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without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | x_-3 | How many times the word 'x_-3' appears in the text? | 3 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | image | How many times the word 'image' appears in the text? | 0 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | term | How many times the word 'term' appears in the text? | 3 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | partly | How many times the word 'partly' appears in the text? | 3 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | l. | How many times the word 'l.' appears in the text? | 2 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | ordered | How many times the word 'ordered' appears in the text? | 1 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | thou | How many times the word 'thou' appears in the text? | 2 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | been | How many times the word 'been' appears in the text? | 3 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | centre | How many times the word 'centre' appears in the text? | 1 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | show-- | How many times the word 'show--' appears in the text? | 0 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | halves | How many times the word 'halves' appears in the text? | 2 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | taffy | How many times the word 'taffy' appears in the text? | 2 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | am | How many times the word 'am' appears in the text? | 3 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | ear | How many times the word 'ear' appears in the text? | 3 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | sounded | How many times the word 'sounded' appears in the text? | 0 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | arm | How many times the word 'arm' appears in the text? | 2 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | opposite | How many times the word 'opposite' appears in the text? | 1 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | little | How many times the word 'little' appears in the text? | 1 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". Last page: "Fifth Thousand" changed to "Fifty Thousand". End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TANGLED TALE *** ***** This file should be named 29042-8.txt or 29042-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/0/4/29042/ Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni. Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | aside | How many times the word 'aside' appears in the text? | 0 |
without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more. HECLA indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation--the making _two_ mistakes which cancel each other. She takes _x_ as the width of the garden, in yards, and _x_ + 1/2 as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of _x_-1/2, _x_-1/2, _x_-1, _x_-1, _i.e._ 4_x_-3: but the fourth term should be _x_-1-1/2, so that her first coil is 1/2 a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of _x_-2-1/2, _x_-2-1/2, _x_-3, _x_-3: here the first term should be _x_-2 and the last _x_-3-1/2: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the _end_ of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong. Of the seven who are right, DINAH MITE, JANET, MAGPIE, and TAFFY make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. MAGPIE also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values. ALUMNUS ETON attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5-1/2. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. OLD KING COLE solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic. VINDEX proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction." CLASS LIST. I. VINDEX. II. ALUMNUS ETON . OLD KING COLE. III. DINAH MITE. JANET. MAGPIE. TAFFY. ANSWERS TO KNOT X. 1. THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS. _Problem._--If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, _at least_, must have lost all four? _Answer._--Ten. * * * * * _Solution._--(I adopt that of POLAR STAR, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10. * * * * * Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." JANET makes it "35 and 7/10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_. Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have _not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D. W., MAGPIE (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and TOKIO. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion--on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by _at least_ 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it. The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each! CLASS LIST. I. OLD CAT. OLD HEN. POLAR STAR. SIMPLE SUSAN. WHITE SUGAR. II. BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE. T. R. III. ALGERNON BRAY. DINAH MITE. G. S. C. JANE E. J. D. W. MAGPIE. S. S. G. TOKIO. 2. CHANGE OF DAY. I must postpone, _sine die_, the geographical problem--partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others? 3. THE SONS' AGES. _Problem._--"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two? _Answer._--"15 and 18." * * * * * _Solution._--Let the ages at first be _x_, _y_, (_x_ + _y_). Now, if _a_ + _b_ = 2_c_, then (_a_-_n_) + (_b_-_n_) = 2(_c_-_n_), whatever be the value of _n_. Hence the second relationship, if _ever_ true, was _always_ true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that _x_ and _y_ are together double of (_x_ + _y_). Hence it must be true of (_x_ + _y_), together with _x_ or _y_; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (_x_ + _y_) + _x_ = 2_y_; _i.e._ _y_ = 2_x_. Hence the three ages were, at first, _x_, 2_x_, 3_x_; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6_x_, _i.e._ is 4_x_. Hence the present ages are 5_x_, 6_x_, 7_x_. The ages are clearly _integers_, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7_x_ = 21, _x_ = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18. * * * * * Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I _ought_ to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is THREE SCORE AND TEN. JANE E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the _second_ occasion unnoticed. OLD HEN is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted _all_ the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is _not_ the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after OLD HEN prowls, with hungry eyes, OLD CAT, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the _eldest_. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me! There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. MINERVA assumes that, on _every_ occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? BRADSHAW OF THE FUTURE says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide _future_ travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for _this_ Age! Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. DINAH MITE ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then _assumes_ one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5_z_, 6_z_, and 7_z_; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7_z_ = 21. Of the more honourable, DELTA attempts a novelty--to discover _which_ son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it _apparently_ brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7_x_ + 4_y_; [** therefore] 21 = _x_ + 4 sevenths of _y_," I trust it will admit that its proof is not _quite_ conclusive. The rest of its work is good. MAGPIE betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe--to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any _strict_ logical right to it. Assuming _A_, _B_, _C_, as the ages at first, and _D_ as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2_A_ = _B_, _C_ = _B_ + _A_, _D_ = 2_B_. She then says "supposing that _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2, _C_ = 3, and _D_ = 4. Therefore for _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion _is_ true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (_i.e._ having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped--I beg pardon, clawed--by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "_A_ + 1 = _B_, _B_ + 1 = _C_; supposing _A_ = 1, then _B_ = 2 and _C_ = 3. _Therefore_ for _A_, _B_, _C_, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh MAGPIE, as amiably as a Dove? SIMPLE SUSAN is anything but simple to _me_. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:--"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; [** therefore] sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that SIMPLE SUSAN would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would SIMPLE SUSAN have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper? The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of SIMPLE SUSAN, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right. Among those who have earned the highest honours, ALGERNON BRAY solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were _fractional_. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I _never_ intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. RIX points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. WHITE SUGAR is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that _year_, need not have done so by that _day_, so that he _might_ be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"! CLASS LIST. I. ALGERNON BRAY. AN OLD FOGEY. E. M. RIX. G. S. C. S. S. G. TOKIO. T. R. WHITE SUGAR. II. C. R. DELTA. MAGPIE. SIMPLE SUSAN. III. DINAH MITE. M. F. C. * * * * * I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the _datum_ "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have _not_. ALGERNON BRAY states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the _data_ are evidently meant to fix the answer _exactly_: but, if the question were set me "how many _must_ he have left?", I should understand the _data_ to be that his father gave him 4 _at least_, but _may_ have given him more. