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 toward 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 Councilor" with whims about "monads,"
and speculations on "color," 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 short-sighted--nay, even somewhat purblind--than to be
always scrutinizing 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 can not see without spectacles, he
is 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 these 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 soft 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 Gynophagite!