seriously about eating.
_A._ (_writes._) I have made a mem.
_B._ Have you had no affront?
_A._ Not one.
_B._ Then be seriously affronted--complain to the burgomaster, or mayor,
or commandant, whoever it may be--they attempt to bully--you are
resolute and firm as an Englishman--insist upon being righted--they must
make you a thousand apologies. This will tickle the national vanity, and
be read with interest.
_A._ (_writes._) I have been affronted. Anything else which may proceed
from your prolific brain, Barnstaple?
_B._ Have you had a serious illness?
_A._ Never complained even of a headache.
_B._ Then do everything but die--Henri weeping and inconsolable--Mouton
howling at the foot of your bed--kick the surgeons out of the room--and
cure yourself with three dozen of champagne.
_A._ (_writes._) Very sick--cured with three dozen of champagne--I wish
the illness would in reality come on, if I were certain of the cure
_gratis_. Go on, my dear Barnstaple.
_B._ You may work in an episode here--delirium--lucid intervals--gentle
female voice--delicate attentions--mysterious discovery from loquacious
landlady--eternal gratitude--but no marriage--an apostrophe--and all the
rest left to conjecture.
_A._ (_writes down._) Silent attentions--conjecture--I can manage that,
I think.
_B._ By-the-bye, have you brought in Madame de Stael?
_A._ No--how the devil am I to bring her in?
_B._ As most other travellers do, by the head and shoulders. Never mind
that, so long as you bring her in.
_A._ (_writes._) Madame de Stael by the shoulders--that's not very
polite towards a lady. These hints are invaluable; pray go on.
_B._ Why, you have already more hints this morning than are sufficient
for three volumes. But, however, let me see. (_B. thinks a little._)
Find yourself short of cash.
_A._ A sad reality, Barnstaple. I shall write this part well, for truth
will guide my pen.
_B._ All the better. But to continue--no remittances--awkward
position--explain your situation--receive credit to any amount--and
compliment your countrymen.
_A._ (_writes._) Credit to any amount--pleasing idea? But I don't
exactly perceive the value of this last hint, Barnstaple.
_B._ All judicious travellers make it a point, throughout the whole of
their works, to flatter the nation upon its wealth, name, and reputation
in foreign countries; by doing so you will be read greedily, and praised
in due proportion. If ever I were to write my travels into the interior
of Africa, or to the North Pole, I would make it a point to discount a
bill at Timbuctoo, or get a cheque cashed by the Esquimaux, without the
least hesitation in either case. I think now that what with your
invention, your plagiarism, and my hints, you ought to produce a very
effective Book of Travels; and with that feeling I shall leave you to
pursue your journey, and receive, at its finale, your just reward. When
we meet again, I hope to see you advertised.
_A._ Yes, but not exposed, I trust. I am _incog._ you know.
_B._ To be sure, that will impart an additional interest to your
narrative. All the world will be guessing who you may be. Adieu,
voyageur. [_Exit Barnstaple._
_A._ And heaven forfend that they should find me out. But what can be
done? In brief, I cannot get a brief, and thus I exercise my
professional acquirements how I can, proving myself as long-winded, as
prosy perhaps, and certainly as lying, as the more fortunate of my
fraternity.
How to write a Romance
_Mr Arthur Ansard, standing at his table, selecting a steel pen from a
card on which a dozen are ranged up, like soldiers on parade._
I must find a regular _graver_ to write this chapter of horrors. No
goose quill could afford me any assistance. Now then. Let me
see----(_Reads, and during his reading Barnstaple comes in at the door
behind him, unperceived._) "At this most monstrously appalling sight, the
hair of Piftlianteriscki raised slowly the velvet cap from off his head,
as if it had been perched upon the rustling quills of some exasperated
porcupine--(I think that's new)--his nostrils dilated to that extent
that you might, with ease, have thrust a musket bullet into each--his
mouth was opened so wide, so unnaturally wide, that the corners were
rent asunder, and the blood slowly trickled down each side of his
bristly chin--while each tooth loosened from its socket with individual
fear.--Not a word could he utter, for his tongue, in its fright, clung
with terror to his upper jaw, as tight as do the bellies of the fresh
and slimy soles, paired together by some fishwoman; but if his tongue
was paralysed, his heart was not--it throbbed against his ribs with a
violence which threatened their dislocation from the sternum, and with a
sound which reverberated through the dark, damp subterrene----." I think
that will do. There's _force_ there.
