_By a Modern Pythagorean._
One day last summer I happened to be travelling in the coach between
Lanark and Glasgow. There were only two inside passengers besides myself;
viz. an elderly woman, and a gentleman, apparently about thirty years of
age, who sported a fur cap, a Hessian cloak, and large moustaches. The
former was, I think, about the most unpleasant person to look at I had
ever seen. Her features were singularly harsh and forbidding. She was also
perfectly taciturn, for she never opened her lips, but left me and the
other passenger to keep up the conversation the best way we could. The
young man I found to be a very pleasant and intelligent fellow--quite a
gentleman in his manners; and apparently either an Oxon or a Cantab, for
he talked much and well about the English universities, a subject on which
I also happened to be tolerably conversant. But, agreeable as his
conversation was, it could not prevent me from entertaining an unpleasant
feeling--one almost amounting to dislike and hostility--against the
female; whom I regarded, from the first moment, with singular aversion. We
were not troubled, however, very long with her company, for she left us at
Dalserf, about half way between Lanark and Hamilton.
"It is very curious, sir," said I to the stranger when she had gone, "that
I should feel so strangely annoyed as I have been with that woman. I
absolutely know nothing about her, and cannot lay a single fault to her
charge, but plain looks and taciturnity; and yet I feel as if no
inducement would tempt me to step again into a coach where I knew she was
to be present. And after all, for any thing I know to the contrary, she
may be a very good woman."
"Your feelings, sir," answered he, "are remarkable, but by no means new;
for I have myself been subject to a precisely similar train of emotions,
and from a cause similar to yours. The thing is odd, I allow--what my
friend, Coleridge, would call a psychological curiosity--but, I believe,
every human being has at times felt it more or less. The unlucky woman who
has proved such a source of annoyance to you, has been none whatever to
me. She is plain-looked, to be sure, but it did not strike me that there
was any thing peculiarly unpleasant in her aspect; and as for her silence,
_that_, in my eyes, is no discommendation. So much for the different
trains of emotions experienced by different persons from the same cause.
There is, in truth, my dear sir, no accounting for such metaphysical
phenomena. We must just take them as we find them, and be contented to
know the effect while we remain in ignorance of the cause. Now, to show
that you do not stand alone in such feelings, I shall, with your
permission, relate an event which lately occurred to myself; on which
occasion I was horribly annoyed by a circumstance in itself perfectly
harmless and trivial, and which gave me much more disturbance than the
taciturn lady who has just left us has given to you. My adventure, in
truth, was attended with such extraordinary results, both to myself and
another individual, that it possesses many of the characters of a genuine
romance." Having expressed my desire to hear what he had to relate on such
a subject, he proceeded as follows:--
"The circumstance I allude to happened not long ago, while supping at the
house of a literary friend in Edinburgh. On arriving, about nine in the
evening, I was ushered into his library, where I found him, accompanied by
two other friends; and in the short interval which elapsed before supper
was announced, we amused ourselves looking at his books, and making
comments upon such of them as struck our fancy. Our host was distinguished
for learning; he was a man, in fact, of uncommon abilities, both natural
and acquired; and the two guests who chanced to be with him were, in this
particular, little inferior to himself. Among the other books which we
happened to take up, was _Punch and Judy_, illustrated by the inimitable
pencil of George Cruikshank. While looking at these capital delineations
of the characters in the famous popular opera of the fairs, no particular
emotion, save one of a good deal of pleasure, passed through my mind. I
looked at them as I would do at any other humorous prints; and laying down
the volume, thought no more of it at the time.
"In a few minutes the servant girl made her appearance, to announce that
supper was ready; and laying hold of the landlord's arm, I went along with
him down stairs; his two friends, linked together in the same manner,
following close at our heels. On entering the dining-room, there was
certainly a very neat repast spread out. I cannot at this moment
condescend upon all the viands, but I recollect distinctly of boiled
lobsters, devilled fowls, and fried codlings, staring us in the face.
