THE PARTY.
En quoi cognoissez-vous la folie anticque? En quoi cognoissez-vous
la sagesse présente?—RABELAIS.
“IF I were sketching a bandit who had just shot his last pursuer, having
outrun all the rest, that is the very face I would give him,”
soliloquised the Captain, as he studied the features of his rival in the
drawing-room, during the miserable half-hour before dinner, when dulness
reigns predominant over expectant company, especially when they are
waiting for some one last comer, whom they all heartily curse in their
hearts, and whom, nevertheless, or indeed therefore-the-more, they
welcome as a sinner, more heartily than all the just persons who had been
punctual to their engagement. Some new visitors had arrived in the
morning, and, as the company dropped in one by one, the Captain anxiously
watched the unclosing door for the form of his beloved: but she was the
last to make her appearance, and on her entry gave him a malicious
glance, which he construed into a telegraphic communication that she had
stayed away to torment him. Young Crotchet escorted her with marked
attention to the upper end of the drawing-room, where a great portion of
the company was congregated around Miss Crotchet. These being the only
ladies in the company, it was evident that old Mr. Crotchet would give
his arm to Lady Clarinda, an arrangement with which the Captain could not
interfere. He therefore took his station near the door, studying his
rival from a distance, and determined to take advantage of his present
position, to secure the seat next to his charmer. He was meditating on
the best mode of operation for securing this important post with due
regard to _bien-séance_, when he was twitched by the button by Mr. Mac
Quedy, who said to him: “Lady Clarinda tells me, sir, that you are
anxious to talk with me on the subject of exchangeable value, from which
I infer that you have studied political economy, and as a great deal
depends on the definition of value, I shall be glad to set you right on
that point.” “I am much obliged to you, sir,” said the Captain, and was
about to express his utter disqualification for the proposed instruction,
when Mr. Skionar walked up and said: “Lady Clarinda informs me that you
wish to talk over with me the question of subjective reality. I am
delighted to fall in with a gentleman who daily appreciates the
transcendental philosophy.” “Lady Clarinda is too good,” said the
Captain; and was about to protest that he had never heard the word
“transcendental” before, when the butler announced dinner. Mr. Crotchet
led the way with Lady Clarinda: Lord Bossnowl followed with Miss
Crotchet: the economist and transcendentalist pinned in the Captain, and
held him, one by each arm, as he impatiently descended the stairs in the
rear of several others of the company, whom they had forced him to let
pass; but the moment he entered the dining-room he broke loose from them,
and at the expense of a little _brusquerie_, secured his position.
“Well, Captain,” said Lady Clarinda, “I perceive you can still manœuvre.”
“What could possess you,” said the Captain, “to send two unendurable and
inconceivable bores to intercept me with rubbish about which I neither
know nor care any more than the man in the moon?”
“Perhaps,” said Lady Clarinda, “I saw your design, and wished to put your
generalship to the test. But do not contradict anything I have said
about you, and see if the learned will find you out.”
“There is fine music, as Rabelais observes, in the _cliquetis
d’asssiettes_, a refreshing shade in the _ombre de salle à manger_, and
an elegant fragrance in the _fumée de rôti_,” said a voice at the
Captain’s elbow. The Captain turning round, recognised his clerical
friend of the morning, who knew him again immediately, and said he was
extremely glad to meet him there; more especially as Lady Clarinda had
assured him that he was an enthusiastic lover of Greek poetry.
“Lady Clarinda,” said the Captain, “is a very pleasant young lady.”
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—So she is, sir: and I understand she has all the
wit of the family to herself, whatever that _totum_ may be. But a glass
of wine after soup is, as the French say, the _verre de santé_. The
current of opinion sets in favour of Hock: but I am for Madeira; I do not
fancy Hock till I have laid a substratum of Madeira. Will you join me?
_Captain Fitzchrome_.—With pleasure.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Here is a very fine salmon before me: and May is
the very _point nommé_ to have salmon in perfection. There is a fine
turbot close by, and there is much to be said in his behalf: but salmon
in May is the king of fish.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—That salmon before you, doctor, was caught in the Thames,
this morning.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Παπαπαῖ! Rarity of rarities! A Thames salmon
caught this morning. Now, Mr. Mac Quedy, even in fish your Modern Athens
must yield. _Cedite Graii_.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Eh! sir, on its own around, your Thames salmon has two
virtues over all others; first, that it is fresh; and, second, that it is
rare; for I understand you do not take half a dozen in a year.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—In some years, sir, not one. Mud, filth,
gas-dregs, lock-weirs, and the march of mind, developed in the form of
poaching, have ruined the fishery. But, when we do catch a salmon, happy
the man to whom he falls.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—I confess, sir, this is excellent: but I cannot see why
it should be better than a Tweed salmon at Kelso.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Sir, I will take a glass of Hock with you.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—With all my heart, sir. There are several varieties of
the salmon genus: but the common salmon, the _salmo salar_, is only one
species, one and the same everywhere, just like the human mind. Locality
and education make all the difference.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Education! Well, sir, I have no doubt schools
for all are just as fit for the species _salmo salar_ as for the genus
_homo_. But you must allow that the specimen before us has finished his
education in a manner that does honour to his college. However, I doubt
that the _salmo salar_ is only one species, that is to say, precisely
alike in all localities. I hold that every river has its own breed, with
essential differences; in flavour especially. And as for the human mind,
I deny that it is the same in all men. I hold that there is every
variety of natural capacity from the idiot to Newton and Shakespeare; the
mass of mankind, midway between these extremes, being blockheads of
different degrees; education leaving them pretty nearly as it found them,
with this single difference, that it gives a fixed direction to their
stupidity, a sort of incurable wry neck to the thing they call their
understanding. So one nose points always east, and another always west,
and each is ready to swear that it points due north.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—If that be the point of truth, very few intellectual
noses point due north.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Only those that point to the Modern Athens.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Where all native noses point southward.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Eh, sir, northward for wisdom, and southward for profit.