_B._ There is, with a vengeance. Why, what is all this?
_A._ My dear Barnstaple, you here? I'm writing a romance for B----. It
is to be supposed to be a translation.
_B._ The Germans will be infinitely obliged to you; but, my dear fellow,
you appear to have fallen into the old school--that's no longer in
vogue.
_A._ My orders are for the old school. B---- was most particular on that
point. He says that there is a re-action--a great re-action.
_B._ What, on literature? Well, he knows as well as any man. I only wish
to God there was in everything else, and we could see the good old times
again.
_A._ To confess the truth, I did intend to have finished this without
saying a word to you. I wished to have surprised you.
_B._ So you have, my dear fellow, with the few lines I have heard. How
the devil are you to get your fellow out of that state of asphyxia?
_A._ By degrees--slowly--very slowly--as they pretend that we lawyers go
to heaven. But I'll tell you what I have done, just to give you an idea
of my work. In the first place, I have a castle perched so high up in
the air, that the eagles, even in their highest soar, appear but as
wrens below.
_B._ That's all right.
_A._ And then it has subterraneous passages, to which the sewers of
London are a mere song, and they all lead to a small cave at high water
mark on the sea-beach, covered with brambles and bushes, and just large
enough at its entrance to admit of a man squeezing himself in.
_B._ That's all right. You cannot be too much underground; in fact, the
two first, and the best part of the third volume, should be wholly in
the bowels of the earth, and your hero and heroine should never _come to
light_ until the last chapter.
_A._ Then they would never have been born till then, and how could I
marry them? But still I have adhered pretty much to your idea; and,
Barnstaple, I have such a heroine--such a love--she has never seen her
sweetheart, yet she is most devotedly attached, and has suffered more
for his sake than any mortal could endure.
_B._ Most heroines generally do.
_A._ I have had her into various dungeons for three or four years, on
black bread and a broken pitcher of water--she has been starved to
death--lain for months and months upon wet straw--had two brain
fevers--five times has she risked violation, and always has picked up,
or found in the belt of her infamous ravishers, a stiletto, which she
has plunged into their hearts, and they have expired with or without a
groan.
_B._ Excellent: and of course comes out of her dungeons each time as
fresh, as sweet, as lovely, as pure, as charming, and as constant as
ever.
_A._ Exactly; nothing can equal her infinite variety of adventure, and
her imperishable beauty and unadhesive cleanliness of person; and, as
for lives, she has more than a thousand cats. After nine months'
confinement in a dungeon, four feet square, when it is opened for her
release, the air is perfumed with the ambrosia which exhales from her
sweet person.
_B._ Of course it does. The only question is, what ambrosia smells like.
But let me know something about your hero.
_A._ He is a prince and a robber.
_B._ The two professions are not at all incompatible. Go on.
_A._ He is the chief of a band of robbers, and is here, there, and
everywhere. He fills all Europe with terror, admiration, and love.
_B._ Very good.
_A._ His reasons for joining the robbers are, of course, a secret (and
upon my word they are equally a secret to myself); but it is wonderful
the implicit obedience of his men, and the many acts of generosity of
which he is guilty. I make him give away a great deal more money than
his whole band ever take, which is so far awkward, that the query may
arise in what way he keeps them together, and supplies them with food
and necessaries.
_B._ Of course with _I O U's_ upon his princely domains.
_A._ I have some very grand scenes, amazingly effective; for instance,
what do you think, at the moment after the holy mass has been performed
in St Peter's at Rome, just as the pope is about to put the sacred wafer
into his mouth and bless the whole world, I make him snatch the wafer
out of the pope's hand, and get clear off with it.
_B._ What for, may I ask?
_A._ That is a secret which I do not reveal. The whole arrangement of
that part of the plot is admirable. The band of robbers are disguised as
priests, and officiate, without being found out.
_B._ But isn't that rather sacrilegious?
_A._ No; it appears so to be, but he gives his reasons for his behaviour
to the pope, and the pope is satisfied, and not only gives him his
blessing, but shows him the greatest respect.