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly _in_ my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly _out_ of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow. THE END LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. [TURN OVER. WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With Forty-two Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Seventy-fifth Thousand. TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME--into French, by HENRI BU --into German, by ANTONIE ZIMMERMANN--and into Italian, by T. PIETROC LA ROSSETTI--with TENNIEL'S Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ each. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. With Fifty Illustrations by TENNIEL. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, price 6_s._ Fifty-sixth Thousand. RHYME? AND REASON? With Sixty-five Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and Nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. (This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of the comic portion of "Phantasmagoria and other Poems," and of "The Hunting of the Snark." Mr. Frost's pictures are new.) Crown 8vo, cloth, coloured edges, price 7_s._ Fifty Thousand. A TANGLED TALE. Reprinted from _The Monthly Packet_. With Six Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ * * * * * N.B. In selling the above-mentioned books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2_d._ in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent. discount for payment within six months, and 10 per cent. for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent. discount. * * * * * MR. LEWIS CARROLL, having been requested to allow "AN EASTER GREETING" (a leaflet, addressed to children, and frequently given with his books) to be sold separately, has arranged with Messrs. Harrison, of 59, Pall Mall, who will supply a single copy for 1_d._, or 12 for 9_d._, or 100 for 5_s._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. LONDON: RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS. * * * * * Transcriber's note The following changes have been made to the text: Page 88: "he corners of the" changed to "the corners of the". Page 95: "Aix-le-Bains" changed to "Aix-les-Bains". Page 108: "3/5, 2, 1/3" changed to "3/5, 2/3, 1/3". Page 114: "10 of the 12 cases" changed to "10 of the 13 cases". Page 121: "four-and fourpence" changed to "four-and-fourpence". 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YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL | get | How many times the word 'get' appears in the text? | 2 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | do | How many times the word 'do' appears in the text? | 1 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | down | How many times the word 'down' appears in the text? | 3 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | or | How many times the word 'or' appears in the text? | 2 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | christian | How many times the word 'christian' appears in the text? | 2 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | smile | How many times the word 'smile' appears in the text? | 2 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | scott | How many times the word 'scott' appears in the text? | 2 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | soiled | How many times the word 'soiled' appears in the text? | 0 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | does | How many times the word 'does' appears in the text? | 3 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | early | How many times the word 'early' appears in the text? | 2 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | enjoy | How many times the word 'enjoy' appears in the text? | 1 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | woman | How many times the word 'woman' appears in the text? | 1 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | difference | How many times the word 'difference' appears in the text? | 2 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | below | How many times the word 'below' appears in the text? | 1 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | movement | How many times the word 'movement' appears in the text? | 1 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | outbreaks | How many times the word 'outbreaks' appears in the text? | 0 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | privation | How many times the word 'privation' appears in the text? | 2 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | say | How many times the word 'say' appears in the text? | 2 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | catholicism | How many times the word 'catholicism' appears in the text? | 1 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | considering | How many times the word 'considering' appears in the text? | 0 |
won t have em, like Mr Tom did wi the suvreigns. No, indeed, Bob, said Maggie, I m very thankful to you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven t many friends who care for me. Hev a dog, Miss! they re better friends nor any Christian, said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, his tongue overrun him when he began to speak. I can t give you Mumps, cause he d break his heart to go away from me eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? (Mumps declined to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his tail.) But I d get you a pup, Miss, an welcome. No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn t keep a dog of my own. Eh, that s a pity; else there s a pup, if you didn t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show, an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There s one chap carries pots, a poor, low trade as any on the road, he says, Why Toby s nought but a mongrel; there s nought to look at in her. But I says to him, Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn t much pickin o _your_ feyther an mother, to look at you. Not but I like a bit o breed myself, but I can t abide to see one cur grinnin at another. I wish you good evenin , Miss, said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner. Won t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob? said Maggie. Yes, Miss, thank you another time. You ll give my duty to him, if you please. Eh, he s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to growin i the legs, an _I_ didn t. The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. You don t call Mumps a cur, I suppose? said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master. No, Miss, a fine way off that, said Bob, with pitying smile; Mumps is as fine a cross as you ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I n been up it wi the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much, he minds his own business, he does. The expression of Mump s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise. He looks dreadfully surly, said Maggie. Would he let me pat him? Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn t a dog as ull be caught wi gingerbread; he d smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th hour together, when I m walking i lone places, and if I n done a bit o mischief, I allays tell him. I n got no secrets but what Mumps knows em. He knows about my big thumb, he does. Your big thumb what s that, Bob? said Maggie. That s what it is, Miss, said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. It tells i measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, cause it s light for my pack, an it s dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o the yard and cut o the hither side of it, and the old women aren t up to t. But Bob, said Maggie, looking serious, that s cheating; I don t like to hear you say that. Don t you, Miss? said Bob regretfully. Then I m sorry I said it. But I m so used to talking to Mumps, an he doesn t mind a bit o cheating, when it s them skinflint women, as haggle an haggle, an ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn t want to cheat me, Miss, lors, I m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o sport, an now I don t go wi th ferrets, I n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, Miss. Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come again to see Tom. Yes, Miss, said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round he said, I ll leave off that trick wi my big thumb, if you don t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ud be a pity, it would. I couldn t find another trick so good, an what ud be the use o havin a big thumb? It might as well ha been narrow. Maggie, thus exalted into Bob s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of herself; at which her worshipper s blue eyes twinkled too, and under these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke s grand dirge over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie s face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob s present of books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers. Maggie s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more, no piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with _more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now without the indirect charm of school-emulation T l maque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott s novels and all Byron s poems! then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, real life, the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom didn t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others, she wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught real learning and wisdom, such as great men knew, she thought she should have held the secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom, in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, with a startled sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference, would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man Walter Scott, perhaps and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say complainingly, Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself? The voice pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. This afternoon, the sight of Bob s cheerful freckled face had given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only gril in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion, as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. At last Maggie s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the Portrait Gallery, but she soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied together with string. Beauties of the Spectator, Rasselas, Economy of Human Life, Gregory s Letters, she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these; the Christian Year, that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but _Thomas Kempis?