There was, however, an individual in the room, and in the act of seating
herself at the head of the table, who struck my fancy more forcibly than
even the dishes upon the table. This, as I afterwards learned, was Miss
Snooks, our entertainer's cousin. I was not exactly prepared to encounter
the apparition of a female at our banquet. The landlord was a confirmed
bachelor; and I expected to see nothing but myself, and three other _lords
of the creation_, for the evening. To tell the truth, (which at the risk
of my gallantry must be done,) I was a little disappointed, for I had come
thither expecting to enjoy some private talk with the male part of the
company, and overhaul some bits of scandal not exactly fitted for a lady's
ear. However, there was no help for it. A lady _was_ present, and we had
just to make up our minds to put a bridle upon our tongues, so long as she
pleased to honour us with her company.
"I had scarcely crossed the threshold of the room, than Miss Snooks
curtsied to me, honoured me with a smile, and requested me to place myself
alongside of her. I did so, and had time to contemplate her physiognomy.
The first thing which struck me was the immense size of her nose. It stood
forward _tremendously prominent_; and behind it--in the shade--was her
face. It did not glide gently away from the brow above, and from the
cheeks at each side. On the contrary, it jutted out like a promontory, and
seemed as bold and defined as Cape Wrath or the Ord of Caithness. It
appeared to have sprung out all at once from her face at the touch of some
magician's wand, in the same way as Minerva sprung from the head of
Jupiter. It had a hump on it, too, like a dromedary; for it was a Roman
nose--such as that sported in days of old by Julius Cæsar, and, in modern
times, by the Duke of Wellington--only much more magnificent in its
dimensions. I feel some difficulty in describing the rest of Miss Snooks,
so much was I taken up with this godlike feature. She was tall, thin,
wrinkled, fiery-eyed, with a blue silk gown on; and a cap, stiff-starched,
and overgrown with a mountain of frills, and indigo-coloured ribbons. Her
voice was shrill, almost squeaking; and--with reverence be it spoken--she
had a _leetle_ bit of a beard--only a few odd hairs growing from her chin
and upper lip. Her age, I suppose, might be about fifty.
"Now comes the peg 'whereon hangs a tale,' and where my feeling resembled
your own. I felt I was to be miserable for the night--at least so long as
Miss Snooks favoured us with her company; and that she would favour us
with it long enough was evident--for I had a presentiment that she was a
_blue-stocking_, and _they_ always sit late. Her gown was blue, so were
her ribbons, so were her little twinkling eyes, and so was her nose--at
least at the point. But there was no help for it. I made up my mind to the
worst, and allowed her to help me to a bit of fowl. The landlord, and the
two other guests supped on fried codlings. She herself fastened upon a
lobster's claw.
"Meanwhile supper proceeded, and the clatter of knives and forks bore
testimony that the process of mastication was going on swimmingly. For
some time I enjoyed it as much as the rest of the company, as I was rather
hungry and the fowl excellent; but my enjoyment was of short duration--for
Mr. Hookey, the gentleman who sat opposite to me, on the left hand of Miss
Snooks, asked me a question, and on looking up to answer it I saw--not
him, but the lady's nose. I speak advisedly: there is no exaggeration in
the case. If any part of him was visible, it must have been his body. His
face was utterly hid by the tremendous feature which stood between us like
an 'envious shade,' and intercepted all vision in that direction. To get
out of the influence of this 'baleful planet' I shifted my head aside, and
so did he, and we thus got a sight of each other over its peak. From that
moment, all idea of eating was gone. The nose stood at first _literally_
between my friend and me--and now it stood _metaphorically_ between the
fowl and my stomach.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Hookey, besides being a great talker, was a native of
the same part of the country as myself, and having been absent from thence
several years, was anxious to hear of any event and change that had taken
place since he left it. He accordingly bored me with questions which I
could not but answer. I could not answer them decently without raising my
head--and I could not raise my head without encountering the nose of Miss
Snooks.
"But this was not the worst part of the business. Miss Snooks took it into
her head to put questions to me, and thus confronted me still more with
her _promontory_. There was no way of evading the annoyance, but by
getting to the opposite side of the table--a step which it was impossible
to perform with any regard to decency; and I was thus compelled to 'kiss
the rod,' and put the best face I could upon the matter.