_B._ They must have been very weighty reasons.
_A._ And therefore they are not divulged.
_B._ That is to say, not until the end of the work.
_A._ They are never divulged at all; I leave a great deal to the
reader's imagination--people are fond of conjecture. All they know is,
that he boldly appears, and demands an audience. He is conducted in, the
interview is private, after a sign made by our hero, and at which the
pope almost leaps off his chair. After an hour he comes out again, and
the pope bows him to the very door. Every one is astonished, and, of
course, almost canonise him.
_B_ That's going it rather strong in a Catholic country. But tell me,
Ansard, what is your plot?
_A._ Plot! I have none.
_B._ No plot!
_A._ No plot, and all plot. I puzzle the reader with certain materials.
I have castles and dungeons, corridors and creaking doors, good villains
and bad villains. Chain armour and clank of armour, daggers for
gentlemen, and stilettos for ladies. Dark forests and brushwood,
drinking scenes, eating scenes, and sleeping scenes--robbers and friars,
purses of gold and instruments of torture, an incarnate devil of a
Jesuit, a handsome hero, and a lovely heroine. I jumble them all
together, sometimes above, and sometimes underground, and I explain
nothing at all.
_B._ Have you nothing supernatural?
_A._ O yes! I've a dog whose instinct is really supernatural, and I have
two or three visions, which may be considered so, as they tell what
never else could have been known. I decorate my caverns and dungeons
with sweltering toads and slimy vipers, a constant dropping of water,
with chains too ponderous to lift, but which the parties upon whom they
are riveted, clang together as they walk up and down in their cells, and
soliloquise. So much for my underground scenery. Above, I people the
halls with pages and ostrich feathers, and knights in bright armour, a
constant supply of generous wine, and goblets too heavy to lift, which
the knights toss off at a draught, as they sit and listen to the
minstrel's music.
_B._ Bravo, Ansard, bravo. It appears to me that you do not want
assistance in this romance.
_A._ No, when I do I have always a holy and compassionate friar, who
pulls a wonderful restorative or healing balm, out of his bosom. The
puffs of Solomon's Balm of Gilead are a fool to the real merits of my
pharmacopoeia contained in a small vial.
_B._ And pray what may be the title of this book of yours, for I have
known it take more time to fix upon a title than to write the three
volumes.
_A._ I call it _The Undiscovered Secret_, and very properly so too, for
it never is explained. But if you please, I will read you some passages
from it. I think you will approve of them. For instance, now let us take
this, in the second volume. You must know, that Angelicanarinella (for
that is the name of my heroine) is thrown into a dungeon not more than
four feet square, but more than six hundred feet below the surface of
the earth. The ways are so intricate, and the subterranean so vast, and
the dungeons so numerous that the base Ethiop, who has obeyed his
master's orders in confining her, has himself been lost in the
labyrinth, and has not been able to discover what dungeon he put her in.
For three days he has been looking for it, during which our heroine has
been without food, and he is still searching and scratching his woolly
head in despair, as he is to die by slow torture, if he does not
reproduce her--for you observe, the chief who has thrown her into this
dungeon is most desperately in love with her.
_B._ That of course; and that is the way to prove romantic love--you
ill-treat--but still she is certainly in a dilemma, as well as the
Ethiop.
_A._ Granted; but she talks like the heroine of a romance. Listen.
(_Ansard reads._) "The beauteous and divinely-moulded form of the
angelic Angelicanarinella pressed the dank and rotten straw, which had
been thrown down by the scowling, thick-lipped Ethiop for her
repose--she, for whom attendant maidens had smoothed the Sybaritic sheet
of finest texture, under the elaborately carved and sumptuously gilt
canopy, the silken curtains, and the tassels of the purest dust of
gold."
_B._ Tassels of dust of gold! only figuratively, I suppose.