_ the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly. A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die. Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk s out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul s belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its fa ry ball-rooms; rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best houses, how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds, just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls enthusiasm, something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St Ogg s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. I don t like _my_ sister to do such things, said Tom, _I ll_ take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way. Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom s rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings, to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich that wrinkled fruit of the tree of knowledge had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas Kempis, and the Christian Year (no longer rejected as a hymn-book ), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called plain, by no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be growing up so good ; it was amazing that this once contrairy child was become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work and find her mother s eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. Let your mother have that bit o pleasure, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver; I d trouble enough with your hair once. So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father s attention to Maggie s hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to give. I knew well enough what she d be, before now, it s nothing new to me. But it s a pity she isn t made o commoner stuff; she ll be thrown away, I doubt, there ll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her. And Maggie s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when | flannel | How many times the word 'flannel' appears in the text? | 3 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | assure | How many times the word 'assure' appears in the text? | 1 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | murdered | How many times the word 'murdered' appears in the text? | 1 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | metal | How many times the word 'metal' appears in the text? | 1 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | leonard | How many times the word 'leonard' appears in the text? | 0 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | half | How many times the word 'half' appears in the text? | 2 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | are | How many times the word 'are' appears in the text? | 3 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | crossed | How many times the word 'crossed' appears in the text? | 3 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | call | How many times the word 'call' appears in the text? | 0 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | done | How many times the word 'done' appears in the text? | 2 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | cast | How many times the word 'cast' appears in the text? | 3 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | harness | How many times the word 'harness' appears in the text? | 0 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | shall | How many times the word 'shall' appears in the text? | 2 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | buggy | How many times the word 'buggy' appears in the text? | 0 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | bit | How many times the word 'bit' appears in the text? | 2 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | nature | How many times the word 'nature' appears in the text? | 2 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | grown | How many times the word 'grown' appears in the text? | 1 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | peeping | How many times the word 'peeping' appears in the text? | 1 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | combination | How many times the word 'combination' appears in the text? | 1 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | courage | How many times the word 'courage' appears in the text? | 0 |
world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly." "Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. "Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, "Had it made for me, express!" "Is the lady anybody?" said I. "No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. "Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the same look." "You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before." While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. "O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, 'Get hold of portable property'." When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner:-- "If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. "Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" "Not yet." "Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." "Shall I see something very uncommon?" "Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Chapter XXV Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. "Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. "Certainly," said I, "if you approve." "Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, "Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope?" I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, "Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what politeness required. "So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked along. "Not yet." "He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em; ain't there?" Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." "Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night." "Is he never robbed?" "That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money." "They dread him so much?" said I. "Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon." "So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" "Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it." I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:-- "As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's real enough." "It's very massive," said I. "Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. "That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. "Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your opinion--" I said, decidedly. "--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions." Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. "I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" "All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!" "This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." "You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. "Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" "O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" "Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" "Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. Chapter XXVI It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, "and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, "Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody recognized him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. "Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" "The spider?" said I. "The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." "That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is Startop." Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his | camilla | How many times the word 'camilla' appears in the text? | 2 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | ashore | How many times the word 'ashore' appears in the text? | 2 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | person | How many times the word 'person' appears in the text? | 1 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | way | How many times the word 'way' appears in the text? | 2 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | there | How many times the word 'there' appears in the text? | 2 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | hasty | How many times the word 'hasty' appears in the text? | 1 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | father | How many times the word 'father' appears in the text? | 3 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | lick'd | How many times the word 'lick'd' appears in the text? | 1 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | victory | How many times the word 'victory' appears in the text? | 2 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | water | How many times the word 'water' appears in the text? | 1 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | obedience | How many times the word 'obedience' appears in the text? | 1 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | glad | How many times the word 'glad' appears in the text? | 3 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | slumbers | How many times the word 'slumbers' appears in the text? | 1 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | devour | How many times the word 'devour' appears in the text? | 1 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | taos | How many times the word 'taos' appears in the text? | 0 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | can | How many times the word 'can' appears in the text? | 2 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | life | How many times the word 'life' appears in the text? | 3 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | into | How many times the word 'into' appears in the text? | 1 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | cover | How many times the word 'cover' appears in the text? | 2 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | invite | How many times the word 'invite' appears in the text? | 0 |
