The Conclusion
The squire and his select party of philosophers and dilettanti were
again left in peaceful possession of Headlong Hall: and, as the former
made a point of never losing a moment in the accomplishment of a
favourite object, he did not suffer many days to elapse, before the
spiritual metamorphosis of eight into four was effected by the
clerical dexterity of the Reverend Doctor Gaster.
Immediately after the ceremony, the whole party dispersed, the squire
having first extracted from every one of his chosen guests a positive
promise to re-assemble in August, when they would be better enabled,
in its most appropriate season, to form a correct judgment of Cambrian
hospitality.
Mr Jenkison shook hands at parting with his two brother philosophers.
"According to your respective systems," said he, "I ought to
congratulate _you_ on a change for the better, which I do most
cordially: and to condole with _you_ on a change for the worse,
though, when I consider whom you have chosen, I should violate every
principle of probability in doing so."
"You will do well," said Mr Foster, "to follow our example. The
extensive circle of general philanthropy, which, in the present
advanced stage of human nature, comprehends in its circumference the
destinies of the whole species, originated, and still proceeds, from
that narrower circle of domestic affection, which first set limits to
the empire of selfishness, and, by purifying the passions and
enlarging the affections of mankind, has given to the views of
benevolence an increasing and illimitable expansion, which will
finally diffuse happiness and peace over the whole surface of the
world."
"The affection," said Mr Escot, "of two congenial spirits, united not
by legal bondage and superstitious imposture, but by mutual confidence
and reciprocal virtues, is the only counterbalancing consolation in
this scene of mischief and misery. But how rarely is this the case
according to the present system of marriage! So far from being a
central point of expansion to the great circle of universal
benevolence, it serves only to concentrate the feelings of natural
sympathy in the reflected selfishness of family interest, and to
substitute for the _humani nihil alienum puto_ of youthful
philanthropy, the _charity begins at home_ of maturer years. And what
accession of individual happiness is acquired by this oblivion of the
general good? Luxury, despotism, and avarice have so seized and
entangled nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of the
human race, that the matrimonial compact, which ought to be the most
easy, the most free, and the most simple of all engagements, is become
the most slavish and complicated,--a mere question of finance,--a
system of bargain, and barter, and commerce, and trick, and chicanery,
and dissimulation, and fraud. Is there one instance in ten thousand,
in which the buds of first affection are not most cruelly and
hopelessly blasted, by avarice, or ambition, or arbitrary power?
Females, condemned during the whole flower of their youth to a worse
than monastic celibacy, irrevocably debarred from the hope to which
their first affections pointed, will, at a certain period of life, as
the natural delicacy of taste and feeling is gradually worn away by
the attrition of society, become willing to take up with any coxcomb
or scoundrel, whom that merciless and mercenary gang of cold-blooded
slaves and assassins, called, in the ordinary prostitution of language
_friends_, may agree in designating as a _prudent choice_. Young men,
on the other hand, are driven by the same vile superstitions from the
company of the most amiable and modest of the opposite sex, to that of
those miserable victims and outcasts of a world which dares to call
itself virtuous, whom that very society whose pernicious institutions
first caused their aberrations,--consigning them, without one tear of
pity or one struggle of remorse, to penury, infamy, and
disease,--condemns to bear the burden of its own atrocious
absurdities! Thus, the youth of one sex is consumed in slavery,
disappointment, and spleen; that of the other, in frantic folly and
selfish intemperance: till at length, on the necks of a couple so
enfeebled, so perverted, so distempered both in body and soul, society
throws the yoke of marriage: that yoke which, once rivetted on the
necks of its victims, clings to them like the poisoned garments of
Nessus or Medea. What can be expected from these ill-assorted
yoke-fellows, but that, like two ill-tempered hounds, coupled by a
tyrannical sportsman, they should drag on their indissoluble fetter,
snarling and growling, and pulling in different directions? What can
be expected for their wretched offspring, but sickness and suffering,
premature decrepitude, and untimely death? In this, as in every other
institution of civilised society, avarice, luxury, and disease
constitute the TRIANGULAR HARMONY of the life of man. Avarice conducts
him to the abyss of toil and crime: luxury seizes on his ill-gotten
spoil; and, while he revels in her enchantments, or groans beneath her
tyranny, disease bursts upon him, and sweeps him from the earth."
"Your theory," said Mr Jenkison, "forms an admirable counterpoise to
your example. As far as I am attracted by the one, I am repelled by
the other. Thus, the scales of my philosophical balance remain
eternally equiponderant, and I see no reason to say of either of them,
OICHETAI EIS AIDAO[15.1]."