_A._ Nothing more. "Each particular straw of this dank, damp bed was
elastic with delight, at bearing such angelic pressure; and, as our
heroine cast her ineffably beaming eyes about the dark void, lighting up
with their effulgent rays each little portion of the dungeon, as she
glanced them from one part to another, she perceived that the many
reptiles enclosed with her in this narrow tomb, were nestling to her
side, their eyes fixed upon her in mute expressions of love and
admiration. Her eclipsed orbs were each, for a moment, suffused with a
bright and heavenly tear, and from the suffusion threw out a more
brilliant light upon the feeling reptiles who paid this tribute to her
undeserved sufferings. She put forth her beauteous hand, whose 'faint
tracery,'--(I stole that from Cooper,)--whose faint tracery had so often
given to others the idea that it was ethereal, and not corporeal, and
lifting with all the soft and tender handling of first love a venerable
toad, which smiled upon her, she placed the interesting animal so that
it could crawl up and nestle in her bosom. 'Poor child of dank, of
darkness, and of dripping,' exclaimed she, in her flute-like notes, 'who
sheltereth thyself under the wet and mouldering wall, so neglected in
thy form by thy mother Nature, repose awhile in peace where princes and
nobles would envy thee, if they knew thy present lot. But that shall
never be; these lips shall never breathe a tale which might endanger thy
existence; fear not, therefore, their enmity, and as thou slowly
creepest away thy little round of circumscribed existence, forget me
not, but shed an occasional pearly tear to the memory of the persecuted,
the innocent Angelicanarinella!'" What d'ye think of that?
_B._ Umph! a very warm picture certainly; however, it is natural. You
know, a person of her consequence could never exist without a little
_toadyism_.
_A._ I have a good many subterraneous soliloquies, which would have been
lost forever, if I did not bring them up.
_B._ That one you have just read is enough to make everybody else bring
up.
_A._ I rather plume myself upon it.
_B._ Yes, it is a feather in your cap, and will act as a feather in the
throat of your readers.
_A._ Now I'll turn over the second volume, and read you another
_morceau_, in which I assume the more playful vein. I have imitated one
of our modern writers, who must be correct in her language, as she knows
all about heroes and heroines. I must confess that I've cribbed a
little.
_B._ Let's hear.
_A._ The lovely Angelicanarinella _pottered_ for some time about this
fairy chamber, then 'wrote journal.' At last, she _threw herself down on
the floor_, pulled out the miniature, _gulped_ when she looked at it,
and then _cried herself to sleep_.
_B._ _Pottered and gulped!_ What language do you call that?
_A._ It's all right, my dear fellow. I understand that it is the refined
slang of the modern boudoir, and only known to the initiated.
_B._ They had better keep it entirely to their boudoirs. I should advise
you to leave it all out.
_A._ Well, I thought that one who was so very particular, must have been
the standard of perfection herself.
_B._ That does not at all follow.
_A._ But what I wish to read to you is the way in which I have managed
that my secret shall never be divulged. It is known only to four.
_B._ A secret known to four people! You must be quick then.
_A._ So I am, as you shall hear; they all meet in a dark gallery, but do
not expect to meet any one but the hero, whom they intend to murder,
each one having, unknown to the others, made an appointment with him for
that purpose, on the pretence of telling him the great secret.
Altogether the scene is well described, but it is long, so I'll come at
once to the _denouement_.
_B._ Pray do.
_A._ "Absenpresentini felt his way by the slimy wall, when the breath of
another human being caught his ear: he paused, and held his own breath.
'No, no,' muttered the other, 'the _secret of blood and gold_ shall
remain with me alone. Let him come, and he shall find death.' In a
second, the dagger of Absenpresentini was in the mutterer's bosom:--he
fell without a groan. 'To me alone the secret of blood and gold, and
with me it remains,' exclaimed Absenpresentini. 'It does remain with
you,' cried Phosphorini, driving his dagger into his
back:--Absenpresentini fell without a groan, and Phosphorini,
withdrawing his dagger, exclaimed, 'Who is now to tell the secret but
me?' 'Not you,' cried Vortiskini, raising up his sword and striking at
where the voice proceeded. The trusty steel cleft the head of the
abandoned Phosphorini, who fell without a groan. 'Now will I retain the
secret of blood and gold,' said Vortiskini, as he sheathed his sword.
'Thou shalt,' exclaimed the wily Jesuit, as he struck his stiletto to
the heart of the robber, who fell without a groan. 'With me only does
the secret now rest, by which our order might be disgraced; with me it
dies,' and the Jesuit raised his hand. 'Thus to the glory and the honour
of his society does Manfredini sacrifice his life.' He struck the
keen-pointed instrument into his heart, and died without a groan.
