Crotchet Castle
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Thomas Love Peacock >> Crotchet Castle
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MR. MAC QUEDY. I wonder to hear you, Mr. Chainmail, talking of the
religious charity of a set of lazy monks and beggarly friars, who
were much more occupied with taking than giving; of whom those who
were in earnest did nothing but make themselves and everybody about
them miserable with fastings and penances, and other such trash;
and those who were not, did nothing but guzzle and royster, and,
having no wives of their own, took very unbecoming liberties with
those of honester men. And as to your poetry of the twelfth
century, it is not good for much.
MR. CHAINMAIL. It has, at any rate, what ours wants, truth to
nature and simplicity of diction.
The poetry, which was addressed to the people of the dark ages,
pleased in proportion to the truth with which it depicted familiar
images, and to their natural connection with the time and place to
which they were assigned. In the poetry of our enlightened times,
the characteristics of all seasons, soils, and climates may be
blended together with much benefit to the author's fame as an
original genius. The cowslip of a civic poet is always in blossom,
his fern is always in full feather; he gathers the celandine, the
primrose, the heath-flower, the jasmine, and the chrysanthemum all
on the same day and from the same spot; his nightingale sings all
the year round, his moon is always full, his cygnet is as white as
his swan, his cedar is as tremulous as his aspen, and his poplar as
embowering as his beech. Thus all nature marches with the march of
mind; but among barbarians, instead of mead and wine, and the best
seat by the fire, the reward of such a genius would have been to be
summarily turned out of doors in the snow, to meditate on the
difference between day and night and between December and July. It
is an age of liberality, indeed, when not to know an oak from a
burdock is no disqualification for sylvan minstrelsy. I am for
truth and simplicity.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT.--Let him who loves them read Greek: Greek,
Greek, Greek.
MR. MAC QUEDY.--If he can, sir.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT.--Very true, sir; if he can. Here is the Captain
who can. But I think he must have finished his education at some
very rigid college, where a quotation or any other overt act
showing acquaintance with classical literature was visited with a
severe penalty. For my part, I make it my boast that I was not to
be so subdued. I could not be abated of a single quotation by all
the bumpers in which I was fined.
In this manner they glided over the face of the waters, discussing
everything and settling nothing. Mr. Mac Quedy and the Reverend
Doctor Folliott had many digladiations on political economy:
wherein, each in his own view, Doctor Folliott demolished Mr. Mac
Quedy's science, and Mr. Mac Quedy demolished Dr. Folliott's
objections.
We would print these dialogues if we thought anyone would read
them; but the world is not yet ripe for this haute sagesse
Pantagrueline. We must therefore content ourselves with an
echantillon of one of the Reverend Doctor's perorations.
"You have given the name of a science to what is yet an imperfect
inquiry, and the upshot of your so-called science is this: that
you increase the wealth of a nation by increasing in it the
quantity of things which are produced by labour: no matter what
they are, no matter how produced, no matter how distributed. The
greater the quantity of labour that has gone to the production of
the quantity of things in a community, the richer is the community.
That is your doctrine. Now, I say, if this be so, riches are not
the object for a community to aim at. I say the nation is best
off, in relation to other nations, which has the greatest quantity
of the common necessaries of life distributed among the greatest
number of persons; which has the greatest number of honest hearts
and stout arms united in a common interest, willing to offend no
one, but ready to fight in defence of their own community against
all the rest of the world, because they have something in it worth
fighting for. The moment you admit that one class of things,
without any reference to what they respectively cost, is better
worth having than another; that a smaller commercial value, with
one mode of distribution, is better than a greater commercial
value, with another mode of distribution; the whole of that curious
fabric of postulates and dogmas, which you call the science of
political economy, and which I call politicae aeconomiae
inscientia, tumbles to pieces."
Mr. Toogood agreed with Mr. Chainmail against Mr. Mac Quedy, that
the existing state of society was worse than that of the twelfth
century; but he agreed with Mr. Mac Quedy against Mr. Chainmail,
that it was in progress to something much better than either--to
which "something much better" Mr. Toogood and Mr. Mac Quedy
attached two very different meanings.
Mr. Chainmail fought with Doctor Folliott, the battle of the
romantic against the classical in poetry; and Mr. Skionar contended
with Mr. Mac Quedy for intuition and synthesis, against analysis
and induction in philosophy.