world, Now this head's off. _C sar_. Ha? _Pho._ Do not shun me, _C sar_, From kingly _Ptolomy_ I bring this present, The Crown, and sweat of thy _Pharsalian_ labour: The goal and mark of high ambitious honour. Before thy victory had no name, _C sar_, Thy travel and thy loss of blood, no recompence, Thou dreamst of being worthy, and of war; And all thy furious conflicts were but slumbers, Here they take life: here they inherit honour, Grow fixt, and shoot up everlasting triumphs: Take it, and look upon thy humble servant, With noble eyes look on the Princely _Ptolomy_, That offers with this head (most mighty _C sar_) What thou would'st once have given for it, all _Egypt_. _Ach._ Nor do not question it (most royal Conquerour) Nor dis-esteem the benefit that meets thee, Because 'tis easily got, it comes the safer: Yet let me tell thee (most imperious _C sar_) Though he oppos'd no strength of Swords to win this, Nor labour'd through no showres of darts, and lances: Yet here he found a fort, that faced him strongly, An inward war: he was his Grand-sires Guest; Friend to his Father, and when he was expell'd And beaten from this Kingdom by strong hand, And had none left him, to restore his honour, No hope to find a friend, in such a misery; Then in stept _Pompey_; took his feeble fortune: Strengthen'd, and cherish'd it, and set it right again, This was a love to _C sar_. _Sceva._ Give me, hate, Gods. _Pho._ This _C sar_ may account a little wicked, But yet remember, if thine own hands, Conquerour, Had fallen upon him, what it had been then? If thine own sword had touch'd his throat, what that way! He was thy Son in Law, there to be tainted, Had been most terrible: let the worst be render'd, We have deserv'd for keeping thy hands innocent. _C sar._ Oh _Sceva, Sceva_, see that head: see Captains, The head of godlike _Pompey_. _Sceva._ He was basely ruin'd, But let the Gods be griev'd that suffer'd it, And be you C sar-- _C sar._ Oh thou Conquerour, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of Nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluckt thee on To trust thy sacred life to an _Egyptian_; The life and light of _Rome_, to a blind stranger, That honorable war ne'r taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was, That never heard thy name sung, but in banquets; And loose lascivious pleasures? to a Boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness; And leave thy Nation, nay, thy noble friend, Leave him (distrusted) that in tears falls with thee? (In soft relenting tears) hear me (great _Pompey_) (If thy great spirit can hear) I must task thee: Thou hast most unnobly rob'd me of my victory, My love, and mercy. _Ant._ O how brave these tears shew! How excellent is sorrow in an Enemy! _Dol._ Glory appears not greater than this goodness. _C sar._ _Egyptians_, dare you think your high _Pyramides_, Built to out-dare the Sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy Kings lye rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? no, (brood of _Nilus_) Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven; No _Pyramides_ set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness To which I leave him: take the head away, And (with the body) give it noble burial, Your Earth shall now be bless'd to hold a _Roman_, Whose braverys all the worlds-Earth cannot ballance. _Sce._ If thou bee'st thus loving, I shall honour thee, But great men may dissemble, 'tis held possible, And be right glad of what they seem to weep for, There are such kind of Philosophers; now do I wonder How he would look if _Pompey_ were alive again, But how he would set his face? _C sar._ You look now, King, And you that have been Agents in this glory, For our especial favour? _Ptol._ We desire it. _C sar._ And doubtless you expect rewards. _Sceva_. Let me give 'em: I'le give 'em such as nature never dreamt of, I'le beat him and his Agents (in a morter) Into one man, and that one man I'le bake then. _C sar_. Peace: I forgive you all, that's recompence: You are young, and ignorant, that pleads your pardon, And fear it may be more than hate provok'd ye, Your Ministers, I must think, wanted judgment, And so they err'd: I am bountiful to think this; Believe me most bountiful; be you most thankful, That bounty share amongst ye: if I knew What to send you for a present, King of _Egypt_, (I mean a head of equal reputation And that you lov'd) though it were your brightest Sisters, (But her you hate) I would not be behind ye. _Ptol._ Hear me, (Great _C sar_.) _C s._ I have heard too much, And study not with smooth shews to invade My noble Mind as you have done my Conquest. Ye are poor and open: I must tell ye roundly, That Man that could not recompence the Benefits, The great and bounteous services of _Pompey_, Can never dote upon the Name of _C sar_; Though I had hated _Pompey_, and allow'd his ruine, [I gave you no commission to performe it:] Hasty to please in Blood are seldome trusty; And but I stand inviron'd with my Victories, My Fortune never failing to befriend me, My noble strengths, and friends about my Person, I durst not try ye, nor expect: a Courtesie, Above the pious love you shew'd to _Pompey_. You have found me merciful in arguing with you; Swords, Hangmen, Fires, Destructions of all natures, Demolishments of Kingdoms, and whole Ruines Are wont to be my Orators; turn to tears, You wretched and poor seeds of Sun-burnt _Egypt_, And now you have found the nature of a Conquerour, That you cannot decline with all your flatteries, That where the day gives light will be himself still, Know how to meet his Worth with humane Courtesies, Go, and embalm those bones of that great Souldier; Howl round about his Pile, fling on your Spices, Make a _Sab an_ Bed, and place this Phoenix Where the hot Sun may emulate his Vertues, And draw another _Pompey_ from his ashes Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies. _Ptol._ We will do all. _C s._ You have rob'd him of those tears His Kindred and his Friends kept sacred for him; The Virgins of their Funeral Lamentations: And that kind Earth that thought to cover him, (His Countries Earth) will cry out 'gainst your Cruelty, And weep unto the Ocean for revenge, Till _Nilus_ raise his seven heads and devour ye; My grief has stopt the rest: when _Pompey_ liv'd He us'd you nobly, now he is dead use him so. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ Now, where's your confidence? your aim (_Photinus_) The Oracles, and fair Favours from the Conquerour You rung into mine Ears? how stand I now? You see the tempest of his stern displeasure, The death of him you urged a Sacrifice To stop his Rage, presaging a full ruine; Where are your Counsels now? _Acho._ I told you, Sir, (And told the truth) what danger would flye after; And though an Enemy, I satisfied you He was a _Roman_, and the top of Honour; And howsoever this might please Great _C sar_, I told ye that the foulness of his Death, The impious baseness-- _Pho._ Peace, you are a Fool, Men of deep ends must tread as deep ways to 'em; _C sar_ I know is pleas'd, and for all his sorrows (Which are put on for forms and meer dissemblings) I am confident he's glad; to have told ye so, And thank ye outwardly, had been too open, And taken from the Wisedom of a Conquerour. Be confident and proud ye have done this service; Ye have deserv'd, and ye will find it highly: Make bold use of this benefit, and be sure You keep your Sister, (the high-soul'd Cleopatra) Both close and short enough, she may not see him; The rest, if I may counsel, Sir-- _Ptol._ Do all; For in thy faithful service rests my safety. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _Enter_ Septimius. _Sept._ Here's a strange alteration in the Court; Mens Faces are of other setts and motions, Their minds of subtler stuff; I pass by now As though I were a Rascal, no man knows me, No Eye looks after; as I were a Plague Their doors shut close against me; and I wondred at Because I have done a meritorious Murther; Because I have pleas'd the Time, does the Time plague me? I have known the day they would have hug'd me for it, For a less stroke than this have done me Reverence; Open'd their Hearts and secret Closets to me, Their Purses, and their Pleasures, and bid me wallow. I now perceive the great Thieves eat the less, And the huge Leviathans of Villany Sup up the merits, nay the men and all That do them service, and spowt 'em out again Into the air, as thin and unregarded As drops of Water that are lost i'th' Ocean: I was lov'd once for swearing, and for drinking, And for other principal Qualities that became me, Now a foolish unthankful Murther has undone me, If my Lord _Photinus_ be not merciful _Enter_ Photinus. That set me on; And he comes, now Fortune. _Pho._ C sars unthankfulness a little stirs me, A little frets my bloud; take heed, proud _Roman_, Provoke me not, stir not mine anger farther; I may find out a way unto thy life too, (Though arm'd in all thy Victories) and seize it. A Conquerour has a heart, and I may hit it. _Sept_. May it please your Lordship? _Pho._ O _Septimius_! _Sept._ Your [Lordship] knows my wrongs. _Pho._ Wrongs? _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, How the Captain of the Guard, _Achillas_, slights me. _Pho._ Think better of him, he has much befriended thee, Shew'd thee much love in taking the head from thee. The times are alter'd (Souldier) _C sar's_ angry, And our design to please him lost and perish'd; Be glad thou art unnam'd, 'tis not worth the owning; Yet, that thou maist be useful-- _Sept._ Yes, my Lord, I shall be ready. _Pho._ For I may employ thee To take a rub or two out of my way, As time shall serve, say that it be a Brother? Or a hard Father? _Sept._ 'Tis most necessary, A Mother, or a Sister, or whom you please, Sir. _Pho._ Or to betray a noble Friend? _Sept._ 'Tis all one. _Pho._ I know thou wilt stir for Gold. _Sept._ 'Tis all my motion. _Pho._ There, take that for thy service, and farewel; I have greater business now. _Sept._ I am still your own, Sir. _Pho._ One thing I charge thee, see me no more, _Septimius_, Unless I send. [_Exit._ _Sept._ I shall observe your hour. So, this brings something in the mouth, some savour; This is the Lord I serve, the Power I worship, My Friends, Allies, and here lies my Allegiance. Let People talk as they please of my rudeness, And shun me for my deed; bring but this to 'em, (Let me be damn'd for blood) yet still I am honourable, This God creates new tongues, and new affections; And though I had kill'd my Father, give me Gold I'll make men swear I have done a pious Sacrifice; Now I will out-brave all; make all my Servants, And my brave deed shall be writ in Wine, for vertuous. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _Enter_ C sar, Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _C s._ Keep strong Guards, and with wary eyes (my friends) There is no trusting to these base _Egyptians_; They that are false to pious benefits, And make compell'd necessities their faiths Are Traitors to the gods. _Ant._ We'll call ashore A Legion of the best. _C s._ Not a Man, _Antony_, That were to shew our fears, and dim our greatness: No, 'tis enough my Name's ashore. _Sce._ Too much too, A sleeping _C sar_ is enough to shake them; There are some two or three malicious Rascals Train'd up in Villany, besides that _Cerberus_ That _Roman_ Dog, that lick'd the blood of _Pompey_. _Dol._ 'Tis strange, a _Roman_ Souldier? _Sce._ You are cozen'd, There be of us as be of all other Nations, Villains, and Knaves; 'tis not the name contains him, But the obedience; when that's once forgotten, And Duty flung away, then welcome Devil. _Photinus_ and _Achillas_, and this Vermine That's now become a natural Crocodile Must be with care observ'd. _Ant._ And 'tis well counsel'd No Confidence, nor trust-- _Sce._ I'll trust the Sea first, When with her hollow murmurs she invites me, And clutches in her storms, as politick Lions Conceal their Claws; I'll trust the Devil first. _C s._ Go to your rests, and follow your own Wisedoms, And leave me to my thoughts: pray no more complement, Once more strong Watches. _Dol._ All shall be observ'd, Sir. [_Exit._ _C s._ I am dull and heavy, yet I cannot sleep, How happy was I in my lawful Wars, In _Germany_, and _Gaul_, and _Britanny_ When every night with pleasure I set down What the day ministred! The sleep came sweetly: But since I undertook this home-division, This civil War, and past the _Rubicon_; What have I done that speaks an ancient _Roman_? A good, great man? I have enter'd _Rome_ by force, And on her tender Womb (that gave me life) Let my insulting Souldiers rudely trample, The dear Veins of my Country I have open'd, And sail'd upon the torrents that flow'd from her, The bloody streams that in their confluence Carried before 'em thousand desolations; I rob'd the Treasury, and at one gripe Snatch'd all the wealth, so many worthy triumphs Plac'd there as sacred to the Peace of _Rome_; I raz'd _Massilia_, in my wanton anger: _Petreius_ and _Afranius_ I defeated: _Pompey_ I overthrew: what did that get me? The slubber'd Name of an authoriz'd Enemy. [_Noise within._ I hear some Noise; they are the Watches sure. What Friends have I ty'd fast by these ambitions? _Cato_, the Lover of his Countries freedom, Is now past into _Africk_ to affront me, _Fuba_ (that kill'd my friend) is up in Arms too; The Sons of _Pompey_ are Masters of the Sea, And from the reliques of their scatter'd faction, A new head's sprung; Say I defeat all these too; I come home crown'd an honourable Rebel. I hear the Noise still, and it still comes nearer; Are the Guards fast? Who waits there? _Enter_ Sceva _with a Packet_, Cleopatra _in it._ _Sce._ Are ye awake Sir? _C s._ I'th' name of Wonder. _Sce._ Nay, I am a Porter, A strong one too, or else my sides would crack, Sir, And my sins were as weighty, I should scarce walk with 'em. _C s._ What hast thou there? _Sce._ Ask them which stay without, And brought it hither, your Presence I deny'd 'em, And put 'em by; took up the load my self, They say 'tis rich, and valu'd at the Kingdome, I am sure 'tis heavy; if you like to see it You may: if not, I'll give it back. _C s._ Stay _Sceva_, I would fain see it. _Sce._ I'll begin to work then; No doubt, to flatter ye they have sent ye something, Of a rich value, Jewels, or some rich Treasure; May be a Rogue within to do a mischief; I pray you stand farther off, if there be villany, Better my danger first; he shall 'scape hard too, Ha! what art thou? _C s._ Stand farther off, good _Sceva_, What heavenly Vision! do I wake or slumber? Farther off that hand, Friend. _Sce._ What Apparition? What Spirit have I rais'd? sure 'tis a Woman, She looks like one; now she begins to move too: A tempting Devil, o' my life; go off, _C sar_, Bless thy self, off: a Bawd grown in mine old days? Bawdry advanc'd upon my back? 'tis noble: Sir, if you be a Souldier come no nearer, She is sent to dispossess you of your honour, A Spunge, a Spunge to wipe away your Victories: And she would be cool'd, Sir, let the Souldiers trim her! They'll give her that she came for, and dispatch her; Be loyal to your self. Thou damned Woman, Dost thou come hither with thy flourishes, Thy flaunts, and faces to abuse mens manners? And am I made the instrument of Bawdry? I'll find a Lover for ye, one that shall hug ye. _C s._ Hold, on thy life, and be more temperate, Thou Beast. _Sce._ Thou Beast? _C s._ Could'st thou be so inhumane, So far from noble Men, to draw thy Weapon Upon a thing divine? _Sce._ Divine, or humane, They are never better pleas'd, nor more at hearts ease, Than when we draw with full intent upon 'em. _C s._ Move this way (Lady) 'Pray ye let me speak to ye. _Sce._ And Woman, you had best stand. _C s._ By the gods, But that I see her here, and hope her mortal, I should imagine some celestial sweetness, The treasure of soft love. _Sce._ Oh, this sounds mangily, Poorly, and scurvily in a Souldiers mouth: You had best be troubled with the Tooth-ach too, For Lovers ever are, and let your Nose drop That your celestial Beauty may befriend ye; At these years do you learn to be fantastical? After so many bloody fields, a Fool? She brings her Bed along too, she'll lose no time, Carries her Litter to lye soft, do you see that? Invites ye like a Gamester: note that impudence, For shame reflect upon your self, your honour, Look back into your noble parts, and blush: Let not the dear sweat of the hot _Pharsalia_, Mingle with base _Embraces_; am I he That have receiv'd so many wounds for _C sar_? Upon my Target groves of darts still growing? Have I endur'd all hungers, colds, distresses, And (as I had been bred that Iron that arm'd me) Stood out all weathers, now to curse my fortune? To ban the blood I lost for such a General? _C sar_. Offend no more: be gone. _Sce._ I will, and leave ye, Leave ye to womens wars, that will proclaim ye: You'l conquer _Rome_ now, and the Capitol With Fans, and Looking-glasses, farewel C sar. _Cleo._ Now I am private Sir, I dare speak to ye: But thus low first, for as a God I honour ye. _Sce._ Lower you'l be anon. _C sar_. Away. _Sce._ And privater, For that you covet all. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Tempt me no farther. _Cleo._ Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, _C sar_, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty _Ptolomy_, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy Altar, to preserve me. _C sar_. Speak Queen of beauty, and stand up. _Cleo._ I dare not, 'Till I have found that favour in thine eyes, That godlike great humanity to help me, Thus, to thy knees must I grow (sacred _C sar_,) And if it be not in thy will, to right me, And raise me like a Queen from my sad ruines, If these soft tears cannot sink to thy pity, And waken with their murmurs thy compassions; Yet for thy nobleness, for vertues sake, And if thou beest a man, for despis'd beauty, For honourable conquest, which thou doat'st on, Let not those cankers of this flourishing Kingdom, _Photinus_, and _Achillas_, (the one an Eunuch, The other a base bondman) thus raign over me. Seize my inheritance, and leave my Brother Nothing of what he should be, but the Title, As thou art wonder of the world. _C sar_. Stand up then And be a Queen, this hand shall give it to ye, Or choose a greater name, worthy my bounty: A common love makes Queens: choose to be worshipped, To be divinely great, and I dare promise it; A suitor of your sort, and blessed sweetness, That hath adventur'd thus to see great _C sar_, Must never be denied, you have found a patron That dare not in his private honour suffer So great a blemish to the Heaven of beauty: The God of love would clap his angry