Facciolati's rendering, sir,)
Donn'd galligaskins, antigropeloes,
And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves,
One on and one a-dangle i' my hand,
And ombrifuge (Lord love you!), case o' rain,
I flopp'd forth, 'sbuddikins! on my own ten toes,
(I do assure you there be ten of them,)
And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale
To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy.
Put case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought
This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy,
This pebble-thing, o' the boy-thing? Q.E.D.
That's proven without aid from mumping Pope,
Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal.
(Isn't it, old Fatchaps? You're in Euclid now.)
So, having the shilling--having i' fact a lot--
And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them,
I purchased, as I think I said before,
The pebble (_lapis, lapidis, -di, -dem, -de_--
What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?)
O' the boy, a bare-legg'd beggarly son of a gun,
For one-and-fourpence. Here we are again.

Now Law steps in, bigwigg'd, voluminous-jaw'd;
Investigates and re-investigates.
Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head.
Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.

At first the coin was mine, the chattel his.
But now (by virtue of the said exchange
And barter) _vice versa_ all the coin,
_Per juris operationem_, vests
I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom;
(_In sæcula sæculo-o-o-orum_;
I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.)
To have and hold the same to him and them....
_Confer_ some idiot on Conveyancing.
Whereas the pebble and every part thereof,
And all that appertained thereunto,
_Quodcunque pertinet ad eam rem_,
(I fancy, sir, my Latin's rather pat)
Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would or should,
(_Subaudi cætera_--clap we to the close--
For what's the good of law in a case o' the kind)
Is mine to all intents and purposes.
This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale.

Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality.
He says a gen'lman bought a pebble of him,
(This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold i' my hand)--
And paid for't, _like_ a gen'lman, on the nail.
'Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny? Devil a bit.
Fiddlepin's end! Get out, you blazing ass!
Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby _me_!
Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what's the odds?'
--There's the transaction view'd i' the vendor's light.

Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by,
With her three frowsy blowsy brats o' babes,
The scum o' the kennel, cream o' the filth-heap--Faugh!
Aie, aie, aie, aie! ὀτοτοτοτοτοῖ,
('Stead which we blurt out Hoighty toighty now)--
And the baker and candlestickmaker, and Jack and Gill,
Blear'd Goody this and queasy Gaffer that.
Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first.

He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad
A stone, and pay for it _rite_, on the square,
And carry it off _per saltum_, jauntily,
_Propria quæ maribus_, gentleman's property now
(Agreeably to the law explain'd above),
_In proprium usum_, for his private ends.
The boy he chuck'd a brown i' the air, and bit
I' the face the shilling: heaved a thumping stone
At a lean hen that ran cluck clucking by,
(And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,)
Then _abiit_--what's the Ciceronian phrase?--
_Excessit, evasit, erupit_--off slogs boy;
Off like bird, _avi similis_--(you observed
The dative? Pretty i' the Mantuan!)--Anglice,
Off in three flea skips. _Hactenus_, so far,
So good, _tam bene. Bene, satis, male_--,
Where was I with my trope 'bout one in a quag?
I did once hitch the syntax into verse:
_Verbum personale_, a verb personal,
_Concordat_--ay, 'agrees,' old Fatchaps--_cum_
_Nominativo_, with its nominative,
_Genere_, i' point o' gender, _numero_;
O' number, _et persona_, and person. _Ut_,
Instance: _Sol ruit_, down flops sun, _et_ and,
_Montes umbrantur_, out flounce mountains. Pah!
Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad.
You see the trick on't though, and can yourself
Continue the discourse _ad libitum_.
It takes up about eighty thousand lines,
A thing imagination boggles at;
And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands,
Extend from here to Mesopotamy.

LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION.

(JEAN INGELOW)

In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;
Meaning, however, is no great matter)
Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Through God's own heather we wonned together,
I and my Willie (O love my love):
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitterbats wavered alow, above:

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing
(Boats in that climate are so polite),
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,
And O the sundazzle on bark and bight!

Through the rare red heather we danced together,
(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:
I must mention again it was gorgeous weather,
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:--

By rises that flushed with their purple favours,
Through becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen,
We walked and waded, we two young shavers,
Thanking our stars we were both so green.

We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,
In fortunate parallels! Butterflies,
Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly
Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes:

Songbirds darted about, some inky
As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;
Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky--
They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!

But they skim over bents which the millstream washes,
Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem;
They need no parasols, no goloshes;
And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.

Then we thrid God's cowslips (as erst His heather)
That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms
And snapped--(it was perfectly charming weather)--
Our fingers at Fate and her goddess-glooms:

And Willie 'gan sing (O, his notes were fluty;
Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged' sea)--
Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty
Rhymes (better to put it) of 'ancientry':

Bowers of flowers encountered showers
In William's carol--(O love my Willie!)
Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow
I quite forget what--say a daffodilly:

A nest in a hollow, 'with buds to follow,'
I think occurred next in his nimble strain;
And clay that was 'kneaden' of course in Eden--
A rhyme most novel, I do maintain:

Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories,
And all least furlable things got 'furled';
Not with any design to conceal their 'glories,'
But simply and solely to rhyme with 'world.'

* * * * *

O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers,
And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,
Could be furled together, this genial weather,
And carted, or carried on 'wafts' away,
Nor ever again trotted out--ah me!
How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be!

BALLAD.

(JEAN INGELOW)

The auld wife sat at her ivied door,
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her spectacles lay on her aproned knees.

The piper he piped on the hill-top high,
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
Till the cow said 'I die,' and the goose asked 'Why?'
And the dog said nothing, but searched for fleas.

The farmer he strove through the square farmyard;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
His last brew of ale was a trifle hard--
The connexion of which with the plot one sees.

The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,
As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
If you try to approach her, away she skips
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
And I met with a ballad, I can't say where,
Which wholly consisted of lines like these.