Mr. Philpot would lie along for hours, listening to the gurgling of
the water round the prow, and would occasionally edify the company
with speculations on the great changes that would be effected in
the world by the steam-navigation of rivers: sketching the course
of a steamboat up and down some mighty stream which civilisation
had either never visited, or long since deserted; the Missouri and
the Columbia, the Oroonoko and the Amazon, the Nile and the Niger,
the Euphrates and the Tigris, the Oxus and the Indus, the Ganges
and the Hoangho; under the over canopying forests of the new, or by
the long-silent ruins of the ancient, world; through the shapeless
mounds of Babylon, or the gigantic temples of Thebes.
Mr. Trillo went on with the composition of his opera, and took the
opinions of the young ladies on every step in its progress;
occasionally regaling the company with specimens; and wondering at
the blindness of Mr. Mac Quedy, who could not, or would not, see
that an opera in perfection, being the union of all the beautiful
arts--music, painting, dancing, poetry--exhibiting female beauty in
its most attractive aspects, and in its most becoming costume--was,
according to the well-known precept, Ingenuas didicisse, etc., the
most efficient instrument of civilisation, and ought to take
precedence of all other pursuits in the minds of true
philanthropists. The Reverend Doctor Folliott, on these occasions,
never failed to say a word or two on Mr. Trillo's side, derived
from the practice of the Athenians, and from the combination, in
their theatre, of all the beautiful arts, in a degree of perfection
unknown to the modern world.
Leaving Lechlade, they entered the canal that connects the Thames
with the Severn; ascended by many locks; passed by a tunnel, three
miles long, through the bowels of Sapperton Hill; agreed
unanimously that the greatest pleasure derivable from visiting a
cavern of any sort was that of getting out of it; descended by many
locks again through the valley of Stroud into the Severn; continued
their navigation into the Ellesmere canal; moored their pinnaces in
the Vale of Llangollen by the aqueduct of Pontycysyllty; and
determined to pass some days in inspecting the scenery, before
commencing their homeward voyage.
The Captain omitted no opportunity of pressing his suit on Lady
Clarinda, but could never draw from her any reply but the same
doctrines of worldly wisdom, delivered in a tone of badinage, mixed
with a certain kindness of manner that induced him to hope she was
not in earnest.
But the morning after they had anchored under the hills of the Dee-
-whether the lady had reflected more seriously than usual, or was
somewhat less in good humour than usual, or the Captain was more
pressing than usual--she said to him: "It must not be, Captain
Fitzchrome; 'the course of true love never did run smooth:' my
father must keep his borough, and I must have a town house and a
country house, and an opera box, and a carriage. It is not well
for either of us that we should flirt any longer: 'I must be cruel
only to be kind.' Be satisfied with the assurance that you alone,
of all men, have ever broken my rest. To be sure, it was only for
about three nights in all; but that is too much."
The Captain had le coeur navre. He took his portfolio under his
arm, made up the little valise of a pedestrian, and, without saying
a word to anyone, wandered off at random among the mountains.
After the lapse of a day or two, the Captain was missed, and
everyone marvelled what was become of him. Mr. Philpot thought he
must have been exploring a river, and fallen in and got drowned in
the process. Mr. Firedamp had no doubt he had been crossing a
mountain bog, and had been suddenly deprived of life by the
exhalations of marsh miasmata. Mr. Henbane deemed it probable that
he had been tempted in some wood by the large black brilliant
berries of the Atropa Belladonna, or Deadly Nightshade; and
lamented that he had not been by, to administer an infallible
antidote. Mr. Eavesdrop hoped the particulars of his fate would be
ascertained; and asked if anyone present could help him to any
authentic anecdotes of their departed friend. The Reverend Doctor
Folliott proposed that an inquiry should be instituted as to
whether the march of intellect had reached that neighbourhood, as,
if so, the Captain had probably been made a subject for science.
Mr. Mac Quedy said it was no such great matter to ascertain the
precise mode in which the surplus population was diminished by one.
Mr. Toogood asseverated that there was no such thing as surplus
population, and that the land, properly managed, would maintain
twenty times its present inhabitants; and hereupon they fell into a
disputation.