wings, And from his singing bow let flye those arrows Headed with burning griefs, and pining sorrows, Should I neglect your cause, would make me monstrous, To whom and to your service I devote me. _Enter_ Sceva. _Cleo._ He is my conquest now, and so I'le work him, The conquerour of the world will I lead captive. _Sce._ Still with this woman? tilting still with Babies? As you are honest think the Enemy, Some valiant Foe indeed now charging on ye: Ready to break your ranks, and fling these-- _C sar_. Hear me, But tell me true, if thou hadst such a treasure, (And as thou art a Souldier, do not flatter me) Such a bright gem, brought to thee, wouldst thou not Most greedily accept? _Sce._ Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou _C sar_ too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease (the rust of Arms) And pleasure, (that makes Souldiers poor) inhabites. _C sar_. Fye, thou blasphem'st. _Sce._ I do, when she is a goddess. Thou melter of strong minds, dar'st thou presume To smother all his triumphs, with thy vanities, And tye him like a slave, to thy proud beauties? To thy imperious looks? that Kings have follow'd Proud of their chains? have waited on? I shame Sir. [_Exit._ _C sar_. Alas thou art rather mad: take thy rest _Sceva_, Thy duty makes thee erre, but I forgive thee: Go, go I say, shew me no disobedience: 'Tis well, farewel, the day will break dear Lady, My Souldiers will come in; please you retire, And think upon your servant. _Cleo._ Pray you Sir, know me, And what I am. _C sar_. The greater, I more love ye, And you must know me too. _Cleo._ So far as modesty, And majesty gives leave Sir, ye are too violent. _C sar_. You are too cold to my desires. _Cleo._ Swear to me, And by your self (for I hold that oath sacred) You will right me as a Queen-- _C sar_. These lips be witness, And if I break that oath-- _Cleo._ You make me blush Sir, And in that blush interpret me. _C sar_. I will do, Come let's go in, and blush again: this one word, You shall believe. _Cleo._ I must, you are a conquerour. [_Exeunt._ ACTUS TERTIUS. SCENA PRIMA. _Enter_ Ptolomy, Photinus. _Pho._ Good Sir, but hear. _Ptol._ No more, you have undone me, That, that I hourly fear'd, is fain upon me, And heavily, and deadly. _Pho._ Hear a remedy. _Ptol._ A remedy now the disease is ulcerous? And has infected all? your secure negligence Has broke through all the hopes I have, and ruin'd me: My Sister is with _C sar_, in his chamber, All night she has been with him; and no doubt Much to her honour. _Pho._ Would that were the worst, Sir, That will repair it self: but I fear mainly, She has made her peace with _C sar_. _Ptol._ 'Tis most likely, And what am I then? _Pho._ 'Plague upon that Rascal _Apollod[or]us_, under whose command, Under whose eye-- _Enter_ Achillas. _Ptol._ Curse on you all, ye are wretches. _Pho._ 'Twas providently done, _Achillas_. _Achil._ Pardon me. _Pho._ Your guards were rarely wise, and wondrous watchfull. _Achil._ I could not help it, if my life had lain for't, Alas, who would suspect a pack of bedding, Or a small Truss of houshold furniture? And as they said, for C sars use: or who durst (Being for his private chamber) seek to stop it? I was abus'd. _Enter_ Achoreus. _Ach._ 'Tis no hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever her, Nor force conditions-- _Ptol._ Speak (good _Achoreus_) _Ach._ Let indirect and crooked counsels vanish, And straight, and fair directions-- _Pho._ Speak your mind Sir. _Ach._ Let us choose _C sar_, (and endear him to us,) An Arbitrator in all differences Betwixt you, and your Sister; this is safe now: And will shew off, most honourable. _Pho._ Base, Most base and poor; a servile, cold submission: Hear me, and pluck your hearts up, like stout Counsellours, Since we are sensible this _C sar_ loathes us, And have begun our fortune with great Pompey, Be of my mind. _Ach._ 'Tis most uncomely spoken, And if I say most bloodily, I lye not: The law of hospitality it poysons, And calls the Gods in question that dwell in us, Be wise O King. _Ptol._ I will be: go my counsellour, To _C sar_ go, and do my humble service: To my fair Sister my commends negotiate, And here I ratifie what e're thou treat'st on. _Ach._ Crown'd with fair peace, I go. [_Exit._ _Ptol._ My love go with thee, And from my love go you, you cruel vipers: You shall know now I am no ward, _Photinus_. [_Exit._ _Pho._ This for our service? Princes do their pleasures, And they that serve obey in all disgraces: The lowest we can fall to, is our graves, There we shall know no diffrence: heark _Achillas_, I may do something yet, when times are ripe, To tell this raw unthankful! King. _Achil._ _Photinus_, What e're it be I shall make one: and zealously: For better dye attempting something nobly, Than fall disgraced. _Pho._ Thou lov'st me and I thank thee. [_Exeunt._ SCENA II. _Enter_ Antony, Dolabella, Sceva. _Dol._ Nay there's no rowsing him: he is bewitch'd sure, His noble blood curdled, and cold within him; Grown now a womans warriour. _Sce._ And a tall one: Studies her fortifications, and her breaches, And how he may advance his ram to batter The Bullwork of her chastitie. _Ant._ Be not too angry, For by this light, the woman's a rare woman, A Lady of that catching youth, and beauty, That unmatch'd sweetness-- _Dol._ But why should he be fool'd so? Let her be what she will, why should his wisdom, His age, and honour-- _Ant._ Say it were your own case, Or mine, or any mans, that has heat in him: 'Tis true at this time when he has no promise Of more security than his sword can cut through, I do not hold it so discreet: but a good face, Gentlemen, And eyes that are the winningst Orators: A youth that opens like perpetual spring, And to all these, a tongue that can deliver The Oracles of Love-- _Sce._ I would you had her, With all her Oracles, and Miracles, She were fitter for your turn. _Ant._ Would I had, _Sceva_, With all her faults too: let me alone to mend 'em, O'that condition I made thee mine heir. _Sce._ I had rather have your black horse, than your harlots. _Dol._ _C sar_ writes _Sonnetts_ now, the sound of war Is grown too boystrous for his mouth: he sighs too. _Sce._ And learns to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that be in a General! _Ant._ I would he could abstain. _Sce._ She is a witch sure, And works upon him with some damn'd inchantment. _Dol._ How cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch her ends! _Sce._ She will be sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then she fits him. _Ant._ That thou shouldst bring her in! _Sce._ 'Twas my blind fortune, My Souldiers told me, by the weight 'twas wicked: Would I had carried _Milo's_ Bull a furlong, When I brought in this Cow-Calf: he has advanced me From an old Souldier, to a bawd of memory: O, that the Sons of _Pompey_ were behind him, The honour'd _Cato_, and fierce _Juba_ with 'em, That they might whip him from his whore, and rowze him: That their fierce Trumpets, from his wanton trances, Might shake him like an Earth-quake. _Enter_ Septimius. _Ant._ What's this fellow? _Dol._ Why, a brave fellow, if we judge men by their clothes. _Ant._ By my faith he is brave indeed: he's no commander? _Sce._ Yes, he has a _Roman_ face, he has been at fair wars And plenteous too, and rich, his Trappings shew it. _Sep._ And they will not know me now, they'l never know me. Who dare blush now at my acquaintance? ha? Am I not totally a span-new Gallant, Fit for the choycest eyes? have I not gold? The friendship of the world? if they shun me now (Though I were the arrantest rogue, as I am well forward) Mine own curse, and the Devils too light on me. _Ant._ Is't not _Septimius_? _Sce._ Yes. _Dol._ He | accident | How many times the word 'accident' appears in the text? | 0 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | rise | How many times the word 'rise' appears in the text? | 1 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | salvation | How many times the word 'salvation' appears in the text? | 3 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | leaning | How many times the word 'leaning' appears in the text? | 1 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | complaisance | How many times the word 'complaisance' appears in the text? | 0 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | partly | How many times the word 'partly' appears in the text? | 3 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | took | How many times the word 'took' appears in the text? | 2 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | subdeacon | How many times the word 'subdeacon' appears in the text? | 1 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | plan | How many times the word 'plan' appears in the text? | 2 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | his | How many times the word 'his' appears in the text? | 3 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | in | How many times the word 'in' appears in the text? | 3 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | host | How many times the word 'host' appears in the text? | 1 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | effaced | How many times the word 'effaced' appears in the text? | 0 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | inherited | How many times the word 'inherited' appears in the text? | 0 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | approved | How many times the word 'approved' appears in the text? | 1 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | saint | How many times the word 'saint' appears in the text? | 2 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | rebels | How many times the word 'rebels' appears in the text? | 0 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | these | How many times the word 'these' appears in the text? | 1 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | only | How many times the word 'only' appears in the text? | 2 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | stature | How many times the word 'stature' appears in the text? | 0 |