"Supper being removed, wine was introduced; and I had the honour of
pouring out a glass of port to Miss Snooks. She thanked me with an
inclination of her head--or rather of her nose--and drank to my health,
and to that of the rest of the company. While performing the process of
drinking, I could not help gazing upon her, to see how so very remarkable
a person would go to work. The peak of her nose actually dipped down over
the farthest rim of the glass--spanning it as a rainbow spans the Vale of
Glengarry, while the 'limpid ruby' rolled in currents within the embrace
of her delighted lips. The more I gazed upon her, the greater did my
surprise at this extraordinary feature become.
"It is unnecessary to detail at length, the conversation which ensued. It
was tolerably connected, as might be looked for in so small a company,
seldom, branching out into miscellaneous details, and turning chiefly upon
literary matters. But I found it impossible to join in it with any degree
of relish. In vain did my opposite neighbour call up before my imagination
the scenes of my birthplace; in vain did our landlord crack his jokes--for
he was a great humourist--and rally me upon my dulness; in vain did he
allege that I was in love, and good-naturedly fix upon two or three girls
as the objects of my affections. Worthy man! little did he imagine that I
was in love with his cousin's nose.
"In love, yes! I bore the same love towards it, that the squirrel bears to
the rattlesnake--when it gets fascinated by the burning eyeballs, horrid
fangs, and forked tongue of its crawling, slimy, and execrable foe.
Mistake me not, sir, or suppose that I mean to insinuate that Miss Snooks
was a rattlesnake. No; the reasoning is purely analogical; and I only wish
it to be inferred that _that_ nose, humped like a dromedary--prominent as
Cape Wrath--nobler than Cæsar's, or the great captain's--had precisely the
same influence on me as the envenomed Python of the American woods has
upon the squirrel. It fascinated me--threw a spell over me--enchanted my
faculties--made me love to gaze upon what I abhorred, and think of nothing
but one feature--one nose, which nevertheless held a more prominent place
in the temple of my imagination, than Atlas, Andes, or Teneriffe, or even
the unscalable ridges of Himalaya, where Indra, the god of the elements,
is said to have placed his throne. Having meditated for some time in this
way, I found that it would never do. There was something inexpressibly
absurd in the mood which my mind was getting into, and I resolved to throw
off the incubus which oppressed me, and be like other people. Full of this
idea, I filled a bumper, and bolted it off--then another--then another. I
was getting on admirably, and rapidly recovering my equanimity, when
chancing to turn my eyes towards Mr. Hookey, he was nowhere to be seen. He
had not gone out; that was impossible; no--he was concealed from me by the
mighty nose.
"This event had nearly capsized me, and brought me back into my old way,
when I poured out another glass of wine, and hastily swallowed it, which
in some measure restored the equilibrium of my faculties. I looked again
at Hookey, and saw him distinctly--the shade was gone, for Miss Snooks had
leaned back, in a languishing mood, upon her chair, and taken her nose
along with her. At this moment I fancied I saw her ogling me with both
eyes, and resolved to be upon my guard. I remembered the solemn vows
already made to my dear Cecilia; and on this account determined to stand
out against Miss Snooks and her nose.
"But this was only a temporary relief. Again did she lean forward, and
again was the nose protruded between Hookey and myself. It acted as an
eclipse--it annihilated him--made him a mere nonentity--rendered him
despicable in my eyes. It was impossible to respect any man who lived in
the shade of a nose, who hid his light under such a bushel. Hang the
ninny, he must be a sneaking fellow!