Lady Clarinda did not doubt that the Captain had gone away
designedly; she missed him more than she could have anticipated,
and wished she had at least postponed her last piece of cruelty
till the completion of their homeward voyage.
CHAPTER XI: CORRESPONDENCE
"Base is the slave that pays."--ANCIENT PISTOL.
The Captain was neither drowned nor poisoned, neither miasmatised
nor anatomised. But, before we proceed to account for him, we must
look back to a young lady, of whom some little notice was taken in
the first chapter; and who, though she has since been out of sight,
has never with us been out of mind: Miss Susannah Touchandgo, the
forsaken of the junior Crotchet, whom we left an inmate of a
solitary farm, in one of the deep valleys under the cloud-capt
summits of Meirion, comforting her wounded spirit with air and
exercise, rustic cheer, music, painting, and poetry, and the
prattle of the little Ap Llymrys.
One evening, after an interval of anxious expectation, the farmer,
returning from market brought for her two letters, of which the
contents were these:
"Dotandcarryonetown, State of Apodidraskiana.
"April 1, 18..
My Dear Child,
"I am anxious to learn what are your present position, intention,
and prospects. The fairies who dropped gold in your shoe, on the
morning when I ceased to be a respectable man in London, will soon
find a talismanic channel for transmitting you a stocking full of
dollars, which will fit the shoe as well as the foot of Cinderella
fitted her slipper. I am happy to say I am again become a
respectable man. It was always my ambition to be a respectable
man, and I am a very respectable man here, in this new township of
a new state, where I have purchased five thousand acres of land, at
two dollars an acre, hard cash, and established a very flourishing
bank. The notes of Touchandgo and Company, soft cash, are now the
exclusive currency of all this vicinity. This is the land in which
all men flourish; but there are three classes of men who flourish
especially,--methodist preachers, slave-drivers, and paper-money
manufacturers; and as one of the latter, I have just painted the
word BANK on a fine slab of maple, which was green and growing when
I arrived, and have discounted for the settlers, in my own
currency, sundry bills, which are to be paid when the proceeds of
the crop they have just sown shall return from New Orleans; so that
my notes are the representatives of vegetation that is to be, and I
am accordingly a capitalist of the first magnitude. The people
here know very well that I ran away from London; but the most of
them have run away from some place or other; and they have a great
respect for me, because they think I ran away with something worth
taking, which few of them had the luck or the wit to do. This
gives them confidence in my resources, at the same time that, as
there is nothing portable in the settlement except my own notes,
they have no fear that I shall run away with them. They know I am
thoroughly conversant with the principles of banking, and as they
have plenty of industry, no lack of sharpness, and abundance of
land, they wanted nothing but capital to organise a flourishing
settlement; and this capital I have manufactured to the extent
required, at the expense of a small importation of pens, ink, and
paper, and two or three inimitable copper plates. I have abundance
here of all good things, a good conscience included; for I really
cannot see that I have done any wrong. This was my position: I
owed half a million of money; and I had a trifle in my pocket. It
was clear that this trifle could never find its way to the right
owner. The question was, whether I should keep it, and live like a
gentleman; or hand it over to lawyers and commissioners of
bankruptcy, and die like a dog on a dunghill. If I could have
thought that the said lawyers, etc., had a better title to it than
myself, I might have hesitated; but, as such title was not apparent
to my satisfaction, I decided the question in my own favour, the
right owners, as I have already said, being out of the question
altogether. I have always taken scientific views of morals and
politics, a habit from which I derive much comfort under existing
circumstances.
"I hope you adhere to your music, though I cannot hope again to
accompany your harp with my flute. My last andante movement was
too forte for those whom it took by surprise. Let not your allegro
vivace be damped by young Crotchet's desertion, which, though I
have not heard it, I take for granted. He is, like myself, a
scientific politician, and has an eye as keen as a needle to his
own interest. He has had good luck so far, and is gorgeous in the
spoils of many gulls; but I think the Polar Basin and Walrus
Company will be too much for him yet. There has been a splendid
outlay on credit, and he is the only man, of the original parties
concerned, of whom his Majesty's sheriffs could give any account.
"I will not ask you to come here. There is no husband for you.