NOTES
Chapter 1
[1.1] Foster, quasi _Phostaer_,--from _phaos_ and _taereo_, lucem
servo, conservo, observo, custodio,--one who watches over and guards
the light; a sense in which the word is often used amongst us, when we
speak of _fostering_ a flame.
[1.2] Escot, quasi _es skoton_, _in tenebras_, scilicet, intuens; one
who is always looking into the dark side of the question.
[1.3] Jenkison: This name may be derived from _aien ex ison_, _semper
ex aequalibus_--scilicet, mensuris omnia metiens: one who from equal
measures divides and distributes all things: one who from equal
measures can always produce arguments on both sides of a question,
with so much nicety and exactness, as to keep the said question
eternally pending, and the balance of the controversy perpetually in
statu quo. By an aphaeresis of the _a_, an elision of the second _e_,
and an easy and natural mutation of _x_ into _k_, the derivation of
this name proceeds according to the strictest principles of
etymology: _aien ex ison--Ien ex ison--Ien ek ison--Ien 'k
ison--Ienkison_--Ienkison--Jenkison.
[1.4] Gaster: scilicet _Gastaer_--Venter, et praeterea nihil.
Chapter 2
[2.1] See Emmerton on the Auricula.
Chapter 3
[3.1] Mr Knight, in a note to the Landscape, having taken the liberty
of laughing at a notable device of a celebrated _improver_, for giving
greatness of character to a place, and showing an undivided extent of
property, by placing the family arms on the neighbouring _milestones_,
the improver retorted on him with a charge of misquotation,
misrepresentation, and malice prepense. Mr Knight, in the preface to
the second edition of his poem, quotes the improver's words:--"The
market-house, or other public edifice, or even a _mere stone with
distances_, may bear the arms of the family:" and adds:--"By a _mere
stone with distances_, the author of the Landscape certainly thought
he meant a _milestone_; but, if he did not, any other interpretation
which he may think more advantageous to himself shall readily be
adopted, as it will equally answer the purpose of the quotation." The
improver, however, did not condescend to explain what he really meant
by a _mere stone with distances_, though he strenuously maintained
that he did _not_ mean a _milestone._ His idea, therefore, stands on
record, invested with all the sublimity that obscurity can confer.
[3.2] "Il est constant qu'elles se baisent de meilleur coeur, et se
caressent avec plus de grace devant les hommes, fieres d'aiguiser
impunement leur convoitise par l'image des faveurs qu'elles savent
leur faire envier."--Rousseau, _Emile_, liv. 5.
Chapter 4
[4.1] See Price on the Picturesque.
[4.2] See Knight on Taste, and the Edinburgh Review, No. XIV.
[4.3] Protracted banquets have been copious sources of evil.
Chapter 5
[5.1] See Lord Monboddo's Ancient Metaphysics.
[5.2] Drummond's Academical Questions.
[5.3] Homer is proved to have been a lover of wine by the praises he
bestows upon it.
[5.4] A cup of wine at hand, to drink as inclination prompts.
Chapter 6
[6.1] See Knight on Taste.
[6.2] This stanza is imitated from Machiavelli's _Capitolo dell'
Occasione_.
Chapter 7
[7.1] Fragments of a demolished world.
[7.2] Took's Diversions of Purley.
Chapter 8
[8.1] Some readers will, perhaps, recollect the Archbishop of Prague,
who also was an excellent sportsman, and who,
Com' era scritto in certi suoi giornali,
Ucciso avea con le sue proprie mani
Un numero infinito d'animali:
Cinquemila con quindici fagiani,
Seimila lepri, ottantantre cignali,
E per disgrazia, ancor _tredici cani_, &c.
Chapter 9
[9.1] Me miserable! and thrice miserable! and four times, and five
times, and twelve times, and ten thousand times miserable!
[9.2] Pronounced cooroo--the Welsh word for _ale._
Chapter 10
[10.1] Long since dead.
[10.2] Georg. I. 199.
[10.3] Sat. XIII. 28.
[10.4] Carm. III. 6, 46.
Chapter 11
[11.1] Pistyll, in Welch, signifies a cataract, and Rhaidr a cascade.
[11.2] Rabelais.
Chapter 13
[13.1] Rousseau, Discours sur les Sciences.
[13.2] Imitated from a passage in the Purgatorio of Dante.
Chapter 14
[14.1] Jeremy Taylor.
Chapter 15
[15.1] _It descends to the shades_: or, in other words, _it goes to
the devil_.