"The wine now began to circulate more freely round the table, and the
tongues of the company to get looser in their heads. Miss Snooks also
commenced talking at a greater stretch than she had hitherto done. I soon
found out that she was a poetess, and had written a couple of novels,
besides two or three tragedies. In fact, her whole conversation was about
books and authors, and she did us the favour of reciting some of her own
compositions. She was also prodigiously sentimental, talked much about
love, and was fond of romantic scenery. I know not how it was, but
although her conversation was far from indifferent, it excited ridiculous
emotions in my mind, rather than any thing else. If she talked of
mountains, I could think of nothing but the hump upon her nose, which was,
in my estimation, a nobler mountain than Helvellyn or Cairngorm. If she
got among promontories, this majestic feature struck me as being sublimer
than any I had ever heard of--not excepting the Cape of Good Hope, first
doubled by Vasco de Gama.--When she conversed about the blue loch and the
cerulean sky, I saw in the tip of her nose a complexion as blue or
cerulean as any of these. It was at once a nose--a mountain--a cape--a
loch--a sky. In short it was every thing. She was armed with it, as the
Paladins of old with their armour. Nay, it possessed the miraculous
property of rendering a human being invisible, of concealing Mr. Hookey
from my eyes; thus rivalling the ring of Gyges, and casting the invisible
coat of Jack the Giant-killer into the shade.
"After conversing with her for some time upon indifferent matters, she
asked me if I was fond of caricatures, and spoke particularly of the
designs of George Cruikshank. Scarcely had she mentioned the name of this
artist, than I was seized with a strange shuddering. In one moment I
called to mind his illustrations of Punch and Judy, at which we had been
looking, before coming down to supper. A clue was now given to the
otherwise unaccountable train of feelings, which had possessed me ever
since I saw Miss Snooks. From the moment when I first set my eyes upon
her, I fancied I had seen her before; but where, when, and upon what
occasion I found it impossible to tell. Her squeaking voice, her blue
twinkling eyes, her huge frilled cap, and above all, her mighty nose, all
seemed familiar to me. They floated within my spirit as a half-forgotten
dream; and without daring to whisper such a thing to myself, I still felt
the impression that all was not new--that the novelty was not so great as
I imagined.
"But Punch and Judy set all to rights. I had seen Miss Snooks in George
Cruikshank, and at once all my perplexing feelings were accounted for.
_She_ was Judy--_she_ was Punch's wife. Yes, Miss Snooks, the old maid,
was the wife of Mr. Punch. There was no denying the fact. The same small
weazel eyes, the same sharp voice and hooked chin, and the same nose--at
once mountain, cape, &c. &c. belonged alike to Judy and Miss Snooks. They
were two persons; the same, yet, different--different, yet the same--the
one residing in the pages of Cruikshank, or chattering and fighting in the
booths of mountebanks at Donnybrook or St. Bartholomew's Fair--the other
seated bolt upright, at the head of her cousin's table, beside a small
_coterie_ of _littérateurs_.
"I know not whether it was the effect of the old port, but, strange to
say, I could not for some time view Miss Snooks in her former capacity,
but simply as Judy. She was magnified in size, it is true, from the pert,
termagant puppet of the fairs, and was an authoress--a writer of tragedies
and novels--in which character, to the best of my knowledge, the spouse of
Punchinello had never made her appearance, but then the similitude between
them, in other respects, was so striking as to constitute identity. Eyes,
chin, voice, nose, were all precisely alike, and stamped them as one and
the same individual.
"But this strange illusion soon wore away, and I again saw Miss Snooks in
her true character. It would perhaps be better if I said that I saw her
nose--for somehow I never could look upon herself save as subordinate to
this feature. It were an insult to so majestic a promontory to suppose it
the mere appendage of a human face. No--the face was an appendage of it,
and kept at a viewless distance behind, while the nose stood forward in
vast relief, intercepting the view of all collateral objects--casting a
noble shadow upon the wall--and impressing an air of inconceivable dignity
upon its fair proprietor.
"The first impression which I experienced on beholding the lady was one of
fear. I have stated how completely she--or, to speak more properly, her
nose--stood between me and Mr. Hookey, and felt appalled in no small
degree at so extraordinary a circumstance. There is something
inexpressibly awful in a _lunar_ eclipse, and a _solar_ one is still more
overpowering, but neither the one nor the other could be compared to the
_nasal_ eclipse effected by Miss Snooks. So much for my first impressions:
now for the second. They were those of boundless admiration, and--."
Most unfortunately, just as the gentleman had got to this part of his
story, the coach stopped at the principal inn of Hamilton, and he there
left it, after bowing politely to me, and wishing me a pleasant ride for
the rest of the journey.--_Fraser's Magazine._
* * * * *