The men smoke, drink, and fight, and break more of their own heads
than of girls' hearts. Those among them who are musical, sing
nothing but psalms. They are excellent fellows in their way, but
you would not like them.
"Au reste, here are no rents, no taxes, no poor-rates, no tithes,
no church establishment, no routs, no clubs, no rotten boroughs, no
operas, no concerts, no theatres, no beggars, no thieves, no king,
no lords, no ladies, and only one gentleman, videlicet, your loving
father,
Timothy Touchandgo."
P.S.--I send you one of my notes; I can afford to part with it. If
you are accused of receiving money from me, you may pay it over to
my assignees. Robthetill continues to be my factotum; I say no
more of him in this place: he will give you an account of
himself."
"Dotandcarryonetown, etc.
"Dear Miss,
"Mr. Touchandgo will have told you of our arrival here, of our
setting up a bank, and so forth. We came here in a tilted waggon,
which served us for parlour, kitchen, and all. We soon got up a
log-house; and, unluckily, we as soon got it down again, for the
first fire we made in it burned down house and all. However, our
second experiment was more fortunate; and we are pretty well lodged
in a house of three rooms on a floor; I should say the floor, for
there is but one.
"This new state is free to hold slaves; all the new states have not
this privilege: Mr. Touchandgo has bought some, and they are
building him a villa. Mr. Touchandgo is in a thriving way, but he
is not happy here: he longs for parties and concerts, and a seat
in Congress. He thinks it very hard that he cannot buy one with
his own coinage, as he used to do in England. Besides, he is
afraid of the Regulators, who, if they do not like a man's
character, wait upon him and flog him, doubling the dose at stated
intervals, till he takes himself off. He does not like this system
of administering justice: though I think he has nothing to fear
from it. He has the character of having money, which is the best
of all characters here, as at home. He lets his old English
prejudices influence his opinions of his new neighbours; but, I
assure you, they have many virtues. Though they do keep slaves,
they are all ready to fight for their own liberty; and I should not
like to be an enemy within reach of one of their rifles. When I
say enemy, I include bailiff in the term. One was shot not long
ago. There was a trial; the jury gave two dollars damages; the
judge said they must find guilty or not guilty; but the counsel for
the defendant (they would not call him prisoner) offered to fight
the judge upon the point: and as this was said literally, not
metaphorically, and the counsel was a stout fellow, the judge gave
in. The two dollars damages were not paid after all; for the
defendant challenged the foreman to box for double or quits, and
the foreman was beaten. The folks in New York made a great outcry
about it, but here it was considered all as it should be. So you
see, Miss, justice, liberty, and everything else of that kind, are
different in different places, just as suits the convenience of
those who have the sword in their own hands. Hoping to hear of
your health and happiness, I remain,
"Dear Miss, your dutiful servant,
"Roderick Robthetill."
Miss Touchandgo replied as follows to the first of these letters:
"My Dear Father,
"I am sure you have the best of hearts, and I have no doubt you
have acted with the best intentions. My lover, or, I should rather
say, my fortune's lover, has indeed forsaken me. I cannot say I
did not feel it; indeed, I cried very much; and the altered looks
of people who used to be so delighted to see me, really annoyed me
so, that I determined to change the scene altogether. I have come
into Wales, and am boarding with a farmer and his wife. Their
stock of English is very small; but I managed to agree with them,
and they have four of the sweetest children I ever saw, to whom I
teach all I know, and I manage to pick up some Welsh. I have
puzzled out a little song, which I think very pretty; I have
translated it into English, and I send it you, with the original
air. You shall play it on your flute at eight o'clock every
Saturday evening, and I will play and sing it at the same time, and
I will fancy that I hear my dear papa accompanying me.
"The people in London said very unkind things of you: they hurt me
very much at the time; but now I am out of their way, I do not seem
to think their opinion of much consequence. I am sure, when I
recollect, at leisure, everything I have seen and heard among them,
I cannot make out what they do that is so virtuous, as to set them
up for judges of morals. And I am sure they never speak the truth
about anything, and there is no sincerity in either their love or
their friendship. An old Welsh bard here, who wears a waistcoat
embroidered with leeks, and is called the Green Bard of Cadeir
Idris, says the Scotch would be the best people in the world, if
there was nobody but themselves to give them a character: and so I
think would the Londoners. I hate the very thought of them, for I
do believe they would have broken my heart, if I had not got out of
their way. Now I shall write you another letter very soon, and
describe to you the country, and the people, and the children, and
how I amuse myself, and everything that I think you will like to
hear about: and when I seal this letter, I shall drop a kiss on
the cover.