'Stop,' cried our hero."
_B._ And I agree with your hero: stop, Ansard, or you'll kill me
too--but not without a groan.
_A._ Don't you think it would act well?
_B._ Quite as well as it reads; pray is it all like this?
_A._ You shall judge for yourself. I have half killed myself with
writing it, for I chew opium every night to obtain ideas. Now again----
_B._ Spare me, Ansard, spare me; my nerves are rather delicate; for the
remainder I will take your word.
_A._ I wish my duns would do the same, even if it were only my
washerwoman; but there's no more tick for me here, except this old watch
of my father's, which serves to remind me of what I cannot obtain from
others--time; but, however, there is a time for all things, and when the
time comes that my romance is ready, my creditors will obtain the
_ready_.
_B._ Your only excuse, Ansard.
_A._ I beg your pardon. The public require strong writing now-a-days. We
have thousands who write well, and the public are nauseated with what is
called _good writing_.
_B._ And so they want something bad, eh? Well, Ansard, you certainly can
supply them.
_A._ My dear Barnstaple, you must not disparage this style of
writing--it is not bad--there is a great art in it. It may be termed
writing intellectual and ethereal. You observe, that it never allows
probabilities or even possibilities to stand in its way. The dross of
humanity is rejected: all the common wants and grosser feelings of our
natures are disallowed. It is a novel which is all mind and passion.
Corporeal attributes and necessities are thrown on one side, as they
would destroy the charm of perfectability. Nothing can soil, or defile,
or destroy my heroine; suffering adds lustre to her beauty, as pure gold
is tried by fire: nothing can kill her, because she is all mind. As for
my men, you will observe when you read my work----
_B._ When I do!
_A._ Which, of course, you will--that they also have their appetites in
abeyance; they never want to eat, or drink, or sleep--are always at hand
when required, without regard to time or space. Now there is a great
beauty in this description of writing. The women adore it because they
find their sex divested of those human necessities, without which they
would indeed be angels! the mirror is held up to them, and they find
themselves perfect--no wonder they are pleased. The other sex are also
very glad to dwell upon female perfectability, which they can only find
in a romance, although they have often dreamt of it in their younger
days.
_B._ There is some truth in these remarks. Every milliner's girl, who
devours your pages in bed by the half-hour's light of tallow stolen for
the purpose, imagines a strong similarity between herself and your
Angelicanarinella, and every shop-boy measuring tape or weighing yellow
soap will find out attributes common to himself and to your hero.
_A._ Exactly. As long as you draw perfection in both sexes, you are
certain to be read, because by so doing you flatter human nature and
self-love, and transfer it to the individual who reads. Now a picture of
real life----
_B._ Is like some of Wouvermans' best pictures, which will not be
purchased by many, because his dogs in the fore-ground are doing exactly
what all dogs will naturally do when they first are let out of their
kennels.
_A._ Wouvermans should have known better, and made his dogs better
mannered if he expected his pictures to be hung up in the parlour of
refinement.
_B._ Very true.
_A._ Perhaps you would like to have another passage or two.
_B._ Excuse me: I will imagine it all. I only hope, Ansard, this
employment will not interfere with your legal practice.
_A._ My dear Barnstaple, it certainly will not, because my legal
practice cannot be interfered with. I have been called to the bar, but
find no employment in my calling. I have been sitting in my gown and wig
for one year, and may probably sit a dozen more, before I have to rise
to address their lordships. I have not yet had a guinea brief. My only
chance is, to be sent out as judge to Sierra Leone, or perhaps to be
made a commissioner of the Court of Requests.
_B._ You are indeed humble in your aspirations. I recollect the time,
Ansard, when you dreamt of golden fame, and aspired to the
wool-sack--when your ambition prompted you to midnight labour, and you
showed an energy----
_A._ (_putting his hands up to his forehead, with his elbows on the
table._) What can I do, Barnstaple? If I trust to briefs, my existence
will be but brief--we all must live.
_B._ I will not reply as Richelieu did to a brother author, "Je ne vois
pas la necessite," but this I do say, that if you are in future to live
by supplying the public with such nonsense, the shorter your existence
the better.
S.W. and by W. 3/4 W.