TRANSCRIPTION NOTES
Source
Form: printed book
Title: Headlong Hall
Author: Thomas Love Peacock
Publisher: J. M. Dent & Co. at Aldine House, 69 Great Eastern
St., London.
Date: 1891
Editor: Richard Garnett, LLD.
Printer: Turnbull and Spears, Printers, Edinburgh.
British Library
Shelfmark: 012611.i.37/1
Description: tan cloth over board binding, 122mm x 184mm x 21mm,
176 pages plus 2 at front and 1 at back
Modifications
Chapter head and foot decorations have been deleted -- to simplify
production to purely text.
Decorative chapter-start drop-caps have been replaced with capitals
-- to simplify production to purely text.
Page numbers and headers have been deleted -- the new document is
unpaginated.
Fullstops have been deleted from chapter titles and song titles --
they are superfluous.
All notes have been moved to the end of the document -- to suit the
unpaginated format.
All notes by the editor Richard Garnett have been deleted -- to remove
(insubstantial) attachments to the original text.
Chapter 1 paragraph 7: inserted closing quotes after "perpetually in
statu quo." -- they appear to be missing, since the speech is not
continued in the next paragraph.
Chapter 1 paragraph 8: deleted fullstop after "astronomy----" -- the
sentence is truncated, it does not end.
Chapter 1 paragraph 9: deleted fullstop after "selfishness----" -- the
sentence is truncated, it does not end.
Chapter 1 paragraph 10: deleted fullstop after "cloth----" -- the
sentence is truncated, it does not end.
Chapter 1 paragraph 11: inserted a comma after "sprained ankle" --
there is a small comma-sized gap at the end of the line where a comma
appears to have been omitted.
Chapter 2 paragraph 1: deleted comma after "oils" in "oils, and
colours" -- "and" clusters things in an item, not separates items, in
this list.
Chapter 4 paragraph 13: inserted closing quotes after "summit of
Ararat." -- they appear to be missing, since the speech is not
continued in the next paragraph.
Chapter 5 paragraph 33: replaced emdash before "Exactly, sir: an' ye"
with fullstop and space -- it appears to be an erroneous
inconsistency, there being no other like instances in speech
indication.
Chapter 7 paragraph 5: deleted closing quotes after "confracti mundi
rudera:" -- the phrase is not quoted, and the speech does not end
there.
Chapter 7 paragraph 6: replaced "procession" with "precession" in "The
procession of the equinoxes" -- it appears to be a spelling error,
since Mr Foster is informed on the subject and not tending to make
such mistakes.
Chapter 7 paragraph 17: inserted "_Mr Escot._" at start of paragraph
before "Nor is" -- to follow consistent indication and layout of
speech.
Chapter 8 paragraph 1: replaced "befel" with "befell" -- it appears to
be a spelling error.
Chapter 9 paragraph 16: replaced fullstop with questionmark after "the
tevil with" -- the sentence is a question.
Chapter 9 paragraph 22: replaced fullstop with questionmark after
"away with me" -- the sentence is a question.
Chapter 9 paragraph 23: replaced "b" with "p" in "by his chost" -- the
sexton in all other cases says "py" instead of "by".
Chapter 10 paragraph 6: inserted single closing quote after "_Oioi nun
brotoi eisin_" -- it appears to be missing.
Chapter 11 paragraph 3: replaced "y" in "Vouley" with "z" -- it
appears to be a spelling error.
Chapter 12 paragraph 1: replaced "wolves" in "individual lion, tiger,
wolves," with "wolf" -- it is a list of singulars.
Chapter 12 paragraph 9: inserted paragraph start and opening quotes
before "You observe, in both these skulls" -- blockquotes cannot be
inside paragraphs in the layout scheme.
Chapter 12 paragraph 13: inserted closing quotes after "becoming a
judge." -- they appear to be missing, since the speech is not
continued in the next paragraph.
Chapter 13 paragraph 17: replaced "woful" with "woeful" in "by woful
experience" -- it appears to be a spelling error.
Chapter 13 ballad: replaced "feats" with "feasts" in "O rich are the
feats" -- it appears to be a spelling error.
Chapter 14 paragraph 3: replaced fullstop with questionmark after
"Llewelyn Ap-Yorwerth" -- the sentence is a question.
Chapter 14 paragraph 5: inserted comma after "said the lady" -- one
would be expected here.
Chapter 14 paragraph 27: capitalised "Squire" in ""Your daughter,"
said squire Headlong." -- all other instances of "Squire Headlong" are
capitalised.