"Your loving daughter,
"Susannah Touchandgo.
P.S.--Tell Mr. Robthetill I will write to him in a day or two.
This is the little song I spoke of:
"Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,
My heart is gone, far, far from me;
And ever on its track will flee
My thoughts, my dreams, beyond the sea.
"Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,
The swallow wanders fast and free;
Oh, happy bird! were I like thee,
I, too, would fly beyond the sea.
"Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,
Are kindly hearts and social glee:
But here for me they may not be;
My heart is gone beyond the sea."
CHAPTER XII: THE MOUNTAIN INN
[Greek text]
How sweet to minds that love not sordid ways
Is solitude!--MENANDER.
The Captain wandered despondingly up and down hill for several
days, passing many hours of each in sitting on rocks; making,
almost mechanically, sketches of waterfalls, and mountain pools;
taking care, nevertheless, to be always before nightfall in a
comfortable inn, where, being a temperate man, he whiled away the
evening with making a bottle of sherry into negus. His rambles
brought him at length into the interior of Merionethshire, the land
of all that is beautiful in nature, and all that is lovely in
woman.
Here, in a secluded village, he found a little inn, of small
pretension and much comfort. He felt so satisfied with his
quarters, and discovered every day so much variety in the scenes of
the surrounding mountains, that his inclination to proceed farther
diminished progressively.
It is one thing to follow the high road through a country, with
every principally remarkable object carefully noted down in a book,
taking, as therein directed, a guide, at particular points, to the
more recondite sights: it is another to sit down on one chosen
spot, especially when the choice is unpremeditated, and from
thence, by a series of explorations, to come day by day on
unanticipated scenes. The latter process has many advantages over
the former; it is free from the disappointment which attends
excited expectation, when imagination has outstripped reality, and
from the accidents that mar the scheme of the tourist's single day,
when the valleys may be drenched with rain, or the mountains
shrouded with mist.
The Captain was one morning preparing to sally forth on his usual
exploration, when he heard a voice without, inquiring for a guide
to the ruined castle. The voice seemed familiar to him, and going
forth into the gateway, he recognised Mr. Chainmail. After
greetings and inquiries for the absent: "You vanished very
abruptly, Captain," said Mr. Chainmail, "from our party on the
canal."
CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. To tell you the truth, I had a particular
reason for trying the effect of absence from a part of that party.
MR. CHAINMAIL. I surmised as much: at the same time, the unusual
melancholy of an in general most vivacious young lady made me
wonder at your having acted so precipitately. The lady's heart is
yours, if there be truth in signs.
CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. Hearts are not now what they were in the days
of the old song: "Will love be controlled by advice?"
MR. CHAINMAIL. Very true; hearts, heads, and arms have all
degenerated, most sadly. We can no more feel the high impassioned
love of the ages, which some people have the impudence to call
dark, than we can wield King Richard's battleaxe, bend Robin Hood's
bow, or flourish the oaken graft of the Pindar of Wakefield. Still
we have our tastes and feelings, though they deserve not the name
of passions; and some of us may pluck up spirit to try to carry a
point, when we reflect that we have to contend with men no better
than ourselves.
CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. We do not now break lances for ladies.
MR. CHAINMAIL. No; nor even bulrushes. We jingle purses for them,
flourish paper-money banners, and tilt with scrolls of parchment.
CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. In which sort of tilting I have been thrown
from the saddle. I presume it was not love that led you from the
flotilla?
MR. CHAINMAIL. By no means. I was tempted by the sight of an old
tower, not to leave this land of ruined castles, without having
collected a few hints for the adornment of my baronial hall.
CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. I understand you live en famille with your
domestics. You will have more difficulty in finding a lady who
would adopt your fashion of living, than one who would prefer you
to a richer man.
MR. CHAINMAIL. Very true. I have tried the experiment on several
as guests; but once was enough for them: so, I suppose, I shall
die a bachelor.
CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. I see, like some others of my friends, you
will give up anything except your hobby.
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