worse than impossible," observed Mr. Freeborn. "I should make a distinction," said Bateman: "I should say, they are one, except the corruptions of the Romish Church." "That is, they are one, except where they differ," said Sheffield. "Precisely so," said Bateman. "Rather, _I_ should say," objected Mr. Freeborn, "two, except where they agree." "That's just the issue," said Sheffield; "Bateman says that the Churches are one except when they are two; and Freeborn says that they are two except when they are one." It was a relief at this moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions for the vital truths of religion; so he now went on to observe, putting down his knife and fork, that it really was to him inconceivable, that real religion should depend on metaphysical distinctions, or outward observances; that it was quite a different thing in Scripture; that Scripture said much of faith and holiness, but hardly a word about Churches and forms. He proceeded to say that it was the great and evil tendency of the human mind to interpose between itself and its Creator some self-invented mediator, and it did not matter at all whether that human device was a rite, or a creed, or a form of prayer, or good works, or communion with particular Churches--all were but "flattering unctions to the soul," if they were considered necessary; the only safe way of using them was to use them with the feeling that you might dispense with them; that none of them went to the root of the matter, for that faith, that is, firm belief that God had forgiven you, was the one thing needful; that where that one thing was present, everything else was superfluous; that where it was wanting, nothing else availed. So strongly did he hold this, that (he confessed he put it pointedly, but still not untruly), where true faith was present, a person might be anything in profession; an Arminian, a Calvinist, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Swedenborgian--nay, a Unitarian--he would go further, looking at White, a Papist, yet be in a state of salvation. Freeborn came out rather more strongly than in his sober moments he would have approved; but he was a little irritated, and wished to have his turn of speaking. It was altogether a great testification. "Thank you for your liberality to the poor Papists," said White; "it seems they are safe if they are hypocrites, professing to be Catholics, while they are Protestants in heart." "Unitarians, too," said Sheffield, "are debtors to your liberality; it seems a man need not fear to believe too little, so that he feels a good deal." "Rather," said White, "if he believes himself forgiven, he need not believe anything else." Reding put in his word; he said that in the Prayer Book, belief in the Holy Trinity was represented, not as an accident, but as "before all things" necessary to salvation. "That's not a fair answer, Reding," said Sheffield; "what Mr. Freeborn observed was, that there's no creed in the Bible; and you answer that there is a creed in the Prayer Book." "Then the Bible says one thing, and the Prayer Book another," said Bateman. "No," answered Freeborn; "The Prayer Book only _deduces_ from Scripture; the Athanasian Creed is a human invention; true, but human, and to be received, as one of the Articles expressly says, because 'founded on Scripture.' Creeds are useful in their place, so is the Church; but neither Creed nor Church is religion." "Then why do you make so much of your doctrine of 'faith only'?" said Bateman; "for that is not in Scripture, and is but a human deduction." "_My_ doctrine!" cried Freeborn; "why it's in the Articles; the Articles expressly say that we are justified by faith only." "The Articles are not Scripture any more than the Prayer Book," said Sheffield. "Nor do the Articles say that the doctrine they propound is necessary for salvation," added Bateman. All this was very unfair on Freeborn, though he had provoked it. Here were four persons on him at once, and the silent fifth apparently a sympathiser. Sheffield talked through malice; White from habit; Reding came in because he could not help it; and Bateman spoke on principle; he had a notion that he was improving Freeborn's views by this process of badgering. At least he did not improve his temper, which was suffering. Most of the party were undergraduates; he (Freeborn) was a Master; it was too bad of Bateman. He finished in silence his sausage, which had got quite cold. The conversation flagged; there was a rise in toast and muffins; coffee-cups were put aside, and tea flowed freely. CHAPTER VII. Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours. "If this is true," said Bateman, "no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn." "Of course," answered Freeborn, "those who have _found_ the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift." "And the very last persons to persuade," said Sheffield; "for they have the gift all to themselves." "Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else," said Bateman. "But those are the very persons who don't want it," said Sheffield; "reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking." Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture. "I have always thought," said Reding, "that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational." "But St. Paul says," answered Freeborn, "that 'to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness.'" "But how are we to arrive at truth at all," said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason." They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. "It would be a dull world," he said, "if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don't. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion." "This would make all religions true," said Freeborn, "good and bad." "No," answered White, "heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher." "Like St. Mary's," said Sheffield. "Very like," said White; "we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting--all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it _is_ really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the _Kyrie_; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the _Confiteor_ to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason." This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White's poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn's prose. "White, you should turn Catholic out and out," said Sheffield. "My dear good fellow," said Bateman, "think what you are saying. You can't really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!" Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches _were_ one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he would, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other. "You forget," said Bateman to White, "you have, or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions." "As to the Romish corruptions," answered White, "I know very little about them." Freeborn groaned audibly. "I know very little about them," repeated White eagerly, "very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don't like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can't deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the _Dies ir _." Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation. It was a printseller's man with a large book of plates. "Well timed," said Bateman;--"put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;--I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here." He opened the portfolio; it contained views of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The leaves were slowly turned over in silence, the spectators partly admiring, partly not knowing what to think, partly wondering at what was coming. "What do you think my plan is?" he continued. "You twitted me, Sheffield, because my chapel would be useless. Now I mean to get a cemetery attached to it; there is plenty of land; and then the chapel will become a chantry. But now, what will you say if we have a copy of these splendid medieval monuments round the burial-place, both sculpture and painting? Now, Sheffield, Mr. Critic, what do you say to that?" "A most admirable plan," said Sheffield, "and quite removes my objections.... A chantry! what is that? Don't they say Mass in it for the dead?" "Oh, no, no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service will be read." Meanwhile Sheffield was slowly turning over the plates. He stopped at one. "What will you do with that figure?" he said, pointing to a Madonna. "Oh, it will be best, most prudent, to leave it out; certainly, certainly." Sheffield soon began again: "But look here, my good fellow, what do you do with these saints and angels? do see, why here's a complete legend; do you mean to have this? Here's a set of miracles, and a woman invoking a saint in heaven." Bateman looked cautiously at them, and did not answer. He would have shut the book, but Sheffield wished to see some more. Meanwhile he said, "Oh yes, true, there _are_ some things; but I have an expedient for all this; I mean to make it all allegorical. The Blessed Virgin shall be the Church, and the saints shall be cardinal and other virtues; and as to that saint's life, St. Ranieri's, it shall be a Catholic 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" "Good! then you must drop all these popes and bishops, copes and chalices," said Sheffield; "and have their names written under the rest, that people mayn't take them for saints and angels. Perhaps you had better have scrolls from their mouths, in old English. This St. Thomas is stout; make him say, 'I am Mr. Dreadnought,' or 'I am Giant Despair;' and, since this beautiful saint bears a sort of dish, make her 'Mrs. Creature Comfort.' But look here," he continued, "a whole set of devils; are _these_ to be painted up?" Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel." "Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious." Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company. "Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What _could_ you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage." Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church _were_ one?" "It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church--the Creed says so; would you make two?" "I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there _were_ two _Churches_; nor to deny that there was one _Church_. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body." Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument. "My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is _that_ your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist." "You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one." "I do not see that," said Bateman. "Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else." "Some paradox?" said Bateman. "Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one." This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face. Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words." "Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested." "Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently." Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics." "I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, _how_ are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?" Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?" "But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope." "That's their mistake," answered Bateman. "That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge _their_ succession; they say it's our mistake." "Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession." "Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession." "It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman. "Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield. "Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops." "And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield. "They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going. "And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield. "We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman. "And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield. They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of _fact_, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not _true_ that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not _false_ that Popes are necessary." "No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent." Bateman was puzzled. "In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine." "Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman. "Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield. Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have _possession_; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?--they call it all superstition." "Don't be angry with me, Bateman," said Sheffield, "and, before going, I will put forth a parable. Here's the Church of England, as like a Protestant Establishment as it can stare; bishops and people, all but a few like yourselves, call it Protestant; the living body calls itself Protestant; the living body abjures Catholicism, flings off the name and the thing, hates the Church of Rome, laughs at sacramental power, despises the Fathers, is jealous of priestcraft, is a Protestant reality, is a Catholic sham. This existing reality, which is alive and no mistake, you wish to top with a filagree-work of screens, dorsals, pastoral staffs, croziers, mitres, and the like. Now most excellent Bateman, will you hear my parable? will you be offended at it?" Silence gave consent, and Sheffield proceeded. "Why, once on a time a negro boy, when his master was away, stole into his wardrobe, and determined to make himself fine at his master's expense. So he was presently seen in the streets, naked as usual, but strutting up and down with a cocked hat on his head, and a pair of white kid gloves on his hands." "Away with you! get out, you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with Charles in the street below. CHAPTER VIII. Sheffield and Charles may go their way; but we must follow White and Willis out of Bateman's lodgings. It was a Saint's day, and they had no lectures; they walked arm-in-arm along Broad Street, evidently very intimate, and Willis found his voice: "I can't bear that Freeborn," said he, "he's such a prig; and I like him the less because I am obliged to know him." "You knew him in the country, I think?" said White. "In consequence, he has several times had me to his spiritual tea-parties, and has introduced me to old Mr. Grimes, a good, kind-hearted old _fogie_, but an awful evangelical, and his wife worse. Grimes is the old original religious tea-man, and Freeborn imitates him. They get together as many men as they can, perhaps twenty freshmen, bachelors, and masters, who sit in a circle, with cups and saucers in their hands and hassocks at their knees. Some insufferable person of Capel Hall or St. Mark's, who hardly speaks English, under pretence of asking Mr. Grimes some divinity question, holds forth on original sin, or justification, or assurance, monopolizing the conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out why any one goes twice; yet some men never miss." "They all go on faith," said White: "faith in Mr. Grimes." "Faith in old Grimes," said Willis; "an old half-pay lieutenant!" "Here's a church open," said White; "that's odd; let's go in." They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. "That will be all set right," said Willis; "we must have no women, but sacristans and servers." "Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?" "Where would you put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough." "That depends on the number of altars the church admits," answered White; "each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy." "One," said Willis, counting, "where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?" "The church is not wide enough for those side ones," objected White. "Oh, but it is," said Willis; "I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room." "No," persisted White; "the chancel is too narrow;" and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. "What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?" he asked. On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a class; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little. The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. "We were imagining, Miss Bolton," White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, "we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be." "What was your first reform?" asked Miss Bolton. "I fear," answered White, "it would fare hard with your _prot g e_, the old lady who dusts out the pews." "Why, certainly," said Miss Bolton, "because there would be no pews to dust." "But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church," said White. "Impossible," said Miss Bolton; "are women, then, to remain Protestants?" "Oh, no," answered White, "the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow." "And who will take her present place?" "A sacristan," answered White; "a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?" he continued, turning to the younger lady. "I?" answered Miss Charlotte; "I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta." "You know, Charlotte," said Miss Bolton, "that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments." "I hate all reforms," answered Charlotte, "from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern." "Have you determined what to do with it?" asked Willis. "Time enough to think of that," said Charlotte; "it'll take four years to finish." "Four years!" cried White; "we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted." "It will be done just in time for the Bishop," said Charlotte. "Oh, it's not good enough for him!" said Miss Bolton; "but it may do in church for the _Asperges_. How different all things will be!" continued she; "I don't quite like, though, the idea of a cardinal in Oxford. Must we be so very Roman? I don't see why we might not be quite Catholic without the Pope." "Oh, you need not be afraid," said White sagely; "things don't go so apace. Cardinals are not so cheap." "Cardinals have so much state and stiffness," said Miss Bolton: "I hear they never walk without two servants behind them; and they always leave the room directly dancing begins." "Well, I think Oxford must be just cut out for cardinals," said Miss Charlotte; "can anything be duller than the President's parties? I can fancy Dr. Bone a cardinal, as he walks round the parks." "Oh, it's the genius of the Catholic Church," said White; "you will understand it better in time. No one is his own master; even the Pope cannot do as he will; he dines by himself, and speaks by precedent." "Of course he does," said Charlotte, "for he is infallible." "Nay, if he makes mistakes in the functions," continued White, "he is obliged to write them down and confess them, lest they should be drawn into precedents." "And he is obliged, during a function, to obey the master of ceremonies, against his own judgment," said Willis. "Didn't you say the Pope confessed, Mr. White?" asked Miss Bolton; "it has always puzzled me whether the Pope was obliged to confess like another man." "Oh, certainly," answered White, "every one confesses." "Well," said Charlotte, "I can't fancy Mr. Hurst of St. Peter's, who comes here to sing glees, confessing, or some of the grave heads of houses, who bow so stiffly." "They will all have to confess," said White. "All?" asked Miss Bolton; "you don't mean converts confess? I thought it was only old Catholics." | sky | How many times the word 'sky' appears in the text? | 1 |