_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._ Champagne, doctor?
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Most willingly. But you will permit my drinking
it while it sparkles. I hold it a heresy to let it deaden in my hand,
while the glass of my _compotator_ is being filled on the opposite side
of the table. By-the-bye, Captain, you remember a passage in Athenæus,
where he cites Menander on the subject of fish-sauce: ὀψάριον ἐπὶ ἰχθύος.
(The Captain was aghast for an answer that would satisfy both his
neighbours, when he was relieved by the divine continuing.) The science
of fish-sauce, Mr. Mac Quedy, is by no means brought to perfection; a
fine field of discovery still lies open in that line.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Nay, sir, beyond lobster-sauce, I take it, ye cannot go.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—In their line, I grant you, oyster and
lobster-sauce are the pillars of Hercules. But I speak of the cruet
sauces, where the quintessence of the sapid is condensed in a phial. I
can taste in my mind’s palate a combination, which, if I could give it
reality, I would christen with the name of my college, and hand it down
to posterity as a seat of learning indeed.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Well, sir, I wish you success, but I cannot let slip the
question we started just now. I say, cutting off idiots, who have no
minds at all, all minds are by nature alike. Education (which begins
from their birth) makes them what they are.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—No, sir, it makes their tendencies, not their
power. Cæsar would have been the first wrestler on the village common.
Education might have made him a Nadir Shah; it might also have made him a
Washington; it could not have made him a merry-andrew, for our newspapers
to extol as a model of eloquence.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Now, sir, I think education would have made him just
anything, and fit for any station, from the throne to the stocks; saint
or sinner, aristocrat or democrat, judge, counsel, or prisoner at the
bar.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—I will thank you for a slice of lamb, with lemon
and pepper. Before I proceed with this discussion,—Vin de Grave, Mr.
Skionar,—I must interpose one remark. There is a set of persons in your
city, Mr. Mac Quedy, who concoct, every three or four months, a thing,
which they call a review: a sort of sugar-plum manufacturers to the Whig
aristocracy.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—I cannot tell, sir, exactly, what you mean by that; but
I hope you will speak of those gentlemen with respect, seeing that I am
one of them.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Sir, I must drown my inadvertence in a glass of
Sauterne with you. There is a set of gentlemen in your city—
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Not in our city, exactly; neither are they a set. There
is an editor, who forages for articles in all quarters, from John o’
Groat’s house to the Land’s End. It is not a board, or a society: it is
a mere intellectual bazaar, where A, B, and C, bring their wares to
market.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Well, sir, these gentlemen among them, the
present company excepted, have practised as much dishonesty as, in any
other department than literature, would have brought the practitioner
under the cognisance of the police. In politics, they have ran with the
hare and hunted with the hound. In criticism, they have, knowingly and
unblushingly, given false characters, both for good and for evil;
sticking at no art of misrepresentation, to clear out of the field of
literature all who stood in the way of the interests of their own clique.
They have never allowed their own profound ignorance of anything (Greek
for instance) to throw even an air of hesitation into their oracular
decision on the matter. They set an example of profligate contempt for
truth, of which the success was in proportion to the effrontery; and when
their prosperity had filled the market with competitors, they cried out
against their own reflected sin, as if they had never committed it, or
were entitled to a monopoly of it. The latter, I rather think, was what
they wanted.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Hermitage, doctor?
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Nothing better, sir. The father who first chose
the solitude of that vineyard, knew well how to cultivate his spirit in
retirement. Now, Mr. Mac Quedy, Achilles was distinguished above all the
Greeks for his inflexible love of truth; could education have made
Achilles one of your reviewers?
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—No doubt of it, even if your character of them were true
to the letter.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—And I say, sir—chicken and asparagus—Titan had
made him of better clay. I hold with Pindar, “All that is most excellent
is so by nature.” Τὸ δὲ φυᾷ κράτιστον ἅπαν. Education can give
purposes, but not powers; and whatever purposes had been given him, he
would have gone straight forward to them; straight forward, Mr. Mac
Quedy.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—No, sir, education makes the man, powers, purposes, and
all.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—There is the point, sir, on which we join issue.
Several others of the company now chimed in with their opinions, which
gave the divine an opportunity to degustate one or two side dishes, and
to take a glass of wine with each of the young ladies.