Yet Dr Riccabocca was not rash. The man who wants his wedding-garment
to fit him must allow plenty of time for the measure. But, from that
day, the Italian notably changed his manner towards Miss Hazeldean. He
ceased that profusion of compliment in which he had hitherto carried
off in safety all serious meaning. For indeed the Doctor considered
that compliments, to a single gentleman, were what the inky liquid it
dispenses is to the cuttle-fish, that by obscuring the water sails
away from its enemy. Neither did he, as before, avoid prolonged
conversations with that young lady, and contrive to escape from all
solitary rambles by her side. On the contrary, he now sought every
occasion to be in her society; and, entirely dropping the language of
gallantry, he assumed something of the earnest tone of friendship. He
bent down his intellect to examine and plumb her own. To use a very
homely simile, he blew away that froth which there is on the surface of
mere acquaintanceships, especially with the opposite sex; and which,
while it lasts, scarce allows you to distinguish between small beer and
double X. Apparently Dr Riccabocca was satisfied with his scrutiny--at
all events, under that froth there was no taste of bitter. The Italian
might not find any great strength of intellect in Miss Jemima, but he
found that, disentangled from many little whims and foibles--which he
had himself the sense to perceive were harmless enough if they lasted,
and not so absolutely constitutional but what they might be removed by
a tender hand--Miss Hazeldean had quite enough sense to comprehend the
plain duties of married life; and if the sense could fail, it found a
substitute in good old homely English principles and the instincts of
amiable kindly feelings.
I know not how it is, but your very clever man never seems to care
so much as your less gifted mortals for cleverness in his helpmate.
Your scholars, and poets, and ministers of state, are more often
than not found assorted with exceedingly humdrum good sort of women,
and apparently like them all the better for their deficiencies. Just
see how happily Racine lived with his wife, and what an angel he
thought her, and yet she had never read his plays. Certainly Goethe
never troubled the lady who called him "Mr Privy Councillor" with
whims about 'monads,' and speculations on 'colour,' nor those stiff
metaphysical problems on which one breaks one's shins in the Second
Part of the Faust. Probably it may be that such great geniuses--knowing
that, as compared with themselves, there is little difference between
your clever woman and your humdrum woman--merge at once all minor
distinctions, relinquish all attempts that could not but prove
unsatisfactory, at sympathy in hard intellectual pursuits, and are
quite satisfied to establish that tie which, after all, best resists
wear and tear--viz. the tough household bond between one human heart
and another.
At all events, this, I suspect, was the reasoning of Dr Riccabocca,
when one morning, after a long walk with Miss Hazeldean, he muttered to
himself--
"Duro con duro
Non fece mai buon muro."
Which may bear the paraphrase, "Bricks without mortar would make a very
bad wall." There was quite enough in Miss Jemima's disposition to make
excellent mortar: the Doctor took the bricks to himself.
When his examination was concluded, our philosopher symbolically
evinced the result he had arrived at by a very simple proceeding on his
part--which would have puzzled you greatly if you had not paused, and
meditated thereon, till you saw all that it implied. _Dr Riccabocca
took off his spectacles!_ He wiped them carefully, put them into their
shagreen case, and locked them in his bureau:--that is to say, he left
off wearing his spectacles.
You will observe that there was a wonderful depth of meaning in that
critical symptom, whether it be regarded as a sign outward, positive
and explicit; or a sign metaphysical, mystical, and esoteric. For,
as to the last--it denoted that the task of the spectacles was over;
that, when a philosopher has made up his mind to marry, it is better
henceforth to be shortsighted--nay, even somewhat purblind--than to
be always scrutinising the domestic felicity, to which he is about to
resign himself, through a pair of cold unillusory barnacles. And for
the things beyond the hearth, if he cannot see without spectacles, is
he not about to ally to his own defective vision a good sharp pair
of eyes, never at fault where his interests are concerned? On the
other hand, regarded positively, categorically, and explicitly, Dr
Riccabocca, by laying aside those spectacles, signified that he was
about to commence that happy initiation of courtship when every man, be
he ever so much a philosopher, wishes to look as young and as handsome
as time and nature will allow. Vain task to speed the soft language of
the eyes, through the medium of those glassy interpreters! I remember,
for my own part, that once, on a visit to Adelaide, I was in great
danger of falling in love--with a young lady, too, who would have
brought me a very good fortune--when she suddenly produced from her
reticule a very neat pair of No. 4, set in tortoise-shell, and, fixing
upon me their Gorgon gaze, froze the astonished Cupid into stone! And
I hold it a great proof of the wisdom of Riccabocca, and of his vast
experience, in mankind, that he was not above the consideration of
what your pseudo sages would have regarded as foppish and ridiculous
trifles. It argued all the better for that happiness which is our
being's end and aim, that, in condescending to play the lover, he put
those unbecoming petrifiers under lock and key.
And certainly, now the spectacles were abandoned, it was impossible
to deny that the Italian had remarkably handsome eyes. Even through
the spectacles, or lifted a little above them, they were always bright
and expressive; but without those adjuncts, the blaze was softer and
more tempered: they had that look which the French call _velouté_, or
velvety; and he appeared altogether ten years younger. If our Ulysses,
thus rejuvenated by his Minerva, has not fully made up his mind to make
a Penelope of Miss Jemima, all I can say is, that he is worse than
Polyphemus who was only an Anthropophagos;--
He preys upon the weaker sex, and is a--Gynopophagite!